Rumour Has It. Maureen Child

was.” Safe ground. Talk about their families. Don’t mention the tension coiled so tightly between them.

      “Why did you come back?”

      And there was the Nathan she knew best. So much for the pleasantries—it was on to Round One. “Excuse me?”

      “Well, hell, Amanda.” He frowned down at her and looked a little surprised that she didn’t seem affected by his displeasure. “You were gone for years. Why come back at all?”

      “Are you in charge of Royal’s borders now, Sheriff?” she asked. “Do people have to check in with you before they move in?”

      “I didn’t say that.”

      She pushed to her feet. Even though she stood five foot ten, she was forced to tip her head back to meet his gaze, but she did it. “Royal’s my home as much as it is yours, Nathan Battle.”

      “Couldn’t tell from how you acted,” he said, completely ignoring the hard glare she fired at him.

      “I seem to recall you living in Houston for quite a while. Were you interrogated when you moved back home?”

      “I’m not interrogating you, Amanda,” he countered. “I’m just asking a damn question.”

      “That you already know the answer to,” she shot back. “Pam needed help with the diner. I came home. That’s the story. None of this concerns you, Nathan. This is my business.”

      “Damn straight it is, but now that you’re back, it’s my business, too.” He stood as still and cold as a statue.

      “How do you figure?”

      “I’m the sheriff here. This is where I live. For you to come back now and start stirring things—”

      “What am I stirring, Nathan?” she interrupted, and saw with a jolt of glee that he still hated being cut off. It infuriated her to remember that in the old days. She’d have shut her mouth so he could keep talking. Well, that time was gone. “I’m working at my family’s diner.”

      “And getting tongues wagging again,” he pointed out.

      “Please. People in Royal gossip about everything. I didn’t have to be here to have them talk about me.”

      “They’re not talking about you,” he elaborated grimly. “They’re talking about us.”

      “There is no us,” she said flatly, and was surprised by the twinge of pain that clutched at her heart.

      “I know that and you know that, but the folks in town—”

      “Forget about them,” she interrupted again.

      He took a long deep breath from between clenched teeth. “Easy for you to say. But as sheriff, I need to have the respect of the people I’m protecting. I don’t like being the subject of gossip.”

      “Then tell them that. Why tell me?”

      “Because if you leave, it’ll stop.”

      She set her wineglass down before she was tempted to throw it at his rock-hard head. “I’m not leaving. And, it’ll never stop, Nathan.”

      That statement hit him hard. She saw the proof of it flicker in his eyes. But she wasn’t finished.

      “Until we’re ninety, people around here will be speculating and remembering.…”

      “Damn it, Amanda, I want you out of town.”

      “And I want you to stop caring what other people think,” she snapped. “I guess we’re both doomed to disappointment.”

      He set his beer bottle on the table beside her glass and moved in on her. He was so tall, he didn’t have to put much effort into looming. She supposed it just came naturally to a man used to having his own way. A man accustomed to telling people what to do and having them do it.

      It might have worked on her years ago, Amanda told herself, but no more. She was her own woman now. She made her own choices and decisions and lived with the consequences. She wouldn’t be ordered out of town and she wouldn’t be scared off by a big, gorgeous sheriff with eyes as cold as a winter wind.

      “If you think you’re worrying me, you’re wrong.”

      “I don’t want you worried.”

      “Good, because—”

      “I don’t want you at all.”

      Direct hit, she thought, as an icy fist slammed into her chest and squeezed her heart. But she wouldn’t let him see it. “I don’t want you, either, Nathan. I’m not that young girl anymore, dazzled because Nathan Battle noticed her. I’m not going to follow you around all doe-eyed, hoping for a smile from you. I’m—”

      He grabbed her, yanked her close and kissed her with a fierce desperation that was fueled by desire and anger, all twisted up together. She could feel it in him as she felt it in herself. Past and present tangled together and memories were as thick as honey on a winter morning.

      But those memories were swamped by all of the new sensations coursing through her. Amanda didn’t try to pull free. Didn’t pretend that she wasn’t as hungry for him as he was for her. Instead, she moved into him, wrapped her arms around his neck and held on.

      This is what she’d missed for so long. This man’s touch. His kiss. The feel of his hard, strong body pushed up close against hers. She parted her lips for him and took him inside her. When he groaned and held her even tighter, Amanda felt bolts of heat shoot through her system like a summer lightning storm. So much electricity between them. So much heat.

      Was it any wonder they had flashed and burned out too quickly?

      His hands slid up and down her back, holding her, pressing her as close as he could. His mouth took hers again and again, and she met every stroke of his tongue with eager abandon. God, she’d missed him. Missed them. She had found nothing that could compare to what happened when they came together. No other man she’d ever met could compare to Nathan. Which meant that she was in very deep trouble.

      Her mind raced even as her body lit up like a sparkler factory. This was a huge mistake. Falling into Nathan’s arms was not the way to get over him. But right now, all she was interested in was feeling her body come back to life as if waking up after a seven-year nap. Her skin tingled, her heartbeat crashing in her chest, and in the pit of her belly, heat settled and began to spread.

      What was wrong with her, anyway?

      Three

      When Nathan suddenly released her and took one long step back and away, Amanda swayed unsteadily and gasped for air like a drowning woman. Her mouth burned from his kiss and her body was trembling.

      “See?” he practically growled at her. “This is why you shouldn’t have come back home.”

      “What?” She blinked up at him and saw that, once again, Nathan’s expression seemed to be etched into stone. He looked hard, untouchable and about as passionate as a slab of granite. How did he turn it on and off like that? And could he teach her how to do it?

      “I kissed you and you were all over me.”

      A sudden spurt of ice water flowed through her veins and put out all the lingering fires inside. Maybe he wouldn’t have to teach her after all.

      “Excuse me? I was all over you?” She took a step closer and stabbed her index finger at him. “Just who grabbed who, here? Who came to whose house? Who started kissing?”

      His mouth worked and his lips thinned into a tight line. “Not the point.”

      “It’s exactly the point, Nathan.” Furious now, more at herself for falling so easily into old habits than at him, Amanda said, “Just like before, you came after me. You started