Read Free Jill Shalvis a Royal Mess Online

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  Author: Jill Shalvis Chapter 1

"If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried. "

Chloe Traeger

It wasn't often that Chloe Traeger crush her sisters into the kitchen in the morning time, only with Tara and Maddie currently sleeping with the town'south two hottest hotties, it'd been only a matter of fourth dimension.

And in the name of fairness, Chloe hadn't really gotten to bed notwithstanding, just that was just a technicality. With a broad yawn, she started the java. Then, gathering what she needed, she hopped upward onto the counter—hissing in pain from her throbbing legs. The quiet in the kitchen soothed her as she mixed ingredients together for her natural antibacterial cream. Given how loudly she lived her life, the silence was a squeamish start to the day.

Peculiarly today, which promised to go crazy quickly, though not much could out-crazy last nighttime. Later in the afternoon, she'd be doing her esthetician thing at a loftier-end spa in Seattle, but first she had to put in some time here in Lucky Harbor at the B&B that she ran with her sisters.

The fact that her days were centering around piece of work instead of play had her shaking her head with a rueful grinning. Oh, how things change. Only a year agone, she'd been complimentary every bit a bird, roaming happily from spa to spa at will, with no real ties. So she and the one-half-sisters she'd never actually known had inherited a battered, falling-down-on-its-centrality beach inn. With admittedly no cognition of what to do with it.

Hard to believe how far they'd come. They'd renovated, turned the place into a thriving B&B, and now Chloe, Tara, and Maddie were real sisters instead of strangers. Friends, even.

Well, okay, so they were still working on the friends part, but they hadn't fought all week. Progress, right? And the fact that Chloe had been gone for four of the past seven days working at a five-star-hotel spa in Arizona instead of here in Washington didn't count.

Chloe looked downwardly at the organic lavender oil she'd just "borrowed" from Tara'south stash for her foam and winced.

Probably she could piece of work harder on the friend thing…

Out the window, waves pounded the rocky shore in the purple calorie-free of dawn as she yawned once more and stirred the softened beeswax and lanolin together with the lavender oil. When she was washed, she carefully poured the cream into a sterile canteen. And then, still sitting on the counter, she tugged the legs of her sweat bottoms up to her knees, cringing in pain as she began to utilise the antiseptic to the two long gashes on each of her calves. She was still sucking in a pained jiff when the dorsum door opened.

Sheriff Sawyer Thompson.

He practically had to duck to come in. He was in uniform, gun at his hip, expression dialed to Dirty Harry, and just looking at him had something pinging low in Chloe'south belly.

He didn't appear to have the same reaction to her, of form. Nix rippled Sawyer's implacable calm or got by that tough exterior. And he did have a hell of an exterior. At six feet three inches, he was congenital like a linebacker. But in a stunning defiance of physics, he usually had a way of moving all those mouthwatering muscles with an easy, male, fluid grace that would make an extreme fighter jealous.

Stupid muscles, Chloe thought every bit something deep within her tightened again from just looking at him. Some complicated combination of annoyance and reluctant lust. Last she'd checked, they had developed a sort of uneasy truce, meaning he lived by his rules and she lived by hers. Generally this meant two unlike roads to the same determination, but at that place'd been some…misunderstandings.

Not wanting to explain last night—which would undoubtedly atomic number 82 to another misunderstanding—she apace yanked her sweatpants legs downward to hide her injuries, shooting him the nigh professional person smile in her repertoire. "Sheriff," she said smoothly.

The guarded expression that he wore equally purposefully every bit he did the gun at his hip slipped for a unmarried beat equally he looked around. "Just you lot this morning time?"

"Yep. " Her smile turned genuine as Chloe enjoyed achieving what few could. She'd knocked that blank expression right off his face up. She knew that was because he hadn't been expecting her. It was unremarkably Tara who made the coffee every forenoon, coffee so amazing that Sawyer routinely stopped by on his style to work for a cup instead of facing the station's crap.

"Tara's non out of Ford'southward bed yet," she informed him.

The mention of his best friend and Chloe'south sister in bed together made him grimace. Or more probable, information technology was Chloe's bluntness. In either instance, he recovered and strode to the coffeemaker, his gait oddly measured, equally if he was as tired-to-the-bone as she.

The county police and sheriff departments played weekly baseball game games against the firefighters and paramedics, and they'd had i last night. Maybe Sawyer had played besides hard. Possibly he'd had a hot engagement after. Given how women tried to go pulled over past him just to get face time, information technology was possible. Afterward all, according to Lucky Harbor'due south Facebook page, phone calls to the county acceleration fabricated by females between the ages of xx-one and forty went upwards substantially whenever Sawyer was on duty.

His utility chugalug gleamed in the brilliant overhead lite. His uniform shirt was wrinkled in the back and damp with sweat. She was wondering about that when he turned to her, gesturing to the coffeepot questioningly.

Heaven forestall the human being waste material a single word. "Help yourself," she said. "I just made it. "

That made him pause. "You toxicant it?"

From her perch on the counter, she smiled. "Maybe. "

With a small caput shake, Sawyer reached into the closet for the to-go mugs Tara kept at that place for him.

"You lot're feeling dauntless, so," she noted.

He lifted a broad-as-a-mount shoulder equally he poured, then pointed to her own mug steaming on the counter at her side. "You're drinking it. You're a lot of things, Chloe, but crazy isn't 1 of them. "

She suspected one of those "things" was a big pain in his very fine ass, only she shrugged.

Sawyer leaned his large frame confronting the counter to study her. Quiet. Speculative.

Undoubtedly, people caved when he did this, rushing to fill the silence. Only silence had never bothered Chloe. No, what bothered her was the mode she felt when he looked at her like that. For one affair, his eyes were mesmerizing. They were the color of melting milk chocolate just sometimes, like at present, the tiny gold flecks in them sparked like burn. His hair was brown, too, the sort that contained every hue under the lord's day and could never be replicated in a salon. At the moment, information technology was on the wrong side of his final cut and in a state of dishevelment, falling over his forehead in front and nigh to his collar in back. The lines in his face were drawn tight with exhaustion, and she realized that he probably hadn't been headed in for his shift equally she'd assumed, but just finishing one. Which meant that he'd been out all night, likewise, fighting crime like a superhero.

And nonetheless somehow, he still managed to aroma good. Guy good. She didn't empathize it, just everything about him reminded her that she was a woman.

And that she hadn't had sex in far too long. "Seems a little early, even for you," she noted.

"Could say the same to you. "

Something in his voice caused the commencement little niggle of suspicion in her brain and put her on alert. "Got a lot of things to mix up for the 24-hour interval spa I'm running later," she said.

His eyes never wavered from hers. "Or?"

Crap. Crap, she'd underestimated him. He was onto her, and the nerves quivered in her belly. "Or what?" she asked casually, shifting to get down off the counter, not looking forward to the pain at the contact. But Sawyer moved before she could, blocking her escape. His hips wedged between her legs, one hand on her thigh, the other on her opposite ankle, holding her

in place.

"Romantic," she said dryly, even as her centre began to pound. "Merely I should get breakfast first, don't you think?"

"You're bleeding through your sweatpants. " He shoved the sweats back up her legs to her knees, conscientious to avoid the wounds. As his optics fixed on the deep gashes, the simply sign he gave that he felt anything was the bunching of his jaw.

Chloe tried to pull free, but he was twice her size and tightened his grip on her thigh. "Concord yet. " He looked over the injuries, expression grim. "Explicate. "

"Um, I fell getting out of bed?"

He lifted his head and pinned her with his sharp gaze. "Effort over again, without the question mark. "

"I fell hiking. "

"Yes," he said. "And I have some swamp country to sell you. "

"Hey, I could be telling the truth. "

"Yous don't hike, Chloe. It aggravates your asthma. "

Actually, equally it was turning out, living aggravated her asthma.

Sawyer bent to look more closely, pushing her manus away when she tried to block his view. "Steel," he said. "Steel fencing, I'm guessing. Probably rusted. "

Her eye stopped. He knew. Information technology seemed impossible—she'd been so conscientious—but he knew.

"You need a tetanus shot. " He straightened his big frame but didn't motility or allow her go. "And a keeper, besides," he added tightly. "Where are the dogs, Chloe?"

"I don't know what y'all're talking near. " Except that she did. She knew considering she'd spent the long hours of the night with her best friend, Lance, procuring the very half-dozen dogs he'd just mentioned.

AKA stealing them.

But in her defense, it had been a matter of life and expiry. The young pit bulls belonged to a guy named Nick Raybo, who'd planned on fighting them for sport. What Chloe and Lance had washed had undoubtedly saved the dogs' lives, only had likewise been good quondam-fashioned breaking and entering. And since B&Due east wasn't exactly legal…

Sawyer waited her out, and for the record, he was good at it. As large and bad as he was, he had more than patience than Chore, a result, no dubiousness, of his years behind the badge and hearing every outrageous story under the sun. And like probably thousands before her, Chloe caved like a cheap suitcase. "The dogs are with Lance," she said on a sigh.

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