The Deputies: 3 Novella Box Set Read Free Page A

walk.
    After Alyssa had delivered her bombshell, she’d grabbed her purse and keys and headed for the grocery store. She didn’t want to get into a long and contentious conversation with Hank at that moment.
    Of course the discussion was inevitable. She would have to explain everything when Luke went to sleep. And she wanted to do just that. She wanted to explain how everything had gone wrong, and how desperately she wanted to put things right.
    How much she loved him.
    And she did love Hank Dixon. She might have forgotten it for awhile, and maybe briefly thought her life would be better without him, but it hadn’t been in the least. She’d missed him from the moment she driven away from this house vowing to never return. Being apart from him had been like missing a part of herself and a hundred times as painful.
    She had come back older, wiser, and determined to give their marriage a second chance. Now all she had to do was convince Hank she was serious. That she had truly changed.
    They had made innocuous small talk during the day and through dinner, but it was Luke’s bedtime now. Their discussion couldn’t be put off much longer.
    “Put on your pajamas. Don’t you dare run around naked, young man.” Her son had that adorable yet mischievous expression she had come to know so well. Just looking at his dark hair and eyes, his little chin a smaller version of Hank’s, made her heart ache with love. She’d never really been away from her husband. She’d had his mini-me with her at all times. The two of them were her whole world.
    Luke’s eyes lit up with the challenge, his smile wide. Alyssa pushed herself from the floor ready to take after him but the door to the bathroom swung open and Hank swung the wriggling little boy into his arms.
    “You weren’t going to streak through the house, were you? I thought you’d outgrown that habit.” The deep timbre of Hank’s voice sent a shiver through her body. It had been so long since she’d been this close to him, and she wished she looked better. More attractive, and less like, well…a mom. She loved being Luke’s mother and wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, but she looked different than the woman Hank had married. Hell, she felt different too.
    Her hips were wider and her breasts were fuller and no longer as perky. She’d never had six pack abs but now her stomach was softer with faint silver lines running across it. A few wrinkles were starting to form at the corners of her eyes and damned if she wasn’t exhausted pretty much all the time. It didn’t help that she had trouble sleeping without her big strong husband next to her. Single parenting a small boy filled with more energy than dynamite would have worn out even the most well-rested parent.
    “He likes to show off,” Alyssa replied, even though the question had been directed to her son. “I know where he gets it, and it’s not from me.”
    Hank had never had a modest bone in his body from the first time they’d made love. He’d walk around without a stitch of clothing on, completely unconcerned. Not that she’d complained. He’d been like a Greek statue, a study in male beauty with muscles that shifted and bunched under his tan skin when he moved. How many times had she watched fascinated as he’d levered up from the bed after they’d made love, naked as the day he was born?
    Her husband had only grown more handsome as the years had passed. A few more touches of grey were at his temples but his stomach was still as hard and flat and his shoulders still as wide in his uniform. The lines around his eyes simply made him look more interesting and attractive.
    Dammit. She needed every ounce of allure she could call upon to help her cause. She needed to convince Hank that she loved him. Needed him. That they belonged together.
    “I’ll get him in his pajamas. Then we’ll have a story, won’t we, buddy?”
    Hank had tried to avoid talking to her as much as possible today. It was as