What She Saw by Rachel Lee

admitted. “But I still had questions about you.”
    “What answered them?”
    “Old contacts in the federal government. You could say I got a deeper background on you.”
    “So you know I’m a loose cannon.”
    “In one instance. I also know that a loose cannon may be what I need right now.”

Chapter 5
    H aley would have enjoyed sleeping in the following morning. Not only was she tired after her final the previous day and the play, but she’d tossed and turned for hours last night, replaying that kiss in her mind.
    She had dated a little in high school before her mother grew sick, and she had been kissed before, but she’d never had an experienced kiss like this one.
    While it had started hard, he had gentled it quickly, and she had blushed repeatedly when she realized he must have recognized her inexperience. That was kind of embarrassing to her.
    But he hadn’t stopped. Instead he had taught her that her mouth was a finely tuned instrument that could be played to elicit a hunger that had plunged to her very center. His kiss had exceeded even the exploratory gropings of past boyfriends, and she had thought they were the height of excitement. How little she had known.
    She had fallen asleep touching her lips with her fingers, smiling and remembering. When the knock came on her door, the first thought that popped into her head as she struggled awake was that kiss.
    She wanted to roll over and return to dreamland with the memory of Buck’s kiss, but the knock came again. Groaning, she rose, pulled on her robe and slippers and went to answer it.
    The chain was in place, so even though there was no peephole, she wasn’t worried about opening her door a crack. Not that she’d ever worried about opening her door in Conard City.
    Through the crack, she saw Buck Devlin. He smiled and held up a paper bag. “Breakfast.”
    All of a sudden she didn’t mind being wakened early. She slipped the chain off and opened the door the rest of the way.
    He stepped in, carrying not only a paper bag but two tall cups of coffee. “I guess I woke you. I’m sorry.”
    “It’s okay. It’s high time I was up anyway.” Eight o’clock. Right.
    He laughed and carried the food to her tiny table with its two chairs. “Nice of you to say so, anyway. What are your plans for the day, other than the play tonight? Are you working?”
    “No. Hasty gave me three days off because of the play.”
    “You were good last night, you know.”
    She felt her cheeks warm. “Thank you. Do we need plates?”
    “I tried to bring everything. I didn’t want to make any work for you.” He motioned her to a seat and then sat across from her, slipping off his jacket and letting it hang over the back of his chair. Today he was dressed in jeans and a white shirt with sleeves rolled up halfway to his elbows.
    He pulled large containers out of the bag and gave her a choice of omelets, toast, potatoes, sausage, ham and pastries. She looked at the huge quantity of food and her stomach rumbled.
    He laughed. “I’m hungry, too.”
    “I skipped dinner last night because I was so nervous about the play.”
    “So dig in. Are you as nervous about tonight?”
    “No, not really. Last night I was in a state of near panic. I couldn’t remember my lines at all before I walked onto the stage, then there they were, coming out of my mouth.”
    “That’s comforting.”
    She smiled, tucking her hair behind her ear, then reaching for a plastic fork. “It was,” she admitted.
    Eating breakfast this way struck her as intimate, sharing from the containers like family, or old friends. It was a nice intimacy, one she had been missing for a long time without realizing it. Too many of the intimacies she had shared with her mother, especially later in her illness, weren’t ones she wanted to remember. This was in a different category and she liked it.
    “How old are you, Buck?” she asked, hoping to learn something more about him. That seemed like a safe enough place to