Keeper Ch. 01

He had a lot of memories to wade through, and while he understood a person's need to sometimes be alone with their thoughts, he just couldn't shake the urge... no, the freaking need... to go share this difficult time with Blue. It would help him get through it, sure, but wouldn't it help her too?

He just wanted to help her, that was all.

"Sick bastard." John's inner voice piped up. "You know that's not all."

John climbed the porch steps and paused before opening the door, staring at his hand as it rested on the cold metal of the latch. The hand that had touched Blue's hair. The hand that he had snatched away just as she had turned her head and almost caught him. His fingers tingled now and he didn't think it was because he'd had no gloves to protect his hands from the cold.

Cursing under his breath, he pushed open the door and let himself into his darkened house, slamming the door closed harder than he had intended. "Shut the hell up." he muttered to the inner voice, yanking the buttons of his coat open. Throwing it carelessly over a chair he stalked to the kitchen without bothering with any lights, jerked the refrigerator door open, closed it without even looking inside, then retraced his steps back into the living room.

"It's a fucking - excuse me - freaking unnatural obsession you have there, Johnny." The voice taunted.

"Shut up shut up." John flopped down onto his sofa, sinking into the cushions, and covered his eyes with his forearm.

Not unnatural. Not at all, he wanted to argue with the voice, but really - how crazy would that make him if he got into an argument with himself?

And 'obsession'? Nah. He wouldn't call it that either. Nope. Well... not exactly.

Nearly ten years ago, fresh out of the Rangers and about to jump balls-first into his current job, John Keeper felt he needed a home base. Some place of his own to escape to between missions as a 'handler', or what his friend Blackie liked to call 'Secret Agent Babysitter Extraordinaire'. He'd found it here, several acres of wooded land offered by a crusty old gal named Jean, who, he'd later found out, needed the money to send her niece Blue to college.

He'd bought the land, built a house, had found not just neighbors in Jean Waters and Orley Green, but actual friends. Family. And if, over the years, he had found himself practically craving news from Jean about the girl he'd helped send away? If he found himself disappointed when very much time went by before Blue was mentioned in conversation? Well, so what? That didn't mean he was obsessed. It just meant... nothing. Nothing at all.

Nor did it mean anything when, finally meeting this girl... who definitely was not a girl anymore, oh hell no... after ten years...

John's thoughts tangled and twisted themselves into knots and he huffed a frustrated breath. Okay, so Blue Waters had always been someone of interest to him, he'd readily admit that now. But somehow he hadn't expected his first face to face with her to hit him in the solar plexus like it had.

At the funeral service earlier in the day it had taken all he had not to pull her hand out of that guy's grip, the tall blond that didn't appear as if he would ever let go of her hand, and sweep her out of that stifling little parlor. Take her somewhere quiet and safe, where she wouldn't look so uncomfortable anymore. Somewhere they could just share their thoughts about Jean without interruption.

And then tonight... oh hell... coming up on her, seeing her up on that ladder with the wind whipping that long long hair all around her. He'd never seen her with her hair down. In pictures she'd always, always had it pulled back into a braid and he'd come to think that she just probably never had it any other way. But tonight it was down, and wild, and longer than he'd thought it, and it was freaking gorgeous.

She'd come down from that ladder and it was all he could do to not stare at her. He could tell she'd been outside for a while. Her cheeks rosy. Damn, not just her cheeks but her lips red and full from the cold. Full red lips that thinking of now made him shift his hips, his cock twitching, the area beneath his slacks' zipper suddenly constricting.

Nope. He wasn't obsessed, despite the photo of a smiling young woman, her honey-colored hair pulled back and tamed in it's usual braid, that had resided in his wallet for he couldn't remember how long. The woman that had made him want to spout off 10,000 Reasons To Stay when she had intimated that she was considering moving back here. The woman that, even though they had only officially met just today, now made him think of home-made apple pie... and rolling around naked on a four poster bed.

"Sick bastard."

Oh, hell.