“His accident?” I asked worriedly. “What accident?”
She squinted at me. “Everybody knows about that. He was the cop who had his leg amputated a year or so ago.”
My mouth dropped open.
“That was him?” I gasped.
Wow. He really didn’t look like he was missing a leg.
In fact, I distinctly remember studying his boots yesterday, and there’d been two of them.
“He’s missing a leg?” I whispered quietly.
She nodded, and I sat there stunned.
I’d heard about that.
Hell, everyone in Kilgore had.
It’d happened in front of about a hundred cops. Some of them out of state. Some of them on Kilgore’s Police Department, some County Sheriffs. Some of them, like my father, were Department of Public Safety.
Hell, he’d even been the one to take the lady out and live to tell about it.
“Wow,” I said quietly. “That’s pretty amazing. I didn’t know he was any different than what he used to be, though.”
Pauline nodded. “He’s a lot different. He doesn’t play anymore. He’s the force’s top ticket writer. He picks up overtime that nobody else wants. Literally, he’s that cop. The one who nobody wants to mess with. The one who everybody knows and cringes when they pass.”
“Aww, be easy on the kid. He’s had a rough year,” my uncle said from behind us.
I inhaled half of my sandwich, very nearly choking to death, but my uncle was there. Always able and willing to save the day.
He slammed his palm roughly down on my back, knocking the bread loose from my windpipe, as well as a few teeth for good measure.
“Okay,” I groaned, pulling away from him.
Was it just me, or was he hitting harder than he needed to?
“Oh, Chief Rhodes!” Pauline said, standing.
In the process, she knocked half of her lunch on the floor, and I barely contained the urge to roll my eyes.
They treated my uncle as if he were a celebrity, being the chief of police. However, if they only knew that he was a horrible cheater at the game Go Fish, and the funniest drunk in the world, they’d never look him straight in the eyes again.
“Uncle Darren, what are you doing at work today?” I asked suspiciously.
My uncle narrowed his eyes at me. “Oh, just seeing how your day was going so far. Just making sure everyone is treating you alright.”
I wanted to smack him.
He damn well knew that I didn’t want to be associated with him.
I didn’t want people to look at me differently.
I wanted to be me, not Chief Rhodes’ niece.
Now they’d all treat me differently.
In fact, Pauline was already staring at me like I was a bug she didn’t want to be anywhere near.
Great.
“Thanks for stopping by. You can go now,” I said through clenched teeth.
He grinned at me. Seriously and truly grinned at me.
Then he left, leaving only damage in the wake.
By the end of the day, everybody knew I was the chief of police’s niece.
Cops. Receptionists. 911 dispatchers. Felons.
It was fucking perfect.
Chapter 4
I solemnly swear that I’m up to no good.
-Blake before she eats a package of Oreos.
Blake
“Excuse me,” I said, keeping my head lowered to block the rain from getting under my hooded raincoat and saturating my hair.
I was on my way home, descending the steps of the station, when I heard it.
“Sorry, darlin’,” an extremely familiar voice said to me.
Shivers, and not the good kind, stole down my spine, filling up my lungs, and squeezing them to where I could hardly breathe.
“David,” I said, nodding at him.
I might have been able to leave, but there was another man there with David, and that was the man who I’d made a fool of myself in front of just a short week ago.
Had it already been a week?
This, luckily, had been the first time I’d run into both men, and I was grateful.
I loved my job, but there was no way in hell I was going to keep working there if I had to see David often.
I didn’t have enough bail money to accomplish that feat.
I still, every night, thought about him.
Thought about all that I’d thought we’d had.
All that time I’d wasted being loyal to a man who didn’t extend the same courtesy to me.
Then there was Foster.
The tall drink of water in the middle of a hot Texas summer.
He was freakin’ beautiful.
His hair was wet from the rain, making it look more sandy blonde rather than snow white blonde. All those beautiful blonde curls were plastered to his head as he took me in.
Were they friends?
If they were, I’d never know Foster better. Even if I did have an incredibly high-school-like crush on him.
I couldn’t be friends with someone who was friends with my ex. I didn’t want anything to do with David at all, even secondhand.
“Bye Officer Spurlock, good job today,” I said as I pushed past them and started down the steps.
Foster had interrupted a hotel robbery in progress, answering the silent alarm that the receptionist had tripped the moment the crackhead had asked her for the money.
“Thanks,” Foster said, sounding surprised that I’d even offered the compliment.
I tossed him a smile over my shoulder, rain wetting my face, and said, “That wasn’t anything more than a compliment, Officer Spurlock. Don’t let it go to your head.”
The last thing I saw before the rain really started to pour down was David glaring at Foster, and Foster staring at me with a smirk on his lips. One that promised more things to come.
I drove home in the near monsoon weather, past my old home that now had a different woman’s car in the driveway, and pulled into my driveway that was on the next street over.
I’d looked and looked for a house that was anywhere but where I finally found one. But I literally couldn’t find anything anywhere else.
What I received in the divorce settlement was enough to buy an affordable house just two streets over from my old home. Which is what I had to do. It was either that, or move completely out of Kilgore, and I wasn’t giving that royal dickhead the advantage of seeing me squirm.
The very next week, the asshole had moved his ‘beat wife’ into my home, and proceeded to play house.
At least they hadn’t gotten married… yet.
It was a joy to get to see the other woman every day, though.
My phone rang before I could get out of my car, and I decided to wait and answer it before I got out.
“Hello?” I greeted my mother.
“Uncle Darren wants you to meet him at dinner tonight. Bodacious,” my mother said excitedly.
“Why?” I asked, confused as to why my uncle wouldn’t have called me himself.
“He sent your dad a message on his cell phone. He’s talking to the Mayor of Kilgore right now and can’t break away.”
“Is it just him, or what?” I asked, studying my windshield as it started to rain a little bit harder.
I hated when it rained.
Seriously hated it.
When I was sixteen, I’d had a wreck during a thunderstorm.
It was nearly six hours after my accident that I was found pinned in the car.
But that four hours would haunt me forever.
When I’d crashed, I’d gone nose first into a ditch that was filled with water that was flowing fast.
I’d spent the time watching as my car was dragged further and further down a gulley as lightning struck everything around me.
I couldn’t get out of my car because of the pressure the water kept on the doors, and I couldn’t get one singl
e window opened.
I’d been scared to death that I’d die that night, and ever since I’d had a phobia of thunderstorms.
Now, as a precaution, I carried flares in my car, as well as a glass punch that would help me get out if it was ever needed again.
That wasn’t enough to counteract the fear that I felt every time I drove in the rain.
“It’s raining,” I hesitated.
My mother’s voice became less cheery. “I know. He said he’d send someone out to get you.”
I nodded, knowing I wouldn’t get out of it now.
He wouldn’t have been sending someone for me if it weren’t important to him.
“Fine,” I said. “What time?”
“Seven-thirty. Your ride will be there around seven-fifteen,” she said excitedly.
“Okay. Do you know who it is?” I asked.
“Nope. He didn’t tell your daddy that,” she said evasively.
I should’ve known when the familiar red truck that I’d helped shop for pulled into my drive an hour and a half later that it wasn’t going to be good, but I decided to be the bigger person.
Closing the door to my house behind me, and locking it, I made my way down the driveway carefully.
David got out and opened the passenger door, soaking himself to be the gentleman that we both knew he wasn’t.
There must’ve been someone there, otherwise he never would’ve bothered to get out.
He never used to.
I ignored his outstretched hand and opened the backdoor.
I was surprised to find two men already back there, one of which I couldn’t get out of my head no matter how hard I tried.
Without waiting for them to move, I climbed over Foster’s lap, scooting my ass over his legs before I plopped down into the middle seat beside him.
Foster looked surprised, while the other man beside him, one that looked eerily similar to Foster, grinned.
“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked the man, smiling at him.
He winked. “Pretty good. Although, I gave up the front seat so you could sit up there. Not so you could sit back here smashed between the both of us.”
“So go back up there,” I said, shrugging and turning my face forward.
The front door slammed with unnecessary force, and I couldn’t help the smile that split over my face.
Fucking douche.
He deserved it, though.
I couldn’t believe my uncle made me ride in this piece of shit truck. The one that had been my dream truck. The truck that I’d put nearly all of my savings into to put a down payment on it. The very thing that David had fought so hard for in the divorce.
I wanted to accidentally pee on his leather fucking seats.
I still couldn’t believe that he’d won it.
He had a freakin’ 2010 Camaro. Why would he get both the car and the truck?
I, of course, was allowed to keep the 1995 Camaro that I’d had since high school because I’d brought that ‘into the relationship.’
The bonus was that David allowed his new woman to drive the new Camaro while I was stuck with a piece of crap that barely chose to run on some mornings.
But the absolute icing on the cake, the best, most awesome thing, was the freakin’ lei he had hanging from the rearview mirror.
The very thing he refused to allow me to ever fucking do.
Things hanging from the rearview mirror are a distraction. I heard whined in David’s voice.
Fucking asshole.
The rage still burned bright after all this time, and it was a good thing I couldn’t act on all my inner thoughts.
“So,” I said to the man beside me. The older one, not the one who set my girly bits to tingling. “What are we doing here tonight? I feel out of the loop.”
He raised his brows at me, and in the light of the lamps overhanging the road, I could see the smirk on his face.
“Everyone who was in on the call this afternoon is getting treated to a dinner by the hotel owner,” the man said. “My name’s Miller Spurlock. It’s nice to meet you.”
He offered me his hand, and I took it, shaking it like I was taught.
I wasn’t a limp noodle kind of girl. When I shook hands, whether it be man or woman, I made it count. I grasped their hands like I fucking meant it. Not that Miller could tell I was squeezing hard.
I scanned my brain for a few seconds and finally came up with the number. “Unit number three.”
He nodded. “That’s me. This is my brother.”
I could tell by the laugh in his voice that he’d witnessed my outburst against his brother.
Great.
They were laughing at me now.
“We’re going to the Bodacious off 42,” David supplied helpfully.
I didn’t bother to answer him.
I’d actually been giving him the silent treatment for a year and a half now. Only modifying it when my proper upbringing demanded me to address him.
It really seemed to work well with him, too.
If I’d known that it worked so well during our marriage, I’d have used it a lot more.
“Who is this guy? And why’d it have to be tonight?” I asked Miller.
I could feel a dark energy at my back, and it was sending excited tingles up and down my arms and spine.
I could practically feel his eyes roaming over my body, studying me, and taking in my every word.
“He owns about seventy hotel chains throughout the South. That one was his first that he opened,” a deadly quiet voice said to the back of my head.
I squeezed my eyes shut, thankful that the darkness kept me from giving my feelings away to the men in the truck.
I turned in my seat until my back was flat against the seat, allowing me to turn my head and see the man who I’d been avoiding looking at.
I knew the dark wouldn’t phase him. Knew he’d be able to see me the second I turned my face to his.
Steeling up my walls, and shoving my feelings, as well as my fear of the storm down deep, I said, “Cool beans.”
Cool. Beans.
Out of the massive amount of words I could’ve said, I chose to say the most juvenile thing I could possibly think of.
Four points for Blake!
Not.
The funny thing was, I could tell that he was amused by my words.
Something that sounded close to an ‘asshole’ was muttered from the front seat, and Foster’s eyes turned from mine to the real asshole in the front seat, and I could see something exchanged between the two before Foster’s eyes turned out the window.
I sat in silence for the next twenty minutes as David navigated through the winding roads that would lead us toward our destination.
If there was one thing I could say about David, it was that he had an awesome grasp on driving. He’d never once scared me while he was driving.
The harsh lights of the restaurant we were going to startled me short moments later as I thought about how David used to cater to my needs. Never driving in the rain when we didn’t need to. Never driving over the speed limit because he knew I was scared.
Then he had to go and open his mouth.
“Let’s get this done before I need to get home to Berri. She’s got some bad morning sickness,” David said as he bailed out of the truck.
I froze in the act of getting out, heart shriveling up into a tiny, never to be repaired, broken mess.
Oh, God that hurt.
He knew it’d hurt, too.
That’d been why he said it.
Foster’s eyes, the ones that took in everything, saw the hurt that I couldn’t quite cover up.
He offered me his hand, not saying a word, and I took it.
Grasping onto it like a lifeline.
“You were married,” Foster said as he helped me out of the truck.
I nodded.
“For nearly five years,” I said quietly. “He refu
sed to have kids with me.”
“That’s why you left?” he asked quietly, lagging behind to allow space in between David and me.
I shook my head. “I found out he was cheating on me. For nearly two and a half years.”
His jaw worked, as if what he’d heard had disappointed him.
“I didn’t know,” he rumbled.
I shrugged. “Not many people do. And I’ve never seen you around, so I don’t know why you would.”
He didn’t say anything as we made our way inside.
The first person I saw was my uncle Darren.
He looked at me warily, as if he thought I’d flip the off the handle.
I glared at him, not even bothering to give him a hug.
He’d effectively ruined my night, just by that one tiny act.
But then I realized that my hand was still in Foster’s, and my palms started to sweat.
Did I let go?
Would it be weird if I kept holding his hand?
Wow, his hand is big.
His fingers were nice and long, too.
He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, and the watch he had on was awesome.
I wondered if the dash marks glowed in the dark.
“Does your watch glow in the dark?” I asked, my mind blurting it out before I was even aware that I’d said anything.
He let go of my hand, and my heart suddenly lurched.
I was bummed that he’d let me go, but then his hand went toward my back as he steered me toward the side of the table that would have his back against the wall. I went in first, which trapped me in.
However, I found that I kind of liked the feeling.
It was a different feeling.
When David and I used to go out, I’d always been on the outside.
Something about me ‘always needing to pee’ and him not wanting to get up and down every five minutes.
“So how has your first week been?” Foster asked, an odd tone in his voice that made me look at him.
His eyes were on David’s, two tables over, who was staring… well glaring, right back at him.
It was as if David was pissed that Foster was sitting next to me, but I wasn’t sure I could tell you why.
The man was the one to fuck me over, not the other way around.
“Who’s the hotel owner?” I asked to capture Foster’s attention.
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