Pulling in and shutting my truck off, I got out and motioned one of the men over who was outside tinkering on his bike.
“What’s up?” James asked as he walked over.
I pointed to the two sleeping girls in the backseat.
“Grab one, would you?” I asked quietly.
James placed his beer on the side of my truck and scooped the girl closest to him up while I got the other.
“You want them both in Reagan’s bed?” James asked me as I held the front door open for him and Reagan.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” I said, following behind him.
Neither one of us bothered to turn any lights on, both knowing our way just as we all did throughout everyone’s house.
James was on the SWAT team with me, and he also lived in the same little compound as I did.
I’d moved into my sister’s old place when I’d gotten out of the Navy, happy to have a safe place among friends and family.
The compound was founded by Sam Mackenzie, and he had made a place where his entire unit could stay on the same piece of property.
They used to all live in separate duplexes, but over the last few years, they’d all built their own houses interspersed across the property.
I had taken over the duplex that Payton and Max had occupied, although I hadn’t planned on making it permanent by any means. However, it worked for us.
I was called out often to come in for SWAT related calls, or at times to cover a shift if needed. It was always nice to have family around at the drop of a hat who could watch Reagan for me while I was working.
And I’d do the same for Payton, Max, or any of the men who lived there. Kind of like James.
We were a tight-knit family, and I counted myself lucky to be there.
“Hey, I tried calling you a few minutes ago. I need to go out tomorrow and pick up a new gun. Do you want to come?” James asked once he laid his charge down.
James and I didn’t keep our conversation down.
The two girls were heavy sleepers. They had to be with all the activity that paraded around them on a daily basis. All of the ‘Free Kids’, as I liked to call them, were close in age. And it wasn’t unheard of to have them all running in and out of your door at any moment in time.
It was a distraction, yes, but I enjoyed it.
“You tried to call me?” I asked, patting my pockets for my phone.
Then I groaned, remembering exactly where my phone was. As well as my pager.
“Motherfucker,” I growled. “Can you watch them while…”
James’ pager went off, and I growled in frustration. “Never mind. Looks like you can’t. And it’s a good thing I was with you.”
***
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
“What is that?” Paxton asked, looking around the room for the foreign sound.
I, on the other hand, was busy searching through the various pockets in the windbreaker I’d taken from a cantankerous man who couldn’t control his kids.
He did make some cute kids, though. His wife was a lucky woman.
Because, fuck if Bennett wasn’t hotter than hell.
He’d probably be a beast in the bedroom, too.
But then he’d opened his mouth, and it’d lost all appeal when his caveman, me man you woman, act started to spew out.
“Check inside,” Melissa said, gesturing to my coat.
I did and finally found the pocket that he’d hidden his things in.
Cell phone, a set of keys and a pager.
Pager?
I wasn’t aware they even made those anymore.
Holy shit.
I had all of his things, and with the way his phone was going crazy right now, I needed to get it back to him, pronto.
Or would have if the phone hadn’t been locked.
Pressing the home button, I smiled at the same little girl he’d had with him earlier stood on the hood of a truck with her arms raised.
Bennett stood in front of it, holding his hands up in order to catch her, and he had a huge smile on his face.
Then the picture disappeared when his phone started to ring once again.
James, the display read.
No picture or anything, only the name.
Knowing that the only way I would get this phone back to him was to answer it, I did just that.
“Hello?” I answered cheerily.
“You have my phone,” that familiar growl rolled through me like warm honey.
“Uh, yeah. I sure do. We’re still eating if you want to come back and get them,” I supplied helpfully, picking up a fry and tossing it into my mouth.
He growled again, and I couldn’t help the smile that spread over my face at his annoyance with me.
With anyone else, I would’ve felt bad.
But with the way he was being an ass, like the other day, I couldn’t find it in me to give a shit.
“I got a SWAT call. You bring it to me when you’re done,” he insisted.
“I don’t know where you live. And I’m tipsy. I’d planned on calling a cab,” I lied.
There went that growl again, making my hoo-ha do funny things.
“Well, have the cab drop you off at the station, and I’ll have someone take you home,” he tried.
I smiled. “I only have like five dollars. It’s just enough to get me home three blocks from here.”
He hissed, and I had to cover my mouth with my hand to keep the laughter from boiling out.
“Fine,” he said calmly. “I’ll just have to come get it from you.”
I squeaked. “No, you can’t do that!”
“Why not?” he asked, something rustling around in the background. Then a door slammed, followed quickly by the sound of someone moving fast through a hallway or something.
“Because I don’t want you to know where I live!” I yelled a little shrilly.
Melissa and Paxton started to laugh at my clearly uncomfortable state.
There were only two people, aside from family, who knew where I lived, and I was sitting with them right this second.
I didn’t want some guy who clearly didn’t like me knowing where I lived!
“You do know, right, that I’m a cop? Whether you tell me where you live or not, I can come get it. And what about that cab driver who’s taking you home? He’ll know where you live,” he said slowly.
Almost as if he was talking to someone slow who couldn’t quite comprehend the words that were coming out of his mouth.
“So? I’ll bring it to you,” I snapped.
“Too late. I’m coming to you. Later,” he said laughingly, then hung up without waiting for my reply.
“You know,” Paxton said a few minutes of silence later. “You had that coming. You shouldn’t have goaded him.”
“I couldn’t help it!” I seethed. “The man infuriates me. You saw what he did when I stitched him up. And what he said. I’m not some little girl who needs his directions. I’m a grown woman who has opinions and makes her own decisions.”
Paxton nodded. “You’re a maverick, and other mavericks recognize likeness. Just let what he says roll off your shoulders and let it go.”
I sneered at him. “Whatever.”
Forty-five minutes later, sober as the day I was born, I got into my car and drove to my house, wondering if what Bennett had said about him coming over was true.
Surprisingly, it didn’t bother me that he’d know where I lived. In fact, it actually felt just fine.
When my first boyfriend had found out where I lived, and showed up randomly one day, I’d moved forty-eight hours later. Once I was moved, I then broke up with him.
See, I had boundaries.
Huge, major, lined in barbed wire, boundaries.
My boundaries were warranted, too.
Big time.
When I was sixteen, I was attacked in my own home by my boyfriend at the time. Well, ex if you wanted to be t
echnical.
Earlier that night I’d broken up with him because he wouldn’t accept ‘no’ for an answer.
He’d wanted sex, and I’d wanted to keep my virginity intact.
Not because I was a prude or anything, but because I didn’t want to end up like so many friends from my high school, sixteen and pregnant.
So I’d told him no when he tried to make a move on me and then had further broken up with him when he wouldn’t accept that no.
Turns out, as I left that night, he’d followed me home and waited for my parents to go to bed before he broke into our home.
I’d woken up to Reggie’s hands down my panties, and so freakin’ scared that I couldn’t see straight.
I could, however, scream. Which was what I’d done.
He’d thought I was just ‘playing’ when I’d told him no. Something I was most certainly not doing.
Anyway, long story short, my dad had come into the room and thrown Reggie through my bedroom window, nearly killing him because he was impaled on a piece of glass through the chest.
Paramedics had rushed to the scene and saved Reggie’s life.
Something my father probably could’ve offered Reggie, yet he was reluctant to use his abilities on someone who had just tried to rape his teenage daughter.
It’d eventually been the reason I’d gone into nursing and then furthered my schooling by becoming a physician’s assistant.
I found that I rather liked the trauma situations; in fact, I thrived during them.
“Hey, Missy.” Bob, the neighbor to my right, waved from his perch on his front porch step.
I waved back. “How’s the missus doing, Bob?”
He shrugged. “Cantankerous.”
I giggled. “I’ll tell her you said that!”
He winked. “That woman’s my world, girl. There ain’t nothin’ you can tell her that she hasn’t heard from me before.”
I smiled at my favorite neighbor, heart full of envy at their relationship.
I just wished that one day I could have something like they did.
Someone to spend my afternoons with rocking in my rocking chair. Someone to bring a glass of sweet tea to when he’d been mowing the lawn all morning. Someone who brought me home flowers every Sunday morning just because he saw them on the side of the road on the way home from church.
“I got another one of your packages for you. It’s on your front hall table,” Bob explained as I started up my front walk.
I tossed a smile at him.
“Was Cola good for you today?” I asked loudly over my shoulder as I stuck the key in the lock.
He made a so-so gesture with his hand. “Only one accident, but that was because she got too excited when she saw me. Other than that, she did wonderfully.”
Cola was my six-month-old Great Pyrenees that I’d gotten in Dog Alley in Canton, Texas during First Monday Trade Days.
‘Trades Days’ was what one would call a huge flea market.
Some of it was homemade, while others of it were obviously bought overseas. Food, clothes, furniture. If you wanted it, they probably had it.
“Thank you, Bob,” I said, smiling when Cola came barreling out of the door. “She looks happy to see me.”
I smiled and got down on one knee, allowing me to wrap my arms around Cola’s thick neck to hug her.
She was such a big, loving girl.
“Who’s that?” Bob asked, watching as a truck started to drive down our street at an extremely slow pace.
I sighed.
“His name’s Bennett. I borrowed his jacket and he left his phone in it,” I explained.
Bob was protective of me.
When I’d started to look for places, I was very particular in my tastes.
I wanted the house to be isolated, and at the end of a road that assured nobody had to pass my house.
If they made it as far as Bob’s house, they had to be there for a reason.
Something that I really liked knowing.
“Sure that’s why,” Bob laughed. “More like you stole it. You stole it, didn’t you?”
I gasped in affront. “I most certainly did not steal anything!”
Cola, sensing the man who had just stepped foot out of his truck, started barreling toward the newcomer in her happy, nobody’s a stranger, lope that would probably end up in a tackle.
Bennett, though, saw the dog coming and braced his legs.
Cola hit him like a battering ram, but Bennett didn’t even go back at all.
I would’ve ended up on my ass.
Shaking my head, I started walking toward Bennett.
“Why are you dressed like that?” I asked curiously.
Head to toe in black. He even had a mask on his head that was black. Although it was only partially covering his head more like a toboggan would.
“SWAT call,” he said simply, holding out his hand.
I took his hand and shook it firmly before dropping it.
His look of amusement had my eyebrows lowering. “What?”
“I wanted my phone, but a handshake works, too. Wasn’t aware women were into handshakes when they saw men, but I’ll remember your preference for next time when we see each other,” he said lightly.
My face flamed, and I reached into the jacket I was wearing, handing him everything that was in there.
“Thanks,” he muttered, shoving the phone into his pocket and hooking his pager on his belt.
“Umm,” I said, looking at the road as Paxton rolled up in his smart car. “Thanks for coming.”
It was obviously a dismissal, and the way his eyes flared with laughter pointed out that he knew that it was, too.
“Right,” he said, giving Cola one more good scratch behind the ear before he turned on his heel and headed to his truck. “Thanks.”
“You’re keeping the jacket?” Paxton asked in surprise.
I looked down and jumped. “Oh! Bennett!”
He started the truck but rolled his window down to look at me.
“What?” he asked over the growl of the engine.
“Your jacket!” I said, thrusting my chest forward and lowering my arms to allow the jacket to slip free.
“Keep it,” he laughed. “You’ll need something to keep you warm at night. ‘Cause Lord knows nobody would want to do that job themselves.”
On my outraged screech, he rolled the window up and peeled out of his spot at the curb.
“Wow,” Paxton said, fanning himself. “That man was hot. I wonder…”
“He’s not gay, nor will he ever be gay. Fuck, but did you see that man? And the attitude? Jesus Christ, he’s got to have the worst sense of humor in the world. Ass,” I growled, walking inside.
Before I could walk all the way inside, though, I turned and glared at the two laughing men.
“Goodnight, Bob! Die, Paxton,” I growled.
Their laughter followed me inside. However, it was the deep timbre of Bennett’s voice, and the smell of his jacket, that kept me warm that night.
Something that would come back to haunt me later.
Chapter 3
I don’t mind going to work, but the twelve-hour wait to go home sucks balls.
-Lennox’s secret thoughts
Lennox
“Oh, my God! It just keeps getting bigger!” I groaned, looking at the mirror in horror.
“Leave it alone and stop picking at it,” Paxton sighed in exasperation.
I glared.
“This is like… life or death. It’s massive. My face hasn’t broken out this much since I was sixteen! I’m twenty freakin’ six! I’m dying!” I declared, rather loudly, too.
“Mr. Beane? Can you hear me?” Melissa yelled loudly.
I looked up, as did Paxton and the rest of the nurse’s station, to see Melissa across the hall in room one doing a sternal rub on the patient.
A patient who had come to the ER because his children ha
d been worried about him.
More like his children had forced him to come because he was acting funny, but then we’d gone in there to see him and he’d refused any and all treatment unless he could have a Vicodin.
Since we weren’t willing to give that to him without running some tests to see what he already had in his system, we were discharging him.
Melissa had actually walked in there to give him his discharge paperwork.
“Mr. Beane, open your eyes,” Melissa said loudly.
Mr. Beane didn’t react. Not to the yelling, nor the sternal rub.
Standing up, I walked over to the closest Pixus, or secured medicine storage, pulled some Narcan, and started toward the room.
Paxton was now leaning over Mr. Beane, doing his own version of the sternal rub.
However, since he was a man, it ended up being a lot rougher.
The man still didn’t flinch.
Then, surprising me, Paxton said, “If you don’t open your eyes, I’ll have my good friend over here give you some Narcan. That’ll take out every bit of narcotic in your system and you’ll be in pain again.”
Paxton always cracked me up when he tried to be a badass.
He was a very attractive man, but he didn’t have a mean bone in his whole body.
He had a love for all things living and hated doing harm, even when it was necessary to make someone better.
I’d met him during school, and we’ve stayed friends since. Even going so far as to move in together, at one point, before buying homes next door to each other.
Mr. Beane flinched at Paxton’s threat, but other than that, didn’t react at all.
Sighing in annoyance, I walked up to Mr. Beane and pushed the Narcan.
He was fucked in the head if he thought we were joking.
Narcan really was my favorite drug.
It was always fun to see how mad the men and women would get when their high that they’d spent a grand on was swept away from them in a matter of moments.
Something that happened right then with Mr. Beane.
One second he was doing a bang-up job at ignoring us, and the next instant, when I went to do another sternal rub, he practically levitated off the gurney.
“Owww!” he yelled loudly. “You bitch!”
Code 11- KPD SWAT Box Set Page 105