Unbound (Crimson Romance)

by Nikkie Locke

  He’d swallowed his pride and asked for help. It was only after he had tried everything else he could think of, but he did it. He called the only cheerleader he hadn’t had wrapped around his finger.

  He knew from personal experience that she was tough as nails, reliable to a fault, and more than intelligent enough to remember orders, unlike some of the other girls he had tried. He needed her. He called and begged her. After some groveling on his part, she came.

  “Teddy?”

  He looked up at the sound of his wife’s voice. She stood with her hands on her hips. Her hair curled wildly around her shoulders. He knew she was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  She came, and she never left.

  “Hey, beautiful.”

  “You plan on staring at that grill all morning, or are you actually going to put something on it?” she asked him.

  Laughing, he reached out to grab her hand. He pulled her to him with her back against his chest. When he wrapped his arms around her waist, she let her head fall back to lean against his shoulder. She began to sway gently in his arms until he followed her lead.

  “Let’s go away,” he whispered.

  Her sway faltered a little, but she picked it back up quickly. “Teddy, we just got back.”

  “I’m not talking about a vacation. Let’s run away. Let’s pack up and not come back for months. Let’s go see the world like you’ve always wanted.”

  She stopped swaying and turned to look at him. “You’re serious?”

  “I’m serious.”

  She laughed nervously. “Teddy, we can’t just leave. What about Payten? What about the diner? What about our house?”

  Teddy pulled her back against him. “Payten is a big girl,” he told her. “She’s older than I was when my parents gave me the diner. She can work it. Hell, as it is now, she runs the damn place.”

  “Not by herself,” Sarah protested. “And Cooper just left. Who will cook?”

  “She has Dean to cook. She already does the paperwork.”

  “I don’t know.” Sarah pulled away again to look at his face. “You really mean this?”

  “You’ve been squirreling away our money since we were eighteen. We can retire tomorrow and never need a cent. Besides, if we do, I’m sure Payten will let us work here.”

  Sarah laughed. “Let me think about this, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “I mean it, Teddy. Don’t breathe a word about this to Payten. Give me some time to think.”

  He kissed her forehead. “Promise.”

  It was at that moment that Payten came stumbling in the back door.

  “Sweetheart, are you all right?” Sarah asked.

  “I’m late. I know. I’m sorry.” Her words came out in a jumble, a jumble that sounded more angry than apologetic.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Teddy told her. “I’ll go empty your car.”

  “There’s nothing in it,” she snapped.

  “Really?”

  “I know. I was going to do some baking this morning, but — I overslept, all right?”

  Teddy held up his hands in surrender. “I’m just going to go hide until you leave.”

  “Pop,” Payten called as he moved toward the pantry. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be cranky. I had an awful night.”

  “Tell us about it,” Sarah ordered. She took Payten’s hands in hers and worked Payten’s gloves off her rigid hands.

  “I keep getting these stupid prank calls. In the middle of the night, too. It’s so frustrating. I know I should turn the ringer off, but I can’t. I have to know, you know? They call all the time. It’s so annoying.”

  “What’s the number?” Teddy asked.

  “No idea.” Sarah took Payten’s coat off her. He could almost see the internal debate she was having about telling her mother to back off. She must have decided against it, because she let Sarah continue to fuss over her. “I don’t have caller ID. I never thought to get it.”

  “That’s cured easy enough, then. Call the phone company,” Teddy told her.

  “I was going to this morning, but I overslept.”

  “I think you should talk to the police, too,” Sarah decided.

  “I was going to, but I overslept.”

  “You already have this all figured out, don’t you?” he asked.

  Payten smiled at him. It still turned him to mush. “Yeah.”

  Sarah kissed her cheek. “Why don’t you go take care of that now? We’ve got it here.”

  “Are you sure, Mom?”

  “Positive, sweetheart.”

  Payten shrugged. “All right, then. I’ll go do that.”

  A familiar voice called from the front room of the diner. “Sandy! It’s time for breakfast!”

  “Don’t forget to buy a phone that has caller ID, too,” Sarah reminded Payten as she left the kitchen.

  Payten smiled. “I hadn’t thought of that one.”

  Teddy smiled back at his baby girl. “Your mom thinks of everything. Where do you think you got it?”

  “Same place I get my good looks,” she teased.

  He chuckled. “Not from me. That’s for sure.”

  She laughed. “I’m going to steal the phone to call the phone company. Is that all right?”

  “Go for it.”

  • • •

  Dean was not looking forward to another trip into the police station. He never knew who would be there when he got there or how things would turn out. He hated showing up when his father was there. It was awkward for both of them.

  Dean’s growing-up experience had been difficult. He didn’t blame his father for it. He had been through enough therapy — thanks a lot for that, Dad — to know that his father wasn’t responsible. He and his father had simply never learned to how to talk to each other.

  Dean could remember his early years surprisingly well. He remembered eating breakfast sitting next to his father every morning. His mother made happy faces with his pancakes. She did the same with his father’s.

  He remembered playing on the floor of his dad’s office after school until it was time to go home. He remembered his father helping him do his homework at the dinner table while his mother cooked. He remembered doing dishes as a family. His mother washed, he dried, and his father put them away. At bedtime, his mother read to him. Then his father helped him say his prayers.

  He remembered them as a family. He remembered them happy. It was sad to remember, though, because he knew it hadn’t stayed that way. He hadn’t understood what was happening then. To be honest, he still didn’t understand why things had changed.

  He remembered that it did change, though. She changed. He could remember his mother screaming and yelling. He could remember her crying, too. He remembered her crying a lot. He remembered the day she threw his father out. He remembered it clearly. He cried with her that day.

  She didn’t scream anymore after his father moved out. She still cried, though. It was just Dean and his mom for a while. His father would take him for the weekend sometimes. For the most part, though, it was the two of them.

  His mom remarried when he was nine. It lasted a year. Then it happened. The tragedy. His grandmother had called it that. After it, Dean and his nightmares went to live with his father.

  His father was devastated by his ex-wife’s death. His father was a true Whitley man and loved Liv even after their marriage was over. He and Dean were both trying to survive her loss. It should have brought them together. It didn’t.

  When it came down to it, they didn’t know each other. They had learned how to deal with and how to avoid one another, but really nothing beyond that. It tended to make things awkward when he and his father had to talk.

  Dean sat in his truck in the small parking lot in front of the police station, debating not going in when he saw Payten walking down the sidewalk. She stopped in front of the police station and went in.

  What the hell?

  He grabbed the uniform he was there to return off t
he seat and bailed out of the truck.

  • • •

  “Hey, stranger,” Kalvin hooted when Payten came through the door of the police station.

  “Kalvin!” She launched herself across the room and flung herself into Kalvin’s open arms. She hugged him tightly. The two were good friends, and she hadn’t seen him for almost two weeks.

  The week before she’d had to cancel on their standing plans for Saturday night dancing at the local bar. She’d been too tired that night to keep up with Kalvin. He must not have had time to stop in the diner lately because she hadn’t seen him there, either.

  “How are you, pretty Payten?”

  She released him and stepped back. “I’m feeling much better now.”

  “Please tell me you’re taking him with you.” Sitting at the desk behind Kalvin, a woman Payten had never met before was watching them. “He’s the most annoying son of a — ”

  “He grows on you,” Payten told her.

  “Like mold?”

  She laughed. “Exactly.”

  “Sounds like she really likes you, Kal,” Dean called from the front door.

  “I’m growing on her,” Kalvin informed him as he started across the room.

  “I don’t think so,” Smith grumbled.

  “Hey, Smith,” Dean greeted her. “Is anybody else around? I have to return this uniform.”

  “Burke’s hiding in the chief’s office. He claims he’s working on paperwork. I think he wanted to get away from your idiot friend.”

  Dean looked at Kalvin. “You are growing on her.” He looked back at Smith. “I’ll take him with me.”

  “Thank you.”

  Dean pulled Kalvin with him into his dad’s office.

  “Can I help you with something?” Smith asked.

  “I’m Payten Bailey,” she said, introducing herself.

  “Dylan Smith. Your parents own the diner, right?”

  “Yeah. We haven’t seen you in yet, have we?”

  Smith shook her head. “Not yet. Devin and I are trying to get settled.”

  “Is Devin your husband?”

  That caused the grim-faced woman to smile widely. She looked so much prettier when she smiled. “She’s my sister.”

  “Oh, shit,” Payten muttered.

  Smith laughed. “Don’t worry about it. Chief Whitley said he managed to keep our arrival quiet.”

  “I didn’t hear anything about it. Working at the diner, I usually get to hear the rumors at least once before all the facts change.”

  “Small towns,” Smith said. “Gotta love them.”

  “Do you love it?” Payten asked.

  “We’re adjusting. It’s nice. Quiet.”

  Payten nodded. “It is nice.”

  When they fell silent, she had to resist squirming under Smith’s intense scrutiny.

  “Why are you here?” Smith finally asked.

  “Well, that’s straightforward.”

  Smith shrugged. “Devin says it’s rude. I couldn’t think of another way to ask. And if you don’t start talking, you’re going to wind up having to talk in front of everyone.”

  “I don’t mind them knowing. I don’t. I just don’t want them to think I’m being a pansy over nothing,” Payten told her.

  “Straightforward. I like it. You tell me, and we’ll figure it out without telling them unless it’s serious. Sound good?”

  Payten nodded. “It sounds great.”

  “What is it, then?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the door to the office. It was still closed.

  “I’ve been getting prank calls.”

  “How long?”

  “The past three nights. Last night, they called three times in a row. That’s never happened before.”

  “They say anything?”

  She shook her head. “I can hear them breathing sometimes.”

  “Do you have the number?”

  “I don’t have caller ID. I talked to the phone company this morning, and I’m on my way to buy a phone that uses it. The phone company says I should be able to use it immediately.”

  “That’s a step in the right direction,” Smith told her. “I’ll talk to the phone company. See if I can get any information for you. We’ll keep this between the two of us until then, all right?”

  Relieved, Payten nodded.

  “I’ll come by the diner this afternoon. Let you know what I find.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No problem. Here comes Whitley and that idiot. Ask me something quick,” Smith ordered.

  “Do you like brownies or pie?”

  Smith looked at her weird. “Chocolate,” she answered. “I love chocolate anything.”

  Payten nodded. “Great.”

  “What are you ladies talking about?” Kalvin asked.

  “How to get rid of you,” Smith told him sweetly.

  He put his hand on his chest. “I’m hurt, Smith. Really hurt.”

  “Poor baby,” Payten told him.

  “Are we going dancing tomorrow?” Kalvin asked Payten.

  “She has plans,” Dean told him, surprising Payten. Did she have plans?

  “Says who?” Kalvin asked.

  “She does. She has a date.” Dean’s answer made her grin widely. She had a date.

  “Really?” Kalvin looked at her.

  She nodded still grinning. “I do.”

  Kalvin leaned down and kissed her cheek. “He’s probably not good enough, you know?”

  Payten laughed. Obviously, he hadn’t caught that Dean was her date. “You’re not upset about dancing alone, are you?” She asked Kalvin.

  “I never dance alone,” he told her with a wink.

  “Please, dear God, spare me,” Smith begged.

  “Besides, we’re playing at Smitty’s tomorrow. Chicks love a guy in a band,” Kalvin said with a wink for Payten. “I’ll see you later. If Jonah catches me here again, my ass is grass.”

  “Someone give me this Jonah’s number,” Smith ordered.

  He smiled at her. “Miss you, too, pretty lady.”

  When she flung her stapler at him, he ducked out of the way and kept going for the door.

  “Menace,” Smith muttered.

  “Do you need to do anything else here?” Dean asked Payten.

  She shook her head. “I wanted to meet Officer Smith.”

  “Ready, then?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll walk you.”

  She debated for a minute, then agreed. “I have to go to the store first. See you later, Officer Smith.”

  “Bye,” Smith replied.

  As they headed for the door, she heard the door to Chief Whitley’s office open. She looked over her shoulder and saw Burke peek his head out. She waved. He waved back.

  “Kal’s gone, right?” he asked Smith.

  “No thanks to you,” Smith muttered barely loud enough for Payten to hear as Dean guided her toward the door.

  “I already live with the moron. I’d rather not have to listen to him all day at work on top of it,” Burke said. “Besides, I’m not the one he’s checking out.”

  “You hope,” Smith said in a voice just as sweet as her smile was wicked.

  Payten decided then that she really liked the new officer.

  • • •

  At one time, there had been three stores in Hartsville. Only Scott’s General Store had survived the years. It wasn’t a full-sized grocery store, but they had the necessities. Best of all, Ryleigh’s parents owned it.

  Payten and Ryleigh had been friends since they were little girls. She remembered running back and forth between the store and the diner during the summers when they were young. The summer they were fourteen, their parents agreed to let both girls work the mornings at the store and the afternoons in the diner. Payten had stocked more shelves than she cared to remember that summer. She had loved it, but she had always known the diner was where she belonged.

  When Payten and Dean reached the store, Ryan and Hailey we
re busying stocking shelves. Ryan grabbed Dean to help him move some of the heavier boxes out of the back room while Hailey talked to her.

  “It’s so nice to see the two of you together finally,” Hailey told her.

  “What?”

  “You and Dean.”

  “Oh. We’re not really together.”

  Hailey raised an eyebrow.

  “We’re not,” Payten insisted.

  “The rumors say you were practically having sex on your front porch a couple days ago, but you’re not together?”

  “That’s not fair!” Payten protested. “You know how rumors are.”

  “I do know how rumors are. They always have at least a little bit of truth in them.”

  “It’s not — Well, I mean — ” Payten felt her cheeks heat. There was a little truth to that rumor. “We have a date tomorrow night.”

  Hailey laughed. “Of course you do. Where are you going?”

  “I’m not really sure.”

  “How can you not be sure?”

  “Well…” She laughed nervously. She glanced over her shoulder and didn’t see Dean or Ryan. “He asked me out, but we didn’t decide what we were doing. I think we’re going tomorrow night, but Kalvin said the guys are playing at Smitty’s tomorrow night.”

  Hailey laughed. “Sweetheart, I don’t get to see you nearly enough.”

  “I miss you too.”

  Hailey smiled. “Did you come in for something?”

  “I need a new phone. I was hoping you’d have one.”

  “I think we have a couple.” She started down the aisle. “We didn’t used to keep them, but Ryleigh thought it would be a good idea.”

  “I’ll have to thank her,” Payten said, following her.

  She stopped and turned to look at Payten. “Don’t forget to tell her about your date when you do.”

  Payten grinned. “I won’t.”

  “Here they are,” Hailey said, pointing to the shelves.

  “Great.” Payten squatted to look at the phones. There were three. All of them were cordless and had caller ID. “Let’s go with the black one,” she decided.

  She took it off the shelf and followed Hailey back to the front of the store. Dean met her at the counter.

  “Find it?”

  Payten shook the box a little and grinned.

  “Obviously,” he answered for her.

  Ryan laughed at him while Hailey told her how much it would cost and she counted it out.