Law & Beard

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  “Conleigh, what are you doing here?”

  Conleigh ignored Matt, turning her eyes completely to me.

  “Conleigh.”

  “Thank you for the ride,” she said, her eyes sliding away from me momentarily to Matt who’d said her name once again. “I appreciate your words of wisdom and your understanding.”

  I touched the tip of her nose. “Go before your mother freaks out.”

  Conleigh grinned, then purposefully walked behind my cruiser to avoid getting any closer to Matt, who was staring at her, watching her go.

  I drew Matt’s attention when I said, “What are you doing here?”

  “I just came off lunch,” he murmured. “Wanted to make sure you had it all in hand.”

  Sure, he did.

  It wasn’t a coincidence, and it didn’t escape my attention, that he always showed up to a scene after everything was all said and done.

  He’d been doing that for about six months now, and it was starting to get on my goddamn nerves.

  I assigned him to the school as the resource officer as a last resort. He picked up very little overtime and still managed to swap quite a few shifts with other officers. Meaning that half the time he wasn’t at the school dealing with the students, building relationships with them and performing his duties as the resource officer like he was supposed to be doing.

  But since I allowed the officers under my command to do that at will, as long as the required number of officers were on shift, and not a lot of overtime was being had, I couldn’t exactly argue that he did it. Mostly because then it would be known amongst everyone that I didn’t care for the fucker.

  “It’s all in hand,” I said as Truth backed his bike off the street.

  Once it was safely ensconced behind my cruiser, he went to move Verity’s car, but not before sneering slightly at Matt.

  Good to know it isn’t just me.

  “Who did you swap with for today?” I questioned.

  It may sound like curiosity, but I truly needed to know who was switching with whom. Normally I got at least a text message saying who was taking whose shift. It hadn’t happened with Matt, though.

  Then again, I hadn’t made it mandatory, and since Matt didn’t do anything he didn’t have to do, it shouldn’t surprise me.

  “Harrison,” Matt answered instantly.

  I rolled my eyes skyward. “For which shift next week?”

  “Monday and Tuesday.”

  I growled under my breath.

  “I know that I’ve told you before that you need to be a little more consistent than you’re being. Those kids up there need a resource officer that they can turn to when they need one. You, of all people, should know that they need consistency,” I said in a very even tone.

  Matt’s eye twitched. “Is that why my daughter is here?” he asked, sounding a little put out. “Her mom wouldn’t like to know that you brought her daughter to a scene like that. She’s protective.”

  What mother wouldn’t be?

  And I hardly had a choice where I brought her when a call like that came in.

  Before I could tell him that Winnie was already well aware of the situation, another call came in. This one being a minor wreck two blocks over. “How about you go get that one…since you’re so close.”

  And, since he couldn’t very well argue with the chief of police and keep his job, Matt nodded once stiffly and started down the road.

  “You really are pissing that one off,” Tough said thoughtfully from behind me.

  I’d known he was there, but since he was busy writing up a report, I hadn’t thought much about him overhearing what I had to say.

  Anything I said to Matt were things I’d say in public or in private. Just like I’d do with all of my officers if the situation warranted it.

  “That one gets on my nerves,” I felt comfortable enough to say.

  Tough was the captain of our band of misfits at the police station. He knew all that went on just as well as I did.

  “That one gets on everybody’s nerves but Harrison’s,” Tough countered.

  “Good to know it’s not just me,” I muttered, then glanced into Tough’s car. “Is he asleep?”

  Tough grunted. “Sure the fuck is. He got in there and laid down like it was his own personal car. So, I figured I’d stay and listen to what was going on with that douche canoe instead of writing this report at the station.”

  I snorted. “You never miss the chance to catch the gossip, Tough.”

  Tough burst out laughing. “I gotta tell the wife something when I get home. And, I got something juicy today. Don’t think I didn’t miss those heated stares between you and Douche Canoe’s ex-wife.”

  “She was just mad,” I countered.

  “Mad and horny. For you.”

  I didn’t have anything to say to that.

  “She’s not in the place right now to handle what I got on my plate,” I muttered. “Take care. I gotta go to the girl’s house and have a talk with that same mother. I have to explain why she was here with me.”

  Tough found that hilarious. “You ever thought of calling?”

  My eye twitched. “Yeah, but why bother when I gotta go home anyway, and she lives across the street? Seems counterproductive when I could just run over there real quick.”

  “She’s your neighbor?” Tough’s smile widened. “Oh, my Leilan is going to love this!”

  Ignoring him, I walked to my cruiser and drove away without deigning to reply to his comment.

  Tough was worse than a high school girl.

  Seriously, I think he could drama Conleigh under the table.

  Arriving at my house minutes later, I pulled into my driveway and went straight to Winnie’s house instead of my own.

  The screams coming from inside were loud enough to permeate through the closed door.

  I knocked, wondering if anyone would even hear.

  Conleigh answered a few moments later, looking like she was about ten seconds away from pulling her hair out.

  “She went to the store,” Conleigh murmured. “But she’ll be right back. We only needed milk. As long as you don’t mind listening to my brother screech at the top of his lungs…”

  “What’s wrong with your brother?”

  “My brother’s pissed off at the world today and letting everybody know it.”

  I walked into a warzone.

  Chapter 5

  Do you ever wake up and think you’re not really in the mood for human interaction that day, or is it just me?

  -Text from Winnie to Steel

  Winnie

  5 hours earlier

  “Have fun at the mall, baby,” I said to Conleigh as I dropped her off in the front of Sears.

  Conleigh grunted. “I’m going to look for a job while I’m here.”

  I didn’t argue with that.

  She could look all she wanted, but she needed a place she could work that she could get to without a car, and the mall wasn’t one of those places.

  “I’ll see you at four, correct?”

  She and a couple of friends were watching a movie, having some lunch, and then going to hang until I could make my way back around to them.

  I had a million and one things to do today, and all of those things were on opposite sides of the freakin’ city.

  “Yeah, Mom.”

  Then Conleigh was gone, and I was left with a clearly excited Cody.

  Cody, my five-year-old baby boy, was so excited to see his father that I could hardly get him to quiet down.

  And I was a nervous wreck.

  Cody hadn’t been away from me, except for the odd half a day with Matt’s parents, since he’d been born. Sure, he went to daycare, but daycare always meant that he spent every single night at home with me in his house.

  Now, he was staying in his old room at his father’s place, and I was worried that he’d like it better there than with me.

  I
pulled up into our designated meeting spot and clenched my teeth when I saw Angelina’s car instead of Matt’s Ford.

  Angelina got out and started to walk over to me, leaving her own kids in her car, screaming.

  Her eldest sat there, too, staring at his mother’s back as she came my way.

  Angelina’s eldest was her first child with a different man. He’d been the reason that Angelina and I had first become friends.

  Our children were the same age. Her eldest, right along with her youngest.

  When I’d moved here, she’d immediately taken me under her wing. She and her husband had made me feel so welcome, that I had no choice but to love her.

  She’d introduced me to Matt, her husband’s best friend, and the rest had been history.

  We’d always been a team.

  And now we weren’t.

  She’d stolen something from me that was unforgivable.

  I rolled down my window.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Matt can’t make it. He has to work today.”

  My eyelid twitched. “Then why didn’t he call and say that?”

  Angelina crossed her arms over her chest and stared back at me. “Because he still wants him to come over. He’ll be home around eleven. They’ll have all morning together before we have to bring him back.”

  Not likely. Cody slept until ten o’clock most days if he was allowed to. I highly doubted that Matt would wake Cody up. He never had before when he’d been living with us. He’d much rather go work out and do his own thing than have his son tagging along.

  Which led me to my next decision.

  “We’ll try next weekend.”

  Then I rolled up my window.

  Angelina looked pissed, but I ignored her.

  I was not, under any circumstances, giving that woman my kid.

  First of all, she didn’t take care of my children well, and never had.

  She was a very lax parent and didn’t care what her kids did—whether that was allowing them to ride in a booster seat when they clearly should be in a car seat or stay up until three a.m. eating junk food instead of going to bed at a decent hour.

  So, no, I sure as hell wasn’t leaving my kid with her when I hadn’t trusted her before she’d screwed me over.

  Now that she had ruined my life, there was no way I was trusting her with what was left of it.

  Conleigh and Cody were the only two things holding me together anymore, and lately, Conleigh was challenging that.

  I ignored the woman who was now on her phone, probably calling her new husband, and instead drove away and headed for the grocery store.

  Cody, not realizing that he wasn’t going to get to see his father yet, seemed happy and content in the back seat.

  “Just wasted an hour of my life I’ll never get back,” I grumbled to nobody in particular.

  After making a grocery run, with a still happy and behaving well Cody, I headed back to the main part of the town, only to see my freakin’ daughter in the middle of the road.

  Staring at a man who was standing up against a car.

  From this angle, I couldn’t see much besides my daughter’s laughing face.

  Sudden and irrational anger hit me, and I pulled the car over to the side of the road and yelled at her.

  “Why are you here, Conleigh Annaliese?”

  Steel turned at hearing me and winced. “Picked her up.”

  “And what did she do this time?”

  The next fifteen minutes went about as expected.

  Steel explained why he’d had to intervene when it came to my child, and I had to hold my tongue while he did. Luckily, after explaining why he had Conleigh, he’d been called over due to an altercation with the naked man and an irate man who wasn’t very happy at having that naked man press his genitals to his wife’s window.

  Using the chance to escape while I could, I gave Conleigh one single quelling stare, and she started marching toward my car.

  After making sure she was settled, I ripped her a new one.

  “Tell me why you were there,” I demanded.

  “I went to the mall.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. I knew that part.

  “And Cohen was there with his girlfriend.”

  I hadn’t seen the girlfriend in the car with Angelina when I’d gone to drop Cody off with Matt, but it didn’t surprise me that she was in there. Angelina took the kids anywhere they wanted to go, and always had.

  They must’ve gone straight there after I’d left.

  “And…”

  “And Cohen’s girlfriend called you a whore, and I took offense to it.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “Conleigh,” I breathed. “With Matt being a cop, everyone knows him in the city. Since they don’t want to think that a cop is one of the bad guys, they’re going to find it easier to blame the other person, and that’s me, unfortunately.”

  Conleigh didn’t say anything.

  “I don’t want you to do anything stupid because of something they call me. I’m an adult, I can handle it…and so can you,” I said softly.

  Conleigh’s jaw tightened and she looked away to study the very uninteresting landscape as we made our way home.

  “Why do you have Cody?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Seems that Matt was working today and that Angelina was picking him up. I refused to give him to her.”

  “Is that legal?”

  I shrugged. “We don’t have any sort of formal visitation agreement. Hell, we don’t even have anything registered with the court, yet. He could take me to court for custody, but I don’t think he will. He’s just not interested enough.”

  “I saw him out with his new family yesterday.”

  I sighed.

  “Yeah, I saw them come into the hospital yesterday, too,” I admitted. “He came in with the youngest because she fell off the bunk beds. Held her like he used to hold Cody. He never once asked how Cody was. Didn’t even seem to care, even when I was the tech that helped clean her up. Pissed me the hell off.”

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to talk about seeing patients.”

  I snorted. Conleigh lecturing me on what was right and wrong was quite comical.

  “I’m not,” I admitted.

  “Well, it’ll be our secret then.”

  Rolling my eyes, I drove my little family home, refusing to let my mind wander to the sexy older officer at the scene who was starting to take over my daily thoughts lately.

  ***

  I had groceries in one hand—more than I’d intended on getting—and my purse in the other when my phone started to ring.

  I grimaced when I saw who was calling.

  If there was one person on this planet who I never wanted to talk to, it would be Matt.

  Fucking jerk.

  “Hello?” I answered as calmly as I could manage.

  “Did you know that the chief of police took Conleigh to a scene today that was volatile?”

  Volatile?

  I would hardly call some man’s dick being rolled up in a car window volatile.

  “I was there, yes,” I answered breathlessly. “He didn’t take her to a scene on purpose. He was bringing her home from the mall.”

  At least, that was what Conleigh had told me on the way home.

  I hadn’t gotten much info on it before Cody had started throwing the world’s worst temper tantrum.

  He wanted his daddy.

  The daddy who’d neglected to pick him up today like he’d said he would.

  “Well, she saw some guy’s dick and balls,” Matt fumed.

  Fumed.

  What. The. Fuck?

  “Matt, did you forget that you were picking Cody up today?”

  “I sent Angelina.”

  I knew that.

  “Yes, but if you’re not going to pick him up, which is something we’ve discussed before, th
en I’m not giving him to Angelina. She doesn’t watch the kids well enough for me to allow her to have my child,” I said carefully, trying not to let Winnie the Shrew out to play.

  “Angelina watches her kids,” he contradicted me.

  “Then why did you have a child fall off the bunk beds, and your new wife say that she hadn’t been watching them?” I countered. “Which was just a few days ago.”

  Matt grunted. “I was calling to talk to you about the Chief taking our girl to that scene today.”

  Our girl.

  Now that made me mad.

  He’d never called Conleigh his. Had never even offered to adopt her or give her his name. All of which I was grateful for now, but still.

  “Conleigh is sixteen, Matt. She has a good head on her shoulders, and Steel is very nice. He wouldn’t have taken her to a scene if he thought she could be hurt. Trust me.”

  “I’ve heard that she’s been bad lately. In fact, Steel,” he sounded like he sneered. “Came in to tell me that I needed to keep a better eye on her because she was acting strangely.”

  I was sure there was more to it than that, but I wasn’t going to get that information out of Matt.

  Nor did I particularly want to talk to him.

  “Well, thanks,” I said breezily. “I have to go, though.”

  Matt started to say something more, but I was having none of it and hung up.

  Fucker.

  I picked up the groceries, held my purse in my hand and shoved my phone in my bra, then started up the steps of the house.

  I used the railing as I went since I’d left the cane back in my car and breathed a sigh of relief when I made it.

  However, when it came to a door, I knew it was a lost cause. There was no way that I could maneuver into that opening without holding on to the threshold.

  Placing the groceries down on the stoop, I pushed open the door until I could fit through.

  The first thing I noticed as I entered was the lack of yelling from Cody versus when I left.

  Which made me smile.

  Cody loved Conleigh.

  And then I heard the low murmur of voices.

  Frowning, I peeked around the corner of the entryway.

  The last thing I expected when I got home was to find the sexy officer in my kitchen. Though, I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me. Not with Conleigh’s grabby hands lately.