Christmas in the Cop Car (Sweet Home Alabama Book 4)

by Laura Trentham

  Christmas in the Cop Car

  Sweet Home Alabama Book 4

  Laura Trentham

  Contents

  Also by Laura Trentham

  Blurb

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Epilogue

  Also by Laura Trentham

  Slow and Steady Rush

  About the Author

  Also by Laura Trentham

  Historical Romance

  Spies and Lovers

  An Indecent Invitation Book 1

  A Brazen Bargain, Book 2

  A Reckless Redemption, Book 3

  A Sinful Surrender, Book 4

  A Wicked Wedding, Book 5

  A Daring Deception, Book 6

  Contemporary Romance

  Sweet Home Alabama Novels

  Slow and Steady Rush, Book 1

  Caught Up in the Touch, Book 2

  Melting Into You, Book 3

  Christmas in the Cop Car, Novella 3.5

  Highland, Georgia Novels

  A Highlander Walks Into a Bar, Book 1

  A Highlander in a Pickup, Book 2

  A Highlander is Coming to Town, Book 3

  Heart of a Hero Novels

  The Military Wife

  An Everyday Hero

  Cottonbloom Novels

  Kiss Me That Way, Book 1

  Then He Kissed Me, Book 2

  Till I Kissed You, Book 3

  Christmas in the Cop Car, Novella 3.5

  Light Up the Night, Novella 3.75

  Leave the Night On, Book 4

  When the Stars Come Out, Book 5

  Set the Night on Fire, Book 6

  Fieldstones Adventure Novellas by Leah Trent

  An Impetuous Interlude, Fieldstones Adventure Book 1

  A Naughty Notion, Fieldstones Adventure Book 2

  A Mysterious Masquerade, Fieldstones Adventure Book 3

  A Dangerous Desire, Fieldstones Adventure Book 4

  I love to hear from readers! Come find me:

  Laura@LauraTrentham.com

  www.LauraTrentham.com

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  Join Laura’s Facebook Squad

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  Jeremy Whitehurst has tried to leave his bad-boy behavior and tarnished image behind in Alabama for a fresh start in Cottonbloom, Louisiana. Unfortunately, trouble has dogged him across state lines. Stepping up and protecting a young woman from her abusive boyfriend earned him a beat-down and got him fired. Although the thanks in the girl’s dark eyes made it all worth it, he recognizes she’s just a different kind of trouble. A trouble he’s not sure he can stay away from.

  One rebellious summer dented Kayla Redmond’s carefree innocence. Now her focus is on completing her associate’s degree for bookkeeping, and no one is going to derail her plans. Unfortunately, her job at Fournette Brothers Designs puts her in the path of the one man who has seen her at her worst, yet his blue eyes don’t judge her. He sees beyond the brokenness inside of her and rouses her wild side once more. But, that’s what got her in trouble in the first place.

  Christmas is coming and Kayla’s ready to forgive herself and take a chance. But the holiday has only ever brought heartache to Jeremy. No Christmas miracle kept his mother clean or out of jail. Will one reckless night and some time spent in the back of a cop car be the best present Jeremy’s ever been given?

  One

  Kayla Redmond checked her appearance in the rearview mirror and tucked fallen pieces of hair back into the pins. The internet tutorial had called the trendy chignon “simple” for even the most hair challenged. She should have gone with something easy, like a ponytail, but the need to impress had her attempting something more professional. Opportunities like this didn’t often come around for girls like her.

  Like most things, it all boiled down to who you knew. The day her friends dragged her to the first Girls at Risk meeting her senior year of high school had changed her life. Monroe Kirby, now Monroe Fournette, had been their self-defense instructor and had done more for Kayla than she could ever repay, including getting her the interview at Fournette Designs as their bookkeeper.

  She would graduate with her Associate’s Degree before Christmas but could start part-time immediately. If she got the job. The interview practice session she’d attended at Cottonbloom College had only amplified her nerves. The questions ranged from how she would handle workplace conflicts to what kind of tree she pictured herself as. Past experience taught her that conflict was to be avoided at all cost, but after much thought, she’d decided on a willow tree because they were resilient and bent, but didn’t break, during storms.

  Slipping out of her used gray Honda, she smoothed down the black pencil skirt she’d borrowed from her mother and stifled a nervous laugh. Cade Fournette was not the type of man to care about her life as a tree. She was crazy early, but hoped demonstrating that she was reliable and professional and prompt would earn her points against more experienced applicants.

  Fournette Designs was basically housed in a shed—if the shed had been fed steroids. A half-dozen bays stretched out to the left of the parking area. The door appeared small by comparison. The pavement petered into gravel the closer she got to the entrance. A rock slipped underneath her heel. Her ankle turned and she went to her knees. More of her hair escaped the pins and fell around her neck as a few choice words escaped.

  The growl of an engine had her tensing and glancing toward the sound. A motorcycle came around the last bend of the long driveway.

  “No, no, no, no, no . . .” She muttered, hoping this was like one of the nightmares she had about showing up to class naked or unprepared to take a test. Her worst nightmares involved both at the same time.

  Maybe it wasn’t him. Lots of men drove motorcycles. But how many of them also worked at Fournette Designs? As tightly as she squeezed her eyes shut, she hadn’t magically gained the power of teleportation.

  She popped to her feet and rotated her ankle. It barely twinged. By going with the fall, she had probably saved herself a bad sprain, but strawberries marred her knees, her right one trickling blood down the front of her calf. She brushed the grit from her hands. Her palms were fine. At least she wouldn’t be a biohazard when she shook her potential new boss’s hand.

  The motorcycle petered into silence. She risked a glance over her shoulder, not meaning to stare, but unable to stop herself. The man whipped off his helmet and ran a hand through his short blond hair. It was him. Of course, it was him. That’s how her luck ran.

  Jeremy Whitehurst. They’d run across each other countless times. Cottonbloom was hardly a metropolis. But underneath their polite greetings, an undeniable intensity pulsed. At least on her end. If she got the job, she would see him on a daily basis. The thought incited a stew of embarrassment and nerves with a spicy dash of excitement.

  “Hey there. I thought I recognized your car. Monroe’s not here this morning.” Gravel crunched under his black motorcycle boots. He wore jeans and a black leather jacket, the stripe of a red T-shirt with a black emblem showing. Sometime in the fall, he’d cut his shoulder-length hair super short on the sides, but kept the top longer. Long enough to fist in her hand. Her fingers twitched.

  Long or short, it didn’t matter. The dangerous vibe he emitted attracted her like a bug to a zapper. She’d done the bad boy route once before. Some days still found her sifting through the wreckage.

>   “I’m interviewing with Cade—I mean, Mr. Fournette—for the bookkeeper job. I graduate this semester.” She bit her bottom lip to stop the diarrhea of words and rubbed her nape, her fingers tangling in her hair. “Geez, my hair.”

  “What happened? You ride over with the windows down?” His chuckle jolted her stomach into a frantic jig, this time about the upcoming interview and not him.

  She backtracked and tilted her side mirror to assess the damage. “It’s not funny. I need this job.” Her words came out with more vehemence than she’d intended.

  “I doubt Cade’s going to care about your hair.”

  “Well, I care.” She straightened and crossed her arms. Men didn’t get the love-hate relationship women had with their hair. If her hair was frazzled, then she would be frazzled and Cade would see her as a screwup.

  “Turn around.” When she didn’t move, he shuffled around her without actually touching her. The heat of his body drew her closer, and she swayed toward him, her balance precarious literally and metaphorically speaking.

  He tugged at the comb holding the bulk of her hair, the mass falling over her shoulders. Her intake of breath was embarrassingly audible. The shivers down her back and goosebumps along her arms couldn’t even be blamed on the December breeze. It was unseasonably warm.

  She wanted to close her eyes and arch into his touch. Instead, she forced her eyes to remain open and her body still while he worked her hair back into its pins. His ministrations didn’t last nearly long enough. He returned to stand in front of her and cocked his head, assessing her.

  His mouth was firm, his top lip thinner than his bottom. A jagged white scar trailed over the curve of his chin, lost in the shadow of his stubble. He smelled of fresh pine but with spicy, manly undertones. His eyes were a magnetic blue—eerie and haunting.

  She’d been drunk and hurting the first night they’d met at the Rivershack Tavern, but she’d never forgotten his eyes. Neither had she forgotten his kindness toward her and Monroe that night. In fact, in a roundabout way, his good deed had landed him a job at Fournette Designs. She was glad the beat down he’d received because of her had materialized into something good.

  “I think you’ll pass muster,” he said. “Check it out.”

  She grounded herself in the present. Her past was as haunting as his eyes. The small side mirror offered a distorted reflection, but her hair was off her neck and neat. “You’re a man of many talents. Did you quit a ladies’ salon to work on engines?”

  She’d meant it to be a joke, but by the way his slight smile drooped and his gaze skated to the side, she’d missed the mark by a country mile. Before she could stutter out something innocuous, he said, “My mother didn’t always take care of herself. So I had to.”

  A terrible story lurked behind his terse words. Had his mother been sick? Dying? But he’d said “didn’t,” not “couldn’t.” She wanted to know his story, no matter how dark. She wanted to help him like he’d helped her. The compulsion was stronger than just fulfilling a debt she owed him.

  What did she have to offer? She was nobody special. Worse, he probably only remembered her as the pathetic drunk girl who had let her boyfriend beat up on her. Mentally giving herself a shake, she checked the time on her phone. Ten minutes until the interview. Enough time to clean up her leg and smooth her haywire nerves—if she were lucky. Which, based on experience, she wasn’t.

  “Thanks for the fix. I’d better go in and prepare.”

  He nodded, opened the human-sized door next to the huge bay, and gestured her through. The vastness of the work area stilled her a few feet inside, and she took inventory. Gray concrete spread to the left where Sawyer Fournette, Cade’s younger brother and partner, talked to a semicircle of about five men, all in identical gray coveralls.

  Jeremy passed her but glanced over his shoulder at her. “Cade’s office is—” He stopped, pivoted around, and pointed at her leg, his eyes narrowing. “You’re bleeding.”

  “Yeah, I tripped on the gravel in these stupid heels. If you could point me to a—”

  “Follow me.” He chucked his head toward a brightly lit break room lined with windows.

  She fell into step behind him. The smooth confidence of his walk was arresting. His shoulders were broad, but it could be all jacket and no muscle. She wanted to slip her hands underneath and find out. The same urge she’d fought outside to touch him—and be touched—came over her. Want. Need. Desire.

  She recognized the feelings even as she cursed them. Why him and why now? Since breaking up with her possessive ex with anger issues, she’d forced that part of herself into a deep freeze. Giving in to such strong attraction meant potentially losing your self-respect and giving up your power.

  She clutched the strap of her purse and moved the bulk in front of her as if that could break the tether of attraction. He opened the break-room door, but she balked in the doorway. The sooner she was away from him, the sooner she could get her derailed nerves back on track and cobble together a facade that would get her through the interview. “I don’t want to keep you from your job.”

  “Sawyer’s training some of the newer guys. Anyway, I haven’t clocked in, so it’s no big deal. Come on, we keep a first-aid kit on hand.”

  “Okay, but”—she checked her phone—“I’ve got, like, five minutes before I’m supposed to meet with Cade. Uh, Mr. Fournette?”

  “Everyone calls him Cade. Grab a seat.” Jeremy nudged his chin toward the utilitarian table and metal folding chairs.

  The break room was stark. Harsh fluorescent lights emphasized white linoleum, white matte paint on the walls, white ceiling tiles. No sign that Christmas was a couple of weeks away. Considering Kayla and her mom had decked their house out in lights and wreaths and garland the day after Thanksgiving, the lack of cheer struck her forcibly.

  “Do the Fournette men not believe in Christmas?” At the confused look on Jeremy’s face, she waved a finger around. “No decorations.”

  He glanced around and shrugged. “Sawyer made us all put on Santa hats and take a picture for the company Christmas card. We all felt like idiots.”

  Odds were he hadn’t smiled for the camera. “I’ll bet you looked cute.”

  He barked a laugh, shrugged off his leather jacket, and draped it across the back of a chair before opening a cabinet. His shoulders hadn’t been all jacket. They hadn’t even been mostly jacket. His back muscles shifted and his biceps flexed under the cotton of the long-sleeved T-shirt. Her insides went in full-on riot mode.

  She sank down on the edge of a chair, which only made things worse, putting her gaze level with his backside. Not too flat or too round, but, like Goldilocks, she found it just right. He turned around, and she barely managed to peel her eyes away from his butt. Her tongue might as well be lolling on the floor like some oversexed cartoon character. The wave of heat that flushed through her was mostly embarrassment, yet still with an unmistakable edge of desire.

  His smile didn’t strike her as smirky or taunting, it seemed . . . nice. His too-mature seriousness made him seem out of her age bracket, but his smile erased the years. He was only in his mid-twenties, a couple of years older than her.

  He squatted in front of her, flipped the first-aid kit open, and ripped open a sterile, medicated towelette. On first contact, her leg jerked from the cold sting, and he wrapped a hand around her ankle.

  “Sorry, but you don’t want it to get infected.” He wiped away the blood and grit and set the towelette aside, keeping his hand on her ankle. His thumb coasted up and down her Achilles, and the calluses along his palm rasped against her skin, sending shivers up her leg. “Band-Aid or not?”

  “Band-Aid, I guess. Unless it’s like, Hello Kitty, in which case I’ll pass.”

  Laughter welled out of him. Deep and soulful, the sound untwisted her insides and settled her nerves. She found her first real smile of the day.

  “Is SpongeBob more professional?” He dropped her ankle and poked through the box coming up with
a bland white package and a tube of antiseptic. The plain, tan-colored square bandage covered her entire strawberry and blended into her skin. He smoothed his thumbs along each edge, his fingers brushing the back of her knee.

  The strong physical response in her lower belly jolted her to standing. The last thing she needed was to jeopardize this job by letting herself get distracted by a man. It was unprofessional and dangerous in more ways than one.

  “Could you point me to Cade’s office?” She took long, fake-confident strides to the door and pushed it open.

  Not rising from his crouch, he pivoted in her direction. “To the right. Can’t miss it.”

  She rolled her shoulders back and lifted her chin. She was smart and confident and could get this job. She had to get this job.

  His softly called out ‘Hey’ had her glancing back at him. “Good luck.”

  The same soft smile from earlier was on his face, and despite her self-lecture, she smiled back.

  Jeremy Whitehurst stared at the spot Kayla Redmond had disappeared through until his thighs ached from his awkward squat on the floor. Although Fournette Designs was growing, it was still small. They all shared a break room and a unisex bathroom-slash-changing room.

  Not that any women worked here—yet. Monroe and Regan, Cade and Sawyer’s respective spouses, were the only ladies who dropped by with any regularity. A female prospective client might make an occasional appearance.

  If she got the job, he would run into her every day. Every day he’d see her smile and hear her laugh. Something flared. Anticipation. Fear. But there was an added flavor to his restlessness where she was concerned. He recognized the protectiveness and possessiveness, even though he had no right to either feeling.