I sat straight up on the couch and looked around the room. It was dark and all I could hear were the crickets outside. Call it my guilty conscience, but I was freaked out. From the reaction, I got up and started pacing around. Up until this very night, they’d all been special memories of my old life.
Something was happening to me and Vessa was the reason. I couldn’t let her taint my memories of them, even if she wasn’t meaning to do that. How could she? It wasn’t like I had divulged her with my life story. It didn’t even matter. I needed to distance myself from her. I wasn’t willing to take the chance of losing the only thing I had left of them.
Some things are easier said then done though. The next morning was my official day off. Now being the sheriff, a day off really meant that I was able to do personal things until something came up that needed my attention. I’d planned on cleaning off the metal roof and raking up all of the winter leaves that had accumulated. I didn’t care what the yard looked like, but it kept my mind off of things.
I’d no sooner gotten out the rake and the ladder when my phone started ringing. Of course, I shook my head before answering; knowing damn well it was going to be work.
I was wrong.
A familiar raspy voice was on the other end.
Ramsey, it’s Sue. Listen, I need a man favor.
Is there anyone else you can call?
Not particularly. Why? Did I do something to offend you?
No. What do you need?
It would be easier if you would come by.
You at the bar?
Nope, I switched with Vessa. I’m home today.
Be there shortly.
As long as I didn’t have to see Vessa, I figured I would be in the clear, as far as giving the old lady a hand. She probably just needed me to fix something around her place. I don’t know how I’d been designated as her personal go-to, but I didn’t seem to mind. Before Vessa, she’d been the only person that I could tolerate being around. In some ways I think she looked out for me.
After grabbing my tools, I headed over to Sue’s place; with my mind set on whatever the task was she needed me to do. The little boy, Logan, came running toward my car. “Hey, sheriff. You got your gun today?”
I patted him on the head. “I’m off today, kid. Where’s your aunt?”
“She’s inside.”
I continued to walk past him, heading for the front door. Sue was sitting in the kitchen with some cookbook in her hand. I cleared my throat so that she would know it was me and not the kid. “That was fast. You want some coffee? I just made another pot.”
“Sounds good!” The coffee pot at the cabin hadn’t been used. The whole kitchen hadn’t been used. I was used to buying my coffee in town every morning. Actually, I got it for free for being the sheriff, but always tipped whatever it cost anyway.
I sat down across from Sue, waiting for her to tell me just what she called me over to do. She marked the book with a dog-ear and looked up at me. “Like I said on the phone. I need a favor.”
“I brought my tools. Just tell me what needs fixing.”
She gave me an inquisitive stare. “This ain’t something that requires tools. I am going to ask you this because I know she won’t and I wouldn’t even consider it, if I didn’t know how important it was to the boy.”
“I am afraid you lost me.”
“Take him fishing, Ramsey. I don’t even care if it’s only for an hour. I just need you do it.”
I was floored. Not only was she asking me for something personal, but it was also a favor for the one person in town that I was trying to avoid. “It’s a bad idea.”
“The kid’s good for nothing father promised to take him, then all together decided to have a weekend with his girlfriend instead. Slowly but surely, he’s going to stop seeing them kids all together. I don’t know what Vessa is going to do about it. Look, my sister passed away a while back, and for a while Vessa kept her distance. Having them in my life is more important to me than anything. She won’t ask for help, but I’m determined to do it anyway.”
“I’m not good with kids.” It was a lie. Every kid reminded me of my daughter and it was brutally painful for me.
“It’s one hour. It ain’t like he is going to pry into your business. If he get’s curious, make something up. If you ask me, it would do you both a load of good.”
“I have to work.”
“I already called the station. I know you’re off today. Look, you take the kid fishing and I will send you home with a chicken potpie. Don’t tell me that you don’t love it. I’ve seen you tear through my potpies before.”
She had a point. The woman knew how to feed me. She also knew how to push my buttons. One thing that I was sure of was that she wasn’t going to back down. “One hour, Sue.”
“There’s old rods in the shed and the pond should be crazy full of fish, since my Ray stocked it before he died. If you catch it, you can keep it. I will fry it up some way or another.” She opened the cookbook and started looking at what she was looking at before I came into the room.
“You want me to go now?”
“Why not?”
I shook my head and walked out of the kitchen. The kid was sitting on the step where I’d left him. He had a baseball glove in his hand and was throwing the ball up and catching it. Half the time he would miss and have to get up to retrieve it.
I didn’t look at him when I spoke. “Follow me, kid.”
He caught up with me fast. “Where we going? You taking me on a ride along? I saw it on TV last night.”
It was going to be the longest hour of my life. “I’m taking you fishing, kid. You’re too young for a ride along.” He stopped following me, so I turned around to see what happened. He just stood there, looking down at the ground. “What’s wrong, kid?”
“My name is Logan, not kid and my dad was supposed to take me fishing.” He seemed pissed off.
I struggled with myself over what actions I should take. On one hand, I would have liked to get in my truck and head home without having to burden myself with the whole ordeal. On the other hand, I saw a kid that had his heart broke by someone he counted on. He needed to know that not everyone was going to disappoint him. I shook my head and cussed under my breath for what I was about to do.
Without arguing myself out of it, I knelt down in front of him. “Listen here, Logan. I’m going into the shed and grabbing two rods. Then I’m going to walk down to that pond and fish for a while. I don’t know what you had planned for the day, but the company would sure be nice. It’s up to you though.”
It didn’t take but a second for him to catch up to me walking away. I didn’t say anything else, even when we got to the shed and grabbed the rods and tackle.
Logan had never been fishing, so I had to teach him how to bait his hook and cast his line. I have to give him credit for trying. He listened to my every word. After attempting to cast four times on his own, I took the line and cast it out for him. He smiled as we sat next to each other on the little man made pier. His little feet were swinging around, while he tightly held the rod, waiting for his bobber to disappear out of the water.
“You having fun, kid, err, Logan.”
“How long does it take to catch one?” He didn’t answer my question. I figured he would get bored fast. I remember how it was to fish with my father when I was a kid.
“I’ve fished a whole week without a bite.”
“Maybe you aren’t good at it. I bet my dad could catch a big fish real fast.”
I bit my tongue, but I gotta admit, it was real hard to do. After hearing just a few things that the guy had done, I was sure that his ass had no balls, or compassion for his wife or kids. Unfortunately, this kid was too young to understand all of that, and as I learned more about his mother, I learned that her compassion for her children had caused her to keep negative things about their father from them. The more I wanted to avoid the woman, the more I respected the kind of person she was.
Thankfully, m
y bobber went down into the water. I knew what I had to do, when I turned to see the look on Logan’s face. I handed the kid my rod. “Pull it in, Logan. This fish is going to be your catch.”
He reeled his little heart out, trying to pull in that fish. Now, when Sue told me that her deceased husband had stocked the pond, I hadn’t considered how large those fish would have gotten. After fighting for five minutes, I stood behind Logan to help him pull the fish in. I think we both were in shock, when we pulled up a bass that was nearly two feet in length. With giant eyes, the kid watched me use the net and get the fish out of the water. Once it was in the bucket, we smack hands at our catch. “It’s giant!”
I was proud of him. Sadly, it reminded me of another moment that I would never get to share with Katie. As depressing as it was for me, I patted the kid on the shoulder. “Let’s try to catch some more. I’m thinking our bait is too small for what’s swimming around in this pond. We should try something else on our lines.”
“Can we catch a shark?”
“If there’s a shark in this pond, we’re both going to have to change our pants.” I knew there wasn’t, but the kid seemed like it was the coolest thing ever.
He watched me bait his line. “Why would we change our pants? Are we going to fall in? I don’t want to fall in with the sharks.”
I started laughing; not even considering what I’d told him could scare him. “I meant that if there was a shark in this little pond, I was going to crap my pants.”
He giggled. “You poop yourself? Only babies poop themselves.”
Clearly, sarcasm wasn’t in his vocabulary. “Never mind. How about we talk about something else.” That’s when it happened. I’d opened myself up to the boy, while sitting on that pier. After nearly a year of solitude, I’d opened myself up to a curious kid.
“My dad said that after we caught fish, we could go out for ice cream.” I clenched my jaw, knowing the kid was trying to get something extra out of me. The thing was, I kind of liked being around him. He was too young to judge me, or understand why I was the way I was around other adults.
“Let’s see how many we could catch first.” That’s what we did too. For the next couple hours, we sat around talking about baseball, bugs and fighting crime. He never asked me anything that made me feel uncomfortable.
When we got finished, we’d brought in seven large fish. Sue was outside hanging laundry when we came across the field with what we’d caught. She put down a shirt and walked toward us. “How’d you do?”
Logan pointed to the filled bucket.
She looked from him to me and smiled. “You know what this means?”
The little kid was as confused as me. “No?”
“It means that you and the sheriff have a lot more fish to catch. Maybe this is something that you can do again.”
She kept smiling when she winked at me. This wasn’t part of her favor, but after spending the majority of the day with Logan, I’d realized that I had relaxed and enjoyed myself. “Maybe so.”
“We have to get these fish in the house, so that we can have ice-cream,” he explained.
“I don’t know if we have any ice cream,” She admitted.
He got a sad look on his face. I sat down the heavy load of fish. “Looks like we are going to have to go into town then.”
“Let me change my shirt. Be right back!” he yelled as he ran into the house.
“You did a real good thing today, Ramsey.” I could tell that she was up to something.
Just like her pushing me toward Vessa, I figured it out almost immediately. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about. I just wanted the kid to not be damaged because he’s got a daddy that doesn’t give a damn.”
“So, it had nothing to do with trying to get me to open up?” She was a clever woman, with apparent tricks up her sleeve.
“Why? Is that what’s happening?” She was acting all dumb about it.
I shook my head, knowing that I was caught in another one of her plans. “For someone that doesn’t pry, you sure seem to be involved in my actions, more than ever.”
“I know a broken man when I see one. It doesn’t take a genius to know that you’ve been through something. I’d never ask what it was. I’m not that type of woman. You need to know that all broken men can be fixed.”
“You can’t fix me, Sue. Nobody can fix me.” Not when I wished that I had died in that car with my family. I was dead to society and didn’t want to be apart of it anymore.
“You keep telling yourself that. Mark my word, Ramsey. Things are about to change for you. You’ll see.”
I shook my head, getting exactly what she was saying. “You need to stop trying to push us together. It’s never going to happen with your niece, Sue.”
“I saw you dropped her off last night. Looks like you’ve been spending time together, if you asked me. Everyone needs friends, you know. The best ones come into your life when you aren’t looking for them.”
I was tired of hearing it from her, but my parents brought me up to respect my elders, so I kept my mouth shut. It was a good thing, because Logan came running outside in clean clothes. “I’m ready. Can we turn on the siren?”
Sue had already picked back up on hanging her clothes. “I’ll bring him back in a little while.”
“Take your time. I’m sure Vessa would love for you to stay for dinner.”
She had to give her two cents again. I walked close to her so that the kid couldn’t hear me. “I drove Vessa home because she’d been drinking, and as a police officer, I couldn’t allow her to do that. Nothing is going to happen between the two of us. I can be cordial to your niece, but nothing has changed. I don’t need friends like you think. I manage just fine!”
Without hearing what she said back to me, I walked away from her and headed to the truck, where Logan waited patiently. Spending the day fishing with the kid was one thing, but being set up with someone that I was determined to avoid was not.
Chapter 12
Vessa
The day shift was busy. It kept me from thinking about my intimate moments with Ramsey the night before. Since alcohol was involved, I couldn’t be too sure how he was going to react to it all. My luck, he’d stay away and not talk to me for months.
By the time my shift was over, all I wanted to do was lay around with the kids and relax. My hangover was kicking my ass. You can imagine what it was like when my aunt pulled up to switch places with me and one of my kids wasn’t in the car. “Where’s Logan?”
I could tell she was up to something. My aunt and my mother shared several qualities. This was one of them. “He’s with the sheriff.”
I put my hands on my hips and looked over at her. “What are you talking about? Why is he with him? What happened?”
“Just go home and have a nice night, Vessa. Logan is fine, in fact, I assure you he is better than fine.”
I didn’t ask her what she did. I just wanted to get home and see my son. Being on my own for the first time made me nervous. If something bad happened, I was scared that Gavin could take custody of them, whether he wanted them or not. He would do it to spite me.
Asha didn’t say much. She was in the backseat with her headphones on her ears. Not that she would have cared where her brother was, anyway. She looked forward to him being away from her.
When we pulled up at the house, I didn’t see Ramsey’s truck. It made me nervous. I rushed into the kitchen and found his number on the refrigerator. It rang four times and went to voicemail. I tried two more times, before hearing a truck pulling into the driveway.
The frustration of not knowing had already taken over, and by the time that Ramsey stepped out of his truck, I was already at it, screaming. “How could you just take my kid without my permission?”
“It wasn’t a big deal, Vessa. Your aunt knew all about it.”
I don’t care about my aunt. When it comes to my kids, you ask me, not her!”
&nb
sp; He looked over at the passenger side of the truck; I could see that Logan was still buckled in the seat. “Look, the kid had a good day. Can’t you just be happy without blowing this whole thing out of proportion? I was doing you a damn favor.”
“I didn’t ask for a favor! My God, you’ve probably been drinking.” My hands were still on my hips.
“I knew this was a bad idea.” He shook his head and walked away from me.
I could see him getting Logan unhooked. Sure enough, my little guy came running from around the other side of the truck. “Mommy! Mommy, the sheriff took me fishing. We caught lots of big ones. Then he took me to get ice cream, just like dad was going to. Can the sheriff eat dinner with us?”
At the same time, Ramsey and me both yelled, “No!”
My son’s bottom lip came out. “But why not?”
I leaned down to look at him. “Go get all that ice cream washed off of your face. I’ll be inside in a minute.”
Before I could even understand what was happening, Logan ran over to Ramsey and hugged him at the waist. “Thanks for the best day ever. Sorry my mom is being a meanie.” Then he ran into the house.
I threw my hands into the air. “Great! Now I’m the bad guy.”
Ramsey leaned against his truck. He pulled off his hat and ran his hands through his thick hair. “Listen, I think it’s best if I just head home. I get why you’re mad, Vessa, but you need to know that I would never put a child in harms way. I’m pissed that you think I would be drinking.”
I covered my face. “I’m sorry. I know I am overreacting. I just didn’t know and with Gavin being such a bastard, I have to be careful.”
“Look, I was going to suggest that we stop what’s been going on anyway. I told you from the beginning that I wasn’t the kind of guy you wanted to be friends with. It’s obvious that this isn’t going to work. You have problems and I’m not the man that everyone thinks I am. It’s for the best.” Ramsey turned to climb into his truck.
My heart began beating out of my chest. I don’t know what it was, but I began to sob. This wasn’t me playing games with him to get him to open up. This was me desperately trying to not lose whatever I was feeling for this man. I rushed up next to him and put myself between him and the truck. He backed away and held up his hands. “I’m sorry. Don’t be like this, Ramsey. I don’t want you to go.”
Hustle Him (Bank Shot Romance #2) Page 9