by CP Smith
“You’ll get there,” he vowed, still grinning.
“I really don’t think I will.”
“You will when I come back each time I walk out that door.”
“You were shot three days ago,” I reminded him.
“It was four, and I’m standin’ right here, babe.”
“Because you were lucky, James.”
“Because I’m good,” he stated arrogantly. “I got hit with friendly fire when a new recruit freaked out and discharged his weapon prematurely before the firefight even began.”
My eyes rounded and I bit my lip. I’d really hate to be that guy right about now.
“Yeah,” he nodded, reading my thoughts again. “I had my eye on the prize, not lookin’ behind me at men who should have had my fuckin’ back. That won’t happen again because I’m not takin’ on any more new recruits until they’ve proven themselves.”
“But Rutherford County is so small. Do you really have that much crime here that you need a S.W.A.T. team?”
“No, but we’re growin’. Nashville is spillin’ over its borders, so we’ve had an increase of violence over the past few years. It’s only a matter of time before all the departments increase in size. So we were bein’ proactive. We back up Davidson County Sheriff’s Department when they need it, which helps us prepare for the day that Rutherford County doubles in size.”
It was clear James was no small-town deputy. No Barney Fife bumbling around town looking for adventure. He was a badass living on a picturesque farm because he preferred it to the big city.
“How long have you been with S.W.A.T.?”
“Since day one. I applied to the sheriff’s department, right out of college, when I was twenty-one. After two years on the job, I saw how the big city was crowdin’ us and knew we’d need more protection.”
“You graduated in three years?”
His mouth twitched. “Told ya already when I wanted somethin’ I go after it. I was in a hurry to get on with my life, so I studied nonstop.”
Then how did he have time to be a serial dater in college?
Further proof that the gossip about him was nothing but lies.
“So you knew the city was encroaching . . .” I prompted, wanting to hear the rest of his story.
“That’s right, so I convinced the sheriff, who was good friends with my father, that we’d need a S.W.A.T. team eventually what with the city bleedin’ in. He saw my point and eventually agreed, so he got permission for me to train in Nashville for two years before we started recruitin’ here.”
The word overachiever ran through my head. In a few short years he’d accomplished more than most do in their careers.
“So S.W.A.T. is your baby?”
“It’s been my single focus for years,” he agreed, “until you. Now I have new priorities.”
My stomach flipped and I melted into him. Was he really saying that I was more important than his brainchild? “You do?”
“Yeah, I do,” he answered, his voice soft. “Makin’ you mine in every way possible.”
Oh. My. God.
“James.”
He drew me in tighter against his body. “I don’t play games. When I want somethin’ I go after it. So like I said, brace, baby. I never lose. Not when it’s somethin’ I want.”
____________________________
James kissed the velvet skin at the base of Susan’s neck, then pulled the covers over her body slowly to keep from waking her. She’d fallen asleep on his bed from sheer exhaustion, while they waited for the call that would send him out into the morning light. He’d gotten that call five minutes before and he was headed to a remote farmhouse as backup. Pike had lead in apprehending Sullivan, so James and his team would cover the perimeter in case Sullivan made a break for it, or take lead if the situation went south.
He started to leave, then he hesitated. He’d taken the call for S.W.A.T. assistance close to a hundred times in the past few years, and not once had he hesitated to grab his go-bag. But now he had a reason to come home, and it gave him pause.
“Fuck it,” James bit out, then he bent at the waist and ran his hand across her cheek until Susan’s eyes opened. He wasn’t leaving without saying goodbye, and he sure as hell wasn’t leaving without tasting her lips again. “I’m leavin’. Keep the doors locked and don’t answer it unless it’s me.”
Sleep vanished from her eyes instantly. “They know where Sullivan is?” she gasped, sitting up.
He nodded. “Pike sent a car out to the house and says it’s lit up and music is blarin’.”
She turned her head and looked at the clock. “It’s seven a.m. Who plays music that loud at seven a.m.?”
“Assholes who sell drugs and murder good women to keep their mouths shut,” was his reply. “They live in a different world than we do, baby. They sleep all day so they can conduct their business beneath the cover of night.”
Her eyes clouded at the mention of murder, then she reached out and wrapped her petite hand around his neck, squeezing once before saying, “I know you’re a badass S.W.A.T. leader, but please don’t take any risks on my account.”
His chest tightened in response to her touch, the powerful sensation of being exactly where he was supposed to be had him claiming her mouth roughly so he could show her without words what it meant that she cared enough to worry about him.
When he pulled back from her mouth, her eyes were dazed, her lips swollen with the evidence she was his. His lip twitched when she stared back at him as if he’d kissed her senseless, a dreamy look of passion in her eyes, but he grew hard when she mouthed, “BOOM!”
Thank Christ, she finally got it, and felt it too. That indescribable feeling of belonging.
Closing his eyes in relief, James dipped his forehead to hers and whispered, “BOOM!”
____________________________
I’d never been good at waiting. Especially when there was nothing I could do to facilitate an outcome. So I paced, stared out the window looking for James’s truck, and then paced some more. An hour into the waiting, the phone rang on the kitchen wall. I ran to it, hoping it was James calling from the Sheriff’s Department with news, and answered.
“James?”
I was met with silence.
“Hello?
I heard the rustling of clothes, then a dial tone. Sighing, I hung up the phone and stared around the kitchen. I was too keyed up to eat, but I figured James would be hungry when he got home, so I opened the refrigerator and started digging around for something to cook. There was a huge bowl filled with eggs that looked like he’d gathered them himself, and a slab of bacon in butcher’s paper. The man might be single, but he was stocked with food.
I dug around for his skillets and found a cast iron monster that was seared black with age and use. It was heavy, almost requiring two hands to lift it to the stovetop. Then I searched through his drawers looking for a spatula. I found his cooking utensils opposite the stove, on the other side of the kitchen.
“That’s not efficient,” I scoffed and looked for a basket or old Mason jar that could house the utensils. I found a large glass jar, with a chip in it, on the top shelf and transferred everything from the drawer to the jar, setting it next to the stove.
Now what?
The wind kicked up outside, so I moved to the window to watch the trees billow back and forth in the breeze as their leaves broke free and danced on a current to the ground. Then I stared at the gossamer clouds until my eyes hurt, looking for hidden objects, but none appeared.
“I’m gonna go stir-crazy if I don’t find something to occupy my time.”
With a sigh, I moved to his bedroom and made the bed, then picked up his dirty clothes and opened his closet door, looking for a hamper. For an old farmhouse, it had a surprisingly large walk-in closet in the master bedroom.
James’s uniforms were neatly hanging, his shoes and boots lined up in a row on a shoe rack. My hand brushed across the starched shirts, then I leaned in and took a deep breath, pulling in hi
s unique scent. It was just as wild and free as his looks.
I found his hamper and picked it up, accidently kicking a box that was on the floor in the process. Pictures and letters spilled out, so I dropped the hamper and picked up the box to stuff its contents back inside. I started to put it back, but image after image of James looked back at me and I hesitated. I really shouldn’t snoop through his things, but it was hard to resist the opportunity at a glimpse of his past.
“It’s just pictures,” I told myself. “I’m sure he won’t care.”
I moved to the bed and sat, flipping through a few, smiling at images of James with a dog, his arm around a younger version of himself. Brother maybe? I found one with an older couple and smiled. It had to be his parents. The man was tall and solid just like James, a glint in his eyes as he curled the woman in his arms close, one hand on her ass possessively. And the woman, she had her head tipped back looking up at the man like he hung the moon. What made me chuckle was the couple were clearly in their fifties, yet the clinch they were in spoke of intimacy you would expect to see in a younger couple. The image clearly said they were hot for each other in a way that would never fade until the day they died.
As I picked through the images I came across one of James that made my heart stutter. It couldn’t have been more than a few years old based on his looks, but it was devastatingly beautiful. He was standing in a field with his shirt off, a western hat that had seen better days rested in his hand as he scowled somewhat at the camera. He had dirt on his chest, smears on his jeans, his hip cocked out at an angle, and the sun was setting, backlighting him like some sort of god. The image was so haunting it belonged in a magazine. Maybe a cologne ad that stated if you wear this scent, you might be lucky enough to become him for a single, solitary second in your life.
I set aside the box and stared at the picture. A million emotions coiled around my heart as I looked into his guarded eyes, because this man was mine.
“BOOM,” I whispered, because I’d truly, finally, gotten its meaning. It was the shock to your system when the right person waltzed into your life. The overwhelming need to be with them at all cost. A sense of two souls finding each other, of belonging to someone so completely that you didn’t know where one began and the other ended.
Susans look like home, hearth, and family.
I stood and walked into the kitchen to check for his truck again, then grabbed the phone’s receiver off the cradle. I needed to know that James was okay, that he hadn’t been hurt while apprehending Sullivan, because I doubted if he had, they would know to call me here. I put the receiver up to my ear to call the station, but noticed there was no dial tone, so I reached up and flipped the cradle a couple of times. Then I spun in place when the front door splintered off its hinges with a deafening thud, and I screamed.
____________________________
“Don’t fuckin’ move, bitch.”
I thought I’d been scared before, but nothing compared to the terror pouring throughout my body as I stared at a man, who could only be described as my worst nightmare. He was big, with tattoos covering his arms. His long hair stringy, as if he hadn’t bathed in days, and the cold steel of his eyes told me that he wouldn’t hesitate to stab the knife he was holding deep into my body.
“I don’t know anything. Sara didn’t say a thing to me,” I said, my voice quivering.
“Yeah? Well that tells me you do.”
“I swear I don’t know anything, Mr. Sullivan.”
He took a step forward and sneered. “Do NOT mistake me for that shithead, Sullivan.”
I stiffened at his expletive, confused, and then I knew. Oh, God. I knew, I knew, I knew I was in so much trouble. Because if this man wasn’t Sullivan, then James was still out there looking for the wrong man, and he wouldn’t be home anytime soon.
I was on my own.
“Now,” the man who wasn’t Sullivan said, raising his knife to clean underneath his nails, “let’s you and me have a little talk about what that bitch told you.”
“She didn’t tell me anything. Just that she needed to get out of town,” I shouted, backing up to put distance between us.
“If she didn’t tell you anything then you don’t have anything to worry about,” he lied.
I looked around the kitchen for a weapon and saw James’s knife set, but it was too far away. I needed to stall until James could get here, so I figured I’d ask some questions of my own.
“How did you find me?”
The man flinched forward, leering like he was going to rush me and I jumped back and hit the stove. He smiled like he was enjoying himself. “Since it won’t matter in a few minutes, I’ll indulge you,” he stated, and the blood washed from my face. “I’ve been monitoring the police band. Heard plenty last night. Figured out there was another Susan Montgomery in this shithole town, so I kept an eye on the cop since he seemed to know you and he led me to you.”
“So you’re one of Sullivan’s men?”
He leered again. “No. Sullivan was one of my men, but I ended our association after his bitch took off with a trunk full of my product.”
“You were at the diner, weren’t you? You followed her and then killed her.”
I was in so much trouble.
“You’re quick for a woman. Yeah, I watched from outside the diner. Saw her talkin’ to you, but I couldn’t go after both of you, so she and I had a chat when I caught up with her. That’s how I learned your name.”
It hit me then who this was. Detective Pike mentioned Sullivan had an association with a drug dealer in Nashville.
“You’re Rudy Jackson aren’t you?”
His eyes narrowed, changing his face from scary as hell to frightening. “What the fuck did that bitch tell you?” he roared, and then lunged for me.
I reached back to steady my footing as he charged and my hand landed on the stove, right on that huge cast iron skillet. I didn’t know what I was going to do until I did it, but one second he was across the room and the next he was in front of me. And I swung.
____________________________
It took close to an hour to get everyone in place before Pike approached Sullivan’s door and knocked, calling out, “Mr. Sullivan, this is Detective Dan Pike with Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department.” James was positioned several feet behind Pike with the sights of his M-16 set at eye level. He and his team were in full battle rattle, prepared for any situation should Sullivan refuse to come in quietly. Even though the temps had dropped into the low sixties the night before, he had a bead of sweat on his brow as he stood motionless. His eye twitched as he drew in a breath and held it, his trigger finger at the ready to engage any hostiles. As James’s blood pounded in his ears, and his heart rate accelerated a tenth of a degree, Pike cocked his head to the left and leaned down, looking for all the world like he was sniffing the door.
“I smell decomp,” Pike shouted, then stepped back and kicked in the door with no warning.
Pike turned immediately as the odor of human decomposition poured from the house, stinging the eyes of every officer within a twenty-foot radius of the door.
James moved then, his assault rifle swinging back and forth as he scouted the area for any threats. He and Pike cleared the entryway one after the other, their weapons at the ready as they took in the carnage. Three men lay dead in the house from gunshot wounds to the head. And from the amount of decomp visible, they’d been dead days, not hours.
Pike and James looked at each other.
“No way Sullivan killed those two women,” James growled.
“Agreed,” Pike said, “From the looks of it he’s been dead as long as Sara.”
“So where does that leave us?”
Both men looked down at the bloated body of Josh Sullivan, then bit out, “Jackson,” in unison.
Cold fear tore its way through James’s chest and settled like lead in his gut. Grabbing his handheld, he barked out, “Nettie, this is Mayson. Call my house and tell Susan Montgomery I’m o
n my way home, and to lock herself in the root cellar off the kitchen until I get there.”
James was moving as he spoke. His truck was back at the station, so he turned to Pike, who was barking out orders as he followed James, and asked him for his keys.
“I’ll drive,” Pike ordered, and James didn’t argue. Pike knew the roads as well as he did, and felt the same urgency to get to his house.
James ripped open the passenger door just as his handheld crackled to life. “Base to Mayson.”
He closed his eyes when he heard Nettie’s frantic voice. Even Pike heard it and ground out, “Goddammit.”
James slammed his door before answering her so they could get underway. “This is Mayson.”
“She . . . Ms. Montgomery didn’t answer. I’ve tried the number three times.”
Instead of answering, he threw the handheld at the dashboard, thundering, “FUCK! I promised she’d be safe.”
Pike threw the Crown Victoria into drive, the tires squealing as they flew down the road. With cold efficiency, James drew his Colt .45 and checked the safety. “If he’s laid a hand on her he’s leavin’ in a body bag.”
Pike didn’t answer, which was the only confirmation James needed that he understood and accepted that if Jackson was there, and Susan had been harmed, James would put Jackson in the ground.
It took twenty of the hardest fucking minutes of James’s life to get to his house. Pike had called in for backup, but with James across town, they would reach his farm before anyone else.
With Susan’s car parked in the garage, there was no vehicle out front of his home when they pulled to a sliding stop, but the front door was wide open. James bailed out of the car, his long legs eating up the distance within seconds. With gun drawn he entered, swiping from left to right with his sight as he moved through the living room and into to his kitchen, stopping in his tracks at what he found. Rudy Jackson was laying on the floor in a pool of his own blood while Susan stood over his body, his huge-ass, cast iron skillet raised high in her hands, shaking from the weight of it. Her eyes were wild with fear as she stood sentry over Jackson’s prone body, tears falling silently down her face.