by Ranae Rose
Jackson knew damn well that the situation had to be chafing at the lieutenant too, but she barely let it show.
“Is he back on the job?” he asked.
“He would’ve been suspended and subjected to an investigation, but with no charges, that’s not an option. His wife didn’t have any obvious marks or wounds when she made her statement yesterday, so there was no physical evidence for us to document.”
Jackson bit his tongue before an obscenity could roll out. “Lieutenant, he beat the mother of his newborn child. Imagine what he might do to a stranger who pissed him off.”
If Sanders had ever been fit to wear a badge, that person was gone now. Personally, Jackson didn’t believe Sanders had ever been cut out for law enforcement. There were those who said the stresses of the job changed people over the years – drove officers to behaviors they never would’ve fallen into otherwise.
It was bullshit. You either had the capacity to be as shitty as Sanders or you didn’t. It was a matter of nature, and if it was there, it’d come out eventually, no matter what you did for a living.
“There’s no excuse,” he said.
Lieutenant Aldred’s jaw tensed. “I know that, but the department’s hands are tied. If his wife refuses to admit that anything happened, then nothing happened as far as the law is concerned.”
He knew that. He knew it, and it grated.
His nod was a stiff jerk of the head, one that left him with an ache in the back of his neck.
The lieutenant dismissed him and he started his shift with the knowledge that everything he’d done the day before had been undone, reduced to nothing in the eyes of the law.
* * * * *
“God, Belle, I can’t believe you aren’t freaked out!” Mariah sat up straight on Belle’s couch, arms crossed over her chest.
Belle stared back at her best friend, the woman who’d stuck with her through thick and thin since the fourth grade. They’d visited each other occasionally during Belle’s years away from the island, and when she’d moved back four months ago, it’d been as if they’d never been apart.
“I’m twenty-seven years old,” she said with a shrug. “It’s not like I’ve never seen a dildo before.”
She’d never seen one so large or so green, but that was irrelevant.
“It’d take more than a toy penis to scare me.”
Mariah rolled her eyes. “I know it wasn’t your first encounter with a sex toy.”
Belle’s smiled as she recalled the party she and Mariah had attended together at the house of one of Mariah’s co-workers a couple months ago. It’d been similar to a kitchenware party, only instead of kitchen goods, everyone had oohed and ahhed over sex toys. Thinking back to some of Mariah’s remarks, she wanted to laugh, but her friend’s deadly-serious expression warned her not to.
“That’s not the point,” Mariah continued, tucking a strand of honey-brown hair behind her ear. “Breaking into a place just to leave a dildo behind is the kind of thing a real creep would do. A stalker, or something.”
“You’ve been watching those true crime documentaries on the ID Channel again, haven’t you?”
Mariah’s gaze didn’t waver. “Always. And trust me, you should be watching your back. Who knows what the freak who broke into your office might be plotting next?”
Belle shook her head. “It’s not like someone broke into my house. They didn’t even break into my office. They left the surprise on the table in the waiting area near the reception desk. It was probably just a prank – we are an admissions office, and we do have to turn people down.”
Mariah’s face was flushed pink, and her sea-green eyes glittered. “Belle, so help me God, I will not let you become a documentary special. If you didn’t trust me, we wouldn’t have been friends for the past seventeen years. You need to listen to me when I say you need to be careful.”
“If I carry pepper spray in my purse, will that satisfy you?”
“You’re not already doing that?”
“No.”
“Do you have any sense of self-preservation? What would you do if someone attacked you?”
“Run, I guess.”
“I had gym class with you when we were kids, remember? I know you’re not going to outrun anyone under the age of seventy.”
“I’m probably not going to be attacked by anyone, either.” Belle caught the look in Mariah’s eye and experienced a pang of guilt. “But I’ll get some pepper spray to carry. Better safe than sorry.”
Mariah’s posture was still rigid, but her expression softened a little. “I’m surprised the cop who wrote the report didn’t warn you to be extra careful. He should’ve known better.”
The cop had probably had much more pressing matters on his mind than a mystery dildo, but Belle didn’t say that out loud. “If he’d thought we were in any danger, I’m sure he would’ve said something.”
Mariah shook her head. “He was probably a rookie. Either that or just lazy. You should talk to someone who’s been doing the job for a while. They’d back me up, and they could probably tell you how to stay safe.”
Belle bit her lip to keep from laughing. “So you think I should find an experienced cop, pull them aside and explain that I need advice because a dildo turned up at my place of work and we don’t know where it came from?”
Mariah gave Belle a longsuffering look. “Anything sounds ridiculous if you say it in that tone of voice. But basically, yeah.”
Jackson came to mind, and Belle had to bite her lip even harder to keep from laughing out loud.
“What’s so funny?” Mariah crossed her arms a little tighter.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing my ass – you’re practically turning purple.”
Belle sighed. “I ran into Jackson Calder the other day, and he’s a cop now. I was imagining what it’d be like to take your advice and ask him to weigh in on this.”
“You saw Jackson?”
Belle nodded.
Mariah’s eyes went wide. “And he’s a cop? Wow, that’s unexpected.”
Belle admitted that much was true. “He’s an officer with the island PD.”
“Were you two on a date or something?”
“No. Why would you think that?”
“Because you were obsessed with him.”
“I was not. And that was years ago, anyway.”
Mariah shrugged. Her eyes still glittered, but the worry there had been replaced with interest.
Belle wished she hadn’t said anything about Jackson. Mariah watched way too much TV and would probably expect their reunion to play out like a romantic drama, much as she expected the incident at the college to be the work of a deranged criminal destined for documentary fame.
“You never forget your first,” Mariah said, confirming Belle’s fears, “and don’t think I didn’t notice someone gave you flowers.” She nodded toward the kitchen, where Jackson’s bouquet of lilies brightened the table.
Belle decided to come clean. Quick and easy, like ripping off a Band-Aid. Then they could move on to other subjects.
“He pulled me over for speeding. That’s how I found out he’s a cop. Later, he came by with those flowers as an apology. Nothing else happened.”
She barely managed not to roll her eyes, even though her stomach was fluttering.
“Wait – did he write you a ticket?”
“Yep.”
Mariah snorted. “Wow.”
“I know.”
“Still…” Mariah uncrossed her arms and tipped her head to the side. “You should sleep with him.”
“What?” Surprise arrowed through Belle, quickly followed by a sense of betrayal. Mariah, of all people, should’ve understood that she wasn’t about to casually sleep with anyone.
“He was always smoking hot. I bet he looks great in uniform.”
Belle’s heart skipped a beat. “So what? Good looking guys are a dime a dozen.”
Actually, guys as good looking as Jackson were about as rare as polar
bears in the desert, but admitting that wouldn’t help Belle’s case or soothe her hurt feelings. She and Mariah were different, no doubt about it, but she’d told Mariah everything when she’d come back to the island – every soul-crushing detail.
Mariah shrugged. “You deserve a little fun, after what you’ve been through. And you’ve already been with him, so you know it’d be good. Seems ideal to me.”
“Casual sex isn’t my idea of fun.”
Mariah arched a brow. “Not even with a hot cop like Jackson? You were into him for years. Don’t you think it’d be fun to sleep with him again now that you’re more experienced? I bet it’d be even better than before.”
“Especially not with Jackson. If I slept with him and things went bad after that, my only good memories with a guy would be ruined.”
“So you’re going to avoid the only guy who’s ever made you happy just so he can’t have the chance to mess up?” Mariah’s brow rose even higher.
Belle bit her lip. “No, not necessarily. But before I sleep with anyone, I want to be sure they’re worth taking the risk on – that it means something to them.”
Mariah dropped her gaze. “Right – I can see that.”
Belle fidgeted in her seat, shifting to an even less comfortable position on the couch cushion. She hated talking about her last relationship. Any feelings she’d had for her ex-fiancé were long dead, but it seemed as if the embarrassment would never die.
Sometimes, when she closed her eyes at night, she remembered the sting of calling her parents and telling them the wedding was off. It’d been the single most humiliating conversation of her life – even worse than the one where she’d confronted her unfaithful fiancé.
Kyle. Belle had dated him for over a year back in Atlanta. She’d also agreed when he’d asked her to marry him, only to later find out that he’d been screwing other women regularly throughout their entire relationship. When she’d confronted him he hadn’t seemed sorry, only annoyed that she’d found out.
She’d been a joke to him, and she’d taken it so seriously. Meanwhile, he’d been getting casual on a regular basis.
How could she have been so blind?
“I know you hate talking about it,” Mariah said.
“Wouldn’t you?” Bell’s reply came out sharper than she’d meant it to.
Mariah blinked. “Well, yeah—”
Remorse started to creep in, and Belle shook her head. “Never mind. Sorry I snapped.”
“It’s okay. I’d have my panties in a bunch too if I was being stalked.” Mariah grinned.
“Right – the big green dildo is to blame for my bitchiness.” Belle couldn’t help grinning back.
“Seriously though, you’re right – you’ve been messed around with too much. I don’t blame you for not wanting anything casual.”
Belle nodded. “I think He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named soured me on casual, probably for life.”
Mariah agreed, though neither of them spoke his name – they had a standing agreement not to.
“You dodged a bullet anyway,” Mariah said. “Who wants to be married to a product developer? I don’t even know what that means, but it makes me think of pastel shirts and dorky ties. Give me a hot man in uniform any day.”
Belle smiled despite herself. She had dodged a bullet. As humiliating and hurtful as breaking off her engagement with Kyle had been, marrying him and finding out afterward would’ve been a thousand times worse.
“Jackson is hot,” she admitted, “but we never had anything more than sex, and casual just isn’t for me anymore.”
“You were friends, too. And how do you know his feelings for you are casual?”
Belle shrugged. “We had sex twice in one night. That was it. Not exactly a foundation for the kind of love that lasts a lifetime.”
“Yeah, but only because you waited until the day before you had to head back to school for the fall semester to get together with him. You did that on purpose, so you could disappear the next day. You never gave him a chance to be serious about you.”
“It’s not like I planned it – it just happened. I’d liked him for so long, and I felt like such a pariah, still being a virgin at twenty-one. I didn’t want to graduate from college and start my adult life with no experience, so even if Jackson and I couldn’t keep seeing each other, I was glad it happened.”
“If all you wanted was to have sex, you could’ve waited. You could’ve waited just one more day and had your pick of all the guys on campus.”
Belle wrinkled her nose at the thought of grabbing a random frat boy and having sex with him just for the sake of it.
“You wanted it to be Jackson.”
She nodded. “Even though we couldn’t date… I knew I could trust him, and who wouldn’t want to sleep with him?”
Though he was even hotter now, Jackson had been gorgeous at twenty-three.
“He might’ve wanted more than just a night with you then – you just couldn’t stick around to find out. But you’re back now, and you’re both more settled. You two could give things a chance.”
Mariah’s gaze drifted past Belle to the kitchen, where the flowers were on display, evidence of Jackson’s presence. “He showed up at your door with flowers after writing you a speeding ticket. That took some balls. Seems pretty obvious to me that he wants more than what you gave him years ago.”
Belle sat still and silent, lost in thought. The idea of calling Jackson, getting together with him and seeing where it might lead was supremely appealing.
At the same time, the thought made her heart slam against her ribs, sparking a twinge that reminded her of what it felt like to have it broken.
The same twinge she’d felt when she’d left the island the day after she’d left a piece of herself with Jackson.
CHAPTER 6
Belle indulged in an afternoon out with Mariah on Saturday. After brunch at a new restaurant on the island, they crossed the bridge to Charleston and did some shopping. Unlike Mariah, who’d come away from the trip with several new outfits, Belle had only bought one thing: a decorative clock to hang in her kitchen.
The trip had been more about fun than necessity anyway, so as she crossed the bridge from Charleston back to South Island, she didn’t feel as if she’d wasted the morning.
“Don’t speed,” Mariah said. “Or do, if you want an excuse to run into your favorite officer again.”
“Please, I can’t afford another speeding ticket, let alone more points on my license. My insurance rate would probably double.” It was true, but her traitorous heart flip-flopped at the thought of rolling down her window so Jackson could look her in the eye.
“Right. Have you called him yet?”
“No…”
She hadn’t done it, but she could hardly go a minute without thinking about it.
She couldn’t help the way her gaze gravitated to the side of the road, where Jackson had hidden his cruiser just past where the bridge met solid ground. If he was there, she’d be able to see his vehicle as she drove by.
Belle was wearing sunglasses, so hopefully Mariah wouldn’t be able to tell if she stared.
“Ooh,” Mariah sighed.
Belle braced herself for teasing as Mariah leaned forward in her seat.
“Oh, shit.” Mariah’s seatbelt strained across her chest, and her head blocked Belle’s view of the right side of the road.
Belle’s stomach lurched as she realized that Mariah’s tone wasn’t teasing.
“What?” she demanded.
But she didn’t need Mariah to fill her in – the cause of her distress was apparent.
There was a police cruiser parked at an angle on the shoulder, and it wasn’t alone. A pick-up truck sat just feet from it, its headlights shattered and its grille massively dented. The cruiser was in much worse shape, its entire front end crumpled. Auto glass and bits of colored plastic were scattered over the asphalt like glittering confetti, and as Belle stared, a tow truck rolled onto the side of the road and stopped.<
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There was no officer, no civilian driver and no ambulance or first responders. It looked as if the truck had hit the police car and the crash victims had already been removed.
“Do you think that’s Jackson’s car?” Belle asked. It was a stupid question, of course – Mariah would have no idea. But the words had just tumbled out, leaving a sour taste in her mouth.
“Maybe not,” Mariah said. “It’s not like he works every shift, or even every day.”
But he was working day shift, and the cruiser was parked in his hiding spot. Belle’s stomach clenched, and there was no sign of the butterflies that’d been flitting around there just seconds ago. Now, thinking of him brought a wave of fear, quickly chased by regret.
The idea of something happening to him scared her, the fear penetrating a deeper place in her heart than she’d realized she’d given him.
“Hey,” Mariah said, touching Belle’s arm. “Do you want to pull over somewhere so I can drive?”
Belle shook her head. “No, we’ll be at my place in a few minutes. Besides, I’m fine.”
“You’re white as a ghost,” Mariah said, “and that’s okay. Even if there’s nothing going on between you now, you and Jackson were friends.”
Belle nodded, accepting Mariah’s tact. When they reached her apartment, Mariah announced somewhat flamboyantly that she was going to use the restroom.
Alone in her kitchen, Belle eyed the bouquet Jackson had brought her. He’d written his phone number on the card tucked among the lilies on a plastic prong.
She was done waffling over whether to call him.
What if he’d been in the car and had been hurt? What if, God forbid, he’d been in a fatal accident? He was a cop, after all. It was a daily possibility.
Her imagination ran wild, and although she knew she was dwelling on the most dramatic scenarios possible, she also knew they’d haunt her until she knew that he was all right.
Shoving aside her pride and doubts, she plucked the card from the bouquet and got out her phone.
After dialing, she cradled the phone against her ear, her heart in her throat. Visions of crumpled metal and crushed glass filled her mouth with a sour taste, and she couldn’t wait to rectify her ignorance surrounding the wreck by the bridge.