Lee laughed, and Jo found herself looking at the man’s legs. Legs that obviously didn’t work for walking on.
“Someone has to,” Lee said, chuckling.
“I refuse to drive that thing,” Consuela said as she brought their refreshments.
“Did you think I drove it all the way out from Oregon?” Gill asked Jo.
“I didn’t even think about it.” She was slightly disappointed the hog wasn’t his.
Gill twisted the top off one of the beers and handed it to her.
“Gill told me you’re training this week,” Lee said to Jo.
“I am.”
“Thinking of joining the Feds?”
She shook her head. “Nothing like that.”
“Jo’s the sheriff of River Bend, Oregon.”
Lee swept her again with his stare. “Young for a sheriff.”
“It’s a small town.” Jo felt she should just as soon have that tattooed on her forehead for all the times she’d said that during this trip.
“Jo’s father was the sheriff before his death.”
Lee lost some of the grin he’d been wearing since they arrived. The man was attractive enough, with what looked to be a burn scar on the left side of his face that covered a quarter of his cheek and half of his jaw. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s been ten years, it’s okay.”
Lee stared at her now. “So your father passed, and you stepped in.”
Gill placed a hand on her knee and kept it there. Unlike when they were surrounded by those at Quantico, he didn’t hold back the fact they were more than just acquaintances around his friends.
“You could say that.”
“Did you know you were going to be a cop?” Lee asked.
Jo glanced at Gill before answering. “No. It wasn’t on my bucket list.”
Lee nodded a few times before turning his attention to Gill. “Interesting.”
There was some kind of nonverbal communication going on between the men, but Jo wasn’t clued in to what it was.
“How do you two know each other?” Jo asked, trying to get the conversation off of her.
“One of those biker fundraisers put on to raise money for kids at Christmas,” Lee said.
Gill laughed. “Lee had this badass wheelchair with a Harley plate. I knew we had to meet.”
“Gill?” Consuela called from the kitchen, her hand on a tray. “Can you put this on the grill? Five minutes each side, no more.”
Gill patted Jo’s knee and pushed off the couch. “Anything for you.”
Once Gill walked out the back door, Lee continued as if Jo hadn’t changed the subject. “Let me guess, your father would have wanted you to take over for him.”
“Nothing would have made him happier.” Jo pulled on her beer.
“But not you, I’m taking it.”
She tried to deny it. “It hasn’t been that bad.”
“Or that good.”
She moved to protest, shrugged her shoulders instead.
“You know what happens when you live your life for other people, Jo?”
Jo couldn’t think of an answer, so she remained silent.
“You end up in some godforsaken sand trap, an M-14 strapped to your back, while your buddy steps on a bomb. There aren’t enough pieces to pick up of your friend, and you end up spending the next six months on your back in some deathtrap hospital, knowing you’ll never walk again. But you were the lucky one. You made it out alive.” Lee revealed what sounded like the CliffsNotes version of how he ended up in his chair without venom, just straight facts.
“What branch of the service were you in?”
“Army. Dad joined right after high school. Met my mom somewhere after he’d worked his way up the ranks to private first class. By the time I was in the picture he was a sergeant dragging us from one base to another. Like most army brats, I wanted nothing to do with it.”
“You enlisted anyway.”
Lee nodded, drank from his beer. “Tried to avoid it. Went to college for two years, hated it. Floated around for another year trying to figure out life. Finally I conceded to the old man. Wanted him to think I was doing something good with my life. Little did he know that all hell was about to break out in the Middle East and my boots were some of the first to hit the ground.”
Jo looked at his chair. “This happened over there?”
“Yeah. Six months before my term was up. All because I was trying to make someone else happy.”
Jo saw Gill’s back through the sliding glass door at the back of the house. She knew then why he had brought her to visit Lee and his wife.
“What do you think of Jo?” Gill asked his friend.
Consuela and Jo were sitting by the fire pit in the backyard while Lee smoked his cigarette a distance away.
“Looking for my approval?”
Gill leaned forward on his knees, kept his voice low. “We haven’t known each other long.”
“Considering you haven’t spoke of her, I assumed as much.”
Gill glanced her way, enjoyed the way the flames from the fire danced over her face. “She’s too good for such a small town.”
“She doesn’t seem to want anything to do with her job.”
Gill wasn’t convinced. “I thought so, too, then I saw her in action during this training. She’s good at what she does. I just don’t think she’s doing it in the right place.”
Lee pulled in a drag from his smoke. “It’s hard to stop chasing ghosts once you start. While she might be good at what she’s doing, it doesn’t mean she should be doing it.”
“I thought you would say as much. Once she puts some closure to her father’s death, I think she’ll move on.”
Lee narrowed his eyes. “What’s up with that?”
Gill explained Jo’s theory and added that he wasn’t convinced the death was accidental either. “I need to see the files, scope out where they found him.”
“Open a cold case?”
“The case is completely closed. But for Jo, it’s open every day of her life. And it’s strangling her.”
Lee crushed out his cigarette. “For someone who just met this lady, you seem to know a awful lot about her.”
Gill felt Jo’s eyes on him. “Not nearly enough.”
Chapter Ten
The syndicator counted down, Jo’s heart stayed steady until the red light indicated that the simulation was live. Her weapon out in front, her eyes wide open . . . she waited.
The first person she saw on the left side of the room was a civilian walking from an on-screen grocery store. A noise behind her brought her attention to the image of a car. Behind it, a man held a gun to the head of a hostage. The gunman shouted at the camera, which was meant to simulate a real-life situation, but Jo couldn’t talk the man down. This simulation was about gut instinct for when to shoot and when to hold back.
The victim in the image cried and attempted to lean away from the gun pressed to her temple.
The gunman suddenly looked to a place beyond where Jo stood, his attention diverted.
She refused to look behind her.
A split second later the gunman turned that gun toward her and the victim managed to move a half a foot away.
Jo took the shot.
The pretend gunman went down.
Only then did she look behind her.
The fictitious grocery store had several people running from it, all of them screaming.
Jo forced her heartbeat to quiet and she waited.
Gill stood beside Shauna as they watched Jo in the simulator.
“She’s good,” Shauna said, her arms crossed over her chest.
“I wonder if she knows how good she is?”
Jo grazed a bad guy, and took him out on a second shot. “I don’t think she’s ever tested herself until now. Fear is a great motivator to hone your skills,” Shauna muttered.
Gill glanced at his partner. “Fear of what? She makes River Bend sound like a TV sitcom from the fifties.”
“Don’t mess with kids.”
“Yeah.” Shauna’s gaze narrowed. “Then last fall.”
“What happened last fall?”
“She was convinced someone was stalking her.”
Gill stood completely still, his arms chilled.
“Stalking?”
“Watching her. We all have that sixth sense when someone is looking at us, but it sounded a lot more sinister than that. At least how she described it to me. And since Jo doesn’t scare easy, I’m guessing she was right.”
Gill moved his eyes to the woman in the room once again. “Nothing came of it?”
“I gave her a few tips about changing her routine, came down shortly after her call. She told me the eyes in the dark stopped after the holidays. Stressful few months for her.”
Gill didn’t like to think of someone watching her for that long. For any amount of time. “You think that’s why she’s here?”
Jo fired off several rounds inside the simulator, hitting three out of the five gunmen on the screen. She rolled on the floor to avoid the laser fire that would indicate she’d been shot.
From the ground, she managed to bring down the remaining bad guys.
When she did, the lights in the simulator went on, and Jo laid her head on the ground, her body heaving with deep breaths, her gun lax in her fingertips.
Several agents watching, and many of Jo’s classmates, met her success with applause.
Gill felt a strange sense of pride at her accomplishment.
Jo pushed herself off the floor, shook the hand of her instructor. Gill didn’t hear the conversation but knew Agent Gutierrez was giving equal amounts of praise and instruction. When she turned away, Gutierrez patted her on the back as she exited the room.
Later, when the final test had been taken and the last weeklong student was done, Gill kicked back with Shauna, Jo, and a much larger group of law enforcement from around the country in the same bar where he’d demonstrated his dart skills.
Unlike when they’d been there earlier in the week, the bar was packed. It helped that it was Friday, and the celebration was also the long good-bye to those who would most likely never see each other again. A band set up on the tiny stage, a small space in front of it would give some room for dancing.
Gill wondered if Jo danced.
A waitress in a tight mini walked by, a tray of shots in her hand. She stopped at the circle of people who joined Jo.
The noise level was too high to hear the exact words, but from the body language, it appeared that one of Jo’s classmates challenged her. All Gill saw was Jo waving a hand at the other person before she reached for a shot.
A cheer went up when she poured it back and set the empty on the tray before picking up another.
Laughter erupted by the time the third shots were downed.
Her partner quit, and she grabbed a bottle of water that sat on a table beside her.
Someone moved beside him, distracted him. “Looks like someone has your attention.”
Shauna nudged his arm.
He did a double take to find her wearing a halter top, one that showed cleavage. And while he knew she had that, he’d never noticed before. Her hair was down, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she wore more makeup than he’d ever seen on her face.
“What the . . .”
She stood back, did a little spin.
Along with the skimpy top were skintight jeans. Apparently Shauna’s divorce was helping her remember she was a woman again.
“Someone is on the hunt,” he said without censure.
“You can’t be the only one hooking up.”
“Who says—”
Shauna stopped him with a look that reminded him of his mother, the one where she extracted a confession about the missing cookies with only a stare.
“That’s what I thought,” she said.
The band started to play a few notes, making conversation even harder in the crowded bar.
Once the music started, several couples moved onto the dance floor.
Gill moved toward Jo without thinking. He paused, looked over his shoulder. “You need backup, just holler.” His eyes swept Shauna again before he winked.
“Go.” She pushed him away. “You’re cramping my style.”
Gill knew he was too big a man for people to ignore. Several gave him room as he made his way toward Jo. When the people closest to her parted, her eyes lifted to meet his.
“Agent Clausen.”
She was tipsy, he could see that from the rose color in her cheeks to the shine in her eyes.
“Sheriff.”
“Little Miss Mayberry knocked it out of the park today, eh, Clausen?”
“She sure did.”
If Jo was offended by the title she’d been given, she didn’t show it.
Someone to her left started to ask something, but Gill ignored them and reached for Jo’s hand. “How about a dance?”
One of the women on her right did a low whistle, and someone pushed her from behind.
Jo smiled. “Since you asked so nicely.”
Catcalls followed them as they walked away from the crowd.
The music was fast, but the dance floor was small, so he was able to keep a hand on her while they found the beat of the music.
She moved to the music and placed her hands on a part of her body that made him salivate. This was the Jo he’d met in DC. The one who didn’t hold back. He couldn’t help but wonder just how loose she would be if given half a chance.
The music changed and they kept dancing. By the third song, he pulled her off the dance floor and over to the bar.
“Not bad moves for a guy as big as you.” Jo’s half compliment had him grinning.
He leaned close and spoke in her hear. “I think you gave at least three guys out there a hard-on.”
She turned around to see who he spoke of.
Gill twisted her back his way and handed her a beer. He put a possessive hand on the small of her back and led her away from those clamoring for drinks.
There wasn’t a quiet corner, just one with a little less crazy going on so they could talk.
He lifted his bottle to hers. “To a successful week.”
She clicked hers to his and drank.
“Are you glad you stuck around?” he asked.
Jo shifted on her feet. “I am. I learned a lot, even if I won’t use any of it.”
“We all hope we never have to use it.”
“I guess.”
“When does your flight leave tomorrow?”
“Eleven. Had to give myself time to drive into DC.”
He wasn’t leaving until Sunday. Having given himself an extra night to see Lee and Consuela.
“I’ll be back in Eugene on Monday.”
She sucked on her lower lip before drinking.
It was his turn to shift in order to make more room in his jeans.
He lifted his hand, palm up, her way.
“What?” she asked, looking at it.
“Your cell phone.”
When she didn’t move to get it, he reached around, let his fingers linger on her ass before he lifted the slim device from her back pocket.
He was surprised to see there wasn’t a lock screen. Then again, she did live in Mayberry and carried a gun. He couldn’t imagine anyone jacking the information in her phone.
Gill put his number in, along with his name, before returning it to her pocket.
Jo leaned forward, her lips close to his ear. “Was it good for you?”
He laughed, and instead of letting her back away, he held her hip and pulled her against the length of his leg and the heat of the erection she was provoking.
The playful grin on her face slid, and her nose flared.
Awww
hell. He’d wanted to wait . . . wait for them both to be away from Virginia, away from the place of temporary and back in their home state. But her blatant stare, the way she pressed into him . . . the smoldering huff of her breath cracked his resolve.
Gill set his beer down, took hers from her hand, and dropped it beside his before using both of his hands on her hips to guide her out a back door of the bar.
Once they broke free of the noise, he pulled her around the side of the building and pressed her against the bricks. His lips were on hers with the same heat and passion they’d shared that first night.
Only this time, it was so much better.
Her hands were on his chest, his hips, his ass. All the while Gill explored every inch of her mouth until they were both breathless and panting.
He broke away. “Not here.”
“My hotel,” she said.
Gill kissed her, briefly, and pulled her toward his ride.
Unlike the previous times on the bike, this ride proved erotic. Jo didn’t rest her hands on his waist to hold on, she let them linger lower, her fingers stroking him through his jeans. He pushed through a few stop signs and broke a few speed laws as he drove the short distance to her hotel. Once there, he followed her until she stopped at a door and fished out a key from the wallet she kept in her back pocket.
Gill let her get through the door, let it shut before he reached for her. “C’mere, sweetness.”
Jo moaned in his embrace as she clawed at his clothing.
He pinched her breast through her shirt, felt her knees give just enough to know she liked it. Then he lifted her in his arms and walked the short steps to her bed.
He followed her down, her legs wrapped around him like a snake holding on to a limb of a tree. The way her hips moved to his, even fully clothed, pushed his limits. “You’re the most passionate woman I’ve ever known,” he told her as he ravished her neck and the top of her breast.
“I need practice,” she said, her hands moving to the fly of his jeans.
He saw stars when her hand reached for his bare flesh. “I’m in trouble.”
She laughed, lifted one leg over his, and used a move he’d taught her to have him on his back.
“Big trouble,” he repeated.
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