How About No

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  Really, what Peterson and Watson had done was harass the shit out of her, and if Bayou hadn’t happened to be out in the parking lot waiting for me to go to lunch with him, he might not have heard what was going on and been able to intervene.

  The woman looked goddamn scared, to be honest.

  I didn’t like when women looked scared.

  Hell, Bayou had been utterly pissed.

  If I hadn’t come out when I had, Bayou would’ve likely slammed his fist into both of their throats.

  The chief sighed. “I understand, but to be honest, half the men in this department can’t pass that test. It’s an impossible feat for an everyday officer. We’re not all Navy SEALS.” I nearly rolled my eyes at that.

  He would say that.

  Especially considering he was one of the ones that couldn’t pass it.

  Lucky for him, people on desk duty no longer had to pass physicals. They implemented that requirement after he’d already passed his physical before he became the chief.

  They only had to pass the psychological tests once every six months.

  “Listen,” I said. “Until that changes, I have no choice but to follow the rules.”

  The chief sighed. “Which brings us back around to what I really needed to talk to you about. You’re officially on desk duty until your leg is healed. I know you wanted to come back, but since you yourself couldn’t run the course, we’re no longer able to keep you on patrol.”

  I felt my stomach bottom out. Being on desk duty was the worst form of torture. But, I’d also heard it from my sergeant the day before, so it wasn’t that much of a shock.

  I’d be relegated to desk duty at the front desk, and I’d have to actually talk to the public who came into the department with their petty little complaints. I don’t actually hate doing it, but I so wanted to be back doing the job that I loved.

  “I can pass the test,” I pointed out.

  And I could.

  Despite my leg being in pain, I could—and did—pass the test.

  “I know that you ran it this morning to prove a point to the other officers,” the chief sighed. “But you haven’t been cleared by the doctor, and as per department policy, you have to have that to be cleared for active duty.”

  I growled low in my throat. “I can do the job.”

  I needed to do the job.

  Having to deal with petty crime reports would literally kill me.

  “That may be true,” my chief agreed, sounding tired. “But until you’re back on your feet officially, and have a release from a doctor, you’re on desk duty. You’re also on vacation for the next two weeks. Go home.”

  Knowing when I wasn’t going to get what I wanted, I stood. “Fine. But don’t expect me to be nice to these people that come in here thinking that they’re gonna play tattle on Tommy, their neighbor who let their dog shit on their lawn.”

  With that, I left the chief’s office and went out to my truck, annoyed all over again that my officers were a bunch of pussies.

  I knew when I signed up to be the sergeant of all these little twits that it was going to be tough. I just didn’t realize how tough.

  God, they were the whiniest bunch of grown men I’d ever had to deal with.

  To make matters worse, I was supposed to return to work in two days before meeting with the chief. Now I have two more weeks before I can return.

  It’d been a week since Hoax had called to tell us that Landry’s place—the one that we’d built when we were three months into our marriage—had burned to the ground.

  And during that time, we hadn’t made any progress in finding out who did it. At this point, we were leaning toward a gaggle of teenagers that’d been caught setting fires to mailboxes a few streets down from our home.

  But, after listening to their confessions, I couldn’t see them doing it.

  They were scared and adamant that they hadn’t been on that street.

  Of course, if I’d heard that the house burned down after I had set the mailbox on fire, I would’ve denied it, too.

  My gut, however, told me that there was something more going on than I was aware of, and I planned to find it out what it was.

  Starting now, seeing as I was still on medical leave, I would have plenty of time to do whatever the fuck I wanted.

  But first…I wanted to go see Landry.

  Stopping by her favorite place to eat, I grabbed two street tacos and a basket of fries for her along with five street tacos and a basket of fries for me, and then headed to the daycare.

  When I pulled up outside and shut the bike off, I marveled at how good it felt to be able to stop by here with lunch again. Hell, this used to be something I did almost daily seeing as I almost always got an hour for lunch, so why not spend that hour with her since she had to eat, too?

  We’d take our lunches to the park bench across the street from the daycare, and we’d watch all the ducks swim and fish jump while we spoke about nothing and everything.

  The wailing scream of an infant as the door to the daycare opened dragged me from my thoughts, and I stiffly got off my bike.

  My leg—although not worse—certainly wasn’t completely healed. But, it seemed the antibiotics were working since the infection had stopped spreading according to the doctor, so at least that was something.

  He guesstimated that it would be about four more weeks until there was no more persistent pain, and about six weeks until I could return to light exercise.

  “Hey, man.” I turned to find Bayou waving.

  I gave him a wave back, but he didn’t stop and neither did I, both of us on our own missions.

  He was dressed for work—he was the warden at a medium-security prison just outside of town—and looked like he was in a hurry.

  Snatching up the food bags from my saddlebags, I waved to the woman who was obviously taking her sick kid home—the vomit on the kid’s shirt was a dead giveaway—and headed inside.

  I found my wayward woman in the kitchen washing her hands. Her sad, brown paper-bagged lunch sat on the counter next to a bottle of half-finished water.

  She looked tired today.

  Although that was probably because I’d kept her up late doing things to her that I hadn’t been able to do in quite a long time…such as rolling over and lifting her leg in the middle of the night and taking her.

  “Hey,” I called out softly.

  Landry’s head snapped up, and a wide smile filled her face. “Hey! What are you doing here?”

  I sighed as I remembered exactly why I was there. “My chief said that I was taking my bad mood out on all the officers under my command and that I needed to take another two weeks mandatory medical leave to get my head on straight so that I was in the right frame of mind before I came back to work for desk duty.”

  She snickered. “Oh, I bet you just loved hearing that.”

  I rolled my eyes and gestured to the bag with a tilt of my chin. “You have time to eat some lunch with me?”

  Landry grabbed her lunch and stuck it in the fridge with what looked like the kids’ afternoon snacks.

  “Anything is better than a boring ol’ sandwich,” she teased.

  I snorted. “I’ve been telling you that for years now.”

  She shrugged and batted her eyelashes at me. “Let me go tell Mindy I’m taking my lunch.”

  Landry dashed down the hall and I stopped at the office, placing our food on the desk while I searched for a cord to plug my phone in while we were eating.

  My hand hit the mouse, and I glanced at the computer.

  Facebook was pulled up, and Landry’s Old Dogs New Tricks Rescue page was up, and the browser tab was blinking indicating she’d gotten a new message or notification.

  Landry found me digging through her drawers.

  “It’s plugged into the wall by the filing cabinet,” she said, gesturing toward the corner.

  I saw the cord and went for it while saying, “You g
ot a message.”

  I felt her move behind me, her ass brushing mine as I bent over and reached for the cord on the ground.

  Grinning, I plugged my phone in and placed it on the cabinet before turning around.

  My eyes went to Landry’s angry face, and I stilled.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked as I got a good look at her face.

  Landry’s eyes flicked up to me, and she threw her arms up in the air and gestured at the computer, a disgusted look on her face. “When I first found out about Capo, there was this other chick who wanted him as well. Unfortunately, my qualifications and accommodations, as well as experience with working with abused animals, made me better qualified to take the dog. The woman was pissed, and she hasn’t stopped harassing me on Facebook since. I’ve blocked her twice, but she just makes a new profile with a different email address and bam, the harassment starts all over again. Since my dog rescue page is public, anyone can message me. But it’s getting to the point where I’m running out of options, and I don’t know what else to do.”

  I moved to where I could see the screen and read the messages, feeling my shoulders get tighter and tighter at the venom in the woman’s words.

  “Why is she so mad?” I asked in confusion, setting the phone back down on the counter.

  “She’s mad because apparently her son, who was in the military and is now wheelchair-bound due to the injuries he sustained, wanted the dog. That’s all I have,” she explained.

  “Huh,” I paused. “What was the first name she talked to you under?”

  Landry did some clicking and then maneuvered herself into her list of blocked people. It was quite a hefty list.

  “Are these all her?” I questioned.

  “Yep,” she said. “If they come to my other box, I normally just block them straight away. But this time she was smart and started in with a short story about her dog that she wanted to see about getting hospice care for. Once she had my attention, she switched to ranting about what an awful person I was for stealing a dog away from a veteran.”

  “This was the first name she messaged me from.” Landry pointed to a name.

  I crossed back to my phone and shot a quick text to a buddy who was good with finding shit on people and then touched the top of Landry’s ear. “Let’s go eat, baby. We’ll worry about this later, okay?”

  She sighed and stood up. “Sure. I hope you got me extra sauce. You know I like it hot.”

  The look I gave her caused her cheeks to flush.

  I bared my teeth. “I know you like it hot, darlin’.”

  She pinched my ass as we walked out of the front door but stopped to talk to the lady manning the counter. She was new, and I’d never met her before.

  “We’ll be back, Tammy.”

  We were halfway through lunch when I got my first hit on the name that Landry had given me.

  Unfortunately, since my phone was still charging in Landry’s office, I didn’t realize that I had something until I was already halfway home because a second call came through.

  What I learned from that phone call had been very, very disturbing.

  Chapter 14

  Why are iPhone chargers not called ‘Apple Juice?’

  -Landry’s secret thoughts

  Landry

  I glared at the man who was currently sitting his ass in my car as I was on the verge of leaving for work.

  “Wade, get out!” I growled in frustration.

  “I’m going with you,” he replied stubbornly. “There’s no argument here. I still own half the daycare, so there’s no reason in hell that I can’t be there with you. And I get bored. Seriously, please take pity on me.”

  Then he rolled his lip over and gave me those sad, pouty-faced eyes, and I melted.

  “Fine,” I growled. “But you have to do the same thing there that you would have to do at home. No walking around. No heavy lifting. No nothing. You sit in the chair and be good.”

  Wade rolled his eyes but nonetheless agreed with a sigh.

  “You promise?” I pushed.

  He held up three fingers and said, “Scout’s Honor.”

  We were halfway to the daycare—at five-thirty-five in the morning to allow me to open by six—when I took a detour for a bag of donut holes.

  “You want something?” I asked, getting out of the car before he could say a word.

  He opened the door and got out, too, and I frowned.

  “Wade, what the hell is going on?” I asked. “I’ve done this a million times before. I don’t need you to—”

  He cut me off with a kiss.

  “Wade,” I said when he finally pulled back. “Tell me what the hell is going on.”

  He looked down into my eyes and sighed. “Get your donuts, baby. Make sure you get me a kolache with sausage.”

  He watched me walk away, and honestly, I was surprised he’d even done that.

  I hadn’t been able to walk through the house without him following me over the last twelve hours.

  Yesterday, before he’d left, he’d been acting normal. When he came back half an hour later with Capo in his cage and sat in his truck in the parking lot for the next three hours, I realized that something was wrong.

  I didn’t realize how wrong until he followed me to his home that I supposed I could call my own home now. Then he followed me through the house and had acted so freakin’ weird that I’d almost snapped.

  Luckily, we’d gone to bed early, and I let it go thinking he was just having an off day.

  It wasn’t until I was inside the donut shop and waiting for the kolache to heat up that I realized the reason he hadn’t come into the donut store. There was no way that anybody would be hiding in here. It was all one big open room. You could see the donuts being made, fried and glazed. There were three employees total standing in various spots around the large room.

  It was lit up like the Fourth of July, and the large plate glass windows made light spill out into the parking lot.

  There wasn’t a single freakin’ thing that he couldn’t see.

  Sighing, I smiled at Jamal who gave me my donuts. “Have a good day, Landry. I packed an extra sausage kolache in there for the ex. I’m glad to see him with you again.”

  I blushed. “Thank you, Jamal. Have a wonderful day, too.”

  When we were back out in the car and I was pulling out of the parking lot, I turned my head slightly and regarded Wade.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” I ordered again.

  Wade remained silent for a little too long, and I turned my head facing forward.

  “You’re a mule-headed, stubborn ass who drives me insane,” I growled. “I swear to God, this is one thing that I don’t miss from us being married—your need to protect me from something while not sharing whatever that something was with me. Do you remember what happened when you tried to do that last time?”

  My husband started to chuckle. That chuckle quickly died off his face when we arrived at the daycare and saw how dark it was outside.

  “What’s up with the lighting?” he asked, sounding suspicious.

  “The last storm we had fried ‘em,” I explained. “I keep meaning to get them replaced, but since the sun’s like ten minutes away, and we don’t open for another twenty, it hasn’t bothered me enough to make me actually remember to make the call.”

  “I don’t like you opening this place up in the dark,” he growled.

  I rolled my eyes heavenward, praying for patience.

  “Wade, seriously. I swear to God,” I growled. “Tell me what’s going on!”

  He grunted and got out of the truck, rounding the hood to come to my side and help me out.

  I rolled my eyes and took his hand.

  “I’m going to have to leave around mid-morning to run to the house and let Capo out before my therapy appointment,” he said as he walked us to the door. Once there, he unlocked it with keys from his own pocket and easily input the alarm code
before flicking on the lights. From that point he left me where I stood to go check out the various rooms, clearing them of anything bad.

  It wasn’t until he came back and gave me a funny look that I frowned.

  “What?”

  “The lights are out in the back play area, too?”

  I nodded. “They are. The electrician said it was most likely that they were all on the same breaker. He offered to fix it…for a lot of money. I wasn’t going to use ten grand to replace lights when I don’t actually have that much readily available.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “He gave you a price of ten grand?”

  I nodded. “He did.”

  He growled. “Who did you use?”

  After telling him, I went about getting the rooms ready for the day and then made my way to the front largest room where all the early arrivals would hang out until the teachers started to arrive at eight.

  For the first two hours of the day, they were all mine, and that was why I started to stuff my face full of my donuts so I didn’t have to share.

  All the while Wade watched me.

  “If you’re going to stare at me like I’m in danger, you need to tell me why,” I pushed. “Because all it’s really doing is pissing me off.”

  His lips twitched. “I know how to smooth down your hackles, darlin’.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  He did, but that wasn’t the point now, was it?

  “I’ll tell you…after I have more information.” He paused. “After the incident happened last year…was anything said?”

  The ‘incident’ he was referring to was nearly a tragedy.

  The definition of a tragedy is an event that has caused great suffering.

  And that was the perfect word to describe that hellish day last year.

  It’d been the one and only time since we’d divorced that I’d wished that I could have slept in Wade’s arms.

  That morning, I’d come to work as per my usual. One of my first babies that arrived—or should have arrived—didn’t show. Her sister did, though. At the same time, I’d had a new mother who was dropping off her three-year-old triplets that were starting that day, so I hadn’t thought to question why the sister had arrived, but the baby sister hadn’t. Automatically assuming that she was sick, I’d gone about my business until about two o’clock when the dad came to pick the babies up.