Paul was a good guy. But Hank was my soul mate.
He tugged the dress up higher, his hands searching for and finding my delicate little slip of silk underwear, his eagerness ripping them before I could say anything. They were a relic from my past, anyway.
“You don’t need panties,” he whispered hoarsely against my ear.
“No?”
“They’re just an impediment.”
I nodded, biting back a groan as his fingers moved between my thighs. He pressed the heel of his hand against my swollen clit and slipped those lovely, thick, callused fingers against delicate tissues that loved the roughness and ate up the slow strokes. It felt so good that I couldn’t even utter a sound that would have given justice to it. But I tried, arching my back and moving my hands against him encouragingly. He pressed his face against my chest and watched his hand move, glancing up at me from time to time.
“How do you…?”
He smiled. “I love watching you. I love knowing how much you enjoy my touch.”
“Oh, I do,” I sighed.
He nibbled at my throat some more, but I hardly felt it. My whole nervous system was too far gone, too lost in what his fingers were doing inside of me. I could feel an orgasm rushing to its peak, could feel the tension in my muscles, could feel the expectation that was such a basic thing—an instinct—that I couldn’t have stopped him in that moment if I’d wanted to. But who would want to stop something that perfect and that amazing?
I stiffened, my back slamming against the steering wheel. I think the horn might have sounded, but I wasn’t completely sure. All I knew was that my body was on fire with more pleasure than I’d ever felt in my entire life, and Hank’s arm was around me, pulling me into his chest, his fingers buried in my hair so he could watch my orgasm dance over my face.
“You’re so unfair,” I whispered as the orgasm passed, and I collapsed against his chest.
“How’s that?” he asked, amusement in his voice.
“I was angry with you. But I can’t possibly stay angry after that.”
“Why were you angry with me?”
I closed my eyes, Sutherland’s voice playing in the back of my mind.
He’s a good man. He would do anything for the people who matter most to him. It’s just difficult to get through his walls. After watching his father commit suicide, it broke him. Even Mitchell, my husband, the most patient person in the world, had to work for months to get through to him. Be patient. It will be worth it.
“You lied to me about your dad.”
He was quiet for a moment, his hands tugging my dress back into place. I wanted to see his face, but I was afraid to look. He sighed.
“What difference would it have been if I told you that the disappointment of losing the family ranch didn’t just drive him to the bottle, but put a gun in his hand one dark night?”
“You were there?”
“I was supposed to be in bed, but I was sneaking out to meet some friends. We were going to a bar, sneaking in with newly made fake IDs. He was in the car. When he saw me, he told me to go back into the apartment. I refused. He took one look at me and said, ‘maybe this is a lesson I should have taught you long ago.’ When it was over and the cops came, they found a life insurance policy laid out under his leg. He’d gotten himself insured for fifty thousand dollars, thinking the money would take care of Momma for a few years. What he didn’t do, what he should have done, was read the fine print. They don’t pay out on suicide.”
“Hank…”
“He died for nothing.”
I ran my hands over his head, smoothing back his hair. “I’m sorry, baby…”
He buried his face against my shoulder. I held him for a long time, running my hands over his skull and his shoulders, just letting him process this horrible thing that happened to him so long ago. It pulled into focus my own stupidity and selfishness. My parents might not have been the people I wanted them to be, but they weren’t all that bad, either. My dad always remembered my birthday, always brought me a gift no matter how late he was at work. If he was out of town, he always managed to make it home on my birthday no matter what was going on. And my mom… well, she was a piece of work, but she always tucked me in at night until I turned twelve and told her I was too old for that sort of thing.
My parents loved me. I should have enough respect for that to go home and say my goodbyes.
“Take me home,” I whispered against the top of his head.
He pulled back and studied my face for a long moment. But before he could say anything, someone tapped on the glass of his side window.
“Miss Frakes?”
One of my students was standing there, curiosity written all over his face. Even better: one of his friends was behind him with a phone held up in front of him, making it clear he was recording this moment.
Great. Now I was about to be a new YouTube star!
Hank lifted me off his lap and climbed out of the car, snatching the phone from the kid.
“You better get home before someone tells your parents you’re sneaking out in the middle of the night.”
“My mom knows where I am,” my student, Drake Simpson, said.
“Good,” Hank said. “Then she won’t be surprised when we show up on your front door in fifteen minutes to make sure.”
The color drained from Drake’s face, and he took off running, dragging his friend behind him even though the boy was still crying about his phone.
Hank winked at me when he got back into the car.
“I’ve got you.”
I laughed because it just seemed insane. Everything about this night was absolutely insane. I kissed his cheek and sat back in the seat, screaming at the top of my lungs as we pulled out of the parking lot.
My life was out of control, and it was the most fun I’d ever had.
Chapter 15
Hank
The security footage was proving to be tedious and ineffective. I was excited when Kirkland first told me he’d gotten it set up, but I’d been sitting here for several hours, watching these kids go about their normal day and feeling like I was back in high school myself. I was ready to quit just like I had back then.
“Everything okay?” Sutherland asked as she set a glass of sweet tea on the table beside me.
“Going slow, but I’m hoping something will pop out at me eventually.”
“Is this better than actually being at the school?”
“Sort of. The kids don’t know I’m watching, so they’re not as careful with what they say. And they aren’t busy making up stories to get my attention.”
“That’s good.”
I shrugged. “I guess. But I haven’t seen or heard anything new yet.”
“You will.”
She walked over to her desk. I turned in my chair to watch her, watching as she pulled out some file folders from a drawer in her desk.
“What you said to Jonnie last night—”
“I’m sorry if I overstepped. I was just trying to calm her down.”
“No. I appreciate it. You helped.”
She smiled. “Good. After all you’ve done for me and Elizabeth, it was the least I could do.”
“I haven’t done that much.”
“Just being here you’ve done so much more than I could ever tell you.” She opened a folder. “Elizabeth loves you.”
“It’s mutual.”
I turned back to the screen I’d been staring at. “Did you tell her about your run-in with Bodhi Archer last night?”
She didn’t answer right away, forcing me to turn back around. She was blushing. Sutherland never blushed.
“What?”
“He was… he’s a charmer.”
“He’s an actor. Aren’t they all professional charmers?”
She shrugged. “He told Jonnie that she was the second most beautiful girl in the room and if you didn’t come back, she was welcome to call him. He gave her a rose and told her that women like her deserved to be treated
like queens.”
“He is a charmer,” I said, a touch of jealousy burning in my chest.
“And then he looked at me, and we had this moment. Ge reminded me a little of Mitchell. And that accent…” She sighed like Cassidy often did while discussing the same man. “I can see what people find appealing about him.”
I turned back to the screen. “Didn’t think you were that easy.”
“I’m not easy,” she said, tossing a balled-up piece of paper at me. “I just like to have a good-looking man flirt with me. Is that so bad?”
“No. Just… weird. You’re like my little sister. I don’t want to think about you flirting with some guy.”
She laughed, but it was one of those laughs that was more thoughtful than amused.
Silence fell between us. I found my mind began to wander. I was about to call it a day, my phone in my hand to call Jonnie and find out what she wanted to do for dinner tonight, when something on the screen caught my eye. It might have just been a trick of the light, but… no, it was really there.
One of these kids had a Taser in his back pocket.
What the hell was he doing with a Taser at school?
I pushed away from the desk and walked out without saying a word to Sutherland. I could feel her eyes on me as I left, but I didn’t feel like I had the time to explain it to her.
“Jonnie?” I barked into the phone.
“Hey, babe. I’m still at school. I had a meeting with a parent, but she never showed. I’m on my way out now.”
“Jonnie, is—”
There was a little scream on the other end of the phone.
“Jonnie?”
Nothing. The sounds of a scuffle and of people struggling. And then the phone went dead.
I ran to the barn, jumping into my Jeep before I even had the keys out of my pocket. The entire drive into town, I kept seeing Jonnie lying in the parking lot, bleeding and broken. I drove as quickly as I could, blaring my horn as I rushed around other cars, slow moving cars that wouldn’t get the fuck out of my way. I could hear sirens while I was still a few miles out. By the time I reached the school, there were cops and an ambulance already there.
An ambulance.
I rushed across the parking lot to the back of the ambulance. She was on a gurney, her skin almost as pale as the sheets pulled up to her chin. She reached out her hand to me, but the attendant pushed me back.
“You have to let us take care of her.”
“Is she okay? What happened?”
The man just shrugged, turning his attention to her and away from me. A cop was standing nearby, and he called out to me.
“Aren’t you the Gray Wolf guy?”
“Yeah.”
I couldn’t take my eyes from the ambulance, the memory of the ambulance that took my father away too clear in my mind.
“You have any suspects yet?”
“No, he doesn’t!”
I tore my eyes away from the ambulance as they slammed the back doors and began to move slowly through the crowd. I turned to find myself face to face with the president of the school board, Mr. Michaels.
“If you’d solved this damn case, no one would be attacking our teachers.”
“I’m close to an answer.”
“Tell that to Miss Frakes.”
That was hitting below the belt, but the man wasn’t observant enough to notice.
“You go home and tell Ms. Knight that Gray Wolf is no longer a part of this investigation. I probably could have found the culprits faster than you by this point.”
“Go to hell.”
Mr. Michaels’ eyes widened. “What did you say?”
I ignored him in favor of turning back to the cop. “What happened here?”
“Miss Frakes was attacked by two men. My colleagues are inside checking the security footage right now. That’s why I asked—Gray Wolf added their own cameras to the existing ones?”
I pulled out my cellphone and brought up the app Kirkland had placed on it, accessing the footage from the outside cameras. The cop came around and watched over my shoulder as the attack played itself out. We could see Jonnie coming out of the building with her cellphone stuck to the side of her head. An instant later, two young men with ski masks over their faces came out from behind some hedges and attacked her, pushing her to the ground and beating her around her chest and belly, saying something close to her face. Then they turned and ran, disappearing out of range of the cameras.
I played it a second and third time, trying to see something that would tell me who they were. At that moment, there was nothing that would have stopped me from going after them myself, tracking them down and doing the same damn thing to them, only I wouldn’t have had anything to say.
“When did you put up more cameras?” Michaels demanded. “You can’t just be taking video of our students without our knowledge. There are laws against that.”
I didn’t even acknowledge him. What was the point?
“I’m going to the hospital.”
The cop handed me a card. “If you learn anything new…”
“Of course.”
I had enough sense of mind to call the office to let Kirkland know about the shit storm that was about to come down on his head. Sutherland answered, and I barely got out the words, “Jonnie’s been attacked,” before she interrupted.
“We’ll meet you at the hospital.”
I wasn’t her husband. I wasn’t even sure I could call her my girlfriend. And I definitely couldn’t lie and say she was my sister. They wouldn’t give me any information because we weren’t related.
Fucking bureaucrats.
I was still trying to convince the charge nurse to tell me if she was alive or not when Sutherland walked in with Kirkland close behind her.
“Allison,” Sutherland said, holding out her hand to the nurse. “I haven’t seen you since your youngest was born.”
The woman smiled brightly. “We really appreciated that new crib, Ms. Knight.”
“Any time, any time.” She slipped her arm through mine. “And I know you remember my assistant foreman. His girlfriend was in an unfortunate accident today, and I’m sure you understand how desperate he is to find out how she’s doing.”
The woman shot me an irritated glance, but then she turned to the computer.
“Only for you, Ms. Knight.” She tapped on the keyboard for a moment. “She’s in trauma bay three. Right through there.”
I didn’t stop for niceties. I rushed through the doors and tore along the narrow corridor to the room with the three poking out from the wall. It was a small hospital. There were only three rooms. Why they designated them trauma rooms…
She was sitting up on the bed, an ice pack against her wrist. She looked up, and her eyes filled with tears.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not sure what I was sorry about. Being late? Not being there at all? I don’t know, but I was so incredibly sorry.
I pulled her close to me and cradled her head against my chest much the way she’d cradled mine the night before. She began to cry, silent sobs vibrating throughout her body. I just held her, running my hands slowly up and down the length of her back.
“You must be the boyfriend,” a woman said as she came over to the bed, a chart in her hands. “She’s been asking for you since she arrived.”
“That would be me.”
“Well, she was quite lucky. She’s got a couple of bruised ribs and a sprained wrist, but she’s going to be okay.”
I nodded. Relief took the edge off, but she was still sobbing against my chest, so it was kind of hard to accept that she was going to be completely okay. the doctor handed me some paperwork and turned toward the door.
“The nurse will be in soon to wrap her wrist.”
Jonnie pulled back after she heard the door close.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I wiped the tears from her face. “You’re okay. That’s all that matters.”
“I shouldn’t have been there
. I should have been on my way home.”
“You had a meeting.”
“The woman never showed up. I knew she probably wouldn’t. I should have left sooner.”
“You’re fine, babe. This isn’t your fault.”
“It is,” she said softly, her eyes refusing to meet mine. “I should have—”
The nurse chose that moment to come into the room. She shooed me out of the way while she carefully—but still managed to make Jonnie wince—wrapped her wrist. I watched, feeling useless and helpless as she wrapped her swollen, bruised joint.
“You’ll want to keep the bandage on it for a week. Try to limit your movements. The doctor has ordered pain pills for your ribs. Those will be sore for a couple of weeks, but you’ll only want to take the pills for a couple of days.”
I don’t think either of us really listened to her. She helped Jonnie slide her arm into a sling, then gestured for us to go. Jonnie was shaky on her feet. She clung to my arm, but managed to stay upright as we made our way through the narrow corridor back to the waiting room where I’d begun.
Sutherland came over instantly and hugged Jonnie, whispering words of encouragement in her ears. Kirkland gestured for me to follow him a few feet down the hallway.
“I spoke to Michaels. Then I spoke to the mayor. We have another week to solve this thing before they go with an agency out of Casper.”
“Okay.”
“If you don’t feel up to it—”
“I’m good.”
“You’re sure?”
He clapped his hand on my shoulder even before I nodded.
“Sutherland has a lot of faith in you, Hank. I can see why.”
I didn’t respond. I just wanted to get Jonnie home. I just wanted to know that she was really okay.
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