I wasn’t too sure, but as I opened my eyes and saw everyone’s attention on me, I felt like I was about to break.
“They’re magically delicious.” I paused. “Fuck!”
Sammy, who’d been staring at Patman like he was about to eviscerate him, finally turned his gaze to me.
And when he saw me staring at him, about to lose it, he seemed to wilt slightly.
I looked away, feeling a tad bit frustrated when I realized that he was looking quite vulnerable in that moment.
“How about you take her into the office,” came that rough, sexy voice that I couldn’t stop dreaming about. “Might make it easier on her.”
Relief flooded through me and I looked over my shoulder at the sexy man that made my heart palpitate.
“That would be great,” Aurora said. “Because then I’ll lose my shit in private.”
Luke jerked his chin in Sammy’s direction.
“Let him go,” he ordered.
Sammy broke free and walked to me, dropping down onto one knee where I was still lying wide-eyed on the floor.
In one smooth motion, he had me up and in his arms, his eyes on mine.
“Are you okay?” he asked, concern dripping from his voice.
The heat of his body felt magnificent against my chilled skin.
“Umm,” I hedged. “My back hurts.”
He cursed.
“Are you okay to tell the chief what happened?” he asked. “Or do I need to take you to the ER?”
I was already shaking my head. “I think I’m okay.”
At least, I felt okay.
My eyes flicked around the room as I tried super hard not to make any direct eye contact with any of the men.
I was shaking, though, and there wasn’t anything I could do about that.
Luke Roberts cursed. “Patman, the office. Keep your cool or you can go pack your fuckin’ locker right now.”
My eyes automatically moved to the man that I’d been avoiding looking at all this time.
Patman stiffened and looked at me with so much hate in his eyes that I ducked my head and tucked it partially into Sammy’s side.
God, he smelled so good.
I swallowed hard when Sammy pulled me even tighter into his arms.
“Let’s go,” I heard Luke say.
Sammy let me go then and urged me closer to him, turning at the same time to guide me out of the room.
“The rest of you, I’m sorry to say this, but tonight is finished. Same time next week,” Luke called out. “Bennett, shut it down.”
Then I was moving in front of everyone to an office that was down the alcove that I’d been working in with Patman, Reggie, and my sister.
Sammy reached forward and pushed open a door, revealing a large breakroom type area.
He led me over to the side of the room and picked me up before placing me on the counter in the corner of the room. Seconds later, he crowded me and practically touched me from knee to ankle as he protectively covered me from everyone else in the room.
The door didn’t even close for a few seconds before Aurora was losing her shit.
“She fucking told him in the very beginning of class that she was pregnant,” Aurora snapped. “Everyone in our group heard.”
I hadn’t said it. Aurora had.
Ashe had come up to Patman a few minutes into our instructions and said a few words, causing Patman’s eyes to move from me to Ashe and back.
Though, the sneer hadn’t slid off his face despite looking at Ashe.
It was as if he had an ‘I hate women’ gene in general.
“I didn’t hear that,” Patman lied.
Aurora turned her glaring gaze toward him and snapped, “Fuck you.”
“Ma’am,” Luke said, directing his words toward my sister.
“He heard it,” Sammy growled, his voice so low that I shivered. “I was watching. Heard it all.”
He had?
Luke turned toward Patman.
“What was your reasoning for that kind of takedown?” Luke asked, his voice deceptively calm.
Patman turned his glare toward me.
“She touched me. Got my arm in a lock,” he said. “It was a reaction.”
I nearly laughed.
My sister, however, did laugh.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Aurora said. “She had you in an armlock, which she was letting you out of. You had a hold on her wrist, which might I add she still has the mark from,” Aurora pointed at my arm. “And you’ve been glaring at us both all night. Let’s not forget what you said about our parents before we’d even started.”
There was a second of silence as everyone digested Aurora’s words.
“What did he say about your parents?” Sammy asked, sounding about as close to irate as you could come without actually hauling back and punching someone.
I licked my lips and went to tell him, but Aurora was there first, explaining exactly what he’d said.
“And he’s been staring at Hastings all evening, with his lip curled up in disgust,” Aurora said, aiming her glare right back at the man that was still sneering at me.
Me.
Not Aurora.
Why me? We both had the same freakin’ parents, and I knew for a fact that Aurora resembled my mother more than I did.
Luke Roberts pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Patman,” he said. “I’m not sure why you felt the need to use this excessive force, on a civilian that was here to learn from you no less, but this is the final straw. You will no longer be working in any form with the Kilgore Police Department.”
Patman laughed. “I don’t work for you, buddy. I work for the academy and Kilgore College.”
Luke looked over at him. “Well, I’ll be making my recommendations to them as well. Hastings, would you like to press charges?”
I immediately shook my head. “No, sir.”
“I suppose you’re going to put this into a book, too?” Patman popped off, cracking his neck from side to side. “You’re going to humiliate me all over again?”
I pinched my brows together in confusion. “I’m sorry, what?”
He laughed. “Oh, you didn’t know that the book you dedicated to your mother a year or so back had everything to do with me?”
I felt my eyes widen a bit.
The ‘book’ that I’d dedicated to my mother had to do with her high school boyfriend. The one that had treated her so badly that it’d sent her into the arms of my father. When I’d learned all that had happened one night when my mother had been drinking a little too much wine, I’d asked her the next day if I could write about it, and she’d agreed.
To know that Patman was the cause of all her pain made me want to claw his eyes out.
“You think it’s okay to play two friends against each other, and you are humiliated that my sister writes about your stupid ass in a book? A book that doesn’t even mention you by name? Get a life. The only person that would be pissed about that kind of thing is a guilty one,” Aurora snapped.
That was true.
Why the anger at what I wrote? I mean, I wrote fiction. I didn’t use his name. My characters weren’t even based out of Texas. They were based in Montana, for Christ’s sake!
“Whatever,” Patman said as he walked toward the door. “Good luck finding someone else that can teach this class.”
The door slammed shut behind him and Luke sighed before turning to me.
“Are you okay?” Luke asked, his eyes now soft as he looked from me to Sammy’s still bristling form, and then back again.
Understanding crossed over Luke’s eyes, and then he sighed.
“Sammy,” Luke said. “Take her to the clinic. Get her checked out. We have to have this on file. And while you’re there, call her parents. Baker would have my balls if he didn’t find out about this when it happened.”
“We’re not calling my parents from the clini
c,” I said. “They don’t know about the baby yet. I… we’re not calling them. I’ll tell him after I get checked out. Call him tomorrow. But not right now.”
Not when I was feeling so freaking disconnected.
I needed to get my head on straight.
I needed to…
“I’ll take her to the clinic,” Sammy promised as he looked at Luke. “In the meantime, you should get a couple of statements from everyone here. While I’m at it, I’m going to try to convince Hastings that she needs to press charges against his stupid ass.”
Luke snorted. “Good luck with that, kid.”
Aurora turned to Sammy. “I drove her here.”
Sammy nodded. “I can take her home. You’re okay to drive?”
Aurora nodded her head. “Perfectly fine. Just pissed.”
Sammy’s lips twitched, causing Aurora to roll her eyes. “I hate people like him.”
Sammy’s smile fell off his lips entirely. “Patman is the worst of the worst. He’s been doing sneaky shit to hurt people for years. When I went through the police academy, he hit me across the forehead with his baton during hand to hand. He, of course, said it was an accident, but I didn’t believe him then, and I don’t believe him today with Hastings. He’s not going to get away with this.”
I imagined not.
The door opened and Luke walked out without saying goodbye to us.
I sighed and hopped off the counter, which put me in close proximity to Sammy.
Which happened to be a good thing because the moment that my feet hit the floor, my left knee started to go out from under me as a sharp pain in my lower back throbbed.
It was a normal feeling, of course. Just bruised or tweaked muscles, nothing a trip to the chiropractor wouldn’t fix.
But still.
It hurt.
And when I kind of stumbled against Sammy, he caught me around the waist and hauled me into his side. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 11
Drink some water, you beautiful and capable dehydrated bitch.
-Sammy to Hastings
Sammy
“I’m staying with you tonight. No arguments whatsoever,” I ordered shortly.
I was seriously hoping that she wouldn’t argue with me. Because I needed to make sure that she was okay.
My heart was still racing at the remembrance of what had happened that night.
The fact that she hadn’t complained about me not leaving her side since the incident had happened was making my heart feel full.
It also made me feel like an asshole, mostly because the fact that she wanted me here made me realize that I hadn’t read her correctly.
Days ago when I’d come over, pissed as hell because she wasn’t answering my phone calls, I’d left thinking it was because she didn’t want me around.
But the fact that I was standing in her living room right now made it more than obvious that she didn’t want me around not because she didn’t want me there, but because she didn’t want to force me to stay.
The clinic in town had been uneventful. Short of going to the ER to get a full workup, something which she was not, under any circumstances, willing to do, my hands were tied. The clinic in town wasn’t equipped to handle a pregnancy. Though they could do a urine test to confirm one, that was about all they were able to do.
Other than giving her a thorough look over, they’d sent her on her way with a recommendation to go to the ER if anything changed.
Hopefully that wasn’t going to happen.
But if it did, I’d be here.
“I’m not going to argue,” she said softly as she walked into her kitchen and filled up a red plastic cup next to the sink with water.
Once it was halfway filled, she turned the sink off and immediately downed the entire contents.
I watched as her throat moved and her hand clenched on the edge of the sink in front of her.
I waited until she was finished before saying, “Can I have some?”
She jumped, startled to find me directly behind her, and nodded her head mutely.
When she went to grab another glass, I halted her progress. “I’ll just use that one, if that’s okay?”
Eyes wide, she nodded her head. Seconds later, she was filling the cup and handing it to me with shaky hands.
She didn’t fill it halfway up for me like she did for herself.
No, it was so filled that she sloshed some over the side in the transfer.
I didn’t mind, bringing my mouth down to the cup instead of the cup up to my face.
Once I drank it down some, I lifted my head and chugged the glass much like she’d done before handing it back to her.
“Thank you,” I said softly.
Her eyes flicked to mine before she took the cup and made herself busy at the sink washing her hands.
I waited until she was done washing them before I said, “I’m an asshole.”
Her shoulders jerked back as she whipped her head around and stared.
“I was pissed off that you’d ignored me for a month. Even more pissed off that despite talking to you and telling you I was interested, you’d blown me off. And now I’m not talking to my sister.” I paused. “When I found out about the baby… I just kind of snapped. There was nothing that you did wrong. And I’m sorry for leaving when I should’ve stayed.”
Her eyes took me in, studying my face before she smiled slightly. “I can’t say that I was in the right frame of mind, either.” I paused. “To tell you the truth, I’ve learned to protect myself.” She grimaced, causing her face to scrunch up in an adorably cute way before she said, “I’ve had three boyfriends.”
I waited, not sure what to say to that.
“All of them have left me. All of them have treated me wrong. And, I guess when I saw you, I thought, I’ll protect myself. I’ll be super careful not to let you close, that way when you inevitably stopped talking to me, it would be on my terms,” she murmured quietly, her eyes downcast.
I touched her on the shoulder, and she jerked slightly.
“I’m not going to hurt you. Ever,” I told her.
She smiled sadly at me. “None of them ever intend to.”
I stiffened and squared my shoulders. “I won’t, Hastings. I’m not going to.” I paused. “When I saw him body slam you from across the room—and trust me, I’d been watching you all fucking night—I nearly lost my shit. That baby that I’ve been trying really hard to not think about all week? The only thing I could think about in that moment in time was the baby. I… I didn’t realize how badly I wanted it. It’s been a fucking week. A week.”
Her smile went up a bit at the corners of her mouth, almost showing her beautifully straight teeth.
“I should probably tell you that I was a productive member of society this week, that I’d totally kicked ass at life, but all I did when I wasn’t working was think about you. Think about the baby. Think about what was going to happen in a few months when it wasn’t just me anymore.” I paused. “I don’t know you. You don’t know me. Hell, it could turn out that you hate my guts and you don’t want anything to do with me once you get to know me, but I want to try. I want to spend time with you. I want to get to know you. And I want to go to all these baby appointments that are coming up. I want to be a part of his or her life.” I swallowed. “And until tonight, I didn’t realize that you were a major part of my future. That when I think about life down the road, you’re always in it with me.”
“I thought you said that you’d tried not to think about the baby,” she said softly.
“Trying being the operative word,” I said. “Trying was something that I did, but never actually accomplished. When I wasn’t kept busy at work, I was thinking about how the hell we were going to raise a kid—how I was going to help you raise a kid. I know nothing about babies. Like I said, every single scenario that I have planned for, you’re in it with me.”
She frowned. “You don’t
even know me, Sammy.”
I nodded. “Which is why I want to get to know you. Why I want to be around. I want you to know me.”
“I’m really sleepy,” she admitted. “I…”
“I am, too,” I confessed. “I got off work and went straight to the strip club. Didn’t even have time to eat.”
Her eyes went soft. “I have some leftovers in the fridge. Aurora and I ordered Chinese food before we went. I think there’s an entire box of chicken fried rice, sweet and sour chicken, and a couple of egg drop soups.”
My eyes must’ve shown my excitement because she laughed and walked to the fridge, pulling out all the boxes she’d just described.
“I had a craving for Chinese,” she admitted. “We got way more than I intended because I couldn’t decide on what I wanted.”
She stuck all three boxes in the microwave and turned them on for three minutes.
“I know that you’re going to be good,” she said. “That you’re not going to hurt me intentionally, but I want you to be really careful. With me.”
I laughed then. “Maybe you should be careful with me right back.”
Her eyes went heated. “I’m pretty sure that you’re beyond needing gentle.”
I dropped the mask that’d been in place since I’d realized that I almost lost it earlier.
“I lied earlier,” I said.
Her brows rose as her frown grew fierce. “About what?”
“I told you I got off work and went there. I didn’t have any intention of going there until I realized that you were there,” I said. “I saw your car in the parking lot and every single piece of tiredness left my bones. I wanted to be in that room so badly with you that I couldn’t see straight.”
Her hand pressed against her throat.
“I followed you on your run yesterday,” I said. “You didn’t see me. But I was about a half mile back the entire time. I’d already run eight miles that morning. When I saw you leaving, I followed you outside even though I knew that I’d have to get back home and shower all before I had to be at work not too long after I got home. But I followed you anyway.”
She chuckled then, making my heart kick.
God, the sound was like music to my ears.
“I even fucking switched my shifts around with a buddy so I could see you more… or see your car, anyway. I’m a fuckin’ loser for you already. So when I say you need to be gentle with me, I mean it. I’m halfway gone, and have been since you said ‘pew, pew, pew’ in Walgreens while a gunman had his shotgun aimed in our direction,” I admitted.
Say It Ain't So (SWAT Generation 2.0 Book 9) Page 10