Daddy Undercover (Crescent Cove Book 9)

by Taryn Quinn

  I had to smile. “When did you get so wise?”

  “Let me pull some tarot cards.”

  “Ugh, Lu, I don’t need help from the universe.”

  “No, you need help from your right hand to break the tension, but I know you have spiritual misgivings about that.”

  I had to laugh. “I certainly don’t. I just don’t think much about sex.”

  Until recently. I could not make the same claim at this point. But that was all Brooks’ fault too.

  He was basically responsible for everything up to and including the change of seasons. It had been warm yesterday, so I’d set out a cute swingy skirt and shoulderless top to wear today, only to wake up to an inch of snow.

  If it hadn’t been for our fight yesterday, I would’ve checked the weather before choosing my outfit. But I had not. Which was why my kneecaps were knocking together in my too-short skirt.

  Bright side? I was mixing ingredients so fast that soon I’d be overheated.

  “Well, you need to tell me your secret, because it’s on my mind before breakfast and basically all through the day. But the effectiveness of the early morning bang can’t be disputed. Just sets your day off on the right note, ya know?”

  “How long has it been since you’ve had one?”

  “Longer than I’ve had my beat-up leather bomber jacket. I still have a memory though, thank you very much. And I have no qualms against self-service when it comes to gas—or my own pleasure palace.”

  I snorted. “Will pulling cards make you stop talking about diddling yourself?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Then pull.”

  I continued stirring while she made all kinds of humming sounds. “This is very interesting. I did a basic past, present, future reading. Past was three of swords. Heartbreak. Did he do something serious? More than the usual male failure to communicate like a fully-functioning human?”

  “You could say that. But he didn’t do it to me. Exactly. It just…was done. And I’ve been hurt over it, and then yesterday he told me her name rhymed with mine.” I gasped. “Ugh, you did not just hear that.”

  “Hear what?”

  I sagged against the side of the stove. “He’s messing with me, Lu. I want to become a lesbian or join a convent. Maybe a convent of lesbians.”

  “I don’t want to make it worse. I know there are best friend privacy laws—I have basically a vow of secrets will be kept close to the vest or death becomes her with mine—but that sounds really bad. If it’s anything close to what I’m thinking, he’s a royal prick.”

  “Is he? Am I being completely ridiculous? We aren’t together. We’ve never been together. Probably never—”

  “Uh uh. Don’t finish that out. These cards for you say otherwise.”

  I gripped my spoon hard enough to crack the wood. “Yeah?”

  “Present is wheel of fortune. Big changes are coming or have come, and there’s no stopping them.”

  I sighed. “I can verify they’ve come.”

  “But you haven’t and I guarantee that’s a quarter of your problem with him. Maybe as much as a third. This much sexual tension for this long isn’t healthy for anyone, Regina. It clouds the mind and muddles the thinking. Once you get some of it out of your system, you’ll both stop acting so, well, batshit.”

  “I disagree.” I banged down my mixing bowl on the counter. “I’m already all screwed up over him, and I haven’t even seen his dick, just felt it a few times.”

  “Oh, now this is a story I’ve missed. Do tell. Is the gun in his holster the only one that’s fully armed or what?”

  Shaking my head, I sighed again. “Trust me, he’s packing in all ways. And since you have a perverted mind, no, it wasn’t anything salacious. Just you watch enough movies with a guy on the couch, sometimes you bump into things.”

  She screeched loudly enough to pop my eardrum. I winced and held the phone away from my head and still had no problem hearing her.

  “You guys are snuggling when you’re watching movies? How haven’t you done it yet?”

  “We aren’t about that. We’ve always snuggled while we watch movies. Is that weird?”

  “As weird as him sleeping with someone whose name rhymes with yours. At least that was what I got out of your ramble. Apologies if I’m off base.”

  In for a penny, in for a pound. He deserved it. Probably.

  I’d still feel guilty by dinnertime, guaranteed.

  “He slept with her and made a baby with her. Which is basically the hugest secret ever, and you can’t tell anyone—not even your bestie Ryan—because no one on this planet knows yet but me and Trina.”

  I wasn’t someone who hated people on the regular, especially someone I’d never even met. But I would have in her case even without any other mitigating factors due to the whole baby-in-a-basket deal. That was the cruelest thing I could imagine.

  “Oh, Gina, I’m so sorry.” Luna’s quiet empathy had me sinking to the cold floor, as if my legs just couldn’t hold me up anymore.

  “Remind me we aren’t anything to each other, would you?”

  “Honey, you know that isn’t true. It’s never been true, or you wouldn’t be so hurt right now.”

  “What’s been just in my head and heart doesn’t count.”

  “You don’t really believe that.”

  “I can’t, especially after this week. I’ve been over there every spare hour when I haven’t been at the diner, helping with the baby. She’s so cute, Lu. She smiles like him. It kills me a little bit every time, but it makes me happy too. I don’t mind that she’s here. I just wish—”

  “That she was yours.”

  I sniffled. She didn’t know about me either. My mom was the only one. That knowledge was just one more knife in the ribs. I didn’t feel the edge of the blade most of the time unless I took a deep breath.

  Or unless my best friend discovered he had a gorgeous little girl who smelled like powder and had the softest hair I’d ever touched.

  “I was handling it. Not that well, granted. But I was taking it one day at a time. But people are starting to notice how much time I’m over there, and he kept putting off telling everyone about Samantha, and then Caleb Beck asked me to look at some Christmas lights.”

  “You said yes. You better have said yes.”

  “I did. Just as friends.”

  “Even so, you can’t just wait around like the sheriff is an incoming bus. He’s never on time. Never gets the schedule or the destination right. And you’re worth so much more than being someone’s convenience if he’s too stupid to grasp what he could’ve had.”

  I sniffled again. I wasn’t crying, but man, my nose didn’t know it. “You just told me to get banging him out of my system.”

  “Nope. Suggestion rescinded. I don’t think he deserves your pent-up sex drive now.”

  I grinned and leaned my head against the stove. “I don’t think it’s on the agenda anyway. I told him yesterday we need to rethink our arrangement.”

  “You mean the one where you play his nanny and the baby’s nursemaid while he gets to glower at any guy who looks sideways at you?”

  “He doesn’t do that.” Exactly.

  “You think not? Remember when I was at the diner last month?”

  “Yeah, you and Ryan stopped in before you went to Kinleigh’s.”

  “There was a new guy at the next table. You bent over to pick up something off the floor, and the dude was checking you out. Can’t blame him. You have a nice butt.”

  “Thanks. But what about Brooks?” And yes, I was well aware that question did not prove I was off the obsessed-with-the-sheriff cranberry sauce.

  I was allowed to wallow in my needs for a while longer. At least until I had to leave for my parents’ house.

  I glanced at the rooster clock on the wall. That time was not long from now. Eeep. I had to get off the phone soon.

  “When you went back to the kitchen, he said something to the dude. He got up and hiked up his pants
as if he was walking over to a car he’d pulled over for speeding, and then he leaned down and got in the guy’s face. The dude held up his hands palms out, as if to apologize.”

  “How dare he?”

  “He dared. Big time. That guy didn’t look at you again, even when you were taking his order.”

  “I mean, staring at my ass wasn’t polite.”

  “He was hot. He could’ve been that impolite to me.”

  “Lu.”

  “I’m just saying. No, it wasn’t necessarily polite. Jared was not amused. He might not have the balls to man up and say he wants you, but he damn sure isn’t prepared to let anyone else take their shot.” She coughed. “You may want to tell Caleb to look into the witness protection program.”

  I shouldn’t have laughed. Really, it was wrong. But I wasn’t much better than Jared. Women tended to fawn over him since he was objectively attractive, carried a weapon, and held a position of authority in this town.

  He was also built in a superior fashion. Ultimately superior.

  Whenever someone commented about his hotness to me, I usually glared at them or flounced off—or sometimes both. If I’d been more physically imposing, I couldn’t have promised not to say a few choice words to some of the pushier types.

  I had no right. No right to be hurt over Trina. But I was a very flawed human who hadn’t had sex in so long that other than the thongs Jared had stolen, my granny panties were my sexy panties, since what was the point?

  A few of my friends had suggested crazy early Black Friday shopping tomorrow. I wasn’t currently occupied with worrying about Brooks’ work schedule—enormous guilt over that aside—and I didn’t have to go in to the diner until midmorning, so maybe I’d rectify that whole panty situation. Maybe I’d even buy some to wear for my not-a-date. I deserved string bikini underwear, even if Caleb didn’t have a chance in Hades of seeing it on me.

  “I should tell you your future card. It may play into the whole Brooks situation. Or your date with Caleb, before he’s found without his eyeballs at the bottom of Crescent Lake.”

  “That’s not funny.” It was also absurd. Brooks would never kill someone in such a messy fashion. He was far too aware of evidence trails.

  Which was neither here nor there.

  “Explain this card to me then. You got the devil. Which means you’re probably going to be getting it on with someone very soon, and it’s going to be a life-changing, probably can’t walk the next morning kind of experience. Only problem is the whole thing is fraught with angst.” She coughed. “So, want to warn Caleb or should I?”

  “You don’t even know him, do you? You’re still fairly new to working in town. Though gotta say, I think you need to move here already. Stop stalling looking for the perfect place, and make the jump.”

  “Look who’s talking about jumping. You have BDE right now. Be careful, girl.”

  “BDE?” I frowned. “How can I have big dick energy as a chick?”

  “Not big dick. Big devil energy. All kinds of hormones and wild, unpredictable energies are at play right now. Be careful of where you step next.”

  I stretched out my legs to admire my lace-up heels. If I was likely to freeze to death today, at least I’d look cute.

  “I’d say Brooks should be careful. I’m wearing stilettos.”

  A few minutes later, I said a hurried goodbye to Luna and finished up with my crustless pumpkin pie before sliding it into the oven. Brooks hated pumpkin pie with a passion. He looked forward to my pecan pie all year. The one I deliberately did not make for him.

  Petty, who me?

  I was late to realizing that my crustless pie had to chill for six hours before serving and did not look too pretty in the meantime. I stuck it in my cold bag just the same, hoping I’d find room to stick it in my parents’ fridge. Even as I rushed out the door with it in my hands, I knew that was a joke. I also knew not one member of my very large family would probably touch the thing.

  The look on Brooks’ face would be worth it.

  All the way to my family’s house on the opposite side of Crescent Cove, my phone blew up with text messages. They were all variations of the same.

  You are way late, sister. You’re in trouble.

  Where are you? Where’s the pie?

  Mama is losing her pimientos.

  Are you with a boyfriend? I hope so. But I miss you, nieta. You can bring him, you know. Just make him pull up his baggy pants.

  The last one from my abuela on my father’s side made me laugh. I definitely did not have a boyfriend. And if I did, he would not have baggy pants. Jared’s pants were always cut to—

  Nope, that was enough of that one.

  I stepped on the gas, darting my gaze from the speedometer to the time and back again, then flipped on my signal to swerve down a side street to miss some of the holiday overflow traffic from Main Street. I’d gone half a block when flashing lights behind me and an abbreviated siren made me groan.

  He did not dare pull me over. If he could sleep with some random chick and then commission me to be his nanny on short notice without thinking I even deserved to be called Samantha’s aunt, he could look the other damn way when I went a scant thirteen miles over the speed limit.

  That was not Jared getting out of the car, but Christian, his deputy. He wasn’t driving the sheriff’s vehicle either, so obviously, he couldn’t have been the cop-who-shall-not-be-named, but I just always expected his presence.

  Because I was foolish in all ways.

  But Christian pulling me over wasn’t great. In general, he was more easygoing than Jared, but not when it involved me. I wasn’t sure if he thought I was collecting special favors because I was close—ahem, used to be close—with the sheriff or what.

  I rolled down my window as Christian lumbered closer. He was Murphy Masterson’s older brother, and like all the Masterson men, they could block out the sun when they stood at their full height. “Hi. Happy Thanksgiving.”

  He tipped his hat to me. “Ma’am, do you know how fast you were driving?”

  “Ma’am? Did I age overnight? I didn’t sleep much, but c’mon.”

  I flipped down the visor to check myself out in the mirror. As far as I could tell, I looked the same as I always did, with the addition of kill-the-sheriff sexy makeup.

  If he even noticed, the lout.

  “Ma’am, you were exceeding the speed limit.”

  I put up the visor. “I’m late for Thanksgiving dinner. You know how it is.”

  “Ma’am, that’s no reason not to follow the rules of the law. On a holiday, no less. Innocent children walk the streets of Crescent Cove, and you run the risk of not being able to stop in time if one of them does something erratic.”

  “Hey, weirdo, why aren’t you calling me Gina?”

  He pushed his hat back farther on his head. “No shit. It is you. I didn’t recognize your car, and when I walked up here, all I saw was skin, long dark hair, and red lipstick.”

  I couldn’t tell if I was flattered or annoyed. “It’s not that much skin,” I mumbled as I tugged my top back up over my cleavage.

  I was wearing my best strapless push-up bra, and it worked really well with this shirt. The average man might even think I had decent-sized breasts.

  A total optical illusion, but I’d take the wins where I could get them.

  “I ran out of the house without my jacket,” I added. “It wasn’t intentional.”

  “Did you do something to your hair? Curl it?”

  “My hair is always curly.”

  He whistled. “You look different out of your diner uniform.” Almost immediately, he sobered. He’d probably remembered the riot act the sheriff read to any man of breeding age in the Cove when it came to me. “I hate to do this, Gina. Especially on turkey day.”

  I flashed him my most law-abiding smile. “I won’t do it again. Promise.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” He tilted down his sunglasses. “Your, ah, personal association with the sheriff doesn’t negate
a ticket. I hope you understand that.”

  I did, more or less. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have been going so fast. Just write it up and let me get going. My mother is going to flay me to the bone if dinner is late on the table because of me.”

  Plus, I didn’t have the pie everyone loved. My watery, deflated pudding-looking thing probably would not save my ass.

  “Can I see your license, please? It’s procedure,” he added as I rolled my eyes hard enough to sprain something.

  I yanked it out of the wallet in my purse and handed it over. “How’d you pull this duty? You have the big family deal today.”

  “I usually work the holiday, but I have a double today because the sheriff took some unexpected personal time.” He narrowed his eyes. “Hey, shouldn’t you know that? Doesn’t he always come to your place for the holidays?”

  I pressed my lips together, my mind racing. He’d taken personal time, which he hated to do. But I hadn’t been there to watch the baby, and he was still in deep denial mode, so what else could he have done?

  You shouldn’t have stormed out. Being mad at him doesn’t mean you should hurt Samantha.

  Not that I had. I’d just forced his hand in taking care of her. His child. Not mine. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

  So, why did it feel as if I had?

  “I don’t know what he’s doing right now.” My voice was on the verge of breaking.

  I needed to call him. The last thing I wanted was to make his life harder when I knew he was just trying to be a decent dad and a decent cop. He was a good guy. He really was, or I wouldn’t have been in…serious sexual interest with him.

  “Can we speed this up?” I told Christian. “I’ve gotta go.”

  I’d text Jared from my mom’s and make sure everything was okay. If I had to, I’d apologize and dart out long enough to bring him some of Gabby’s pie. She made a few different varieties.

  God, I shouldn’t have rage-canceled the pecan. Now I was in a shame spiral.

  “Sure. Let me just check this out, and I’ll be right back.” Christian ambled back to the car and got in, not moving any faster than he had previously. I supposed at that size, he didn’t feel the need to rush for anybody. People could wait.