Heather’s eye light up. “How is he? Is he coming home anytime soon?”
“He said he’s doing good, and he sounded like it. I think he’s a little homesick and he’s hoping to be able to come home in January.”
“If he does, please bring him to see me! I miss that little twerp.”
“I don’t think he’s a twerp anymore.”
Heather laughs, wiping her eyes. Unlike me, she’s emotional. Cries during commercials and during certain songs no matter how many times she’s heard them.
“And I will.”
“What else did he say?”
A few more visitors shuffle in and the room gets louder. I fill Heather in on everything Jason told me, which isn’t much.
“I should get going,” I tell Heather, feeling bad. “It’s a long drive back to Eastwood.” I go to stand, and Heather reaches forward, taking my necklace between her fingers.
“You’re wearing a cat charm?”
“Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. It’s a joke.”
“A joke?”
“Wes’s sister, Quinn, is kind of a crazy cat lady and their mom is very much a dog person. Their house is more divided than Bears and Packers fans living under the same roof.”
“So you’ve sided with Team Cat.”
“I do like cats.”
Heather laughs and stands with me, giving me a hug before I leave. I spot that one annoying eavesdropper on my way out. I wouldn’t think much of it, but she won’t stop looking at me. I put on my coat and glance her way.
She’s not just staring at me. She’s glaring, seething with hatred.
30
Weston
“You’re officially a heartbreaker, Weston.” Scarlet turns away from the stove, setting down a wooden spoon. I just got home from work and the house smells amazing.
“How so?” I ask, amused. I take off my shoes. “And what is that?”
“Spiced cider. We can add rum to ours if you want.”
“That sounds good.” It’s a cold and windy day and I spent the last hour and a half of my shift outside in it, dealing with a car accident. No one was seriously hurt, but both people involved had flaring tempers, which made everything take twice as long. I unzip my coat, longing to feel Scarlet’s warm body pressed against me. “How am I a heartbreaker?”
Scarlet strides over and wraps her arms around my neck. I slip a cold hand under her shirt, making her shriek and squirm away. I hold her tighter, laughing.
“Your hands are like ice!”
“It’s cold out.”
“Don’t you have gloves to wear?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t wear them.”
“Obviously,” she laughs. “And Mrs. Hills stopped me when I picked up Jackson from school today. She was very upset to learn you were off the market.”
“How did that even come up?” I slide my hands to Scarlet’s ass. She’s wearing leggings and I don’t think she has panties on underneath. I bring my head down, lips going to her neck.
“My dress blew up in the wind and she saw my Wes Dawson’s tight end panties.”
I laugh. “That’s what I figured happened.” I kiss her neck, and Scarlet arches her back, pressing herself against me.
“Really, she said she saw us at the diner last week and we seemed close.”
I step in, widening my legs. “Well, we are.” We kiss, and just seconds later Jackson comes down the stairs. He runs over for a hug and I scoop him up, pulling Scarlet to me with my other arm.
Things are so fucking perfect.
“Is dinner ready?” Jackson asks.
“Let me check it.” Scarlet gets a pot pie from the oven. “It’s done. It needs to sit for like five minutes to cool first.” She taps her chin, looking at Jackson. “I wonder what we could do in that time? Oh no. I think the zombies are back!”
Jackson wiggles out of my arms and takes off, laughing and screaming as he starts to run around the house. Scarlet and I both chase after him, and we run around the house for more than five minutes.
I go upstairs to change while Scarlet cuts into the pot pie and has Jackson help set the table. We function so well together. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I’m already thinking about the future.
Never in a million years did I think I’d want to get married again, but my mind has drifted to proposing to Scarlet. I want us to be a family.
“What are you guys looking at?” I ask, coming down the stairs. Scarlet and Jackson are peering out of the blinds in the living room with the lights off.
“That white car has been by twice,” Scarlet says. “And Jackson told me it was stopped in front of the house earlier.”
“Really?” I go right to the front door, not bothering with socks.
“Wes, wait!” Scarlet springs up and comes after me, telling Jackson to stay in the house. “Shouldn’t you go back and get your gun before you go up to a creepy car?” She grabs my arm.
The car goes from park to drive and moves down the street. People do stop along the side of the road sometimes, whether to text or mess with something in their car. But if Scarlet has seen this car before, and they left as soon as we stepped onto the porch, something is up.
“That’s weird, isn’t it?” Scarlet says, and I wrap my arm around her, keeping her warm. I watch the car go down the street, stopping and making a turn onto a one-way road.
“Yeah. That is a little weird. Let’s go in.” I lock the door behind us and pull my phone from my pocket, arming the house.
“Hopefully the crust is cooked through this time,” Scarlet says as we sit down. “I undercooked it last time.” She wrinkles her nose and looks so damn adorable.
“I liked the mushy-crust,” Jackson tells her.
“You were the only one,” I loudly whisper.
“Hey now.” Scarlet gives me a pointed look and we dig in. After dinner, I give Jackson a bath and put him to bed. Scarlet is sitting on the couch when I come back down, wrapped in a blanket. She’s holding a cup of tea in one hand and her book in the other.
“Want me to make a fire?” I ask, eyeing the brick fireplace that we rarely use. Call me paranoid or overprotective, but it makes me nervous to have the fire going with Jackson around. The fireplace is original to the house and the entire hearth gets pretty warm when a fire is going.
“That would be amazing.” She puts her book down. “And a little romantic.”
I wiggle my eyebrows and go to the couch first, needing to feel my lips against hers before I go outside and get firewood off the back porch.
“Do you want any tea?” she asks as I work on getting the fire going. It’s not as easy as it looks.
“No, but I will take some of that spiked cider.”
“Ohh, right. I almost forgot! I’ll heat us both a glass.”
I have a small, rather pathetic fire going by the time Scarlet comes back into the living room, carrying two mugs of steaming cider. We sit together in silence, drinking our cider and watching the flames.
“I could do this every night until summer,” she says, putting her mug down and snuggling up against me.
“Me too.” And then do it again next fall. And the one after that…and the one after that…
“Quinn asked if we wanted to double-date with her and Archer to dinner and a movie tomorrow. She already talked to your parents about watching both of the grandkids.”
“Yeah, that’d be fun. Are Dean and Kara going too?”
“She didn’t say they were. Is that weird to go and hang out with Archer when he’s Dean’s friend?”
“It’s not weird for me. Archer’s like another brother. But Dean can be possessive,” I say with a laugh. “I haven’t gone to see a movie that wasn’t G-rated in years.”
“I haven’t seen one in a while either. And just to warn you, I’m probably going to hog the popcorn, which has to have extra salt and tons of butter.”
“That’s the only way to eat movie-theater popcorn.”
“I’ll text Quinn back now be
fore I forget.” She grabs her phone and fires off a text.
“You and Quinn seem to really get along.”
Scarlet smiles. “She’s great.”
“She is.” I put my empty mug on the coffee table. I don’t drink very often, and I think Scarlet put too much rum in the cider. Or maybe I’m feeling buzzed because I’m with Scarlet. “Having Jackson and Emma will be interesting.”
Scarlet laughs. “I think your parents can handle it. And Jackson loves Emma.”
“He does because they’re not together all that often. And he’s been difficult lately.”
“Yeah,” Scarlet agrees. “He was difficult today a few times.”
“What’d he do?”
“Nothing serious. Just defiant and I had to tell him multiple times to pick up. And I pretty much ruined his afternoon by giving him a green cup instead of a blue one.”
I chuckle and shake my head. “Don’t be afraid to discipline him,” I remind her. We went over ways to handle his bad behavior from the start, but I know Scarlet still feels a little awkward. I don’t want her to, especially with the way things are going.
“I know. And after his meltdown at the grocery store the other day…” She shakes her head. “I got this.”
Fuck, I love this woman. “You do.”
She climbs into my lap and rakes her fingers across my back. It drives me crazy and she knows it. “I know it’s borderline arctic outside, but it’s a full moon. Want to look at it with your telescope with me?”
“Why does that sound dirty?”
“Everything sounds dirty to you.”
“That’s your fault,” I tell her. “I think about your pussy all damn day.”
“Weston,” she exclaims, faking shock and bringing her hand to her chest. “I’m a lady. How dare you speak like that in front of me.”
“You were not a lady last night when you had me pull your hair and fuck you from behind.”
A little moan escapes her lips. “Fuck that was good.”
“We can do it again.”
“Oh, we will. But…the moon.”
“Yeah, let’s go look at it.”
I check on Jackson before we go outside. He kicked off his blankets and is covered in goosebumps. After fixing the covers and adding one more blanket to make sure he’s not cold, I grab socks and a sweatshirt from my room and meet Scarlet in the kitchen.
“It’s not that cold,” I tease, seeing her bundle up like it’s the middle of winter.
“Promise you’ll warm me up later?”
“You know I will.”
We go outside onto the back porch and bring the telescope into the middle of the backyard, trying to get a good view of the moon. Trees and the roof of the house obstruct our vision. I pick the heavy thing up and lug it around to the front, even though Scarlet protests and says I shouldn’t go through any trouble.
But doing anything to see her smile will never be trouble for me.
“I’m starting to really love this quiet,” she whispers, looking up and down the street. It’s dimly lit from a few street lamps and porch lights. I set the telescope down on the sidewalk and adjust it until the moon comes into view.
“It’s really bright tonight. It looks awesome,” I tell her and step aside so she can have a look. A car drives by on the street perpendicular to ours, rolling through the stop sign. Things are pretty quiet downtown once night falls, but it doesn’t become a ghost town.
“It’s amazing,” Scarlet whispers, and I find myself smiling as I watch her. “I can see so much detail.”
I zip up my coat and stick my hands in my pockets, turning around. It feels like someone is watching us and unease creeps over me. After years as a soldier and then a cop, I know to trust my gut. I take a few steps away from Scarlet and look down the narrow stretch of grass that separates my house from the neighbors’. I don’t see anything…and then I remember that we went out the back door and walked around to the front.
The back door is unlocked.
Jackson is inside.
“I’ll be right back,” I say and start forward, only to stop. “Come with me.”
Scarlet looks up from the telescope. “Where?”
“Inside. The back door is unlocked.”
“Oh, shit. Go lock it.” She waves me away and bends her head back down.
“Come in with me. Please?”
“I thought you said this was a safe town.”
“It is.” I inch toward the house. “But I’d feel better if you came in with me.”
She looks up and sees the worry in my eyes. “Yeah, I’ll come in. I need more warm cider anyway.”
I run around the house and leap up the porch steps. The door is still closed, but that doesn’t mean anything. I don’t stop until I’m in Jackson’s room, seeing him safely sleeping in bed.
I sit on the edge of his bed, resting one hand on his back. I used to sit up with him like this when he was an infant, making sure he was still breathing. I still do this when he’s sick. I’ll probably always do this.
“Everything okay?” Scarlet whispers, appearing in the doorway.
“Yeah.” I pull my phone from my pocket and log into the alarm system app, checking the activity. Other than me opening the door less than a minute ago, the last time the back door was opened was when Scarlet and I left the house. “I worry about him.”
“I know.” Scarlet comes into the room and perches on the bed next to me. “I do too.” She takes my hand and brings it to her lips. “He’s lucky to have such a caring father.”
I give her hand a squeeze. The words are burning in my mouth, wanting to come out.
Wanting to tell her I love her.
31
Weston
“Are you getting nervous?” Scarlet asks, pouring herself a cup of coffee.
“No.”
She looks at me incredulously. “Not at all?”
“Honestly, I’m looking forward to election day so this campaigning bullshit will be over.”
She laughs. “I don’t blame you there. You’ll know if you won that night, right?”
“In theory.”
“I have a good feeling about this. Come Tuesday night, I’ll be calling you Sheriff.”
“Even if I do win, I won’t be the Sheriff until the term ends.”
She sits at the table next to me. It’s early Friday morning, and she woke up when my alarm when off. Instead of going back to sleep, she came downstairs with me for breakfast. “I’m still calling you it. And I’ll make sure to be a bad girl who needs to be arrested and appropriately punished.”
“It is my duty to uphold the law.”
She takes a sip of her coffee, smiling. “I’ll make sure you catch me jay-walking or something.”
I laugh. “Living on the edge.”
“I’m a regular criminal.”
“Please. Like you’ve ever broken a law.”
She chokes on her coffee, eyes going wide.
“Forget how to drink?” I raise my eyebrows.
“Went down the wrong pipe,” she says between coughs. “And it’s hot.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. And I have broken laws before.”
“Really?”
She casts her eyes down. “Yeah. What if I told you I did some bad things but never got caught?”
With one question, she’s back to being hard to read. I think she’s joking, but she says it seriously. Her body language changes as well, and she’s still looking down at the table. Before I can question her, my phone rings.
“It’s the station.” I answer, talk to my boss for a minute, and then stand. “Gotta go.”
“Already?”
“Yeah. We got a lead on a meth lab in a garage.”
“Be careful.”
“I will.” I grab my plate and carry it to the sink. “We bust meth labs more often than you’d think around here.”
“Is it like Breaking Bad?”
“Most aren’t that cool-looking.”
I nod, not one to sugarcoat anything. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Good. Because I need you home tonight.”
I’m tempted to tell her I love her again, because I never really do know what the day will bring. I suppose the danger is there for anyone who leaves the house: car accidents claim the lives of many every day, but it’s a little different when you’re leaving the house to go running into danger.
“I’m gonna go give Jackson a kiss goodbye,” I tell her and hurry up the stairs, sneaking into his room so I don’t wake him. I pause in the doorway, looking at his handsome little face. We finally took him to get a haircut, and the shorter locks make him look older. He’s four and a half already. Time is fucking flying by.
“See you later, buddy,” I whisper. “I love you.”
If Scarlet weren’t here, I would have had to wake Jackson up already, fight with him to eat breakfast and get dressed, and probably deal with a tantrum or two as I get him to put his shoes on and get buckled into his car seat. I’d drop him off with my mom before heading into the station, tired and most likely irritated from dealing with his attitude. It’s inevitable that all parents feel frustrated with their own children. I still get frustrated with him. But having him on a solid schedule where he’s developed a routine and gets plenty of sleep has been so good for us.
“Can you call me when you’re done?” Scarlet asks before I head out the door. “So I know you’re okay?”
“Yeah. I will.”
“Thanks.” She brushes her blonde hair over her shoulder. “I’m going to sit here worrying, you know.”
“I do. And not that I want you to worry, but it’s nice knowing you are. If that makes any sense at all.”
“It does. You know that I lo—that I care a lot about you.”
Was she going to say she loves me? I look into her blue eyes and my heart hammers away. Fuck this. Life is too short to live cautiously when it comes to matters of the heart.
I stride over, take her in my arms, and plant a big kiss on her lips.
“Scarlet?”
“Yeah?” She fastens her arms around my neck.
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