The Time in Between

by Kristen Ashley

  I was edging off the tailgate, but I stopped when Tony interrupted me and did it with his voice trembling with laughter. “Don’t move.”

  I stared at him wondering how he could sound so amused when his lips were only curled up a little bit.

  Though, his eyes were absolutely shining.

  Even in the dark.

  “No flour?” he asked.

  I looked away.

  “Teasing you, Cady,” he said gently, still sounding amused, and both of those together were a double whammy of goodness.

  Shit.

  How could I forget how much I liked this guy?

  “I’m kinda not really in the mood to be teased right now,” I told the VW van parked next to his truck.

  “Sounds like it,” he muttered. Then not in a mutter, he demanded, “Talk to me.”

  “I really appreciate what you did but—”

  I stopped speaking that time when his fingers closed around my chin, he turned me to catch his eyes and he repeated, more firmly this time, “Cady, talk to me.”

  I looked into eyes that were now very serious and it just happened.

  It poured out of me.

  Mom and Dad and how much they loved me, but how disappointed they were that I didn’t fit in with their overachiever family. Dad who made big bucks as a bigwig at a big computer company. Mom the head of the occupational therapy department at her hospital. My brother getting an academic scholarship to Berkeley and ending his college career with three job offers, all of them making more than five times the money I made at Sip and Save, even when I did overtime.

  I shared about my car breaking down and my soon-to-be homeless situation.

  I told him I was worried about Maria, not only because her boyfriend had a thing for me and if she ever cottoned on to that, it wouldn’t be Lonnie she told to take a hike. But that I worried about her because she seemed to have no direction, and I didn’t want to sound like my mother (who was certain I had no direction), but it was coming time to find a direction.

  I did not tell him about how I wasn’t real sure about Lonnie continuing to burrow in with Lars and his crew, considering I might not have seen Tony since our first meeting a couple months before, but it seemed during our first meeting he was a part of Lars and his crew. I didn’t know how he would take that and he’d just saved me from being raped. I didn’t think it was cool to offend him.

  But I did tell him that I was probably a loser for thinking a position at Sip and Save was going to get me wearing fancy shoes and scurrying with my expensive trench coat flying behind me while I jet-set between Paris, Milan, London and New York.

  When I was done, he stated the obvious.

  “That’s a lot.”

  I nodded and drew in breath, now embarrassed about laying that all out.

  It was then something strange happened because Tony looked for a second like he was undecided.

  That was the second time I’d seen him in my life so I didn’t know him well enough to know, but it seemed completely wrong on him not to know exactly who he was and what he was about.

  He then curved an arm around my back and pulled me to his side, holding me there.

  Holy crap!

  “It’ll get better,” he murmured, again hesitating before he lifted the hand he had around me and patted me awkwardly on the arm before he dropped it again to curl his fingers around my waist, and that didn’t feel awkward at all. For him, the way he held me, definitely not for me, being held by Tony.

  Still, we sat in uncomfortable silence, both of us holding ourselves stiff, before I tried to break the feel by saying, “I’ll figure something out. That’s life, right? It socks it to you and you figure something out.”

  “Right.”

  “You’re being really nice,” I noted.

  “Yeah, I’m nice.”

  He said that like it was absolutely not true, and a chill traced over my skin.

  I turned within the circle of his arm and tipped my head back, powering through the forbidden feeling I felt having my face that close to his, and I did all this to say, “You can stop being nice. I’m all right now.”

  “I’ll stop being nice when I know you’re gettin’ in your car, gettin’ the fuck outta here and you’re gonna drag your ass to work even if you drag around all day because you’re on your path and you’re not gonna blow it because your brother’s a dick and your parents don’t get you. Not sure the Sip and Save leads to Milan, but who cares? If you can lay your head down at night knowin’ you put in a solid day’s work and you’re on a good path no matter where it leads, that’s where it’s at.”

  He was absolutely right.

  It was then I wondered if he could lay his head down on his pillow at night and know he was on a good path.

  I also wanted to lay my head down on the pillow beside his.

  Lastly, I really wanted to kiss him.

  But this would not be proving to him I’d learned my lesson from that night, had my blip and was going to find some way to pull myself together.

  So I pulled slightly away and he let me by taking his arm from around me.

  I didn’t like losing it.

  I didn’t let myself think on that.

  I promised, “I’m gonna get in my car and get outta here, get home, while I still have one, get as much sleep as I can get and then drag my ass to work.”

  He grinned. “’Atta girl.”

  I grinned back.

  He jumped off the gate, taking my hand and pulling me off, saying, “Walk you to your car.”

  “’Kay.”

  He walked me to my car. Well, he walked beside me as I guided him to my car.

  He stopped me at the driver’s side door and turned into me, doing this (sadly) letting my hand go.

  “You good to drive?”

  Officially, probably not. But nothing sobers a girl up faster than narrowly escaping a gang bang she didn’t want to participate in, being saved by a good-looking guy who was nice but (possibly) shady, who she totally wanted to bang and pouring her life out all over him, forcing him to awkwardly comfort her on the tailgate of an old Chevy pickup.

  “I’m good.”

  He took a second to assess me before he nodded.

  “Catch you later, Cady.”

  And with that, like before, he was done, turning and beginning to stroll away.

  “Tony,” I called.

  He stopped and turned back.

  “Thanks. I mean, thanks. A lot.”

  He gave me another grin. “Fortunately a man doesn’t find himself in a place he has to play the knight in shining armor. Good I got that shot with a cute redhead.”

  A cute redhead?

  What?

  “Later, Cady.”

  “Later, Tony,” I forced out.

  He flicked a hand in a goodbye wave, turned again and walked away.

  “Yo.”

  I looked up from restocking the pork rinds to see Tony standing in the aisle of the Sip and Save.

  It was the next day (well, essentially the same day, just later). I looked like hell. I was wearing my Sip and Save smock, which even Cindy Crawford couldn’t make look good (unless it was unbuttoned all the way and she had a bikini on underneath).

  And there he was.

  He grinned again.

  Gah!

  “Hey,” I greeted rather than running from the store (or running to my purse and hoping I had lipstick in it so at least my lips would look good). “Uh, are you looking for me?”

  His grin stayed in place. “Not a coincidence last night happened and today I’m right here.”

  “Right,” I muttered, then louder, asked, “How did you know which Sip and Save I worked at?”

  This was a good question considering there were about five hundred thousand of them in Denver.

  “Girl, we run in the same crew.”

  We did?

  Did he think I “ran” in that crew?

  And what did “running” in that crew mean, precisely?
/>   Before I could ask any of that, even though I wasn’t certain I would, he continued speaking.

  “Talked to a bud,” he stated, coming to stand close to me.

  I didn’t know why he was telling me that but the only thing I could think to say when those hazel eyes were on me was, “You did?”

  More grinning and, “Yeah. I did. He’s been out of town, gonna be out of town awhile. Three-month job he’s on. Construction. I been looking out for his house, going over every coupla days to grab his mail and change timers on his lights so it looks like someone’s home and they’re not keeping the exact same schedule for three months. Asked him if he’d be cool with a free house sitter for a while, if she grabbed his mail, kept the place nice, and gave it a good clean when she left. Last job he was out on, got cleaned out, TV, DVD, his change jar, stereo, speakers, even took his blender. So he was all over it.”

  Oh my God!

  He had a place for me to stay!

  “Really?” I breathed.

  He shot me a smile.

  I nearly melted into a puddle of goo at his feet.

  “Really.” He dug into his jeans pocket, came out with what looked like a torn off corner of note paper. “My number. Call me when you wanna set up a time to go look it over. I’ll show you around. If you like it, I’ll get you a key.”

  I’d like it.

  It wasn’t sleeping on Maria and Lonnie’s couch, listening to them have loud sex all the time, or tucking my tail between my legs and eating shit from my parents, so I’d definitely like it.

  However.

  “I . . . I haven’t found a new place, Tony. And it’s not easy to find, my budget doesn’t exactly put me in the Ritz. It’s probably gonna take a while.”

  “He’s about three weeks into this assignment so you got a spell over two months. That be enough time?”

  Living rent free at some dude’s pad?

  Totally!

  I’d even have my security deposit back by then!

  But . . .

  “You don’t, well . . . This is all nice and everything but you don’t even know my last name,” I said.

  “What’s your last name?” he asked.

  “Webster,” I answered.

  “Now I know it,” he stated, and I let out a little giggle. He smiled again and said, “Mine’s Wilson. Nice to meet you. Now we got that down, you gonna call me?”

  I was so totally going to call him.

  He knew that so I shared, “I’m so totally gonna make you cookies.”

  “Pie, Cady.”

  “Pie?”

  “Cookies don’t suck but I’m a pie guy.”

  I was so totally making him about fifty pies.

  I smiled at him and I smiled big. “You’re on.”

  “Right. Great.” He reached into me, grabbed a bag of pork rinds and held them up. “Lunch.” And then with no further ado, bid his farewell. “Later.”

  And with that, as I was finding was Tony’s way, he turned to walk away.

  “Tony Wilson, you better get something more substantial for lunch!” I admonished to his back.

  “Do it at dinner, Cady,” he told the cash register, where he was heading.

  “You better!”

  He looked over his shoulder at me and it was then I nearly melted into a puddle of goo.

  Tony bought his pork rinds.

  I restocked the one he’d taken and then some.

  He left.

  I was dog tired.

  But I walked on air the rest of the day.

  Tony/Coert

  “Use the girl.”

  “What? Cap, are you serious?” Malcolm asked in disgust.

  Coert sat back in his chair in Cap’s office, ankle on his opposite knee, not breaking the stare he had aimed at his captain and trying real hard not to let it show as he swallowed back the bile that had filled his throat when his cap gave him that order.

  “Nightingale, this Lonnie moron is into her, she’s into Coert, Coert gets close to her, he’s deeper in Lars’s crew. A part of it. Hooked to one of their women,” Cap told Malcolm.

  “She wants out,” Coert put in, having swallowed back the bile, now a pit was settling in his gut in a way it felt like it might stay there forever.

  Cap looked at him. “She can get out after you use her to solidify your place in.”

  “If she wants out, Cap,” Tom butted in, “this crew, we shouldn’t do shit to keep her in.”

  “Savage, if she’s stupid enough to even get her big toe in with that mess, not bein’ a dick, but she gets what’s comin’ to her, and some undercover cop usin’ her to solidify his cover is the least she’d have to worry about,” Cap said to Tom and looked to Coert, who had straightened in his chair and put both feet to the floor when Cap had called Cady “stupid enough.” “She’s into you, use her.”

  “She’s not feelin’ the love for Lonnie anymore and she’s breakin’ away from his woman,” Coert reported.

  “So reel her back in,” Cap returned.

  “Cap—” Coert started.

  “Coert,” Cap bit off, “you got three months in with this shit and we got nothin’. You need to get cozy with Lars, which means you need to get cozy with his crew. Assholes like that consider themselves a family, until one acts out of line and gets a bullet in his brain. Best way to find your way into a family is to use one of their women. Not tellin’ you to fuck her, that’s your call. Shit happens when you’re undercover. You want that, whatever. Not my business and don’t wanna know how that goes either way. You just wanna playact with her, get creative about keepin’ her hooked. But this girl is into you, so use her.”

  “And what about after it’s done?” Malcolm asked.

  Cap looked to him. “She’s not indicted with the rest, she goes her own way and whatever.”

  “This is a twenty-three-year-old girl you’re messing with, Cap,” Tom reminded him.

  “She’s not a minor. She’s an adult who needs to make adult decisions and face the consequences for those decisions. And all the intel we got is that Lars is flooding our streets with product, so we not only need to shut his crew down, we need to shut him down, but before we do that we need to understand who he’s gettin’ that shit from so we can shut them down. Lars hasn’t bought into Coert, Lonnie has. But we need Lars’s buy in. We need Coert deeper so we can nail the suppliers.” Cap looked back to Coert. “So fuckin’ use the girl.”

  Coert obviously couldn’t let Cady be raped at Wild Bill’s Rally.

  He didn’t have to call his bud Casey and see if Cady could crash at his place while she was figuring shit out, but he also did have to, because she was in a situation and it didn’t seem she had anyone to help her out.

  He also didn’t have to tell Cap, Malcolm and Tom—his handlers on this assignment—about her.

  And apparently that last, sharing about Cady, was his biggest screwup.

  Fuck.

  “We on the same page here, detective?” Cap asked, but it was an order.

  Coert pushed out of his chair, replying, “We’re on the same page, Cap.”

  “Good,” Cap muttered dismissively.

  In other words, they were all dismissed so they all filed out.

  The door to Cap’s office was closed behind them when Malcolm Nightingale, a man who had a bit over a decade longer on the force than Coert, a good guy, family guy, great wife, three kids—two of them hell-raisers but Malc would sort that out—and a brother’s brother when it came to cops, asked, “Question now is, you into her?”

  Coert stopped and looked to his colleague. “She’s a short redhead with a great ass and rack.”

  She was more than that.

  Too much more.

  But he’d said enough. He wasn’t going to dig that hole deeper. Not even with Malc and Tom.

  Tom Savage, Malc’s partner, a good guy, single dad since his wife passed years ago, his daughter was the definition of a hell-raiser, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a great kid who loved her dad be
yond reason, grinned big.

  They both knew his type.

  And Cady Webster was maybe a hint too young, just a handful of years older than Tom’s daughter, and for that matter, Malc’s (their two girls being best friends).

  But she was absolutely his type.

  And a whole lot more.

  Malc looked worried.

  “Wrangle that,” Malc advised.

  “Come again?” Coert asked.

  “She part of this crew, I mean really?” Malc asked.

  “Seen her three times. She tries to act tough and not sure she makes the right decisions but she seems like an outsider.”

  She was definitely an outsider. She had no business with that crew.

  And she knew it.

  So did Coert.

  “Cap wants you to use her, use her, keep her removed and do it so when it’s over she doesn’t totally hate your guts,” Malc replied.

  The way she looked at him, Coert figured he could take her to the bank for a deposit and hold the place up after she did it and she’d not hate his guts.

  And he loved that.

  He loved the way Cady Webster looked at him.

  And he’d loved it from the first moment she turned her head from the beer tap and met his eyes.

  Shit.

  Fuck.

  “It’s part of that life, Coert,” Tom said quietly. “You leave here, put Tony’s skin back on, your whole life is a lie and it isn’t just the bad guys who get it.”

  This was his first undercover job, though he’d been laying the groundwork before he slid into that world so he’d had his taste of it. Now he’d been living it for three months.

  He knew that.

  But he’d never been ordered to make a twenty-three-year-old girl with the greenest eyes Coert had ever seen have feelings for him so he could use her to take down her friends.

  “Lonnie’s digging in deeper but Lars isn’t stupid, and he knows Lonnie has a big mouth and is essentially a total fuckup. It’s Maria who does the runs for them. She’s pretty. Fast talker. Sly as hell. Lars is grooming her for bigger things, including warming his bed. Maria is Cady’s girl. None of this is gonna end well,” Coert told them something he’d already reported.

  “Their decisions, their consequences. Cady’s being loyal but staying removed, so you keep her in while keeping her out and use that to get in deeper,” Malc advised.