by Kendall Duke
“So if I turned around and walked back out the door right now, you wouldn’t stop me?” I changed my mind. Sierra Davenport was the prettiest woman I’d seen in ages. I moved further back into the shadows.
“Well, I’d advise against it.”
I was really pissing her off. When the sight of her eye-roll actually made a ripple of desire shift through my body for the first time in… Well, almost two years, I realized I was on the verge of doing some stupid shit. This epiphany did not manage to shut me up. “Why?”
“Because for one, it’s very cold tonight. And two, where exactly would you be walking?”
“Back to my car.”
“Right,” I said, unable to stop myself from leaning back in the seat and clanking my heavy boots onto the bottom rung of the desk, the jangle of the spurs echoing through the room as I tucked my thumbs in my belt. “Your car is probably half-way to Helena by now.”
“What? Why?!”
“The Sheriff had it towed to the closest garage. He couldn’t leave it where it was, and besides, might take a day or two to get fixed.”
“Then why the hell didn’t he just let me ride with it to Helena?”
Excellent question. I kept my hat tipped over my face as I offered a nonchalant shrug, wishing the way her delicate face scowled at me over the desk didn’t pulse a rush of excitement through me. “You can ask him tomorrow, ma’am. I’m sure he’ll have an answer for you.” Yeah, right. The Sheriff’s answer was even more likely to piss her off than mine. He was full of gems. But maybe he’d tell her the truth, something like: because it’s my sworn duty to fuck with Deputy Walsh for all eternity, until he either punches me in the face or just buckles down and agrees to rejoin the human race.
Nah. He wouldn’t put me out there like that. But he would definitely drop a perfectly innocent woman off in the middle of nowhere and force me to decide whether to let her sleep in the jail cell or offer her a bed back at my place. Bastard.
“So in the meantime, is he expecting me to sleep here? How exactly was I supposed to get to my car, now that’s it’s been trucked off to some garage I didn’t pick?”
I felt that wave of heat again and tucked my chin down, taking a deep breath before I answered. “Well, we have two choices. You can either stay here—”
“Here. As in the jail.”
“Well, it is a cell,” I explained, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, but it was hard. Because I was hard, and I had no idea why. “If you want to call a single cell a jail, go for it.”
“Thanks,” she bit back, matching my sarcasm. My cock twitched like she’d spoken to it instead of the man it was attached to. What the hell?
“There is one other option,” I said, and that did it. No hard-on, no delicious rush of desire for no goddamn reason at all, no need to irritate her further because this was the end of a very interesting, very pointless conversation. “I have a place you can stay, but it’s a bit of a drive and I would imagine you’ve had enough of bickering with law enforcement officers for one day.”
“So you think if I slept here we would somehow get along better?” A perfectly arched brow tilted over her beautiful eyes. “If I slept in your cell?”
I wasn’t expecting her reply, but maybe I should’ve. She wasn’t putting on an act, even if I was, and her irritation had officially overwhelmed her fear. “I imagine you and I would get along fine under any circumstances,” I said, “considering I’m the one with a badge and you seem like a smart girl.” She gawked at me, and I managed to keep myself from smiling. “Ma’am.”
“I’m twenty-one, stop calling me ma’am,” she growled, and I did smile then, but kept it directed at my desktop. “Well, fine then, let’s go,” she said, and waved her hand. “And it’s Sierra, please. Not ma’am.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “If you’re going to go to the bother of stealing my car and stranding me in the middle of nowhere don’t do me the further disservice of adding another decade to my age.”
“Sure thing,” I said, leaning forward as I pulled my boots back and prepared to stand. “Ma’am.”
She blew out a long breath with her eyes turned up to the ceiling, then brought them back down. Before I could move, she was leaning over the desk, her lovely face only a foot and a half away from mine. We were directly across from each other, and there was no way she wouldn’t see my scars.
But her eyes didn’t even flicker towards them. “Let’s get one thing straight,” she practically snarled. “I’m pretty sure this is illegal, and if something weird is going on I’m being pinged constantly by a satellite that will lead the people who come looking for me right to this po-dunk town, you, and the jack-ass that stole my car. So don’t—”
“Sierra,” I interrupted her, leaning forward so my ruined face was completely visible, “I think you’re right. The Sheriff is… A complicated man. A well intentioned one, but he’s the only one that can tell you what he was thinking. I’m ready to go home, eat, and pass out. I’ve got a hell of a lot of chickens to deal with tomorrow and probably some actual criminals too, so if you’re done threatening an officer of the law we should head out.”
She leaned back, narrowing her eyes at me, those ridiculously sexy curves visible once more as she leaned on her hip and assessed me. Without another word, she moved aside and followed me out the door and over to my truck.
Bastard. I wished I could text him that, but thought better of it.
Then he might tell me not to take her home, and that meant this little thrill—the tiny tendril of excitement, of desire—would have to be cut off. Ripped out at the root. He might say I wasn’t supposed to do this, that he just meant for me to have to sit at that desk all night, listening to a pretty girl snore.
And I wasn’t ready for that. I opted for culpable deniability—she wasn’t a criminal, after all, and she could stay where she liked… Within reason.
So we’d head out to my place.
Like that was normal.
~~~
Sierra
I wanted to hate his stupid face.
I wanted to hate his big stupid cowboy hat, those damn boots, and his gigantic belt buckle—really, who needed a belt buckle that big? I wanted to hate everything about him, even the truck we were driving in and the bed he was going to give me to sleep on.
But I didn’t. Not one bit.
Deputy Walsh had hair the color of dark chocolate, and skin with a caramel undertone. His eyes matched his hair, with full lips, a straight, broad nose, and cheekbones like axeblades. He was huge, at least six and a half feet tall, with hands like dinner plates resting on the steering wheel; there was a fair chance he could bench-press the truck we were riding in. He smelled like the wind that rushed over the fields when I was walking by the highway, and when he smiled in even the smallest, most sarcastic way, I could see laugh lines crinkle the caramel skin at the corners of his eyes. In other words, Deputy Walsh was unbelievably hot. Romance-novel-cover-hot. Sexy-fireman-calendar-hot. Sexy… You get the idea.
There was scar tissue from a bad burn that began just below his hairline on the left side and singed through one eyebrow, arcing down below his eye and then back towards his jaw. Luckily it missed the important parts of his face; his vision, sense of smell and taste would all be intact. Unfortunately, I bet there wasn’t much left of that ear.
Was he self-conscious of the old injury? It looked at least a year old, maybe two.
Was that why he was such an ass?
Because that was my downfall, really. I could get past the physical perfection of his form—ignore the shoulders as broad as an eagle’s wingspan, the fact that those arms could probably wrap around me twice, forget the promise in those curved lips… No, my problem was that I fell for assholes.
So I didn’t hate Deputy Walsh, and his cadre of patronizing cowboy co-workers—because I was sure the Sheriff wasn’t the only one besides Walsh to master a smirky ‘ma’am this’ and ‘ma’am that.’ No, for the briefest, most blinding second, I hated myself
.
Ripley.
I am not naïve. My father and mother are hard-working people, an appliance repair-man and a pre-school aide, and I grew up in the suburbs outside of Dayton—but not the soft suburbs. No. Not old money. I grew up in a house that existed because we all worked as a team to make a good life, my parents, my big brother, and I. We did it together, as a family. No easy street. Just us.
And it was great. I know how to change my own tires, I’ve had a checking account since I was twelve, I started working at fourteen; I’m not a princess.
But for some reason, I date the worst guys.
I want to say that they always seem nice in the beginning, that I think they’ll change—I want there to be some other explanation than the fact that I just choose poorly. Like I did today, when I thought for some foolish reason I could drive the car I’d just gotten tuned up and checked out on a slightly less traveled road without any trouble. I looked both ways, did all the groundwork you could reasonably do, and yet, here I was. And my relationships were just the same. I went in telling myself that they were funny, if a bit immature, that I liked a guy who was honest, even if it meant hurting my feelings occasionally. The signs were all there. But I was still surprised in the end by the depth of their cruelty—they weren’t immature, they were selfish; they weren’t honest, they were just bullies. So my relationships often ended quickly, and when I started my final year of college I just stopped trying to date, until… Ripley.
Ripley really had me fooled.
We worked together at an internship in the hospital. He was charming, but his insight could make me uncomfortable sometimes; he liked pushing boundaries, occasionally to extremes. We got closer, and I really liked him. He was brilliant, and I felt special when he included me in his observations and jokes.
But then I caught him stealing, and that was it.
Ripley wasn’t like the other guys I fell for. He was a lot worse. All of that brilliance, all of his quirky little observations, they weren’t something he used for good—Ripley was just looking for the easiest way to take advantage of whoever was around him. And the moment I saw him pocket a patient’s medication, my heart seized up. He looked at me and I could see the change in him as he realized I wasn’t on board this time—this wasn’t a snide comment, or a sneaky trip to make-out in the supply closet. This wasn’t cute, fun, or risqué. This was criminal.
He followed me out of the room, making jokes and trying to explain, and when he saw that I was headed for the supervisor’s office he grabbed my arm and snarled threats into my face. No more sweet manipulations. No sugar-coated promises. This was the kind of guy who stole from sick people, and he had serious problems. I yanked my arm back, told him never to talk to me again, and marched right into her office. He followed me, which was his mistake—he was still carrying the evidence. He was so confident he could manipulate me he never even considered getting rid of it.
When the supervisor complained to our department head, Ripley was kicked out of the program. I felt terrible about it—I knew he couldn’t be allowed to work in a hospital, or around any vulnerable populations—because he paid so much money up front. We all did. A medical degree in a mid-grade public university was still thousands and thousands of dollars, and now he wasn’t ever going to complete it. He wouldn’t be accepted anywhere.
It kept me up at night.
If there was anything I could do to help take care of that, I would’ve. But instead, Ripley made me pay him back in other ways.
He showed up at my fieldwork assignment, just watching me from his car. Then he started spreading rumors about me at school, using his student email account to join message boards and Facebook groups; thankfully this didn’t work out, because it seems like Ripley had hurt a lot more people than I knew for the entire time we’d been enrolled. This wasn’t the first time he was caught stealing something, either. Once my classmates caught on they kicked him out of any online space they controlled and complained to the administration that he still had access to his student account. But all of that just made him angrier with me.
He started showing randomly showing up places where I would be—I still haven’t figured out how he knew some of them. He didn’t speak to me or say anything, most of the time, but once when I was leaving the movies with my parents he stopped us in the hall and started chatting up my father. My dad has dementia; Ripley knew that, so he messed with him and forced me and my mom to drag my dad out. We had to leave the mall with security, and my poor father had no idea why we insisted he had to stop talking to that nice man.
I started getting horrible, threatening emails from a mystery account that would pop up in different variations for every one I blocked. Yergointohell, then YrUabitch, the list went on and on. They were untraceable.
He found out where I applied for work and found ways to sabotage me. One time he showed up when I was waiting to be interviewed and sat across from me in the hallway, just staring me down until I was wreck. I didn’t make a good impression because of it, and never got a call-back. I was so angry with myself.
He was intimidating me. Stalking me. And there was nothing I could legally do about it.
I took the job in Idaho, knowing there was no way he could ruin it. I had no family nearby, which was half of the appeal; I would never forget the look on my mother’s face when we left the mall that day. She was fierce, protective and loyal… And utterly exhausted.
I felt like I’d let him win. But making enough money to help my mom out and being somewhere we knew was safe was probably the best thing for me to do. I planned meticulously, packed the right things, did the right things… I was so prepared. I actually felt empowered.
But now here I was. Stuck.
Sitting the cab of a humongous Ford truck so old I was pretty sure it had a birth certificate pre-dating my own. Pretending to be angry at the hapless and absurdly handsome deputy that was giving me a better place to sleep than my own backseat. Hungry, angry, lonely. Tired.
Helpless.
I felt the flash of inwardly directed rage and tried to calm myself down. I’d only done what I knew to be right. Maybe I shouldn’t have—no. No. It made me sick to think of what Ripley would have done in patient’s rooms when nobody was watching, if I hadn’t nipped it in the bud. It wasn’t my business how he manipulated his way through the world now. I was ancient history. Maybe he’d enjoy his victory enough to forget about me.
“It’s not that bad.” His voice was extremely deep, and knocked me right out of my head. “I promise—we’re actually cops. You’re better off with a working car. Hopefully, by this time tomorrow, you’ll be bedding down in the fluffiest motel suite Montana’s ever seen, grateful for the attention of such devoted public servants and getting ready to drive off to Idaho. Or where-ever you were going.”
“I wasn’t thinking about… Never mind.” I turned and gazed at his profile. The burned side of his face was hidden from this angle, and it was hard to ignore how attractive he was. Under different circumstances, I might have tried to find the hopefulness to flirt with him, even just a little. There was a sadness to him that tugged at my heart, but if that was about the burn then he needed to man up. Compared to the people I’d be working with, he had a pretty good deal; my brother would tease him endlessly for moping, and I was tempted to as well. “Listen, I know I’m supposed to thank you for giving me a place to stay, but I’m still a little hung up on the fact that you stole my car.”
“Confiscated, technically,” he said, totally indifferent. “And also technically, that was the Sheriff, not me.”
“Yeah,” I said, settling back against the door and watching him in the starlight. “But you’re the one he foisted me on, so you get to deal with my gratitude—or lack thereof.”
“That was probably his plan,” he said, all laconic sarcasm again, and I fought the smile that was trying to break onto my face.
“It’s alright,” he told me, his eyes never leaving the road. “You can smile. I won’t charge you
with anything.”
“Better not.”
“Well, technically—” He drew the word out long enough for me to finish rolling my eyes, and when I looked back at him he did have the tiniest little smirk growing in the corner of his mouth. “I could charge you for room and board. I suppose.”
“Oh my gosh. Seriously?”
“Or I could just let you sleep in the bed of my truck, since you’re so fond of sleeping in vehicles, and we could call it even.”
“You’re terrible.”
“I’m just offering.”
“No thanks.”
“Well, if you’re sure.” He was definitely smiling now. It wasn’t just a smirk. And I had a giant, ridiculous grin on my face that I tried to hide under my hoodie. “Let me know if you change your mind. You haven’t seen the house yet.”
“Was it built before this truck? Because I don’t do prehistoric. I’m from the suburbs.”
“You’ll be disappointed then,” he said, his drawl becoming more noticeable as it cut through that cute little smile, “by the lack of yapping dogs and annoying neighbors, I suppose. But I think you’ll manage.”
“That is such a stereotype.” I had to wrap the hoodie up around my mouth to keep from giggling. All of the bad feelings that were swirling around in me just a few minutes before were gone. Whatever else he was—sexy, handsome, sarcastic—the deputy was also kind. He hadn’t said a word until he could tell I was getting down about something.
“Is it?” He pretended to muse my accusation over, then shrugged in that maddening way again. “I guess I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, how about I tell you some of the things I’ve learned about Montana, since you feel so free to pass along all of your wisdom about my old neighborhood?”
