by Leigh Lennon
She nods. “But, sweetheart, you don’t have to, not with me.” Her devotion swings my way, and she rewards me with a sincere smile, and if this smile were to speak, I’d say there’s a thank you in it.
The precinct is hopping, and with every person who passes by, most of the men turn their heads to watch Malia’s ass, but some are obvious and stare at her tits, too. In similar booty shorts as last night and a low-cut tank top, she’s showing more of her stomach than I want others looking at. She’s a vision, but I keep reminding myself she’s not my vision. She’s not mine.
My partner, Stewart Higgins, a first-year detective barely able to sit at the grown-up table, pushes to his feet the second he sees me coming, but it’s not on my account. “Shanahan, I didn’t think you’d be in today.”
“Yeah, it was my hope to, kid.” My partner hates me calling him kid, but since he’s already drooling over Malia, I push it more than the norm. “Is the boss lady in?” I ask, pointing at the chair for Malia. Higgins gives me a curt nod and a silent warning with Vanessa, but I don’t heed it. I normally don’t with this kid. “Malia, Higgins, Higgins, Malia. Have a seat, sweetheart, and I’ll be right back.”
I narrow my eyes to my horny partner. This time, it’s me with a silent warning that Malia is hands-off. He returns it with a mock salute, and I ready myself for Vanessa. Higgins’ first question grates on my last nerve. “Oh, is he your uncle?”
Higgins knows good and well I’m an only child, but his dig is evident, and it’s the age gap between us.
I tap my knuckles on the frame to Vanessa’s door, which is open. She pops her arrogant head up, and the smile which had been on her face falls when her gaze connects with me. “Shanahan, thought you were off today.”
“Yeah, I had to log in some evidence.” I hold up the bag with the note in it.
“Okay, let’s see what you got.” She points at the same seat I sat in yesterday. Standing up, she peers out her office windows into the precinct, and her eyes must find Malia. “Who’s the girl with you?”
I reach for the back of my neck and stretch before I give her the answer. “It’s Malia Strickland,” I respond.
“Um, so how did this happen?” She sits back down, leans back in her chair, her hands linked behind that fucking tight-ass bun on her stupid head.
“You wanted me to chat with her, and yesterday, I left with Matt. She was at the Montgomery house and called me this morning when this letter was left for her outside her dorm room.” Vanessa’s eyes narrow in on the letter, and I’m left to speculate what the conniving bitch will say. I assume she’ll take this personally, knowing during our engagement I’d thought of Malia Strickland as more than just a case.
“Hmm.” With most people, the hmm would be just this, but with Vanessa, there’s so much to be inferred by the word with only three letters. She continues to read the note.
“Well, shit, Smith Turner has been in lockup for three days now. It can’t be him unless he had someone else drop it off.”
She’s reaching for straws. “Hey, Captain, let me ask you a question.” I hate calling her captain, but then again, I hate being in her space. “Who told you Malia Strickland was back in town?”
She angles her head to one side as though I’m speaking a foreign language. “What do you mean?”
“It’s an easy fucking question, Vanessa. Who the hell told you Malia Strickland was back in town?”
She pushes to her feet, her hands in fists pounding her desk. “You better watch it, Wells. I’m not your little Twinkie, someone who just smiles at you and falls to her knees to stroke your ego.”
“Oh, honey, you could never handle my ego anyway.” I stay seated, a sardonic smirk covering my lips. “So, Malia, who told you she was back in town? She told no one. No one knew.”
Vanessa pushes back in her chair, her arrogance lighting up the room like a Christmas tree. “That’s not true. The school knew, and they called to give us the heads-up, so this whole sinister plan that someone on the inside leaked the information, it isn’t anything. And as far as this little note, I still stand by the evidence in the case that Smith Turner is our guy. Someone just wants to scare this girl.” She pauses, taking the letter with her. “And you forget, I’ve seen you. I’ve seen your house. It’s not a leap to know not only are you obsessed with this case but you’re also fixated on that girl. Tread lightly, Detective. And I expect her statement about her memory of the murders by tomorrow.”
I stand, and her venom continues to drip from her lips. “I haven’t dismissed you.” I won’t sit down, so I stare at her as she knows I won’t give in to her. “You’re dismissed.” She finally gives up.
I walk through the door, leaving an invisible fuck you behind in her space. Malia’s smile radiates on her lips when she sees me emerge from my boss’s office. “Hey.” I kneel before her because what I have to say will be hard for her to hear. We are at eye level, and my voice dips, an attempt for my pitch to evoke the same sympathy I’ve always had for her. “Listen, I hate to do this, but my boss needs a follow-up statement in the hopes there’s something you’ve remembered after all these years.”
The joy in her face fades, and I’m met with the same scared girl from yesterday. All I want to do is touch her knee and give her the slightest reassurance I’ll be with her through the whole thing. “It doesn’t have to be today, but my boss just needs one, especially with the new arrest.”
She’s not asked me about the arrest yet. It’s as if she blanked it out when I mentioned it earlier.
A little color fills her angelic face again, just enough that she no longer looks like a ghost. “Okay, so that’s something we’ll work toward,” I assure her.
I stand, my focus on Higgins, who’s witnessed this entire interaction between Malia and me since he hasn’t taken his eyes off her. “Hey, Higgie.” He hates me calling him this, too, and I internally laugh. “Tell the captain I’ll make an appointment with Ms. Strickland in the next couple of weeks since this all has been overwhelming for her.” I slide my hand under her elbow to escort her out of the precinct, and all eyes ogle this beauty on our way out. Now that they know this is the Malia Strickland, there are two reasons to mentally undress her now.
“You haven’t eaten all day, Malia.” She’s sitting in the seat of my Malibu with her gaze straight ahead. I get a simple nod, but I haven’t started the car.
“My captain mentioned the school called her to let her know you’d be attending the university this year. She thinks someone is playing a cruel joke on you.” My hand has a mind of its own when I grasp her shoulder, causing her to come out of her trance.
“Yeah, people who find out look at me differently. It’s happened my whole life except for Georgia,” she says, and I remember the name from when she was younger. “She’s never coddled me. She actually tells me when I let the self-pity set in. She’d be kicking my ass right now.” A smirk appears across her pouty lips at this idea.
With her change in demeanor, I take the chance to care for her. “So, what do you think about some lunch? I know the best sandwich place, then we’ll drop your stuff off at my home, and get you over to the Montgomerys’ for dinner. Gail is blowing my texts up with questions, mainly asking when you’ll be there.”
“Wells, now that we’ve determined it’s a prank, I’m returning to my dorm tonight.” Her smile almost dares me to challenge her.
“I still think you should stay somewhere else, even Gail and Stephen’s house…”
When this girl laughs as she is right now, a loud, boisterous chortle causes me to follow with a similar chuckle. Her voice cuts through it all. “You know, Wells, you’re not young enough to know everything.” Her little insult cuts through all the serious bullshit of the past eleven years as we sit in my car and laugh until our voices are hoarse.
“Now that was funny as fuck.” It’s a compliment, but I’m always the type to laugh at myself more than anyone else.
Still in my passenger seat, she bows the bes
t she can, then gives me a wicked smile. “There’s more smart-ass comments to come. It’s natural with me.”
“Well, smart-ass, I look forward to much more clever one-liners from you.”
In this little banter of ours, all is lost. She’s not a girl whose family was brutally murdered. I’m not the man searching for the person who did this. She isn’t simply a girl—she is the only girl, and this is all that matters.
Gail Montgomery is waiting for us in the driveway when I pull up to the street. She runs to Malia and envelops her in the Gail Montgomery embrace I’m all too familiar with. “Malia, my sweet girl. I’m so glad you’re back in Seattle.” She pulls away, a sincere smile reaching every feature on her face as she inspects Malia from top to bottom. “You’re so beautiful, my dear. Oh, sweetie, I don’t know what to even say to you.”
“Well, I’m hungry,” she begins. “This big lug decided not to feed me all day.” I love how she’s taking an uncomfortable situation and creating something to laugh about, even if it’s at my expense.
“Wells Shanahan, shame on you, my boy.” Gail extends her hand over Malia’s shoulder, and the brown eyes of her gaze meets my own as a purely evil smile takes over her sweet face. Yep, this girl will be more trouble than I care to admit.
Stephen brings me a beer. “I think you’ll need this.” I happily take it from him, but we stay planted, and I know this man. He has something to say, and he’s softening it with some alcohol first.
“You care for the girl.” It’s a statement, not a question, and I give him a slight bob of my head, but my neck is tight as hell with his insinuation. “This is more than a simple case.” Again, his words carry the weight of a statement.
“It’s just a case. She deserves closure,” I explain.
He pulls his beer back, but his gaze is on me. “Wells, son, how long have we known you?”
I think back to the days of our rookie year together—Matt’s and mine. “Fourteen years.”
“Yeah, well, in that time, I’ve come to know you pretty damn well, and I see something in your eyes. A gleam. I’m not judging. I’m not even telling you it’s wrong. I’m just here to caution you, as I would any of my sons, to be careful.”
His words aren’t harsh, and I stop to let them sink in. “Wait, it’s wrong. It’s very wrong,” I say.
“I’m the last one to judge you or to tell you something is wrong. She’s an adult, albeit a young adult but an adult. All I’m telling you is to be careful, son. And if you aren’t, Jules and Gail will tear you apart.”
I choke on a sip as I begin to laugh. “You’re not wrong about this, Stephen, not one bit.”
“Yeah, I know my wife and my daughter. I’m almost positive it’s why God gave me five boys and only one girl.” We clank our beer bottles together and start into the house. It’s when I feel it, the need to be in the same space as Malia. For some reason, when I see her, I can breathe easier. I both love and hate this emotion inside me because we can’t be together.
At the kitchen table, Gail has made Malia a sandwich already, and she’s chowing down while intently listening to Gail and smiling as though I haven’t seen her. For people like Malia and me who have missed the fundamental basics of a family, it’s not hard to read a bliss through her smile by the way Gail gently rubs her arm up and down or how Malia sits back in her chair, an ease in her body I’ve not seen in the hours we’ve been together today.
“For the record, Mrs. M,” I begin, entering the kitchen, “I volunteered to feed this girl several times, and she kept on declining.” I wink her way. Yeah, try to talk your way out of this one, little girl.
However, team girl is on the defense today. “Oh, Wells, you should know well enough that when a girl declines an offer of food, it doesn’t always mean no.”
Stephen clasps me on the back. “Yeah, I’d stop while I was ahead, son,” he says. Passing by me, he takes my empty beer bottle as he opens the fridge to get more. It’s apparent I’ll need it to get through a night with these feisty women.
Chapter 8
Malia
I hold my breath, wiggling the key into the door of my dorm room, and it opens with ease. I twist my body around. Wells’s gorgeous but imposing frame is in front of me, a look of worry etching onto his lips little by little. “You followed me back to campus. You insisted you’d walk me to my dorm, to my room. Are you satisfied now?”
He points at the door, and he’s mad out of his mind, right? “What, are you going to inspect my room and look under my bed now?” With one hitch of his eyebrow, I know he’s caught onto a hint of sarcasm that really isn’t a hint. It’s as obvious as he is beautiful. And this beautiful man wants to protect me.
“Okay, smart-ass, that’s enough sass out of your mouth. And, yes, I need to check your room.” His alpha tendency is a turn-on.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “One little problem. I threw such a fit with my roommate about not letting others into our dorm, so I can’t let you in.”
“Tell her tough shit, and anyway, I’m doing it under the guise that I’m a cop.”
“And you’re controlling,” I counter. If this isn’t already an impossible situation, Greenlyn comes strolling down the hallway, but this time, she’s in more than just a towel—thank fuck.
“Oh, hi, Detective,” she croons. She’d pretty much jumped from the room the second Wells came in to break the trance I had been in. I think I scared her and wouldn’t have been surprised if she had moved in the ten hours I was gone.
“Greenlyn,” Wells begins, his sweet tone highlighting his upcoming request to sweep the room. “I understand you two have an understanding that no others are allowed in your space, but do you mind if I come in and check it just for my own peace of mind?”
Greenlyn darts her eyes to mine, a broad grin covers her face. “Malia has this rule of no others in our dorm, which I told her I’d respect. However, there’s always room for Malia’s Police Angel.”
I cock my tired head to the side, and Greenlyn can read my perplexed as hell and you better spill it right now look. Wells is within inches of me, and when I turn my head to his, I can sense my face redden, yet he’s smiling from ear to ear.
Greenlyn’s features soften. “Sorry, Malia, it’s what you referred to him after you sort of zoned out while I was calling him.”
Maybe I’m wrong about Greenlyn. She’s not so bad, not after she stayed to comfort me until my angel had arrived.
She directs her attention back to Wells, who’s smiling over what he knows I called him as a little kid. “Wipe that look off your face,” I demand. I open the door and wave my hand toward the open space to grant him access with Greenlyn right behind him.
“Now that I have you two together, I want to talk safety.” Greenlyn’s eyes widen, a sparkling aqua blue framed by her perfectly platinum blonde hair, sitting right above her lush tits, highlighting every inch of them. She’s paying attention to Wells, hanging on every word he says, but not because she’s scared. No, she knows a hot man when she sees one, and Wells is beyond the typical adolescent wannabe-a-man kind of handsome gentleman girls our age are used to. Yeah, I find his words mesmerizing, too.
“Safety? How, Detective?” Her voice pitches, and she bats her long eyelashes at him.
“At night, I don’t want you guys leaving the dorm unless you’re with a group of people. Never put your drink down at a party, never accept a drink from another person, and make sure when you open the door, you know who it is.”
I’m watching Greenlyn the entire time. “Is Malia in danger?” She’s sincere in her question.
I wave my hand, getting her attention. “No, his captain thinks it’s just a prank from someone who knows who I am, but I don’t want anyone knowing, so can you keep it a secret?”
She smiles at Wells, then back at me. “No one in the dorm room, check. No telling anyone about your past, check.” She curtsies, and fuck, she’s so pretty. This is the type of girl I think Wells would be attracted to if she were older.
Not like the plain Jane me. “Anything else?”
“I reserve the right to add to it at any time,” he teases back, “but for now, you’re spot-on.”
Wells clears his throat. “So, now that you two are tucked in for the night, I bid you adieu to get home. I’ll touch base with you in the morning, and before this weekend.” I nod and wait for some awkward hug, but he leans over to grab my forearm. Bending down, he kisses me on the forehead, then turns toward the door and is out of my space. I think I’ve forgotten to breathe.
When I turn around, Greenlyn’s mouth has formed an O, and her eyes bore in on me. “Okay, roomie, I have to know everything, and I mean everything, when it comes to your police angel.” My face burns from… I can’t think of the right word. It’s not embarrassment. It’s not anger. It’s want, need, and desire. Oh, yeah, it burns because as I’ve known as a little kid, Wells Shanahan is it for me.
“And by the way,” Greenlyn adds, stripping in front of me as she grabs her pajamas from her dresser drawer, “if you think you’re simply just another case to him, you’re fucking wrong.”
“So, what’s the story with you two?” Greenlyn digs in all of five minutes later. At least this time when I look at her, she’s not stark naked. She’s very comfortable in her body, and I envy her confidence.
“He was the first on the scene when my family was murdered. I think of him as my hero, that’s all.”
She crawls onto her loft bed across from mine, her pink pajamas as bright as her personality. “You don’t remember this, but when you sort of zoned out, and I called him, he was over here in a couple of shakes. And I hadn’t been able to get you to acknowledge me, but the second his voice fell on your ears, you came out of it. I left when I knew you’d be okay, but it’s the freakiest as fuck thing I’ve ever seen!”
I can’t get over how she took care of me when she didn’t have to. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” I demand, then shift the subject. “What happened to the hookup from yesterday? Will you see him again?”
