Man Down: An Everyday Heroes World Novel (The Everyday Heroes World)

by BJ Bentley

  I didn’t care much for his tone, but I was momentarily getting my way, so I let it slide. Heath, however, shot Vance a warning look, which Vance returned. I didn’t understand their silent communication, so I chose to ignore it and walked over to where Vance indicated, nearly fifteen feet from the body. We walked through what we surmised had happened, all the while attempting to stay out the way of the crime scene techs and avoid trampling on potential evidence. “I should probably take this opportunity to inform the techs that I threw up in the bathroom.”

  Heath and Vance both shot me a look.

  I ignored that too. I was a bonafide expert in ignorance, it seemed.

  “Uniforms are out canvassing the neighborhood. As far as I know, no one’s seen Mark Santulli in the past few weeks.”

  “He’s in the wind,” I guessed.

  “Looks like.” Vance ground his teeth, giving the scene one last sweeping glance. “Let’s get out of here.”

  I let him take my elbow and guide me out the door where I finally let go of the breath I’d been holding. I inhaled the fresh air, thankful that I didn’t have to be in that house any longer. Heath had taken off, probably satisfied that I was no longer losing my shit and under Vance’s watchful eye. His protectiveness was equal parts annoying and endearing. As lucky as I was to have him as a brother, I wasn’t sure I could take much more of him feeling like he had to babysit me. Vance’s willingness to do my brother’s bidding was also annoying, but the jury was still out on how endearing it might be.

  By the time we reached the end of the sidewalk, the first news van was pulling up to the curb.

  “Jesus, fuck,” Vance muttered. “O’Connell! Make sure you keep the vultures back.”

  “Sure thing, detective,” the uniformed officer patrolling the perimeter called back.

  Vance opened the passenger side door and ordered me in before jogging around the hood and getting behind the wheel. “Buckle up, baby.” He peeled away from the curb just as an over-eager reporter, microphone in hand, ran toward us, though she couldn’t move very fast in her skin-tight pencil skirt and stilettos.

  Who the hell showed up to a crime scene in stilettos? Someone who was more concerned with her appearance than the story she was investigating, would be my guess. It didn’t matter, though; I couldn’t even see her in the rear view once Vance broke the speed limit and sent us careening around a corner.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

  I swallowed at his quiet words. “It’s part of the job. No matter how much you and my brother want to shield me, I’m going to see terrible things.” I tried not to sound resentful, but I wasn’t sure I succeeded.

  Vance nodded. “I know. Still, no one should have to see that, so I’m sorry you did.”

  I turned my head to look out the window. He was right; no one should have to see the horrific things that law enforcement and other first responders saw and dealt with on a daily basis, and suddenly I wondered, with all his experience on the force, how he dealt with it day in and day out. How did one cope with death every day? How did the worst of humanity not take its toll? “Vance?” I asked, quietly, my unfocused gaze not taking in the passing scenery.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry you had to see it too.”

  I felt rather than saw his surprise. He cleared his throat before speaking again. “You hungry?”

  Despite my earlier nausea, my stomach rumbled in the affirmative before I could vocalize my feelings. Still, I answered, “Starving.”

  “The Beat okay?”

  My stomach dropped. I wasn’t sure I could handle The Beat just now. Heath and Vance were bad enough, but get my father’s old buddies on Poppy duty, and I’d never get to do any real police work. “How about the diner instead? I could go for a turkey club with extra bacon and a generous slice of peach pie.” The Beat only served coffee, pastries, and sandwiches on stale bread, so that was another reason not to go there just then.

  “You got it.” Vance made another turn and pointed us in the direction of the diner, where an ungodly amount of grease awaited us along with coffee that was slightly less pitiful than The Beat’s.

  13

  Vance

  I gently rotated my shoulder, thankful the scalding hot water had loosened the muscles somewhat. It had been pretty fucking stupid of me to punch the shower wall the way I had. Not only did I bruise my hand and scrape my knuckles, but the force had reverberated up my arm, triggering a muscle spasm. The frustration I felt needed an outlet, and as much of a caveman as it made me, violence was my poorly chosen vehicle.

  It was bad enough that I’d failed to protect Poppy from the sight of Kayla Santulli’s body the day before, but I’d later found out that while I’d sent her to the car in an attempt to shield her, she’d had a panic attack that her brother had to bring her out of. So, I’d fucked up twice, and I hated fucking up. I especially hated that it was Poppy who suffered the consequences.

  Shutting off the water, I grabbed a towel off the floor, sniffed it once for presumed cleanliness, and dried off. I dropped the towel in the vicinity in which I found it and walked naked into my bedroom. I pulled on a clean pair of underwear and rummaged in my closet for a pair of dress pants and one of the few button-down shirts I owned. Dressed, I dumped my duffel of dirty clothes before repacking it with fresh ones, hopefully enough to last me at least a few days at Poppy’s.

  I stood at the mouth of the hallway between the living room and bedroom and took in the casually reclined female form on my sofa. Looking like she felt right at home, flipping through the copy of Guns & Ammo she had in her hands, Poppy looked comfortable. Suspiciously comfortable.

  “You snooped,” I accused, trying to bite back a smile.

  She looked up. “What? No, I didn’t.”

  My eyes coasted over the room before landing back on her face. There was a slight twitch under her left eye. My smile broke free. “You’re not the worst liar, rookie, but we probably shouldn’t sign you up for any undercover work anytime soon.” I dropped my duffel on the floor to cross my arms over my chest. “So, c’mon. Tell me what you learned,” I invited.

  She gave up pretending to read the magazine, which was at least six months old, and huffed. “Okay, fine.” She stood and pointed to the DVD collection that lined two shelves on the built-in bookcase. “You obviously love action movies.”

  “Obviously,” I deadpanned, unimpressed but letting her warm up.

  “You either have or had a gym membership you never use.” She pointed to the fliers advertising a discount should I choose to re-enroll in the pile of junk mail on the coffee table I had yet to sort. “It’s a miracle they want you back at all considering that particular gym is rumored to be a den of steroid abuse,” she added.

  She wasn’t wrong. I’d stopped going to that gym after catching one of the trainers shooting up in the locker room. I busted him for possession and canceled my membership all in the same hour. For some reason my name was still on their mailing list. “Go on.”

  “Dirty dishes in the sink tell me that you like to cook but only on your days off if the level of crusty cooked-on bits are any indication. Otherwise, the outdated takeout containers in the fridge tell me that ordering in is more convenient when you’re working long hours. Both of those things together tell me that you hate to clean up after yourself.” She made a slight face of disgust. More of a micro-expression, really, like she didn’t want to offend me, but she couldn’t hide her true feelings on my slovenly ways even if she tried.

  “All of that is true.”

  “And you had a brother,” she added softly. “He died?”

  If her other observations leaned more toward the obvious, this one proved her detective skills were on par with her father’s. Tucked back in the far corner of a shelf littered with picture frames sat the one and only photo I had of my brother. My father had taken it on our annual hunting trip when Warren was sixteen, and I was fifteen. The photo was the only thing I had left of him except for
my own memories.

  I cleared the emotion from my throat. “How’d you know?”

  She chewed her lip, hesitant but forging ahead anyway. “The photo is in a place of honor with photos of the rest of your family, but it’s in the back and slightly turned to the side. I figured you’d want it to be visible because it means something to you, but you don’t want to face it head on every time you walk by because seeing it still brings you pain.”

  Again, she wasn’t wrong. “That’s a pretty intuitive deduction. Warren died in a hunting accident. He was seventeen, I was sixteen. My father used to take us on hunting trips every year. Deer, mostly.” I paused, getting lost in the memory of that last trip the three Brody men took together.

  “You don’t have to tell me, Vance.”

  “It’s okay. It was a long time ago.” Not that it mattered. It still hurt like a son of a bitch. Still, I wanted to tell her. I wanted her to know this part of me for some reason. I went on. “I got my eye on this buck. He was massive, and I’d never felled a beast so big. In fact, none of us had. For all the hunting trips we’d taken over the years, more often than not, we came back empty handed.” I chuckled. In retrospect, I suspected our hunting trips were my father’s yearly excuse to get away from my mother for a bit. He loved her, but he also did everything for her, and taking his boys out into the wilderness for some male camaraderie was one of the few things he ever did for himself. “Warren was my big brother, but he was a terrible shot. I knew he’d been wanting to impress Dad, so instead of taking the buck out myself, I led Warren to him. Told him how to do it. Guided him through the handling of his rifle, how to hold it just so, keep his eye on the target. How to relax and breathe when he fired.”

  I swallowed thickly, avoiding Poppy’s eyes, which I knew were filled with moisture. “Only the gun misfired. Warren wasn’t just a terrible marksman, he was a terrible gun owner. He never cleaned the damn thing the way he was supposed to.”

  “Oh, Vance,” she whispered, turning her head to swiftly wipe away the tear that had escaped, but not before I saw it. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  She said it like she knew exactly what I was thinking. Maybe she did. I took her in. Her sun-gold hair was down today instead of in one of her severe buns. Her face was soft with empathy, but the look in her eyes was fierce.

  “It wasn’t,” she semi-repeated when I didn’t respond.

  I was too distracted by the sight of her creamy skin to register her words. The plain, white tank top she wore exposed her silky shoulders and a flash of baby blue bra strap. Her hands were planted on her hips, practically begging me to pay attention to the dips and curves of her narrow waist and slightly rounded hips. Poppy had the muscle tone of an athlete, but her flesh was the perfect amount of plump in all my favorite places.

  “Vance?”

  If her body had my dick waking up, her husky, sultry voice saying my name had it standing at attention. I raised heavy lidded eyes, my heart racing when her hooded gaze met mine. “Poppy,” I rasped. “What are you doing to me?”

  She blinked. “I’m not doing anything,” she returned, her voice just as throaty as mine. “It’s the way you’re looking at me right now. You should stop.”

  I smirked at her half-hearted protest. “I think I should keep going.” Her tits bounced, her chest heaving with agitated breaths. Her cheeks were flushed, but it wasn’t with anger. I affected her as much as she affected me.

  “Vance,” she gasped as I closed the distance between us in two swift strides.

  My body had moved before my brain commanded it. It was drawn to Poppy like a magnet. Two polar opposites throwing off an electrical charge powerful enough to, hopefully, divest Poppy of her beloved rulebook. I raised my hands to cradle her slender neck, my thumbs slowly caressing the sensitive skin under her ears. Her breaths came in short, soft puffs, but otherwise, she was silent. “You can stop this,” I assured her. “If that’s really what you want.” I prayed that it wasn’t.

  A flash of pink tongue darted out to moisten her lips, and she struggled with her words. “I do.”

  My heart stuttered.

  “Don’t!” she corrected, her brow furrowing. “I mean…I don’t know. I don’t know what I want.”

  I dropped my hands from her neck, unable to resist gliding them over her bare shoulders and down her arms. “I’d love to tell you that I know what you want,” I murmured. “But you’ve got to figure that out for yourself.” My dick screamed in protest when I let her go and stepped back.

  The disappointment on her face gave me hope. She wanted me, too. I just prayed that she wanted me enough to take the chance because I couldn’t —wouldn’t— force her. We stared at each other, and I let her see the raw need I was sure was written all over me. Her face, however, was a myriad of conflicting emotions-- lust, doubt, need, and maybe…sadness. The uncertainty was unbearable. Time for a subject change.

  “Good job with the detective skills.” I coughed, a failed attempt at clearing the desire from my voice. My words still came out as a growl when I said, “We should get going. You still need to get ready for tonight.”

  Poppy blinked, finally schooling her expression into one of placidity. “Right.”

  The air still crackled around us, my living room a veritable sauna from the heat we were giving off. Trying valiantly to ignore the ache in my chest, I reclaimed my duffel bag and followed Poppy out the door of my second floor apartment, locking it behind me.

  “Vance?” Poppy asked suddenly, spinning around once we’d reached my car parked at the curb in front of the six-story complex, and nearly taking me out with a flailing arm. “Sorry,” she muttered, looking embarrassed.

  I eyed her. “What is it, rookie?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I raised an eyebrow, indicating she should expand on her apology yet not really wanting to hear the forthcoming rejection. She surprised me with what she said next.

  “I’m sorry I’m being so indecisive. It’s not fair, I know. It’s just that you’re you. And I’m me. And we’re so different.”

  “But?” I asked, daring to hope.

  “But…I can’t deny there’s an attraction.”

  “No shit,” I snorted.

  “Don’t be a jerk,” she warned, her voice low like she didn’t want the neighbors to hear.

  I looked to my shoes, a pair of black loafers I’d rarely worn. In fact, I think the last time I pulled them out of my closet was for a funeral. Fred Leighton’s funeral. Suddenly, my collar, even unbuttoned, felt tight. “Maybe you’re right, rookie. We are different.”

  “Vance—”

  I cut her off, stepping around her to load my duffel into the back seat. “We can talk about this later. We’re going to be late for Maxie’s thing if we don’t get going.”

  Poppy visibly deflated at my brush off, and I hated myself a little bit for it. I was pushing away something I wanted but couldn’t have, knowing it was probably better for both of us in the long run, even if it made Poppy hate me a little bit too.

  “Yeah,” she said, jerking the car door open and sliding into the passenger seat. The look she shot me cut deep, but it was just one more wound I’d earned. One more scar I’d have to live with.

  14

  Poppy

  I wanted off this roller coaster.

  From the time Vance told me about his brother— no, before that. From the time we kissed— no, further back still. From the time he walked into Captain Griffin’s office on my first day, I’d run the gamut of emotions. Everything I thought I knew about Vance Brody warred within me against everything I thought he could be.

  Was he the arrogant prick determined to do things his way, no matter the cost or the consequences?

  Or was he the supportive partner determined to teach his former mentor’s daughter despite the pissing and moaning of the boys club?

  Was he the sweet, giving lover I intuitively knew he would be?

  Or was he the philandering playboy currently flirting with
the hussy in the red dress?

  I tightened my grip on the plastic champagne flute of sparkling cider and turned my attention back to Maxie. “Sorry, what?”

  She granted me a sympathetic smile. “Okay, I know it’s none of my business, but what’s going on with you and Vance? I thought you two were, um, you know?” She made wide eyes at me while making what I assumed was some kind of lewd gesture with her hands.

  “Oh my god, will you stop?” I hissed, trying not to laugh while I used my free hand to swat her, pushing her hands down before anyone else saw.

  “Sorry! I just…” She trailed off as she peered around me to shoot daggers at the man in question. Straightening, she peered up at me through her oversized glasses. “I thought you two were an item.” She sounded sad that we actually weren’t.

  I breathed deeply. “We’re partners. For the time being.”

  “And?” she drawled.

  “And beyond that, I have no idea.” I threw back my cider, wishing it was something stronger. Maybe the good, deep burn of alcohol would distract me from the spectacle the woman in red was making, her cleavage on full display, jiggling with her laughter as Vance said something that was apparently hilarious.

  Ugh.

  After leaving his apartment, we stopped at mine so I could shower and get ready for Maxie’s showing. I’d opted for a navy blue sheath dress and silver strappy sandals with a modest heel. The dress had an off-the-shoulder bodice and hit just above the knees. Sexy yet conservative. I’d come down the stairs after applying some light makeup and brushing out my hair, choosing to leave it down but pulled forward over one shoulder.

  I’d tried with all my might to ignore the heat in Vance’s gaze when he first laid eyes on me. I was already feeling like a yo-yo with his back and forth, and after he’d put me in my place back at his apartment, I had no desire to walk back in that door without a very explicit invitation.