To Catch A Player (Second Chance)

by Piper Sullivan

  Then I left a note… just to rub his nose in it.

  “I’m an asshole.” That was what I’d decided after the first hour and the first eight dozen biscuits. By the twelfth dozen, I had to resist the urge to run back to my place and apologize—then I laughed, because there was no way Jackson was still there. He’d probably bolted once he realized he’d been spared an awkward morning after.

  Whatever. I made two hundred and forty biscuits, and now I had to run a special if I wanted to sell them all.

  “You sure you want to do BOGO biscuits?” Maven walked into the kitchen with her hands on her hips and a pinched look on her face.

  “Well, I made more than we usually sell, so, yeah. Why not?”

  Her shift in confidence was evident in the way her arms wrapped around her body and Maven’s gaze shifted to the floor. “Well, I was thinking we could sell them. In bundles. Four- and six-packs, to have with dinner. So people who don’t normally eat out regularly might come in when they hear about the extra biscuits.”

  It was a good idea, and proof that a certain detective was taking up way too much space in my brain. “Perfect. Run with it.”

  “Thanks, but are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

  “Because you look, I don’t know… strange. Confused and glowing and… oh my god!” Her eyes rounded as big as saucers. “You got laid,” she whispered, more excited than I was about the whole thing.

  “Keep quiet!” The last thing I needed was the whole damn world to know my business.

  “Oh, please, we’re the only ones here right now,” she said at the same moment the kitchen door swung up and Rafe appeared with a wide grin on his face.

  “Morning. Oh, good morning,” he said, flashing a mischievous smile as he came closer and circled me. Twice. “You look different.”

  “It’s because I didn’t blow dry my hair,” I told him quickly. Easily. It felt easy, but I glared up at him just in case.

  “Why not? Were you running late this morning?”

  Damn him. “Nope. An idea struck me in the shower and I was too excited to get here to worry about it.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yep.” I folded my arms and notched my chin up defiantly, daring him to call me out.

  “I’d love to taste this rush of inspiration.”

  “I hate you.”

  Rafe and Maven both burst out laughing, and no amount of glaring would get them to stop. So, I ignored them and went back to my root beer syrup—batch number eight thousand and infinity. At least, that was how it felt.

  “You don’t hate me, but you did get laid. Why is that making you mad, I wonder?” And just like that, he went from the charming, playful Rafe to the fire chief, man in charge, protective best friend Rafe. “Give us a minute, Maven.”

  Her eyes went wide and without a word, she spun on her heels and left us alone.

  “That was unnecessary.”

  “Maybe. Why do you seem upset about the sex glow you’ve got going on? Do I need to kick Jackson’s ass?”

  I gasped and glanced up at him before glancing away. “Who said anything about Jackson?”

  “Really, Reese?” He folded his arms and leaned on the table, right in my personal space so I couldn’t ignore him. “I won’t be hurt that you didn’t share this news with me if you don’t pretend that something’s not going on between you two.”

  “Ugh, I hate when you get all reasonable on me.”

  His serious expression vanished and a slow smile crossed his face. “I know.”

  “I made chili last night. Want some?”

  “Sex chili? Sure.”

  I rolled my eyes and warmed some from the pot I’d brought in for the kitchen staff. “It’s not sex chili, it’s beef.”

  Rafe snorted a laugh and dug in as soon as I handed him the bowl. He was good for my ego, shoveling the food down and giving me the biggest puppy dog eyes to get another bowl. “It’s good sex chili.”

  “It was chili nachos, not sex chili, Rafe.” But I did have a question, and there was no man in town better positioned to answer. “Have you ever left while a woman was sleeping?”

  “I assume you don’t mean a fire emergency?” I arched a brow at him. “Right. A few times in my younger days, yeah.”

  “Why?”

  Rafe shrugged and thought about it over a few spoonfuls of chili. “Mostly because I knew I shouldn’t have slept with her.”

  Interesting. “Because she was married? Ugly?”

  He shot me a look. “No and no. But there were women who wanted more than I was ready or willing to give, and I knew it. Or the ones who got that look in their eyes.” Even now, I could see the guilt he felt, and I now understood it because even though Jackson deserved it, I didn’t want to ever be the reason someone felt like that. “Why?”

  “No reason. Curiosity.”

  His brows arched suspiciously. “No reason, or curiosity? Do I need to kick Jackson’s ass?”

  “No.” Whoever said revenge was sweet was wrong.

  Dead-ass wrong.

  Jackson

  “Who in the hell chose to have a rib cook-off all the way out in Boonesville?”

  I had to work hard to keep my smile to myself at Reese’s words. She was upset—not that the town of Boonesville was so far from Tulip, all the way on the other side of the county, in fact. No, she was upset that after nearly a full week of avoiding me, she was stuck in this van with me.

  It was enough to make me laugh out loud. But I didn’t. “Might as well sit back and enjoy the ride.” She’d done a damn good job of ignoring me from the moment I’d showed up at her restaurant early this morning.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” It was a reluctant admission, but one that made me smile all the same. She reached for the stereo and turned it on, groaning when there was nothing but static. “Damn radio.”

  “I guess you have no choice now but to talk to me.” Something she’d grown good at avoiding this week, leaving just as I showed up or being suddenly unavailable. It would probably make a less secure man feel worse, but the effort she put in told my detective’s brain a hell of a lot more than she wanted it to.

  “What would you like to talk about, Jackson?” Her tone was haughty and almost condescending, like I couldn’t possibly have anything important to discuss.

  “Why you’ve been avoiding me.”

  “I haven’t been,” she said automatically.

  “Don’t even bother denying it, Reese. I just want to know why.”

  She turned in her seat, brown eyes spitting mad and a denial poised on the tip of her tongue. “Is your ego so big that you can’t fathom that I might be busy and have things on my mind other than some man?” Arms folded, she looked the picture definition of righteous indignation.

  “My ego may or may not be big; that’s not what we’re talking about.”

  “It absolutely is,” she said, scowl darker and more threatening that a few moments before.

  “No. What we’re talking about is me watching you, with my own eyes, sneak out of the back of your restaurant just two minutes after Maven said you weren’t available.”

  “I was going to an important business meeting.”

  “At the Gazette offices?”

  Her shoulders slumped in defeat which, unfortunately, gave me no satisfaction. “No. Okay, fine, I was avoiding you, but I had a damn good reason. I felt guilty.”

  Of all the things I had expected Reese to say, that wasn’t it. “Guilty that you took advantage of me after working me hard in the kitchen all day?”

  “No.” She was exasperated, trying to come up with a diplomatic way to say whatever was on her mind. “I feel guilty because even though you totally deserved it, I shouldn’t have walked out while you were sleeping. I thought it would make me feel better, payback and all that. But it didn’t and I was upset. And guilty.”

  “So, you avoided me?”

  “Yep.” There wasn’t one hint of remorse in her voice.r />
  “Real mature, Reese.” I would have expected that behavior from someone else, but not her. She was, I don’t know, steady and stable. Almost predictable. Not melodramatic. “Wait a minute, why did I totally deserve that?”

  A low growl escaped that was so damn sexy it took me a moment to register that parts of me could be in real danger. “Are you serious right now?” I nodded, and that only made her madder so I stepped on the gas, hoping I could remove some of the minutes left on our journey. “You are an even bigger jerk than I gave you credit for being!”

  Ouch. “Okay, well, why don’t we table the insults, and you can tell me what I’ve done to earn your guilt-inducing behavior?”

  My words made her freeze for a long moment, her gaze focused on my face with disbelief written all over hers. Some sort of realization came over her, I’d seen it a dozen times from perps who realized they were caught, that we were onto all their lies and it was best to just give up the ghost. For Reese, I didn’t know what that meant. “What you’ve done? Oh, nothing, you only slept with me and then pretended I didn’t exist for the past year. Until your community service reminded you that I do.” The long breath she let out after the rush of words told me she’d been holding on to that hurt and anger for a long time.

  At least a year.

  Shit. “That’s not true.” I don’t exactly remember what happened, but I wasn’t the type of man to hit it and quit it—if for no other reason than that morning sex was the best way to start a day.

  Reese now had her breathing under control and turned her gaze to the passenger window, effectively dismissing me.

  Or so she thought. “You’re just looking for reasons not to explore this thing between us.”

  “Ha!” She barked out a laugh that held not one hint of amusement, but nothing else changed, not her even breathing or the calm arms-crossed position she used as a shield. “I don’t need to look for reasons, Jackson, they’re laid out clearly for anyone with eyes.”

  “Such as?” Finally, the signs for the cook-off began to appear and I felt a sense of relief usually reserved for tough days on the job.

  “Such as your vanishing act. It means you’re a bad bet, you’re not a guy who sticks around for the hard stuff. The messy stuff.”

  “I’m a cop.”

  “And maybe that’s why you don’t want anything complicated in your personal life. I get it.” And she wanted no part of it, clearly.

  “You’ve got me all figured out, don’t you?” I found an empty spot big enough to unload the van without moving it again and shifted into park before killing the engine.

  “No, Jackson, I don’t.” With those final words, Reese jumped from the van and we began the tensest eight hours of my life. We unloaded the vehicle and set up the cooking station in tense silence. I started chopping and slicing and dicing at my corner of the table while Reese did her thing on the other side, in a cloying silence that reminded me more of a divorced couple than two people who’d just had earth-shattering sex less than a week ago. Together!

  “Everything is chopped and in the proper color prep jars. You need anything else?”

  Reese didn’t even look up. “Nope, I’m good. Thanks.”

  “Great,” I grumbled. “I’m going to look around.” She said nothing and I honestly didn’t expect her to, because if I’d done what she was accusing me of, I’d be pissed off, too. The problem was, I couldn’t figure out when or why I would have pulled a vanishing act on Reese, of all people. I’d broken my No Tulip Girls rule by getting with her because she’d intrigued me from the beginning. Instead of batting her eyelashes and flirting with me relentlessly, she flashed a sexy little smile and handed me my order. She didn’t dig for information under the guise of small-town friendliness, instead, Reese took the info that was offered and that was it.

  I’d been intrigued and attracted as hell. But after that night, things were never the same. She wouldn’t meet my eye, and any smiles she’d reserved for me previously had turned squarely to menacing scowls. After a few weeks, I’d just chalked it up to morning-after regrets. They didn’t happen often, but when they did, I found it was best to back off and move on.

  And I’d done that, until Janey had thrown her in my path. Again. Charity. Reese’s word rolled around in my mind over and over again as I paid for fried corn for two, and I stopped in the middle of the crowd. Was she right? Did my interest only return because she was here? Convenient?

  The answer came immediately. Hell, no. I wanted Reese. Even now, when she was determined to keep an ocean of distance between us, I wanted her. Badly.

  I still didn’t have any answers by the time I returned to our tent, but I was determined to try. To break through those barriers—at least, I would as soon as I figured out what had happened a year ago to make me leave Reese’s bed. But the universe had a sick sense of humor, throwing my fresh resolve in my face with the appearance of the last person I wanted to see right now. “Rafe.”

  The fire chief turned with a welcoming grin at the sound of my voice and I felt like an even bigger asshole. They were friends. Genuine friends, it seemed, but I couldn’t stop myself from growling and glaring at him. “Detective,” he said, clapping me on the back. “Reese was just telling us what a capable sous chef you’ve been.”

  Rafe’s words shocked me so much I forgot to glare at him again before I turned to Reese with raised eyebrows. “You were giving me a compliment. Now that, I’d love to hear. Love.” Arms folded and a smug smile on my face, I waited her out.

  Reese rolled her eyes at my words but I saw the small smile form at the corner of her lips. “It wasn’t a compliment, it was an objective assessment of your performance. Satisfactory.” Her emphasis on the word wasn’t lost on me and I smiled, stepping forward.

  “I remember it differently. Louder. More enthusiastic,” I whispered in her ear, relishing the shiver it produced.

  “Well, they say that we often remember things better than they really were, so that makes sense.”

  “I’m happy to preform the tasks again to make sure they’re up to your… standards.” Fire blazed in her brown eyes at my challenge, and Reese took a defiant step forward until we were toe to toe.

  “No, thanks. I’ll be forced to come behind you and take care of it myself, anyway.” A smile almost broke, but Reese was a pro at this game, I realized.

  A low rumble of laughter, followed by the sound of a camera and then a bright flash, brought us out of our flirtatious bantering and Reese groaned. “Seriously, Janey? You have a problem girl—you can’t possibly need more pictures!”

  Janey lowered her camera to show off a wide, cheesy grin. “First of all, you can never, ever, have too many pictures. And that is doubly true when you have such compelling subjects. Stop lighting the gigabytes on fire if you don’t want me to capture it.”

  “Right, because everyone wants to see me and Jackson bickering.”

  “Bickering?” I frowned. “I thought we were bantering.”

  “Discussing.” Reese shook her head and blew a stray strand of long blond hair out of her face. “Anyway, no one wants to see that.” When she turned back to Janey, Reese groaned at the sight of the photographer trying to lower her camera without being noticed. “See? A problem!”

  Janey laughed again and shook her head. “Let me be the judge of what people want to see. Laters!” Then she was gone, her laugh fading on the wind.

  Rafe stood with an amused smile aimed at us both. “As fun as that was, I need to go sample the other offerings before I can say yours is the best.” He leaned in and held up a hand to hide his mouth with a whisper, “It’s totally the best, kid. Good luck.” He winked, a platonic move coming from the town’s most infamous bachelor.

  Reese smiled. “Thanks, Rafe. Don’t eat too much, that blonde doesn’t strike me as a lover of beer guts.”

  “That’s why I gave her a peek of the six-pack earlier. Not false advertising that way,” he said, tapping his head with one finger. “See? Not just a p
retty face.”

  “Not just,” she agreed with a smile, “no.” She waved him off just as the three judges showed up, clipboards in hands and blank expressions on their faces.

  The nerves that settled over her were palpable, visible in the tense square of her shoulders and the erect line of her spine, the way her jaw bunched and flexed as she nibbled her bottom lip to death.

  “We’re fine, Reese. We got everything,” I told her as I added the final touch to the judge’s offering, a final bowl of barbecue sauce on its own beside the ribs and three side dishes required by the rules. “You’ve got this.”

  She nodded absently, barely hearing the encouraging words because her nerves were so frazzled.

  “Reese. Relax.” She nodded, but still, my words weren’t registering and I felt helpless, which wasn’t something I was used to feeling. I was a man who saw a problem and figured out a solution, but right now, nothing I said or did helped Reese.

  I wanted to make her laugh or even to make her smile with some lighthearted joke, some playful words to make her forget her anxiety long enough to talk to the judges. Instead, I went with something else.

  “Undercover!” The word came out of my mouth on a loud shout and as soon as it did, the memories flooded back.

  My phone buzzing on the floor had woken me up, and I’d turned with one arm still wrapped around Reese as I reached blindly for the phone. “Slater. Yeah?” The call had been from the head of a joint task force with the FBI who needed my particular skill set and knowledge. It was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down. And I hadn’t.

  I remembered casting one final look in Reese’s direction at her sleeping form, wondering if I should have woken her with a light kiss on the shoulder to tell her goodbye. To explain why I had to leave.

  Instead, I’d let her sleep.

  In hindsight, a huge mistake. I leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “That night. I got a call in the middle of the night about a task force for a group of spree killers in my old stomping grounds. One of the suspects was someone I’d dealt with a lot and they wanted my insight. I should have said something before I left. I’m sorry.” It had finally come to me. Finally!