by Avery Flynn
"Oh, yes." He opened up the passenger door. "Even if I have to drag you kicking and screaming and handcuffed to me you're not getting out of my sight again."
Ditching Drew wasn't an option though. He'd cuff her, she didn't doubt it for a minute—and part of her was hoping he would.
Drew
Somewhere in hell the devil was laughing his tailed little ass off. His mom and Leah sat opposite each other across at the Jackson family dining room table. He sat opposite an empty seat. Oh yeah, there was a place setting for his father but he'd stopped deluding himself about his old man's dedication to family eons ago. Saying the stilted conversation and long silences were awkward was like saying he only kinda wanted to drag Leah into the closest room with a door and relieve some of the stress stringing him tight since she'd dipped out of decorating duty at the gym.
"So Leah." His mom, Jennifer, set her fork down, leaving exactly half a baked potato, half a steak and half her vegetables untouched—just like they'd stay for the rest of the meal. "You sell drugs?"
Drew almost choked on his medium rare steak.
"I operate a fully-legal marijuana shop in Denver, yes." Leah responded without an ounce of emotion in her tone, almost as if all the shit he'd been giving her for her choice in careers had beaten some of the fight out of her.
He hated that. As soon as he got her alone, he'd apologize.
"What an...interesting life you must lead," Mom said, smoothing her hair, a nervous gesture that had become more frequent since she'd gotten out of rehab.
Leah nodded and took a bite, chewing with more effort than her mashed potatoes required.
Yeah, this was going even worse than he'd expected, but dinner with his mom wasn't a responsibility he could ignore. Keeping his head down, he shoveled in another bite of potato.
Dinner at his parents’ house had never been fun, not even when he was a kid. There was always some passive aggressive fighting going on between his functioning alcoholic mother and his philandering father. Not that they'd ever divorce. Too public a scandal. Instead, they just seethed silently and spent as much time apart as humanly possible—right up until his mom decided to spend twenty-eight days at the "spa" and came home with a twelve-step program that didn't include telling a single soul in Catfish Creek where she'd really been. The price tag for that? Drew had to come home and help her with her cover story. Faced with the choice between seeing his mom get better, even if she was still the queen of the perfect facade, or watching her lose herself in a bottle, he'd done what he'd always done. He'd given up the policing he loved, came home to Catfish Creek and done the right thing. And with Jess across the country and his dad all but missing in action, there was no one else to do it but him.
"You know, Jessica will be here on Thursday," Mom said. "She's coming from Hollywood."
"How nice for her," Leah said, sounding about as happy as a woman facing a firing squad.
Either oblivious or just too deeply attached to the reality she'd created in her head, his mom nodded in agreement. "Yes, all those big stars really depend on her. Now, if she'd just listened to me when I advised her about what she needed to be doing in L.A., well, she'd be one of those big stars but that girl never did listen. I think it was because of who she hung out with, and look, now here you are with my son."
Like an unexpected slap across the face, the words hung in the air. Grinding his teeth together, he smacked his palms down on the table on either side of his plate and stood.
Leah spoke up before he got a chance, her voice carefully neutral. "I'm leaving town right after the reunion."
"Mom." The single word sounded more like a threat, but both women at the table ignored him.
"Your poor mother," Mom went on. "All of her children have abandoned her. I'm so glad that didn't happen to me."
"Mom. Stop." He smacked his open hand on the table. She loved to do this whole concerned but still evil thing with him and Jess, he wasn't about to let her do it with Leah. "Stop it right now."
"No, it's the truth," she said, her body practically vibrating with the same twisted righteousness she'd had back in her drinking days when she'd lecture him and Jess about the importance of always presenting the perfect family picture. "You're always here doing what needs to be done for family."
Yeah, and didn't he just love every soul-sucking moment of it. And when the call came for the job in Fort Worth, would she just give in and drop back into the bottle? Guilt ate away at him with all the delicacy of a long horn steer tearing through a glass shop.
"And what about what's best for him?" Leah asked, her voice soft but with a strident undertone.
That made both him and his mom stop. Best for him? That was usually the last thing on the long list of keeping the family together that he'd had since his mom brought Jess home as a baby and then proceeded to celebrate the birth of her second child by getting quietly drunk on vodka mixed in with her sweet tea while his dad continued his affair with his secretary. Taking care of the family had always been Drew’s first priority, one that had spilled over into the rest of his life where he'd chosen to go into public safety. His brain didn't work any other way.
"Well," his mother said, reaching for her wine goblet of water with a shaky hand. "What's best for family is best for everyone in that family, don't you think?"
Ten minutes later and finally out of the house he’d grown up in, Drew couldn't shake the question as he drummed his fingers against his truck's steering wheel and waited for the stoplight to turn. For her part, Leah was quiet, staring out the window at the people eating at one of the outdoor restaurants on Main Street. He'd opened his mouth at least half a dozen times since they left his parents' house but no words came out—probably because he had no idea what they should be. However, the silence screaming in the truck wasn't it though.
"I'm sorry about my mom," he said, pulling away from the intersection and turning left toward his house.
"Why?" Leah asked. "That's how your mom has always been, drunk or sober."
His jaw dropped. "You knew?"
She snorted and shook her head. "You think you're the only one who Jess called for a Dr. Pepper moment?"
Dr. Pepper had been his and Jess's code for help for as long as he could remember—usually called out because of their mom's obsession with perfection or their dad's casual indifference.
"I thought you and Jess stopped being friends in high school."
"We did but there was history between us." Leah let out a harsh breath. "Isn't that always the case when it comes to the Jackson family and doesn't it always come to bite me in the ass?”
Yeah. He wasn't going to touch that last part right now. "What happened with you and Jess?"
She shrugged. "Just high school girl things."
If that was the case, he didn't see how it would still bother her this much ten years later. "Just spit it out."
Leah chewed on her bottom lip and continued looking out the window at the passing businesses, her shoulders hunched and her arms stationed protectively in front of her stomach. Figuring she was just going to ignore the question, he lapsed back into silence as he turned toward a more residential section of town.
"We'd drifted apart our first year in high school," Leah said, keeping her gaze turned away from him. "Jess fit in perfectly with the popular cheerleader set. I did not. It was awkward, but not horrible, even if I didn't know what I'd done wrong to lose her as a friend. Then, one night our freshman year after she had a big fight with your mom, she called me. We met up at the park by my old house and talked for hours about everything. It was like we'd never stopped being friends. I thought everything would go back to how it was." She paused and drew in an unsteady breath. "I couldn't have been more wrong. The next day at school I made the mistake of saying hi to Jess when she was with some of her new friends. She didn't just snub me, she gave me this look like I wasn't even good enough to be the dirt on her shoe. Then, she asked her friends if they heard the ghost of a total loser talking. They walked of
f laughing while I stood there like she'd punched me right in the gut. After that, it was war. We were both guilty of firing shots. Sugar in a car tail pipe. Nasty gossip scrawled on the bathroom walls. Clothes going missing from gym lockers. Rumors. Innuendo. General assholery."
"What happened after that?" He didn't know shit about being a teenage girl, but that sounds like just the sort of thing that would have wrecked Jess if it had happened to her.
Leah's chin went up another few degrees. "We graduated and I left this town for good, or so I thought."
Yeah, right up until the summer after she'd gotten her master's degree and there he was all ready to bang her and leave as soon as he'd gotten that call from the Fort Worth PD. If it hadn't been for her encouraging him to see beyond his family's demands back then, he may have just toed the family line and followed his dad into the corporate world where he screwed people over for a living. And how had he repaid her? By leaving her in his rearview mirror without even a goodbye kiss. He'd been young but that was no excuse for being that big of a dick.
"I'm sorry."
She twisted in her seat, one eyebrow up. "For what?"
"For being one in a long line of Jacksons to fuck you over." He turned onto his street, determined to make sure it wouldn't happen again. "Look, don't ditch me again. You could really get hurt."
"I won't." Her arms tightened around her middle even as she got that look in her eye that only meant trouble. "But I'm not sitting by idly, either."
"So we'll do it together." Mind made up, he was already rolling through the scenarios and building a plan as he hit the button to open the garage.
"You mean it?" The surprise in her voice punched him right in the balls.
"Yeah, I do." He pulled into the garage and cut the engine. "It's the right thing to do."
And it was. Not just to make it up to Leah, but because she was right. Sitting around like a breathing target wasn't going to keep her safe. As long as the ringleader thought she had the diamond instead of it being in the sheriff's office evidence lock up, she was in danger and he couldn't have that. It was time to go on the offensive, which meant keeping his hands to himself and his mind on the mission instead of Leah's perfect ass. So, once inside, instead of giving into the call of the sway of her hips or the undeniable thing zipping between them, he offered her a curt goodnight. Then, he left her standing in the bedroom doorway, a confused look on her face, as he made up the couch for another night of lower back agony that was still less painful than the guilt and regret about his behavior that was eating him from the inside out.
6
Leah
The next morning, Leah was on the cranky side after Drew's unexpected hands-off goodnight and was yet again staring down the coffee machine when her cell buzzed. However, unlike yesterday, she wasn't alone and Drew was dressed—too bad.
He paused mid-bite in his inhaling of a mountain of bacon surrounded by a valley of scrambled eggs. "Is that your contact?"
"Yeah." She tapped the answer button and set the phone down in the middle of the kitchen table, then sat down next to Drew, trying to ignore her body's instant awareness of him as he scooted his chair closer to hers. "Hey, Lexie, what did you find out?"
"Ugh," Lexie groaned. "Am I on speaker? I fucking hate being on speaker."
"Sorry," Drew said. "That's because of me."
"Oh, I like that voice," Lexie said. "Is this Mr. Big Dick?"
Leah almost spewed her first sip of coffee everywhere.
"Yeah," Drew said, glancing up at Leah and giving her a sexy smirk. "That's me."
Cheeks burning at Lexie's usual lack of filter, Leah got the conversation back to where it was supposed to be. “So, what can you tell us about Wynn and Miller?”
Drew's raised eyebrow let her know that he was probably going to bring the whole big dick thing up again. Of course. Because this is how her life worked in Catfish Creek, home to all of her top ten most embarrassing moments.
"Both are more muscle than brain," Lexie said at a fast clip, no doubt used to giving these types of bad guy briefings to the other B-Squad agents. "If I was going after a fifteen-carat diamond, I sure as shit wouldn't be leaving them unsupervised—especially not if the person I was selling to was half as pissed as it seems Mr. Moneybags is."
Drew's head jerked up.
"Rewind, Lexie," Leah said.
"Okay, Wynn and Miller work for Warren Law, nice irony, right? Officially, he's in the import/export business but instead of cocaine along with his shipment of antiques, he dabbles in hot jewels. He's as dirty as a Jeep after you've taken it mudding but he's non-violent—not even a whisper of him using the muscle twins for anything other than general intimidation, which is probably why they haven't jumped you already. Law has a reputation for patience. Too bad he's under the gun this time. Warren had a buyer all lined up for the diamond, a buyer who doesn't take no for an answer and likes to outfit people in cement shoes. So poor Warren has to get that diamond or go to Mr. Bent Nose and explain why he doesn't, which—in all likelihood—will end very, very badly for him."
"How do you know this?" Skeptical didn't even begin to describe the cynical look on Drew's face. "The FBI isn't even sure who Miller and Wynn work for."
Lexie's snort came through loud and clear over the line. "I've got skills the Feds wish they had."
"And a tendency to hack her way into places she's not supposed to be," Leah added.
"Yeah, well, if those guys would share information a little better their lives would go so much more smoothly," Lexie retorted.
Drew shook his head. "That's never going to happen."
The import/export was a great cover for a jewel thief. In a weird way, Leah couldn't help but kind of admire the guy for putting such a solid front in place that even the FBI hadn't figured it out. All they had to do was figure out a way to get to him and get him on the record admitting to the diamond theft. After that, the FBI would step in, arrest him, and she'd be free and clear.
"So your thinking is that Law is here in Catfish Creek?" Leah asked.
"I'd bet my miniature hand-blown glass feline collection on it."
That was as good as a guarantee. "Have any goodies to share?"
"Always," Lexie said. "Pics and a down and dirty brief is already in your inbox."
"Thanks, Lexie."
"Catch you next time you're in Fort Worth," she said. "I want all the details about Mr. Big Dick with a good voice."
Drew's eyebrow arched. "I have a name, you know."
"And a hot official photo too, Sheriff Drew Jackson," Lexie said with a laugh.
"Never get a job in the real world, Lexie." Leah shook her head, wondering not for the first time how Lexie—a legitimate Texas heiress and all around quirk fest—had ever ended up at B-Squad Investigations and Security. "You'd be fired in a heartbeat."
"Probably. Toodles, kids."
After Lexie hung up, she and Drew sat and drank their coffee in silence for a few minutes. Leah assumed he was working his way around to the same solution to Law as she had. She was wrong.
"You spend a lot of time in Fort Worth?" he asked, pushing the last remains of his breakfast around his plate with his fork.
"My mom's there with my stepfather. My brother's there with his fiancée. I go back every two or three months."
"Ever think of moving back down?"
A short bark of a laugh escaped. "Not unless Texas gets a political makeover and pot becomes legal. Believe it or not, I like what I do. I like the people. I like the challenge of running a business. I like that I made a move into a kind of business that a lot of people who got their business master’s at the same time as I did wouldn't touch with a twenty-foot pole—not that they aren't regretting it now."
"So why not apply those skills to another kind of business?" he asked, snagging her cup of coffee and stealing a drink.
Letting the question soak in for a minute, she tried to find some of the nose-in-the-air judgment he'd used before when asking about her bu
siness, but it wasn't there. It was like he was just...curious. The realization did something to her insides, filling her with a soft warmness she wasn't used to and didn't know how to process. So she did what she always did in that situation and made herself harder.
"Because I like selling pot." She jerked her chin higher and straightened her spine, not letting herself drop eye contact. "It's not just the hipsters who want to get high. It's a legal product that a lot of people enjoy. It's also a Godsend for folks with glaucoma, cancer and other illnesses. Plus, it's fun as hell to show up to work in my Doc Martens and T-shirt and scare the shit out of the uptight suits who stop in on a regular basis and try to buy me out."
"You always did love standing up to the man," he said before finishing off her coffee.
She snagged her now empty cup from him, her fingers tingling at the contact and her nerves more than a bit jangly at this new side to Drew, and walked over to the coffee maker to start another cup. "Talk like that makes you sound like a Baby Boomer burn out."
"I'm an old soul."
"Nah, just one who thinks there's only one path and is going to shoehorn himself onto it no matter what," she said as she turned and watched his jaw tense. Shit. The snark had just popped out. Drew was wrong, she didn't just run when cornered, she built defenses out of brick-sized attitude mortared together with bitchiness. That needed to change. If being here in Catfish Creek had taught her anything so far it was that she really needed to let all the old shit go—including the hurt that had festered since that summer with Drew. "Sorry, it's not my place to say anything."
"If you didn't, no one else would," he said, his shoulders tense. Then, he got up and cleared his spot, loading the dishes into the dishwasher in silence. After clicking it closed, he leaned one hip against the counter and watched her as she drank her coffee. "So we can't let Law get the diamond."
"Agreed," she said, relieved to be back on familiar ground.
"But that doesn't mean he shouldn't think he is."
