Detour (The Getaway Series Book 5)

by Jay Crownover

  Now I was a father, and so was Rodie. Little Eliana had only changed our lives for the better. During the day, she usually came to work with me and was doted on by the entire staff at the ranch, as well as all her aunts and uncles. Webb loved her like she was his own and claimed he didn’t need to worry about having his own kids because he was just going to help raise mine. Ten seemed on board with that plan, claiming the kids at the ranch were enough for her. Rodie came and got the baby when he was off shift, and if he couldn’t watch her and I was still working, Miranda was the best grandmother Eliana could ask for. She played a huge part in helping us take care of the baby, and Rodie insisted his former CO was somewhere watching us all thrive with a smile on his face. The attractive older woman had even been open to the idea of dating more recently, so we were all rooting for her to have her own happy ever after.

  “Hey.” I turned at the sleepy sound of Rodie’s voice behind me. He looked as tired as I felt, but it didn’t make him any less attractive. He was finally starting to get some white and silver streaks in his reddish hair, but it looked good on him. So did the soft smile that automatically crossed his face when the baby cooed again.

  “She was fussy tonight. I think she was worried about you.” He put a hand on the back of my neck and gave it a gentle squeeze.

  I sighed and let my eyes fall closed. “It was a long day. I’m glad she was with Leo today. The ranch turned to utter chaos once it started snowing.”

  “Ahh… I forgot Mayor Warner took her from Miranda today to spend some time with the twins.” He yawned loudly, then peeked at the baby to make sure he didn’t wake her up. “She’s lucky to have so many people who love her.”

  I nodded in agreement and turned to usher him out of the artfully decorated nursery. “So are we.” So lucky to have so much love in all corners of our life.

  When the mayor dropped out of the race years ago, the local government was up in the air for a long time. The town buzzed for months after the news of the former mayor’s mishandling of city funds came to light. Things were so bad that the mayor moved his entire family out of town, which was a win on many levels, and ensured the rest of Cam’s high school days would be much easier.

  For a while, I pressured Rodie to press charges against Delaney Hall for sexual harassment her role in how everything went down. I was furious she managed to keep her job and remained unscathed by the mayor’s unfolding scandal. Rodie claimed he wanted to let sleeping dogs lie. As long as Delaney didn’t try to drag Cam through the mud and release the misleading photos, he was content to let her be. He really wanted to protect the teenager unwittingly caught up in the whole mess. I wasn’t as willing to let things go. Just like I had with the mayor, I devoted some time to digging deeply into Delaney’s past. The skeletons in her closet were better hidden, but I’d eventually managed to find a few.

  First and foremost, Rodie wasn’t the only male coworker she’d made uncomfortable with her aggressive advances. I’d tracked no less than three other men who mentioned how awful it’d been to work with her. When I pressed them all about pressing charges, no one wanted the stigma attached to a man being sexually harassed. They were afraid that no one would believe them and they’d lose face. They were worried about how a lawsuit against a pretty, successful young woman would affect their current careers and relationships. It forced me to see Rodie’s side of the situation a little more clearly. Secondly, it wasn’t only surveillance photos she liked to collect. When it was time to play dirty to get the dirt, I had a fed buddy hack into her computer and was very alarmed at what was uncovered. There were hundreds of pictures of teenage boys in various stages of undress in compromising positions with Delaney. The mayor’s son was one of them. In the end, Delaney served a harsher punishment than the mayor, who was slapped on the wrist and ordered to pay back the money he took from the scholarship fund. After a short investigation, she was arrested by the same fed who helped me hack her computer on child pornography charges. She was still awaiting trial, but things didn’t look good for her. She was finally in a situation she couldn’t use money or her looks to get herself out of.

  It wasn’t until the following year that, Leo, Cyrus’s spitfire wife, decided to step up and take control of the situation. She was a surprisingly good choice, even though she wasn’t a lifelong resident of Sheridan. The pretty redhead had a savvy business mind from her years as a corporate executive, and she really understood the needs of the people in Sheridan after running Cy’s ranch with him for several years. The townsfolk loved her, and she was elected by a landslide. After being in office for a month, she announced she was pregnant with twins. The little boys were slightly older than Eliana, but the entire Warner clan treated them all as if they were siblings. It was easy, considering the rapid pace the entire brood was growing.

  Sutton and Emrys had added another little girl to their family out in California, but now all of them came home to Wyoming in the summers to spend time with the family. Daye, possibly the sassiest young lady alive, adored being the oldest of the group and being the boss of all the babies. She was a pro at being the big sister, and Cam had slowly adapted to being everyone’s big brother. Much like Ten and Webb, who had decided to give their love and attention to kids from outside the family, Lane and Brynn opted to wait on having children of their own and instead focused on building a family full of kids who needed them. Along with formally adopting Cam, they’d also taken in two young sisters from the reservation where Brynn grew up after their parents were killed in a horrific accident. They were also fostering a few of the kids from the ranch for whom we simply hadn’t been able to find permanent living solutions. It was a good thing the Warner Ranch was huge, because it was overrun with kids these days.

  Rodie yawned again and followed me into the master bedroom. He was rubbing his eyes when he told me, “Cam sent a text that he’s coming home for Christmas break. He wants to bring Ethan with him. He wanted to know if you would reach out and ask his mom and Grady if they wanted to come to the ranch for the holidays.”

  Rodie’s yawn was contagious. I blinked and stretched my arms over my head. “Why didn’t he ask me directly?”

  Cam had graduated with honors and was currently in college in Colorado. We all thought he was going to want to go to school in a big city and move away from Wyoming when he got the chance, since he still stood out from everyone his own age in Sheridan. Instead, we’d all been pleased when he announced his interest in becoming a large animal vet. The demand was high where he lived, but the availability was minimal. We were all crazy proud of him, and we were secretly hoping he and Ethan could figure out how to make a real relationship work as they grew older and experienced more of what life had to offer together.

  The boys talking, flirting, and falling for one another online had been one thing, taking their feelings out into a judgmental and often unpleasant public was another. Cam, of course, rolled with the punches, but Ethan wasn’t made of the same unbreakable material as the former runaway. He told Cam he was bisexual, and tearfully admitted he was involved with a girl at his school right before the boys made plans to head to the same school after graduation. He claimed to really love the girl and apologized over and over again for leading Cam on. Ethan told Cam he wasn’t ready to leave New York, and that he wasn’t ready for anything serious with another boy. He was happy in his relationship, acknowledging it would be easier to stay with the girl. Of course, Cam was heartbroken, but in his typical fashion, he rallied and focused all his energy on graduating at the top of his high school class so he could go to the college of his dreams. Being at CU Boulder put him within driving distance of Sheridan and close to his brother. The laid-back vibe of the small college town suited him well. He was far from the only young gay man with neon hair and designer clothes on the big campus.

  Cam started dating almost as soon as he began college. He instantly came out of his shell and fell into a routine of being just a regular college student. He was happy and his easy adjustment made L
ane and Brynn breathe easy. Ethan didn’t handle seeing pictures of Cam with other cute boys very well.

  The other boy ended things with his high school sweetheart and transferred schools in the middle of a semester, much to my former partner’s dismay. Ethan showed up on Cam’s campus unannounced, immediately declared he’d made a horrible mistake, and loudly proclaimed his love. Cam was obviously skeptical after Ethan’s previous actions, and he was still hurt by what he considered to be his betrayal. He didn’t mind that Ethan was bisexual, but he was upset that he’d hidden the fact and lied to both him and the girl. He’d broken Cam’s trust, and there was no way around that. The damage was done, and Cam was ready to move on.

  But Ethan wasn’t ready to give up. It took a full year for him to get Cam to agree to date. Now the boys were together, but their relationship had all the usual ups and downs of young love. Keeping up with them was exhausting, but that didn’t keep Cam from texting me several times a day. Lane often joked that I heard from his oldest more than he did.

  “I dunno why he asked me and not you directly. I told him I would pass the message along.” Rodie blinked suddenly and fell backward onto the bed as I started to undress. I needed a shower and planned on asking him to join me. “Oh, maybe he asked me because he was asking how the task force investigation is going. He told me he keeps warning Opal about going out by herself at night.”

  Opal was Brynn’s younger sister. She was a beautiful, headstrong girl with whom Cam was exceptionally close. Of course, he was worried about her with a rapist on the loose.

  Rodie chuckled up at the ceiling. “He’s still pissed she finally gave his idiot older brother a chance.”

  Cam’s older brother Mikey had been in a pretty severe snowboarding accident last winter. Lane and Brynn brought him to the ranch to recover so they could keep an eye on him. Opal ended up helping him study to stay on track with school while he was laid up. Sparks flew, and the two had been an item ever since, much to Cam’s dismay. His older brother had matured considerably over the years, but he was still kind of a screw up, and Cam fully believed Opal deserved better.

  I shrugged out of my shirt and kicked the jeans off my long legs. I had full mobility back on most days. My shoulder still ached regularly, and I still had a slight hitch when I walked, but I no longer needed a cane to get around.

  “How is the investigation going?” He didn’t often bring his work home with him, but when he did, I made sure to pay attention.

  Rodie swore and closed his eyes. “It’s going nowhere. Everyone is too worried about stepping on jurisdictional toes. No one is sharing information freely. I’m going out to the reservation tomorrow to see if their law enforcement has any leads, since the last girl was abducted off their land. I doubt they’ll be any more open to sharing, but I gotta try something.”

  “You’ll figure it out.”

  I knew he would. He was a great cop and couldn’t abide by anyone getting hurt on his watch. Now that we had a daughter of our own to protect, he had a new intensity toward doing good and keeping our town safe.

  “If you need an extra set of eyes and ears, you know I’m here.” I always appreciated it when he wanted to bounce ideas off of me. It meant all my years of training and deductive reasoning weren’t going to waste. I might not carry a badge and gun anymore, but I was still involved in law enforcement.

  I turned toward the bed; Rodie’s eyes had closed and he seemed to be breathing smooth and deep. I hovered over him, grinning down at his ruggedly handsome face. Even heroes ran out of steam occasionally. I dropped a kiss on the center of his forehead and turned to go to the bathroom so I could shower away the day and join him in dreamland.

  I gasped in surprise when strong arms suddenly wrapped around my waist and pulled me back. I landed on top of Rodie with an ‘oomph’ and a chuckle. His hands immediately skated over bare skin, and I could feel his body reacting underneath me.

  “I’m glad you’re home. I’ve missed you a lot lately.”

  We were both very busy trying our best to help so many others. We had to make a concentrated effort to give each other the time and attention our relationship deserved. We had to remain a united front no matter what came our way.

  I stilled when I felt his big hand wrap around my twitching cock. “Missed you, too. Maybe after everyone gets together for Christmas and the weather clears up some, we should go away somewhere. Just me, you, and Eli.”

  Putting full sentences together was hard with his fist engulfing my erection, sliding up and down.

  Rodie sighed. “I would love that.”

  I smiled into the darkness. “I love you.” I really did. It snuck up on me, but I didn’t regret giving him my heart. He always did his best to take care of it.

  “I love you, too.” He really did. He showed me in different ways every single day.

  “This feels really good, but if you don’t hurry it up, we’re going to get interrupted.” Eliana had impeccable timing when it came to interrupting her dads’ alone time.

  “Let’s take a shower.” I let Rodie shift me off of him and followed him as he got to his feet.

  I winged up an eyebrow as I took his hand and followed him across the room. “Is that an order?”

  He wiggled his dark eyebrows back at me and asked, “Do you want it to be?”

  I kind of did. I liked it when he told me what to do while we had sex. “Yeah, I do. Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.”

  Rodie stopped and turned to look at me, green eyes gleaming. “Stay with me forever.”

  That was his favorite demand, and I was more than happy to comply.

  “I’m not going anywhere.” There was nowhere else I’d rather be.

  The End

  If you enjoyed the Getaway series, be sure to check out my Loveless series as well! Here’s a sneak peek at book one, Justified! You may recognize Case and Loveless from Runaround.

  Aspen

  “I feel it is in the best interest of the child if full custody of the juvenile goes to the mother. I also approve her request for the increase in child support. The father will be allowed supervised visits overseen by a representative of the court. We will revisit the issue in a year.”

  At that statement, an animalistic growl sounded from the table across from me.

  The former Mrs. Lawton dug her manicured fingers into my forearm hard enough to draw blood, and I fought back a wince. I hated her more now than I did in high school. If that was even possible, because I really, really hated her back then.

  “We won. Aspen, we actually won. You’re amazing. Worth every penny.” Becca’s voice was breathy and high. It matched her very blond hair, huge blue eyes, and very fake breasts. She looked like a Barbie doll, but she was far from a plastic, useless toy. The woman was a viper. Cunning and poisonous. I loathed representing her, hadn’t wanted to do it, but the alternative was so much worse. She was practically a lethal weapon where her ex-husband was concerned, and I seemed to be the only one willing to keep this woman from completely destroying him out of spite.

  Unfortunately, her ex-husband and father of her child made a lot of mistakes in court. And I was very, very good at my job. So, while I’d managed to rein in Becca’s thirst for vengeance for the most part, there was no denying her ex still got annhilated in the courtroom. I’d gotten everything my client asked for, which included her ex-husband losing all parental rights to their nine-year-old son. The reason I resented having to represent her was because it was obvious Becca wasn’t the best parent in the world, or actually concerned about her kid in the slightest. The little boy was the only thing her ex had shown any interest in fighting for during their contentious split. So, she’d latched on and thrown everything into keeping father and son apart for revenge, plain and simple. Like I said, she was a snake, which I already knew, because I’d often been her target when we were younger. If my father-in-law and boss hadn’t insisted I be the one to represent the woman, I would’ve told her to take a hike months ago
.

  Right now I was wondering if I was any better than she was. I felt dirty and guilty as hell. I cast a look out of the corner of my eye to the man silently seething on the other side of the courtroom. Our eyes met briefly, and I had to look away almost immediately. If looks could kill, he’d have to arrest himself for murder. His hatred for me was as crystal clear as my hatred for Becca.

  The seething animosity shouldn’t hurt, but it did.

  Because Case Lawton had always been that guy.

  The guy who was always taller, bigger, stronger, faster, smarter, and more handsome than any other. He was the guy who made it impossible to see all the other available, possibly interested guys. Well, he blinded my starry teenage eyes to any other possible option at least. As the new girl in high school, it’d been hard to fit in, but Case was the first one to welcome me and try to put me at ease. He was the one who showed me around the school, introduced me to his friends, and assured me people would warm up eventually. He invited me to a football game, even though it was beyond obvious I didn’t know anything about sports. He extended an invitation to my first high school party, when everyone else acted like I was invisible or carrying some infectious disease. He was nice to everybody, but the fact he took time to be nice to me, when no one else had ever made that effort before, meant I was a goner from the first time he smiled at me. I could never get over the fact he seemed to genuinely like having me around.