“I don’t think you have a choice. You’re in uniform, which means you have to work. You can’t stand here on Main Street, holding me hostage all day. Unless you plan to arrest me. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Arrest otherwise upstanding citizens for their very first infraction?”
And there it was. He knew her nerves were frayed to their breaking point, finding out she broke the law while also seeing those damn posters. But she meant it just the same. She still hadn’t forgiven him, not that he had ever asked her to. And dammit, he was tired of it. Never mind that, as far as first infractions went, making crystal fucking meth was not exactly jaywalking. He wasn’t going to take this crap from her. She was sleeping with him, dammit. He had been inside of her. She needed to know what he stood for.
He released her and spun her around by the shoulders to face him. “Emma Louise Andrews, don’t you ever say that to me again. I’ve made mistakes. I know I have. But I’ve worked damn hard to rectify those mistakes. There was a time, when I put on this uniform, I couldn’t look myself in the face. I was too ashamed. But serve and protect—I learned what that meant. I learned how to do it, not just pay lip service. I wear this uniform with pride now. Don’t you dare say otherwise.”
She stared at him with wide gray eyes. He had surprised her. She hadn’t expected him to push back, probably because pushing back wasn’t something he usually did. Not when it came to her.
“Okay,” she said, but he could tell she didn’t understand. And he wanted her to. Wanted her to understand how he felt about his job. Wanted her to understand him.
“Come with me,” he said impulsively.
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Come with you where?”
“On patrol. Come with me.”
“I was afraid that’s what you meant. No, thank you.”
“Riding along with a police officer, seeing that interaction with Hart’s Ridge citizens, that seems like something a good mayor would be interested in doing.”
She gave his chest a slight push. “That’s a low blow, Officer Carter.”
He noticed that she had left her hand there, resting on his heart. He looked down at it, then at her, eyebrows raised.
“Yes,” she snapped. “I like touching you. What of it?”
“Come with me, and you can keep doing that. Maybe I’ll even let you hold my hand.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not that kind of girl.” She huffed a long-suffering sigh. “Fine, I’ll come. But only because I want to be a good mayor.”
He grinned. “Sure, that’s why.”
As he led her to his car, he grabbed her hand, lacing their fingers together. Because he knew exactly what kind of girl she was.
Chapter Sixteen
Emma buckled herself into the last place on Earth she ever wanted to be. She had never been in any police car at all, much less Eli’s. But she knew someone who had.
She sneaked a surreptitious glance over her shoulder to the back seat, trying to imagine her dad sitting there behind the partition, handcuffed and ashamed. It made her chest ache. She caught Eli’s eye as she faced forward again.
“I didn’t use the squad car to bring him in,” Eli said.
“What?” Apparently she wasn’t as subtle as she thought.
“You were thinking about your dad, right? He was never back there. After you told me, I waited for you to go to Dreamer’s, and I took my truck. No handcuffs, either. I didn’t want to give the neighbors something to talk about before I could see you again. I wanted you to hear it from me, not some nosy busybody who didn’t love you.”
She sucked in a sharp breath of air at the word love. He meant as friends. Back then, he had loved her, not as a sister, exactly, given what he had said about her in that bathing suit, but as a friend. The way she had loved him.
Although, come to think of it, how she had loved him was feeling increasingly murky. Having him back in her life made all those old memories come roaring back to the surface. Like how she had always managed to be single just in time for each and every school dance, so they could go together as “just friends.” And all the little excuses she would find to touch him. She had always liked to touch him. That wasn’t a recent development.
Anyway, this wasn’t the time to think about that. This was about her dad. She exhaled slowly, trying to refocus her runaway brain. “And he just...went with you? It was that easy?”
“Well, sure.” He sent her a surprised look. “He seemed almost relieved it was over, to be honest. Not that I think he wanted to go to jail, either. He said he had planned to get out, as soon as he made enough money. But then your mom died, and certain people weren’t so keen on letting him leave. And then I caught on to everything before he could figure out what to do about that.”
Only Eli hadn’t caught on. His own daughter had. Guilt gnawed at her insides with sharp pointy teeth. Eli hadn’t told her dad that part. His betrayal only went so far as necessary to keep her safe. He truly was a good man. And like he had said, it was a completely different thing from being merely nice.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. And then hoped he wouldn’t ask what she was thanking him for.
He didn’t. He just nodded and put the car in drive.
“So where are we going?” she asked. “Do you have a place you’re supposed to be, or...?”
“I start with patrolling 19E for speeders, then do a few check-ins in town. Things never really stick to that plan. I get calls, so most of it is played by ear.”
“Oh. That’s pretty brave of you, don’t you think? Writing speeding tickets before an election? That won’t exactly endear you to your voters.”
“That...hadn’t occurred to me.”
He was watching the road, so she took the opportunity to study his profile. “It hadn’t occurred to you, that people might not be so keen on voting for the man who wrote them a ticket? You do want to be mayor, don’t you?”
“I want Hart’s Ridge to have the mayor it deserves.”
Her eyes narrowed. That wasn’t exactly an answer. “I’m the mayor Hart’s Ridge deserves.”
He pulled his eyes away from the road long enough to flash her a grin. “Then I can’t be too upset about it when you win, can I?”
“If, not when, and it’s a pretty big if now with those posters all over town reminding people that I’m a felon’s daughter.”
“Once again, I had nothing to do with those posters. That being said, I don’t think they had the intended effect.” He rubbed his shoulder as they pulled into a trailhead parking lot to set up a speed trap. “Anyway, you also make damn good burritos, or so I hear, so there is that.”
“This election is not going to come down to my cooking skills, Eli. Why aren’t you taking this seriously?”
“You have to understand, when I threw my hat in the ring, there wasn’t anybody else. Hell, the Whittakers couldn’t find anyone even to act on a temporary basis. No one wanted it. Would you have been so eager for the position if I hadn’t stepped up first?”
“Maybe,” she said, even though she knew one hundred percent that she had only wanted this so he couldn’t have it. That was how it started, anyway. Now things were different. She could be good at this. Really and truly good at this, and she could do good for other people.
It was funny to think how much had changed in the last six weeks. Had she really thought she couldn’t live in Hart’s Ridge if he were mayor? She felt so differently now. She wanted to win, absolutely, but she wasn’t going to move if she lost.
“Don’t lie to me, Ms. Andrews.”
“Fine. Probably not,” she admitted. “I didn’t want you to win, okay? But what are you going to do if you do win? Mayor isn’t a paid position, and you can’t do it while serving as a police officer.”
“If I win. I imagine the citizens of Hart’s Ridge will take that issue into account when they cast their votes. A vote for me means losing their only full-time police officer, and possibly updating the law to make mayor a paid position. Unless
they want their mayor to be homeless.”
Realization dawned. “You jerk! You never had any intention of winning. You just wanted to trick me into it. You manipulated me. What an awful thing to do.”
“Yeah. You should probably drop out of the race,” he said wryly.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not going to drop out. I want to be mayor. No, don’t look all pleased with yourself. You tricked me. What you should have done was tell me straight out that I should be mayor, because I would do an awesome job.”
“Right. And you would have immediately hustled your cute ass over to Town Hall to sign up, because you valued my opinion so highly.”
He had a point there. Her ass was cute.
And she wouldn’t have taken his interference kindly, which was the more important point. But it wasn’t like he had lied to her. She had made her own decision.
“It was a pretty risky move on your part,” she said. “They might actually vote for you. You might be the next mayor of Hart’s Ridge.”
“Then I guess you better make sure that this Fourth of July is one hell of a success.”
A white pickup truck zoomed past at seventy-five miles per hour, twenty over the posted limit. Eli flipped his lights on and exited the parking lot. The truck pulled over almost immediately, and Eli stopped behind him. He ran the plates, leaving the lights still flashing.
“Wait here,” he said, unbuckling.
Emma nodded. She watched Eli approach the vehicle right as another car went whizzing by them, making Eli jump farther off the road. Her heart leaped into her throat. She had known police work was sometimes dangerous, but it felt excruciatingly real now.
It felt like an eternity before the truck pulled back on the road and Eli returned to the car, but it was probably no more than ten minutes. She grabbed his face and kissed him hard on the mouth.
“What was that for?” he asked when they separated.
“I was scared for you.”
His dark eyes warmed. “It was just a teenager going too fast, not a murderer on the run. I wasn’t in any danger.”
“You could have been hit by a car.”
“Well, yeah.” He buckled in. “That does happen, sometimes. It’s one of the biggest hazards of this job. In a small town like this, we’re just as likely to die in a crash or get hit by a car as get shot.”
“Be careful. Promise me, Eli.”
He ran his thumb along her cheekbone. “I promise.”
She sat back, her heart still beating a little too fast. “How much was the ticket for?”
“A buck twenty.” Eli grinned. “His parents are going to be pissed, but maybe he’ll think twice before he presses that gas pedal. I let him know this stretch is part of my regular patrol, so if he doesn’t, I’ll see him again. It’s funny, because this is probably the number one thing people hate about what I do, but it’s something I truly believe in. This highway is a killer. It’s narrow and made of hairpin curves. If I can stop one person from wrapping their car around a tree, I consider that a huge win.”
Emma suspected his dad’s death had a lot to do with that. She reached out impulsively and squeezed his thigh. He covered her hand with his, keeping her from retreating.
“I used to think this job was so easy, you know? Not that it’s not hard work, but I thought it was work that was easy to do right. Simple. Everything was black-and-white. You break the law, I make sure you face the consequences. But it turned out that there’s a lot more gray, even when it comes to the law. Maybe especially when it comes to the law. Justice is supposed to be blind, but I get the feeling that bitch peeks a little, and not in a helpful way. I realized that when your dad was sentenced.”
Oh, no. She didn’t want to talk about this. She tugged at her hand, but he held tight.
“Please, Emma. Let me say this. I need you to hear me. This isn’t about you and me and what went wrong there. It’s just about me. How I do my job.”
She swallowed hard and nodded. “Okay.”
“You know what the cost of an inmate in North Carolina is? Thirty-three thousand dollars a year. For eight years, that’s over a quarter million dollars. That’s the cost to taxpayers for your dad’s prison time for a crime he wouldn’t ever have committed if that quarter million had been available to pay for your mom’s cancer treatments instead. It’s a fucked up system, and it put me in a dark place knowing that. Knowing I was a part of it.”
He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. “I nearly quit the force. I signed up to do good, and it didn’t feel very good to arrest your dad. Maybe I would have actually quit if Hart’s Ridge hadn’t gone in a different direction.”
“You mean making a deal with the county to consolidate the police force?”
He nodded. “It was a financial decision, of course. It always comes down to money. Policing was the biggest line item of the Hart’s Ridge budget by tens of thousands of dollars. And for what? Domestic disturbances, loose dogs, stupid conflicts between neighbors? I’m happy to take care of all those things—especially when the wife actually lets us make the arrest—but it doesn’t make sense to have a whole police department ten deep to do it. We don’t have much other violent crime here. There’s been one murder in the last fifteen years, and the husband did it, open and shut case. Yeah, there’s drugs, but most of that ends with charges of disorderly conduct. Hart’s Ridge didn’t need ten officers. We needed social workers and health clinics, not empty jail cells. So Hart’s Ridge voted—you remember that.”
She nodded. She hadn’t paid too much attention, because paying attention to that would have meant paying attention to Eli, but she had voted, too.
“It turned out that what Hart’s Ridge wanted was something I could live with. So I’m still here, and shit, Emma, this job is important. It kills me that you think it’s not, that I’m just here to ruin someone’s day.”
Shame washed over her. “I don’t think that. Really, I don’t. What I said earlier, that was a terrible thing to say. I shouldn’t have said it.”
She caught his face gently with both hands, turned him to face her, and pressed her forehead against his. “I think you’re amazing, Eli. Really and truly amazing.”
***
Eli hadn’t expected that. Hadn’t expected it, didn’t know what to do with it, and was pretty sure he didn’t even want it. They were nice words, the kind of words a lover should enjoy hearing, but to him it didn’t sound loving. It sounded like the beginning of the end.
Which made sense, because that’s exactly what it was. The election was only days away. Their time was almost up.
“Okay, then.” He gently eased her hands from his jaw. “We should move to another spot. The kid probably told all his friends our location by now.”
Her forehead creased in a frown. “Okay,” she said slowly.
“Actually, maybe it would be better if I take you home.”
“Take me home? Now? I thought I was staying with you the whole day. I think you were right. I didn’t have any idea what it’s like as a police officer, and a mayor should know more than that. At least have some understanding of what it’s all about.”
“Yeah. But I think you get it now. And I know you have a lot to do. I’ve taken up enough of your time.”
“Right,” she said uncertainly. “Well. Take me home, then, I guess.”
He knew he was being a jerk, but he couldn’t stop himself. Suddenly he couldn’t get away from her fast enough. He needed some time alone, to think. Or not think. He would really rather not think right now, actually.
He turned the radio on and was relieved to hear Maren Morris belting out “My Church.” A good song. A safe song. No star-crossed lovers here.
“You can listen to the radio while on duty?” Emma asked, sounding surprised.
“Sure. Police calls come through on their own speakers.”
“Oh.”
He hoped that would be the end of conversation, but he turned up the radio volume a little to make t
hat clear. She didn’t take the hint.
“Hey, did you ever find out what happened to your mom?”
He shot her an incredulous look. “You’re really going to toss my mom into it with no warning? Jesus, Emma.”
“Sorry. I’ve been wondering about it, but I didn’t know how to bring it up. I figured this was as good a time as any.”
She was wrong about that. It wasn’t as good a time as any, though he couldn’t put his finger on why that was, exactly. He felt out of sorts. Anxious. Like he could use a long run to nowhere in particular, so long as it was far away from Emma. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about his damn mother.
But he wasn’t going to say any of that. He wasn’t going make this a bigger deal than it was, because God knew Emma was going to make a big deal about it if he let her.
“Yeah. I found her. A couple years ago, I looked her up. I had her social security number, and she hadn’t changed her name or anything, so it was easy. She hadn’t changed her first name, I mean. She’s out in California. Married. Two kids. Well, not kids anymore. The oldest is twenty-one. The younger one is nineteen.”
“Twenty-one...” Her voice trailed off as she puzzled through the math. “That means she was pregnant when she left.”
“Sure was. At least three months pregnant, unless he was a preemie.”
It hadn’t been hard to find their birthdates. Her social media accounts were shockingly open for a woman who had abandoned her family two decades ago. She sure didn’t seem like a woman harboring a guilty conscience. But maybe she didn’t feel guilt for those she left behind. Maybe she only felt relief.
He had thought about that final moment with his mom incessantly in the months after his discovery, reliving it over and over again in his mind. She had kissed his cheek, nearly lifted him off his feet in a hug, said I love you. He hadn’t known then that “I love you” really meant “goodbye forever,” and if her belly had protruded ever-so-slightly more than normal, he hadn’t noticed that, either. But maybe he should have. Maybe there had always been signs that she intended to leave, and he had been blind to all of them.
Make Me Love You Page 16
