by Maegan Abel
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written consent of the author except where permitted by law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1537175843
Copyright © 2016 Maegan Abel LLC
Editing by Word Nerd Editing
Cover Photo by Eric Battershell
Cover Models: BT Urruela and Tessi Le’Anne
Cover Design by Staci Hart
Cover Design Copyright © 2016 Maegan Abel LLC
Formatting by Elaine York/Allusion Graphics, LLC
All rights reserved.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Also from this Author
About the Author
She was standing, naked, in the middle of the ocean.
And she was singing…or screaming—that was more accurate.
Earlier tonight, I’d been thinking graveyard shifts in this tiny town were quiet, but she was obviously sent to prove me wrong.
The spotlight from my cruiser ricocheted off the bottle in her hand and I realized not only was she naked, and singing, in the middle of the ocean, she was also drunk.
Perfect.
She’d frozen when the light hit her and as I stepped out of my car, she turned, blonde hair flipping around and sticking to her naked skin. It was then my eyes fell to the trail of clothing leading to the water.
“Want to tell me what’s going on here, ma’am?” I asked, hoping more than anything she would come without resisting. Even in the warm, early summer air, I had no desire to wade out into the ocean after her.
As a wave hit her from behind, she squealed and stumbled a little. Catching her bearings, she held the bottle up in triumph. “It’s okay. I saved it.” She took another swig and stalked—yes, stalked—toward the beach.
She exited the water and I stepped back, keeping my eyes respectfully diverted as she lifted the bottle to her lips again. “I think you’ve had enough to drink. I’d like to talk to you, so if you don’t mind…” I said, gesturing to her clothing.
“You want a drink? I’ll share,” she offered, ignoring my request and taking a step to put us even closer.
“It’s illegal to have glass on the beach,” I said, pointing in the direction of a sign not twenty feet back.
Squinting, she moved to the side so my body blocked the spotlight. She dropped the bottle and it hit my boot with a thud, causing me to look down. “Oooh, Officer. Do you have a permit for those guns?” she asked in what I assumed was supposed to be a seductive tone as her hands came up to squeeze my bicep.
Shocked, it took a moment before I removed her hands and let them down at her sides. Reaching for the bottle at my feet, I said, “Just keep your hands to yourself please, ma’am. And get dressed.”
“Ma’am?” She made a sound between a snort and a scoff. “Call me Evie, handsome.” She spun away toward the water, but I immediately reached out, grabbing her arm to turn her back.
“Call you Evie?” I choked out. The second her eyes met mine, everything fell into place. Every cell in my body, every part of me, recognized her.
At that moment, she stumbled, and I tightened my grip as both her hands came to my chest for balance. “Well, thank you, Officer…” she squinted and moved closer to read my name badge, “Jericho.” Her face snapped back up to mine, eyes narrowed. “Jericho? Gavin Jericho?” she spat my name like a curse, and I flinched from the disgust in her tone.
Something about this was off. She moved away when she was seven and we’d only met once. It didn’t make any sense for her to remember my name, and the fact that she appeared to hate me confused me even more. Studying her face, I tried to figure out what she was thinking.
“Officer Jericho will be fine,” I said, forcing myself to maintain my professional front. “If you don’t—”
She started yanking at my grip on her arm, cutting me off mid-sentence. She struggled to get free, but in her inebriated state, I was afraid she’d fall if I released her. I opened my mouth to try to calm her down, but she spoke first. “Let me go, Gavin, or I swear to God, I will scream so loud, it will make your ears bleed!” I raised my other arm defensively as she swatted at me. “What insane person gave you a badge and a gun! What, is being a cop the same thing as being a bully? I’m sure it takes about the same amount of brain cells! And now you think you have the right to break people’s bones?”
Seeing the fiery Evie I’d always known and loved coming out made me feel both better and worse. She stretched out her foot in a sloppy attempt to trip me and as I stepped over it, she lifted her leg, showing incredible coordination for someone with that much alcohol in their system. Afraid I would hurt her if I fell on her at this angle, I turned, dropping to my ass in the sand. She let out a squeal as the force of my fall brought her down, too.
Right into my lap.
The look of complete shock on her face no doubt mirrored mine and when she glanced up, meeting my eyes with her own, I couldn’t find words. I was still at a loss and with every beat of my heart, the only thoughts I could manage consisted of Evie being back in Hawk Bay. She was right here. Finally. She stared back, looking just as lost as I was, before shaking her head and shoving herself away.
“Are you some kind of pervert?” she screeched, stumbling to her feet. I pushed myself to stand and reached out to catch her, carefully avoiding anywhere inappropriate as I steadied her again.
“I’m not the one running around a public beach nude,” I responded, scooping up the clothes and holding them out to her. “I need you to get dressed.” Her body was just one of a hundred things about her currently on my mind, but it was the one distracting me the most.
“Fiiine,” she drew out the word, dramatically rolling her eyes, “but only because I don’t want you to get a good look at all this.” She gestured to herself, but I didn’t look down.
She ripped the shirt out of my hands and struggled into it before reaching for the jeans. Pausing, she swayed, and I grabbed for her, sure she was about to pass out. Instead, she leaned forward, her body heaving as she retched—loudly. I ignored the vomit on my boots and used my grip on her shoulders to hold her upright. Worried about how much she’d had to drink, I searched for the bottle she’d been carrying.
I needed to get her somewhere safe so she could sleep it off.
When she stopped heaving, I turned her toward the car, half carrying her. She wasn’t resisting anymore, but she wasn’t fully able to walk on her own either.
She groaned as I opened the back door and I watched her, making sure she wasn’t going to chuck a
gain. It would be hard enough to clean it off my boots, the last thing I wanted was to scrub it out of the squad car. Climbing in, she stretched out across the backseat with her bare ass in the air. I looked away and reached toward the floorboard by my seat to pop the trunk. Pulling out a spare blanket, I covered her before jogging back to the sand to grab the rest of her clothes and the nearly empty bottle. Heading back to the car, I placed everything in the passenger seat, started the engine, and glanced behind me at her relaxed face.
The relief I felt knowing she was here made me smile. I was confused as fuck by half the shit she spewed tonight and my head was spinning, but I was complete again. That feeling alone made all the waiting worth it.
I grabbed my phone, pulled up Dom’s number, and typed out a text with shaking fingers.
Me: Need to talk. It’s urgent. Meet me at the station when you get this.
Just as I tossed my phone into the seat with her clothes, I heard Evie’s soft voice from the backseat. “You know, I don’t remember your face being so nice.” It was garbled and I didn’t know how to respond. Her loud snores resonated only seconds later and I realized I didn’t need to. Chuckling, I started toward the station.
It felt wrong leaving Evie on the bed in the holding cell, but it was the safest place for her to sleep it off. She didn’t even wake as I carried her in and laid her down, making sure to tuck the blanket around her. Now I was standing outside the cell, watching her sleep like some sort of creeper.
Waiting for her was always the tedious part. Overall, the last sixteen years were nothing, but living through them got dull. Evie always had a way of making life more interesting, even after all these years.
The door to the station opened and I glanced over my shoulder, watching Dom walk toward me. He dropped a pizza box on my desk and I was grateful he’d thought to grab food. He headed back to where I was standing and looked into the cell.
“Busy night?” he asked, then sniffed before taking a step away.
“She hurled on me,” I said in response, looking over at her again before turning to head toward the bathroom to clean up. “Be right out.”
It took longer than I would’ve liked to clean my boots and by the time I came out, I’d lost my appetite.
Dom was sitting in the chair beside my desk with his feet propped on the wood, the pizza box opened as he ate. I shoved them off as I approached. “Beer?” I asked, heading in the direction of the small kitchen.
“Sure.”
Grabbing him a beer from the back of the fridge and myself a soda, I returned to my desk and handed him the bottle before dropping heavily into my chair.
“Not used to having to actually do work, huh?” Dom asked, chuckling as I narrowed my eyes.
“I prefer it quiet.”
“I saw the shitheads who spray painted the side of Pop’s store. You didn’t bust them, did you?” Dom asked, raising an eyebrow. I reached for a slice of pizza, avoiding his eyes.
“Nah. I try to give them a break unless they really piss me off.” I shrugged, taking a bite. “A lot of the cops around here let me off easy when I was a teenager.”
“Sounds more like laziness to me. Not sure why they pay you,” he said, grinning and shaking his head.
“It’s her,” I blurted, not sure why I felt the need to tell him right then. It wasn’t like Dom and I kept secrets, but I’d planned on waiting until she wasn’t passed out in a holding cell.
His mouth opened as he looked over his shoulder at Evie’s snoring form. “Holy hell. And here I thought she’d finally figured out a way to avoid you for an entire cycle.”
My free hand darted out, snagging the bright blue spiky puff ball one of the guys left on my desk as a joke a few weeks ago, and I chucked it at him. He dodged out of the way, watching it sail past his head and bounce across the floor. “Dick.”
“I wonder what I have to do to get a cop arrested for attempted assault,” he mused, and I laughed.
“Thanks for the pizza, by the way. You’re a lifesaver.”
“You’re lucky I dragged my ass out here this late. I’m exhausted. I pulled forty-eight hours at the store this week and I still have research to do, so I should be out on the boat most of the weekend.”
“Uh, I’ll be here all weekend. Wanna trade?” I laughed.
“Yeah, that’s a no. You’re the one who chose law enforcement in a podunk town.” He finished his beer and stood, tossing the bottle in the trash as he headed toward the door. “I guess I could always set a few of the docked boats on fire for you. Keep you on your toes.”
I laughed again. “Don’t think I wouldn’t arrest your sorry ass for arson. Now, get out.” He shook his head as the door closed behind him.
No matter what happened, Dom always had my back. Living as we did, it was tough finding someone you could be compatible with for such a long period of time. When you found them, you usually stuck with them, and that’s exactly what Dom and I did. We’d been friends a long time; long enough that it was hard to tell exactly when traditions started. Him bringing pizza and hanging out at the station to keep me company was only one of those traditions.
I’d spent my life in Hawk Bay. As boring as that sounded, it was the best place to be in my situation. It was just easier to stay put rather than running all over the place searching for someone I knew would find me when the time came. My family started here and Dom’s parents found mine about a year and a half after Evie moved away. It was always nice to have a cycle where we had others around who understood what we were going through. For me, this time, that was Dom’s parents. As a child, I hadn’t realized the difference in my parents until Dom and his family arrived, reminding me of our situation.
A few cycles before, my parents decided they were tired. It was understandable. That’s what I was told. It was the kind of thing that happens in time. They made the choice together to end their cycles. The memories of that time became a little clearer as I got older. It was troubling for me as well as Evie during the cycle when they told us. We worried about what that decision would mean for us—for me. It was selfish, but we were happy with our Infinity. What would happen when my parents stopped cycling? How would I continue to exist?
Infinity isn’t a solid concept. It’s fluid. Everyone’s Infinity is different. There’s no rule book that explains it to us. We just have to learn and adapt to each cycle. What I’ve learned now is that, at least for me, my parents severing their connection led to them becoming something that resembled hollow shells of who they used to be. They were here. They existed. They weren’t the same, though.
None of us were. Evie and I had actually struggled the last few cycles since. The weight landed heavily on my chest at the thought of all we’d been through. I thought this would be an easy life for us, but the fact that she moved away right after we met without a word, and her obvious disdain for me tonight, made it clear I would have my hands full. I didn’t mind that part, though. We had a pretty good track record of finding our way through this part and in the end, she was worth the fight.
Right now, the hard part would be staying up in case she woke. I propped my feet on my desk, grabbed my phone, and pulled up Netflix as I pushed my chair onto its back legs. It was going to be a long night.
I clung to the final few blissful moments before the sounds around me started pounding through my skull. I was waking up all right. I groaned and blinked against the light surrounding me. The first thing that came into focus was a set of bars.
“What the…?” I breathed, not really making much sound, but it still caused me to squint against the pain. I sat bolt upright, sluggishly realizing I had no pants. I scanned my memory, only snippets of the previous night coming through. I remembered whiskey, the ocean, and…a pair of boots. The fuck? It was obvious I’d accomplished my goal of celebrating the cross-country move, but what the hell had I been thinking anyway? Evidently, not much of anything.
Shaking my head in another attempt to clear it, I cringed. Movement wasn’t a good i
dea, but I also couldn’t sit here all day. I stood carefully and made my way to the bars, clinging to the blanket wrapped around my lower half. The back of a guy sitting at a desk came into view. “Hey. You. Let me out of here.”
He turned his head and smirked before pushing up from his seat and heading in my direction. Good goddamn. He was sex incarnate. Living, breathing sex.
“All right, all right. I’d say don’t get your panties in a bunch, but…” he trailed off, the smirk turning into a grin. I immediately remembered him. And a little more of last night.
It wasn’t so much a flood of memories, it was more of a deluge. I’d been naked. The why was still missing there, but I was. And I was singing…something. Oh God. I was pretty sure I was mocking every bad eighties love ballad I could remember. And, of course, because the universe always saw fit to shit on me when it had the chance, Officer Walking Sex witnessed all of this gloriousness.
“Where are my pants?” I asked, clutching the blanket even tighter. Pants were important. Pants were very, very important. If I wanted any kind of dignity at all in this, I needed pants. I could deal with the rest once my ass wasn’t making friends with scratchy fibers. Or so I was telling myself.
He opened the door to the cell and gestured to a small bathroom at the end of the little hallway. “I thought you might want to clean up a little. I had to spend some time last night scrubbing vomit off my boots.”
My cheeks burned as that wonderful part of the evening resurfaced in my memories. The boots. That’s why I remembered them. I quickly shook away the embarrassment. I wasn’t sure why he was being so antagonistic, but my shields were reacting to his stupid smug look. I raised my brow, refraining my urge to sneer at him, and glanced down at his nametag. Gavin fucking Jericho. Just my luck. Of all the people in the world I could’ve run into while trapped in this hellhole, it had to be him.
“Oh, they were your shoes I threw up on? Good. I feel much better about it now.” I brushed past him, trying to maintain a confident stride while pulling the fabric tighter around me. “By the way, this is a shit excuse for a blanket. If I get a rash, I’m suing,” I huffed before slamming the door behind me.
