Hide Your Crazy (KPD Motorcycle Patrol Book 1)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Though, I wasn’t necessarily teasing anymore. I was honestly kind of upset that I couldn’t see Logan. Not that they needed to know that I knew Logan.

  They all ignored me, making me sigh and go back to my work.

  I did listen to what they were saying as I worked, though.

  “Logan was on duty and responded to a call. When he got there, there were a bunch of people there already, watching the fight go down. It was at the campground near the lake. When he waded in and broke up the fight, he found out it was two brothers fighting over a fish. One said that the pole was his, meaning the fish was also his. The other brother said the pole was his, though he hadn’t been using it, the fish was therefore his. Things degraded from there and the fight started,” Castiel explained.

  “And…” Turner urged.

  I said a silent thank you to Turner for urging him forward, annoyed that I cared that much.

  The man had given me a ticket for God’s sake!

  Though I could easily get that ticket dropped if I just took it to my dad.

  Our relationship was definitely better now that I decided to kick Jakobe’s ass to the curb, it was still a little strained.

  Not that I didn’t absolutely love my father and he loved me just as much right back, but I was tired of having my father fight my battles for me.

  Meaning that I tried not to bring petty shit to him if I could help it.

  “And since the fish was just lying there dying on the pavement while the two dumbasses fought over it, Logan picked it up and threw it back. When both brothers turned on him, pissed off as all get out, Logan kicked their asses enough to get them to settle down. Then he arrested them for assaulting a police officer,” Castiel explained.

  “That’s actually kind of funny,” Turner snickered.

  “How big was the fish?” I found myself asking.

  “About twenty-four pounds,” I heard a deep voice say from the open doorway.

  My heart started pounding a mile a minute as I looked up, my eyes clashing with those beautiful gray ones of Logan’s.

  Oh, holy shit.

  What was he doing in here?”

  His eyes took me in, the dead body in, and then he said, “I thought that you worked at the hospital.”

  I shrugged. “Just because I wear scrubs doesn’t mean I work at the hospital.”

  At least not anymore, anyway.

  “Hmm,” he said softly, wincing slightly when I pulled out the woman’s liver and placed it in the scale to measure.

  “How about we take this outside,” Zee suggested. “Jubilee, are you ready? Would you mind showing Logan the upstairs part?”

  “Sure,” Jubilee said softly. “But why? Are you planning on arranging someone’s funeral?”

  “No,” Logan paused. “I live a dangerous life, though. I thought that I’d go ahead and look around. Zee mentioned something the other day about planning your own funeral before you die. I think I might like to do that.”

  When they were gone, leaving me with Castiel and Turner, I tried not to look at them.

  But the silence had me sighing in resignation.

  “What?” I looked up to find both sets of eyes on me.

  Castiel’s I didn’t know why. Turner? Well, I knew why she was. She was a damn nosy woman, that’s why.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “You know the sexy stripper cop?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I might have recognized who you were talking about if I could see him on the monitors, but y’all stood in front of it.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “How do you know Logan?” she pushed.

  I bit my lip.

  “You like him!” she accused, pointing at me.

  I scoffed. “I don’t.”

  “You do!” she pushed.

  I shook my head. “He gave me a ticket. How the hell would I get over that enough to like him?”

  Castiel’s lips turned up into a smirk as he looked down at his wife.

  “What?” I asked. “What am I missing?”

  “I gave this one a ticket.” He gestured at his woman with a look of possession. “We’re married now.”

  I blinked.

  “It’s true,” Turner agreed. “I married him after he gave me a stupid ticket. For stupid reasons.”

  Castiel scoffed.

  “Whatever,” he grumbled, curling his arm around Turner’s shoulders. “Let’s go see what Logan has to say about her.”

  At his suggestion, Turner clapped her hands.

  “Let’s!” she chirped.

  I sighed and went back to work.

  But all while I finished up, I glanced over every couple of seconds to see Logan and my employers talking in the family room of the funeral home.

  And whew, boy. Did I have it bad.

  Chapter 8

  Good men do exist. We’re just ugly.

  -Logan to his ex-wife

  Logan

  “Are you being serious about wanting to plan your own funeral?” Jubilee asked curiously.

  Jubilee, Zee’s wife, was a cute little thing.

  “Yes,” I answered her. “It’s only me and my brother now. With us estranged from the rest of our family, I don’t want him to be burdened by having to pay for my funeral.”

  “The department will likely pay for it,” Zee interrupted.

  “True,” I admitted. “But they bow to the family’s wishes on where it happens. I’ve been eyeing this place on my rides. I like it.”

  Honestly, I wasn’t sure what had made me want to come in here all those times I rode by, but there was something about the funeral home that drew me in.

  Though they said that Katy had just begun working there.

  “You do realize, right, that Katy is the chief of police’s daughter?” Castiel asked.

  I didn’t know Castiel well.

  I’d only met him here and there at different police functions.

  Zee, however, had helped assist with a few of my calls, and we’d formed a friendship through our mutual love of motorcycles. He’d even given me four tattoos.

  “Um, what?” I asked.

  “You gave the chief of police’s daughter a ticket,” Castiel repeated himself.

  “I what?” I asked in shock.

  “Katy. She’s also known as Katy Roberts. Luke Roberts’, the chief of police, daughter,” Castiel said it slower as if I was too stupid to get his drift.

  I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose.

  “Fuck,” I muttered.

  And fuck again because I’d been having goddamn sexually explicit dreams about my boss’s daughter. Fuck me in the ass with a hot fire poker.

  Didn’t that just figure? The first woman to draw me in since Tasia’s betrayal, and she was the one woman I couldn’t have.

  Wasn’t that just how the cookie crumbled?

  “I’ll take care of it,” I sighed. “She didn’t say anything.”

  Zee snorted. “Did you honestly expect her to? I mean she’s a cop’s daughter. She knows what to do and not to do.”

  That was true. Normally families of cops—at least immediate family members—tried their utmost best to be respectful to other cops because they respected the job.

  “You’re going to wish that you didn’t do that.” Zee laughed. “Luke’s protective of her after her ordeal.”

  “Her ordeal?” I feigned ignorance.

  Though I had a gut feeling I knew what ordeal he was talking about.

  “Girl moved in with her boyfriend. Boyfriend set Luke’s radar off and he forbid her from seeing him. Shit went down, and all of a sudden Katy’s back goes up and she chooses the boyfriend over her dad. He didn’t see her for six months. And in those six months, Katy got her ass beat on a daily basis,” Zee explained. “How have you not heard about this?”

  I had no idea what to say.

  I tried to stay out of everyone else’s business like I’d like them to stay out of mine.

  I tried not to get into of
fice politics, and I damn sure stayed my ass away from the rumor mills.

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “But I have a feeling that I might be spared.”

  “Why?” Castiel wondered.

  “Because yesterday I was leaving work for lunch when I saw Katy collapse on the steps. Apparently, Katy’s ex is about to be set free on parole,” I explained. “She told me so herself.”

  “Shit,” Castiel said. “We’re going to have to beef up security.”

  Honestly, knowing that she worked here where there were safeguards in place made my heart feel at ease.

  I couldn’t say I knew Zee and Castiel well, but I could say that I knew they’d do what they had to do to protect Katy.

  The other question was, why was it suddenly my top most priority?

  And why did I feel like confessing all of my sins to her father before he found out everything on his own?

  ***

  That was how I found myself in Luke Roberts’ office an hour later.

  I should’ve been at home already, changing out of my godawful uncomfortable uniform, getting ready for my run, and getting Sister some exercise since she’d been cooped up for hours.

  Yet, I was here. At the police station. Waiting for Luke Roberts to permit me to come in.

  To say that Luke Roberts was a friend of mine would be a lie.

  He didn’t like me.

  I was the cause of quite a few headaches for him, and when he saw me, he saw a fuck-up.

  I wasn’t a fuck-up.

  I was a grown ass man always finding myself in situations that I couldn’t control even if I’d wanted to.

  I mean, how the hell was I supposed to know that the fish I set free was a lake record? How the hell was I supposed to know that the men were two of the most prominent business moguls in the area?

  And the very next day, when I’d found myself involved in the shooting of a teenage girl? Well, that’d been the last straw for Luke Roberts.

  I hadn’t been the one doing the shooting.

  Honestly, I’d just been one of the ones that had arrived on scene at the end of the whole shit storm.

  But having my name in the papers, again, had been enough for Luke to send me to the dead zone.

  The dead zone being the city’s other office. The one that was so far away from everything that it might as well be out of town.

  “Officer Gibbs?”

  Startled out of the contemplation of my life, I stood up and smiled at Luke’s secretary.

  Also, one of my greatest regrets.

  I’m sure that it didn’t help that I’d ended it when things began to get serious—well, kind of.

  She’d wanted it to be serious, and all I’d wanted was to have a consistent bedroom partner that didn’t want any commitments.

  Honestly, that’d been what we’d agreed on. So how was I supposed to know that she wanted more than that? If I had known, I wouldn’t have been with her at all.

  But, at my age, it was easier to be upfront with a woman than to risk them thinking that it was anything more than it wasn’t. Apparently, I hadn’t been honest enough, because Donna had taken that proverbial next step in her mind already.

  But that hadn’t been where I wanted to go.

  Because I knew the moment that I saw Donna that she wasn’t the one.

  Sure, she was a great lady. She was wonderful inside and out. She was sweet and nurturing.

  But she didn’t make my heart pound. She didn’t make me want to grab her into my arms and never let go.

  She didn’t inspire me to have long chats with a man that hated my guts just to explain what I’d done and to tell him his daughter was in danger.

  What the hell was I thinking?

  I couldn’t do this!

  “Are you okay?”

  Donna’s voice had me looking at her in surprise.

  She was worried for me, and she was having trouble hiding it behind that neutral mask she’d picked up the day that I’d told her it would no longer work for us.

  “Fine,” I murmured, walking toward her. “Is he ready for me?”

  Donna shook her head. “He said that he’d have to reschedule. That—”

  “That’s not going to work for me,” I interrupted her, holding out my hand. “He needs to see me today.”

  Luke Roberts suddenly filled the door.

  “Step away from Donna,” he said as he pulled his office door closed. “I can’t stay. I got a call from my wife telling me dinner was ready.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Well she can hold dinner,” I cut him off as I crossed my arms over my chest. “I need to talk to you.”

  Luke’s annoyed glare found mine.

  “No can do,” he shook his head. “Go home. Get rest. Go to work tomorrow. Do your job,” he grumbled as he slipped his keys into his pocket. “Do those things and you can keep working for me.”

  I ground my teeth.

  “Donna, darlin’,” Luke said. “You can head home now.”

  Donna immediately turned and walked to her desk. A desk that had a picture of her and her dog on it. One that I knew for a fact used to have me and Sister in the picture standing right beside her.

  We’d met at the running trail of all things. I’d been coming down our shitty stairs toward the trail, and her dog had escaped his leash and started running in my direction.

  I’d caught the dog and handed the leash back just as she’d come running up with a wide smile on her face.

  “Why are you not doing as I asked?” Luke grumbled as he skirted around me.

  I turned and followed him.

  “Well then, can I come to dinner?” I asked.

  “No,” he replied shortly. “I don’t like seeing you at work, what makes you think I want to see you after work?”

  I snorted.

  “Because I have something important to tell you.” I paused. “A few things that are important, actually.”

  “Unless they involve why you’re a dumbass, I don’t want to hear them,” he countered.

  I ground my teeth and refrained from calling the man an asshole.

  That wouldn’t allow me to keep my job.

  It also wouldn’t get me anywhere.

  I had bills to pay.

  Those bills didn’t get paid if I didn’t go to work.

  “Fine,” I said as I passed him. “Then I won’t tell you why I saw a woman sleepwalking in the middle of the night.”

  With that, I got onto my bike and started it up.

  I also ignored the fact that the big asshole had changed directions from heading to his cruiser—a cruiser that he got to take home.

  Not that I wouldn’t love to be able to take my bike home, because my piece of shit bike really needed some work, but when I’d gotten in trouble, I’d also lost my ability to take my police-issued vehicle home. Meaning I was stuck driving my parts bike to work despite it never being intended for that.

  Leaving the parking lot, I drove through the quiet streets as fast as my bike would carry me—which wasn’t fast at all.

  I also contemplated why I hated everything about life right then.

  It all started with my ex-wife, Tasia.

  From the moment that Tasia and I had met, we’d been it for each other. Until late in the year two years ago she’d suddenly just…changed.

  She wanted kids.

  We’d been trying to have them for years, and after a few of those years had passed, we’d both gone to the doctor to find out why.

  Turns out, my sperm count was low.

  Also turns out, pairing that with Tasia’s endometriosis, well, it made it almost impossible to have a kid.

  When Tasia had begged me to do fertility treatments, I’d agreed.

  When she’d begged me to do more, I’d agreed.

  When she’d suggested we use someone else’s sperm…I’d disagreed.

  I didn’t want that. I wanted my own kid.

  Wanted someone that was my own flesh and blood.

&nb
sp; What I did not want was Tasia ignoring my orders and asking my best friend to donate his sperm to the cause.

  Her getting pregnant on the first try had been the icing on the cake.

  Though she’d tried to play it off as it was mine, I knew it wasn’t.

  Apparently, my sperm count was so low that me getting anybody pregnant naturally was one in a million. When I’d confronted Tasia about it when she’d shown me the pregnancy test, she’d confessed her sins.

  Then she’d been utterly and completely surprised when I’d told her in no uncertain terms that I wanted a divorce.

  When she’d realized that I was serious, she’d turned nasty.

  And, since you couldn’t divorce a pregnant woman in Texas, I had to wait until after the baby was born to divorce her.

  Then I got slammed with a child support notice.

  Moments after getting that notice, I also got the notice that not only was Tasia wanting a divorce, but she was also asking for the house, the cars, and the dogs.

  She didn’t get Sister…but she got the rest.

  At least until I proved that I was not the father of the baby.

  Then that payment to her would disappear. For now, though, it will have to stay in place.

  The Tasia I’d married was no longer inside of the bitter woman that Tasia had become.

  No more was she sweet. No more did she smile at me.

  Now, she glared.

  Now, she took every opportunity to make my life a living hell, even a year later.

  When the divorce had been taken to court, because we’d tried doing it the amicable way by ourselves and with mediators, she’d put on this face.

  A face that had wrapped that old judge around her finger and didn’t let go.

  She gave this long, drawn-out sob story about how we’d struggled with infertility. How, after much discussion, the decision to use a sperm donor had risen. And when she’d finally gotten pregnant—become blissfully happy for the first time in years—I’d left her.

  All in all, the judge gave that woman everything that she asked for. The house, the car. The truck. Everything but the dogs.

  I got those.

  Sadly, one of our dogs had died almost a week after winning that particular court battle, leaving me with only Sister.

  And to pay for mine and her lawyer fees—something else ordered by the judge—I had to sell my bike.