Ridin' Solo (Sisters From Hell Book 1)

by Marika Ray

  I flipped on our lights and mapped us into the location of the warehouse. “You could just tell me now. I have a feeling the conversation will be short.”

  Oakley’s jaw dropped open, but she shouldn’t be surprised. My style of communication rested on a firm foundation of teasing. “Rude.”

  I chuckled. “Maybe. But accurate.”

  She took a hand off the wheel and smacked my arm. The abandoned warehouse had a long driveway which Oakley drove down while I swiveled my head to see if anyone was home. Nothing popped out at me, so I thought the “lookie-loo” might have been wrong.

  “There.” I pointed at two guys standing by the back corner of the warehouse, under a tall pine tree that had dumped half its pine needles on the metal roof of the structure. The one guy looked familiar, setting off a buzz of dread in my stomach. We were pretty close to the county I grew up in. “I’ll get this one.”

  Oakley shrugged and said nothing about me handling this alone. When we got the call, I’d figured we were about to bust up a highly dangerous deal for horse feed or chopped firewood, but if I actually knew that one guy, he wouldn’t be out here for anything but drugs. If it was a drug deal, we were either too early or too late as I hadn’t seen money change hands.

  I surprised them both when I approached, the familiar guy stepping back and tilting his head like a curious dog. Shit. I did know him. Had partied with him years ago. The taller guy jumped back and pulled something out of his pocket. I stepped back with my hands up, wanting to placate him since he was now armed.

  “Wyatt? Is that you, man?” Ben, the guy I’d known in my prior life, put a hand to his forehead. “Holy shit. Dude, are you a cop now?”

  I heard Oakley running across the driveway. She probably had her gun drawn the second the asshole reached for his pocket. I didn’t pay Ben any attention as he blabbered, though I wished he’d shut up. My entire focus had to be on the taller guy who held a switchblade in the air between us.

  “Hey, hey. Put that shit away. I know this guy.” Ben seemed to think pulling a knife on a cop wasn’t already a serious situation.

  “Drop the weapon and put your hands up!” Oakley shouted from behind, gun trained on the ground.

  He looked over his shoulder at her and then swiped at me before darting away. Oakley chased after him as I grabbed my wrist. The fucker had cut me, but my watch had taken most of the beating when I lurched back.

  “Stay here,” I told Ben, running after Oakley.

  Damn, that woman was short but quick. She leapt onto a bale of hay by the side of the warehouse and then jumped, landing on the guy’s back. He stumbled and went down to one knee. In the next second, he swung her off his back and tried to run again. This time I was close enough to tackle him, taking him down to the ground and keeping him pinned while Oakley scrambled to get him cuffed.

  She breathed hard next to me, a few strands of hair escaping her bun. We searched his pockets and found a few packets of a white powder we’d have to bag for evidence. Didn’t look like this was a simple weed deal.

  “You okay?” I asked, wanting to make sure he hadn’t hurt her when he flung her off.

  “Good.” She was all business. “I’ll get him in the car, you deal with your friend.” She flicked a glance at me, my heart stuttering at her guarded expression.

  Fuck. She’d heard Ben say he knew me. This was not good. I got the guy standing and made sure he cooperated with Oakley before heading back to talk to Ben, who stood by his car.

  “Hey, Wyatt, buddy. I promise you that wasn’t what it looked like.” He had a smarmy grin on his face. “Can you just look the other way for me?”

  I lifted an eyebrow and crossed my arms over my chest. “You got lucky, Ben. I didn’t see money exchange, so I can’t arrest you.” As his grin grew, I frowned harder. “I suggest you keep yourself out of this county. I’ll have no problem arresting you next time.”

  Ben stepped back and opened his car door. “Okay, okay. Don’t worry. I don’t enjoy driving this far out, anyway. Wait ’til the guys hear what you’re doing now.” He shook his head like he just couldn’t believe it.

  My elevated blood pressure was causing my eyes to feel like they were going to explode. “Yeah, about that. How about we keep my job just between us?”

  Ben froze, one leg in the car. The fucker had a drug problem, but he wasn’t stupid. “I suppose you letting me go is worth keeping that quiet. For a while.”

  I knew that was the best promise I’d get, so I let it go at that. “Drive safe out of town.” I gave him a head nod and walked back to the cruiser. I’d known turning my back on my prior life would someday come back to haunt me. Hopefully, this was the extent of it.

  Oakley took off the second I clicked the seat belt into place, not talking the entire way to getting the guy in the back seat booked into jail. The minute it was just us in the car, she glanced over at me.

  “You’re bleeding,” she stated.

  I pressed a napkin to my wrist and shrugged. “It’s just a scratch.”

  By the time we got back to the station and were off duty, the bleeding had stopped and I was ready for dinner and bed. Seeing someone from my past had rattled me in a way that exhausted me. Oakley hadn’t asked a single question which shocked the hell out of me. I assumed she’d want to know what happened back there, but she was quiet. I didn’t know if it was over and gone, or if she was simply formulating which twenty questions she wanted to interrogate me with tomorrow.

  “See you later, Captain,” I said, heading out to my truck. The sun was just sinking below the horizon, turning everything a hue of orange and pink. Couldn’t help but think Oakley would look good in a dress with those same colors. I’d never seen her in anything but our all-black uniforms. Well, other than her birthday suit.

  Oakley walked out to the parking lot with me, heading off to her own vehicle. “’Night, Lieutenant.”

  Wait. Oakley stopped at the little Grom that had been in the parking lot since I’d started working here, putting on a black helmet that hung from the handlebars.

  “Holy shit. You ride that thing?” I couldn’t help the surprise in my voice. Never in a million years did I think Oakley Waldo would ride a tiny motorcycle. A Volvo with five thousand airbags and safety awards, maybe. But not a motorcycle.

  She climbed on and looked my way, the helmet obscuring what was most certainly a dirty look. “I do. Is something funny?”

  Ah, fuck. That just reminded me of our first day together. Such a prickly partner I got saddled with. Something about her gruffness turned me on. Probably made me a sick bastard to get off on her harsh commands and mean looks, but there it was. The tightness in the front of my pants didn’t lie.

  “No. Nothing funny at all. I just think your motorcycle is cute.” I gave her a wink and a grin, climbing into my truck and shutting the door on her response.

  She gunned the little engine and drove by, lifting a hand and giving me the middle finger. I burst into laughter and started my truck, ignoring the way my erection now pained me as it pressed against my zipper.

  Yep. I was a bastard.

  “No way! You can’t catch a fly ball to save your life. You gotta cover third base.”

  “Fuck that shit. You just want the outfield so you can shove chew in your cheek and spend the game spitting everywhere while we do all the work.”

  “Guys. Pick a position and step away from the clipboard.” The sheriff’s booming voice had the other deputies quickly signing up to play in the Shoots & Ladders softball league and then moving back so the rest of us could sign up too.

  I hadn’t played in years, but I’d been on the varsity team in high school, so I felt I could bring a thing or two to the team. Especially if I got to beat some firefighters. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Oakley grab her jacket and head outside to go home. Our day had been mostly uneventful, though I got out of her that she’d had one serious boyfriend in her life. You’d have thought she told me a secret that would bring a small countr
y to their knees. The woman was harder to crack than Fort Knox.

  “Yo, Oakley. You gonna sign up?” I pointed to the front of the line when she spun in my direction.

  Her face made me think she bit into a bitter lemon. “No, I’m good.”

  “Oh, come on.” I stepped out of line and headed over to her. “We’ve barely got enough for an entire team without you. Plus, it’s not really about the game. It’s about the camaraderie.”

  Her nose wrinkled adorably. I realized I’d give just about anything to see Oakley swing a bat in short shorts. She started to shake her head, but I grabbed her by the arms, making her gaze sweep up to meet mine.

  “You always say a good team makes law enforcement unbeatable. This is how you make a good team, Oakley.” I wasn’t too proud to appeal to her sense of duty.

  She didn’t agree. Didn’t even stop frowning, but she did consider my words. Sheriff Locke strode by and clapped Oakley on the back. I dropped my hands quickly, thinking I shouldn’t be touching her like that in the middle of the station.

  “You should sign up, Lee. We need at least one female to be in the league. Don’t tell Betty, but she’s getting up there and shouldn’t be running the bases.” He winked under a thick eyebrow and strode off.

  Oakley puffed out her cheeks and blew out a breath. “Well, I guess that’s that.”

  I clapped my hands and then guided her to the back of the line with a hand lightly skimming her waist. I stood in line behind her, arms crossed to keep from reaching for her again.

  “You probably throw like a girl,” I whispered to the back of her head.

  She stiffened, and I bit my lip to keep from grinning. “You should probably wear a cup. Even to practice,” she whispered back without turning around.

  My shoulders hunched inward at the veiled threat to my balls. “Damn, Oakley,” I muttered.

  A few deputies high-fived Oakley as they passed, congratulating her on joining the team. I couldn’t quite tell from behind, but it seemed to me she had a warm glow to her face and even—don’t say it—a smile. One deputy lingered while patting her on the back, and I had to push him to move along. Who did he think he was, touching her all familiar like that?

  If I felt like I couldn’t touch her, then he sure as shit couldn’t. As Oakley bent over to fill out the clipboard, I couldn’t help but steal a glance at her backside. While I’d gotten an eyeful last week when I busted into her house, I hadn’t gotten to see what she looked like from behind and imagining her was taking up a lot of brain power.

  Oakley dropped the pen on the clipboard and stood back up. Her hand landed on my crossed arms and she winked. “Unlike you, I wasn’t joking. Dress well, partner.”

  Fuck. Me.

  Oakley teasing me back would be front and center next time I did the four-knuckle shuffle. And based on my current pants situation, that would be right after I got home tonight.

  8

  Oakley

  * * *

  I climbed into the cruiser and blew out a huge breath. Leaning back against the seat, I rolled my head over to see Wyatt. Even though he kept it short, his hair was in a mess and his chest still heaved from the exertion. I couldn’t imagine my hair looked much better. That last call had been a doozy, one that made me glad I had a partner. It had taken both of us to subdue and arrest the guy. While we wouldn’t know until tomorrow when the toxicology report came in, I’d guess the guy had been on something illegal to be that strong.

  “You good?” I asked Wyatt, genuinely concerned since he’d taken most of the beating before I got handcuffs on the guy.

  He hitched his lips to the side and glanced over at me. “Nothing a little ibuprofen and an ice pack can’t take care of.”

  I smiled and lifted my head, ready to head back to the station and clock out for the day. “You did good out there.”

  I could feel Wyatt looking at me as I drove. Sure, I didn’t hand out compliments regularly, but there was no need to stare at me like I’d grown an extra head.

  “Thanks, Oakley. You’re not so bad yourself. If I may be so bold, we make a great team.”

  Suppressing the smile I felt at his comment, I thought now would be a good time to ask him those questions I’d been musing over in my brain the last few days. He was both tired and happy to be going home. Maybe he’d have loose lips. Not that I was thinking about his lips.

  “Was it nice to see your old pal, Ben?”

  A flickered glance over to Wyatt showed him frowning. “Ben?”

  “Yeah. The guy we didn’t arrest at that warehouse? The one where you got that scratch?” I nodded toward his forearm where a nice red line ended at his watch.

  He inhaled through his nose and took his time answering me. “Not really. He wasn’t a close friend. Just someone I knew awhile back.”

  I nodded. “He seemed pretty stunned that you’re in law enforcement. Why would that be?”

  Wyatt let out a sigh that sounded more frustrated than tired. “I don’t know. Since we haven’t seen each other since we were kids?”

  “Where d’you grow up?”

  “What is this? Interrogation hour?” Wyatt shifted in his seat, staring straight out the windshield. “Do you mind if we just drop it? I’m kind of tired and in pain right now. Not really in the mood for chitchat.”

  I felt bad for attacking him with questions, even as a sense of unease grew in my belly. Being evasive wasn’t doing much for making me feel like I could trust him. He was hiding something, and I wanted to know why. Successful partnerships required absolute trust.

  “Okay,” I said quietly, letting it drop for now.

  Mom’s leftover dinners had run out, and I was back to frozen meals with questionable protein sources. No matter, I still had some paperwork to do. Twenty minutes later and I couldn’t seem to focus. The words were blurring on the screen of my laptop as I stewed over Wyatt’s responses to my questions. I picked up my cell phone and typed in a search before I could talk myself out of it.

  Wyatt Smith San Jose sheriff

  My thumb flicked through the results, seeing absolutely nothing that would apply to my Wyatt Smith. Not that he was mine, per se, but you know what I mean. I tried more variations with different cities around California and nothing popped up. Wyatt Smith didn’t seem to exist digitally in the state of California before two years ago when he’d graduated from the academy, and I knew that was practically impossible. Everyone had an online footprint. The more I searched and came up empty, the angrier I got.

  Who the hell was Wyatt and why was he lying about who he was? How could I go into work the next day and ride alongside him, knowing he wasn’t who he said he was?

  I stood abruptly and threw my phone on the couch. I didn’t think about my pajamas, which consisted of a flimsy pair of cotton shorts and a camisole that had seen better days. Nor did it register that Crocs weren’t the best shoes to shove my feet into before I marched over to Wyatt’s house and demanded he tell me the truth.

  I was simply on a truth-seeking mission and everything else didn’t matter.

  So that’s how I showed up on his doorstep a few minutes later, banging on his door, righteous anger fueling me. The door swung open, showing a bare-chested Wyatt. His uniform pants were still on, minus the utility belt, but he’d taken his undershirt off before answering the door. His feet were also bare. My eyes instantly felt burned by the scorching glimpse of pectoral muscles dipping into boulders of shoulder muscles. And good Lord. The abs. A six-pack that melded perfectly into those little v-muscles by his hips. His skin was tan and smooth and something I desperately wanted to trail my fingertips across. He’d been hiding all that this whole time beneath ugly uniform shirts.

  “My eyes are up here, Captain.”

  My gaze jerked up to Wyatt’s smirking face. He held a towel around his neck, like I’d interrupted him right before he climbed into the shower. My well-trained eyes betrayed me and slipped back down his torso, my brain not quite ready to find words to answer him back. A
spot of red on the left side of his ribs caught my attention.

  “You’re bleeding,” I stated, stepping into his house and crowding him backward. He gave the door a shove, and it closed behind me.

  His smell was all around me, that scent of soap and man that I was coming to crave every morning as I got to work. I reached a hand out to his torso, his skin flinching when I touched him.

  “May I…?” I didn’t even know what I was asking permission for, but he nodded just the same.

  I took the towel from around his neck and dabbed at the blood, seeing that the cut was more of a ragged scrape with some bruising below it.

  “Sit.” I pointed at a barstool next to a kitchen counter just behind us.

  Wyatt huffed out a sigh, but sat down anyway. “It’s just a scratch.”

  I shook my head and kept dabbing. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”

  His breath puffed against my hair and the side of my cheek. “Because it’s not a big deal. I get bumps and scratches all the time.”

  Stupid men. Bumps and scratches were one thing, but an open wound was another. Infections could get serious in our line of work when we were rolling around in the dirt with suspects who had questionable hygiene standards. “Where’s your first aid kit?”

  He made a noise, and I looked over at him, startled to see his face a mere three inches away from mine. His dark blue eyes were almost black around the outer ring, but lighter blue toward the center.

  “I don’t have one,” he said softly. Intimately.

  The unease in my belly took flight, a totally different kind of unease setting my blood on fire. “Hydrogen peroxide at least?”

  He tossed his head backward. “Below my bathroom sink.”

  I swallowed hard. “Stay here.”

  I moved through his house, knowing the layout from when I’d visited Jim before he passed away. Wyatt had changed some things with fresh paint, but that was about it. His bathroom was tidy except for the uniform shirt and undershirt on the floor. I grabbed some tissues, the peroxide, and some bandages I found below the sink before heading back to the kitchen.