Christmas in the Cop Car (Sweet Home Alabama Book 4)

by Laura Trentham

  He caught her waist with one hand as she clutched at his biceps. “Whoa, there. You okay?”

  Rain had dampened her shirt, molding curves he was trying his best to ignore, but his hand tightened on the dip between waist and hips. Jesus, she was pretty. The knowledge the attraction wasn’t one-sided unleased a strong bolt of pure want.

  “I have a flat tire.” She rubbed the raindrops off her phone. Her glance at the screen amped up her agitation, her other hand running through her hair. “I’m going to be late for class.”

  “Keys.” He let her go and held out a hand. At her puzzled look, he added, “As long as you have a spare in the trunk, I can change it for you.”

  “You know how?”

  The incredulous look he cast her way brought a smile to her face which in turn made his protective instincts roar. She gestured at the door. “You have a motorcycle, not a car; I wasn’t sure.”

  “Any self-respecting man should be able to change a tire. In fact, you should learn.” He cracked the door open to a sheet of water. “But not today.”

  They exchanged her keys for his jacket and helmet, and he ducked into the deluge. The fifteen minutes it took was plenty long enough to get sopping wet. He didn’t even step back into the shop. He didn’t want to leave a puddle for Cade or Sawyer to have to clean up.

  “Your car’s running. All you have to do is duck inside and try not to get a speeding ticket across the river.”

  “I texted my professor while you were outside. He told me today was all review for the certification test I already passed.” Her gaze trailed down his body, then went to the sky. “Looks like the storm has settled in for the duration. How about I give you a lift home?”

  He’d spent his formative years reeling from one crisis to the next, his bad decisions piling up like animal bones. He didn’t know if she qualified as a bad decision or a crisis, but being around her made his footing feel suddenly precarious as if he were one step away from quicksand. He should say no. He would say no.

  Yet confronted with her half-smile and hopeful eyes, he said, “That actually sounds like an amazing idea.”

  “Let’s make a run for it.” She grabbed his hand on her way by him, laughing like mad. They loaded into the car, and still giggling, she turned to him. Her smile was sweet and uncomplicated and turned her from pretty to something magical. If he believed in such things. Which he didn’t.

  Except, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from her. The rain muffled the outside world, turned off the voices sounding alarms in his mind. Without thinking about tomorrow or even the next minute, he leaned in and kissed her.

  Her quick intake of breath stole his. Thunder clapped. Her upper body tipped toward him, and she wrapped one hand around his nape, the other delving into his damp hair.

  Her surrender was the signal his body was waiting for, and he deepened the kiss, pulling her lower lip in his mouth and running his tongue along the soft flesh. Her gasping moan was loud in his ear and gasoline to the ember of desire he’d been desperately trying to stamp out.

  He drove his tongue next to hers. She retreated, more timid than he expected, but maybe she was only surprised. Was his kiss a good surprise or bad? He pulled back enough to see her face. Her eyes were closed and her cheeks flushed. She ran a tongue over her bottom lip making him want to suck it in his mouth again.

  Before he could act on the compulsion, she opened her eyes. Moments marked by his double-timed heartbeat passed. She broke the connection, pulling her hands away, sitting back in the passenger seat, and staring out the windshield. What now? Should he apologize?

  She flipped the wipers on and put the car in reverse. “Where am I headed?”

  A long, slow breath seemed to settle his internal organs back into their proper places. He could ignore the kiss. As a matter of fact, he was a professional avoider. Avoidance was less painful than disappointment.

  He rattled off the street name, but before he could give specifics, she said, “I know where that is.”

  They made the ten-minute trip in silence; not even the radio played. What kind of music did she listen to anyway? He found himself wanting to know.

  She parked at the curb in front of the house. “This is really cute.”

  Although not normally an adjective he appreciated, he had to agree. The house was modest, but after growing up in a falling-down trailer and going from one dingy apartment to another, the house was something out of one of his dreams. White clapboard and green shutters with a row of bushes out front that burst with pink and white blooms in the spring.

  “I’m only renting, but it’s the first place that’s ever felt like a real home.” Too much information had a habit of slipping out with her and he couldn’t explain why. “You ready to face the storm again?”

  Her smile reflected a foreign-to-him childlike joy as if it had been a hot summer day, she’d try to get him to play in the rain and splash in the puddles with her. He returned her smile even as familiar melancholy seeped into his chest.

  She tumbled into the house behind him, her laughter echoing off the entryway tile. He could sense the slumbering house sit up and take notice.

  Since moving to Cottonbloom, he had lived quietly. If something ever happened to him, he imagined his neighbors being interviewed and saying things like, “He kept to himself,” and “We really didn’t know him,” and “He never had friends over.”

  “I’m going to change before I turn my foyer into a small pond.” Water trickled down his neck and dripped off his clothes.

  “Go for it. You must be freezing.” She stepped into the great room and ruffled her damp brown hair, the waves more pronounced.

  He retreated to his bedroom, stripped naked, dried off, and pulled on a pair of jeans worn soft and a plain, short-sleeved black T-shirt. In the mirror of his bathroom, he finger-combed his hair.

  People in Falcon had pegged him as trouble, and part of him had relished the image. He’d smoked and kept his hair long and showed off his tattoos, but with a respectable job, he wanted to look just as respectable, so he’d cut his hair short and upgraded his wardrobe.

  He padded out of his bedroom on bare feet. Of course, Kayla had found the only link to his past he kept in the house. He wasn’t trying to sneak up on her, but when he reached her, she was tracing over his eight-year-old face in the picture with her finger, oblivious to him.

  “Me and my mom.”

  She startled, holding the picture to her chest. “Geez, I didn’t hear you.” Placing the picture on the mantle, she continued with a soft laugh. “I guess you asked Santa for your two front teeth that year, huh?”

  In the picture, he was showing off a gummy grin. By the time he was eight, he’d pegged Santa as either a fraud or a judgmental bastard. His mother’s smile was tight. Her slide into addiction had already begun.

  He tucked his hands into his back pockets, his gaze taking her in. Her hair was loose and waved to her shoulders, but it was shorter than he remembered. Her nipples were hard against the damp white shirt.

  “Are you cold?” He couldn’t meet her eyes fast enough, but when her lips twitched, he realized he’d been caught looking. “I mean… I know I was, and you must be… damp.”

  Of course his imagination regressed with his Freudian slip. He backed toward the kitchen, before he made things even more awkward. “How about iced tea?”

  “That would be amazing. How about I order us a pizza? Any requests?” The humor lilting through her voice dampened his embarrassment.

  “Whatever you like.”

  When he emerged, she was sitting on his couch, one leg tucked underneath her, and he set two glasses of tea on the coffee table. While his place wouldn’t get a spread in Home and Garden magazine, after his white-trash trailer childhood, he kept his place and person clean. The horrible months after his mother had been arrested had taught him not to take having running water and plenty of food for granted.

  He cleared his throat, sat next to her, and rubbed his hands down the
legs of his jeans. This wasn’t a date so he wasn’t sure why he was so nervous. Although they’d kissed in her car and were planning to eat together. Kind of the traditional definition of a date.

  “Are you heading back home to Alabama to see family for Christmas?” She picked up her glass and took a sip, casting her eyes toward him.

  “I don’t have any family left in Falcon.” That was mostly true. His mother was incarcerated in southern Alabama, and he didn’t count his daddy’s side as family. They’d done nothing for him. “I’ll be in Cottonbloom for Christmas.”

  She sputtered around the rim of her glass and gestured around the den. “Where’s your tree then? Your lights?”

  “No tree. No lights.” Christmas was just another day to him. Cade had entrusted him with a key to the garage, and in fact, he planned to go to work as if it was any other day. It wouldn’t be lonely. It would be quiet, and he would be able to concentrate on Cade’s new design.

  “I thought family brought you to Cottonbloom.”

  “Came down because of a cousin, but he moved on to a refinery job in Texas.”

  She made a huffing sound and set her glass down on a coaster. “Where are you going to go for Christmas dinner, then?”

  “I’ll hang out here. Watch TV. Make mac and cheese or something.”

  “That’s really…” She shook her head and didn’t meet his eyes.

  She was probably thinking his plans sounded sad or pathetic, but Christmas was a day to get through, not one to celebrate. A dormant resentment unfurled in his chest and turned his words biting. “I’ll bet Christmas was a magical time for you as a kid. You probably woke up all excited and ran to some decked-out tree to rip open a half-dozen presents with bows on top. That about right?”

  “I-I guess.” The hesitancy in her voice and the way she inched away from him registered, but his uncapped resentment boiled over.

  “A few months after that picture was taken, I woke up on Christmas morning to find my mom passed out in her own puke. Up till then, I just thought I was a bad kid who Santa passed over every year. Other kids complained about getting clothes. I would have killed for a fucking pair of pants without holes in the knees. That was the year I stopped believing. In anything.”

  He threw himself back on the couch, closed his eyes, and rubbed his forehead, expecting to hear the door slam. What he didn’t expect was the soft touch along his forearm. He didn’t move, afraid he might scare her off.

  “I’m sorry.” A self-deprecating noise that was half laugh, half chuff drew his attention. Her brown eyes had teared up. For him? “My dad wasn’t around either, but my mom was—is—awesome. She worked extra hard to make the holidays special.”

  “You’re lucky.” His voice was embarrassingly hoarse.

  “I’ve never thought of myself as a lucky person.”

  “Well, I have terrible luck, so if you keep on hanging out with me, you’ll probably win the lottery.” He dropped his gaze to where her fingers traced the lines and curves of his tattoo. Her hand was small and soft and he wanted to take it in his like he’d done in the doorway of Cade’s office her first day at work. “I’m sorry I went off. Christmas is sore subject.”

  “Don’t apologize. I like learning stuff about you.”

  He pressed his free hand against his breast bone. His heart was doing something weird that he hoped didn’t require hospitalization.

  “Does your tattoo symbolize anything?”

  A multi-hued snake wrapped around his bicep, its head resting halfway down his forearm. “Adolescent stupidity.”

  She bit her bottom lip, stifling a giggle. “The colors are lovely.”

  “I think I was going for tough and intimidating.”

  “If I didn’t know you, I would think that for sure.” She winked.

  His lips turned into a smile to match hers. He cleared his throat and forced a neutral expression. What the hell was he doing laughing and spilling his guts? She was too… everything for him. Too pretty, too nice, too charming. She would lead him by the nose to the one place he was trying to avoid—trouble. “I’ll bet you’d have gone for someone like me back in your wild days.”

  Her smile reversed itself and she tucked the hand that had been touching his arm under her leg. “Yeah, maybe.”

  He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings or piss her off, but she was either one or the other.

  She checked her phone and stood. “I’ve got to head. I’ll see you at work on Monday. Thanks for the help with my tire.”

  He followed her to the door. Damn, she was pissed. He grabbed her arm as she stepped off his porch. She jerked out of his hand, clutching her purse over her chest, her stance defensive. It wasn’t only anger but something more complicated flashing over her face. Was she afraid of him? “What about the pizza?”

  She stared blankly for a moment before reaching inside her purse. “I totally forgot. Here’s some cash.”

  “I don’t want your money. I want you to… stay.”

  She looked over her shoulder toward her car. “I shouldn’t. Can’t. Thanks again.”

  She skipped-ran through the rain to her car, and drove off. His motorcycle was still at the shop which meant he couldn’t even go after her. What would he say anyway? This was a blessing. He didn’t need the complication of a girl like Kayla.

  He was still standing on the porch staring at the empty curb when the pizza arrived. He paid the acne-inflicted teenager with cash and retreated to his kitchen, his appetite gone.

  While he might not need the complication, something about her made him want to ignore the warnings. And, he couldn’t deny that he wanted her; he just wasn’t sure if he was brave enough to go after what he wanted.

  Three

  What’s going on with you and Kayla?” Sawyer didn’t look up from the gasket he was replacing.

  “Nothing.” The word shot out with a vehemence that signaled a lie. Or at least an evasion. That’s not who he wanted to be anymore. Anyway, Sawyer was trustworthy and easy to talk to. Plus, he seemed to have built a rock-solid marriage on formerly shaky ground with Regan, his old high-school girlfriend. Some perspective would be welcome. “Maybe something. I don’t know.”

  Jeremy appreciated Sawyer’s silence even if his twitching lips signaled he was holding back a smile and a bunch more questions.

  “I kind of like her,” Jeremy said finally.

  “Yeah, I got that impression in the break room.” Sawyer stopped fighting his smile.

  “I was helping her with the coffee pot. Totally professional.”

  Sawyer adopted an “aw, shucks” demeanor and brayed a laugh. “Let me get that heavy can of coffee for you and scoop it so you don’t break a nail.”

  “What the hell? I did not sound like that.” God, he hoped he hadn’t sounded even a tenth that pathetic. Jeremy shoved Sawyer’s shoulder but with more embarrassment than anger.

  “Mine was an interpretation of the soul, if not actual events.”

  Jeremy kicked the engine stand, the steel toe of his boot clanging. “I should keep my hands off, right? She’s a Fournette Designs employee.”

  “As far as I know Cade’s never instated a no-fraternization rule. Not that it’s been an issue.” Sawyer pushed back on the rolling stool and stared up at Jeremy, the humor gone from his face. “I think you should go for it. Kayla’s a nice girl.”

  Sawyer’s words prodded at Jeremy’s worry. “What if she’s too nice for me?”

  “You mean too good for you?” Sawyer’s question eviscerated the heart of the truth, yet Jeremy didn’t sense any judgement in Sawyer’s tone or expression.

  “Yeah, maybe. What if she’s too good for me?”

  “I don’t know what happened before you came to Cottonbloom, but from the minute you stepped into town you’ve proved yourself to be a good man. Kayla more than anyone should know that.”

  “She’s kind of young.”

  Sawyer harrumphed and scooted back toward the engine. “No one is talking about a shot
gun wedding. Anyway, you’ve got a few years before they put you in an old-folks home.”

  Without Sawyer’s eyes on him, Jeremy was able to spit out more truths. “Sometimes I feel so much older than the guys my age who hang out at the Rivershack Tavern.” His barren future stretched out limitless and lonely.

  “That’s what happens when you’re forced to grow up too soon. Take Cade. After our parents died, he assumed responsibility for me and Tally. Those years left a mark that can never be erased, but the hard times make the good times even sweeter. He’s got a baby on the way and is happier than I’ve ever seen him.”

  “I wasn’t like Cade. I wasn’t trying to do what was right. I did some pretty terrible things.” Jeremy tried to keep his voice matter-of-fact.

  He knew he’d failed when Sawyer straightened, his face serious. “Cade did things he regretted to make sure we were taken care of. You’ve got to leave that stuff behind, dude. Life is too short.”

  “But how? How do I leave it behind?” He was asking the impossible. His past wasn’t a place he could leave behind like following a roadmap. Regrets dogged his heels, sneaking up on him at the worst times to remind him how undeserving he was of happiness.

  “Time? A good woman? That’s what worked for Cade.” Sawyer shook his head and shrugged. “You could start by loosening up a little. I worry about you. All you do is work, eat, and sleep as far as I can tell. Can’t hardly get you to go fishing with me. You don’t have to spend your life in purgatory.”

  “What are you talking about?” He’d been called wild and violent and reckless. Never had he been called a boring stuffed shirt.

  “I’m saying don’t talk yourself out of going for Kayla because you think you don’t deserve it. You do. Trust me on that.”

  “But you don’t know—”

  “I know you now. Now is all that matters.” Sawyer returned his full attention to the engine. “Hand me a socket wrench, would you?”