Law & Beard

by Lani Lynn Vale

Then I sucked it up, pulled on my big girl panties, and walked to him. “Let’s go over these sight words one more time.”

  I stopped next to Conleigh, dropped a kiss on her head and went to the chalkboard that I’d installed just for this instance.

  Then, I made myself late, just so I could help my son with his sight words.

  Conleigh was on her own, though.

  I left my house twenty minutes later after instructing Conleigh to lock the doors and set the alarm. I headed to work with my mind all over the place.

  One thing was for sure…I needed help, and I would take whatever I could get.

  Little did I know that my prayers would be answered by my hot cop neighbor. And I would like it.

  ***

  Twelve hours later

  The first thing I saw when I arrived home after my night shift was my neighbor.

  My thighs clenched, and I growled under my breath.

  But, he wasn’t where I expected him to be…like at his house, for example.

  No, he was in my house.

  Again.

  It was as if he was living there.

  What the hell?

  I walked in with the box of donuts to find both of my kids dressed, fed and at the table.

  Cody even had boots on, which was a fucking win. Normally I had to force him to put any sort of shoe on. Socks were a bonus most days.

  “Uhhh,” I said as I came in. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”

  Conleigh looked up from where she was sitting next to Steel, who was holding Cody on his lap.

  Steel was fully decked out in his own uniform, my guess either coming home from work or about to go to work.

  He looked a little disheveled, his hair askew a little more than his usual messy, and he had dark circles under his eyes.

  “I was taking the trash out and saw Steel.” Conleigh grinned. “I asked him if he happened to know how to solve quadratic equations, and he said he did. Now, here we are. I almost have my homework done.”

  I grinned, unable to help myself. “That’s great news!”

  And it was. I was happy that she was able to get her homework done. I’d spent half my night of free time trying to reteach myself how to do some of the shit that used to come so easy to me just a few short years ago.

  Conleigh shot me an excited look, then looked at the clock. “I have ten minutes until the bus comes, too!”

  I started to laugh.

  It was fifty-fifty if we made the bus or not. Today, hopefully, they’d make it.

  “Donut?”

  Conleigh snickered.

  “What?”

  She looked at Steel, who was eyeing the room around him with laughter.

  “You just offered a cop a donut,” she answered.

  My lips twitched. “Uhhh…I’ve got nothin’ to say to that.”

  Steel stood up, setting Cody lightly on his feet.

  “I’ll take one of those, but I have to go. I had a call come in about five minutes ago about a cop having to go home sick. I’m gonna cover the school zone for the next hour until it ends.” He looked at the kids. “I don’t mind giving them a ride.”

  Cody whooped. “Yes!”

  I rolled my eyes. “You don’t have a booster seat for him.”

  Steel stroked his beard, bringing my attention not only to it but also to his lips.

  Then he leaned forward and grabbed the box of donuts from my hands, snatching himself a chocolate one before handing the box over to Conleigh. Once Conleigh chose what she wanted, Cody pulled out the blueberry cake one, took one bite, and then put it back.

  “Heard those things are easy to move around…” Steel said pointedly.

  I tightened my lips together, and then nodded. “They are that.”

  “Then it’s settled.”

  And then they were all loading up minutes later, but I stopped Steel before he could follow them out.

  “You have crumbs,” I murmured, wiping my hand down his chest.

  He wasn’t wearing a bullet proof vest, but his chest was hard still.

  “You’re not wearing a vest,” I pointed out.

  He winked. “I don’t normally do as much running around as the rest of my officers. We purchased everyone else a ballistic vest. Mine’ll be next.”

  And then he was walking away, but I was left reeling.

  He’d made sure his entire department was outfitted with a vest before he was.

  Holy shit.

  That was so sweet of him, yet completely and utterly stupid.

  “You’re a liar from hell,” I muttered to him. “How the hell are you going to tell me that you don’t patrol or do anything as much as your other officers when you damn well know you’ve been working every single day this week.”

  He shrugged. “I’m older and lived a longer life. How’s that?”

  Terrible.

  The thought of Steel dying was suddenly very unbearable for me.

  “How much do these vests cost?”

  I had like three hundred dollars in savings…

  “Seven hundred,” he answered as he took a bite of his donut. “But there are still three others I want to outfit before me, so mine’ll be a while.”

  “You can’t buy your own?” Conleigh asked.

  He shrugged. “We could, but I have a mortgage payment to make, a truck payment. A grandkid, and other things I need to buy. Seven hundred dollars is better spent elsewhere.”

  I didn’t have anything to say to that.

  I didn’t agree.

  His grandkid could go without a toy for a couple of months…hell, so could my kids.

  He’d used his own money on my kids, too.

  Now I felt utterly like shit.

  He was using his own personal money on my family, and he could be spending it on himself. Buying himself a vest that could protect his life.

  I felt bile make its way up my throat.

  Chapter 7

  It’s beginning to look a lot like fuck this.

  -Coffee Cup

  Winnie

  I was walking, still without my cane, to my car where I was going to retrieve Cody’s spare booster from my trunk.

  We were about halfway to the driveway when Steel’s words left his lips, nearly causing me to laugh.

  “Why do you have a Hellcat?”

  I looked at my car. My little act of rebellion. My Dodge Hellcat that Matt told me I didn’t need.

  “I got it because I was pissed off,” I muttered, my eyes taking in the gleaming red paint, and the black racing stripe that ran down the length of it. “Two years ago, when they first came out, I told Matt how much I wanted one. He took one look at me, laughed, and then told me I couldn’t handle a car like this.”

  I looked back over at Steel to find him grinning.

  “So you got one when you broke up?”

  I shook my head. “No. I got one the next week, thinking I’d show Matt. I did. He got really, really pissed. Then he tried to take it back. Since my name was the only one on the note, they wouldn’t do anything without my say so. Pissed him off greatly, and I think ultimately that was the first fork in the road that led him to start cheating on me.”

  I was also upside-down on the note, and probably would be for the foreseeable future.

  Steel had nothing to say to that, so I chose to continue.

  “It came with two keys. A black key, and a red key,” I told him.

  I knew he’d ask. It never took them long.

  “And what’s the difference?”

  “The difference is that the black key is just the normal key. With it, it drives like the next step down model would. But the red key is the—well—key.” I grinned.

  “And what does the red key do?” He came to a stop beside my car and touched the Hellcat symbol on the driver’s side door, dropping down onto his haunches to do it.

  “The red key is what turns the supercharger on,
” I explained. “And I haven’t ever ridden with it before. I’m literally nervous that if I get the red key out, I’ll get a ticket for going a hundred and fifty on the highway.”

  Steel burst out laughing. “Oh, darlin’.”

  I grinned and popped the trunk, gesturing for Steel to take the booster seat.

  Once he had it, he walked with it to his cruiser and opened the back door.

  I grinned as I saw him strap it onto the seat with the tethers.

  “You do that often?” I questioned.

  “Every fucking Tuesday,” he answered. “I’m the car seat expert at the precinct. Since I’m certified and the other guys aren’t, I’m usually the one that runs out there to check it if I’m there. There are a few others that are certified throughout the PD, but most of the time they just tell whomever it is to come back when I’m there.”

  I smiled. “That’s actually kind of cute.”

  He shot me a look that clearly said what he thought of me saying he was ‘cute.’

  But he was. In his uniform, even it being slightly wrinkled from his day (or night, technically, depending on which way you looked at it) he was very cute.

  Sexy.

  Very sexy.

  So sexy that sometimes I thought about him when I got my shower.

  Yeah…I couldn’t wait for the kids to go to school.

  “Thank you again for taking them,” I said just as the front door burst open, the door handle hitting the wall with Cody’s exuberance to ride in a ‘real life police car.’

  Steel’s eyes crinkled at the edges when he smiled. “Not a problem, since I’m already going over there anyway.”

  And then he had my kids packed in his cruiser, and moments later I had the house to myself.

  I walked back inside and got a couple hours of sleep, but not before I took my shower.

  Where my magical shower head was.

  My magical shower head that I was now calling Steel.

  Temporarily.

  For now.

  Not.

  I was such a fucking liar.

  ***

  It was a nearly six hours later in town that I saw Sean, Steel’s son.

  I’d just picked Conleigh and Cody up early from school to get their flu shots, and I was standing in the middle of the doctor’s office parking lot.

  “Conleigh, take Cody inside and get yourselves signed in,” I ordered.

  Conleigh did as she was instructed, taking Cody by the hand and disappearing inside without another word.

  I then turned all my attention to Sean.

  He was big and intimidating just like his father, but with him holding his daughter while she slept and drooled down the back of his motorcycle vest—or cut I was told earlier by my daughter—he didn’t seem as threatening.

  It was with Steel’s words bouncing around in my brain that I got the courage to approach.

  Today I was using my cane, and I moved a little slower than I would’ve liked, because before I’d even gotten halfway there, he was on the move again.

  “Hey, Sean!”

  Sean turned, saw me, and then furrowed his brows.

  Sean knew me because he’d denied me a job about a month and a half ago.

  He almost looked worried as I approached.

  “Yeah?”

  I could tell he still felt poorly for not passing me a couple of months ago when I’d gone to retest to continue working PRN—or as needed—with the local ambulance service.

  Yet, I knew it wasn’t his fault.

  I knew it, he knew it, but he still felt bad.

  Which then, in turn, caused me to feel bad.

  “I’m not here to say anything about you not allowing me to keep my job,” I blurted.

  He looked relieved to hear that.

  “I’m here to ask you if you knew that your father worked without a bullet proof vest on.”

  His head tilted.

  “What?”

  I could tell I’d surprised him with my words.

  I nodded. “He told me today that he doesn’t work with a ballistic vest because the rest of his officers need to be outfitted first…and I was just wondering...last year y’all had that fundraiser for the sheriff’s department to get them. You should get them for your dad’s department.”

  Sean’s mouth fell open, then he frowned.

  “Honey…”

  I looked up to see a woman walking toward us, a small smile on her face as she scratched her chin.

  She was sizing me up as she approached.

  “Hi.” I smiled, then waved. “Bye.”

  Then I turned to walk away.

  Women made me nervous.

  Really nervous.

  I was never really good at making friends, and the fact that the only one I did make really good friends with stole my husband, really made it hard for me to find any common ground with the female population.

  I was two steps from the door when I heard him call my name.

  I turned and looked at him from across the parking lot.

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for the info. I’ll get my dad the vest.”

  I gave him a thumb up, eerily happy that he’d make sure that his father was safe.

  I wish I could do the same, but I just couldn’t afford it.

  There were days we had to have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because I couldn’t afford to buy groceries for the next four days.

  A seven-hundred-dollar vest would buy me groceries for seven weeks, if not more.

  “Thank you.”

  Then I had my hand on the door, about to go inside.

  “For what it’s worth, I really wanted to pass you,” Sean called. “I would have had Arnie not been a dick and told me not to let my soft heart get in the way of our company policy.”

  I shrugged.

  It still hurt, but it was what it was.

  I couldn’t do anything about it now.

  And that’s when I found my daughter standing there holding the door open. Listening to what was being said.

  “They’re ready for us,” Conleigh said.

  It was when we were in the exam room that she finally spoke.

  “He didn’t pass you because of your legs?”

  I nodded. “He couldn’t. I couldn’t pass the physical.”

  “Isn’t that discrimination?”

  “Not really, no. I couldn’t do the job that was demanded of me. I wasn’t able to pick up the stretcher without toppling over on my ass. Not much I could do about it,” I said, still feeling the humiliation of not being able to do a job that I would’ve done just fine a year and a half ago.

  Conleigh grunted in reply.

  I guess she doesn’t agree.

  Chapter 8

  Don’t be ashamed of who you are. That’s your parent’s job.

  -Fact of Life

  Winnie

  It was four days later when a hurricane rocked our state. One the likes of which we’d never seen before in the history of the United States.

  Everyone was scared.

  Even us, and we were nowhere close to the coastline where the majority of the devastation was set to take place.

  We’d watched the impending hurricane on the news, and when it finally hit that morning, the coastline of Alabama was hit hard with over thirty inches of rain in ten hours.

  It was, quite possibly, the most devastating thing in the world to watch.

  The news people were standing outside in the midst of a category five hurricane, and they had to hold on to a chain link fence to keep from being blown away.

  Behind them was what used to be a mall parking lot but was now completely submerged. Not even the few stray cars in the parking lot could be seen any longer.

  They’d just finished showing a time lapse video of the devastation when I got a call.

  “Hello?”

  “Winnie, this is Bob.”

  I smi
led. “Hi, Bob. How are you?”

  “I’m well. I’m calling to see if you’d be willing to go down to the hurricane affected area and work at our sister hospital for the next week. With the hurricane and the influx of patients, we’re sending down about fifty members of our staff to help.”

  I was about to immediately deny him when he said, “There’ll be a ten dollar an hour hazard pay increase, as well as time and a half since you’re already at your hours for this week. Free room and board. You’ll also be fed, and you’ll get bonuses if you do decide to go.”

  The yes was coming out of my throat before I’d even had the chance to think.

  Ten dollars an hour on top of my twelve fifty an hour would make it twenty-two dollars an hour plus time and a half. Hell yes, I was going to do it.

  I had Christmas coming up in a few months!

  Not to mention that I’d been forced to give Cody up for the next week thanks to the fall break.

  Matt had stopped by earlier in the day to beg me to let him have Cody. It was a teacher in-service week, and all the kids were off for the week while the teachers were still expected to go. I hadn’t been able to refuse him. Not when I knew my son would love to go.

  And then Conleigh had surprised me by asking me if she could go see Matt’s parents.

  Matt’s parents and Conleigh had always been close, and seeing the pleading look in her eyes had left me with a certainty that I needed to loosen my skirt strings a little.

  “That’s good news.” He sounded relieved. “I’m having to look for people that can drive down there. You drive a car, correct?”

  I grunted. “Yep. Mine’s not going to make it in anything more than about an inch of water.”

  I looked out my window at the same time to glance at my car, only to find Steel backing his truck up to his camo boat that was always in his garage.

  I only ever saw it when he was mowing his grass or was working on the car beside the boat and needed the door up for air.

  “There are a lot of duck hunters in the area heading out in their boats. I know that a few of the husbands of some of the nurses are doing it. Let me check with them to see if they have any room in their vehicles for you and get back to you.”

  Then Bob was gone with a promise to call me back, but I was stuck looking at the man across the street that I somehow knew was about to head down there and do the exact same thing Bob had just described some of the nurses’ husbands doing.