“It’s no different than you telling Billy Ray to run with you at the school,” Zoe said. “That’s hard to do sober, forget about it if you’re hungover or drunk.”
“He still checked on you. Kept in contact with the sheriff in Waterville, enjoyed a glass on the back porch with me.” Miss Gina waved her half-empty glass. “He knew you were turning your life around.”
Yeah, but he didn’t live to see it.
Jo winced.
The weight of all the eyes in the room silenced the thoughts in Jo’s head.
Mel offered her a soft smile and Zoe changed the subject. “Luke and I have decided on the first weekend in September for the wedding.”
The conversation turned to dresses and color choices, tents and food. Luke and Zoe were officially engaged the previous Christmas.
Jo weighed in on the conversation where she could, but her thoughts kept rolling back to her father. How was it possible she knew nothing about his trips to visit Miss Gina? His knowledge of Miss Gina’s vodka-infused lemonade?
What else didn’t she know?
The graduating class the year her father was murdered put triple the amount of people in the town during the days around his death. Something she’d never considered while she attempted to find his killer.
All these years she’d studied the town, the people . . . the gossip. The reports on her father’s death that pointed to “accidental.”
“Hey, Jo . . . you still with us?”
“I am . . . but I just thought of something.” She stood. “I gotta go check . . .” She left the lie on her tongue.
“Jo?” Mel’s unasked question was left unanswered.
Jo grabbed her keys off the table, smiled, and promised to see them all the next day.
“I’m worried about her.” Mel watched the taillights of Jo’s Jeep leave the driveway.
“She isn’t happy.” Zoe’s words put an exclamation point on Mel’s thoughts. “She isn’t even faking it anymore.”
“She didn’t even drink tonight.” Not that Jo needed liquor to make her happy, but she’d always have at least one cocktail with them on girls’ night.
“All that talk about her dad got her thinking again,” Miss Gina said. “She pulls into a ball when she reflects back. I don’t think she’s ever forgiven herself for being a rebellious teenager.”
“She wasn’t that bad.”
“She really wasn’t,” Mel agreed with Zoe. “But her dad didn’t see it that way.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
Both Mel and Zoe looked at Miss Gina.
“Joseph knew more about what you kids were doing than he let on. He didn’t always show his cards.”
“Are you kidding?” Zoe protested. “He helicoptered Jo and the two of us all the time.”
Miss Gina shook her head. “He watched over you because he knew of the trouble in your house. He watched over Mel because she was the straight-A student that pulled Jo back every once in a while.”
“I didn’t pull her back,” Mel denied.
“You did. You just didn’t realize it,” Miss Gina said. “You both anchored her when it was possible she’d spin out of control. Joseph watched all of you and made sure her circle of friends in town were the good kids.”
“He didn’t control that.”
“He fostered it.” Miss Gina sighed. “You both were kids, you didn’t see him as a man or realize why he did the things he did. Raising a daughter by himself, being the sheriff . . . it wasn’t easy for him. The stick up his ass didn’t help, but I did my best to wiggle that free.”
“Did you?” Zoe asked.
Miss Gina picked up her glass and winked. “I managed.”
Chapter Three
“Agent Burton?” With the phone to her ear, Jo sat behind her desk, staring at the walls of her father’s office. Her office.
“Sheriff, how are you? I’ve been thinking about you.”
“Good things, I hope?”
Shauna chuckled. “Anything new on the eyes in the dark?”
From anyone else, Jo would think Shauna was being sarcastic. But cops, law enforcement, even the FBI knew better than to ignore their instincts. “It’s been quiet. Too much so.”
“I never trust silence either. Is there something I can do for you?”
Jo tapped a pen against her notepad, the only sign of nerves she let herself have. “I want to know if I can take you up on that training course we talked about last year.”
“Honing your skills, Jo?”
“It’s not like I have a lot of use for them in River Bend.”
They both laughed. “I think the next course is late April. Outside DC.”
A little over a month away.
“That will work.”
“It’s a weeklong deal, you able to get away from there that long?”
No, but she’d make it happen. “Yeah. I have vacation time coming.”
“I’ll get back to you later this week with the details.”
Jo hung up the phone with a smile.
“Proactive, not reactive,” she muttered. For the first time in a long time, she looked forward to the next month.
There was a push, a pull, and a whole lot of red tape to make her trip to DC work. The training would last Monday through Friday, but Zoe and Mel convinced her to take the weekend before . . . for herself.
Once the plane leveled off at 32,000 feet, Jo ordered a drink and let herself relax.
She was just a woman on a plane . . . and until the training started on Monday, she’d just be a woman. Not a cop, not responsible for anyone but herself, not Sheriff Ward’s daughter from River Bend.
Just a woman.
The first bar she went into was all suits and ties. Lawyers, lobbyists . . . office jockeys who held no appeal. She didn’t even bother with a drink. Dressed in tight jeans and a tank that Zoe insisted she wear to prove to anyone who looked that she was a woman, Jo felt entirely underdressed.
The second bar was a little farther from the city center and slightly better. The ties were off, but it was obvious the men ditched them in their sedans before attempting a night out.
She picked up her cell and texted Shauna.
Burton, you there?
Hey, Sheriff. What can I do for you?
I’m in DC. Flew in early. Are you here yet?
I fly in tomorrow. What’s up?
Looking for laid back bar. No suits and ties. Any suggestions?
The dot dot dot that followed told Jo that Shauna was either reading between the lines or checking a nightclub app.
Uber to Marly’s. Dive bar-ish, so no suits. Sane enough to avoid cuffing anyone while you’re there.
“Perfect,” Jo muttered to herself.
Thanks!
While Jo looked up Marly’s on her phone, a final text from Shauna proved the woman read through the lines. Be safe. Use condoms.
At Marly’s, Jo hit pay dirt.
Loud and smoky despite the laws suggesting people not smoke indoors, and littered with hard bodies and hard liquor, Jo felt at home.
A few heads swiveled her way as she moved toward the bar. That’s when she saw him.
He had his back to her, a tight T-shirt stretched across a thick layer of muscles built by hours at the gym, and maybe a few steroids. She really hoped steroids were not this guy’s thing. Ink peeked out on both his arms just above the sleeve line. A shadow of growth gave evidence that his baldness was by choice. He had a nice ass. Now if only his face matched.
She waited until her gaze inched up his spine like an insect in the forest on a hot summer night.
He turned, and her heart stopped.
Good Lord, God broke the mold with this one. His goatee was trimmed, immaculately so. His lips were full, his jaw tight . . . and his eyes. Dark, almost haunting. Dangerous. He did a once-over, and when his eyes met hers, he lifted one side of his lips in a half smile. One that asked . . . who the hell are you?
She let her eyes linger, her mout
h drop open the slightest amount.
She’d bet her badge he had priors. Warning bells screamed in her head as he took the first step her way.
The bartender took that moment to ask her what she wanted.
“Jameson on the rocks,” she said before turning her back to the stranger walking her way. “And a Stella.”
The bartender turned to collect her order.
He was behind her, she felt it before she turned.
Jo waited until the bartender handed her the drink before lifting her chin. “Hello,” she said, knowing he listened.
“A woman who knows how to drink. That’s rare.”
His voice was chocolate, not rough as she expected. The contrast excited her more.
“I graduated from wine coolers last week.” She turned and took in the full effect of the man. He was even bigger close up, his look of warning in sharp focus. Jo ignored the inner voice, the one that told her to walk away . . . the angel that sat on her shoulder, telling her it was a trap, needed to shut the hell up.
“Lucky me,” he said, his grin lethal.
She responded, all of her. She’d flunked chemistry in high school but knew it was hitting her upside the head now. Flirt, she told herself.
“And what are you drinking?”
The bartender set her beer down, along with a bill.
“Wine coolers.”
Jo leaned against the bar, noticed when his eyes found her breasts. She took a deep breath and finished the whiskey in one pull.
“Prove it.”
He signaled the barkeep.
Jo waited to see what he would do.
“Wine cooler.” The fact he said it with a straight face made the bartender turn as if he was asked for that every day.
The man nearly tripped as he turned back around. “Excuse me?”
Viking Man grinned, changed his order. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
The bartender, a skinny man with hair too long and a narrow face that matched, nodded. “That’s better.”
“I’ve never seen you here before,” Tall, Dark, and Dangerous said.
“Never been here before.”
“Do you plan on being here again?”
She met his eyes, eyes that she could fall into and lose herself if he was the right kind of guy. “No.”
“So you’re in DC for one night?”
“That’s about it.”
The bartender set his drinks down. Jo took a drink from her beer. The whiskey was already warming her head.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
Yeah, that wasn’t gonna happen. “Does it matter?”
His grin grew. “No, I guess it doesn’t. Saying hey you doesn’t work, however.”
“How about Anne?”
“You don’t look like an Anne.”
That was the point. “What should I call you?”
He hesitated a beat. “Rocco.”
Not his name . . . again, she’d bet her badge. “Rocco fits,” she told him.
“So I’ve been told.”
Her eyes moved to his chest, her hands itched to touch, to test his thickness.
Rocco tossed back his drink, chased it with his beer.
Her eyes lingered on his Adam’s apple, and as the beverage moved down, she dropped her gaze.
He stood perfectly still until her eyes took their time moving back to his.
He was smiling. Full-watt danger in a grin. “Like what you see?”
She looked again, really hoped he didn’t bulk up on stimulants. “I haven’t seen anything . . . yet.” The invitation was there, left open for him to take.
After reaching into his back pocket, Rocco slapped a couple of bills on the bar and grasped her hand. His lips reached the lobe of her ear. “Back out now if you’re going to.”
Instead of retreat, she reached out, grabbed a firm hold on his bicep.
He growled as he pulled her from the bar.
Rocco, for all intents and purposes, handed Jo his helmet before straddling his Harley. DC in spring was cold . . . at least at eleven o’clock at night. The diversion of discomfort would snap all concerns from Jo as he tore through the streets of DC on a mission. When he took the second, third, and fourth curve with sharp edges, Jo grasped his waist and held on. Only then did he ease into the drive. He was firm, everywhere. The thing she missed most about her life. The thing she told herself wasn’t important.
The long-term resident hotel they pulled into wasn’t a shock, but if Jo were honest, a disappointment, as Rocco turned into the lot and cut the engine.
He led her into his room, which was surprisingly clean. A single king-size bed, a dresser with an old TV, a small refrigerator, microwave, and two lamps rounded out the visual interest inside the small room. She had less than thirty seconds to study the interior before Rocco tossed the keys to his bike on the dresser and invaded her personal space.
“Can I get you a drink?”
She shook her head and licked her lips.
Rocco’s gaze swept her face. “I’ll just be a minute,” he said before disappearing behind the bathroom door. She heard the water turn on and switched her attention to the side table in the room. What would be in there? Did he have stacks of the same clothes he wore now? The desire to know more about him clashed with the desire to know nothing at all.
Jo sat on the edge of the bed to keep her hands from opening drawers and learning his secrets. There was a weapon in the room somewhere, she could smell it.
When Rocco emerged from the bathroom, his eyes fell on her and that half grin emerged once again.
“You look comfortable,” he said, his eyes lingering on her breasts.
She leaned her elbows back on the bed; let her girls reach a little higher. “I could be better.” It felt good to tease and say the things she wanted to without censure.
Rocco’s smile said he approved.
“A little thing like you should be scared.”
He approached slowly, like a predator. Only his grin gave him away.
“I can handle myself.”
He narrowed his eyebrows. “Can you?”
She had a few tricks up her sleeve to get away from a situation if she needed to. Hoped to learn a dozen more before the week of training was complete. The only thing she didn’t have with her was her weapon, but she didn’t think she needed it.
Instead of answering him, she looked at the ink on his arms. “Does that go all the way up, or have you just started?” In her experience, people that liked ink, loved ink. If they could afford it, they had more than one tattoo with the plan for more.
Rocco took her invitation to remove his shirt slowly.
Breath caught in Jo’s chest. He was gorgeous. Tight. His right arm had a band that looked like a rope, the left arm had a band that looked like barbed wire. His chest was bare, but she’d bet money his back was not.
She lifted a finger in the air and made a rolling motion.
He took the hint and turned around.
Jo’s eyes settled on his ass first.
Her mouth watered.
“You like?”
Damn, his ink . . . she was supposed to be looking at his tattoo.
“Oh . . .” It was an eagle, a massive statement that spread over his entire back, with wings that touched the edges of his shoulders. Jo leaned forward on the bed and reached toward him, her fingers touching the edges of the bird. “That’s . . . wow.” She stood and felt the muscles under the ink until her focus was on the man.
His chest expanded when she traced the outline of his shoulders with both hands before letting them fall to his narrow waist. At the waistline of his jeans, she squeezed. “I definitely like.”
Rocco moved quickly for a man his size. He turned and grasped her waist in his big hands and pulled her hips to his.
His lips torched hers with the first touch. He tasted like fire and a little bit of sin. When she opened to him, his indecent, open-mouth kisses became the fastest addiction Jo had ever ex
perienced. She held on to his neck, lifted on her toes to kiss him back.
For a libido that sat dormant for years at a time, it sure knew how to fire to life when needed. Everything strained toward this Viking of a man.
His hands splayed down her waist, her back, and held on to her hips.
The erection she felt but couldn’t see didn’t appear to be one shrunk by steroids. She smiled into his kiss and started clawing at her shirt to take it off.
Rocco helped her.
He grinned as he stared, and Jo was thankful Zoe had talked her into a new bra that enhanced the parts of her that were all woman.
Viking Man trailed his lips down her jaw to the top of one breast.
She closed her eyes when she felt the bite of his teeth through the thin material. “Yes,” she mumbled more to herself than to him. He nestled between her breasts before matching a nip to the other side.
When his hands reached the globes of her ass, she lost the ability to hold still. Jo jumped up, wrapped both legs around his hips to maximize contact, and forced his lips back to hers. She wasn’t sure, but she thought he laughed as he backed her up against the bed and settled his weight once she was lying down.
Everything was a blur from there. Clothes flew, hands took their fill . . . and no, Viking Man didn’t use steroids.
There was a condom, a curse, and the satisfaction of him filling her completely. He stopped the second he was inside her.
“Don’t stop.”
“Catching my breath, sweetness.”
Sweetness. No one called her sweet.
Jo clenched every inner muscle she had and lifted her hips as much as she could with a 230-plus-pound hulk on top of her. “Breathe later,” she demanded.
His laugh was deep as he started to move. The heat of his body, the friction of his touch . . . the warmth of his kiss brought her to the first crest and had her humming after the fall.
He slowed his movements but wasn’t close to being done. “Feel better?” he asked.
When she dared to open her eyes, he was smiling down at her. Satisfied in his possession.
Jo crossed her ankles behind his back. “I’m getting there.”
Making It Right (A Most Likely To Novel Book 3) Page 6
