“With you to get through. Jo’s dad wasn’t as big, but he was just as protective.”
The starting gun shot through the air, directing their attention to the field.
“Which race is this?” Gill asked.
“Two mile.”
A herd of teenage boys took the first turn. Most of the uniforms were of the opposing team, a few of River Bend’s colors filtered in with the runners leading the pack. “These are Jo’s kids, right?”
“Yep.” Mel stood. “I’ve gotta go. Will we see you in town tomorrow?”
“No. I’m kidnapping your sheriff instead.”
Mel leaned down and whispered in his ear, “She likes handcuffs.”
“Information to hold close to my heart,” he said with a grin and a wink.
“You pass the smell test, Gill,” Mel told him.
For effect, Gill lifted his left arm and sniffed.
Mel walked away laughing.
From his vantage point, Gill could see the runners and hear their teammates yelling out times as they passed a certain point on the field. Jo stood back from the finish line with a stopwatch in her palm. The runners were on their second lap and looked to be settling in for a long run when Gill noticed a woman encouraging one of the runners to pace himself. The kid looked familiar, even from the sidelines, sitting a couple of benches up on the bleachers.
He found himself watching the last lap on the edge of his seat. The announcer, one that sounded like he’d take a spot on a television show if given the chance, called out the last names of the top three runners. The name Emery stuck out in his head. Jo’s number one runner was neck and neck with the runner from Eugene. The third in line was another River Bend local. The last hundred meters of the race had the stands cheering. The home team advantage screamed encouragement while the kids of River Bend stood on the sidelines, screaming at the two in purple and gold.
Gill dashed his eyes to Jo. She screamed. She yelled. She held the stopwatch in the air like it would somehow will the runner to make the right time and cross over before the opponent.
When the first foot crossed the finish line, inches away from the other, the stands sighed in short disappointment since the winner was from River Bend. The minority cheered, and all three of the top winners patted the others on the back as they held their hands to their knees in an attempt to catch their breath.
Jo stepped into the striped lanes to congratulate her winner.
Drew allowed himself to be pulled into a hug from his coach.
Crossing the finish line first and exceeding his personal record by half a minute sealed his position to compete in the finals. His rankings in the state were in the top ten, his chances of going to state championships almost a given. Which meant he’d have his pick of colleges far away from River Bend.
He couldn’t wait.
“Finals and then state,” Coach Ward said, clasping Tim’s hand. “I can’t believe I have two runners going.”
“You forgot the Masters meet.”
Coach Ward waved Tim off. “Semantics.”
“Coach, let me get a shot.”
Drew caught his breath long enough to see a camera pointed at the two of them.
Without pause, they both straightened toward the camera and smiled.
“Drew!” his mom called from the sideline, her hand waving frantically in the air.
He smiled and waved back.
“Go say hello.” Coach Ward shoved his arm. “She drove all the way here.”
He looked beyond his mom.
“Your dad volunteered to take the shift,” Coach Ward told him.
Drew sucked in his disappointment. Fitzpatrick could have stepped in. Had in the past. His father had barely spoken to him for a month. Between the stunt with Mrs. Walters and finding the dog. Drew shivered. Thinking about the animal made his stomach twist.
He ran across the track to the fence line to talk to his mom. The short fence allowed her to reach over and hug him, sweat and all.
“I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
When she tried to hug him a second time, he pulled back. The mom hug after winning a race was a onetime thing.
“Do you want to ride home with me or take the bus with your friends?”
The bus sounded smelly, but Tina hadn’t run her race yet, and sitting next to her with his hand on her thigh sounded better than listening to mom music all the way back to River Bend. “I’ll go on the bus. You don’t have to stick around.”
“I don’t mind.”
She probably didn’t, but he wasn’t going to be the reason she was stuck in the bleachers all day.
“Is Dad still mad?”
“He’s fine, honey. He’d be here but someone had to work.”
That wasn’t how Drew saw things. “Whatever.”
“He tries.”
“Sure.” He called bullshit on that. Drew looked over his shoulder, saw the kids lining up for the next race, and used that as an excuse to walk away. “I’ll see you at home.”
She lifted her hand in a wave as he turned.
For a brief moment he wondered if his father would bother visiting him when he went to college . . . or would it just be his mom?
Pizza and teenagers . . . because everything was better with melted cheese.
The team had taken up several tables. Wyatt and Mel sat with several other kids, and a couple of the parents had stuck around to join the pizza party. Jo and Gill sat with her distance team.
River Bend had an excuse for a pizza parlor that had changed hands multiple times since she was a kid. Jo knew there was no way out of joining the team after the meet for pepperoni and sausage. Gill, on the other hand, had no idea.
He was handling it well, considering the amount of attention he was getting from the team. Once the boys learned that he’d served as a marine, talks about state finals and prom ceased.
“That is badass.”
Jo didn’t call Drew on his language.
“It’s a job.” Gill downplayed his role.
“I think it’s brave.” Maureen sighed into the word brave.
Tina jabbed an elbow into Maureen’s side, helping the girl snap out of her moony look in Gill’s direction.
When Gill squirmed, Jo hid a laugh behind her soda.
“What made you join?” Drew asked.
“It was the right fit for me at the time. Are you thinking about joining?”
Drew shrugged. “I dunno.”
Jo listened intently. She thought Drew was headed for college. The military wasn’t something he’d ever talked about.
Tina leaned into Drew’s arm. “What about school?”
“My dad’s a cop. Seems the military might work for me. It isn’t like I’m staying in River Bend.”
“I don’t know, dude. Having people shoot at you doesn’t sound fun,” Gustavo said.
“Do people really shoot at you?” Tina asked.
“In war.” Gill picked up a slice of pizza, shoved half of it in his mouth.
“People shoot at cops, too, Tina.”
“I know that. But Drew doesn’t want to be like his dad.”
“No one shoots at the cops in River Bend,” Tim added.
Gill exchanged glances with Jo.
She thought of her father, hoped no one noticed the tension she felt inside.
“The only time Coach fires her gun is when she’s target practicing, isn’t that right?” Drew asked.
“That’s the goal,” Jo said.
Wyatt walked up to their table. “We’re headed out in ten. Next bathroom is in Waterville.”
Tina and Maureen scooted back and took the hint.
“You’ll be back tomorrow?” Wyatt asked Jo.
“Afternoon,” she confirmed.
Tim leaned over to say something in Drew’s ear. They both snickered. The guys were worse than the girls.
She pointed her finger in their general direction and narrowed her eyes.
“I didn’t say nothin’,�
� was Drew’s response.
“Let’s keep it that way.”
A few minutes later Jo was shuffling kids out of the busy pizza joint while Gill pulled his bike close to her Jeep.
Tina stepped up beside her as kids filed onto the bus.
“Hey, Coach?”
“Yeah?”
Tina held out her hand. In it was a homemade business card. “A girl in the bathroom handed this to me.”
Jo peered closer.
Finals? with a question mark was written in a fuzzy font. Let me take away the pain.
There was an Instagram ID under the caption.
“A tutor?”
Tina took the first step onto the bus. “She looked strung out, practically shoved this in my hand.”
Drugs.
“What did she look like?”
“I don’t know . . . like a teenager.” Tina boarded the bus without any details.
Drew was behind her.
“Have fun, Coach.”
Jo felt a smile she couldn’t hide. “Can’t stop yourself, can you, Drew?”
He laughed and followed his girlfriend.
The roar of Gill’s bike followed the doors closing on the bus and it pulling away.
“Ready?”
She was going to follow Gill to his place since she didn’t know the way. “Not yet.” She turned back to the pizza parlor.
“You’re still hungry?” He swung his leg off his bike, the size of him standing beside her a welcome comfort.
Jo handed him the card. “Someone gave this to one of my girls. Sounded like something you’d be interested in.”
She waited while he read it.
“Take away the pain.” Gill took in the parking lot while Jo relayed what Tina had said.
They walked back in together, one of the kids behind the counter saw them. “Forget something?”
Jo smiled. “Yeah.” Without elaborating, she walked toward the restrooms while Gill pretended to check out the table where they’d been sitting.
The women’s bathroom was empty. She checked both stalls and poked through the trash.
She caught Gill’s attention and shook her head. They both scanned those left in the place. A few families. A group of guys, somewhere in their midtwenties, filled a booth.
Jo searched for a strung out teenage girl and came up short.
Outside, they walked around the back of the building and then met at her Jeep. Gill had his phone in his hand. “The Instagram account is private.”
“It’s probably nothing.”
“I don’t know. This is exactly the kind of thing these dealers are moving these days. Social media has given them access to lots of clients.” He started typing into his phone, took a picture of the card. “I’m sending this to Shauna. Her fake account will request access to this person.”
“Shauna has a fake Instagram account?”
“We both do,” he said, grinning. “It’s easy to be a teenage kid looking for dope online.”
“Or a sixty-year-old pedophile looking for prey.”
Gill shoved his phone into his back pocket. “Exactly.”
“Can we do anything else here?”
Gill lifted his hand to hers and pulled her close when she grasped it. “I’m pretty sure what I want to do is frowned upon in pizza parlor parking lots.”
The feel of his hand wrapping around her waist made her sigh. “And what do you want to do?”
He buried his lips in her hair, whispered in her ear, “It involves handcuffs.”
The thought shouldn’t have shot a thrill down her spine. The handcuff thing was a joke that had started when she took the badge. Jo squirmed. “Who said I like handcuffs?”
The deep grumble of his laugh gave promise to the evening. “That didn’t sound like denial.”
She smoothed her hand over his hip, pinched his ass. “You first.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jo was aware of soft lips on the back of her shoulder.
Gill.
Even through closed eyelids she could tell the sun had barely started to rise. She moaned and burrowed deeper into her pillow.
Gill’s teeth scraped her shoulder.
I can get used to this.
“You’re not asleep.”
“Yes, I am,” she muttered.
He kissed her again.
She opened one eye, peeked over the shoulder he was claiming. “You’re dressed.”
Gill rested his chin in her shoulder, the freshness of his breath, the soap on his skin told her she’d slept through him getting up and taking a shower. “I have to leave.”
“Why?” She rolled over, didn’t try to cover herself when the sheet slipped to reveal her naked breasts.
Gill’s gaze wandered. “That Instagram account hit a hotspot. I’m meeting Shauna in twenty minutes.”
Jo moaned, more than a little disappointed to have to share him.
“Sorry.” He leaned down, kissed the top of one breast.
“I understand.”
“I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
She glanced across the room at the digital clock on his side of the bed. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I wanted to spend the day with you.”
“I have things to do at home anyway. No worries.” She didn’t, but letting him off the hook felt like the right thing to do.
He sat taller on the bed. “Take your time.”
She closed her eyes and grinned. “I’m going to find your little black book and erase all the numbers,” she threatened.
When he didn’t tease her back, she opened her eyes to find him staring, his expression endearing.
“What?” she asked.
Gill didn’t say a thing. Instead, he bent down and touched his lips to hers, made sure his kiss reached the depths of her soul before pulling back.
Aroused and missing him already, she asked, “What was that for?”
“For being here.”
Jo reached up and touched his cheek.
He leaned into her palm.
“Be safe.”
He kissed her palm and stood from the bed.
She leaned onto her elbows, watched as he tucked his service weapon into the holster inside his jacket. “Good luck finding that black book,” he said when he reached the door.
“Oh, I’ll find it.”
Gill shook his head once and paused. “I threw it away in Virginia, when I knew I’d see you again.”
And then he was gone.
Jaw slack, his words sank in. And in a completely girlie fashion, Jo flopped back on the bed with a silly grin on her face. Her fingers landed on a pair of handcuffs on his side of the bed. Images of the previous night had her giggling.
And Jo never giggled.
“You know what the problem is with these puppies?” Zoe asked.
Jo had lingered in Gill’s space longer than she thought she would. For fun, she left a few notes throughout his house saying she’d searched the drawers or the cupboards for his black book, when in fact the only thing she’d done was clean up after them and make his bed. She’d deny sniffing his pillow if asked. Now she sat on the floor with a litter of puppies and the small bottles needed to feed their hungry mouths. “What’s that?”
Zoe petted the head of the puppy she was feeding. “They grow on you.”
“You’re caving.”
“I don’t need a dog.”
Three of the animals were sleeping, sprawled on top of each other, while the others were bouncing about, one particularly noisy since it hadn’t been fed.
“Good thing they are off to Luke’s parents’ tomorrow.”
The puppies had made the rounds. Every family member, every friend, even the neighbors had taken turns with the furry bundles. Cherie couldn’t look at them without crying. No one in River Bend was willing to make her look at them. The older dogs were taken in by Luke’s parents, and animal control had backed off once word got out about Jezebel’s demise.
Zo
e cooed. “I don’t need a dog.”
She was a goner.
Jo refused to let the tiny tongue that was licking her hand affect her emotions. Even when the owner of that tiny tongue crawled on her lap and circled three times before nestling into the crook in the back of her knee. No. The animal had no effect on her.
None whatsoever.
“You don’t need a dog,” Zoe said, laughing.
Jo glared. “We don’t need dogs.”
“I’m so screwed.”
Jo laughed.
“Tell me about Gill. Take my mind off my doom.” Zoe cuddled the animal that had her name on it.
“I’m not sure I can. He’s . . .” Jo blew out a breath. “Unexpected.”
“Elaborate, please.”
The map of their relationship sat before her and she still couldn’t figure out where she stood. She looked for the space where an arrow pointed, stating “you are here,” and she couldn’t find it. “I’m not like you . . . not like Mel.”
“In what way?”
“I’m not a serial monogamist.”
Zoe blinked a few times. “Serial what?”
“I’m not a relationship girl. I don’t know that I can truly say I’ve ever had one. Not with any regularity.”
Zoe looked to the ceiling for answers. Didn’t find them. “What about after high school? Wasn’t there someone in Waterville?”
“Do you remember his name?”
Zoe shook her head.
“Exactly. I had . . . there were a couple of guys. None stuck. Once I turned into River Bend’s finest . . . there was less than that.”
“That’s sad.”
“It’s true.”
“Doesn’t make it less sad.”
“Then Gill slips into my life like a knife in butter and I’m sitting here daydreaming about the man.”
That had Zoe smiling . . . all toothy like. “What’s wrong with that?”
“It can’t last.” The reality of that hit hard.
“Why not?”
“We’re both cops. Kinda.”
Zoe stared. “What does that mean?”
“Do you know what the divorce rate is for those with a badge?”
Zoe’s stare turned into a grin. “Did he ask you to marry him?”
“Oh, good God, no.” Jo almost choked.
Her friend’s smile fell. “Then why are you worried about divorce?”
Making It Right (A Most Likely To Novel Book 3) Page 23
