For the Love of Beard

by Lani Lynn Vale

  I gave her a look that she couldn’t quite read. “You have no idea.”

  Chapter 17

  If your girl is having a bad day, then surprise, so are you.

  -Fact of Life

  Tobias

  Life went somewhat back to normal after that day in the restaurant.

  I went back to work.

  Audrey started her job and continued to live with her brother despite the fact that she was ready to find something else. Though, I had to admit, she was finding fault in every single place she looked at, citing it unsafe, or too small. My favorite excuse had been, ‘it probably has ants like that first apartment.’

  The first apartment we’d looked at had an ant. One. Singular. And it’d been on the sidewalk outside the door.

  Which started my dilemma.

  Was it too early to ask her to move in? Would her brother kick my ass for extending an invitation to move in without asking her to marry me first?

  I couldn’t ask her to marry me. Though we’d known each other for over a year, we’d only started showing our feelings for each other a few short months ago.

  Although, we did share one drugged up kiss in the hospital room the day that I was shot in the neck.

  Audrey fiddling with the vest again had me sighing in frustration.

  “You have to wear the vest,” I said to her for the third time since we’d started walking to my cruiser.

  She harrumphed. “This is so stupid.”

  I laughed at the expression on her face.

  “It says ‘civilian’ on it, not dumbass. You can deal with it if it’s going to protect you while you’re riding along with me,” I informed her.

  She picked at the heavy Kevlar vest once again.

  “Can I wear it under my shirt?” she asked, batting her eyes.

  “I don’t make the rules, sweetheart,” I told her bluntly. “If you want to come, you have to wear the vest. No exceptions.”

  She sighed, long and loud.

  “What are we doing today?”

  I nearly groaned at the way that she slumped into her chair like a sullen teenager.

  “I have district seven today,” I said by way of explanation. “That means between mile marker…”

  I started to explain the districts to her, telling her how each district was separated by which mile markers. By the time I was finished, her eyes were glazed over in boredom.

  “Just take me wherever,” she snapped.

  My lips twitched.

  “You never told me how work was,” I said as I pulled out into traffic from my house.

  Since the station was so far away from my house, I usually kept the car at my house instead of at the station since it shaved off over an hour and a half of drive time from my commute.

  “I didn’t, did I?” she hedged.

  I looked over at my woman. And she was that. My woman.

  Today she had her hair up in a messy bun type thing that women nowadays liked to wear. A few soft curls had fallen free of the bun and traveled down the length of her back. One was even tickling the side of her neck, practically begging me to touch it.

  She was wearing a lime green shirt that was covered by the Kevlar vest that read CIVILIAN on the front of it.

  She was also wearing my favorite pair of jeans that she owned, and I knew that she had thought about how much I loved them as she slipped them on this morning.

  “I’m so freakin’ excited!” She practically bounced in her seat, completely contradicting her earlier apparent boredom. “If you had to put a number on how many times you pull your gun a week, what would that be?”

  I nearly rolled my eyes. “Zero. I never pull my gun. And if I’m lucky, it’ll stay that way.”

  Three hours later, Audrey was fiddling with her vest again, not nearly as excited as she’d been when we’d first started. “This thing is hot. I have boob sweat, Tobias.”

  I blinked, taking my eyes off the road.

  “It’s hot, yes,” I agreed. “But boob sweat?”

  She nodded, eyes serious. “Yes, boob sweat. My boobs are smashed to the skin of my chest, and there is sweat forming in the crease…”

  I held my hand up. “I’m comprehending what boob sweat is, thank you.”

  Her mouth twitched. “You want to feel?”

  I shook my head. “As much as I’d love that,” I lied. “I can’t. Everything we do and say is recorded.”

  Her eyes widened. “Really?”

  I shrugged.

  The bodycam that I was now required to have on at all times was activated when I pressed a button or when I left the car. The dash cam was always running, and although it couldn’t see inside the cab of the cruiser, it could record what was being said.

  “I think I need some coffee and snacks if we’re going to sit here for much longer, otherwise you’ll have a sleeping Audrey in your front seat.”

  My grin was wide, but I kept my eyes on the road. “You’ll have to give it another hour, and then I can take a lunch.”

  She sighed. “Do you always just sit at the bottom of hills, where it’s nearly impossible to go the speed limit and radar people?”

  Was that reproach I heard in her voice?

  I barely concealed the grin that wanted to take over my face again.

  I’d been doing that a lot lately…smiling.

  I never thought I’d get that back, but Audrey had given that to me. Happiness was an odd feeling.

  It was a great feeling to have, and even if I didn’t tell her how happy she made me every day, I made sure to show her.

  “Audrey,” I said suddenly.

  She turned her head to face me. “Yeah?”

  “Move in with me.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “No.”

  Everything inside of me sank. “Why not?”

  She started to giggle. “Because you’re so sure of yourself. I’ll tell you yes in a few days.”

  Something inside of my chest that had tightened at her terse ‘no’ loosened. “If I ever asked you something else, don’t tell me no unless you really mean it.”

  This time, I startled her.

  “Are you…were you going to ask me that next?”

  She sounded almost hopeful.

  “No.”

  That was just as firm as hers, and I watched her visibly wilt.

  “That’s not to say that one day I won’t ask, but for now, I want you to be comfortable with me. To be able to tell me no and scream and yell at me before I ask you that.”

  She was comfortable around me, sure. But we hadn’t had a fight yet. We hadn’t had that knock down, throw the fucking cup you were holding at the wall kind of fight that a couple had at least once in their relationship.

  The first time a couple got truly mad at each other and expressed that anger was the test of the relationship. If the relationship survived that fight, then I would proceed. But I wanted to make sure that she didn’t feel pressured into marrying me before she was ready.

  I knew in my heart that Audrey was the one. We’d exchanged I love yous, but sometimes I love you just wasn’t enough.

  Sometimes the phrase ‘I love you’ was just words. Sometimes I love you meant, ‘I love you, but I can’t live with you.’

  There were a lot of people in love in the world, but only the ones who truly felt it the deepest, and were willing to fight for that love, were the ones that stayed together.

  I wanted that with Audrey, but she had to want it just as badly as I did for anything between us to work.

  And I felt that she still had some growing into her own self-confidence to do before she could get there with me.

  So until that time happened, I would love her and shelter her. I would be the man that she needed me to be. But I would not be her husband yet.

  Not until she told me she was ready.

  “Sometimes I want to throat punch you,” she muttered darkly, returning her eyes to
the road. “Does that count?”

  I snorted in amusement.

  “Yeah, that counts.” I paused. “But only after I piss you off so badly that you yell, scream and threaten that throat punch again. Until then, I’m going to be the best roommate you’ve ever had.”

  “A roommate with benefits?” She started to chuckle. “Will you sneak into my room at night and have your dirty way with me, Mr. Dixie Warden Reject?”

  I grinned widely. “Yeah, but you won’t be leaving my bed after we’re done.”

  “Why is that?”

  I turned my serious eyes back to the road, too.

  “Because you won’t be able to feel your legs until morning.”

  ***

  When Audrey had asked to do a ride along with me a few weeks ago, I’d thought that it’d be fun.

  I’d thought that I’d do a couple of stops, let her see what my job entailed, and we’d go home.

  What I hadn’t expected to happen was the biggest shootout in the history of the Alabama Highway Patrol to happen with her in my car. I hadn’t expected her to witness me getting shot. Not once, not twice, but four times.

  As my eyes drifted closed, no more strength to hold them open, I realized that it was a good thing that she hadn’t moved in yet. That way she wouldn’t be out there in that big ol’ place all by herself.

  Chapter 18

  I hate it when I’m trying to eat a salad, it falls on the floor, and I have to eat tacos instead.

  -Text from Audrey to Tobias

  Audrey

  His job was boring. I didn’t know how he did it every day.

  Literally, every single second that I’d been sitting in his car had been the most boring of my life.

  I’d even sat through some pretty boring shit during nursing school—such as evidence-based practice seminars that were eight hours long—and even that had some enlightening qualities about it—like lunch.

  But this? Waiting for someone to speed? This took the cake.

  I’d distracted myself by talking and talking, and talking some more. Though he’d answer my questions, I almost felt as if he was only replying because he thought I’d want him to reply, not because he actually wanted to reply, so I’d started to fall silent.

  Now I understood why Leida had told me that her uncle was a stickler for the law. He was a different person right now, hyper aware of his surroundings, and sitting here at the bottom of a hill didn’t seem to affect him at all.

  He actually seemed to like it!

  After our conversation about my legs shaking and feeling hotter than I’d ever felt before, and when we got to the topic of my moving in, he’d gotten his first speeder.

  It’d been a little old lady about the age of my grandmother had been when she’d died, and she had started crying when Tobias walked up to her car.

  He hadn’t given her a ticket, though. Only a warning.

  Sucker.

  “If I was to, say, want to get out of a ticket, how would I go about doing that without showing my breasts?” I asked casually.

  He looked over at me, those beautiful eyes shining with mirth.

  “Are we talking me, or are we talking another officer that definitely is not me?” he countered. “And are we talking you in particular, or another individual who’s not a nurse?”

  “What does being a nurse have to do with it?” I asked him.

  He looked at me, grinning, and then turned his eyes back to the road.

  His smile, paired with his uniform, was doing some uncomfortable things down below my navel, and I was seriously going to jump him the moment we walked through his door.

  I literally might climb him like a tree the moment we pulled into his driveway.

  “Cops don’t shit where they live. That means that most cops won’t knowingly issue a ticket to another officer or an officer’s wife. They also won’t issue a citation to a firefighter, paramedic, or a medical professional who might very well be providing treatment to them in the future.”

  That made a whole hell of a lot of sense.

  “So I should, what? Always have my badge hanging from my rearview mirror or something?” I questioned, seriously interested in knowing the answer.

  He shrugged. “I wouldn’t just blurt out ‘I’m a nurse’ the moment he walks up, but yeah, him seeing your badge might help. I’m not saying it’s a sure fire way to get out of the ticket, but it’s damn sure going to make him hesitate.”

  My lips tipped up.

  “For any other individual that’s not a cop, nurse, paramedic, etc, then honesty is the best policy. Don’t be a dick, admit that you were wrong, and be courteous. When he pulls you over, turn the car off, roll down the window, turn on the dome lamp—if it’s dark. Put your hands on the steering wheel so that they can see that you’re not doing anything you shouldn’t be doing with them.”

  “You don’t want me to get my insurance and registration before you get to the window?” I was confused now. “Why?”

  “Let’s put it like this,” he said. “Say you’re walking up to a car, sometimes at night, and you can’t see what the driver is doing exactly, but he’s leaning over in his seat really fast as you walk up to him. What is he doing?”

  I paused. “Getting his insurance?”

  Wasn’t that obvious.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Am I sure? Well, no. But there was a fairly good possibility that he was.”

  His lips hardened into a thin line, and then he shook his head as a speeder topped the hill going not five over, not even ten, but twenty-two.

  “Gotta take this one,” he said, flipping on his lights. “And to answer your question, what if what he was doing was reaching for a gun?”

  Reaching for a gun.

  “I don’t know.”

  He nodded his head. “That’s right, you don’t. Nobody knows. The cop that’s pulling you over is doing a job, a very dangerous one. We never know what’s going to happen. We have been trained and we have experience. We know what is supposed to happen, but sometimes it doesn’t always play out that way. We know that so when we’re approaching a driver’s window, we’re aware and watching for it.”

  He started into traffic, and I realized that every single person that’d been passing had conveniently moved out of his way, giving him easier access to the man that had already pulled to the side over a mile away.

  And this time, as he got out of his car, I watched the other car.

  The man was scrambling for something in his middle console, and I now saw the dangers that Tobias did.

  Was he reaching for a gun? Or was he searching for his insurance card?

  Oh, God. How did he do this day in and day out? It was nerve wracking.

  Luckily, it was just his insurance card that he was looking for, and Tobias came back to the car moments later with the man’s license and insurance.

  “This makes my stomach hurt,” I said to him.

  His lips twitched. “Sorry, darlin’.”

  He went about writing a ticket. This dude didn’t get off, despite Tobias saying that he was, indeed, very understanding and nice about getting pulled over.

  Going twenty-two miles over the posted speed limit wasn’t something that Tobias would let him walk for, despite him being courteous.

  I realized, though, in the next thirty seconds, that it wasn’t always the car that you pulled over that you had to watch for. You also had to watch the traffic surrounding you.

  Which I wasn’t doing…not until it was too late.

  I’d been watching Tobias’ ass as he sauntered to the car in his tight pants when my whole world exploded.

  Something hit the cruiser so hard that it shook.

  My head hit something solid, and I felt blood running down the side of my face and into my t-shirt.

  My vision was blurry, but as I opened my eyes, I wasn’t where I was only two seconds earlier. I was now well away, in the grass median, and
watching as Tobias started running toward the car.

  He made it three steps before the popping started.

  It was gunshots.

  A lot of them.

  And when I saw Tobias go down, and disappear into the tall grass, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

  It was almost on automatic that I reached for the handheld microphone that Tobias had been calling his tickets into all day.

  At first, I couldn’t find it, but it was still connected to where it used to be, so I followed the cord down with fumbling fingers until I found it on the floor next to the driver’s side floorboard.

  My fingers wouldn’t work correctly, so I had to use both palms of my hand to press the button and hold it for counter pressure.

  “O-o-officer d-d-down,” I stuttered.

  My mouth wasn’t working right, either.

  My tongue felt so thick.

  ***

  Big Papa

  “O-o-officer d-d-down.”

  Every cop’s worst fear was hearing those two words.

  Every single cop’s. Every single cop’s wife. Every single cop’s mom.

  I found myself on my feet as I listened to the radio go crazy.

  Cops in the area that were able to hear the radio traffic started asking locations. The dispatcher told everyone to get off. Officers ignored her.

  But no location ever came.

  I stared at the radio, my heart beating a mile a minute, and I tilted my head.

  Reaching for my phone, I called Ghost.

  “Your sister with Fender today?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, from what she told me. Why?”

  My stomach sank.

  “We just got an officer down call on the radio, and we don’t know where, or who,” I said. “Sounded like her.”

  Then I hung up and called into dispatch on my phone.

  But it didn’t matter.

  As soon as I found out, I relayed the information; a few calls started trickling in.

  Now I just hoped it wasn’t too late.

  “Merridy!” I called to my new temporary secretary. “I’m headed to the scene. It’s only about four miles from here.”

  Then I was gone before I could see the cute girl’s shocked look on her face.