Glamour
Page 7
Jessica
Finn. That’s his name.
He stands back from the door and gestures me inside. I would want to sit next to Ky no matter what, so it shouldn’t feel like I’m under arrest. Probably I would be handcuffed if that were happening. But I can’t quite step inside. The glass divider and handle-less doors might be the straw that breaks my emotional state’s back.
I’d be trapped back here, unable to leave until he let me out.
“Wait,” I say, my throat thick with fear. It doesn’t have that much to do with him. It’s about me, and the all the ways I’ve been trapped before. “What if you’re not a cop at all? What if you’re a serial killer and this is some sort of death contraption you’re using to lure me in?”
I follow his gaze inside the police car, where condensation hugs a large Styrofoam cup and an array of crackling equipment crowds like barnacles to the dashboard. If this is a kidnapping, it’s a pretty elaborate one. And if he planned to kill me he could have done so on this deserted road without anyone seeing a thing.
So I feel a little silly, as the blatant accusation hands in the air between us, until I see his face. For the first time, his reserved expression cracks. I bask in the approval that shines there, like I’m seeing the sun for the first time. No one else has protected me.
No one else even wanted me to be safe.
He nods toward the baby bag slung over her shoulder. “Do you have a cell phone? Call 911 and they’ll confirm my identity.”
“911? That seems a little… excessive.” Not to mention, a pretty good way to alert Stefano about their location. That call would definitely be recorded.
“Your safety qualifies as an emergency, Ms. Beck,” he said, and I believe he’s law enforcement officer for sure. He has the voice, sort of gruff and condescending at the same time.
It makes me wonder uses that tone in the bedroom, if he ever lectures on the perils of sexual dissatisfaction. Your need to climax qualifies as an emergency, Ms. Beck.
And it did qualify as an emergency. Suddenly. Shockingly.
How could I have given birth without having one?
I don’t doubt him in this moment, but I already started this. He watches me expectantly, so I make a show of getting out my phone. “Give me the number for your precinct,” I say.
His eyebrows raise, but he gives it to me in that low, authoritative voice.
I press each number carefully as he says it, feeling something tight in my stomach that has nothing to do with fear or pain. Something about him giving me commands and me following them. Something primal.
My forefinger hovers over the Send button.
His eyes become hooded, a challenge and a command all at once.
It’s a game of chicken between his lids and my finger—which one would drop first.
Well, he asked for it. I press the button and wait while it rings.
“Provence PD. Bridget speaking.”
“Hi… Bridget. This might sound silly, but do you happen to know if Sheriff—”
And here I realize I don’t even know how name. I was about to get in the car with him, without knowing his name. I checked out his ass, without knowing his name.
“Locke. Sheriff Finnegan Locke,” he says, and inexplicably the sound of his name, spoken with a husky twang made my insides melt. He sounds like a man in the middle of sex, a man close to climax, and oh god why am imagining how his face would look, all taut and pained, arrested with the sweetest agony?
I’ve never thought a man looked sexy that way, rutting and sweating and grunting. I’ve only ever seen Stefano that way, but it’s something I never want to see again.
It would be different with Finn. I know that as surely as I know that he won’t hurt me.
“Yes, he’s Sheriff Finnegan Locke. Can you confirm that he’s on patrol?”
A snort over the line. “Finn? Yeah, he’s around here somewhere. Causing trouble, I suppose.” And then, rather shockingly, she shouts over the phone. “Finn, you sonuvabitch. Why are you bothering this nice girl?”
I jerk the phone away from her ear, wincing a little.
Then cautiously pull it back. “Um,” I say, “I’m not sure he heard you.”
Finn’s eyes dance with laughter, which means he knows my ear is ringing and why. I like him better this way, his brown eyes bright with laughter. It softens up his whole face, makes him look even more handsome, which I do need to be thinking about at all.
“Well, you tell that man to get his ass back here,” Bridget says. “His burger was delivered two hours ago. Nothing more disgusting than cold fries. Tell him that for me, will you?”
I close my eyes, trying to hold in a laugh. And that’s the greatest accomplishment of all, that I could find anything amusing on this night. “Bridget says dinner’s waiting.”
Finn shrugs, his lips twitching. “Had a protein bar on the road. Besides, the fries are probably cold.”
“Right,” I say into the phone. “Thank you for your assistance.”
“Don’t let him give you any trouble. He’s a good man, but you know, ever since the accident, he’s had a stick is so far up his—”
“Great, thanks, bye.” The words come out in a rush as I end the call. I run my eyes over his body, as if checking for injuries. “You were in an accident?”
A shadow passes over his face, wiping away any trace of softness. “No.”
Message received. We won’t talk about his past.
Does that agreement extend to my past?
I grant him a regal nod. “Okay, Sheriff. Take me to jail.”
SEVEN
And so the curse came true, leaving the princess to sleep for a hundred years, her coffin made of glass, a thick wood with thorns grown up around the castle.
Finn
I run my hand over my face, hoping to wake up myself up.
It’s only a thirty minute drive to the station, but coming at the end of a ten hour shift, it feels longer. Or maybe that’s the sleepy vibes from the woman behind me.
When we got about a mile away from her car, she went out like a light, snoozing as peacefully as her baby. I’m glad I caught her before she’d wrapped that broken little car around a tree trunk.
Something about her sleep seemed to call to me, making me want to wrap myself around her, use my body as a shield. To protect her, the instinct stronger and more primal than I felt for ordinary people.
The cruiser slides through the inky black night.
This is my favorite time to patrol, when everyone’s tucked safely in their homes, when I don’t have to wear a fake smile lest anyone worry I was going to fall apart again.
A glimmer of that old panic hit me when I saw the swerving tail lights in the distance. I flashed back in time to when I saw a car careening toward me instead of away. I hadn’t been a cop then. Just a guy out for a night on the town, with a woman in the passenger seat, no fucking clue what would happen next.
A squeal of tires and a horrifying crunch of metal is all I remember after that.
Of course, Jessica wasn’t a drunk driver. Only a drowsy one.
A scared one too.
I recognized that lost look, as if she didn’t know where to go, as if she didn’t think there was any place left, because I felt that way after the accident. I still felt that way, at times, but I kept on pushing, kept on faking it, because I didn’t know how to do anything else.
And then there’s the little boy, the one with adorable footy socks and a new carseat, fully stocked in baby supplies even while the mother wore faded jeans and shadows under her eyes.
Jessica slid sideways in the backseat, leaning on the carseat as if protecting the child even in sleep. Who are they running from? The father, probably. The thought made his blood run hot.
Her head dipped to the side, giving me a flash of her face lit by moonlight in the rearview mirror. Dusky eyebrows that hide ocean-blue eyes. Lips that are full and pink and begging to be kissed. These days I mostly avoid human touch, especi
ally the female kind. But there’s something about this night, so expansive, so isolating. So very random that one woman, years ago, died on this road, and this one safe and alive—and comforting when I believed myself beyond comfort.
I pull into the parking lot behind the station, relieved to see Bridget’s dirt-spattered truck still here. Her shift ends when mine does, but she tended to wait until I return before leaving. It’s her way of looking after me—the whole town did that, as if the depression that held me captive after the accident is still after me and would one day catch up. And maybe they were right.
I circle the car and open the door. Resolutely ignoring the soft skin of her arm or the snuffling sound she makes, I nudge her away from the carseat. I unlatch it and pull it from the car, along with the baby bag.
Bridget meets me at the back entrance of the station, her eyes worried. “Look at the poor dear. She didn’t mention she had a baby with her.”
“I don’t think she wants to be found,” I say, keeping my voice low.
Sadness flickers over Bridget’s face. “You know my lips are sealed. We don’t have to file an official report. Here give me that child. I’ll see if his diaper’s wet.”
Bridget raised three grown men, so I trust her to take care of the child. And she also survived a true asshole of a husband until he went too far. Beaten and bloodied, she took his hunting rifle down and shot him. Self defense, of course.
I return to the patrol car to find Jessica still asleep. God, she must be exhausted.
Bridget would probably take good care of her, too, but Jessica’s stuck with me. Reaching inside I unbuckle her seatbelt and carefully lift her slight weight from the car. Slamming the door shut with my foot, I head inside, carefully not thinking about why I hesitated to wake her, not thinking at all about how good it felt to have a woman in my arms after so long alone.
I carry Jessica through the station and into the single cell. I lay her down on the cot, keeping my eyes averted, as if even a dressed woman on a bed is a sexual tableau.
With her it is.
She’s a beautiful woman—stunning despite her tiredness. Her disarray and shadowed eyes give her a tragic look, stirring something deep inside me, making me want to find a white horse just so I could ride in and save her. It’s goddamned ironic.
I figured out a long time ago that I can’t save anyone.
EIGHT
A great many changes take place in a hundred years. The story of the sleeping princess was almost forgotten. And then one day a prince came upon the castle.
Finn
In my office I lean back in the chair and run a hand over my face. I need a decent night’s sleep. Possibly inside a freezer so that I could get my body back to the cool, unaffected way it had been. And I definitely shouldn’t go back into that jail cell.
Bridget appears at the door, arms crossed. “Where’d you find those two?”
“Out on the road,” I say blandly. “Falling asleep at the wheel. Where’s the baby?”
She gives me a measuring look, but I can’t take offense—whatever weakness she sees in me is real. “I changed his diaper, fed him a bottle that was already prepared and ready. Then tucked him back into his carseat, where he promptly fell asleep. I put him next to her bed.”
I try to act disinterested, casual, as if I ask for favors all the time instead of never. “Can you spend the night here tonight? I imagine they’ll sleep straight through. I’ll come back and take her to her car in the morning.”
One look at her expression tells me I’m screwed. “I am far too old for a sleepover. And you are far too old to run away from a pretty girl.”
“She doesn’t trust men.”
Her eyebrow raises. “Any particular reason for that?”
“Probably more than one. There’s a heart-and-needle tattoo on her finger. She’s affiliated with Luskis. Owned by them, more like, considering how they treat women.”
Bridget blows out a breath. “She didn’t seem so afraid of you when she called. When she got into the back of your car and let you bring her here.”
“Didn’t give her much of a choice.”
“Well, these old bones do not need to sleep in a cot.”
I try another tack, disturbed by the idea of sleeping under the same roof as Jessica. “Usually the boarders we get from the pub are men. It would be better if a woman stayed with her.”
“What are you going to do, have sex with her?”
Oh good, my continued celibacy is an actual joke now. I think it’s funny too, in a way that makes me want to laugh, then smash my head into the wall repeatedly.
I raise an eyebrow that I hope is appropriately stern. “Are you finished?”
She grins. “Finished and heading home. You can watch her. It’s like I told Henry. You bring the puppy home, you clean the piss off the floor.”
“I think she’s potty trained. I’m almost positive about that.”
“Well, you’re going to find out, because I’m leaving. Don’t forget to lock up behind me.”
With a sigh of resignation, I follow her to the back door and waved her off.
She works hard enough that I’m not going to insist on it, even though I’m technically the boss. And I don’t think she needs the money. It’s something she does to get out of the house. There are bad memories there, but she refuses to leave. Says there are too many good ones.
Is that how Jessica feels about Ky? She might be running from the Luskis, but she seems to take incredible care of that little boy. She would have kept going until they were on the other side of the world, but the body can’t last as long as the will.
I find myself checking on them, the baby asleep in his carseat, Jessica curled up in the same position as I left her. The soft fabric of her tank top has shifted slightly, revealing a thin strip of pale skin above her jeans. She’s wearing flip flops, which probably aren’t the most comfortable to sleep in. I should take them off. Should tuck her under the blanket.
That would require touching her, though, if only briefly.
And that’s not a good idea.
So I turn the heat up a few degrees and return to the office.
As Bridget pointed out, I don’t have sex. Not even if a woman comes on to me, which happens more than it should for a man who avoids company. My bad reputation is some kind of draw, no matter what my badge says now. That’s how I recognized the Luskis mark, not even from my experience as sheriff. There had been drugs and women and guns. I broke the law, completely unafraid of the danger it might bring.
In the end it wasn’t my business deals that had ruined everything. Only a random drunk driver. I found no joy in life after that, none in sex or drugs. I cleaned myself up, became a cop and then the sheriff. Women liked that kind of thing, the bad boy who had changed his ways, as if they could be part of my reformation.
Or maybe turn me bad again, as if my blind adherence to the badge is a jail of ice, as if they could free me with a hot body. But the ice isn’t around me, it’s under me, supporting me, and if it cracks, there will be nothing to do but fall back into the biting waters that had claimed me once before.
Even though Jessica’s beautiful and tempting, I’ll avoid her.
Soon, bright and early, she’ll drive away from this town, from me. Not tomorrow morning, like she thinks. I send a couple inquiries out to his old contacts in Tanglewood to figure out exactly who the hell’s after her and where to find him. If that means fighting the criminal underworld I had once been part of, then that’s what I’ll do.
I’m going to protect her, but then she’ll leave.
There’s a twinge of regret inside me, of wondering what could have been, but it’s for the best. I’ll return to my solitary existence, and she’ll find some place new.
Some place she wouldn’t have to be afraid.
In the cell beside hers, I pull off my uniform shirt and my belt. Wearing only slacks and my sleeveless undershirt, I glare at the cot with distaste. Exactly like the one in her cell,
it has a thin pad on metal slats. Worse, it was slim and short, so while Jessica fit perfectly, my feet fall off the end and my shoulder rests on the cold edge of the frame.
I close my eyes, attempting to sleep, but all I can see are Jessica’s lips, full and tempting. They parted, when she fell asleep in the back of his patrol car. Aside from the many things I want to do with that mouth, the pink intrigues me. What other parts of her share that color?
And now I’m hard. Great.
NINE
The young prince began to force his way through the thick wood. The stiff branches gave way for him, then closed again, allowing no one else into the castle.
Jessica
I wake up disoriented.
It’s pitch black, without even the red glow of her alarm clock or the blue stars from Ky’s turtle light. My back aches, my neck is sore. My eyes feel puffy like I’ve been crying. My lids are heavy, threatening to drag me back into slumber.
But something woke me, and I need to know what.
Is Ky awake? I don’t hear him crying.
Shifting slightly, my hands fumble along a rough sheet to a sharp metal edge. It comes back to me, then. Coming home from work at the diner, picking up Ky from his sitter. Then hearing the banging on the door.
Stefano had been drunk and angry. Which is business as usual for him.
I held Ky’s body against my chest, huddled in the closet, praying he would go away. And then he did, but it was too late. I knew that we wouldn’t be safe there. Whether he wanted me in his bed again or whether he was interested in raising Ky to be like him, we had to go.
As soon as Stefano left I packed what I could into the trunk and left.
The carseat sits beside the bed, Ky kicking in his sleep, his little brow wrinkled. I touch my hand to his forehead, and it smooths out beneath my fingers.
Forcing myself out of the cot, I kneel in front of Ky and check his diaper. Not too wet, but I change him often so he doesn’t get a rash. So I lay out the plastic mat onto the cot and pull the sleeping baby from his seat.