Now I only had twelve to work off at the gym later.
“Lennox made them,” I informed him as I popped the last bite into my mouth and wiped the crumbs from my uniformed shirt. “She’s making me dinner tonight, too. If it’s anything like these muffins, I’ll be whisking her off to Vegas this weekend and coming back with a wife who’ll cook for me every night of the week and serve me breakfast in bed.”
He snorted. “Let me know how that goes. I met that girl, and I highly doubt she’d allow you to do anything that had to do with Vegas. Not to mention her parents are loaded, and probably have a million and a half guests they’d like to invite to your wedding.”
I raised my brow at him.
“How do you know they’re loaded?” I asked.
He pointed to the windshield, and I turned to survey the area.
“Look at that billboard,” he ordered.
I skipped past the one that let me know Cracker Barrel was at Exit 596, and went to the next one that was a little further away.
“Brock Jane, M.D,” I read. “So what?”
“That’s your girl’s daddy. He’s the head trauma surgeon at Good Shepherd and his wife is a pediatric surgeon. Let’s just say that they’re loaded, if you catch my drift,” Michael said, reaching into the bag for the second muffin.
I’d known that she was well off, but I guess I didn’t realize how well off.
“How do you know who they are?” I asked.
“My father’s a doctor at the hospital, too. My mom’s a nurse. My aunt’s a nurse. My sister’s a nurse. Literally, I know everybody at that hospital,” he told me. “Not to mention that my ex works there, too.”
That was the most I’d heard about Michael’s life than the entirety of the time I’d known him.
Michael was a really good friend, and a great man. He was secretive, though. At least when it came to his personal life.
He caught the look I must’ve had trouble concealing, and started to laugh.
“What?” I asked, clearing my throat.
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s just funny to see all of y’all’s eyes bug when y’all hear something personal about me. I never meant to keep that shit a secret, but it was easier than explaining to everybody and their brother why I was working for the police department when I have my medical degree. Something I am sure you’ll find out eventually since you’re dating the princess of the hospital.”
I blinked.
“You have your medical degree?” I asked in surprise.
He nodded. “Yeah. I do. And I only did it because my dad made me feel like a pile of shit for not following in his footsteps. The first patient that died I quit. Couldn’t take that shit anymore, and I quit. Joined the army. Special Forces from there. And now I’m here.”
I nodded. “I always just thought you had your paramedic license. I never knew you had anything quite so extravagant. Should we start calling you Doc?”
He gave me a look that said millions, and I chose that moment to shut up.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
He sighed. “My cruiser’s down. Somebody backed into me, tore the front fender clean off. The chief told me to get in the car with you, so I did.”
I nodded.
We usually only had one officer to a car, but we only had so many cars, and if a car did go down, we didn’t have any replacements. So, every once in a while, we had to double up or they were sent home.
“I was about to head to the school zone,” I said, starting up the car.
“Sounds good,” Michael said, buckling his seatbelt.
We made it to the school zone in time to catch our first speeder, a young girl in her early twenties.
She was going forty in a twenty, and had an attitude the size of Alaska.
“You want this one?” I asked in all hopefulness.
He snorted. “I’ll pass. I’ll get the next one.”
I rolled my eyes.
Michael hated pulling over women, because it was inevitable that they’d try to cry their way out of it, and he wasn’t a fan of anybody, let alone a manipulative woman, trying to get out of something she’d been doing wrong.
Sighing, I got out and walked to the passenger side of the car.
The young girl rolled her window down, and I said, “License, registration, and insurance.”
The young girl flipped her hair, and smiled, lifting her chest slightly.
I barely resisted the urge to roll my eyes.
Her shirt was significantly shorter around her breasts than it had been when I pulled her over.
“I’m sorry, officer, why are you pulling me over?” She asked softly, batting her baby blues at me.
“License, registration, and insurance,” I repeated.
She pouted and reached into her glove box, then withdrew her insurance and registration before looking through her purse that was fifty times the size of a normal one.
“I’m sorry, I know it’s here somewhere,” she said sweetly.
I ignored the fact that she was pulling things out of her purse that most women didn’t let leave the darkened drawer of their nightstand, let alone the front seat of their car.
She giggled, and I rolled my eyes, taking a step back and started walking to my car.
“What’s going on?” Michael asked with a smile on his face.
“She’s pulling out fucking sex toys from her purse, and she conveniently can’t find her wallet,” I growled.
He snorted. “The car’s registered to a one Jasmine Jergen. These papers are for a Sasha Jergen. Jasmine has a warrant out for prostitution. Jasmine also has a warrant out for hot checks. Whomever she is, she’s fucked.”
I sighed. “Goddammit. I was hoping to see Reagan as she walked home.”
Reagan’s school was located less than a quarter mile from Free, and she walked home with the rest of her cousins every day. Usually, one or two of the adults from up there took turns walking them all home.
And today I’d miss it thanks to this dumbass in front of me.
“Fuck,” I sighed. “Let’s do this.”
***
“I missed you today, daddy,” Reagan said as she and I walked back to our place from Payton’s.
“I know, baby. I was there, too. But there was a speeder and she was in trouble. So we had to take her to the station,” I explained.
I was fairly open with Reagan.
I didn’t want her growing up with the wool pulled down over her eyes. I wanted her to know that this place wasn’t bad, per se, but there were definitely dangers in it that could harm her if she weren’t careful.
She knew all about strangers and to never, under any circumstance, get into a car with someone she knew or didn’t know unless I, one of the people at Free, or the men on my SWAT team told her to.
She also knew that her mother was not a good person, and that she wasn’t allowed to go anywhere with her, either. Although, she did know who she was and what she looked like.
“I know, daddy. I saw you leaving from the playground,” she said, patting my hand softly before bending down to pick up a rock.
Then she chunked the fuck out of it.
It sailed through the air in front of us and landed in the pond that was ahead.
It hit the water with a large plop, and Reagan continued to do it until she got tired of it.
The girl was a good pitcher, I’d give her that.
But then again, I paid for her to be, so she better.
Softball wasn’t cheap, but she enjoyed it, and I’d give her anything if it put that kind of smile on her face.
Rolling my eyes at my inability to say no to my child, I picked up a decomposed log and heaved it into the middle of the pond.
“I brought your gun. Do you want to shoot it?” I asked, looking down at my little girl that was all me.
She smiled, showing her missing front teeth, and nodded exuberantly. “Yes!”
Pulling out the twenty two at the small of my back, I handed it to her.
She dropped down onto her haunches, checked the chamber, safety, and magazine expertly.
And with little fanfare, she emptied the magazine into the log.
The log jumped, bounced and exploded as she hit the log each and every time.
“Do you have any more?” She asked.
I gave her a look that clearly said she ‘thought I was stupid,’ before reaching into my pocket for a handful of twenty two’s. “Here.”
She ejected the magazine and handed the gun to me as she loaded the clip.
Then she was off again.
We did this for twenty minutes or so before I realized that we were no longer alone.
Turning around, I smiled at Lennox.
“Hey,” I said, lifting my arm for her to come closer.
She came, stepping carefully over logs and branches as she moved to me.
She was wearing faded jeans that hugged her luscious legs perfectly, an all-black t-shirt, and tennis shoes.
I’d never seen her in jeans and I found that I liked it.
I liked how simple and natural she looked.
I liked that she didn’t have on makeup and that she could let loose.
“How’d you find us?” I asked, looking down at my watch to make sure I wasn’t late.
I wasn’t.
It was twenty until I told her to be there.
She smiled.
“I pulled up to the gate and some big guy with black hair and a red bandana around his head pointed me in the direction I needed to go. When I parked the car, a woman with long curly blonde hair pointed me towards here,” she said.
Jack and Cheyenne, I guessed.
“Cool. Reagan, say hi to Lennox,” I said, but Reagan was too engrossed with her shooting to even realize I’d spoken to her.
Lennox smiled at my daughter.
“She’s good,” she said, watching the log become nothing more than chunks floating in the water.
I nodded. “She’s been shooting for going on four years. She’s been in a couple competitions, too. She finds she likes recreation better than competing, though.”
Lennox smiled. “I’ve never shot one before.”
I turned to her, surprised. “Really?”
She shook her head. “Nope. Never. My daddy had some, showed us how to work them, but then told us to stay away from them unless there was an intruder.”
I blinked.
Why would someone not show their children how to shoot guns, and then actually shoot them with them to make sure they understood completely, if they were going to have them in the house with them?
I would never know, though.
That was why there were so many pointless shootings where kids got a hold of their parent’s guns.
“Oh!” Reagan said, finally turning around to see Lennox. “I didn’t know you were coming over. Hi!”
“Hi, Reagan. You did really well, do you think you can show me how sometime?” Lennox asked her.
Reagan nodded in all seriousness. “Of course. Although, daddy was the one to show me, so maybe you’d be better off learning from him.”
I smiled at my daughter. “You ready to eat? Lennox brought us dinner.”
Reagan’s eyes went wide. “You made us dinner? Like homemade dinner?”
I winced. I really was horrible in the kitchen.
I could do macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets like a boss, but when it came to anything more complex, I was hopeless.
Lennox nodded and smiled, but her smile quickly died when her phone rang.
“I’m sorry, will y’all excuse me for a minute?” She asked softly.
We both nodded, and I watched her take a couple of steps back and press the phone to her ear.
I could, of course, hear every word she said, and the more I listened, the more my anger started to set in.
“No mom. It just happened this afternoon. No. Yes. Yes, I called the police. No, but who else could it be? It happened while I was making dinner. Yes. No, I’m not there anymore. No, I won’t stay there tonight. I have an alarm, it’ll be alright,” Lennox hissed.
I looked down at Reagan to see her watching Lennox with concern.
“Rea, why don’t you head back to our house and get cleaned up for dinner, yeah?” I asked her.
She nodded and handed me the gun before starting forward slowly, passing Lennox with a small wave, and disappearing into the woods.
Placing the gun back into the waistband of my pants, I crossed my arms and waited for another five minutes, listening as she reassured her mother that she’d be fine.
When it continued, I walked up behind Lennox, grabbed her phone from her hands, and said, “Mrs. Jane?”
“Who’s this?” The very distrusting Lucinda Jane asked sharply.
“This is Bennett Alvarez. I’m a police officer with the KPD and Lennox’s boyfriend. She’ll be safe,” I said, pushing Lennox back when she started to reach for the phone still at my ear by placing my palm on her forehead.
“What? You’re her boyfriend? Since when?” She asked suspiciously.
I smiled. Like mother like daughter.
“Bennett,” Lennox hissed. “Give it back.”
“We met when she sewed up my face with the aftermath of a SWAT raid. And met again when she sewed up my hand,” I admitted. “Then I met her for dinner one night after that. It’s new.”
“You sound very accident prone,” Lucinda admitted. “You’ll come to dinner tomorrow at seven. Don’t be late.”
Then she hung up, and I handed the phone back to a very pissed off Lennox.
“Dinner tomorrow at seven. Can I bring Reagan?” I asked her.
She narrowed her eyes at me.
“You know,” she snapped. “I told you I didn’t do relationships, and now you just went and told my mom that you were my boyfriend.”
I resisted the urge to tell her that, essentially, we were boyfriend and girlfriend, whether she wanted to be or not. It was what it was.
Yet I chose to keep my mouth shut and start walking to the house.
“Come on,” I said. “I’m starving.”
She growled in frustration. “Don’t walk so fast.”
I slowed, and turned my head down to look at her.
“Tell me what happened today, and why you didn’t call me,” I ordered.
She grimaced. “Corrinne paid another visit to me. Well, she didn’t actually announce that it was her, but it couldn’t be anybody else. I really don’t understand how she finds me. It’s like she’s able to look up my information or something.”
I held out my hand to help her over a log, and she took it.
But she didn’t pull it away once she was over, and we’d made it all the way to the house before she said, “Wrote all over my car with shoe polish. Saying I was a ‘boyfriend stealer’ and that I ‘split up loving homes for a living.’”
I blinked. “That’s it?”
Her head dropped, and she looked down at her feet.
“It’s enough to tell me she knows where I live,” she growled. “Which is enough for me. It’s never ending. And she never gets caught!”
I yanked her arm, causing her to face plant into my chest. “Which officers have you spoken with?”
“Johnson and Howell. They’re detectives,” she said softly into my shirt.
I leaned my head down and kissed her forehead. “I’ll figure out something, baby. But you’ll be staying with me tonight. Okay?”
She leaned her head back. “I can’t. I have to work early in the morning, and you have a daughter here. That’s just not done.”
I furrowed my brows in confusion. “What’s not done?”
“You don’t have your girlfriend stay the night when you’ve only known her less than two weeks,” she explained.
I didn’t draw attention to the fact that she j
ust called herself my girlfriend, and instead focused on what she was having a problem with.
“My daughter’s seven going on twenty two. She knows that daddy dates, and she’s old enough to not freak out when a woman stays over. I don’t make a habit of doing it; in fact, I haven’t had anyone stay over since she was three. If it makes you feel any better, you can sleep on the couch,” I told her.
She laughed. “You’d give me the couch and not your bed?”
I shook my head.
“Absolutely. You’re about five foot two, at best, and I’m six five. There’s no way on God’s green earth that I’d waste a night sleeping on the couch that is at least a foot and a half too short for me. You can handle it, I can’t.” Then I turned to toss a grin her way. “I’d offer for you to sleep in my bed with me, but I rather doubt that you’d take me up on that offer.”
“Whatever,” she muttered, reaching her car that was parked in front of my place. “Help me bring the food in.”
She opened the backdoor to her car, a newer model Camaro, and pulled out a large grocery bag, followed shortly by a zippered green polka dotted Tupperware container.
“This is the bread and chicken,” she said. “And this is the potatoes.”
I took all that she handed me, and she followed me inside with a bag of her own.
“I have to cook the potatoes a tad longer to melt the cheese on top, but should be good after that. I also brought some sweet tea,” she explained as she opened the front door.
I went inside, happy to see that Reagan was doing what I suspected was her homework, as she was supposed to do.
“Good job,” I said to her as I passed. “Whatcha working on today?”
“Compound sentences,” she muttered distractedly.
I winced.
I was never very good with English in school, and still wasn’t. I dreaded the day she asked me to help her.
Those were the days I’d probably be sending her to my mother or sister.
Was it a rule that all women were good at English?
“Compound sentences?” Lennox asked. “Aren’t those kind of advanced for her age?”
I nodded. “Probably. She’s in ACL, or accelerated curriculum learning. She reads at a tenth grade level, and she’s as smart as a whip. Something she’ll use against you, too, if you’re not careful.”
Kill Shot (Code 11- KPD SWAT Book 6) Page 8
