Too Bad So Sad

by Lani Lynn Vale

  But we both knew it was a lie.

  I wanted her there just as much as she wanted to be there, which was the crux of the problem.

  I shouldn’t want her.

  I was friends with her dad.

  I was…

  “Get your hands off her,” the man who appeared at Reagan’s other side ordered heatedly.

  Reagan reacted like she was terrified.

  One second, she was in her seat, looking at me with a glare on her face and the next she was standing behind me, pressed up against me, shaking.

  “I don’t think she wants me to get my hands off her,” I advised. “But thanks. You have a nice day.”

  The man didn’t leave.

  “What the fuck are you doing here, motherfucker?”

  I turned to see that Janie had joined the party.

  She’d left a few moments earlier to go to the bathroom and now she was back, two beers in her hands, staring at this man like he was a piece of shit on her shoe.

  Janie was no chump, but honestly, she liked almost everyone she met—or at least she gave them the benefit of the doubt until she got to know them better.

  This man, though?

  Yeah, Janie’s furious expression clearly conveyed that she wanted to kill him.

  Which unsurprisingly brought her husband immediately to her side.

  Rafe was joined by Kayla’s husband.

  Kayla, however, wasn’t there for the festivities due to her child being sick, but she’d ensured that the rest of the gang—including Coke and Cora, as well as Johnny and June—were there to celebrate something that I wasn’t privy to.

  My guess was that it was a birthday of some kind, but from across the room, I hadn’t been able to confirm.

  However, the words out of this character’s mouth confirmed that it was indeed a birthday—Reagan’s.

  “I’m here to surprise Reagan for her birthday,” the man smiled so insincerely that it wouldn’t have gotten past a five-year-old, let alone a well-trained cop like me.

  Janie took a threatening step in the man’s direction. “Dusty, nobody wants to see you, least of all Reagan. Just look at her. She won’t even look at you. She’s over you, Dusty. It’s been over for a while and you know it. She’s moved on,” Janie pointed to me. “And it’s time for you to do the same.”

  I felt Reagan tremble at my back and my curiosity to know what in the hell was going on here was starting to get the best of me.

  I wanted to know.

  Badly.

  And I would be finding out.

  “This is a bar, not your house. I don’t have to leave,” Dusty countered.

  Then he took Reagan’s vacated seat, picked up her half-empty beer and then grinned at Reagan, who’d peeked at him over my shoulder.

  I wrapped my arm around her from behind, then turned so that she was facing my chest.

  “How about we go back to my table?” I asked carefully.

  Reagan’s lips twitched. “I was wondering what it would take to get you to call me over there.”

  I knew that she knew I was there.

  It was like both of us had powerful magnets inside of our chests, drawing us to each other.

  I would’ve known she was in that room just by the way I felt when she was around.

  I winked down at her.

  “Don’t think that this is changing anything,” I told her.

  Reagan snorted and took a step in the direction of my table and the rest of the men and women who’d been staring at Dusty were following in our wake.

  I was not surprised when they took the seats around my table and acting for all they were worth as if they’d been sitting there all along.

  I rolled my eyes when Parker filled his drink up from my half-empty pitcher of beer.

  “So, who wants to tell me who that guy was?” I asked the table at large.

  Reagan sighed.

  “He’s my ex.” She sounded disgusted with herself.

  “He’s her stalker ex who ruined her Olympic softball career by purposely crashing the car he was driving, causing an injury that meant she’d never play again and then saying it was for the best because he didn’t want her to go away anyway,” Janie expanded.

  “There’s no proof,” Reagan muttered mostly to herself.

  So that was where those scars on her knee came from. I’d been wondering, but since I was trying very hard to keep myself detached, I didn’t want to ask any questions. Questions led to answers and answers led to forming attachments to the people who’d answered said questions.

  “There’s no proof,” Janie acquiesced. “But there is suspicion and nobody was the least bit surprised—especially those of us who knew him and his habits.”

  I felt something inside me clutch at those words.

  “Is he dangerous?” I asked Reagan. “Did he purposefully hurt you?”

  Reagan shrugged.

  This girl sitting beside me in this moment was a very different girl than the one that I knew.

  All her confidence and defiance was gone and she was utterly deflated. It was like he’d taken both from her with a single look.

  The next thing that came out of my mouth was honestly an accident. I hadn’t intended to say what I said the way that I said it.

  I intended to be kind and understanding. But instead, what came out was something akin to a taunt—which I never would’ve done had I known that it was going to set her on fire like it did.

  “I thought you had more gumption than that.” I poked her.

  Reagan inhaled deeply, hissing the last part of her breath through her teeth. “I do have gumption, Tyler.”

  “Then why are you acting like the entire world has ended?” I pushed. “So, your ex is here?” I shrugged. “Big goddamn deal.”

  “Big goddamn deal?” she asked, her voice rising with each word that she repeated. “Do you want to know what the big goddamn deal is, Tyler?”

  My lips would’ve twitched, but I didn’t want her to lose this spark, even if it was anger directed at me. I wanted her to use it as fuel to fight the fuck back. She couldn’t fight back if she was a scared, lone duck.

  She needed to understand that she had friends—and whatever the hell I was—at her back.

  That and I really wanted to know more of what happened. I had a feeling there was a lot that I didn’t know, more than just the fact that Dusty had ruined her Olympic career.

  “Him crashing his car on purpose isn’t enough?” she spat, leaning into me, her face only inches from mine.

  “I didn’t say that it wasn’t a good reason to dislike him,” I pointed out. “I just said…”

  “You just said that I was a coward, pretty much. But him crashing the car wasn’t the only thing he did…that was just the breaking point. The straw that broke the camel’s back…or more particularly, the crash that broke the girl’s knee, shattered every single one of her dreams and flushed them down the proverbial toilet.”

  My brows rose. “Then what else is there? I can’t help if I don’t know the whole story.”

  “He’s the reason she doesn’t talk,” Janie offered.

  My brow went up in confusion. “You talk to me just fine. You talk to everyone.” I gestured to her friends sitting around the table watching us with unconcealed interest.

  Reagan’s mouth remained tightly sealed.

  “That probably has more to do with the fact that you piss her off enough that it spills over the barrier that he instilled in her,” Janie continued.

  Reagan’s eyes turned to her. “Would you shut up?”

  I saw Janie shrug unrepentantly. “Reagan, if he’s here now, I don’t want his presence to affect the person you’ve become. I like this new version of you. You’re taking chances and you’re living your life. You’re not scared and you’ve seemed genuinely happy. I haven’t seen that from you in a long ass time and I’ll be damned if his showing up here is going to force all that
back inside of you.”

  The way she’d just described her sure didn’t sound like the Reagan I knew.

  I’ve never seen Reagan scared, even when I thought she should be—you know, like when she’s being confronted by the man who owned the property she was trespassing on.

  “When I was dating him,” Reagan said, “I didn’t realize how much of my life he was controlling. Who I talked to, hung out with, saw on a regular basis.” She looked away from Janie. “At one point, I was only going to Dusty’s parents’ house for Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter…and mine were left by the wayside. And all my friends? He was slowly whittling away at them, too. Nobody liked Dusty and he made no secret of it that he didn’t like them and didn’t want them around me. Eventually they all left—at least the ones who weren’t family—and I was all alone. The ones who didn’t leave? Well, I just stopped answering their calls.”

  Janie’s gaze dropped to the table and I gathered that some of those calls that hadn’t been answered had been hers.

  “I didn’t realize that he’d cut me off from everyone that could make me see reason. Not until he started to dictate how I played softball and when I played it.” She shook her head and looked at the table where her hand was resting on top of it. “It was softball and him. But when the opportunity came for me to play for the Olympic team and he found out that I’d be gone for six months to practice with them out of state and he couldn’t follow? He flipped the fuck out. That’s when I saw the damage that I’d done and the chains he’d wrapped around me to keep me where he wanted me.”

  I’d seen that before.

  Hell, everyone had seen that before.

  Nobody ever knew what to do about it, though.

  “And when he couldn’t convince you not to go, he found the only way he could to make you stay,” I guessed.

  Reagan smiled then. “He fucked up, though. Softball gave me an outlet and without that, I was forced to focus on what was wrong with our relationship—which was everything. When I was in the hospital and my parents were at my bedside, I told Dusty that I no longer wanted to see him anymore and that he needed to leave. When he refused to go, I told him that I’d hated him for a very long time and that this was the last straw. My dad, I think, was dumbfounded, but he made him leave.”

  “Your dad thought you were busy with school and softball. You saw him enough not to make him as worried as we were,” Janie said softly.

  So softly that I barely heard her over the drone of the bar surrounding us.

  “Well, then I put on a pretty good show. Thank God I’d started school, though,” she murmured. “I graduated, despite Dusty constantly hounding me to take him back. Got a job. Got some experience. Tried to go out on dates…that were ruined by Dusty every single time.”

  “I’m surprised we haven’t seen him around here before now,” Janie admitted. “I’d hoped by inviting you down here that he wouldn’t be able to find you for a while, but I didn’t think it’d last this long.”

  I sat back in my chair. “Why don’t you have a restraining order against him?”

  “I was wondering the same goddamn thing,” Rafe finally added his two cents.

  He looked pissed…just as pissed as I was.

  Parker, Coke, and Johnny’s faces wore the same expression as Rafe and I, while Cora and June exchanged looks that conveyed just how disturbed they were by this information.

  “I tried—multiple times—and so did my dad. But unfortunately, Dusty is the son of Judge Rhymes.”

  I groaned.

  Judge Rhymes was so fucking crooked that it hurt to hear his name half the time.

  I honestly wasn’t sure how in the hell he kept getting elected. His smug face was enough to stop me from voting for him – and that was before I even took his dirty reputation into consideration.

  Then again, the populace who voted for him didn’t see it when all the hard work that police officers did on investigations only for Judge Rhymes to throw entire cases out because he felt that those defendants had suffered enough.

  The judge was a goddamn joke.

  “Fucccck,” I drawled.

  The table agreed with my sentiments.

  “Well, that fuckin’ sucks,” Coke added. “I had to deal with that bastard during my divorce. If I didn’t have such a good lawyer, my ex-wife would’ve taken me to the cleaners.”

  Cora snorted. “Why does that not surprise me?”

  It didn’t surprise anyone. Coke’s ex-wife was a bitch and would’ve cleaned him out of house and home just on general principle.

  “He let a man who beat the shit out of his wife go with just a warning,” I murmured. “I found as much evidence on that scum bag as I could and presented a rock-solid case to the district attorney. This was a slam dunk, open and shut case and that bastard waltzes in, asks him if he’s sorry for what he did. When the man said that he was, the judge pretended to listen to everything, only to rule in favor of the man. That same man then went home and beat the shit out of his wife that night, killing her. Judge Rhymes only shrugged when he was asked about it on the local news.”

  “That sounds like him,” Reagan said. “If I had any idea whatsoever what kind of family they were and what kind of man had raised Dusty, I would’ve run. But Dusty’s dad tries to balance it out for appearances by handing down a few good rulings once in a while. It’s just enough that people aren’t sure if he’s really dirty or not. My dad and I spoke about it at length once while I was about a year into my relationship with Dusty. He told me the rumors, then let me make my own decision. I, obviously, made the wrong one.”

  I bumped her with my shoulder. “You want another beer?”

  She wiggled her empty glass at me. “No, but I’ll take another margarita.”

  She held out a ten-dollar bill when I stood and I rolled my eyes and walked away. “Consider this one your birthday present from me.”

  I had ulterior motives for walking up to the bar.

  Mostly that motive was centered around the douche bag still sitting at the bar, turned around in his seat and staring at our table.

  Reagan was positioned so that she couldn’t see him, but I sure the fuck could.

  He didn’t stop staring at her and the way she was pressed up against me as close as I could get her, until after we sat down.

  I walked up to the bartender and ordered three pitchers of beer and one margarita since all of the other ladies had been drinking the beer.

  Once the bartender nodded and got to work on my drinks, I turned my attention to the POS—piece of shit—who was now glaring at me.

  “She’s mine.”

  I laughed. “That’s funny, because when I had her on my kitchen table yesterday and ate her for breakfast, she wasn’t screaming your name. She was screaming mine.”

  Dusty stiffened.

  “And when I came inside of her and watched it spill out of her body, she definitely looked like she was mine,” I continued to push.

  If it were possible, Dusty stiffened even more.

  “She’s mine,” I affirmed. “You can’t have her back. So, you and your stalkerish ways best be getting the fuck out of my town. Now.”

  “This town isn’t yours,” he said. “You can’t tell me to leave.”

  I smiled. “I can understand how you might think that, but I’m the chief of police here. This town is about as much mine as it can be. These people, including Reagan, are mine to keep safe. But that’s not why Reagan’s in my bed. She’s in my bed because I want her there. Her dog’s in my yard. Her plants are in my yard. Nothing says ‘mine’ like her making my place her own.”

  “You’re lying.” He stood up.

  “Afraid not, man.” I reached for my pitcher of beer. “So please, do us all a favor and get out of here. Stop stalking my woman. Be a man and accept that you’ve lost the best thing to ever happen to you. But do it knowing that I’m taking very good care of her.”

  It was plain as day wha
t I was trying to imply and he growled.

  When he went to step up on me, I laughed and turned, making my way back to the table.

  He wouldn’t hit me. He was a coward and there were too many of my allies in this bar for him to take that step.

  But I would have to keep an eye out for him.

  I had a feeling that this wouldn’t be the last time I’d see him.

  ***

  “What?” she squeaked. “No.”

  “You’re renting a tiny cabin that has zero security. I have an extra bedroom—that you won’t be using—and your dog is already at my house. It makes sense for you to just stay over…indefinitely.”

  This wasn’t a good idea.

  Not even a little bit, but the words were rushing out of my mouth before I could even stop myself from saying them.

  “I didn’t really ask, sweetie,” I told her. “I’ve got a funny feeling and the three times I ignored that funny feeling I got shot so… I’m sorry, but you’re not staying at your place. You’re staying at mine.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I’ve been dealing with this shit with him for forever. He’s been doing this on and off since we broke up four years ago. He’ll get bored and go away, I promise.”

  I narrowed my eyes, but I realized rather quickly that she wasn’t going to go for it.

  Son of a bitch.

  “Fine,” I said, something heavy settling in my gut at the knowledge that she’d rather stay at her place than mine when her crazy stalker ex was in town. “But you’ll lock up. You’ll stay aware. You’ll call me if anything happens that you think is weird. Oh, and if you see him, you’ll call me.”

  She rolled her eyes and held up her hand in the Vulcan sign. “I promise.”

  I sighed and walked her to my truck. “Come on. We’ll get your car tomorrow.”

  She shrugged. “I won’t need it anyway. I’m heading out on the lake tomorrow to study a new area where more hydrilla has popped up with the game warden.”

  This time I felt something tighten in my chest, but I refused to acknowledge that it was anger at her spending time with the very unattached Theo.