“And how has your day been?” she asked.
“Good. Gave out some speeding tickets, so the answers of those I’ve encountered could be different.”
“I would say,” she said. “I’ve gotten a lot of speeding tickets.”
“Have you?” he asked.
“What can I say? I’m a rebel.” Too late she realized she was making jokes about not driving safe again. Bah. She should have gotten a biscotti to gnaw on so her stupid mouth would be occupied. Talking to Eli wasn’t safe.
And why was that? Why was she such a mess with him? She was usually really good with men. All small talky and light and flirty like the barista babies behind the counter.
But not now. And not with him.
“Here you go,” Cassie said, handing the cups to Eli. “Have a nice day, Deputy Garrett. You, too, Sadie.” The other woman’s expression was far too meaningful for Sadie’s liking.
“Same to you, Cassie. Tell Jake hi.” He turned and started to walk out of the shop, her coffee in his hand.
“Wait! I need my cream.” He stopped and handed her the cup, which she took from him before turning to face the little bar, popping the white lid off and picking up the thermos to dump a healthy amount of half-and-half into her drink.
She put the lid back on, managing to avoid spilling and looking like a total dork, which, with her shaky sweaty hands, had been a distinct possibility. “Okay, now we can go.”
He shook his head slightly and pushed the door open, holding it for her. It should not have made her stomach feel warm and fuzzy, but it did. She had a serious fuzziness issue where that man was concerned.
“So,” she said, once the door closed behind them. “How did you sleep last night?”
He turned, his shoulder stiff, his cup paused midsip. “Fine,” he said.
Fine. Well. Fine. She’d been fine. Totally fine. Not at all shivery or lonely or horny. “Oh, good. Me, too.”
“The way you said it made it seem like maybe you didn’t sleep well.”
“That’s a lot of...meaning you read into my very simple question.”
“Your very simple question with what sounded like specific emphasis.”
“Fine,” she said. “It had emphasis. Specific emphasis. But you’re lying.”
He raised a brow and stopped walking, the wind ruffling his short dark hair. “Really?”
She wasn’t going to stand there and wallow in indignation. She was going to take a chance. To take a chance on the fact that last night had been as amazing for him as it had been for her.
“Uh-huh. Lying. You didn’t sleep well.” She leaned in. “You slept terrible. Naked. Sweaty and tangled up in your blankets. Wishing I was there to touch you. Wishing it was me putting my hand around your cock instead of you.”
She could see the tension work its way through his body, tightening his shoulders, tightening his jaw. The gamble had paid off.
“That’s enough,” he said.
“Oh, no, it’s not nearly enough.”
“I am on patrol.”
She winked. “Yeah, you are.”
“Euphemism?”
She lifted her shoulders. “Could be.”
“For what?”
“Just messing with you.”
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Well, sort of,” she said. “I was going to swing by the diner to talk to Alison about pie.”
And also kind of to check in on Alison, since Sadie was feeling twitchy about the entire situation. Unless someone came into her office to talk touchy situations, she didn’t normally seek them out. But Alison used to be a friend. And this was different.
Though she felt she could be talked out of involvement very easily since it sorely tested her comfort zone.
But then, just about everything she’d done for the past couple of months—signing a long-term lease, sleeping with a man who gave her feelings and dealing with spiderwebs in a house that had been long empty—had tested her comfort zone.
So why not continue the theme?
“Right. You were going to, but...?”
“What is your stance on ride-alongs?” she asked, looking at his patrol car parked down the street.
“It depends on who the person is.”
“Me. Me is the person.”
“Heavily against.”
“Why?” she asked, knowing she sounded whiny, knowing she was using him to help her avoid the Alison thing.
“Because. I’m not going to let a known criminal sit in the front seat of my car.”
“Ha-ha-ha,” she said drily, “you are a clever, clever man. And fine. I’ll go off and do my actual stuff instead of forcing you to spend any more of your precious time in the presence of my adorableness.”
He let out a long breath. “Fine. Come on.”
“I can go?”
“If you promise not to mess with things.”
“I can’t promise that, Eli.”
“Why?” he asked, looking long-suffering now.
“Because if there are buttons, I may not be able to resist the urge to push them.”
“I’ll dump your ass on the roadside and leave you to hitchhike back to town.”
“No, you won’t,” she said, breezing past him. “You’re too nice.”
“I am not.”
“Sure you are,” she said, waiting by the passenger-side door of the car. “You’re so nice you’re letting me come on a ride-along.”
He opened his door and unlocked hers from that side, then got in without waiting for her. She opened the door and climbed in. There was a laptop mounted to the dash, and in the center console were all the buttons, radios and things she generally wanted to mess with, but didn’t, because the car wasn’t moving yet, and at this point he probably would still kick her out.
“That is not evidence of any particular niceness,” he said, starting the car and putting his drink in the cup holder.
“You don’t like it that I think you’re nice?”
“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea,” he said.
“You’re just annoyed because I have the right idea.”
He pulled the car away from the curb and onto the mostly vacant streets. It wasn’t quite lunchtime and it wasn’t peak tourist season, so the main street of Copper Ridge was quiet.
“So how did you sleep?” he asked. “Real answer this time.”
“Like a baby.”
“So you woke up every few hours crying?”
“Meh,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee.
“Or maybe just...wet and aching and wishing it was my hand between your legs instead of your own.”
She snorted, coffee spurting over the hole in the cup lid and down her chin. She lowered the cup and wiped at her face.
“What?” he asked. “Was that not a nice question?”
She was wet and throbbing now. And not just from the slight dribble of hot coffee on her chin.
“No, it was not nice. Or polite. Or gentlemanly.”
“I warned you. Good, sure. Nice, no. Also, not a gentleman.”
“I feel like I’m learning a lesson about still waters running deep. And a little dirtier than expected, to be honest.”
“Are you sad about that?”
She thought back to last night. To his much-better-than-average bedroom skills. “Uh, no. Can’t say that I am.”
“I thought you seemed to enjoy it.”
“Are we allowed to talk about this on a ride-along? Shouldn’t we be talking official sheriff’s department business?”
“We could. Do you have questions?”
“Funniest call you’ve ever gotten?”
“Concerning piglets who scattered in the elementary school.”
“Wow. That is...way to break small-town stereotypes, Copper Ridge.”
He laughed. “A student had brought them in for show-and-tell. And I happened to be there for a Say No to Drugs assembly. So when all hell broke loose I took the call over the radio. So I w
as the official first responder to the pig debacle.”
“Legend,” she said.
“Pretty much.”
“Did you always know you wanted to do this?”
“Sort of. I mean, at first I thought maybe I’d do state police. Or head up to Portland and work there. Do something in the city. But I always had my eye on law enforcement because I liked the idea that I could...make people follow the rules.” His voice halted a little on the last part.
“You wanted everyone to behave?” she asked.
He cleared his throat. “When I was a teenager I thought... I thought maybe if I were a cop I could make my mom come back. Make my dad quit drinking. It was power to me. Authority that I didn’t have. I mean, I got over the fantasy really quick, but the desire to be able to change things stayed with me.”
She clutched her coffee to her chest, her eyes on the thinning buildings and the increasing trees, the waves in the distance. Something about his words had made her feel raw. Like the admittance of his own childhood fantasies, of change and control, had scratched against hers.
Interesting how those two desires had put them on such different paths. She’d thrown up her hands and let it all go. Walked away and never looked back because when she’d realized that nothing in her family would change, she’d realized that she couldn’t stay. That she couldn’t even tempt herself to try.
And yet Eli had stayed. And he’d made changes here that were concrete. He’d done what he’d always dreamed, in many ways. Even though he still hadn’t saved his family. It made her feel like the flake she’d been accused of being more than once.
Especially next to this solid man who had dug his heels in and stayed, even when it was hard. Even when it seemed like there was no point.
But then, she had no brothers and sisters. She’d had no one to stay and fight for.
What about your friends? Alison?
But then they would have known. They would have known what had happened to her and the simple fact was, she hadn’t been able to take the humiliation.
She’d lost her spleen and her family, so it had seemed a bit much to also lose her pride by letting everyone know that her dad had beaten the shit out of her and her mother had sided with him.
No, thank you. Internal bleeding was enough.
Man, what a massively horrible train of thought that was. She was done with it in three, two...
“I think it’s amazing you did what you set out to do,” she said.
“And what about you?” he asked.
Well, darn. She wasn’t in the market to talk about her.
“What about me?”
“Did you always want to be a therapist?”
“No,” she said. “I’m not even sure I wanted to be one when I was one. Which is why I typically did other things on the side. Painting, working part-time in coffeehouses, that kind of thing.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“I was able to get financial aid for school with the help of a guidance counselor.” That counselor and Jenny, her therapist, were the only two people she’d ever talked to about her dad. “And then from there it was recommended I see a therapist. And it was part of being a student at the school, so I went. Jenny listened to me. It made me feel good. I realized that having someone to listen was important.”
She’d never spoken with honesty before. Not even to her high school friends. They’d spoken in veiled terms about how bad it was. Some had unexplained bruises. Some had drugs they’d stolen from their parents’ dresser drawers. They were all escaping, supporting each other, but none of them had ever wanted to detail what their home life was like. If they spent their time away doing that, what was the point of leaving?
She cleared her throat. “Anyway, it was different with Jenny. She made me feel like my words had value. Like I mattered. Like my experiences mattered and like I’d solved something by talking about them. I wanted to do that. And I had to choose a course of study so... I ended up getting a master’s in social work. I figured I would find a way to help people.”
“And you chose crisis counseling.”
“That’s partly because I move so often. It makes more sense for me to work with people who are dealing with a sudden, isolated event, rather than people who need long-term care. I like to help people. But it’s not an easy job. I mean, people in crisis are...well, they’re in crisis. And hearing about those problems isn’t always the most fun.” She drummed her fingers on the door handle. “Though I imagine I’m preaching to the choir.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Law enforcement isn’t all locking up bad guys and being the hero. It’s a whole lot of sad reality.”
“Reality is lame. It’s basically my least favorite.”
“Too bad there’s so much of it around.”
“Man, I feel like you get me,” she said, laughing and letting her head fall back against the seat. She was happy being with him. And she didn’t want to examine that too closely.
“We’re going to park up here,” he said.
She sat up straighter, her heart thundering. “And make out?”
“And wait for speeding cars to go by.”
“Uh. Boo. I like mine better.”
“This,” he said, waving his hand between them, “has to stay in your bedroom.”
“Then why did you meet me for coffee?”
“Why did you meet me?” he asked, pulling over and turning to look at her.
“Because it seems like I should know you a little. And that we should talk without fighting. If we’re going to sleep together.”
“I thought the same thing.”
“Well, so then this makes sense,” she said, biting her lip.
“Yep.”
“And we’re not making out in the patrol car.”
“No,” he said. “Please tell me you aren’t a badge bunny.”
“A badge bunny?” She turned to face him. “Is that a thing? Tell me that is not a thing.”
“It’s a thing.”
“Wow. You sound so regretful about it. It’s like a badge-related groupie, right?”
“Yes, yes, it is.”
“And you don’t sound thrilled.”
He let out a sigh. “It’s weird. I’m not a rock star or anything. Women who are hyper into the whole uniform thing...it’s weird.”
“Most guys wouldn’t question it.”
“Jack wouldn’t. Jack doesn’t,” Eli said. “The other bunny we get is the buckle bunny. They like cowboys. They go after Jack and Connor.”
“Connor obviously doesn’t go back.”
“No. He was never much of a player. And he’s less of one now. Jack, on the other hand...”
“That’s your friend. The one I met briefly the night I burst the pipes. And he was with you in the bar, too, right?”
“Yeah. That’s him. He’s more like a degenerate brother. But he’s never taken anything half as seriously as Connor or I do. Which is probably why he’s happier.”
“If more sex is equal to more happiness, then sure. Though you should be bucking up by now.”
“We’ve only had sex twice,” he said.
“We probably could have doubled that if you would have stuck around for a while last night.”
“Not the best time to have this conversation.”
“Well, just don’t go scuttling off into the cold tonight and you’re likely to get a little more action.”
He cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to assume.”
“Oh, I can go all night, buddy,” she said. Which wasn’t a theory she’d tested. Because usually one and done for the evening was fine with her. One orgasm basically put her under the table. She was a sexual lightweight in that way.
“Good to know,” he said, sounding a little strained.
She liked that she could affect him this way. Because he was so solid. So stoic and serious and good. She liked that a little naughtiness got him hot under the uniform collar. And clip-on tie.
“So now we wait in s
emi-camouflage,” she mused, looking into the woods on the passenger side of the car, “for an unsuspecting speeder to go by?”
“Basically,” he said.
“I’m drunk with power,” she said. “And I don’t even have ticket-writing powers. How the hell do you do this without succumbing to the urge to abuse your authority?” She wiggled her eyebrows.
“Humorless response coming, beware.”
“I expected nothing less,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“If I abused my power, my entire reason for wanting it wouldn’t be the same. I want to fix things, remember?”
“So you’re not going to go breaking them further.”
“Not exactly.”
The radio buzzed and Eli held up his hand, putting his hand on the black button. A woman’s voice filled the car, along with a decent amount of feedback. “Disturbance at Oak and Scotchbroom. Suspect appears to be unarmed but is threatening diner patrons.”
“Copy. En route.”
He put his hand back on the shifter and put the car in Drive, flipping a U-turn before turning on the lights and heading back toward town. “More than you bargained for?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, hanging on to the door handle. “The diner.”
“Yep.”
“We would have been meeting up even if I hadn’t gone with you,” she said, suddenly very glad she was on this end of the call, and not the other. Because men—violent men—did scare her. There was a place down in her soul that went cold when she saw violence in a man’s eyes. That same part curled up in a ball and cried like a little girl getting kicked, over and over again, by her father.
A memory that was never buried as deep as she wished it were.
Suddenly she felt tense. Tense and transparent. He would know that she was afraid. That heading toward whatever was happening was like walking back into a fractured memory she never wanted to revisit.
Calm the hell down, Sadie. It’s a man creating a disturbance and you’re with a man who has a gun.
She took a deep breath and let her internal pep talk bolster her a little.
“Everything will be okay, right?” she asked, in spite of herself, looking over at him.
“I have a 100 percent success rate on making it through the day. I don’t expect today to be any different.”
The Cowboy Way Page 51
