Say It Ain't So (SWAT Generation 2.0 Book 9)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  I’d never, not ever, seen my mother so angry before.

  Nor did I doubt her ability.

  See, my mother grew up on a pig farm.

  Her and my grandparents raised, slaughtered, and packaged pigs to make a living. My mother knew how to butcher an animal faster than I knew how to open a package of Kraft cheese.

  What my mother said was true.

  “You can’t threaten a police officer,” Taryn growled.

  “I’m not looking at a police officer, am I?” my mother countered. “If what my husband heard through the cop grapevine is true, he was fired from his position when he assaulted a trainee in the police academy. Then, after putting his hands on my daughter, he lost his advisory capacity with KPD. And, when my husband is through with him, he won’t be working at the police academy anymore, either.”

  Taryn growled and turned around to storm out of the building only to come to a stop when she saw me still standing there.

  “You whores need to learn that it’s not okay to ruin people’s lives,” Taryn said as she stomped past us.

  I’d never been called a whore before by an old lady, but it was funny that she was saying that. I’d been more selective with my bed companions than anybody I knew.

  I’d had three boyfriends before Sammy. Only one lover.

  Needless to say, I was not a whore.

  She would’ve shoulder-checked me on the way out, too, but her entire trajectory changed when the automatic door that we were standing in front of closed and knocked her backward.

  She would’ve fallen straight on her ass if Patman hadn’t followed up behind her at a fast clip.

  He directed her shoulders sideways, wrapped his arm around her, and hustled her out of the building. All the while he glared at me, as if I was the one to cause all this, on his way out.

  Sammy growled when he passed. “Don’t look at her!”

  Patman leered. “What are you going to do to stop me?”

  “Whatever I fucking have to,” Sammy promised. “And, just sayin’, but your wife is about to be hit by a car.”

  Patman’s head snapped sideways to look, and sure enough Taryn had strode right into traffic without a care in the world to who was coming.

  She was narrowly missed by a rather large delivery truck who laid on the horn when he finally spotted her.

  Patman cursed and left, but not before offering one more parting shot before he left.

  “Don’t make a mistake, kid. You’re not invincible,” Patman growled over his shoulder.

  Then he was grabbing his wife’s hand and leading her to the truck across the lot.

  I would’ve continued to watch, but my mother chose that moment to say, “Now, when were you going to tell me that I was expecting a grandchild? I’ve been very patient, Hastings Harriet Hughes.”

  Oh, boy.

  “She three-named you,” Sammy whispered, amused.

  My mother’s eyes turned to him. “You could’ve just as easily called me.”

  Sammy’s smile dimmed a bit.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am.” He paused. “But this is very new, we don’t know each other all that well, and we were trying to figure it out with each other first.”

  “Uh-huh,” she muttered. “Don’t think I don’t recognize you, either. I saw you staring at my girl that day we went out to eat at the Back Porch. When my daughter went missing in action this last week, I had to do some digging on my baby daughter.”

  “Traitor,” I growled under my breath.

  My mother turned her eyes to me.

  “Don’t worry.” She grinned. “It took a lot of convincing to get her to tell me. Once she did, I had your father do all the other digging. When Patman came up, I decided to give you time because I know what an asshole he can be.”

  The people around us were still listening intently, but my mother didn’t seem to care.

  “He nearly ruined mine and your father’s life in high school, and now I hear that he’s hurting you? Let’s just say your father isn’t very happy right now. It took every trick in my arsenal to get him to calm down when he found out he’d put his hands on you,” she said.

  My eyes went wide.

  “Is he mad at me?” I wondered.

  She scoffed. “When have you ever had him mad at you, Hastings Hughes?”

  Two names. We were calming down a bit.

  Good.

  “You will come to dinner tonight so we can talk more about this subject,” she muttered, walking backward back into the store. “It’s nice to meet you, Sammy.”

  Sammy’s deep voice made my heart sing as he said, “It’s nice to meet you, too, ma’am.”

  ***

  Two hours later we were at my parents’ house and I was staring at Aurora who wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “I can’t believe you,” I hissed.

  “It’s not like I can stand it when she uses that tone of voice with me, Hastings!” Aurora threw up her hands. “You know what it’s like for me!”

  I scoffed. “You’re full of shit.”

  “I’m not full of shit!” she countered. “Your mother has superpowers!”

  I sighed.

  “When did she find out?” I asked. “And what all did you tell them?”

  Aurora looked sheepish for a moment before she said, “A week ago… and everything?”

  “Everything,” I said quietly. “You mean, everything everything?”

  “She knows that you one-night-standed him. She knows that you left because you’re a nut. She knows that you got pregnant. She knows that the book you sent her last night is all about him. She also knows that you love him.” She paused and looked to Sammy, who was busy talking to my father. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t control myself.”

  I sighed.

  “And you learned about Patman?” I asked, sounding resigned.

  “Yes.” She scrunched up her nose. “It certainly explains his assholeness to you weeks ago.”

  I agreed.

  It certainly explained a lot of things.

  “Daddy loves Sammy,” she whispered to me. “He’s so fucking happy that your boyfriend hit him that he wants to adopt him.”

  I made a face.

  “That would be weird since I plan on marrying him,” I pointed out.

  She turned to me sharply. “He asked you to marry him?”

  I grinned. “No. But if he ever did, I’d most certainly say yes.”

  And I would.

  Even if he asked me right now.

  It didn’t matter that we’d only known each other for a short amount of time.

  I wanted him. Forever if he’d have me.

  She poked me in the shoulder and hooked her arm around mine.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go. You’re going to love hearing about Patman. He’s a dick.”

  Turns out, she was right.

  Fifteen minutes later, my mom, dad, Aurora, Sammy and I sat around the table as my parents told us about Patman and his wife.

  And Aurora was right.

  The more that I knew, the more that I hated him.

  “So you two dated in high school,” I said. “But Patman wanted you,” I directed my eyes to my mother, then moved to my father. “And Taryn wanted you.”

  Dad nodded.

  “So they started dating each other to make you jealous,” I continued.

  Dad snorted. “Yep.”

  “But it didn’t work,” Aurora pointed out. “And when Mom and Dad got married when they both turned eighteen and were still in high school, it really, really pissed the two of them off. So they decided to marry each other.”

  I couldn’t even fathom that.

  “That’s insane,” I found myself saying. “What would be the point in that?”

  “Again, they thought we cared about them.” Dad shrugged. “It worked out for the best. We moved away for two years. Went to college in Louisiana as you know. Came back to Kilgore,
but kept to ourselves. But then we had y’all. The first time we ran into them again was when their son was in your grade.” He gestured at me. “And you would’ve thought that the kid was God or something. They did not want you near this kid. And now that I know what a fuckin’ creep he was, I’m kind of glad they went to such measures every year to make sure that you weren’t near him. Then he was moved up a grade and put into Aurora’s class.”

  My mother chuckled at that.

  “They thought that they were being so cool, helping him learn all the shit with his private tutors. That poor kid.” My mother shook her head. “That’s when she started accusing us of being whores every freakin’ day. Apparently she had no clue about Aurora. And we’d miraculously produced her out of thin air just to make their lives hell.”

  “The Patmans sound like real gems,” Sammy mused.

  My dad looked at him.

  “I’ve never wanted to kill someone more in my life. I’ve had to endure years and years of them. He’s also the reason I moved over to Longview PD. My dad was on KPD. My dad’s dad. But there was no fucking way I was going to join KPD knowing that man was on the force.” He shook his head. “When I heard that you punched him in front of the entire police station? I didn’t even care that you knocked my daughter up.”

  I choked on the water that I was currently taking a sip of.

  “I’ve wanted to do that for years. But giving that man an inch is like giving him a mile. He would’ve claimed that I broke his back. Then to make my life hell, he would’ve done it himself just to dig my hole deeper.” Dad shook his head. “That man is a fucking lunatic. And his wife isn’t much better.”

  “I heard you were best friends in high school,” Aurora said, gesturing toward my mother.

  “We were.” Mom shook her head. “That’s what’s so weird. We were best friends. Inseparable. It’s like neither one of them could believe that we wanted each other, though. What’s worse, they were the ones to set us up.”

  “That’s really weird,” I finally admitted. “But I’ll try really hard to stay away from them. I honestly never intended for all of that in the supermarket to happen.”

  “You never will.” Mom shook her head. “That woman is like a rash that creeps up on you. One second she’s not there, and the next she’s speeding across two parking lots and entering a store she doesn’t ever go to just to make a scene. This won’t be the last time that you see her.”

  God, I hoped that weren’t true.

  I didn’t want to deal with that woman at all.

  I sighed and shook my head, pushing my plate away.

  “I guess I’ll deal with her if I have to,” Sammy muttered darkly. “But that bitch better not ever get in Hastings’ face like that ever again or I won’t be responsible for what I do.”

  “You leave that to me,” Aurora said. “You’d get in trouble for hitting an old woman. I won’t.”

  The table laughed, and the annoyance level ratcheted down slightly.

  The next hour or so we talked about Sammy and me. Or, at least, it was their attempt to get to know Sammy.

  And by the time we were driving home, I felt like utter shit for not going to see them earlier.

  “Tomorrow we go to visit your family,” I said softly.

  He looked over at me with a grin. “It’s good that you say that because I got a text from my dad and sister over dinner asking me why I was fighting in a grocery store. I’m sure that the cat’s out of the bag and my entire extended family now knows. And we can go visit them.”

  I offered my hand to him.

  He took it without missing a beat, placing it on the middle console between our two seats.

  When it came time to shift, he didn’t let go of my hand, and instead used his casted hand while holding the steering wheel with his leg.

  He didn’t let go of my hand until we were pulling into my driveway.

  But again, he didn’t go home. He stayed the night with me.

  Chapter 19

  What wine pairs well with apocalypse?

  -Wine tumbler

  Hastings

  “I need your help with something,” I said.

  I was beginning to sound like a broken record.

  Sammy paused with his shirt halfway over his head and looked at me through the armhole.

  “More book research, baby?” he teased.

  Book research.

  I loved book research.

  I used to go to my trusty friend Google for this. Now I was going to Sammy.

  He was a fountain of knowledge that I hadn’t realized that I needed.

  Yesterday it was help with the Army chain of command.

  Today, it was… other.

  “Yes,” I bit my lip. “I want you to read a scene that I just wrote and tell me if it’s… possible.”

  His brows rose but he finished taking his shirt off.

  “Will I need to be clothed for this?” he asked when he started on his pants.

  He’d just come in from work, and he was ‘really in need of a shower’ according to him.

  Apparently his pants had been dirty, and I was loathe to ask what would have made them that dirty that he felt the need to strip them off the moment he walked in the door.

  Then again, maybe I should have only because it would give me something to write about.

  I shook my head. “No.”

  He’d asked me the same thing yesterday when I’d asked him to tell me how the chain of command worked.

  He’d been in the Army for five years, and I’d learned that once Army, always Army.

  Where I’d been writing ‘ex-Army’ for all these years in my books, he’d explained that as with the other branches, they would never be ‘ex.’

  “We have to go to my parents’ house in a couple of hours,” he said, holding out his hand for the computer. “Dad’s making brisket. Smoked it all day, according to my sister.”

  “I’m ready to go.” I gestured to my black leggings and bright pink t-shirt that said ‘CrossFit’ on it even though I’d never CrossFitted a day in my life.

  Apparently there were some t-shirts that were being sold for breast cancer awareness month next month, and Sammy had come home with two of them. One in my size, and another in his.

  I’d put it on immediately and fell in love with how soft it was.

  He grinned when he saw my shirt, then his eyes fell on the computer.

  My heart started to pound as he began to read, and I sat on the corner of the bed and nervously bit my fingernail as I watched.

  I started to notice a few things right off the bat.

  He stiffened when he realized what type of scene it was I was wanting him to read.

  Then his breathing hitched slightly.

  His stomach tightened as he read my words.

  When his eyes flicked up to mine with a small smirk lifting his lip, I couldn’t help the blush that rose to my cheeks.

  “Come here,” he ordered.

  I did, biting my lip the entire way.

  Before I could sit, he said, “Lose the leggings.”

  I had a feeling that he was going to want the panties gone, too. But since we had places to be, I really didn’t think that getting naked right then was a great idea.

  Once the leggings were gone, I folded them nicely and tossed them to the floor, then stood back up on the bed and walked to straddle where he was stretched out with his back against the headboard.

  He reached for me, turning me around by the hips so that I was facing the opposite direction, then he slowly tugged my panties down.

  I nearly groaned.

  “Now sit back onto my lap,” he ordered as he disentangled my legs from my underwear.

  I didn’t even think to tell him no. Not that I would’ve wanted to.

  I wasn’t surprised that when I sat back and squatted down, I found his cock waiting for me.

  I moaned as he slowly sank just the tip
inside, him controlling the depth by his grasp on my hips.

  “Does it feel like this is doable?” he rumbled, his lips playing against the line of my spine.

  My breath hitched. “Yes.”

  And it did.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t think it was ‘doable,’ though. It was that I wanted to make sure that it was ‘doable’ for the amount of time that I’d said it was.

  I also wanted to make sure that where I’d explained the hero holding most of her weight using only his hands was possible, too.

  “Now ride me,” he ordered.

  So that’s what I did.

  I rode him, making sure to keep my movements slow and steady like I’d written in my book, and tried not to moan each time that Sammy’s cock filled me to the brim.

  “Fuck,” he gasped, his hands tightening on my hips.

  We’d done this whole sex thing many times since he’d started staying with me. Since I’d taken the chance on him, and him on me. But this felt different. Frenzied.

  It felt like this was exactly what I needed, and had needed since he’d left this morning and I’d started writing.

  My legs started to burn, and I realized what my editor, Belle, had been talking about. This position wouldn’t be possible for long. Not if Sammy didn’t start helping.

  “My legs burn,” I groaned.

  His hands squeezed just a little bit tighter on my hips, and suddenly the pressing weight on my quads was lightened as he literally started to lift me up and down on his length.

  Over and over again he helped me take his cock, and it soon became apparent that with him helping, I could focus my gaze downward. And what I saw? Let’s just say that I was a believer in this position.

  I could see everything. I could see my clit pulsing and prominent, throbbing in time with my heart. I could see his thick, long cock pulling out of me only to slide right back inside.