Take Me in the Night (Take Me #1)

by R. L. Kenderson

  “Okay.” I started to close the door and then whipped it back open. “Wait. You never said who I’m representing.”

  Foster was already on the stairs, and I couldn’t even see him, but he shouted something that sounded like, “My brother.”

  I shook my head and closed the door to change. I guessed I would find out who had been arrested when I got there.

  Seven minutes later, I marched into the sheriff’s office in black dress pants and a white blouse. I had grabbed pretty much the first thing I could find in my closet.

  I headed straight for the front desk where Martha had worked for the last forty years. I usually didn’t even have to say why I was there because she knew I was showing up for whatever client was in jail.

  Tonight was the same, except the sheriff himself came around the corner.

  “Sheriff Whitlock, I heard you are holding my client. I would like to see him right away.” I hoped my client was actually a him, or I was going to look foolish.

  Sheriff Whitlock crossed his arms over his chest. “Figures you’d be here, representing him.” He dropped his arms and shook his head. He turned and waved me forward. “This way. You know the drill.”

  Even with the sheriff being friends with my father, he never really liked me much. I didn’t know if it was because I had dated Maddox or for some other reason, but he was a pompous jerk. I didn’t really care as long as he didn’t deny my clients their rights to a lawyer.

  I walked in the back and saw Foster first.

  “Oh, thank God.”

  “Hey,” I said, putting my hand on his arm. “I told you I would come.”

  Sheriff cleared his throat. “This way, Counselor. Your client is in interrogation one.”

  I rolled my eyes as I walked past. Whitlock watched too many detective shows. They only had one “interrogation” room, and it was used more to let people cool off or sober up than it was to interrogate anyone.

  We didn’t have much crime in Brook Creek.

  Except for twelve years ago.

  The sheriff turned the knob on the door and pushed it open but didn’t enter. I stood just outside to give him my usual spiel.

  “Thank you. I’ll need a moment alone with my client.”

  Whitlock smirked. “I bet you do.”

  What is up with him tonight?

  He had never been this rude to me.

  He leaned closer to me. “Just so you know, we’ll be watching through the mirror.” He held up his hands before I could say anything. “We won’t have the sound on, but we’re going to be watching.” He pointed two fingers to his eyes and then one finger at me. “Understood?”

  “Understood.” I gave him a fake smile. “May I see my client now?”

  He stepped back and out of the doorway. “After you…Counselor.”

  I held in my eye roll this time, stepping through the door where I immediately froze.

  Standing in the corner was the last person I’d expected to see.

  He wore black cargo pants, a gray T-shirt, and big boots that looked too hot and too heavy for summer. He was taller and broader, but I would recognize those green eyes anywhere. His long hair was gone, as was any love that I used to see in his face.

  He stepped toward me. “Hello, Addy.”

  “Hey, Maddox.”

  6

  Maddox

  I didn’t know who was more surprised—Addison or me.

  I certainly hadn’t expected her to walk through the door. When Foster had told me that he was going to get a lawyer, I had been so surprised that Brook Creek had one that I didn’t even think to ask who the person was.

  She turned around. “Please close the door,” she said to Whitlock, her voice firm and full of authority.

  It wasn’t the only firm thing in the room.

  Whitlock shot me a dirty look before closing the door, and Addison turned back around.

  She gestured toward the table. “Can we please sit?”

  I shrugged, pulled out the chair closest to me, and sat.

  Addison did the same and took out a notebook and pen from her purse. She started writing things down, and I took the opportunity to study her. Her chestnut hair had been down to her ass in high school, but now, it was only a couple of inches past her shoulders. Her breasts strained against the top, and I was pretty sure they’d gotten bigger since I last saw her, which was saying something because she’d had a pretty impressive set of tits back then.

  And I couldn’t see it now, but I had noticed her nice, round ass before she sat down. Her black pants were so tight that I was ninety-nine percent positive she was going commando or wearing a thong. No panty lines for Addison.

  She looked up at me. “So, can you tell me what’s going on?”

  “Foster picked me up from the airport. I was driving my brother’s car when I got pulled over. Next thing I knew, Whitlock was putting handcuffs on me.”

  “What for?”

  I scowled. “Fuck if I know. That asshole’s always had a hard-on for me.”

  She sighed. “What was his reason? What did he tell you?”

  I snorted. “That I was speeding.”

  “Were you?”

  “I was going fifty-eight in a fifty-five.”

  “Anything else unusual?”

  “Other than the fact that I was driving? No.”

  “As I recall, you didn’t always follow traffic laws.”

  Her comment had me thinking of all the times we’d driven around in my beat-up Chevy truck and the things we’d done in it besides driving. It seemed Addison was thinking the same thing.

  I totally recognized the look on her face.

  It was the same one she used to give me before she pulled down my pants and sucked my cock into her mouth.

  I’d grown up around adults with loose morals, so it was no shock that I’d lost my virginity at fourteen to my mom’s friend’s daughter. She was sixteen when she came to my house, looking for her mother. Her mom and my mom had left twenty-four hours earlier to go on a bender.

  So, Sheila took me to the room I shared with my brother and showed me the things she liked to do in bed. I lasted all of twenty seconds before blowing my load, but thankfully, Sheila gave me a few more rounds that I used to make it up to her.

  That was just the beginning. For a while, I had fucked anything that I could.

  But Addison had grown up completely different from me. She had been a virgin when she and I started dating. Everything she knew in the bedroom, she’d learned from me. Including how to give the best fucking blow jobs.

  I tilted my head to the side. I wondered if she still gave good head.

  My eighteen-year-old self demanded I find out. My thirty-year-old self didn’t need the complications of being inside Addison Graham again.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve changed along with my driving habits. I was going the speed limit. He had no reason to pull me over.”

  She wrote the information down and stood. I stared at her ass as she pounded on the door.

  “Sheriff, come in here, please.”

  The door opened thirty seconds later.

  “What do you need, Counselor?”

  “My client said he was doing fifty-eight in a fifty-five. Give him his speeding ticket, so he can leave.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I don’t know if he’s been drinking.”

  “Did you give him a Breathalyzer? A sobriety test? Did he smell like alcohol?”

  Whitlock gritted his teeth. “No.”

  “Is he under arrest?”

  Whitlock looked pissed. “No.”

  I shoved my chair back and stood as Addison said, “Then, he’s free to leave.”

  Whitlock stepped around Addison and marched up to my face. “I am going to break you. You’re not going to get away with anything like you did twelve years ago.”

  He was so close; I could smell the stale coffee on his breath despite our six-inch height difference.

  I just crossed my arms over my chest and tried not to look
bored. This man had no idea the things I’d gone through to be a SEAL. There was nothing he could do to hurt me. I’d already lost everything once, and that was the biggest blow I’d ever taken.

  “I didn’t get away with anything,” I told him.

  Movement out of the corner of my vision caught my eye, and I looked over at Addison. She clearly looked confused.

  I looked back at Whitlock, who was staring at me, steam practically coming out of his ears. I smacked the top of his arm like we were old friends because I knew it would piss him off, and I walked around him. “Later, Whitlock. Call me when you’re ready to break me. You know where to find me.”

  I walked past Addison and nodded my thanks. I found Foster waiting for me outside the sheriff’s office, pacing with panic all over his face.

  His look turned to relief when he saw me. “Oh, thank God.”

  “You can thank Addison.”

  I heard the sound of her heels coming up behind me.

  “I didn’t really do anything,” she said as she came to stand beside me. “He was just trying to intimidate Maddox, I think.”

  Foster burst out laughing. “What a putz. My brother is a Navy SEAL and has been to countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. He is not scared of Sheriff Whitlock.”

  Addison whipped her head and looked at me. “You’re a SEAL?”

  “Yep.” There was no point in denying it.

  She turned her whole body toward me. “What did Whitlock mean by, ‘You’re not going to get away with anything like you did twelve years ago’? Have you been in the Navy this whole time? Did you even go to prison?”

  I just raised an eyebrow at her. She didn’t need me to confirm the answer she already knew.

  She looked at Foster. “How long have you known this?”

  7

  Addison

  The next morning, I was still pissed. Everything I’d come to believe over the last twelve years was a lie. My relationship with Maddox, our past, my career. I had decided to be a lawyer to help people like Maddox. Turned out, he hadn’t needed my help after all.

  I frantically scrubbed a two-year-old stain on my kitchen counter as if today were going to be the day it came off. I was just so pissed.

  It sure made sense why I hadn’t been able to find any record of Maddox in any prison anywhere in the United States. Or why his case was completely sealed. And I sure as hell had never thought to check military records.

  What I didn’t understand was why he’d never contacted me, not once, in the last twelve years.

  I had cried myself to sleep for months, and he had left without even a good-bye or the thought to contact me all these years. I was on social media. I wasn’t hard to find.

  I threw the sponge in the sink, wishing it were directed at his face instead.

  Plus, it seemed like Foster had known where his brother was the whole time. All those guilty looks weren’t for sending Maddox to prison. It was because he had known where Maddox was and didn’t tell me.

  And, to think, there was a minute last night as I’d watched how cool and calm Maddox was with the sheriff that I actually wondered what it would be like for us to get back together. It was only a moment, but I’d remembered what it was like, being with him. Even though he’d been an eighteen-year-old high schooler, not one of the guys I’d dated since compared to Maddox in the bedroom.

  That only pissed me off more.

  I looked around for something to do, but I’d already cleaned everything. I needed to get out of there, or I was going to go crazy, cooped up in my apartment.

  I changed my clothes, so I didn’t smell like cleaning supplies and chemicals. I put on workout gear and left my apartment. I only had to walk six buildings down before I reached my destination. I pounded on the back door, knowing I had to make some noise in order to wake the person on the other side.

  Several pounds and minutes later, the door creaked open, and a dark mess of bedhead opened the door.

  “Addison, what the hell? It’s barely seven on a Saturday morning.”

  Pete was six years older than me, so we hadn’t been in high school together, but we were friends now. He owned the martial arts studio in town, and I had taken a self-defense class from him a few years back. He’d let me use his studio and listened to me vent my frustrations.

  “I’m sorry. I just really need to kick someone’s ass right now. I was hoping you’d be willing?”

  His blue eyes changed to understanding, and he opened the door and let me in. “What’s gotten you so riled up that you came here so early in the morning on the weekend?”

  “Maddox is back in town.”

  “Give me a minute. I just need to get changed.”

  An hour later, after getting my ass handed to me, I said good-bye to Pete. I was feeling much better. I’d done a few rounds on the punching bag while picturing the Wolfe brothers’ faces and felt some satisfaction at the thought of hitting them in real life.

  My stomach growled, and I remembered I’d been too mad to eat breakfast. The diner was across the street. I figured I deserved a nice breakfast that I didn’t have to make myself, so I headed over there.

  I opened the door, the bell jingling, when I heard someone yell behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see it was Melanie Kowalski yelling at her youngest to slow down. I turned back to go inside the café and ran into a big, hard wall.

  “Ooph.”

  A warm hand wrapped around my upper arm to steady me.

  I looked up into Maddox’s green eyes.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded. “Good.” He stepped around me and walked away without a second glance.

  I understood why I was upset with him, but there was no reason for him to be upset with me. I wasn’t the one who’d left him.

  I watched as he went to the corner, looked both ways, and crossed the street. In one hand was a full bag of takeout containers, and I wondered whom he was bringing food to.

  Then, I told myself not to bother. He’d left me. I’d survived the last twelve years without him. I could survive the next twelve. Good riddance.

  There was a pinch in my chest, and I rubbed my breastbone.

  Fuck this.

  I was getting upset again, workout for naught. I needed to let it go.

  I went into the air-conditioned building and let the cold air wash over me, cooling my thoughts along with my body.

  “Good morning, Addison,” Ellis Mentz, owner, manager, and full-time employee, called out.

  “Good morning,” I said as I took a seat at the counter.

  She handed a menu to me. “Whatcha in the mood for this morning?”

  I perused the laminated piece of paper in front of me. “I was thinking an omelet.”

  Ellis slid an order form toward her and pulled the pen from behind her ear. “What kind?”

  “Denver. And coffee, please.”

  “You got it,” she said as she scribbled my order down.

  As she turned to hang it up for the cook, Ellis’s daughter came from the back. Dani and I had graduated a year apart.

  “Hey, Addison.”

  “Hey, Dani.”

  When she reached me, she put her forearms on the counter and leaned in close. “Did you see who was just in here?”

  “Who?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Maddox Wolfe.”

  “Oh, yeah, I saw him.”

  Dani stood, her eyes round. “You did? What was that like?”

  “Awkward.”

  “Oh,” she said, obviously let down. “I thought maybe he would have taken you in his arms and kissed you.”

  Ha!

  “That’s not going to happen.” Ever.

  Her eyes lit up. “Do you mind if I go for him then? I don’t know what he did while he was in prison, but he looks fine as hell.”

  I lifted the menu in my hands higher and groaned into it.

  Trying to forget about Maddox in this town was going to be harder than I�
��d thought.

  8

  Maddox

  The screen door to my mother’s trailer still sounded the same after all these years, and I made a mental note to get some WD-40.

  My mom was sitting at the kitchen table where I’d left her to get breakfast. To say she’d been surprised to see when Foster and I showed up that morning was an understatement. She’d been so happy to see me, I felt guilty for staying away so long.

  Now, she was sipping her coffee and staring out the window. A coughing fit hit her, and it hurt to watch her struggle to catch her breath.

  She might not have been the best mother in the world, but she was still mine, and I cared about her.

  When she saw me, she looked up and smiled. Her skin was yellow, as were her eyes from jaundice, but she looked genuinely happy.

  She patted me on the cheek as I unloaded the food onto the table. “I’m so happy you’re home, Maddox.”

  I took her hand in mine and held it to my chest. “Me, too, Mom. Are you hungry?”

  “A little, baby.”

  I grabbed silverware and plates and brought them to the table just as my brother came out from the hall.

  We hadn’t talked since last night after he brought me back from the station to our mom’s. And that had only been a polite thank-you and good-bye.

  Foster rubbed his hands together. “Did you get enough for me?”

  “Yes,” I said as I took my seat.

  I helped Mom dish up her food, and that was when I noticed she was wearing a sweater in June. Her trailer only had a box air conditioner, which wasn’t even running. Thank God my old room had its own air conditioner. I had saved up my money one year to buy the thing, so I could sleep in peace, and I was lucky it still worked.

  But, now, I was already sweating, and it was only the start of the day. “Mom, aren’t you hot?”

  “No, baby.” She smiled. “I’m fine.”

  My brother’s eyes were sad when I looked over at him. “She has fluid buildup in her abdomen from her liver not working right anymore,” he explained. “It makes her cold. We have to go and get it drained once a week at the hospital.”