Chapter Thirteen #3
When the deputy had come in and hauled him off the guy,
Brooke had stood there with tears streaking down her face as though she’d lost
her last friend.
“Okay. We need to figure out how we’re going to play this
because Brooke will not be far behind.” Rye sat beside him. “Honestly, if this
deputy had an ounce of experience in his adolescent body, he would have walked
us to the station. It’s literally at the end of the block. This is stupid.”
“This is protocol, Mr. Harper,” the deputy explained. “And I
am twenty years old and have an associate’s degree in criminal justice.”
“Whoop-de-do, buddy. Look, son, I used to be the sheriff of
this town and if you’re a slave to protocol, you’re going to have a tough time.
What the hell are you going to do when the next alien invasion happens?”
Tate stopped at the only light in town.
Bailey could see Trev and Brooke gaining on and then passing
them. Brooke followed his boss, her arms crossed under her breasts and tears
still clinging to her cheeks.
“I will enact protocol forty-seven in accordance with the
intergalactic treaty of solar year 4750.7,” Tate replied simply.
He would give it to the deputy. The kid seemed unflappable.
Bailey tried to get Brooke’s attention, but it wasn’t like
he could knock on the window. Well, he had his head. He kind of tapped it
against the window. “Brooke!”
“Mr. Kent, those windows are bulletproof,” Tate advised. “I
assure you no matter how hardheaded you are, you’re not going to break them.
They are also compliant with safety protocols set forth by the Earth Council
Against Hostile Aliens. ECAHA knows how to make unbreakable glass. That sucker
will hold a damn Noxil spawn, and those fuckers can
emit acid when they feel like they’re in danger.”
Rye groaned, and his head fell back. “You’re Cassidy’s
nephew. I forgot. I don’t know whether to praise Nate for being smart or call
him intensely crazy.”
“Why not both?” Tate replied. “And protocol is what
separates us from chaos. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you, Old Sheriff. I
haven’t been on the job long, and I’m living out at my aunt’s place for now.
I’m going to be honest. I’m surprised at you. I was told you were a good
sheriff. I didn’t expect you to be in a… I can’t call it a bar fight. Diner
fight? Is that a thing here?”
She wouldn’t look at him. She stood beside Trev until the Walk
sign changed and then followed him.
“Everything is a thing here, Deputy, and it wasn’t a fight.
Not really. It was setting boundaries,” Rye explained.
Had she been happy to be with that asshole? Had he
interrupted something she wanted? It hadn’t looked like it at the time. She’d
pushed at him, but maybe she’d done that because she was trying to keep their
relationship on the down low.
His heart ached at the thought.
Had she been using them all along?
“All right. So you saw red and couldn’t stop because you
thought he was hurting Brooke,” Rye said.
“Well, that’s the truth,” Bay replied, watching Brooke walk
away with Trev. She was going to get to the Sheriff’s Department before they
did.
Shane was there, apparently, and so was Max, according to
the call the deputy made after shoving them both in the squad car. He’d been
kind of shocked at the time, but now he wondered why the hell his brother was
at the sheriff’s.
Would she walk right into Shane’s arms or ignore them both?
Had he fucked this up for all of them?
At least she was going and not calling a Fuber
and heading home to clean out her stuff.
“Of course it is, but you have to finesse things,” Rye
encouraged. “You have to make sure to put the emphasis on her safety and not on
your caveman-like possessiveness, even though that is hard wired into you,
brother. Women do not understand. If you want my sister to take your balls, you
mention the words he had his hands on my woman.”
“But she is my woman. I’m literally supposed to protect
her.” Bay didn’t see the problem.
“I think I’m with Old Sheriff on this one. Women don’t like
to be thought of as possessions. Unless they come from other planes. You see,
there’s this fairy plane and the women there…” Tate began.
Bay turned to Rye. “Can we get him fired? Like can’t the
town vote?”
“Hey, I just got hired,” Tate protested, and the light
finally turned green.
“We’re stuck with him for now,” Rye replied with a sigh.
“But the good news is at some point he’ll get the shit kicked out of him by
either the mafia or an MC club or… We haven’t had a serial killer in a while.
We’re due for one of those. The point is the young, shiny deputy is always the
one who ends up getting his ass tortured. It’s practically a rite of passage.”
“What?” Tate asked, seemingly alarmed. “My auntie told me it
would be a cushy job.”
Rye grinned fiercely. “Your auntie lied, son.”
Tate turned his attention back to the road and slowly
started making his way to the sheriff’s.
“Do you know who that was?” Bay asked. “I’ve never seen him
around here.”
Rye sat back. “I think that was her boss. I’ve never met him
because we’ve never gone to New York.” Rye glanced out the window. “We’ve
always made excuses, and they usually are about the kids. Damn it. I’ve let my
sister have a whole life in a city thousands of miles away and I never visited
her even though Logan has invited us to stay with them. Why?”
He kind of thought he knew the reason. “Is it because you’re
worried your wife is going to get to a big city and remember everything she
loved about it and wonder why she’s stuck here with two whiny-ass men and all
their babies?”
Rye went pale. “Holy shit. I think that’s it.”
“Rachel loves Bliss. She doesn’t want to leave it, but I
would bet she would enjoy traveling a bit and showing the world to her kiddos.
I grew up never going anywhere. I didn’t get out of New Mexico until Shane and
I started rodeoing, and once we hit the road, it was hard to stop. We became
nomadic, and I think it’s because as children our world was so small. It felt
good to bust out of it.”
“Brooke didn’t leave this part of Colorado until she went to
college, and then it was Denver and then New York, and Max and I have been
waiting for her to come home.”
“And that made her feel like you thought she would fail. Or
hoped she would. I’m not sure which is worse,” Bay commented.
“They’re both terrible,” Tate said, judgmental eyes looking
at them through the rearview. “I feel sorry for your poor sister, and then you
beat up her boss. He’s probably going to press all the charges he can.”
So he was looking at time, maybe. Fuck.
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t,” Rye promised. “Trust me. It’s
not the first time we’ve dealt with something like this. He was assaulting
her.”
“She didn’t mention that, but I’ll talk to her when I make
my report,” Tate offered as he turned the vehicle into the parking lot.
Nate Wright stood out front looking twelve kinds of
authoritative. Shane looked worried.
Max was laughing his ass off.
Nate stalked over and opened the door. “Rye, you know I
expect this…”
Rye managed to get out of the car. “From Max. I know. But
that asshole had his hands on my sister.” He looked back in and winked Bay’s
way with a conspiratorial gleam. When he stood up, Rye had a serious expression
on his face. “I wasn’t about to let some asshole manhandle my sister in the
middle of a café. How the hell would that look?”
Max stopped laughing, and his eyes widened. “Really?”
Brooke’s whole body went on alert. “Excuse me?”
Bay got out of the car and Nate had his hands out of the
cuffs quickly.
“Tate, did you need to cuff the former sheriff and our local
artist?” Nate asked.
Tate shrugged. “It’s protocol. Sir, we need to talk about
serial killers. I think they were joking, but I’d like to have the
conversation.”
“Oh, I’ll let you read the files, buddy,” Nate promised.
“Now go to the clinic and get the city guy’s version of events. Elisa’s coming
in, and she’ll handle the rest.”
Tate nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“I am not a piece of property, Ryan Harper,” Brooke
announced. “Do you have any idea what that stunt might have cost me?” She
strode over as Nate was getting around to uncuffing Rye. “Don’t you dare,
Nathan Wright. You would totally toss Max in jail for the night. Rye should get
the same treatment, and I’ll make sure the only thing he can get from Stella’s
for lunch and dinner is a cabbage and beet salad.”
Rye went pale. “Hey, we should talk about this.”
Rye was trying to give him cover. The trouble was he wasn’t
sure where all the land mines were.
“I think that guy’s version of events is that those two
kicked his ass,” Tate said, though he was already walking back to his vehicle.
“My auntie told me Logan is the great man he is today because of what happened
to him here in this office. I thought that was about training and stuff.”
“You’re going to love that beet salad, Rye,” Max taunted.
Shane moved into his space. “What the hell happened?”
“Did you think for two seconds about what we’ll do if he
decides to press charges?” Brooke asked. “How is that going to affect Rachel
and your kids? Do you know how much stress she’s under? I could have handled
it.”
“Oh, it was what happened to him here, but it definitely
wasn’t training.” Gemma watched as Tate got in his car. “It was about fourteen
hours of being tortured by the Russian mob, but you should know nothing bad has
happened since I took over. I’m really careful since before I came, someone
drugged Nate’s coffee. Now that wasn’t the mob. That was the serial killer.”
“He was here to offer me my job back,” Brooke announced.
Shane’s jaw tightened.
Bay felt his stomach drop.
“So nothing bad has happened at the Sheriff’s Department
since Gemma came on board?” Tate asked as he started his engine again.
“Now that I think about it, it’s all happened out in the
field,” Nate mused, completely ignoring the fight going on around him. “Let’s