Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Kit
The office is quiet. Save for myself and Tomas, everyone else is on the road. He’ll be out of here soon, and then I’ll be left alone with my thoughts.
My very unwanted thoughts.
If her picture was enticing, Tess in person is irresistible. I’ve spent the hours since I dropped her off poring over every word exchanged with a fine-tooth comb. Did she like me? Was I too much?
Was I not enough?
I shake my head at nothing, willing the intrusive thoughts to go away. She’s here for a weekend. She’s Gary’s niece and, from the sounds of it, his only surviving family. There are a million reasons I should forget Tess Monroe.
And yet…
“Shaking some marbles loose over there, Rookie?”
I glance up from the paperwork I admittedly was not reading to find Tomas leaning over my desk, eyebrows raised, with a toothpick pinned between his lips. His dark eyes are warm with mischief, not to mention a level of understanding that has my skin crawling beneath its scrutiny.
“Sorry. Not used to this schedule, and I’m a little off-kilter,” I say, hoping I sound the least bit convincing.
The corner of his mouth twitches. “So you’re saying it has nothing to do with a certain niece of a certain old man?”
“I’m saying exactly that,” I deadpan.
He’s poking at my defenses, the same way he does when we bring someone in for an interrogation. Tomas might be jovial on the surface, but he’s a damn good sheriff. An even better boss. When he’s not giving me hell about women, that is.
“I have it on good authority that you drove away from the Horseshoe Inn with hearts blocking your vision.” He removes the toothpick from his mouth and tosses it into the bin beside my desk. “That true, Llewellyn?”
“What have I told you about listening to Marcy Davis?” The owner of the inn is nine parts gossip to one part truth. So what if this time she was on to something?
“That I should only do it when it aligns with a theory I already had.” My boss’s eyes narrow to judgmental slits. “You dug your own grave, so spill.”
“She’s a beautiful woman. I’m not blind.” I lean back in my chair, folding my hands behind my head. “So what?”
“ So what? ” Tomas rests his chin on steepled fingers, sheer glee rippling the tan skin on his face. “So you, my man, never get defensive about a beautiful woman. But suddenly you’re keeping your mouth shut about this one? And she’s related to Gary? This is a gold mine of opportunity to rib you for the rest of your days.”
I force my gaze to harden, the way it does when I’m dealing with the more unsavory folks we run into on occasion. “It’s nothing, okay? And shouldn’t you be going home?”
He slaps the top of the cubicle and rises to his full height, glancing toward the door and then back to me. “Yes. I’m actually just supposed to mention to you that you need to schedule some PTO. Alice is on my ass about it.”
Alice, his secretary and resident busybody, is on everyone’s ass. I’m tempted to say, Welcome to the club.
“You know I don’t have anywhere to go. Can’t I donate it to someone else?”
A line forms between his dark brows. “Why not visit your parents? They’re still living, right? I’m sure they’d love to see you.”
My parents are still living. Whether or not they’d love to see me is another topic altogether. I haven’t been home since the divorce finalized. We talk on the phone occasionally, mostly for holidays I’d forget exist if it weren’t for all my coworkers requesting off. But I can’t bring myself to make the trip to Mississippi. Can’t face the disappointment on my parents’ faces when they talk to the son who was supposed to make them proud but ended up divorced and miserable all the same.
“I’m good, Tomas. Promise. Just let it roll over if I can’t donate it.”
“That’s the thing. You’ve accumulated too many hours by not taking them, and they can’t risk you cashing them all in at once.” He shakes his head, one eyebrow lifted. “You might be the first person in the history of this department to go their whole tenure without using a single personal day. Don’t you go to the doctor?”
I wave a hand down my meticulously pressed uniform. “Healthy as a horse. Why would I need to?”
“Because you need a life.” He sucks on his teeth—a habit of his when a perp gets too stubborn or one of his deputies toes the line of his patience. “Just please make some plans. We’re budgeting for this coming fiscal year, and you’ve got to take at least ten days before next July. That’s not a request, either, Rookie.”
I salute him. It’s half serious, half please-get-off-my-ass.
If Tomas can tell that I’m just brushing him off, he doesn’t show it. “Night, Kit. Let me know if anything gets too crazy.”
I grin up at him. “Not a chance. Get some rest. Hug your wife. Maybe even your kids, if you’re so inclined.”
He snorts, completely tired of my shit. Then he’s gone, taking long strides toward the exit, abandoning me and the rest of the empty desks. He opens the door to the department, allowing in a fleeting ray of evening sunlight before it closes and I’m left in the quiet.
I fucking hate night shift.
Too much time to be left to my own thoughts, my own devices. In a half hour or so, I’ll pile into my cruiser and roam the roads. Jamie will be here shortly to man the phones, once he drops his kids off at their mom’s. The county is quiet at night, so long as the patrons at Dooley’s—a dive bar in the next town over—keep their shit together. I’ll have nothing to do but stew on Tess’s bright green gaze, so attuned to every word, every move I made.
And now, the thought of visiting my parents to boot.
It’s not that I don’t miss them. I do. Terribly. But my brother has always been the fuckup. The drug addict. In and out of rehab, sucking them dry of an already meager retirement fund. I was supposed to be the golden child. College graduate. Military veteran. Happily married, with two-point-five kids and a white picket fence on the horizon.
Except one long deployment and a fucking affair swept that all out to sea in an instant.
How do you face your parents after that? I haven’t figured it out yet, so I just don’t. Face them, that is. Not to mention if I go home, I have to somehow smile and nod while they talk about Gage like his last rehab stay cured him; meanwhile he and I both know he still hits me up for money every few months under the guise of keeping the lights on at whatever run-down rental he’s camping out in at the time. A part of me is certain he uses the cash to fund his addiction, yet I can’t bring myself to ignore his calls. To let him fail. Not when I’ve seen how much it devastates our parents when he does.
Tess is another problem for which I have no solution.
It was one car ride. A simple conversation. It shouldn’t matter, in the grand scheme of things. Only I still feel her presence like she’s curled up beside me, despite her insistence that she wasn’t tired. I still see her when I close my eyes, no matter how much I wish I didn’t.
It’s stupid, I’ll admit. But the only thing I can think to do is call Zoey.
She picks up on the fifth ring, just when I’ve decided she’s probably ignoring me. “I thought civilians were supposed to call the police, not the other way around.”
I roll my eyes, though I know she can’t see. “Hello to you, too.”
There’s a dull roar of conversation buzzing through the line. Nomads must be packed. And not for nothing—if I could be there instead of heading into an overnight on too little sleep and even less sanity, I would. One of Santi’s green chili burgers sounds amazing right about now.
“We’re a bit busy, Kit. What do you need?”
I scrub a hand down my face. The bell over the door chimes, announcing Jamie’s arrival. I can’t say the things I want to in front of him. I’m not even sure what those things are, just that there’s a strange feeling in my chest that I want to be rid of.
“Is this about Tess?” Zoey presses.
My chair groans as I lean forward, balancing elbows on knees. “Why would you think that?”
Her sigh is barely audible over the noise of the crowd. “Because I know you. You can scent a vulnerable woman like a bloodhound.”
“I resent that.”
“But do you deny it?”
I close the file I’d been pretend-perusing. “Why did I call you?”
“Because I’m your best friend, no matter how weird that seems to both of us.” There’s a telltale squeak of the saloon-style door that leads into Nomads’ kitchen, and suddenly conversation is replaced with the metal clang of food prep in the background. “Look, from what little Gary has told me, Tess has been through a lot. And this weekend is important for both of them. So maybe just keep it in your pants this time, yeah?”
I close my eyes, blocking out the bland sheriff’s department and Jamie’s perfectionistic organizing of the front desk since Akita, who works the day shift, left it in a disarray as usual. I know Zoey’s right, at least about the importance of this weekend to Gary and Tess. And her assumption about my intentions is fair, given that’s all she’s seen from me in the years we’ve known each other. Hell, it’s all I’ve wanted anyone to see.
What I can’t figure out is how to explain that the draw I feel to Tess is not merely physical. It hardly makes sense to me, this piqued interest. Maybe she’s right and I’m thinking with my dick without even realizing. And if she’s wrong? Then it’s best for both me and Tess that I don’t acknowledge it.
“Yeah.” My voice is gravel. Mulched wood. Everything part and parcel. “Thanks for talking me off the ledge, Zo.”
“Anytime. Now go roam the streets and keep the citizens of Loveless and the greater valley safe.”
“Deal, so long as you don’t get them too drunk.”
“You got it, Deputy Dickwad.”
I laugh, and it shakes something loose inside. It feels like relief. “Bye, Zo.”
“Bye, Kit.” Her laughter is the last thing I hear before she hangs up. A reminder not to take myself, or these feelings, too seriously.
Good fucking luck.