8. Luke
Luke
September had come in with a bang, a tropical depression gearing up to wreak havoc on our little coastal haven.
I made sure my fridge was stocked with fruits and vegetables, and the pantry was loaded with granola bars, crackers, and cereals.
Flashlight batteries were replaced, and all of the outdoor furniture and equipment were brought in.
I swung by Scarlett’s yesterday, just to make sure she and Aurora were all set, and had given her two new flashlights and some canned goods that would see them through if they were without power.
The rain was due to start overnight, hitting us hard in the early hours of the morning. Gale force winds were projected to take down trees and power lines. I pulled up in front of my house—my old house—to assess the property before the storm blew through.
My hand reached out for the doorknob before I pulled it back. I didn’t even feel comfortable enough to walk into my own house anymore. How fucked-up was that?
Juliet’s car was parked in the driveway, so I knocked on the door and waited for her to answer it. Her eyes widened when she saw me, but my gaze was trained on her still-flat stomach. The evidence of her betrayal wasn’t yet visible, but it was there all the same.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
I pulled my eyes up to her face. “I’m going to grab a ladder from the shed and clean the gutters before the storm. Do you still have shit in the yard that needs to come in?”
“You don’t have to do that, Luke. I can…”
“Get on a ladder pregnant? I don’t think so. Besides, this is still my house until the divorce is final. I don’t want it diminishing in value because no one prepared it before the storm.”
I stomped away from her, collecting the ladder like I said I would and setting it up to clear away any debris in the gutters.
When that was finished, I filled the shed with the patio tables, chairs, and umbrella, along with the grill and hammock.
Who knew if any of this was going to be mine in a few short weeks, but until then, I was going to take care of it like it still belonged to me.
The sound of my knuckles against the back door echoed through the house, answered by Juliet’s call for me to come inside.
“You got food? Water?” I asked her. I didn’t know why, but I wasn’t going to leave her without at least the basic necessities in case of an emergency.
“Yeah. We’re good.” She played with the hem of her shirt, looking almost nervous. I nodded and turned toward the door. “Luke,” she called, stopping me.
“What?”
“Thanks for coming by today,” she said .
I nodded again, and again turned to leave, only stopping when she called my name again.
“Luke, wait.”
“What?” Impatience snapped around me. I didn’t want to be in this house any longer than I needed to. I had come by, done my job. This wasn’t my home anymore. Hell, Wyatt’s house felt more like my home now that I had been there for the past six weeks.
“Can I talk to you? I need to tell you something.”
My brows rose in a silent permission for her to continue.
“I’m officially in the second trimester now.”
What the fuck? Was this what she wanted to talk to me about? My teeth rattled with how tightly I clenched my jaw. To Juliet, I remained silent.
“We want to start telling people, but we needed to tell you first. We both agreed.” She was wringing her hands together, another uncharacteristic nervous trait.
“Jules, I already know you’re pregnant,” I said slowly. She was stalling. Whatever she wanted to say, she needed to get to the fucking point and fast.
“Matt wanted to be the one to tell you before you heard it from anyone else. But you’re here now, and I just…”
“Matt?” Red tinged my vision. My shoulders tensed, along with every other muscle in my body. “Monroe?”
“That’s what we wanted to tell you.” Her eyes were studying me, looking for a reaction. “Matt’s the father. We’re together now.”
What. The. Fuck.
My partner? We worked together every goddamn day. I had trusted him with my life. But apparently, I shouldn’t have trusted him with my wife .
Words were not an option. I could barely formulate a coherent thought. I turned and stalked to the door. If Juliet tried to call out to me again, I didn’t hear it. I couldn’t hear anything except my scattered thoughts and the static noise of disbelief.
Gray clouds hung overhead. My body was pulled taut as blood boiled in my veins. I started driving without even thinking. Through the one stoplight, a few lefts and a few rights later, and I was there.
Matt’s car wasn’t at his house. I pulled up to the curb and cut the engine.
My partner—someone I considered a friend—had been having an affair with my wife for months.
All those late-night yoga classes Jules would tell me she was going to—this was where she really was.
I called Matt’s cell, letting it ring until the voicemail picked up.
The message I left was short and to the point.
“Fuck. You.”
I didn’t wait to see if he would show up, although a part of me wanted to.
I turned my car on and drove out of there before I did something stupid, like deck the guy.
My fists were itching to take the lead, but shy of driving around town, tracking his ass down, he wasn’t standing in front of me waiting for me to unleash hell on him.
I bunkered down in my house, ready for the impending storm. My cell was charged and ready to be called into work in case of an emergency.
Wind howled all night. The rain came down in a deluge for hours on end, the storm raging outside a mirror of the one brewing inside of me.
Before long, a peek of the morning sun broke through the clouds.
As it turned out, the storm came and went without too much damage.
Some downed trees, a few basements that the fire department had to help pump out.
But overall, the impact was minimal. I called Scarlett first thing in the morning to make sure she’d made it through okay.
“Hey, Luke. Good morning,” she answered. I could hear Aurora in the background saying something. It sounded like she was mocking her. Scarlett hissed at her to shut up, but I could hear the smile in her voice.
“Hey, Letty. Just checking in with you. How’d you make out last night? Any damage?”
“No. We lost power for a few hours, but it’s already back on. How about you? Did you end up getting called in?”
“No damage. No call in. Turned out this tropical depression was nothing more than a squall.”
“That’s what happens when you live in the best place on Earth,” she said.
“Damn straight,” I told her, the smallest of smiles on my lips. Only Scarlett could manage to pull that out of me with her infectious cheer.
After I checked in with Scarlett, I called my dad and then my brothers.
Everyone made it out just fine. My dad had a section of fence that would need to be replaced, but that was the extent of it.
Reid would have that repaired and replaced in a minute, so I knew there wasn’t anything for me to do there.
I had almost wished it had turned into something a little more.
Something that would have me out there, cleaning up, helping people, working and staying busy.
Sitting in my house all day was making me crazy.
I even called the captain to see if he needed me to come in, but he told me to stay home.
I sent a text out to the ongoing group chat with the guys in the late afternoon, seeing if anyone was up for drinks at Harpoon’s. It was a Tuesday, but none of us had conventional nine-to-five jobs, so a Tuesday was just as good as a Saturday in my opinion.
Wyatt was the first to respond, but he was out. He was staying home, living it up with his family. Who would have thought Wyatt would turn out to be the family man of the group?
Seb: Shit yeah. Tuesdays are karaoke night. You know I’m in.
Did he intend to participate in the karaoke? It was Seb, so anything was possible.
Reid: Claire and I were going to spend the night in. We bought candles in case the power went out…
Reid: Thought we might see what other uses we can find for them…
Me: Say no more. Ever.
Reid sent a meme of some guy wiggling his eyebrows in an exaggeratedly suggestive way.
Wes: I’ll be there.
* * *
Harpoon’s Tavern was busier than I expected for a Tuesday night. Dim lighting was cast from the ship’s wheel chandeliers. Nautical-themed decor and memorabilia hung on the walls and from the wooden rafters.
Seb was sitting at the bar, already in conversation with a couple of women seated next to him.
I didn’t think that the seating arrangement was a coincidence.
Sebastian Devereux was never one to shy away from female attention.
I joined him at the bar with a clap to his shoulder.
Now that I was closer, the girls he was talking to looked like they were still in high school.
“Hey, man. Ladies, this is my friend Luke. Newly single, and he’s a cop.” Seb introduced me to his new friends, Jasmine and Naomi. I leveled a hard look at Seb before nodding a greeting at them.
“Nice to meet you. Small point of correction in that introduction. I’m not yet single.”
“Close enough, man,” Seb said.
Ronnie, the bartender, appeared like a savior. My Jamison was in front of me within seconds. Her dark eyes darted to my face, and with one manicured brow raised, she added another finger to the glass. Apparently, I looked like I could use it.
“Here you go, Wilder.” She slid the glass to me. Glancing at Seb, she leaned in toward me. “You might want to let your boy know those ladies are drinking mocktails and not because they want to be.”
“Noted.” I raised my glass to her. Ronnie was the best. She had an eye on everything that happened in this place and was always looking out for people. In this case, she could have been looking out for Seb or for the young women. Probably both.
I leaned in behind Seb, keeping my voice low so that only he would hear me.
“They’re basically kids. Maybe over eighteen, but not twenty-one yet. You really want to go there?”
“Ladies. It’s been fun, but I think this is where I leave you.” He smiled at them and pulled away from the bar. I found us a table on the other side of the room. It was closer to the stage where the karaoke was being set up, but at least there were no potentially underage girls around us.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I snapped, kicking his chair just as he was going to sit. He managed to catch it and plop his ass down without falling to the floor.
“They were at a bar. They had drinks in front of them,” he said, throwing his hands up. “I figured they had to be at least twenty-one. Ronnie wouldn’t serve them if they were underage, even if they tried to pull a fake ID.”
“Nonalcoholic mocktails. They’re probably here for the karaoke. Seriously, man. You need to watch out.”
“I wasn’t planning on taking them home.” He shrugged.
“You’re always planning on taking someone home.”
A shadow covered the table, Wes’s enormous body blocking the light from the chandeliers overhead. The tall black chair scraped against the floor as he pulled it out.
“Wes.” I nodded a greeting.
“Luke. Seb,” he said, folding his large frame onto the small seat.
Wes and Seb talked, or Seb talked while Wes sat by silently.
I thought I needed to get out of my house, but now that I was here, I couldn’t seem to get out of my head.
Images I really didn’t want to see flashed through my mind.
My wife… and my partner. Juliet’s round belly.
A nursery with the two of them peeking over a sleeping babe in a crib…
instead of the two of us. A life that should have been mine.
I tried to shake myself out of it, but I couldn’t quite get myself to focus.
“What’s up with you?” Wes asked. I forced my gaze to his, blinking a few times to clear my head .
“Huh? Nothing. You make any progress on Redmond’s case?”
“You going to do anything about it if I do?” he countered.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” It sounded an awful lot like he was implying something he better not.
“Redmond is innocent.” His hard stare bored into me. “And someone on your team knows that already.” His long hair was tied back, his dense beard taking up the lower half of his face. He was tall, broad, and stony. He could easily intimidate a lesser man, but that wasn’t me.
“Not according to the evidence we have on him.” I leveled a hard look right back at him. “Listen, I looked into it when you said you were taking the case on. I didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. No trace that evidence had been covered up.”
“Then you didn’t look hard enough. You know he and Alana were together?”
“Yes. He’s saying it was consensual. None of her friends confirmed that. We don’t have proof that it was or wasn’t.”
“They met up at the beach. Fooled around. But she was alive when he left.”
“Of course that’s what he’s going to say,” I huffed. We had been down this road already. I’d had these same conversations with Redmond myself. None of this was news. The kid’s story didn’t match up with the facts.
“Think it through, Wilder. Ryan and Alana were together. Had been together since last year when she volunteered to be his student tutor for some honor society credits. He’s a troubled kid, from a troubled home.
An easy target for the police. They have a connection, and that’s all it took for you all to run with the theory. ”
It clicked. Why Wes was so adamant that Ryan was innocent. He probably saw himself in Ryan. A version of what his life could have looked like if he hadn’t made friends with Wyatt in the third grade. If he hadn’t found a place, a home, that he could go to where he was safe and loved.
Wes continued. “I trust you, Luke. You’re a good cop. I know that. But your partner? Him, I don’t trust.”
“Ha.” I let out a humorless laugh. “You’re smarter than me.”
“I won’t say he’s dirty, not without evidence, but he’s shifty. Like a snake.”
“Yeah, well, he’s also been fucking my wife,” I said.
Wes’s face gave nothing away. On the other side of the table, where Seb had been engrossed in chatting with the server, his head snapped to me.
“What?” he growled. “Is that who Juliet’s baby daddy is?”
“Surprised? Join the club.” I polished off my Jamison in one swig. A flash of red caught my eye by the door as I slammed the tumbler down on the table.
Her curls were tamed and styled. Her cutoff shorts showed off her long, toned legs.
Not to mention the way they hugged her ass.
A simple T-shirt was tucked into the front of the shorts.
My heart stopped at the sight of her. I had never allowed myself to think of Scarlett when I had my dick in my hands, but that night she told me what she was wearing on her date, I couldn’t stop the images from infiltrating my mind.
I could already tell that this look, tonight, was going to make a front-and-center appearance.