Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Julian
“You can’t tell me that this isn’t all somehow related, Fury,” I hear Stevie shout from a chair in the far side of the station’s bullpen.
“There are missing persons, more overdoses in the past handful of years than ever before in this county, I’ve seen now two college-aged girls coming out of here looking worse than when they came in, screaming sexual assault being mishandled, and then you, and you,” she says, pointing at Jameson, who must have just come in, surveying what’s going on in front of us.
“The sheriff, the county’s lead homicide detective, and your paper pushers come into my family’s bar to throw around your weight, looking for a man who we all know knocked his wife around like a goddamn pinball machine. And again, you did nothing.”
Wyn lets go of my hand and rushes up to the main desk. She asks, “Being detained? For what reason?” And without letting the deputy answer, she adds, “And she’s not a minor. It isn’t required for her to have someone come and get her. Does she need to appear in court after this?”
I smile at hearing her tear the deputy behind the desk a new one.
I run my fingers beneath my nose as if I’m scratching an itch, but really, I just want to remind myself of the smell of her.
She smells as good as she tastes, and I swallow roughly, trying to focus on where I am and what we’re walking into.
“If you’re not arresting her, I’d like to take my sister home now, please,” Wyn adds as the deputy gets up and moves towards a still fairly loud Stevie Crowne.
When I glance at Detective Jameson Bishop, my unofficial neighbor at The Rackhouse this past week, he looks more pissed off than usual.
He stands back with his arms crossed, observing the commotion.
Sheriff Fury seems more distressed than I would expect in his own station, but I’m sure the Crowne sister spouting off facts and making him look like an idiot wasn’t on his bingo card tonight.
I watch closely as Jameson steps up next to the officer sitting at the desk she’s cuffed to.
He doesn’t look down; instead, his eyes stay locked on the sheriff when he says, “Those cuffs better be off her wrists within the next minute, Deputy, or I will not hold back on writing up every last person inside of this place for abusing their authority.”
“Oh, how scary. Threatening paperwork and a written warning,” Stevie seethes with sarcasm. “Such a fucking hero.”
His usual stoic and impenetrable exterior cracks just a little as he turns away, his hand running along his mouth, wiping away whatever he wanted to say back to her.
I recognize that frustration. I’ve felt it myself from the beautiful woman a few feet away, giving her sister wide eyes and a wordless look of what I assume is Shut the fuck up and let’s go.
When I look back at the deputies, other officers and sheriff, I find Fury’s attention on me now.
Fucking hell, I shouldn’t be inside this damn station.
He glances toward Jameson, who still seems pissed off, at the very least. The entire station, regardless of the fact that there aren’t many bodies inside, feels thick with tension that I don’t belong anywhere near.
Stevie rubs along her wrist where she’d been cuffed, before she hugs Wyn, and Sheriff Fury meanders closer. “Wyn, please make sure she gets home. I’d really like to forget this all happened.”
Wyn gives him a tight-lipped smile while Stevie says, “I’m sure that would be very convenient for you.” She gives him a double thumbs up as she adds, “Superior job, spending taxpayer money on ignoring my rights and getting your panties in a wad about a podcast. I’m sure a judge would agree.”
I don’t miss the exchange of looks between Jameson and the sheriff. I can’t figure out the context.
“Julian, fancy seeing you here,” Stevie says as she struts up next to me. Her eyes go wide, like she just realized something.
“Are you alright?” I ask as I look up and around. A lot of cops are paying attention to all of this, and not a single one, except for Jameson, did anything about it. That pisses me off.
“Oh fuck, you came here together.” Covering her mouth, Stevie mumbles, “Was this a date?”
My eyes connect with Wyn’s before I answer. Her lips twitch, knowing I was just knuckles deep inside of her and licking up every drop of it. “Not a date,” I answer. “She let me rescue her and take her for a drive.” I flash Stevie a smile and sarcastically add, “We were being very respectable.”
“You can call me anytime,” Wyn cuts in. “You know that.” She widens her eyes at me, trying to stop from smiling.
“Okay, well, thank you for coming to get me. The good news is, I finished recording before the whole Fury incident,” she says, waving it off like it was a minor inconvenience.
“Nash is already having a sleepover tonight at Mom’s anyway, so I will be self-soothing with the apple stack cake she brought over, and you two can go back to whatever it is I interrupted.
” She glances at the desk, smirking. “This’ll catch fire quickly. ”
Wyn looks at her quizzically. “Should we tone it down? I mean, you’re not even out the doors yet, and I know that look. You’re stirring shit.”
“You know that the second I tell Birdie about this, she’ll get on the horn with the garden club biddies, and then someone will start gossiping on the prayer tree.
I’m so tired of the bullshit we’re just supposed to swallow.
Fury is tightly wound about something, I know it.
” She looks over her shoulder, glaring at him.
Jesus Christ, that one has no fear.
“The fucking county sheriff doesn’t throw his weight around like he just did if I didn’t strike a chord somewhere,” she says as she throws the doors to the station open.
Wyn turns to look at me, just as we start to walk out. She doesn’t need to say anything. I know she wants, or maybe even needs, to spend time with her sister right now.
Seeing the way she interacts with her sisters, witnessing how important they are to one another, and listening to Jo and Stevie talk about and be protective over Wyn, it dulls their initial intimidation.
Instead, it makes me want to be around them and a part of it.
I wrap my hand around her wrist, pulling her closer, and she comes to me so easily.
I kiss the palm of her hand at the top of the stairs of the sheriff’s station.
She tilts her head back to look up at me as she says, “Tomorrow night, there’s this bluegrass thing, and I was thinking that maybe?—”
“Are you asking me on a date?” I ask as I pull her closer.
The tone of who we are to one another feels like it’s changed.
I’ve never felt so eager to spend time with anyone like I do with her.
There’s something about her that’s grounding, and fuck do I want to be that for her too.
She raises up onto the balls of her feet as I lean down, and she brushes her lips teasingly against mine.
“I don’t think that’s our style. Maybe we’ll both be there, and I’ll run into you. We can listen to some music or dance and then you can whisk me away somewhere and get lost all over again.” She pulls back and starts down the steps. “Thanks for the rescue.”
“Any and every time, Crowne,” I say, watching her walk away.
She tosses me a smile over her shoulder before she goes to catch up with her sister. “Stevie,” she calls out. “Did you say stack cake?”
I don’t make it more than a few feet from the front doors before I hear my name.
“Colton,” Sheriff Fury calls out.
“Have a nice night, Sheriff.” I wave over my head as I keep walking to my Bronco. I need to get the hell out of here.
He catches up, calling out once more. “Colton, while you’re here, now might be a good time for us to have a word.
” He huffs and puffs his cheeks out like he just finished a marathon, as he stands in front of me.
I can’t figure out what it is about him that I don’t like. Maybe it’s just that he’s a cop.
I smile, like someone totally unfazed. “About what, exactly?” I ask, shifting my arms over my chest.
“I need to clear up some timing coincidences between your arrival and my deputy’s disappearance. Should only take a few minutes.”
Fuck.
“Colton,” Detective Jameson Bishop says from the top of the stairs. The Rackhouse Bed-and-Breakfast is big enough that I should’ve been able to miss seeing yet another fucking cop in my path.
“No fucking way,” I mumble to myself as I open the porch screen door and head outside. I’m jogging down the steps and toward my truck when I hear him hustle up behind me.
“Colton, will you fucking—” I hear him rush out.
I haven’t figured out the homicide detective yet.
Fury is an asshole and seems like he’s got plenty of shit to cover up, but Jameson isn’t that.
My gut has always said to steer away from getting too friendly with anyone who has the power to put you in handcuffs, but he cut into the almost two hour “chat” Sheriff Fury requested as I was leaving last night.
“Sir, there are two homicides that I’d like to wrap up and need your signature on my reports.
I’d really like to get the hell out of here.
” He glanced at me and then back at Fury.
Quietly he leaned into the sheriff and said, “This isn’t progress, it’s going to be a problem.
” It was enough for the sheriff to thank me for my cooperation and politely suggest I do not leave town.
I’m not fucking planning on it. And there isn’t a damn thing I cooperated on. He asked questions and I danced around the answers.
Did I know Deputy Billings? No.
Had I ever met him or crossed paths? Technically, no. He wasn’t crossing anything when I saw him.
Do you know what might have happened to him?
All I had to say to that was, “Never met the guy. If I was to guess what had happened, I doubt I’d be right.”