29. Harlan
Chapter 29
Harlan
“ Y ou son of a bitch!” Cormac’s outraged voice screams through the station.
“You can’t go back there.” I hear Bett try to stop Cormac and stand, turning to Maisie before I hand Audra back to her.
The angry yell barks through the bullpen of the station making it past the cracked door of my office.
“Sunshine. It’s about to get ugly in here. You should probably go.”
Maisie nods, and she pulls the door open just as Cormac hits the threshold. Her eyes jump to mine and widen at the rage on his face. But I was expecting this. Expecting him. His rage-filled gaze narrows on Maisie, and my body tenses, about to jump between them.
“Excuse me,” she murmurs before skirting by him. She makes her way through the bullpen while I let Cormac stew in his own anger.
The same anger that I saw time and time again in school and the academy when I beat him at some imaginary goal post he set .
“Sorry boss. He just barged back here.” Betty’s just barely visible behind Cormac in the door way. But the glare she aims at him could incinerate steel.
“It’s fine, Bett. What can I do for you, Cormac?” I keep my tone steady despite the anger that wants to meet him head on. To give him a piece of my mind for putting Maisie and Audra in danger.
Instead of finding him and knocking the smug smirk that’s perpetually smeared across his face off, I decided to fight fire with fire.
Cormac wants to come after my job. Fine. But the second he dragged people I care about into this Cold War between us was the second I lost my patience for him.
A quick call to the mayor and an email was all it took to take him out of the running.
The veins in Cormac’s forehead start to bulge, his face going ruddy with his anger.
“You sicced the fucking mayor on me.” His jaw clenches like he can’t quite get the words out, and I let the smug smile I’ve been holding back curl my lips.
“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” I say.
Cormac scoffs, drawing my attention back to him. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“If you’re talking about the file containing the complaints against you as an officer of the law, and you leaving your position as a cop before an internal investigation could be launched against you for said complaints… I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You son of a bitch.” Cormac’s back to spitting anger.
“You already said that. But let me make one thing perfectly clear. This situation. The whole thing? That’s your fault. You put Stacey up to running that story with no thought to how it would affect others, and when I hit back you want to come at me? Go right ahead.” I snarl. “But I’ll fight just as fucking dirty as you do, and I promise I’ll have better results.”
Cormac glares at me, the muscle in his jaw jumping.
I continue. “You want to come at me for making the mayor aware of your history when that history not only concerns this office but the citizens of this town, that’s your choice, but I won’t let the town of Everette suffer because you never learned to hold your temper or treat your fellow officers with the respect due to them.”
I watch as the color drains from Cormac’s face. “Yeah. I know all about the excessive force complaints, the harassment of not only citizens but your fellow female officers. Sure, you left before anything formal could be put in your file, but not before there were notes. You’re insubordinate, and you don’t deserve to protect and serve a county dumpster in my opinion — and it seems the mayor and town council agree with me.”
“And you are?” He spits incredulously. “You’re in a relationship with a fucking accident vic. Moved her into your place the day she got out of the hospital, and you want to preach moral superiority at me? You’re a fucking hypocrite is what you are. I bet you don’t even know that’s her MO.”
My own rage ignites like a thunderclap. “You want to be real careful what you say next.”
“What? You’re telling me that you were too busy investigating me to look into your little girlfriend there? How about the fact that she was dating a cop back in Tulsa and about the time she takes off in that fucking camper, he loses his job and now has a warrant out for his arrest.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I grit out.
“I know that she’s playing you for a fool, and I hope to get front row seats to the show of her breaking your damned heart.” He grins then, a nasty little thing covering his face. “Maybe I’ll show her what a real man is like.”
I’m up and around my desk before I realize what I’m doing. Grabbing Cormac by the collar of his shirt, I shove him against the door. My vision goes red at the thought of this ass clown going anywhere near her. Of being anywhere near her.
“You’re going to stay the fuck away from Maisie and Audra.”
“Or what?” He sneers.
“Or nothing. Because if you don’t, you won’t like the consequences.”
I punctuate the statement with a shove. Dropping my hands from Cormac’s shirt, I pull my office door open. “Now if you’re done being a sore fucking loser, you know where the door is, I have better things to do today than pander to your ego. Get the fuck out.”
Cormac tugs his shirt back into place with a sharp pull. “This isn’t over.” He sneers.
“Yeah it is.” I slam the door shut in his face, done with his petty drama, the election bullshit. All of it.
I have a date with a pretty woman, her adorable daughter and good news to deliver.
Maisie’s pulling the door to Audra’s room closed later that night when I come down the hallway. After a day at the meadow, playing in the creek, Audra barely made it through her dinner before her eyes started to droop.
“She go down okay?” I ask .
Maisie nods, her mouth stretching wide in a yawn. “Out like a light.”
“Come on, Sunshine, let’s get you to bed.”
I twine my fingers with hers and lead her down the hall. We didn’t talk about it much, but I want her to stay again. To be here with me. If I had it my way, she’d be moved out of the apartment over the garage and into my house already, but I don’t want to rush her.
I lead Maisie down the hall where she sleepily brushes her teeth next to me, and then I’m tugging her into bed with me.
The smooth slide of her skin makes my cock kick for more. More of her in my arms, more of her pressed against me, and I drop a kiss to her head, where it’s resting on my chest as I try to push past the lust roaring in my veins.
She’s tired.
Let her sleep.
Her hand trails down my stomach to scratch at the hair leading from my belly to my dick. “Harlan,” she says.
My dick twitches like the eager little fucker he is for her.
If her hand dips a little lower, to hell with sleep.
“Yeah?” My voice is gravel between us.
“What happened with Cormac when I left earlier this morning?”
I trail my fingers up and down her arm, unable to get enough of her under my fingertips, loving that she cares enough to ask about what happened between me and Cormac.
“You sure you want to talk about this now?”
She didn’t bring up the confrontation at all this morning or today after we got up to the meadow, and I didn’t want to ruin the day, so I let it slide .
Guess she wants to talk about it now. Part of me wants to shield her from the conversation. But the whole of me knows that I can’t. I won’t. She’s strong enough for anything, and I won’t keep her in the dark.
“He blustered and talked a lot of shit, but it’s over now.”
“What do you mean, it’s over?”
I scratch a hand through her scalp, her silky hair tickling the palm of my hand.
“I mean that after Cormac’s stunt with the paper, I went on the offensive. He… he wasn’t a good cop down in Boise. After talking to a few buddies that worked with him from the academy, I passed the information they gave me along to the mayor and town council. They didn’t outright say it, but it was heavily implied that he’s no longer going to be an option for the sheriff’s role.”
Maisie leans up on one arm, her gaze finding mine in the dim room. “What information?”
“Sunshine,” I hedge, not wanting to dredge up bad memories for her.
“Harlan. I’m not fragile. Tell me.” There’s steel in her tone.
“There were a few complaints of excessive force and harassment, not only from citizens but from some of his fellow female officers. An investigation was in the process of being launched when he resigned from his position.”
“And he thought that if he moved here, he could become the sheriff with no one the wiser? Idiot.”
I don’t know how to bring up the next part, so I just go with it. “He was also looking into you.” I tighten my hold on her when she stiffens. “You’re safe. I promise. But he tracked you back to Tulsa and found out that you were dating a cop — who’s apparently not a cop anymore.” A righteous sense of justice fills me with telling her. All that power he abused to use against her, and he doesn’t have it anymore.
Her eyes widen and she whispers, “Sean’s not a cop anymore?”
I shake my head, and hating the minuscule space between us, I tug her back down next to me. “No. I don’t know the particulars, but sometime after you left him, he either quit or got fired. But he has a warrant out for his arrest right now for assault.”
“What?”
“When Cormac left, I did a little digging of my own. He got into an altercation with one of his neighbors. The police were called and the neighbor pressed charges. He missed his initial court hearing, which is when the bench warrant was issued.”
I drag my hand up and down her back, pressing into the tense muscles. “If — and it’s a big ‘if’ — he shows up here, I’ll be able to arrest him.”
Maisie’s quiet for a long time. Long enough that I pull back and look at her. “Say something, Sunshine.”
A wry chuckle barks out of her. “He’s not a cop anymore.” There’s so many emotions in the statement.
Relief.
Awe.
Sadness.
Peace.
“What’s going on in your head?”
She shakes her head. “So much. I’m relieved that he’s not a cop anymore. Now he can’t abuse that power to hurt anyone else. It’s a shock though, that someone on his team didn’t cover it up. And…” Her breath hitches. “Grief that I wasn’t as strong as someone else. That I didn’t call the cops, th at I wasn’t strong enough or loud enough to make him stop hurting me until I had no choice but to run.”
“You’re wrong,” I say quietly between us. “You are strong. Strength comes in different forms. You found the courage to get out — to get away, to move forward with your life, to keep Audra safe. That’s strength.”
She nods, still distracted, processing the information.
“Who was it?” she asks.
“The neighbor he assaulted?”
She nods again.
“Wyatt Matthews was the complainant.”
A bark of laughter escapes her.
“What?” I ask, not sure what I’m missing.
“He couldn’t sweep that assault under the rug. Wyatt’s grandpa is the governor of Oklahoma. So his buddies on the police force couldn’t intimidate Wyatt into letting the whole thing go.” Her voice breaks on a shaky sob.
“Sunshine. Tell me what you need.” I hear the raw anguish in her voice, feel it in the way her breath hitches. And I can’t imagine how she feels.
“You,” she whispers. “I just need you.”
I cup her face in my palms and press an achingly soft kiss to her lips. “You’ve got me, Sunshine. You’ve always got me.”
Maisie leans up, her lips catching my own. She throws a leg over my midsection and straddles my lap. My fingers press into her hips, the soft cushion of her pressed against me more of an aphrodisiac than any drug on the market. “Enough about him. Enough about all of it. It’s over. It’s finally over.” The finality counters the relief in her tone, and I nod.
“It’s over. You’re safe. I’ll always keep you safe. ”
She trails her hands down my chest, until her fingers lace with mine. “Be with me? Again. Here. Now?”
Fire roars through my blood. I lean up and catch her mouth with mine as I thread my fingers under her sleep shirt. Fingertips coasting across her skin until I cup the weight of her breast in my palm. Worship in every slide of my thumb across her nipple.
“I love you, Sunshine.” I whisper the words against her lips, unable to keep them to myself anymore. Unable to hold back the last piece of my heart. She crashed into my life. She and her adorable daughter stole my heart with every whispered confession, with every glimpse of strength running through the core of her, with her kindness, her bravery in facing life and doing it on her own terms.
“Har.” A beautiful smile covers her face, and she drops her mouth to mine, sucking on my bottom lip before breaking away. “I love you too.” She whispers the words against my lips and I…
Snap.
The threadbare control I cling to anytime she’s in my arms disintegrates.
I roll, putting her under me, thrusting my erection against her panty-covered core.
“You love me?” I ask on a harsh exhale, astonished.
Astonished that I get this woman for my own. That she’s mine. That I get to love her. That she loves me back.
She gasps at the friction of my cock pressing tight to her and nods.
Dragging my hands up, I pull her shirt off.
“Get naked,” I say and pull back to deal with my own sweatpants. Kicking them to the bottom of the bed, I reach out and snag the panties tangled around her feet to throw them across the room, and finally she’s bare under me. Every inch of her exposed to my hungry gaze. The feminine dip of her hips perfect for my hands. I press kisses along her chest, until I catch a nipple between my lips. Her hands thread through my hair, legs climbing on my waist and tugging me closer until I’m pressed against heaven.
I capture the other peaked nipple in my mouth as my fingers trail down to her center. Sliding my fingers through her folds, I gather her wetness to tease her clit. Her gasps are a symphony of need.
The same need thrums in my veins, and I can’t get close enough to assuage the hunger building in me. I want her here, with me, always. I want decades. Holidays. Celebrations. Struggles. Arguments. Waking up to her every morning. Going to bed together at night. I want it all.
“Har.” The thready plea falls from her lips, and I slip farther into the craze of needing her. Needing Maisie with every beat of my heart.
“I know, Sunshine. I’ve got you.”
I press my fingers to her clit, pinching the nub between my fingers and circling.
“You’re mine.” The harsh declaration punches between us, and I give into her. Into the need to claim her for my own. “You and Audra are mine. I’m yours. I want us to live in my house, I want to cook in my kitchen with you, I want you here...with me,” I bite out. The dare in my voice as heavy as the need I have for her.
Daring her to take the leap and be mine.