Chapter 4 #3
“It’s the other way around,” she hissed in his ear. “Boyce is eager. It’s Lucinda who needs a little convincing.”
“What’re you trying to get her to do? Hand over the chocolate factory to Markstone's?”
“Markstone's will keep local jobs local,” she said in a soothing tone that was too perfectly corporate to be convincing. “Don’t worry. I’m just here for a couple of days to babysit the deal, and Love You, Maine, will be all the better for it.
Markstone's plans to add thirty to forty new full-time jobs. Jobs I’m sure your mayor will be thrilled to have in this dinky little place. What’s the population? A few hundred?”
Luke tipped his hat back an inch or two, exposing eyes that resembled Kell’s. Different color.
Same narrowing.
“Two thousand seven hundred and thirty-three, ma’am,” Luke said, as tightly as Kell had heard him speak to anyone in a while. Not that he’d heard much from his older brother over the last fifteen months.
Not since everything that happened with his wife.
“That many people live here? I’m surprised.”
“It’s a big town. No mayor, either. We have a town manager and a town clerk.”
“Is the population growing?”
“We lost at least two residents last year,” Luke said gruffly, then frowned. Kell winced. “Hold on. I do know you. I never forget a face, and I swear we’ve met.”
Rachel sat back a bit, making Kell’s right thigh scream. “Um, Officer? We’re sitting like this because we’re glued together, and my shoulder is about to separate. Could you kindly let us go to the emergency room and get detached?”
Luke looked at their hands, then at Kell. “You know Colleen’s on shift right now.”
“Yep. All I need is for Den to make a surprise visit, and my humiliation is complete. Want to invite Mom and Dad to come? Maybe stop by Greta’s for some brownies? Grab a bag of popcorn from the cinema?”
A genuine grin stretched across Luke’s face, the first Kell had seen in, oh…
Fifteen months.
He smacked the truck’s door and called out, “Police escort. You can drive as fast as I do.”
As Luke walked back to his cruiser, Kell waited until his brother was in the car. Once Luke passed him, he put the truck in gear and slowly moved forward, ignoring all the catcalls and whistles from gawkers.
“You seem to know each other really well. Friend of yours?”
“You don’t recognize him?”
“Am I supposed to? I’ve never been here.”
It shouldn’t have pained him that Rachel didn’t remember FaceTiming with his brother back in D.C., but it did.
“Never mind.”
The drive behind Luke was slightly less torturous, allowing them to move swiftly through town, though he obeyed stoplights.
“Bless him,” Rachel whispered.
“Who? My brother?”
“That’s your brother?” she gasped. “Oh! Luke and Amber!”
The word Amber made Kell’s chest tighten.
“Just Luke,” he said quietly, but Rachel didn’t pick up on his undertone.
“And their baby! Harriet? How is she? She’d be six by now, right?”
“She’s great.”
The hospital wasn’t that far out of town, and as the signs came into view, he felt Rachel’s body relax.
“Thank you, universe!” she moaned, the sound clearly intended to be relief, but it only served to set all his nerve endings on fire again.
She felt so good. Smelled glorious. Her softness was killing him, even if her tongue was sharp as a fresh ax blade. Pulling into the parking lot was a blessing.
And a curse.
The truck made a grinding sound as he cut the engine, Calamine picking that exact moment to push her nose into Rachel’s belly. With his free hand, he pushed her away, earning a huff.
“How do we do this?” Rachel asked, just as a shadowy figure caught Kell’s eye.
Luke.
Dusk was descending, not enough to obscure people, but just enough to make everything a bit dull. Police officers in town wore red, so he didn’t exactly fade into the background.
“You’re going to need assistance getting out of there. You two are a human pretzel.” Luke’s voice was non-judgmental, as if supergluing themselves together were no more unusual than helping someone with a flat tire.
“I don’t think I can move,” Rachel confessed. “My shoulder is frozen.”
“You’ll have to go first,” he said steadily. “Then Kell.”
Hands on his hips, he craned his neck, looking at their conjoined bodies.
“I need help,” Rachel said.
“No problem. I’m going to place my hands on your shoulder and help you get that right leg out of the truck.
Is that okay?” Luke’s tone changed to what Kell called his work voice to his face, and what the rest of the family called his cop voice behind his back.
It was a neutral, commanding tone that was crystal clear and designed to cut through other people’s emotions.
“Yes.”
One step closer and Luke had his hand on Rachel’s twisted shoulder, which wasn’t quite as twisted now that Kell didn’t have to grip the steering wheel.
“Kell, you lower your glued hand, very slowly, because–what’s your name again?”
“Rachel.”
“Rachel here is going to feel some serious blood flow in that hand in a minute. It’ll be nothing but pins and needles, but we’ll get you standing. Might need to lean against the truck if your feet and knees go weak.”
“Okay.”
Moving his arm was easy, but poor Rachel’s face twisted in pain.
“Hurt that bad?”
“No. I really, really need to pee, and every time I move, it’s agony.”
A sharp inhale from Luke made them both turn.
“Didn’t know that was added to the mix. Got it. Let’s get that right foot out carefully, then,” Luke said, reaching down to guide her foot as she lifted.
Luke’s eyes took in her high-heeled boots, one eyebrow arching, and Kell almost laughed. He knew what his brother was thinking about the utility of those things.
“I can do this,” Rachel said. “You don’t have to help, Officer Luview.”
“If you fall, you’ll rip half the skin off my brother’s hand, and then who do you think will have to climb trees and help our dad?”
“Oh.”
“I may be a public servant, but I’m not that altruistic.”
With that last word, Rachel slid sideways and got her left leg on the truck’s floor, between his, her body pressed hard against his left thigh for just long enough to make her gasp. Friction was a cruel trickster.
Then, in a single jerky step, she was standing on the ground, all her weight off him, their glued-together hands the only parts still touching, his left arm hanging out of the open door.
He felt suddenly cold without her in his lap.
A lap Calamine decided to reclaim.
“Hey there, Cally,” Luke said, giving her a nice rub, good enough for the big cat to start a loud purr.
Rachel began shaking her hand, which was still attached to him.
“It really tingles. Ahhhh! I hate this. Don’t move!”
“I’m not moving.”
“Yes, you are!”
“No,” Kell said, staying still, blinking twice for emphasis. “See?”
“You just moved.”
He lifted their hands up half a foot. “This is moving, Rachel. I wasn’t.”
“You jerk! This is killing me!” Her breath inhaled in hitches, and he realized her hand had fallen asleep.
“How’re your feet?” Luke asked. “You need to sit down?”
At that moment, Rachel’s ankles wobbled, but she squared her jaw and lifted her chin.
“I’m fine, but I need a bathroom desperately. I will not be even more humiliated by peeing in public.”
The darkening sky was a beautiful backdrop as Kell climbed out of his truck, Luke at the ready to steady Rachel, and soon, he was standing next to her, Cally in his seat, likely enjoying the residual warmth.
“Let’s get you inside and figure that all out,” Luke said with an admirably straight face, though Kell knew he was snickering on the inside.
Maybe that’s what made him such a good cop. He could hide it.
Kell, however, failed, laughing as they made their way to the hospital’s front entrance. They were five steps away when Rachel stopped.
“Could we cover our hands with a jacket or something? This is really embarrassing.”
Luke shrugged out of his coat. “Here.” He laid it over their hands.
But as the automatic doors slid open, Kell realized:
Walking into the ER glued to a strange woman and a rubber hose was bad enough.
Being escorted in by a cop, with their hands covered by his jacket, made it look like they were handcuffed to each other and in police custody.
Nadine, the admin at the police station and biggest gossip in town, was going to eat this one up. Poor Luke was going to be interrogated like she was from the FBI.
“Hey, Kell! What’s up? Luke finally arrest you? For what? Pull the wrong poison ivy?” Their cousin, Silver Bilbee, had been an almost-silver towhead all his life, hence the nickname. He cupped his hands over his mouth and whistled. “And who’s the hottie?”
Hottie?
Rachel halted and turned to look at Silver.
“Excuse me?”
He whistled again.
“You wish,” she called out, stomping with determination toward the front desk, half dragging Kell behind her.
“I do wish! That’s what the whistle means!” Silver cracked himself up.
A nuclear bomb went off inside Kell, but before he could tell their cousin to cut it out, Rachel snapped back:
“The whistle means you have the social skills of a slug. Good luck dating anyone other than a phone sex operator, one who charges you by the minute, with pickup lines like that!”
Silver slunk away. This conversation would be all over town in minutes, too. Good for Rachel for giving back what was thrown at her, though. The woman he’d known in D.C. would have stammered and blushed, and later come up with the perfect comeback.
Luke gave Kell an arched-eyebrow look that said, Who the hell is she?
“That was a lot,” Kell said slowly as they waited at the desk.
Rachel nodded. “I know, right? Dude needs to chill. As if catcalling ever got anyone laid.”
Luke’s composure faltered, a choke turning into an attempted cough as cover.
“I mean, Silver’s a jerk, but wow, Rachel. You’ve got a mouth on you,” Kell ventured.
“I’ve got a mouth? What did I say that was inappropriate? He was the one being rude!”
“Nothing. That was a compliment. Good for you for standing up for yourself.”