Chapter Ten
Whiskey
Moving a kidnapped deputy into my house feels like the kind of decision a man ought to sleep on.
I don’t.
Mostly because sleeping requires peace, good judgment, and a reasonable expectation nobody’s gonna kick in the door before breakfast.
Ain’t got any of those.
Twila spent the night on Mama’s old sectional, uncuffed, the basement door unlocked and every chance to leave, while I spent mine in a chair across from her pretending it didn’t matter that she stayed.
Twila follows me out of Mama’s house under her own power this time. No cuffs, no chain, no kicking. That should make me feel better.
It don’t.
She walks three steps behind me.
Could’ve.
Didn’t.
I still ain’t decided what the fuck to do with that.
“Your security really does suck.”
“My security wasn’t designed for blonde deputies weaponizing their tits.”
She stops beside my Harley. Prospect dropped it off. “My tits had nothing to do with it.”
“Bullshit.”
“I picked your pocket.”
“While sitting on my dick.”
Color touches her cheeks. “That was tactical.”
“Sure was.”
“Shut up.” I grin and hold out the spare helmet.
Twila stares at it, then at me. “No.”
“Get on.”
“I have a vehicle.”
“Back at Pearly Gates.”
“My department has vehicles.”
“Also ain’t taking you there.”
“I’m not riding bitch.”
“Then walk.”
She looks down the empty county road, where afternoon heat shimmers above the pavement, then back at the bike.
“Fuck you.”
“Already discussed that.”
“Keep talking, Whiskey.”
“Keep threatening.”
She jerks the helmet from my hand. “Where are we going?”
“My place.”
That gets her attention.
“Your house?”
“Yeah.”
“Where Wren lives.”
My hand stops on my own helmet strap.
I don’t like how quickly she says my daughter’s name. Not because Twila did anything wrong. Because Wren and Twila have lived in two different boxes inside my head since this shit started.
One safe. One dangerous.
Putting them beneath the same roof feels like storing gasoline next to fireworks because you got bored.
“Wren ain’t there.”
“She’s with your mom.”
“School.”
“Then she’ll be back. Why your house?”
“Mama wants her house back. She’ll bring Wren here after school.”
The teasing leaves Twila’s face. “You think somebody looking for me?”
“I think somebody knows enough that I’m done taking chances with Mama’s address.”
“You could take me to my father.”
“Nope.”
“You almost sound reasonable, then remember you’re a criminal.”
“Consistency matters.”
She shoves the helmet on, catches half her blonde hair beneath the strap, and curses.
I reach toward her automatically. “Hold still.”
“I can do it.”
“I can see that.”
She swats my hand.
I catch hers.
Her eyes lift to mine, and for one beat neither of us moves.
Same heat as Mama’s basement. Same damn problem.
Then she pulls her hand free. “Quit touching me.”
“You climbed into my lap last night.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“I had a plan.”
“And afterward?”
She glares.
I smile. “That’s what I thought.”
I climb onto the Harley. “Get on, Deputy.”
She pauses, then swings one long leg over the seat.
Her thighs close around me.
Fuck.
I stare straight ahead.
“Problem?” she asks.
“Nope.”
Her arms wrap around my waist.
“Sounded like one.” Her laugh vibrates against my back, and I’m getting too damn comfortable with that sound.
I start the Harley.
The ride home should take ten minutes.
I make it in fifteen, and it ain’t because I’m slow.
Twila’s body stays fitted to my back, her hands locked over my stomach.
Every time I lean us through a curve, her thighs tighten around me and the inside of her knees press harder against my hips.
Every squeeze pulls her tighter against my back, and my dick apparently doesn’t give a fuck that I’m trying to operate a motorcycle.
If she shifts those hips one more goddamn inch, I’m gonna have to pull over just to remember how breathing works.
Nobody needs fifteen minutes of that unless they’re headed somewhere with a locked bedroom.
Which, unfortunately, I am.
My driveway comes into view beneath the trees. Wren’s pink bicycle still lies where she abandoned it beside the front walk, one handlebar turned toward the grass.
Twila notices.
I feel the change in the way she sits behind me before I even kill the engine. Less teasing. More attention.
I park beneath the carport, and she swings off before I do.
When she removes the helmet, her hair falls everywhere.
My brain immediately supplies the memory of her hands tangled in my hair while she kissed me in Mama’s basement.
“Quit.”
She frowns. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You said quit.”
“Talking to myself.”
“That seems healthy.”
“Been a rough day.”
“For you?”
I look at her.
She gives me the sweetest fake smile I’ve ever seen.
“Right.”
I unlock the front door, step inside first out of habit, scan the room, then move aside so Twila can enter.
She makes it three feet before stopping.
I know what she sees.
Shoes are lined beneath the bench by the wall, one pair mine and three pairs Wren’s because apparently a seven-year-old needs pink footwear stationed like emergency equipment.
Her purple backpack hangs from a hook beside mine, one strap twisted around itself.
A school calendar is held to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a cheeseburger, and beside it is a drawing of me on a motorcycle with Wren standing next to me and Glamaw rendered twice our size for reasons I’ve never understood.
Twila walks toward the refrigerator.
“That’s you?”
“The beard gave it away?”
“You look like Bigfoot.”
“Artist took liberties.”
“She made herself taller than the bike.”
“Confidence.”
Twila smiles, then notices Wren’s school picture clipped beneath the lunch calendar.
My girl is grinning with one front tooth missing and her hair crooked because she refused to let me redo the ponytail that morning.
Twila’s face softens.
“She’s cute.”
“Yeah.”
“Looks like you.”
“Poor kid.”
“You’re fishing.”
“For what?”
“A compliment.”
“Ain’t that desperate.”
She turns and takes in the rest of the house.
It ain’t fancy. I keep it clean because I’ve got a kid, and comfortable because Wren has spent years turning every room into proof she lives here.
Crayons share the junk drawer with batteries and spare screws.
Hair ties collect around the bathroom faucet faster than I can throw them away.
Two dolls are permanently lost beneath the couch, and a cardboard castle takes up half the living room because Wren informed me it is permanent, and I apparently don’t own enough authority to overrule zoning decisions.
Twila sees all of it.
And I hate that I care what she thinks. “What?”
“Not what I expected for a biker.”
“You expected skulls?” I ask.
“Maybe.”
“Drug lab?”
“Little.”
“Women chained to radiators?”
She gives me a look.
“That joke ain’t as funny as you think.”
“Chained?” I toss my keys into the bowl beside the door.
Her eyes follow them.
I point at her. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t move.”
“You thought about it.”
“I think about lots of things.”
“Know that too.”
Her eyes narrow, but before she can fire back, tires crunch over gravel outside.
Twila’s head turns toward the window at the same instant my hand moves toward the pistol beneath my cut.
Wrong engine. Not Mama. A county cruiser rolls into my driveway.
Shit.
“Bedroom.”
Twila looks at me. “What?”
“Your daddy’s here.”
The color leaves her face. The cruiser stops, and Sheriff Amos Dix gets out. Twila moves toward the front window.
I catch her wrist. She looks down at my hand. Then up at me.
And I hear myself. Another command. Another hand around her. Another choice I’m trying to make because I’m scared of what happens if she makes the wrong one.
I release her immediately and step completely away from the door.
“You can walk out that door.”
Her eyes snap to mine.
I mean it.
Whatever else I’ve done, this one has to be hers.
“Go to him,” I say quietly. “I ain’t stopping you. All this ends. I’ll keep looking into Pearly Gates on my own, and you can keep digging with your daddy.”
A knock slams into the door hard enough to rattle the frame.
Not really a knock.
Sheriff announcement.
Twila looks toward it.
“Whiskey.”
Another pounding shakes the door.
“Weller!”
It’s her daddy. Something passes across Twila’s face. Not fear. Recognition. Home. Safety. Everything Amos Dix is supposed to mean to her.
“Go,” I tell her.
She doesn’t.
My heart starts doing something stupid.
“Twila.”
“Where?”
“What?”
“If I don’t.”
For a second, I just look at her.
Then I understand.
“Bedroom. End of the hall.”
Her fingers flex at her sides before she turns away. She doesn’t run or hesitate. She walks down the hall and shuts my bedroom door behind her.
I stand there wondering what the fuck just happened until Amos pounds again.
“Open the goddamn door!”
I do.
Sheriff Dix looks like he hasn’t slept since his daughter disappeared. His hair is uncombed, his shirt wrinkled, and his eyes bloodshot above deep shadows. His service weapon rides at his hip even though the rest of him looks thrown together, and his gaze goes immediately past me into the house.
“Where is she?”
“Morning to you too.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Weller.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
His hand curls into a fist.
“You were seen near old Pearly Gates.”
“Lots of people go out there.”
“My daughter’s patrol unit was found abandoned there.”
That’s news I need to fake a reaction to. She drove it there before I threw her into Bullet’s van. Still, hearing Amos say it makes the consequences feel more official.
His thumb rubs along the edge of his gun belt like he needs something solid beneath his hand.
“You know what ain’t been found?”
“Guessing your patience.”
“Twila.”
Her name cracks through him. He ain’t just Sheriff. He’s her father.
“She’s missing?”
His eyes search my face. “You touch her?”
I almost laugh. Bad idea.
Don’t.
“Depends what you mean.”
His hand moves toward his belt.
I straighten. “Easy.”
“You put one fucking hand on my daughter…”
“What? You’ll arrest me?”
“I’ll forget the cuffs.”
Now I know exactly where Twila gets it.