She tried not to think about him. The two of them had been assigned to work together when she had first been starting out, and she had been so excited. Working with someone like him, someone with his reputation and impressive backlist of cases, she knew she was going to learn so much.
And she did. Because the two of them worked together really well. Or, at least, that was what she’d thought, before reality had slapped her in the face. They would spend most of every day together, driving around and helping out with whatever small cases the people around the town needed them to look at. They got to know each other really well, because how could you not in those circumstances? They understood each other better than anyone else in the world. Even now, knowing what he had done, she still missed him.
She had developed a crush on him, of course. All the time they spent together, combined with his charming personality, made it impossible not to fall for him. At least a little bit. She told herself it would fade with time, but if anything, it had just grown more insistent. She couldn’t deny how she felt about him, and she didn’t want to. No, she wanted to spend even more time with him, get to know him even more deeply than she had. She could tell from the way he looked at her sometimes that the thought had at least crossed his mind, too.
And then he’d betrayed her. Written a scornful report that had landed her being stuck at a desk job across the country for years now. She still didn’t know exactly what he’d put in there, but it had been enough to get her blackballed from her oldposition and moved into a new one she would never in a million years have asked for. Almost in the blink of an eye, too.
The added kicker of it was, he hadn’t even had the guts to face her and do it himself. He’d just turned in the report and called out of work—faking sick—and had someone else do his dirty work. She’d even had a weak moment after the shock of it wore off and tried to contact him, with no response. Not that she had been surprised by then.
Sometimes, she still had a hard time believing it. She had turned it over a thousand times in her head, trying to figure out what had caused him to turn on her the way he had, but she had never been able to figure it out. Either way, that wasn’t the problem now. He was out of her life, and she wanted it to stay that way. Anyone who would stab her in the back the way he had wasn’t the kind of person she wanted in her life.
She focused her gaze on the road ahead, and took the turn at the end of Main Street to take her to the police station. It was going to be so weird, being around all the people she had started out with when she was a rookie cop. She had been so young when she’d first begun her tenure here, just out of training and ready to take on the world. She could still remember the excitement she had felt, how much she had looked forward to every day at work. Her other friends from high school were in college or had started to settle down and raise families, but her career was the only thing she gave a damn about.
She pulled the truck to a halt outside the station, and paused for a moment before she turned off the engine and got out. How would she be greeted? Would they be friendly or skeptical of her being back after all these years? What were they going to say when they saw her again? Of course, they knew she was coming, but seeing her in person was going to be different.
What if they thought she had gone soft from being behind a desk for so long? She hoped they knew that she’d been strugglingthe whole time, wishing she could get back out in the field as she filed endless stacks of paperwork. She had fantasized all day long about getting back out there, about actually making a difference and helping people in the real world again. There might have been cops who were happy behind a desk doing paperwork, and that was fine for them, but that was not her. She wanted more.
She always had.
She climbed out of her truck, strode toward the door, and mustered up all her courage. She wasn’t actually starting work until the next day, but she wanted to check in and see what was happening right now and say hello to whoever was inside. She was looking forward to seeing the people she used to work with again.
She had been invited back to a couple of events around the holidays the first year after she left, but honestly, she couldn’t stand the thought of facing them after the embarrassment of being ousted and forced to ride a desk instead of being out in the field doing real cop work. She knew she was better than that, and she hated even the idea of being seen as some pencil pusher locked away in an office all day long instead of on the streets, working cases and helping others. Living her dream.
But now? It was different. She was back on the beat again. Back out and ready to take on the world. She could hardly wait to see what it had to offer. Pushing open the door, she stepped inside, and was greeted by a round of hellos from the cops she had worked with as a younger woman.
“Wow, Bailey, I can’t believe you actually made it,” Philip Benning exclaimed, jumping up from his desk and hurrying over to her. “Thought you would have been safer behind that desk in Pallas Bay.”
“Safer, but way more bored,” Bailey replied with a chuckle, and she reached to give him a hug. She normally wasn’t ahugger, but seeing these guys again after so long had her feeling sentimental.
Brian Lee, one of the older cops who served as the muscle for the station, emerged from his office and grinned when he saw Bailey standing there.
“You made it back,” he said.
She nodded. “Took me long enough.”
A moment later, Stanley Moore and Jay Ziegler appeared from their offices and came over to greet her, too.
“Good to have you back,” Ziegler told her.
She grinned widely. She couldn’t keep the smile off her face. She was back—she was really, truly, finally back.
“Yeah, good to be here,” she replied. “So, what needs to be done? What cases are you working right now?”
Ziegler laughed. “You’ve only just arrived,” he reminded her. “Take a minute to catch your breath before you dive back into work.”
“I’ve been stuck at a desk for years,” she shot back. “I’ve waited long enough.”
“We’re actually just finishing up for the day,” Lee said. “We were going to head down to the bar. You want to come with? Catch up before you’re back on tomorrow.”
“That sounds great,” she agreed.
She had been on the road all day, and the thought of a cold beer was tempting.
The guys packed up and headed out to their cars and down the street to the bar. Bailey followed in her truck, glancing around as she took in the familiar sights around her. It was going to be a while before she really felt settled here again, but just being back was everything she had been dreaming of these last few years.
Well, almost everything. Maybe it wouldn’t be the same without Aaron. Working with him had been one of the thingsshe loved most about the job. She knew things were going to be different than when she’d worked in Kings Mountain before.
But it was better this way.
