He was no longer in the field of executing enemy combatants. He protected civilians. She was both, and he was having adamned hard time determining what to do with her. But she needed to be punished. He just had to figure out the most efficient, most torturous, yet still legal way.
“You have a bad habit of grabbing my shit, Sheriff,” the hellion called out. “Be very careful, because when I do the same, you might lose more than a beignet; maybe you might even lose your job. I won’t warn you again, mind your hands.”
He looked down at said hand. She’d sucked every trace of the sweetness away.
He tried to turn his mind away from the feel of her silky warm mouth, to ignore the burst of arousal that left him both confused and more irritated.
“You all right there, Sheriff?” Ms. Audry called out, full of dry mirth.
“Not g’on lie,” Cutter responded instead. “That was the most action I’ve had in two weeks and I’m just standing close to you.”
“Kinda nasty though,” Derry said. “No offense to you Sheriff, but Ms. Lauren, you don’t know where his fingers been.”
“In her goddamn mouth. His fingers been in her goddamn mouth. Let me get outta here and go say good mornin’ to my wife,” Cutter said, not bothering with shift change. “Later y’all.”
Santiago let him go because he didn’t trust his voice right now, not with his staff watching and waiting for his reaction. Placing his shades back on the bridge of his nose, he grabbed his hat and spoke to Ms. Audrey directly because though she was admin, sometimes her word carried as much weight around here as his did. Somedays maybe more.
“Except for Clyde, I want this building cleared of all non-departmental personnel before I return.”
“So, I’m not under arrest?” the hellion drawled.
“Woman you’ve got your car, and you’ve got your breakfast. After you make your way out of my station it’ll be in your best interest to make your way on out of my town.”
“Duly noted,” she said, reclining back on her mound of pillows and opening her newspaper.
“Do I get to go home if I suck your fingers too, Sheriff?” Clyde called out. “Because I will.”
“Shut up,” Santiago snapped, then turned to Audrey. “I said what I said.”
He left the building without looking back, Roan close behind.
Opening the door of his cruiser, he sat down heavily and gripped the steering wheel.
“We got a body under questionable circumstances, League. You ready for a possible hunt?”
“I’m ready Roan. Let’s go hunting.”
He pulled off, heading back toward home. Calmness descended now that he was out of the station, but the next twenty-four hours would determine if the calmness stayed and a certain outrageous woman left. He didn’t like leaving his fate to chance, but if she was here when he returned…he was probably gonna be sued. And fired.
CHAPTER 5
“Walkme through it again Sherry Lynn,” Santi said, moving toward the front door instead of toward the stairs where Mrs. Willoby fell, or “was pushed by unseen forces,” if Mrs. Willoby’s family members were to be believed. Which he didn’t.
Pushed. Hell, the older woman had probably tripped in all this damn gloom, Santiago thought. He’d been in caverns in Afghanistan brighter than this.
Propping the front door open, he went about opening the front room’s heavy brocade curtains which were a shade lighter than the eggplant purple paint on the walls. Shadows and gloom—not from supernatural forces—continued to hang heavy over the place.
“Why the hell would y’all paint the walls this color, Sherry Lynn? In broad daylight I almost need a damn flashlight to see in here.”
“It’s what Mama wanted, Sheriff,” Sherry Lynn said, adjusting her three-year-old daughter on her hip. “You know when she got a thought in her head there was no changing her mind.”
Farther down the hall, Edgar, another of Ms. Willoby’s seven adult children, stepped from the kitchen.
“And she done gone and got herself killed over that damn stubbornness,” he said, fresh bruises on his face. “Every White family that’s lived in this house since them Moors have died from this damn curse, but did that stop Mama, oh no, not our mama…not until today.”
“It’s the grief Sheriff,” Sherry Lynn said apologetically. “It makes us say heartless things.”
Edgar was just an asshole, and Sherry Lynn knew it.
