“I did,” he replied, gesturing to the cup of coffee. “I just didn’t say what time.”
“You’re such a fucking asshole.” I pulled on my clothes and shoes as fast as I could. “Damn it.” It didn’t matter that it was still early morning. Some neighborhood busybody would see me leaving his house and the whole goddamned town would be talking. It was probably his motherfucking plan all along.
“I made you coffee,” he said, as if that made up for it.
I took the coffee cup out of his hand and left his room with another “asshole” tossed over my shoulder.
Gabe called out, “You’re not going to give me a goodbye kiss, honey?”
“Fuck you!”
His laughter echoed through his house as I practically stomped out. I couldn’t resist slamming the back door hard enough to rattle the frame. Okay, my exit might’ve been a bit melodramatic, but I was good and pissed.
It turned out that I had every right to be because as soon as I exited his gate, I came face to face with Alyssa from the vet’s office who was out walking her dog. Her eyes were huge as saucers as she looked me up and down, paying close attention to the cup of coffee I had in my hand.
“Good morning, Alyssa.” My mother’s teachings about good manners took over as we stared at one another.
“Hmmm, I imagine it is,” she said cheekily before she continued her walk.
Well, at least one good thing would come of that little episode. Dr. Hot Eyes and Fast Hands would know that Gabe was no longer… Yeah, I put the screeching brakes on that shit! It was one night – okay, technically it was the second. I vowed it would never be repeated again. I didn’t even like that asshole so he was free to fuck whomever he wanted whenever he wanted.
I took a sip of the coffee Gabe made for me as I walked toward my house. Fuck him and his perfect coffee making skills. I glanced down at the coffee cup and realized exactly what held Alyssa’s attention. There was a pair of handcuffs on the mug beside the words:Some like it cuffed.I was certain his choice of mug ware for me to take home wasn’t accidental.
“Asshole,” I muttered, but it was missing some of the venom from earlier.
ISHOULDN’T HAVE LAUGHEDat Josh’s reaction, but I couldn’t help myself. It was a much better alternative than the disappointment I felt when he was unhappy to wake up in my bed the next morning. Besides, the myriad of emotions that crossed his face was pretty damn funny. First, there was the adorable look of sleepy disorientation as he tried to figure out where he was and what the hell I was doing there. He blinked in confusion as he took in my wardrobe. Then there was a brief but definite look of pure bliss as he saw that I had a cup of coffee prepared for him. Finally, he must have seen the early morning daybreak trying to creep in between the cracks in my curtains because his eyes got as round as saucers.
He flung himself from my bed and moved about my room like a whirling dervish as he quickly got dressed, grumbling beneath his breath the whole time. It sounded like he was cursing me, the day I was born, and every one of my living blood relatives on planet earth. His hair was sticking up every place and he put his pants on inside out. Somehow, I didn’t start laughing until after he snatched his cup of coffee out of my hand and stomped out of my room like an angry toddler.
He sure clung to me in his sleep for someone who professed not to like me much. Neither Kyle nor I had been snugglers in our relationship, but then again it wasn’t often we slept at the same time until we moved to Blissville. It hadn’t been my intention to have Josh stay the entire night, but I didn’t want to turn loose of him once I had him in my arms. The body heat we generated between the two of us was hot enough to wake me up a few times in the night, but I held on tighter instead of pulling away.
I didn’t bother examining the reasons or look for a deeper meaning because it didn’t matter. Simply put, Josh Roman just did it for me. End of story. The problem was Iwasn’tsure we liked one another beyond the physical attraction we both clearly felt. It wouldn’t have mattered to me ten years ago, I would’ve just enjoyed the ride and walked away when it was over. I felt differently about a lot of things at age thirty-five though. Starting something with Josh, that I knew would end badly, wasn’t a good idea, especially living in a small town where we’d run into one another. Hell, I had that with Kyle and was fortunate enough that neither of us had bad feelings towards each other.
I would’ve made Josh breakfast had he bothered to stick around, but instead I found myself making an omelet and toast for one. I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d ever have the chance to cook him breakfast after a night of sex or would he always run off. I didn’t doubt that there’d be another time, because I instinctively knew we would find ourselves naked in each other’s arms again. It was what came after that had me puzzled.
I pushed all thoughts of Josh away and focused on getting Buddy set for the day. He had adapted to our morning routine really quickly and I was ready to give him a shot at roaming the entire house, but not until he got over his disappointment at being shut out of my bedroom the night before. I had a pissed off… Josh – for lack of knowing what to call him – and a pouting dog to contend with that morning. I hoped the rest of my day held less drama.
Adrian beat me to the station that morning and was at his desk when I walked in. His shrewd eyes looked me up and down before a knowing grin split his face. “You look… different,” he said, pretending to puzzle over the changes. “Is that a new tie?”
“No,” I replied calmly, refusing to take his bait. “I wear this about once a week. You know, maybe I should talk to the captain about getting a new partner since my current one isn’t as observant as he used to be.”
“Oh, I’m plenty observant, all right,” Adrian disputed. “I’m observing that you look a lot more relaxed than you did yesterday. You must have had one hell of a night’s sleep.”
“Sure did,” I said, sitting down at my desk and powering up my computer. “Good breakfast too.”
“Yeah, I bet…”
Adrian wasn’t able to finish his sentence because Officer Dooley stopped by our desks and said, “The captain wants to see you guys.”
“I wonder what that’s about?” I asked Adrian.
“I guess we’ll find out,” he responded as he rose from his chair.
Captain Shawn Reardon was a no nonsense man in his late forties whose discipline was evident in the way he presented himself to the world. He walked tall, spoke precisely and said only what needed to be said, and ran our precinct like a well-oiled machine. Men respected him, ladies lusted after him, and he didn’t seem to care about either. In fact, he cared about one thing and one thing only – justice. He didn’t bat an eye when we told him what we had learned from Mrs. Honeycutt and informed him that we wanted to question the mayor.
“You don’t need my permission to follow leads,” he had told us. So, I wondered what new development happened that would prompt him to call us into his office. I suspected it had something to do with the case, specifically the mayor.
“I received a call from a man claiming to be the mayor’s attorney,” Captain Reardon told us once were in his office. He sat back in his chair with his hands steepled in front of his chest. “He wanted to know why we wanted to speak to his client and I refused to go into details over the phone with a man from Dayton that I had never met before. I expressed to him my extreme disappointment that he would think me so stupid.” A lot of people made the mistake of treating small town Americans as if they were backwards or stupid. “After I set him straight, he informed me that both he and his client will grace our presence tomorrow morning at nine.”
