Her words moved me more than any she’d ever spoken. It felt like the perfect time to run up to our room and grab the ring box I’d hidden in my dresser. Then my phone beeped with an incoming text from Adrian, reminding me I had a different type of duty to perform.
“You better grab the cage and head back to the woods before Adrian thinks we’re fucking.” My dick twitched at the thought.
“Maybe I’ll come home for a furious fuck on a Wednesday when Adrian isn’t waiting for me in our woods.”
“So, lunchtime next Wednesday?” she suggested.
“It’s a date, Freckles.”
I kept my goodbye kiss shorter and more innocent than I preferred then hustled back to Adrian. I was prepared for some good-natured ribbing, but instead, all his mirth was directed at our police captain whose vacation wasn’t going according to plan.
“Did you tell him we caught the chicken snatchers?” I asked.
“No way,” Adrian said, shaking his head. “I didn’t want to give him an excuse to cancel his trip and come home early.”
“He and Josh aren’t getting along?” I asked.
“No, they’re doing fine. He was having a great time with Josh until the other guests started arriving for the murder-mystery event they have going on.” Adrian started laughing. “Let’s just say some of the guests have an alternative lifestyle.” He gestured his hand back and forth in a swinging motion. I had no idea what he was trying to say. Swing? Sex Swing? Oh!
“Swingers!”
“Among other things. It sounds like a whole lot of fuckery.”
“Better him than me,” I said.
“Me too. Ready to start transporting these chickens back to their rightful owners?”
“Do we take them back to the station so the owners can identify them?” I asked.
“Nah,” Adrian said, tapping an icon on his phone. “The owners provided pictures of their stolen chickens, so I can easily match them up. These eggs will need to be discarded because there’s no telling how long they’ve been sitting there. You need to be careful handling the chickens and their eggs because of salmonella. Those kids could’ve gotten very sick if they weren’t following proper hygiene.”
I would’ve teased Adrian about having those pictures on his phone if it weren’t so damn handy. We delivered all of the chickens back to their overjoyed owners. All of them heartily accepted the alternative punishment we planned, except for the final stop.
“Come now, Mrs. Blankenbauer,” Adrian said softly. “These are good kids who thought they were saving the chickens from an illegal fighting ring.”
“I want to see them go to jail for the fear and grief they caused me.” She then started telling us about the world she grew up in and how that kind of thievery would never be tolerated under any circumstance. “They must pay.”
“Mrs. Blankenbauer, the county judge is only going to assign community service to kids this young, but it will be cleaning up the little park in the center of town or cleaning sidewalks. As nice as it sounds, wouldn’t it be better for you to personally benefit from their service?”
“Are there limitation to what kind of work they perform?” she asked.
“I suspect their parents will insist there be limitations. I think lawn work, cleaning gutters, and caring for the chickens is fair punishment for the crime.”
“Well, they appear to have taken good are of Jezebel, Betty, and Gloria during their captivity, so I will accept your offer.”
“Thanks, Mrs. B,” Adrian said. “You won’t regret it.”
“If I do, I’m taking it out of your hide, young man,” she told him.
Afterward, we stopped by the Johnsons’ house to speak to Tom and Cyndi, parents of Stephanie, Brian, and Steven Johnson, aka the chicken snatchers. The parents were expecting us and were appalled by their kids’ activities and so grateful they wouldn’t have a juvenile record. They agreed each of their kids should serve a minimum fifty hours of community service. Hell, I was thinking two hours a day for the next two weeks, but who was I to argue with them? We decided two hours a day for four weeks, for a total of fifty-six hours for each of them.
Adrian dropped me off at my truck afterward, and I quickly dialed my parents’ house so I could tell my dad the chicken snatcher sting operation was a success. The phone was answered on the second ring, but not by my mother or father. I would’ve had a hard time telling the two Jack Markhams apart if it weren’t for Dad’s voice sounding weaker after chemo.
“Hello?” Jack asked again. I closed my eyes as a wave of misery and something else washed over me. I finally identified it as longing. The part of me that didn’t hate my brother’s fucking guts ached so much for his absence. Ten years ago, the ratio was nine to one in favor of hate. Slowly, the scale had shifted without me even being aware until I realized there was more longing to reconnect than there was hate in my heart.
“May I speak with Dad, please?” I said when I could find my voice.
Jack sucked in a sharp breath then said, “Sure. I’ll take the phone to him, Elijah.”
