“But this is my job. Mynewjob. Maybe I’m off field training, but I’m still on probation for six months. They can fire me fornoreason if they want, and I came into the job with reasons, Franny. I don’t want to give them another one. If I’d been stupid enough to do that about ten feet to the left, it would have been onvideo. And I’d have been out on my ass.”
Well,thatwas a sobering thought.
“I crossed a line. One I can’t afford to cross again.” He said it so…forcefully. Maybe she hadn’t fully realized until right now just howimportanthis job was to him. She knew, just fromwhat she picked up on, that getting on the right side of the law meant something to him, butthisjob in particular wasn’t something he was going to jeopardize.
She could accept that. It was actually very honorable—though she didn’t think he quite saw himself that way. Butshedid. Maybe… Maybe she could find a way to show that to him. Just how far he’d come, if he wasn’t willing to accept it himself.
She desperately wanted to do that. Hedeservedthat. So she smiled at him. “So, hypothetically, when this is all over…assuming you know, I don’t get murdered by some crazed kidnapper in the process, a kiss like that could…repeat itself. Once the job was over?”
ROYAL STILL DIDN’Tknow what had possessed him. Well, he understood theinclination, just not having the control tostopthe actualactingon the inclination.
She just looked… Something about the wet hair and the swollen eye and her smiling at him like she wasfine, when she was a bit pathetic, it undid something in him.
It shouldn’t. It didn’t make sense that it did. And yet he couldn’t seem to rationalize all these…impulses when it came to her away.
He desperately wanted her to be safe and comfortable and happy and… Boy, if he started inserting himself into her life that was not going to lead to any of those things.
He wanted to say so many things. Mainly that there were no hypotheticals about it. The minute it didn’t threaten his job he wanted his mouth on her. Among other things.
But that was the problem.
“I don’t think you understand…” He didn’t know how to articulate that this was ahimissue. She seemed so certain… Saying he didn’t like the kiss when he’d been the damn oneto initiate it. She seemed so sure of herself, but those little uncertainties shone through and just…
She needed someone who… Who wasactuallythe guy he pretended to be.Actuallyhonorable and dedicated to the law, through and through. Not a screwed-up kid from a biker gang trying to make some kind of weird amends to his sister and maybe himself.
“Franny, I’m not agoodguy. I’ve done and seen some…truly awful things.”
She studied him with those big green eyes, all soft and considering, like sheunderstoodhim, but not in the way he wanted her to. In some deeper way he didn’t fully grasp.
“Royal, I think the fact you’ve become a police officer, that you want to do good things in the face of all the bad you were surrounded with is something to be proud of. It’s brave.”
He had no words.Brave.He’d mostly called anybravehe’d demonstrated survival. Because that’s all it really was. Sometimes you had to face fear not because you wanted to, not because you werebrave, but because you wanted to survive.
Franny had probably never consideredsurvivalin her life, and he was glad for that. Glad something awful didn’t weigh on her. He didn’t want it to.
But for a brief, painful moment, he wanted to be asbraveas she thought he was. Instead of just someone who knew how to survive.
Before he could decide what to do with that, orthis, his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket. The readout was the sheriff’s department.
“I better take this,” he said, swiping to answer and stepping away from her. “Deputy Campbell.”
“Campbell. Sheriff here. I’ve just gotten a call from one of the FBI agents who was here. They’ve found Albennie Ward. I don’t have the details yet, but they’re bringing her back to Bent.”
For a moment, Royal was speechless.Found.“What about who took her? The kidnapper?” The woman that had been creeping around that the sheriff didn’t know about?
“Like I said. No details.”
“If we don’t know if the kidnapper has been apprehended…”
“You can keep an eye on Ms. Perkins until we have the details. Once I get more information, we’ll reevaluate your assignment.”
“Yes, sir.” He ended the phone call with the sheriff, looked over at Franny.
“They…found her.”
“She’s okay?” she asked, wide-eyed and hopeful.
“The sheriff doesn’t have details just yet, but she’s alive and on her way back to Bent.” Relief crossed her features and she kind of sagged there against the wall. He wanted to offer support. An arm to hold her up, a body to lean on.
