Buddy.
Buddy.
“Chief, I am not a patient woman,” Monty calls, exiting the car. Tim’s attention whips to her, and his eyes widen. She’s removed her hat, her long hair tumbling over her designer coat, and she really does look like a dream. “Oh, hello.” She strides over, linking her arm through mine and resting her temple against my bicep. “Who are you?”
“More importantly, who are you?” Tim asks. “You didn’t say you had another daughter, Guy.”
I’m about to remove this guy’s spine, when Monty speaks.
“How incredibly rude of you to assume he’s my father. The man doesn’t look a day over forty,” Monty says. “And if you must know, Guy’s been blowing my back doors out for the last few hours. Shagging, as we call it, darling. Maybe you remember what that’s like?” Tim gapes at her, mouth hanging open. “Come on, Chief. Let’s get some snacks to reward me for riding that monster cock of yours.” She promptly spanks me on the ass and gets back into the truck.
I grin. “Nice seeing you, Tim.” He simply blinks at me,and I get into the truck. As I start the engine, I can’t hide my smile. “You’re a bad woman.”
Monty laughs musically. “Oh, you have no idea, Chief.”
The car ride is relatively quiet, with just the radio to fill the silence. I cast glances in Monty’s direction—she’s smiling, watching the scenery go by, her fingers tapping in rhythm against her leg.
After losing Ella to her new identity, I threw myself into work. It offered some kind of normality after losing the person who means the world to me.
But God, I’ve been bored. Endlessly, annoyingly bored. I’ve craved for something, anything, to happen.
Is Monty my answer to that?
“I don’t have an ulterior motive,” she says suddenly, as if reading my mind. I refocus on the road. “I’m in the city visiting a friend. I thought I’d swing by and see you. Ella said you aren’t going to see her and the kids for Christmas.” I grunt in response, and she chuckles. “Grunt all you like, Chief. I’m here now. You can entertain an old friend for an afternoon.”
A friend. Is that what she is?
To me she’s an omen.
And not a good one.
“American supermarketsnever cease to amaze me,” Monty says, strolling beside me, examine the box of cereal in her hand. “Everything is so colorful.”
“Just tea and porridge back home?”
She tuts. “Oh, hardy har.” She places the box back on the shelf. “So, who was the jean-clad guy?”
“A nosy neighbor.” I pause in front of the jellies. Is itacceptable to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on Christmas Day?
“Do we dislike the nosy neighbor?”
I slowly meet her eye. “Don’t even think about it, Monty.”
She gasps. “What are you insinuating? That I’d break into his house in the middle of the night, move his furniture around and allow him to catch me doing it, but before he can say anything, I leave, then when he comes over to accuse me, I hit him over the head with a mallet? He’ll have provoked me verbally on private property over a wild accusation that no one would believe, and I’d be a sobbing, terrified person, just going about my day visiting my good, chief of police friend Guy, forced to defend myself against an intruder. Do you think I’d do that? Is that what you’re saying, Guy?”
I can only stare at her. “There is something wrong with you.”
“Oh, I’m only kidding.” She grins. “I’d probably just seduce him then suffocate him with a pillow and say it was a sex act gone wrong. Should we get wine?” She spins on her heel and wanders away.
I follow her, shaking off the last minute or so for my own peace of mind than anything else. “What do you mean ‘we’? You’re staying at a hotel.”
“You’d really kick me out? How rude.” She stops in front of the wine selection, her tongue between her lips as she eyes the top shelf bottles. “Champagne for Christmas Day?”
“No, you are not staying until Christmas?—”
She snatches two of the most expensive bottles off the shelf. “We can have one each.”
I grip the drinks before she can place them in the cart. “Monty, you are not staying with me.”
