Page 10 of Worth the Wait

“Me? SWAT.” I love the look on his face. Shock mixed with disbelief. “Wild, huh?”

“You’re serious.”

“As a heart attack. Did entry for ten years, and I’ve been the commander of a team with SFPD for the past five.”

He looks at the beer between his hands and smiles. “Some of the guys took bets after we graduated from the Academy whether you’d stick it out or not.”

“Nice to know my friends are bastard assholes,” I say through a laugh, but know damn well I would have bet against me too. “And?”

“Looks like if I could track down the old crew, I’d be a rich man.” He taps the neck of his beer against mine and takes a long pull before looking back at me. “Fucking SWAT, Rez? Really?”

“Yep. Gotta get my fix of adrenaline somehow.” I take my time looking around the bar, watching to see who’s sitting back, taking note of who’s paying attention that Grant is talking to an outsider in this town where it seems everyone knows everyone. Getting the lay of the land even when I’m not on duty. It seems old habits die hard. “So this is your beloved Sunnyville, huh?”

“Yep. Big but small. Scenic but confining. A place where everyone knows your name...and your business.” He laughs, but I can tell he loves it here. “Told you that you’d make it here one day.”

“Guess it seems you knew all the answers back then. You should have been a fortune teller.”

“No, thanks. I’m good with where life has brought me. What brings you here?”

“I took some time off I had coming.”

“There’s never time off in our world,” he says, and I can see his mind working. I know he’s wondering if I was put on disciplinary leave for something. It’s really none of his fucking business, but the last thing I need is him looking into me.

“Shit went south in a situation I was leading my team on. A dad barricaded with kids. I made the call to breach. Shit went bad before we were able to neutralize him.”

That much is the truth.

“It’s not your fault.”

Malone gets it. What’s in my head. What keeps me up at night. Why I needed to leave the city behind for a little bit.

“Yeah. I know. It doesn’t make it feel any better.” I finish off my beer and shrug away the screaming echoing in my head from their mother as she stood behind the barricades fighting officers to get to her babies. “Just a fucking waste.”

“It always is.” He judges my mood with a nod and a tight smile. “I’m sorry.”

“No need to be.”

“So you took time off to get your head straight?”

“Something like that.” I chuckle and then sigh, because I know I need to give more. “It was either that or I was going to quit so...it was agreed I’d take some time. Besides, my sergeant knew the head of a self-defense academy out here. He needed some instructors and my boss wanted to make sure I didn’t fall off the damn grid. Figured, why not get the hell out of Dodge for a while and do that.”

“Timing is everything.”

“It most definitely is,” I say as Grant points to my beer asking if I want another. I nod.

“Sunnyville Self Defense Class?”

“That would be the one.”

“Bear’s a good guy.”

“You know him?” Small town. Everyone knows everyone.

“Yep. Does that mean you’re going to be hanging around Sunnyville for a bit?”

“Seems like it. He has two instructors out on vacation, so I said I’d fill in.”

“It’s not like you don’t know how to defend yourself.”