Chapter 2
The driver’s door opened smoothly, and my heart—my damn, traitorous bitch of a heart—skipped a beat as a long denim-clad leg appeared, along with flip-flops with a tan leather thong. Why did I have to have a thing for guys who were ballsy enough to wear flip-flops, because, oh dear, I really did think that was entirely sexy paired with faded jeans. Another leg appeared, and the door blocked the torso for a moment—only a second. The door closed, and I got an eyeful of a worn Metallica shirt that did very little to hide a well-defined, totally yummy-in-my-tummy six-pack. The shirt was practically mating with his stomach, clinging to each ripple. It was doing the same to his biceps, essentially taunting me.
That was it. The shirt was being a spiteful man-bitch.
I dragged my gaze up over broad shoulders—the kind of shoulders that could bear the brunt of the weight of the world, and had—to his face. He was rocking some sexy black sunglasses, looking damn good doing so.
God, Reece looked great in casual clothes, panties-on-fire hot when he was wearing his police uniform, and when he was naked, he could seriously induce a visual orgasm.
And I’d seen him naked. Well, sort of. Okay, totally saw his goods, and they were goodie-gumdrops kind of good.
Reece was classically handsome, the kind of guy with the bone structure that had my fingers itching to sketch—angular cheekbones, full lips, and an honest-to-God jawline that could cut cheesecakes all day long. And he was a cop, serving and protecting, and there was just something entirely badass hot about that.
Unfortunately, I also hated him, absolutely loathed him. Ah, well, most of the time. Sometimes. Pretty much whenever I gazed upon his perfection and started lusting after him. Yeah, that’s when I hated him.
My girlie parts were feeling that vibe right now, meaning in this moment, I disliked him. So as I tightened my hand on the tote bag I carried, I popped out a hip like I’d seen Katie, a . . . well, odd friend of mine, do when she was about to deliver a verbal smackdown.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, and then promptly shivered—shivered in the hundred-degree temperature, because I hadn’t spoken to Reece in over eleven months. Well, not counting the words Fuck off, because I’d probably said that to him, oh, about four hundred times in the last eleven months, but whatever.
Dark brows shot up over the frame of the sunglasses. A moment passed and then he chuckled, as if what I said was the most amusing thing ever. “How about you actually say hi to me first?”
Curse words would’ve flown from my tongue like birds migrating south for winter if he hadn’t caught me off guard. I’d asked a totally valid question. From what I knew, Reece never, in the six years I’d been seeing Charlie, had visited the facility, but a smidgen of guilt bloomed and my momma raised me better than this. I forced out a “Hi.”
He pursed well-formed lips and said nothing.
My eyes narrowed from behind my sunglasses. “Hello . . . Officer Anders?”
A moment passed as he cocked his head to the side. “I’m not on duty, Roxy.”
Oh man, the way he said my name. Roxy. How he curled his tongue around the R. I had no idea how, but it made me all squishy in areas that so did not need the squishiness.
When he didn’t say anything else though, I was close to punching myself in the girlie areas, because he was seriously going to make me do this. “Hello . . .” I drew the word out. “Reece.”
Those lips curved up at the corners, a smile that said he was proud and he should be. Me saying his name at this point was a major accomplishment on his part, and if I had a reward cookie for him, I’d shove it right in his face. “Was that so hard?” he asked.
“Yes. It was hard,” I told him. “It blackened a part of my soul.”
A laugh erupted from him, which surprised the hell out of me. “Your soul is all rainbows and puppy dog tails, babe.”
I snorted. “My soul is deep and dark and full of other infinite meaningless things.”
“Meaningless things?” he repeated with another deep laugh as he reached up and scrubbed his fingers through his dark brown hair. It was cropped close on the sides, but a little longer on top than most cops had. “Well, if that’s the truth, it hasn’t always been that way.” The easy, somewhat—okay, totally— charming grin eased off his mouth and his lips formed a flat line. “Yeah, it wasn’t always like that.”
The next breath hitched in my throat. Reece and I . . . we’d known each other for a long time. When I’d been a freshman in high school, he’d been a junior, and even back then he’d been everything a girl could obsess over, and I’d crushed on him hard. Like, I had drawn hearts with his name in the center, my earliest and lamest doodles, across my notebook and treasured every time he’d smiled at me or looked in my direction. I’d been way too young and didn’t run in his circles, but he’d always been kind to me.
Probably had to do with the fact that he and his older brother, along with his parents, had moved into the house next door to my childhood home.
Anyway, he’d always been good to me and to Charlie, and when he’d left to join the Marines at eighteen, I’d been heartbroken, utterly devastated, because I’d convinced myself we’d get married and populate the world with lots of babies. Those years he was gone had been hard, and I’d never forget the day Mom had called me to tell me he was injured while at war. My heart had stopped and it took a long time for that suffocating ball of dread to lift, even after we were assured that he’d be okay. When he finally came home, I was old enough not to be considered jailbait and we’d actually become friends. Close, good friends. I’d been there for him during the worse moments of his life. Those terrible nights he’d drunk himself into a stupor or become so moody he was like a caged lion ready to bite the hand off anyone who approached him—anyone except me. But then one night with too much whiskey had ruined everything.
I’d spent years infatuated with him, always believing he was unobtainable, and no matter what had transpired between us that night, he would still never be mine.
Frustrated with where my thoughts had gone, I resisted the urge to chuck my tote at him. “Why in the world are we talking about my soul?”
One broad shoulder rose. “You brought it up.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but he was right, I had and that was kind of weird. A fine sheen of sweat had broken out across my forehead. “Why are you here?”
Two steps and his long legs ate up the distance between us. My toes curled against my sandals as I forced myself not to whirl around and scurry away. Reece was tall, coming in around six feet and three inches, and I was an unofficial member of the Lollipop Guild. His size was a wee bit intimidating, also a tiny bit sexy. “It’s about Henry Williams.”
In a split second, I forgot about the messy history Reece and I shared and the current shininess of my soul as I stared up at him. “What?”
“He’s out of jail, Roxy.”
The sweat turned to sleet on my skin. “I . . . I know he is. He’s been out for a couple of months. I kept up with the parole hearings. I—”
“I know,” he said quietly, intensely, and my stomach dropped to the ground. “You didn’t go to his last parole hearing, when he was released.”
That was a statement, more than a question, but I still shook my head. I’d gone to the one before that, but had been barely able to stomach the sight of Henry Williams. And from how the talk was cycling around, there had been a good chance he’d be released at the next hearing and low and behold, he had been. Rumor had it that Henry found God or something like that while in prison. Good for him.
But it didn’t change what he’d done.
Reece took off his sunglasses and startling blue eyes met mine. “I went to the hearing.”
Surprised, I took a step back. My mouth opened, but there were no words. I hadn’t known that—hadn’t even crossed my mind that he would do that or even why he would.
His gaze remained latched to mine. “During the hearing, he asked to—”
“No,” I said, almost shouted. “I know what he wanted. I heard what he wanted to do if he got out, and no. No times a billion. No. And the court can’t give that kind of permission anyway.”
Reece’s expression softened and something—something close to pity filled those eyes. “I know, but sweetheart, you also know you don’t have any say over it either.” There was a pause. “He wants to make amends, Roxy.”
My free hand tightened into a fist as helplessness rose like a swarm of bees inside me. “He can’t make amends for what he did.”
“I agree.”