“Well, you’re no help,” I grumbled as I scratched behind his ear and tried to decide whether or not I should blow this horror show Popsicle stand.
As much as I wanted to make like the trees and leave, I did have legal repercussions to consider. Technically, I’d done as Hudson had told me. I was here, in work clothes, at eight.
Well, eight-ish. Thanks to my change of heart and outfits.
Thankfully, I’d remembered the area and was able to navigate it easily. Growing up, my family would come out to Emerald Cove Lake every summer for our annual Briggs family vacation. That all stopped around seventh grade. I’d missed that year because Cara had been diagnosed with Leukemia, so I’d spent the entire summer in the hospital with her.
Then the next year, we didn’t go because it was too busy after my parents expanded Briggs Farms. All the years after that something had just always come up. So, I hadn’t been up here in a good decade or so, but from the looks of the area I’d driven past so far, not much had changed.
Reaching past a very content and curled up Romeo, I stretched my arm to the floorboard in front of him where my purse was sitting and pulled out my phone. It was time to bite the bullet and call…dun, dun, dun…Hudson. I’d hesitated initially because I knew that he would just think that I was making excuses. If I called and said that there wasn’t anyone here or that the place was spookier than watching The Shining all alone in my parents’ house when I was ten—which was probably the reason that I hated horror movies to this day—I knew that he would make some condescending remark or worse, threaten me with Judge Patterson again.
But, what choice did I have?
No way was I going to get out and try and find my contact person, whoever they might be. Even with my guard dog at my side, that was not going to happen. And sitting on the outskirts of the property while my imagination ran wild wasn’t exactly fulfilling my community service obligation. Plus, I was basically a sitting duck for whatever evil apparition lurked in the shadows. Or worse, a real life chainsaw killer.
Yeah, it was time to go. First, I needed to let my self-appointed parole officer know that his ward was on the lam. My bail, or whatever he’d bargained with to convince Cruella not to press charges, was about to be revoked. And whatever snarky, rude, or legally threatening response he had to my bailing on this was better than the alternative—death by chainsaw.
I took a deep breath and started scrolling through my contacts until I found Officer Killjoy. A small smile tugged on my mouth at the name I had his number saved under. I’d done it after he’d come to break-up my housewarming party about a year ago because of “noise complaints”—even though we both knew that the only person who had complained was Maggie Drover. She lived one street over and had hated me since I was eight. I’d lied for my oldest brother Sawyer, whom she claimed to still be in love with to this day. I’d told her that he had a girl up in his room so she couldn’t see him, when she and I both knew he didn’t. I just hadn’t liked her and didn’t want my brother to do something gross like kiss her. I also hadn’t let her come in and check for herself. So she’d climbed up the tree and knocked on his second story window.
She was a psycho then and not much had changed in the past fifteen years.
My finger pressed against my screen over the black letters that read Officer Killjoy at the exact moment a loud knock sounded beside me.
I screamed as the phone flew from my grasp. Romeo went ballistic jumping on my lap growling and barking ferociously in an attempt to defend me. My head flew towards the killer on the other side of the window as I frantically tried to reach the gear shift to put the car in reverse, a task made extremely difficult thanks to Romeo straddling the console.
When the information my eyes were seeing finally made it to my brain, I realized that it was not a murderer waiting for me, it was Hudson. And not just any Hudson. Oh, no. It was my favorite version of Hudson Reed.
Hudson Reed in sweats was hot. Hudson Reed in his uniform was scorching. Hudson Reed in jeans and cowboy boots was sizzling. But the Hudson Reed that stood before me now was off the heat-chart explosive.
He had a ball cap on that framed his face like a work of art. He wore a white t-shirt that fit his body as if it had been tailored to his sculpted arms and chest. The faded denim of his jeans were distressed in exactly the right places to highlight just how gifted he was below the belt. And then there was what I considered the pinnacle of sexiness, just enough scruff along his jaw to make my palms itch with the need to touch him.
“You planning on sitting here all day?” His deep voice boomed even through the glass.
Romeo, who apparently recognized Hud from his baritone words, stopped barking and started wagging his tail—or more accurately his entire backend—in excitement. He whined and cried as he began scratching at the door, wanting to get to Hudson.