“I don’t think she wants to be found,” I say, keeping my voice low.
Sadness flickers over Bridget’s face. “You know my lips are sealed. We don’t have to file an official report. Here give me that child. I’ll see if his diaper’s wet.”
Bridget raised three grown men, so I trust her to take care of the child. And she also survived a true asshole of a husband until he went too far. Beaten and bloodied, she took his hunting rifle down and shot him. Self defense, of course.
I return to the patrol car to find Jessica still asleep. God, she must be exhausted.
Bridget would probably take good care of her, too, but Jessica’s stuck with me. Reaching inside I unbuckle her seatbelt and carefully lift her slight weight from the car. Slamming the door shut with my foot, I head inside, carefully not thinking about why I hesitated to wake her, not thinking at all about how good it felt to have a woman in my arms after so long alone.
I carry Jessica through the station and into the single cell. I lay her down on the cot, keeping my eyes averted, as if even a dressed woman on a bed is a sexual tableau.
With her it is.
She’s a beautiful woman—stunning despite her tiredness. Her disarray and shadowed eyes give her a tragic look, stirring something deep inside me, making me want to find a white horse just so I could ride in and save her. It’s goddamned ironic.
I figured out a long time ago that I can’t save anyone.
EIGHT
A great many changes take place in a hundred years. The story of the sleeping princess was almost forgotten. And then one day a prince came upon the castle.
Finn
In my office I lean back in the chair and run a hand over my face. I need a decent night’s sleep. Possibly inside a freezer so that I could get my body back to the cool, unaffected way it had been. And I definitely shouldn’t go back into that jail cell.
Bridget appears at the door, arms crossed. “Where’d you find those two?”
“Out on the road,” I say blandly. “Falling asleep at the wheel. Where’s the baby?”
She gives me a measuring look, but I can’t take offense—whatever weakness she sees in me is real. “I changed his diaper, fed him a bottle that was already prepared and ready. Then tucked him back into his carseat, where he promptly fell asleep. I put him next to her bed.”
I try to act disinterested, casual, as if I ask for favors all the time instead of never. “Can you spend the night here tonight? I imagine they’ll sleep straight through. I’ll come back and take her to her car in the morning.”
One look at her expression tells me I’m screwed. “I am far too old for a sleepover. And you are far too old to run away from a pretty girl.”
“She doesn’t trust men.”
Her eyebrow raises. “Any particular reason for that?”
“Probably more than one. There’s a heart-and-needle tattoo on her finger. She’s affiliated with Luskis. Owned by them, more like, considering how they treat women.”
Bridget blows out a breath. “She didn’t seem so afraid of you when she called. When she got into the back of your car and let you bring her here.”
“Didn’t give her much of a choice.”
“Well, these old bones do not need to sleep in a cot.”
I try another tack, disturbed by the idea of sleeping under the same roof as Jessica. “Usually the boarders we get from the pub are men. It would be better if a woman stayed with her.”
“What are you going to do, have sex with her?”
Oh good, my continued celibacy is an actual joke now. I think it’s funny too, in a way that makes me want to laugh, then smash my head into the wall repeatedly.
I raise an eyebrow that I hope is appropriately stern. “Are you finished?”
She grins. “Finished and heading home. You can watch her. It’s like I told Henry. You bring the puppy home, you clean the piss off the floor.”
“I think she’s potty trained. I’m almost positive about that.”
“Well, you’re going to find out, because I’m leaving. Don’t forget to lock up behind me.”
With a sigh of resignation, I follow her to the back door and waved her off.
She works hard enough that I’m not going to insist on it, even though I’m technically the boss. And I don’t think she needs the money. It’s something she does to get out of the house. There are bad memories there, but she refuses to leave. Says there are too many good ones.
Is that how Jessica feels about Ky? She might be running from the Luskis, but she seems to take incredible care of that little boy. She would have kept going until they were on the other side of the world, but the body can’t last as long as the will.
I find myself checking on them, the baby asleep in his carseat, Jessica curled up in the same position as I left her. The soft fabric of her tank top has shifted slightly, revealing a thin strip of pale skin above her jeans. She’s wearing flip flops, which probably aren’t the most comfortable to sleep in. I should take them off. Should tuck her under the blanket.
That would require touching her, though, if only briefly.
And that’s not a good idea.
So I turn the heat up a few degrees and return to the office.
As Bridget pointed out, I don’t have sex. Not even if a woman comes on to me, which happens more than it should for a man who avoids company. My bad reputation is some kind of draw, no matter what my badge says now. That’s how I recognized the Luskis mark, not even from my experience as sheriff. There had been drugs and women and guns. I broke the law, completely unafraid of the danger it might bring.
In the end it wasn’t my business deals that had ruined everything. Only a random drunk driver. I found no joy in life after that, none in sex or drugs. I cleaned myself up, became a cop and then the sheriff. Women liked that kind of thing, the bad boy who had changed his ways, as if they could be part of my reformation.
Or maybe turn me bad again, as if my blind adherence to the badge is a jail of ice, as if they could free me with a hot body. But the ice isn’t around me, it’s under me, supporting me, and if it cracks, there will be nothing to do but fall back into the biting waters that had claimed me once before.
Even though Jessica’s beautiful and tempting, I’ll avoid her.
Soon, bright and early, she’ll drive away from this town, from me. Not tomorrow morning, like she thinks. I send a couple inquiries out to his old contacts in Tanglewood to figure out exactly who the hell’s after her and where to find him. If that means fighting the criminal underworld I had once been part of, then that’s what I’ll do.
I’m going to protect her, but then she’ll leave.
There’s a twinge of regret inside me, of wondering what could have been, but it’s for the best. I’ll return to my solitary existence, and she’ll find some place new.