Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 71625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
I wanted to ask her about the spinal stroke, and whether or not she was going to recover, but I didn’t want to overstep my bounds.
She turned and walked into the kitchen, her eyes glancing at the monitor on the table before she sighed and took a seat.
My eyes lit on the woman’s backside, and all my breath stalled in my chest.
She was an older version of the girl. She for sure could’ve passed as her sister.
Hot damn, was she breathtaking.
“My ex-husband, the one I saw you in the store with a few weeks ago?”
Matt Holyfield.
“Yeah.”
“He’s the reason Conleigh is the way she is.” She sighed. “When we split, she just changed. It’s like her light went out, and another one, a darker one, turned on.”
I’d seen that before. It was fairly common amongst youth.
“And what does Matt say about this?”
“Matt doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t talk to us anymore,” she murmured. “Last week at the grocery store was the first time any of us, including the kids, have seen him in well over three months.”
For some reason, an almost irrational amount of anger overcame me.
Matt wasn’t my favorite officer by a long shot. In fact, it was safe to say that he was my least favorite of any of the men or women in my employ.
We weren’t a huge metropolis with a bustling police department, but we had twenty-two officers, and five about to be sworn in straight out of the police academy. Out of all of them, Matt was the one guy who I had never liked.
Not everyone shared my opinion, though. He was well liked amongst the other officers, so I’d just written off my dislike for the man as being an isolated kind of thing.
Apparently, I was right for thinking the way I did.
I didn’t like that Matt didn’t have anything to do with his kids.
Now, I wanted to know why. I was curious by nature, and this would literally kill me if I didn’t know.
Why I needed to know, I wasn’t quite sure. Likely it was due to the girl’s face when I’d caught her red-handed. Or, quite possibly, it was the fact that Winnifred—Winnie—had looked so heartbroken at hearing what her daughter had done.
Then again, it might very well be that I found her attractive as fuck.
No matter what the reason, I was going to find out.
Chapter 4
Pepsi and Coke can’t even be on the same menu together, and you want world peace?
-Steel to a fellow officer
Steel
“It’s your girl again,” the dispatcher said over my cell phone.
I cursed. “You’re joking.”
“Afraid not,” she cooed. “But this one is for disorderly conduct. Not because she was trying to slip something into her coat.”
There was that, at least.
I debated calling Winnie like she’d asked me to do but then decided against it. I’d seen her leave this morning on the way to leave myself. She’d given me a timid wave, and I’d waved back as I’d gotten in my car. Then I watched her struggle to get into her car, wondering idly if she’d thought about trading it in. I immediately dismissed that because if Conleigh was stealing shoes, then I doubted she had the ability to trade her car in on something easier to get into. Then again, if she was stubborn like me, it was likely that she wanted to struggle. She wanted to get better. One day she would get better and then she’d be able to get into her vehicle easily again.
I’d cursed as I’d watched her nearly fall. Then cursed some more when she left and I saw her wiping tears off her face.
So no, I wouldn’t call her. I’d make sure that she heard afterward, but I wouldn’t be bothering her at work.
Which led me to the goddamn mall. The mall where about fifty young kids were gathered in a circle looking at something in the middle of that circle. My guess was that in the middle of that circle would be Conleigh.
I parked as close as I dared, got out, and immediately locked the cruiser. I could just see one of these dumbass kids trying to steal it.
Little fuckers.
I pushed through the throng of young kids. They started to push me back out, but then saw who it was they were pushing. Then they started backing away.
“Sorry,” one kid grumbled. “I didn’t know it was you.”
I snorted.
All the kids in this town knew me. All of them. I was a very visible member of the population. But I was also the president of the Dixie Wardens MC. Not to mention I started neighborhood watches. Did patrols and generally made my presence known by showing my face at all sporting events at the local high school.
“Yeah,” I said. “How about you go home?”
The kid didn’t argue. He just turned around and left.