Chapter 2

I’ve had my patience tested. I’m negative.

-Steel’s secret thoughts

Steel

“Big Papa, seriously.” Aaron growled. “This isn’t going to work.”

I rolled my eyes and walked away, leaving him to argue with himself.

He’d already given me his best argument, and I wasn’t listening to the rest of the shit excuses he gave me.

I did not, under any circumstances, want to deal with that woman’s shit today. So yes, I was ignoring her phone calls. I was also avoiding her.

But she was seriously fucking annoying, and I couldn’t deal.

My phone rang, and I glanced at the screen, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw my son’s name pop up instead of my ex’s.

“Hey, boy,” I said.

“Hey, Dad,” Sean greeted. “Did you know that your ex is now calling my phone?”

I growled under my breath. “How does she even have your phone number?”

I knew for certain I hadn’t given it to her.

“Don’t know. But she calls and wakes up the baby again, I might very well have to contain my wife.”

I chuckled under my breath, my eyes automatically scanning the gas station around me as I backed into a corner to take the call.

My eyes lit on a young girl, maybe sixteen or seventeen, who was browsing the aisle of crap that every gas station had. Earphones, air fresheners, tiny travel packs of Tylenol and ibuprofen. Things of that nature that you might need on a road trip.

Though, this one also had a little bit more than most since the station was one of those super ones that the truckers all used right off the interstate.

“I’m sorry, Sean. I don’t know why Lizzibeth is calling. I’ve already spoken with her today and told her to stop calling everyone. I’ll take her call again tonight when I’m off shift and figure it out. In the meantime, just keep doing what you’re doing.”

Sean grunted. “I will.”

Then he hung up.

I shoved the phone into my pocket, continuing to keep my eyes on the girl.

Where I was, partially covered by a stack of Bud Light, meant that only my eyes and the top of my head were visible. Which had to be the reason why the girl, when she glanced around, didn’t see me. Otherwise, I knew that she wouldn’t have shoved two pairs of earphones into her jacket and then started to walk out the door.

I sighed and followed her out, gesturing to Aaron that I’d be outside.

He nodded his head and continued perusing the hotdogs rolling on the warmer.

“Hey, kid.”

She looked up, startled to see me, and then her face fell.

She looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her. It’d come back to me once she told me her name. I knew it.

“Let me have them.” I gestured with my hand.

She looked down, then she pulled the earbuds out of the pocket of her jacket and placed them in the palm of my hand.

“Why did you steal these?”

She grimaced. “Because I needed them.”

“You needed them so bad that you had to steal them?”

She looked away.

I knew she wasn’t going to tell me why. Most of these teenagers didn’t have a single bone in their body that gave them even a little bit of self-preservation.

“What’s your name?”

She didn’t hesitate to answer. “Conleigh.”

The name didn’t sound familiar, which surprised me. I knew nearly everyone in this town.

“Where do you live?”

“Off Mimosa.”

My street.

“Let’s go,” I said to the girl.

“But my ride…”

“Your car can stay here until I speak with your parents.”

The girl didn’t say anything as I escorted her to my cruiser.

I could tell that she was worried.

She should be.

A police officer had just caught her stealing shit from a gas station.

But, if she hadn’t truly looked terrified and repentant for stealing the earphones, then I would’ve booked her just because I could. Kids these days were getting worse and worse, and I wanted to make sure that she got herself straight now rather than being forced to do it the hard way later.

After depositing her in my cruiser, I went back inside and put the earphones on the counter.

“Let me get these.”

“That all?” Patty, who was behind the counter today, asked.

I nodded.

She rang them up and said, “Seven dollars.”

I handed her a ten, got my change, then gestured to Aaron who was still in front of the hot dogs. “Just get the boudin.”

Then I left, leaving him to his own devices—and meat selection.

Once in my car, I made my way to my street—also her street—and asked for more specific information.

She directed me to the house that was directly across from mine.

Shit.

I knew who lived there.

I hadn’t seen her—or her kids apparently—much, but I knew.

Winnifred Holyfield, Matt Holyfield’s ex-wife. Matt Holyfield, a cop in my station. Fuck.

This kid’s dad was a fucking cop. One of my fucking cops.

Goddammit.

I pulled into her driveway without another word, then got out.

Once I opened her door, I walked with her up to the front door and knocked before she could walk straight in.

There was some shuffling, and then the door opened.

Winnifred’s eyes went to me, then to her daughter, and then back.

While she was busy checking me out, I was busy trying to remember how to breathe. Goddamn, but she was beautiful. She could’ve passed for the troublemaker’s big sister, even though I knew she was her mom.

Her face fell in the interim.

“Conleigh,” she whispered.

That’s when Conleigh broke down.

“I just wanted some headphones that I didn’t have to share with all the other poor kids.” She burst out into explosive sobs. “Everyone makes fun of me!”

Winnifred’s eyes closed, and her own tears started to fall.

And that was when I realized that there was much more to this situation than met the eye.

“Come in,” she pulled the door open wide, and then stepped back.

My eyes went to the walker that was helping Winnifred walk, and I was suddenly very confused.

Last week, she hadn’t been using a walker. Hell, she hadn’t looked anything but in control of her faculties.

But she had been leaning quite heavily on that shopping cart, I told myself.

She’d also glared rather glacially at her ex-husband like he was the worst of scum.

Which had me confused, too.

Matt had told everyone she’d left him. I’d only assumed that it was due to something in their relationship, but now I had a whole lot of questions running through my mind.

The most important of which being: Who left who?

Because this woman in front of me didn’t look like she would leave her husband. Not with a young kid who looked to be about four or five and a sixteen-year-old. Not when she couldn’t afford to make it on her own…which reminded me of a promise that I’d made to a friend a couple of months back.

Her name was Krisney, and she’d bought this house.

After moving back home following her parents’ deaths, she’d asked me to help keep an eye on it.

I had…peripherally.

Now I wondered if it wasn’t the house that I was supposed to keep an eye on, but its occupants.

“Conleigh, head to your room, please,” Winnifred said tiredly.

I waited until she was down the hall with the door closed before I turned my eyes to the mother.

“Thank you for bringing her home,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

I studied the tired woman. “What’s going on that she can’t afford headphones?”

Then I placed the headphones on the table with the receipt.

Winnifred swallowed.

Why really wasn’t any of my business, but when a teenage kid—one belonging to a cop at that—made the decision to steal, I kinda wanted to know why.

And she wasn’t an exception.

Technically, she didn’t have to tell me anything. Then again, I could’ve just as easily taken the kid to jail rather than to her mother’s.

“Winnifred…”

“Winnie,” she corrected, then sighed. “As for why, well…that’s a long story.”

“I’m more than up to hearing it.”

And I was, too. I really, really wanted to know, although I really wasn’t sure why the hell that was.

Winnie looked down at her hands and then sighed. “I don’t have time. I have to be at work in a few minutes.” She looked torn. “And…” she shook her head, looking sick to her stomach. “I’m sorry.”

The tears in her eyes were what convinced me to let her go and not push her, so I did.

I tipped my hat—a simple black ball cap that said ‘MPD’ on it—and turned to walk away.

I did notice, however, that she watched me go the entire way.

I walked down the badly-in-need-of-a-mow front lawn, and straight to my cruiser in the driveway, not once turning around. I was damn proud of myself.

It was soft, sweet women like her, with their hearts in their eyes, that were the most trouble. I, too, had a soft spot…one that was hell when you were also a cop. One that had always been there, and always would be there, thanks to one particular girl—one just like the trouble-making Conleigh—whom I’d met during one of my first weeks on the job. One who was, I thought, just a pain in the ass. One who, weeks after I tried to set her straight, was killed by her father because I had brought her home drunk.

Shaking off my morose thoughts, I opened the door to my cruiser and got in.

Once I was settled, I called Fender.

“Yo,” he answered.

“You know the neighbor across the street from me?”

“The one with the two kids?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “Those.”

“A little, why?”

“Her husband—ex-husband—is Matt Holyfield from work. Do you know what happened to her? The last time I saw her, she was running fucking marathons.”

And she had been. Winnie Holyfield had been a goddamn record breaker. She ran marathons all over the world before she’d gotten married to Matt. It’d been a big deal when she’d lined up for a ten-kilometer race in a benefit for the president of our motorcycle club, the Dixie Wardens, better known as the Dixie Warden Rejects.

Stone had died unexpectedly, and to help cover funeral expenses for his wife, the town had held a ten-kilometer race. Winnie Holyfield had shown up, and she hadn’t been alone. She’d brought a ton of her friends. Her tons of friends who had told their tons of friends, and then suddenly, our little ten-kilometer race had turned into a fucking benefit the size of which I’d never seen.

The ten-kilometer race had turned into a half-marathon from there, and it’d gotten a ton of media coverage. And when I say a ton, I mean a fucking ton. The race had more than covered funeral expenses for our president. His wife, Mei, hadn’t had to shell out a single dime.

Not that she was going to anyway.

I had planned to pay for it. All of it.

But I hadn’t needed to thanks to her.

Winnie.

Fender made a sound in his throat, and then clicked with his teeth.

“I think she had a spinal stroke,” he said. “I remember hearing something about it at work. She’s okay, though, right?”

I thought back to the walker I’d seen her using, then made a sound in the back of my throat. “I guess so. She’s using a walker, though.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because she’s my neighbor?” I offered up the obvious.

Even though that really wasn’t the reason why. I was just a curious bastard that wanted to know more about the beautiful woman I’d seen.

The beautiful woman with her long, flowing auburn hair, her bright green eyes, and strong, muscular legs.

Legs that looked like they’d been in even better shape once upon a time.

She had generous breasts, a perfect figure that made my dick hard, and a ‘don’t get near me’ vibe that I’d felt the moment her eyes landed on mine.

“Got it,” he said. “I’ll ask Audrey if she knows more. I think she said something about working with her, but I’m not quite sure.”

Audrey was Fender’s wife, and she was a nurse at the county hospital. If Winnie worked there, that meant she was a medical professional of some kind.

I knew she wasn’t a PA or a doctor. Otherwise her kid wouldn’t have to be stealing right now to resort to getting new headphones.

A nurse, maybe?

Whatever it was, I wasn’t sure. But I damn sure was going to find out.

There was something about Winnifred “Winnie” Holyfield that was tugging at me, forcing me to play a game that I knew I didn’t have a chance at winning.

But I was not one who didn’t give it his all.

I was going to get down to the bottom of this. I was going to find out what put those shadows in her haunted eyes. And I was going to kick Matt’s ass if he had anything to do with putting them there.

Because Winnie Holyfield had just gotten under my skin.

She’d been there since I’d seen the look in her eyes as she walked past her ex-husband at the grocery store. And she just dug herself deeper a few short minutes ago when she pleaded with her eyes for me not to push her further than she was willing to go yet.