Three months later…

I stepped out of the communal shower and dried off, listening to the constant commotion of construction. With the Guardians all in jail or running from the scandal of Smythe’s arrest, Jack was finally able to find a construction crew willing to work for him. The warehouse was no longer one big room, but a maze of wooden frames with a set of stairs smack in the center, jutting upward to the new second floor. Patrick, Quentin, Matthew and I still slept here at night, but it was becoming more and more difficult to sleep past seven most mornings.

I was thinking about moving back to my apartment. I’d left it because of the threat of the Guardians and remained here because it just seemed easier. But the noise was becoming an impediment.

Jack said we could stay, or he’d pay to put us all up at the hotel downtown. Everyone chose to stay.

To each their own, I supposed.

Jack wasn’t even around. He’d been gone for weeks now, off on an extended honeymoon with his new bride. Patrick was left in charge, but he was leaving in a few days to escort a client to Memphis for her daughter’s high school graduation. At the moment, we had three clients. They were all personal security jobs, though we’d also taken a few investigative assignments since I joined Stone Security three months ago. I preferred the investigative assignments. There was something to be said about the freedom of working in the private sector rather than from a law enforcement perspective. But personal security had its perks.

How many people could say they spent their working hours just sitting on a stool, watching customers blush in shame as they browsed the shelves of a sex shop?

“Headed to Alli’s?” Patrick asked as I came out of the bathroom.

“Yeah. My turn to relieve Quentin.”

Patrick nodded. “Ask him to head over here when he leaves. I need someone to run some errands for me.”

“No problem.”

Patrick had worked for Stone’s headquarters in Memphis before coming out here to Arizona. He thought he knew everything so much better than the rest of us. And when it came to the others—Quentin, who was retired military, and Matthew, a totally inexperienced former Guardian—he was right. But I’d learned enough in my years with the sheriff’s department that I could probably run this place like clockwork with half the effort Patrick expended. But Jack didn’t know me like he knew Patrick.

Nepotism. It was as alive and well in the private sector as it was in the sheriff’s department.

Jack was a good guy, but he seemed to have lost interest in this little satellite office once he got his girl. And, to be honest, I couldn’t really blame him. A pretty girl like Ruth? I might feel the same way in his shoes.

I’d had a girl like Ruth once. She died of cancer five years ago.

I drove to Alli’s Little Shop of Pleasure out on the highway, not sure if I was looking forward to it or dreading it. Alli was a nice enough woman, but sometimes she was a little more than I could take.

Red hair. Big green eyes. And curves that were still impressive despite the fact that she was in her early forties and had two kids. She’d lived a hard life, I could see it in her eyes. But you couldn’t see it in that beautiful body of hers.

Not that I was tempted.

Well…maybe tempted was the wrong word. I was tempted. But I had been married to an angel for twenty years. Moving on to a woman like Alli would be disrespectful to what I’d shared with my Gloria.

But when you haven’t tasted home cooking in five years, everything looks good.

I parked at the back of the lot and slipped a gun into the holster I wore under my light sports coat. The place wasn’t terribly busy, just a half dozen cars in the lot. I walked the perimeter and checked out the well-placed cameras to make sure everything was secure. I had been told that Alli was Stone’s first client, and that the danger had been from the Guardians. As a deputy, I’d been called here with Willis for a fire in the lot. But the Guardians were gone now. I had no idea why we were still providing security, but it wasn’t my place to question. It was my place to do what I was told.

By a guy nearly half my age.

Quentin was sitting on the stool near the door that was our post when we were watching the store. He nodded when I came in.

“I’m going back to say hello to Alli.”

“She’s in a mood today.”

I wasn’t ever sure what he meant by that. Alli was a temperamental woman. It seemed to me she was in a mood every day.

I tapped on the door of her office before sticking my head inside. “Hey.”

She looked up, her startling green eyes rimmed in red. “Mr. Sullivan.”

“I’m taking over for Quentin.”

She stood up, her slender body clad in a pair of jeans that barely covered her hips and a white blouse that was practically sheer, her black bra underneath as visible as if she wasn’t wearing a blouse at all. The woman dressed like a teenager. The thing was, though, she pulled it off better than most women her age might have.

I had to step back and force my thoughts onto something else, before we were both embarrassed by my reaction to her mode of dress.

A soft smile curved her sticky lips. “You’re the unlucky one who got stuck with the night shift, are you?”

“I wouldn’t say unlucky.”

“Aren’t you sweet.” She touched the front of my shirt, slipping a finger into one of the spaces between the buttons. “I keep telling Jack it isn’t necessary for you boys to stick around, driving me to and from the shop every day. But he promised to keep me safe, and that man keeps his promises.”

“I better get out front.”

“Do you keep your promises, Mr. Sullivan?”

I tilted my head slightly. “If you’re asking if I’ll do my job, the answer is yes. I always do.”

“You strike me as one of those good ole boys who don’t exist much anymore. Are you a good ole boy?”

She moved closer to me, her breath washing over me. There was a hint of whiskey there, like she’d been sneaking snips from a bottle. I knew that she had been involved with the friend of Jack’s who was killed by the Guardians. It seemed she was still grieving her loss.

“I do what I can, ma’am.”

Her smile widened. “I bet you do.”

I lifted her hand away from my shirt and set it gently down by her side. She watched me as I walked away, her eyes heavy on my back like a physical touch. I glanced back once and realized it was a mistake. It only encouraged her.

It was going to be a long night.

 

 

Tracy, the housewife Alli had hired to run the front counter, waved as she walked out the front door at nine. Alli had five sales from the time I got there until close, a record in the time I’d been working with her. Business seemed to be picking up.

I got up and stretched my long limbs, checking my weapon before stepping out into the parking lot behind Tracy. I offered a weak wave as she drove away, walking slowly around the metallic building, checking for any signs of trouble. Everything looked as it had the last three times I’d done this tonight, just the same as it had looked the dozens of other times I’d done it in the past three months.

No one had the balls to mess with Alli now that the Guardians were gone.

She was standing at the door when I came back around to the front.

“I’ve told you, you need to wait inside when I’m walking the perimeter.”

“Perimeter. Very military phrase. Quentin must be rubbing off on you.”

She turned from me to flip off the lights and lock the front door. I checked when she stepped back to make sure everything was secure. She made a little noise and smiled when I glanced at her, but didn’t say a word.

I escorted her to my truck, yanking open the door for her. She moved as close to me as she could, wiggling her tight ass in those even tighter jeans as she climbed into the high cab. I pushed a hand into my jeans pocket, my heart pounding a little at the sight of her silky, pale skin between the jeans and blouse.

The woman was going to be the death of me!

I crossed around to the driver’s side door, spotting the note as I was halfway across the front of the truck. I snatched it up, glancing at the familiar handwriting.

Shouldn’t have crossed the sheriff, it said.

They were getting more and more original.

I’d been finding these notes on my truck ever since the sheriff was relieved of his position a little more than six weeks ago. He was never arrested, still not officially charged with anything, but the attorney general’s office was investigating him for corruption in his handling of complaints against the Guardians. Now that a dozen of the Guardians’ former members, including their leader, were being charged with murder, attempted murder, harassment, criminal mischief, and half a dozen other charges, it seemed it wouldn’t be long before the former sheriff would be charged with something as well.

These notes didn’t frighten me. It was probably a former coworker who blamed Stone—and, by proxy, me—for the sheriff’s downfall. He was blowing a lot of smoke, but nothing would ever come of it.

I balled the note up and tossed it on the ground as I’d done with all the others.

“You ever been married, Mr. Sullivan?” Alli asked me as I started the truck.

I brushed my thumb over the spot where my wedding ring had sat for more than twenty years. “Yes.”

“Divorced?”

“No.”

She grunted softly. “Sorry.”

I put the truck into reverse and tore out of the parking lot, blowing dust up behind us. The highway was quiet this time of night. Only a few people ventured out after midnight in this small town.

“Kids?”

I almost shook my head. “A son,” I said instead.

“Yeah? How old?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Wow. You must be older than you look.”

“We started young, my wife and I.”

“But you only had the one?”

“She had complications.”

She nodded. “I had a hard time with my Tommy. Had to go on bed rest for most of the pregnancy.” She reached up and brushed the hair from her face. “But Sue? She was a breeze. I guess God compensates. Her father was a real nightmare.”

“Is she?”

“No. Sue’s a saint.” She glanced at me. “But her father…he died up at the penitentiary in Tucson.”

“What’d he do?”

“It’d be better to ask what he didn’t do. They got him on assault the last time. He beat a guy nearly to death because he thought the poor guy had stolen some stuff out of his truck. Turned out he pawned it himself and forgot because of the drugs.” She shifted in her seat, her eyes hard on the windshield. “Before that, of course, he was busted on possession like five times, assault three times, and theft a couple of times. Never got him on domestic abuse, though they could have more times than any of that.”

I glanced over at her. She didn’t seem like the kind of woman who’d allow a man to treat her that way. I’d worked my share of domestic violence cases in my time with the sheriff’s office and the Yuma Police Department before that. Abused women all had the same characteristics: a sense of dependency, a lack of self-worth, a sort of desperation. Alli didn’t have any of those. Not now, anyway.

Perhaps living with a violent man had taught her to be the self-sufficient woman she was now.

Good for her.

“You probably don’t want to hear all about my colorful past.”

I shrugged as I guided the truck down the highway. “I don’t mind.”

She glanced at me, that little smile back on her full lips. “You are a good ole boy.” She slid closer to me, as close as the seat belt would allow, and rested her hand on my thigh. “You are so much more accommodating than those other three.”

“You think so?”

“Quentin is too obsessed with what the Guardians did to his family. Matthew is still struggling with his choice to leave the Guardians. And Patrick is half-stuck back in Memphis.”

I nodded. Her assessment was right on the nose.

“What’s your hang-up?” she asked. “What, in your past, has you stalled in your life?”

“What makes you think I’m stuck?”

“We’re all stuck, sweetheart.”

She ran her hand along my thigh, sliding it dangerously close to my crotch. I grabbed her wrist and set her hand politely on her own leg. She left it there a moment, but then moved it back to my thigh.

I slowed the truck as we approached the turn for her house. She had a nice little bungalow in a quiet neighborhood just on the right side of the city limits sign. It sat in a neighborhood of similar houses. In fact, all the houses looked so similar that I had had trouble picking it out the first couple of times I’d driven here. Not tonight, though.

“Stay in the truck.”

It was an order I issued every time I drove her home, but ten times out of ten, she was in the living room when I was finished checking the house for anything unexpected. Tonight was no exception.

“Stay and have a drink with me,” she said, waving a bottle of whiskey as I came down the hall from checking the bedrooms.

“I told you to stay in the truck.”

“It’s my house. I can come inside whenever I wish.”

I bit my lip to keep from arguing with her. But if someone was paying for private security, wasn’t it in their best interests to pay attention to what the security operative said?

“Jack’s just being overprotective, anyway. He’ll probably pull you guys onto other cases when he comes back.”

“Maybe. But until then, you should listen to what we have to say.”

“Yes, sir.” She curtsied like a woman from the Middle Ages, a big smile on her lips as she made sure to show as much cleavage as she could. “But what’s done is done now. Stay and have a drink.”

I shook my head. “Have a good night, Alli.”

She grabbed my arm as I tried to walk past her. “Please, Crispin. I’m celebrating.”

“What are you celebrating?”

“My youngest child is graduating from high school next week. Yay!”

Her words suggested celebration, but the darkness in her eyes suggested something else. I felt bad for her, aware of what it feels like to realize the child you devoted eighteen years of your life to is about to fly the coop and go have a life of his own. You’re proud, but you’re also scared that you haven’t prepared them well enough. And terrified of the loneliness that will settle into the space that the child leaves behind.

“Maybe one drink,” I said.

Her smile became honest, a sort of symbol of relief. She grabbed my hand and pulled me to the couch, pushing me down onto the worn cushions. She disappeared for a moment, returning with two glasses as well as the bottle. She poured generous portions, more than I ever could have wanted, and handed me my glass.

“To the future,” she said, touching her glass lightly to mine.

“To the future.”

I took a sip, wondering what that meant. My future consisted of working the one job I swore I’d never work. Private security. It seemed like such a copout for former cops. If I was going to stay in law enforcement, I should have transferred to another department. But I knew the sheriff would have a few choice things to say about me that would leave me unhireable. And Jack seemed like my only choice. But now? I was hoping a new sheriff would be elected this summer and I could return to the department. It wasn’t an unreasonable hope. But it wasn’t guaranteed, either.

Especially if I was pulled over for drunk driving after this too-generous portion of whiskey.

“Do you see your son often?”

I shook my head, leaning forward a little as I stared into my glass. “No.”

“Why not?”

I rolled my shoulders. “He was closer to his mother. When she died, it just…I guess he couldn’t find any reason to come home.”

“Do you visit him?”

“I went a few times. But it was always awkward, so I stopped.”

“That’s sad.”

It was, actually. It made me feel like a failure, if I was honest with myself. But I didn’t know how to connect with him. I sent birthday cards and Christmas cards, but he had a life of his own in Chicago. He didn’t need his father bothering him.

“How did your wife die?”

I glanced at her. She’d already finished her glass of whiskey and was reaching over to grab the bottle, helping herself to more.

“Cancer.”

She paused, her eyes cutting to mine. “What kind?”

“Breast cancer.”

They’d found a lump seven years ago, did their biopsy and decided to do a double mastectomy. Doctor said she was cured. They didn’t find any cancer in her lymph nodes or the rest of her breast tissue. Just the one lump. Didn’t even bother to put her through chemo or radiation like some of the other women diagnosed in the same clinic at about the same time. We thought we were so lucky, like we’d dodged a bullet. But then a year later, she began having these coughing fits. Turned out, she wasn’t as cancer-free as everyone had thought. The cancer had spread to her lungs, her bones, and her liver after a year of being allowed to run rampant through her body.

She suffered eleven months, having surgeries and chemo and radiation, treatments that made her sicker than the disease. By the end, she was only a shell of the woman I’d married.

I shuddered at the memory.

She touched my leg again.

“How long ago?”

“Five years.”

She slid closer to me, setting her glass down with just a few drops of her second helping in the bottom. “That’s a long time to be without a woman.”

I stiffened slightly. “She was the love of my life.”

Alli lowered her head. “You were together a long time?”

“Nearly thirty years. We met our freshman year of high school.”

“Your son’s twenty-seven?”

I nodded. “We got pregnant junior year. Neither of our parents were incredibly impressed, so we ran away. Took a bus to the end of the line, ended up in Yuma. We worked two, three jobs at a time to pay our way. Got our GEDs. I went to the police academy, she took night classes. Took her eight years, but she got a degree in elementary education, became a kindergarten teacher. She was perfectly suited for it, let me tell you.”

“Sounds like a wonderful woman.”

I swallowed a gulp of the whiskey, a little embarrassed at the tears that burned in my throat. I hadn’t cried for Gloria in a long time, but I guess it was still there, that grief I tried to bury.

Alli moved even closer to me, her hand sliding down the inside of my thigh. She was so close now that I could feel her breath pushing hot through the material of my shirt. I hadn’t been this close to a woman in a very long time. My body responded even though my heart was crushed, falling apart with memories of my wife.

She brushed her lips against my jaw. “I bet it’s been hard, being alone all this time. Not having a woman’s soft body to lie beside late at night.”

“Alli…”

I touched her shoulder, pushing her back a little.

“You don’t have to be alone tonight.”

It was actually a very tempting thought. She was sexy. The way she dressed, the way she moved…there was no comparison to my Gloria. She’d been conservative, dressing in slacks and sweaters despite the heat of the desert. But there was something special about being the only man to see her undressed, to see what she hid under those bulky sweaters.

It was pretty easy to assume that many, many men had seen what little Alli hid under her clothing.

“I should go.”

I leaned forward and set my glass on the table. Before I could get up, though, she pushed me back and climbed into my lap. She kissed me, her lips still sticky from the heavy coat of gloss she wore, some flavored thing that probably dated back to the eighties. It crossed my mind to turn my head, but instinct took over for a moment. I tasted her gloss, tasted everything she was offering me, exploring her like I had every right to explore everything she had to offer. My fingers found their way into her hair, tangling in her long tresses as I pulled her closer, burying myself against her. She moaned softly, her hands moving from my jaw down over my throat to the bottom of my shirt, her fingers tugging the cloth out from where it was tucked into my jeans.

I’d never felt anything as exciting as that kiss. I’d never wanted to. Gloria was everything to me, the only woman I’d ever been with. I’d desired other women—what man hadn’t? But I’d never strayed further than a few dirty thoughts in the middle of the night. Gloria had been enough for me.

But Gloria was gone, and Alli was right here, so completely alive in my arms.

I slid my hands over the bare skin of her back, her thinness a new and exciting thing. She had one of those bodies that some called boyish, and others called perfection. Narrow hips, almost no waist, and a perfect handful of breast. So different from my Gloria. But so erotic!

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want her. I did. I wanted to throw her down on that couch and do things to her that I never would have imagined doing with my wife. But Gloria and the past were too much on my mind.

I couldn’t do this.

I pulled her away, using my anchor on her hair to pull her from my lips. “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I easily lifted her and set her on the couch beside me. I was up before she could respond—before she even realized I was trying to escape. But she figured it out relatively quickly, jumping up and grabbing my arm before I could reach the door.

“Please,” she said, catching me off guard with the naked plea in her eyes. “Don’t leave me alone tonight.”

I looked down at her, torn by all the things she’d awakened inside of me.

“Alli, I—”

“You don’t have to do anything. Just…don’t leave me alone.”

She went weak as I debated with myself, the strength going out of her knees. I scooped her up and carried her into the master bedroom, laying her carefully in the center of the bed. She rolled onto her side and buried her face in the pillow, a moan clear and distinct filling the room. I stood at the end of the bed for a long moment, unsure of what I should do. But then my southern roots kicked in, and I tugged the boots from her feet and covered her with a soft throw that lay across the end of the bed. And then I settled on the mattress beside her and didn’t object when she crawled into my arms, pressing her face to my chest.

I guess I wasn’t the only one who found the nights to be the hardest part of being alone. I ran my hand between her shoulder blades, offering what little comfort I was capable of, aware of the tightness in my jeans that refused to leave me be. She was soft, and she smelled so good, the taste of her lip gloss on the tip of my tongue still so sweet.

What the hell was I doing?

The last thought I had before sleep finally settled a while later was that at least she was headed to Memphis in a few days. Some distance might not be such a bad thing.

I wasn’t a child any longer, but something about her drew out that teenage mentality that made this feel okay. I couldn’t succumb to that.