Chapter 15

What do I like most about my job? Lunch breaks and leaving.

Reagan

With little else to do but cool my jets, I decided to follow up on a tip that came in from a few locals about a new bed of hydrilla taking over a man’s property, making it hard for him to get in and out of his dock with his boat.

The only problem with that was that it was the part of the lake where people who weren’t exactly nice lived.

The reason I knew that they weren’t nice was due to the fact that I’d already tried to get a sample once, but everywhere I tried to go, I was very obviously rebuffed.

This time, I wouldn’t ask, I’d just go.

I’d get in and out really quick and it would be fine…right?

Wrong.

I found that out the hard way half an hour later.

I was in my little, ten-foot, flat bottom boat with its tiny seven and a half horsepower motor when I gently glided up onto the bank next to a tree that was covered in the beautiful moss that I would’ve loved to get a sample of.

Instead of giving in to the urge, I leaned over and studied the area where the boat was gently rocking.

No hydrilla.

I frowned.

My eyes automatically roamed over the area and I felt my heart skip a beat when I saw a man standing on the edge of the bank two lots down staring directly at me.

The same man that I’d tattled on about having hydrilla on his boat trailer—the passenger.

He saw me and his eyes narrowed.

I swallowed and put my hand down on the side of the boat, moments away from pushing back off the bank when a hand grabbed the wrist that was about to reach for the paddle.

I didn’t even have to look up at the body that belonged to that hand to know who it was.

Dusty.

He had a tattoo on his thumb of a key. There was no mistaking who it belonged to.

Not to mention, Dusty had very delicate, unmanly hands. Pairing them with the old skeleton key tattoo and I knew without needing any further confirmation that it was him.

“Let me go,” I ordered, yanking at my hand.

The hand only tightened.

I looked up to find Dusty standing in the water up to his ankles, getting his pretty Oxford shoes muddy.

He didn’t seem to care, however.

His eyes were focused solely on me and he was not happy.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he growled.

My puppy who was in the boat behind me growled.

Dusty didn’t react other than tightening his grip on my wrist.

“Let. Me. Go,” I repeated, trying to haul my hand away.

Luckily, I did manage to get my wrist away from him. Unluckily, to do that I had to get out of the boat and my means of escape.

Once I hit the lake’s bank, the boat shifted off without the weight of my body in it and started to slowly drift away.

I spared it a glance and felt my heart hitch up into the vicinity of my throat.

I did not want it to float away, especially with my puppy in it, but with Dusty advancing on me, I knew that I couldn’t go after it without first taking my eyes off of him.

I pressed a button on my iWatch and held it down, hoping that it would work for what I’d intended it to.

I glanced down at my watch for one short second, swiped my finger across my screen and looked up in time to see Dusty almost directly in front of me.

I had enough time to get my hands up before Dusty was taking me to the ground.

In broad daylight.

He laughed at my miniscule struggles.

Well, miniscule to him. I was wiggling, kicking, scratching and hitting with everything I had, but Dusty was a big man. He’d always been big and strong, the only problem was that to get that way he did a lot of gym work and no real work.

But, it was good enough to hold me down and keep me where he wanted me.

“Let me go!” I screamed, grabbing a fistful of his hair and pulling it.

He growled and situated himself between my legs, holding me down with his hips.

It didn’t go unnoticed that he was hard.

I started to panic, knowing with all my heart that Dusty was about to cross a line that should never be crossed. Not by a man or a woman.

“I haven’t had you in so long,” he murmured, his mouth pressing to my cheek.

I used his closeness to my advantage and reared up, hitting him with my forehead.

His nose crunched with the move, but he didn’t let go. He didn’t even let up an inch.

Instead, he seemed to only get madder.

Before I could so much as cry out in protest, I was on my stomach and Dusty was going for my pants.

I struggled harder than I’d ever struggled before and started to scream and cry.

My throat hurt with the urgency of my cries, yet no one—not even the man I could see watching me with impassive eyes still on his dock—did a thing.

No one who was a human being, anyway.

One second, I was crying and screaming with Dusty holding me down and the next I was seeing a brown blur, sopping wet and ferocious, sailing over my head and growling.

The next, I felt something hit my head and then Dusty was up and off of me, screaming about his face.

I scrambled up just in time to see my dog put himself between me and Dusty.

Moments later, I heard the first sound of sirens.

***

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said to the man who was taking my thumbprints. “I nearly get raped and you’re bringing me in on trespassing charges?”

The officer didn’t look happy. “Look. I don’t make the rules, I only enforce them. You don’t like the laws? Go to your lawmaker and try to change them. In the meantime, I’m only doing my job.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

The sheriff’s deputy continued to press my fingers into the ink and once he was done, he handed me a wet wipe. “Go stand against the white wall.”

I didn’t want to.

I really, really didn’t want to.

Yet, my father was a cop.

I wouldn’t fight with this man, despite how wrong he was, if it was the last thing I did.

My father had instilled enough morals in me over the course of my life to bang home the fact that, despite whether you agree with them or not, you should always do your best to comply with officers.

So that was what I did.

I allowed the sheriff’s deputy to arrest me and didn’t say another word.

I didn’t ask about my dog.

I didn’t ask about my boat.

I didn’t ask whether the statement that I’d given about Dusty trying to rape me had been taken seriously.

I didn’t say a goddamn word.

Because, if I did, I might say something I regretted.

And, once again, I knew that what my father said was gospel.

You respect them, they respect you.

Plus, I knew that within an hour, Tyler would be here.

Luckily, the sheriff’s department was right next door to Hostel PD. They shared a wall, in fact.

Which meant that when Katy had seen me walking in through a side door with my arms cuffed behind my back, her eyes had widened into the size of small saucers.

Tyler would be here and he’d be pissed.

The question was, would he be pissed at me for trespassing, or would he be pissed that I didn’t follow his rules? The rules that he’d thrown at me as he’d walked out the door.

Don’t get in trouble. I have enough to deal with.

My guess would be a definite yes to both.

I shivered when I thought about what his reaction would be to hearing what Dusty had done to me.

And, to make matters worse, I was fairly sure that I was going to be black and blue all over and he wasn’t going to get to forget about it any time soon. Every time he saw me naked, he’d be seeing the marks on my body that were put there when I was fighting Dusty off.

Needless to say, if Tyler’s reaction to the tiny bruise I’d gotten out on the boat with Theo was anything to go by…well, he would very well flip his lid.

“Back up, put your feet on the black line,” the bored sheriff’s deputy drawled.

I did, shivering again.

Before the deputy could take the picture, the door to the room where I was, flew open and Johnny came barreling in, spitting fire.

I hadn’t known Johnny all that well growing up, but I had seen him on occasion over the years. But since I moved to Hostel, I’d gotten to know him much better since he was married to one of the women in our little group—June—whom I was beginning to think of as a good friend.

Seeing the thunder all over his face and his obvious aggression directed not at me, but the sheriff’s deputy on my behalf and my face fell as tears began to pool in my eyes. My eyes blinked furiously as I tried to keep the tears from falling.

“What the fuck, Matson?” Johnny thundered. “Why the fuck are you arresting her?”

Matson took the picture and I blinked as tiny white spots dotted my vision.

The camera they were using was one of those really old-fashioned ones that had a lamp that blinked with a bright light.

Needless to say, the bright light worked really well, so whenever I looked at the mugshot, I’d be able to see every single pore and blemish on my face—not to mention the chin hairs.

I hadn’t plucked those in a week and I was going to pay for it when I saw the results.

“I arrested her,” Deputy Matson said. “Because I was doing my job and you can’t just barge in here every time you don’t agree with an arrest I make. I don’t do that to you.”

“Actually,” Johnny said. “You walked in there and did that very thing to Tyler last week. Something about it being your sister-in-law? And, from what I understand, you’ve got Reagan on trespassing charges. Not on anything else. That’s downright stupid.”

I breathed in, then breathed out, trying to get control of myself.

It wasn’t working.

I’d managed to keep the tears at bay by sheer force of will, but I knew that was only because Tyler hadn’t yet arrived.

When he did, I knew that I would lose that battle.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Deputy Matson lied. “But it doesn’t matter anyway. I’m already done. She’s officially arrested.”

Johnny growled. “You put her in a jail cell and I’ll make you regret it.”

Deputy Matson blinked. “You can’t threaten me.”

Johnny laughed. “I. Just. Did.”

Johnny’s threats were enough at least for me to be seated in a chair inside the station and not in the jail cell with the women I saw through the clear glass wall.

One had been going to the bathroom, while the other had been staring not at me, but at Deputy Matson, like she wanted to kill him with her bare hands.

I would have gladly helped her if I hadn’t been in enough trouble of my own.

Deputy Matson was a real douche bag and after arguing with Johnny, I knew that he was also a hardass who wasn’t just doing his job, but he was being an asshole—with a badge—because, apparently, he didn’t get along with Tyler.

And, since everybody and their brother knew that Tyler and I were an item, that apathy for Tyler clearly transferred to me as well.

Awesome.

I sat there, counting the tiles on the ceiling and wondering if they’d replaced them lately—or ever.

It was a distraction that I was trying to force myself to concentrate on instead of the way that my palms stung or my back throbbed.

Everything hurt, too. My throat from screaming, my arms from hitting Dusty. Hell, even my ears hurt from shaking my head no and scraping the tips of my lobes on the freakin’ grass.

“Oh, shit.”

I heard the bikes before I saw anyone or anything.

They were loud and it was more than obvious that they were pissed off. Nobody rode that fast and hard, coming to that quick of a stop unless the riders were angry.

Oh, shit was right.

I stared at the double doors of the station entrance, waiting with my heart slamming inside my chest.

The moment he breached the door, I felt something inside of me let go.

That part of me that had been holding strong just let go and I slumped in my chair, knowing that for the first time in hours, I was safe.

Tyler wouldn’t let anything happen to me.

What I hadn’t expected was for him to start yelling—at me.

He stalked toward me, an angry, almost disappointed look on his face.

My heart picked up speed and I stared at him like he was my lifeline.

“I cannot fucking believe you went and did that,” Tyler hissed. “You’ve gone and fucked up your entire record because you can’t control your goddamn urges and stay on public property. I told you this was going to bite you in the ass one day. Told. You.”

I felt my stomach drop.

I hadn’t been trespassing.

I’d still been on the water. I hadn’t even gotten out of the boat! I’d been forced out.

It hadn’t been my fault!

But did I say any of that?

Hell no.

I was too pissed off.

He hadn’t even given me a chance to explain before he’d started in on me.

“And the goddamn dog that you refuse to name…”

“Groot,” I murmured.

I’d done a lot of thinking over the last hour while I’d waited to find out my fate and one thing I decided on was the dog’s name.

Groot.

I’d loved that little character in the movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, both number one and number two. And Groot was both massively huge and tiny small. My baby Groot was small when I’d found him, but also big—and getting bigger every day.

Not to mention Groot in the movie was a little badass, just like my Groot.

Therefore, the name suited him.

“Groot.” He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Here’s the problem we’re running into. The man that lives there—the same one that I arrested—is saying that you came onto the property and wouldn’t leave despite him telling you to.”

I didn’t argue with him.

What would be the freakin’ point?

He’d already made up his mind.

“I…”

“Chief?”

Tyler looked over his shoulder at the man who’d interrupted his rant. One of his officers.

“Yeah?” Tyler sounded aggravated and annoyed that he was interrupted.

“You got a minute?”

Tyler sighed and gave me a pointed look that clearly told me to behave or else. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

I felt the first tears fall, the ones that I’d been holding in since the incident and came to the realization that I couldn’t be with a man like Tyler.

I couldn’t.

He was too strict. Too unyielding. Too mean.

I may put on a good game face, but I couldn’t handle the man. Not at all.

I wasn’t perfect—far from it.

And I never would be.

I would not spend my life apologizing for being who I was.

Not now and not ever.

He could kiss my ass.