Chapter 8
THE next morning Jase was happy to report to himself in the mirror: I slept all fucking night. And it was good. He’d come straight home and, after feeding the horses, had showered, pulled on clean boxer briefs, and fallen on the couch. He’d put on a random police procedural that held his attention, even if it wasn’t always factually correct, and pigged out on pulled pork and potato wedges. Two beers after that, he’d passed out. Even on the couch, with no blanket and all the lights on, he’d slept through nine hours by the time the alarm went off at five a.m.
The morning feeding was fairly quick, the horses happy to see a person with food, though they hadn’t been cooperative when he was trying to muck stalls. But when he finished he still had an hour to shower, shave, dress, and drive the forty minutes to the sheriff’s department in Abernathy.
Jase didn’t mind the commute. He’d had to do it his whole life. The perks of ranch life were not having neighbors for miles and having tons of space to fool around. Then of course you had the shit side, which required driving almost an hour to the nearest grocery store.
Looking at the time before shifting his view and pressing the gas pedal to pull on the main highway, Jase was happy to see he might actually have a minute to grab a coffee from Starbucks. His accent might be thicker after a few years back home, but he hadn’t lost all his worldly vices in those three-and-a-half years. He still liked snobby coffee, pretty boys, and expensive jeans. Fuck anyone who had anything to say about it.
Except the pretty boys part. The family was disappointed in him enough to not talk to him, even on their deathbeds, over his not staying home. The bisexuality thing hadn’t seemed like a fight worth having. And who needed to anyways? He’d not talked to them in forever, didn’t look like they wanted him around for more than their whipping boy for years. He hadn’t had anyone special enough to make it an issue over yet. Living so far away, not even girlfriends had done the meet-the-parents bit in years.
Not like he’d had one important enough to either come out or meet the parents. It seemed silly to make a big announcement unless he was in a committed relationship.
That’s what he’d like to tell himself. He’d like to think if he found someone special and that person were a man, he’d be proud to be with that person. He’d literally fought for the right to be with whomever he fell in love with, so far as he was concerned. But he’d seen the negative side of that. And he didn’t even just mean with his parents. Or Ase. He shuttered that thought real quick.
He’d also heard some of his fellow soldiers’ families turn away same-sex partners when they found out posthumously their child—someone who’d died a hero—was gay.
Of course, he didn’t even have a girl to be proudly in a relationship with, so the whole thought process was moot. And Lord knows the last place he’d find anyone was here. No way, no how was he getting stuck in Hope Springs or Abernathy. Because even if he was with a woman, he’d want her to know he was bisexual. He’d want her to accept that side of him. That was one reason he had liked Christa when they hooked up. She’d been cool about it. Until she hadn’t. And he had the feeling that would be exactly how it’d play out with anyone else in this area.
Again, not something worth thinking on.
He passed into the city limits of Abernathy and fist-pumped happily that he still had fifteen minutes to grab a coffee and drive the quarter mile to the sheriff’s department. Oh, the exciting life you lead.
Jase was just glad they’d gotten a damn decent coffee place, even if it was a chain, in Abernathy while he was gone. They usually did get chains in Abernathy, though, it being a decent-sized college town about an hour and a half from Austin. As far as yearlong residents, it wasn’t big enough to know a lot of people in town, especially if you’d lived there your whole life. The population during the school year was much larger, but he knew most of the professors by face, if not name.
Their university boasted one of Texas’s better basketball teams, a high-ranking teacher education program, and what many considered one of the state’s better medical programs and teaching hospitals.
Feeling more alive between his earlier shower and getting his coffee, and slurping some down, Jase pulled into one of the parking spots designated for him and the other six deputies in their department. He walked in the back entrance with a bit of pep to his step, happy with the fact he was on time, had caffeine, had gotten a decent night’s sleep, and he’d be off for forty-eight hours in less than eight.
“Mornin’, Deputy,” the sheriff said. Jase paused by the open office door, and waved at Sheriff Dean, who sat behind his desk, pen poised over papers in a manila folder.
“Mornin’, sir.”
“Big plans when you get off this afternoon?” Sheriff Dean had also served in the Army, finishing up his eight-year enlistment two years before Jase had enlisted. They were the only two in the department who’d served, other than Deputy Melissa Forrester, who’d done two years in the National Guard. It was one of the reasons the sheriff had offered him a job.
Nepotism played a bit part of landing Jase his job if he was honest, as the sheriff and his daddy bought hay from the Emerys every year for the last thirty years. And that was in addition to the fact the Deans had been going to the same church as the Emerys since the beginning of time. He’d also written Jase often when he was in the Middle East, and Jase had appreciated that. Jase liked to think of the sheriff as a friend—maybe not a close one, but a friend—when he wasn’t just sir. “Yes, sir. Got a date with a fine bottle of Budweiser and a sexy sleigh bed for twelve uninterrupted hours of Cowboys football I’ve had DVRed since last weekend, and shut-eye.”
“Sounds like a better date than mine,” the sheriff said.
“I won’t tell Emily you said so,” Jase said, tipping his coffee in cheers.
“I’d ‘preciate that.” The sheriff chuckled. “Holler if you need me. I’ve got some stuff to finish up here, then I’m off to shake babies and kiss hands.”
“Don’t have too much fun, now.”
Jase continued down the hall, chuckling to himself, eager to get on with the shift. He clocked in, hoping like hell there wouldn’t be any major disasters to keep him on longer than necessary, but enough work that wasn’t paperwork to make the day go by fast.
“Mornin’, Jan.” Jase pecked a kiss to the cheek of their front desk deputy. She was old as the sheriff’s department, would proudly tell you she’d survived ten different sheriffs, and never left her chair, but she had a badge and a gun, and was still a damn good shot.
“Mornin’, baby. No coffee for the class?” She eyed his Starbucks cup.
“If I had, you’d have complained about me spending too much money. So hush.”
“Don’t tell me to hush,” she said, swatting him. “So far, no dispatch calls. Miller dragged in a drunk earlier, but she’s still on the scene of the accident he caused. I left some messages on your desk. Looks like it’s gonna be a quiet one.”
Jase groaned. “Damn. I was hoping it wouldn’t be a slow day.”
“Welcome to the big city,” she deadpanned.
Grumbling good-naturedly, Jase made his way to his desk, thumbing through the pink slips of paper with phone messages jotted on them. Nothing he had to take care of this early. He heard a raised voice in one of the closed offices and raised a brow at Jan who’d turned, shaking her head in exasperation.
“That’s that damn drunk. He’s been going at it all morning.”
“Who’s got him?”
“Nate,” she said, a pleased, if unkind, grin on her face. There was no love lost between Jan and Deputy Nathan Hall. In fact, he was the only one she didn’t call his formal shift name, Deputy Hall. He was young and dumb and had questioned her in front of detainees on his first shift, for which he’d yet to make amends in the six months since. Jase, thankfully, hadn’t been a rookie nor rude in her eyes.
“Should I?”
Jan shook her head. “No. It’s a shame he caused such a mess. He seems nice enough for an A-rab, but the DA will hit him hard for that DWI.”
“Damn,” Jase said. “And watch it with the ‘Arab’ comments, Mrs. J.” Her lips thinned at the reprimand, and she turned back to her desk. She’d get over it. It was a conversation they had, to no avail, a few times. She’d even had sensitivity training. Twice.
He heard the man’s voice raise on the other side of the closed door again and looked at it, frowning. He didn’t have any sympathy for someone who fucked up their car because they were driving under the influence. He’d seen too many times the damage it caused when they hit a person instead of a light pole. But he also hated Jan’s A-rab comment. She said the same things about “them Mexicans.” An A-rab could be anyone from a Saudi Arabian doctor from the hospital to a Pakistani exchange student. Mexicans could be a Puerto Rican grandmother from the Catholic Church across the street.
Welcome to Small-Town, USA.
After a bit of time, Jase had finished filing a few tickets he’d written on his last shift. The door to the interview office Nate— Deputy Hall— had shut himself off with the DUI offender clicked and opened. The man had quieted after a few minutes, probably succumbing to a hangover. Deputy Hall’s voice drifted out of the now open interview room and toward Jase.
“Deputy Emery,” Deputy Hall said, getting Jase’s attention.
Jase looked up so he could see Deputy Hall’s face.
“What’s up, Deputy?”
“Mr. Asani is complaining of stomach pains. He was fine when he came in. Paramedics cleared him earlier, and I can’t tell if he’s faking or if he really needs to go to the hospital.”
Jase sighed. It was always a fifty-fifty chance. Regulations said, though, better to err on the side of caution. Especially since not doing so could lead to lawsuits, and a tiny outfit like theirs had a small enough budget without having to lay people off to pay a drunk driver because they’d neglected to get him signed off by a doc. “Deputy Miller didn’t escort him?”
“No, she stayed to supervise the scene. I did pick up.”
Jase clenched his jaw. “You should have taken him directly to University. How long’s it been?”
Deputy Hall’s fair cheeks flushed. “Two hours. We did booking to put him in county and I questioned him. I can take him now.”
“No,” Jase said, resigned, but glad to have something to do other than sit. “I’ll take him down. I heard Deputy Roland banging around the break room so he’ll be on in a minute. Sheriff’s in his office. You can start on the paperwork…” Jase waved his hands exasperated. “The paperwork for this.”
Deputy Hall nodded and Jase asked, “Mr. Asani, you said?”
“Yes. Parmender Asani.”
Jase walked to the interview room where the small, portly man was sitting at a metal table, cuffed to the bolted-down chair he was sitting in. He clutched his stomach pitifully. Jase felt for him, because his hue was decidedly paler than was healthy. “Mr. Asani,” Jase said, as he un-cuffed the man’s hands from the chair and cuffed them together. “I’m Deputy Emery. We’re gonna go for a ride.”
“I can’t get in a car. I can’t sit,” Mr. Asani said, weakly. The way his knees almost buckled, Jase believed him. Damn it all.
“Okay. Let me call an ambulance over. You need anything?” After the man asked for water, Jase made his way out, glared at Hall, and asked Jan to get an ambulance to roll in. He took a bottled water to Mr. Asani, who’d run his fingers through his sparse black and grey hair so it stuck in many directions. He looked slightly deranged, in pain, and still a bit drunk.
Finally the ambulance came, and they took the man to University Hospital down the road. Jase had ridden with the old man and escorted them into the hospital. He hadn’t really been worried the man was a flight risk in his condition, but again, protocol.
When the doctor came by and eyed him standing by the door, he explained everything, as he knew it. Jase felt like he’d been there for hours, standing guard duty like a rent-a-cop, until the doctor came out to inform Jase that after extensive tests they’d found the man was extremely hungover and had a bad stomach ulcer from drinking too much. If the doctor’s sardonic tone was unprofessional, Jase wouldn’t take note of it. Though he did smile as the doc wandered off.
What felt like another long while passed before squeaking shoes got close enough to Jase in the hall. It’d been silent on his end of the wing so long, the sound practically echoed on the linoleum and cinder block.
Jase smiled and gave a nod to Deputy Erin Miller whose tired face looked every one of her fifty years. Though he’d never say as much to her. But even he looked older than he should when long shifts happened. “See you had some excitement,” she said, by way of greeting.
“You could call it that. Talk to Hall?”
She shook her head like a disappointed mother. “That boy, I swear. I remind myself daily ‘Erin, you were once that green. You were absolutely once that green’.”
“No. You weren’t.”
She snorted inelegantly, then said without pause, “Never, ever in my life.” They both laughed. “Prognosis?” she asked.
“Oh, he’ll be fine. After some carbs and some water.” At her raised brow he huffed. “Hangover. Some other drinking related stomach shit. He’ll live.”
“Good, so I can take him to county when they’re done?”
“You want me to?” Jase asked.
She shook her head, her greying ponytail wagging. “No. Won’t put you through that. I’ve got piles of summations to work on over this, so I may as well do the honors.”
“Excellent,” he said. He stretched, thinking how nice it’d be to get out of the hospital. He’d seen quite enough of them in the last few weeks that spending the last three hours there had been none too fun.
“If you wait for the doc to sign off on him, I’ll give you a ride back to the department.”
“Sure. Let me go see if I can round him up.”
“Thanks,” she said, and opened the door to the room, her authoritative tone in full force as she called Mr. Asani’s name. Jase did not envy the man.
Jase walked down to the nurses’ station he’d seen when he’d been brought up with the prisoner. A couple of nurses were typing away on the computers, one gossiped with the other by a cart of patient charts, and a couple of men seemed to be in a deep conversation on the far side of the nurses’ station. Jase cleared his throat to get the attention of the nurse closest to him, a kindly, older nurse whose nametag read Vernice.
“Hello, ma’am,” he said, removing his hat. She smiled sweetly, and he had to smile back at the hat trick, yet again, working like a charm.
“Hello, officer. What can I do for you?”
The men in the corner drew Jase’s attention briefly with their snorting giggles. The one with his back to Jase was tickling Jase’s senses, but he couldn’t figure out why. He was wearing the darker scrubs, like the doctors, a long sleeve shirt worn under his top, with a leather jacket dangling from one hand. Jase didn’t think he knew any of the younger doctors. What with University being such a popular teaching hospital, the staff rotated enough that it’d be like trying to remember every one of the two thousand incoming freshmen at the university every year.
“Officer?”
“Oh,” Jase said, returning his gaze to her. “Sorry about that. I was wondering if you could please page Dr. Morse, ma’am. We need to get this prisoner to transport.”
“Of course, sugar. He was just around here a minute ago, so he shouldn’t have gotten too far.”
“Thank you, Miss Vernice.” Her thick ebony cheeks pinched her eyes closed as she smiled, pleased with him. Or humoring him. He’d take whichever, so long as he could get the fuck out of here soon. Good news was he only had four-and-a-half hours left of his shift since this whole ordeal had taken up a huge chunk of his morning.
He turned to look out the glass doors directly across from the nurses’ area. Just a few steps through a waiting area and he could be outside, away from the sterile smells, the overly cold central air conditioning. He looked longingly at the pleasant day outside. Unless it’d heated up considerably, he bet it’d be a perfect day to have been out riding one of the horses on the ranch rather than cooped up doing work. He’d have to take time to do that at some point over the weekend. It wouldn’t kill him to take a few hours to do something leisurely that wasn’t indoors. In fact, he missed riding. A lot.
He turned back when Vernice said, “Officer.”
“Yes?”
“He said he’ll be down in about five minutes. He’s not far, just upstairs.”
“Thank—” Jase’s words were cut off.
The man in the dark blue doctor scrubs had pulled up his shirt sleeves, revealing tattoos. Jase’s mind was click, click, clicking into place. He stood frozen, hand on the counter of the nurses’ station. Vernice may have asked if he was alright, but he couldn’t hear over the sounds in his head. No more click, click, clicking but the shuttering of a camera. The shuttering of a camera and the laughs that may have been coming from the man or from the ghost of the man in his mind. The shuttering of a camera and the sound of butterflies’ wings bursting as they flew off in his chest. How could he hear over the ghost of the sound of his heart as a hand was placed over it all those long years ago?
Both men in scrubs must have heard when Vernice asked again if Jase was okay, because the one in nurse’s scrubs looked at Jase with concern, taking a step forward. The man in dark blue scrubs turned and all those sounds silenced, even the sounds of the world currently surrounding them came to a sudden halt. Before the male nurse could move toward Jase, the man in dark scrubs put a hand out, halting the nurse, a look of shock and wonder on his face.
“Ase,” Jase said, barely a whisper. How can you speak if you can’t breathe?
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Ase said, in that horrible Texas accent. And Jase had to grip the counter to keep from running over and hugging the man.
Or passing out.
Ase came around from the other side of the nurses’ station, face morphing from wonder to happy to concern.
“Are you alright?” He held a hand out but Jase didn’t reach for him, just stood white knuckling the counter. It took a second, but he got his bearings.
“Ase.” Jase knew he sounded dumb. But here and now… this was the last thing he’d ever expected. Ever.
He could close his eyes and remember watching the man being dragged off in a car by his cousins. He could remember that better than he could remember having Ase inside him, now. He’d only barely remembered Ase’s face at this point, having put away the photo of them together a long, long time ago; never to be forgotten completely, but far enough away Jase sometimes thought it had been a dream.
Jase was still a bit thunderstruck until Deputy Miller came up beside him. “Deputy Emery, you doing okay?”
Jase looked at her, blinked, and finally exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in. “Uh. Yeah, yeah. The doctor will be here in just a minute.”
When Jase looked to Ase, there was hurt in his eyes. He must’ve thought Jase was dismissing him, because Ase had been a hair’s breadth from pulling Jase in for a hug, but Jase had stood there like a deaf, dumb, and blind man.
“I—” he started.
“Do you two know each other?” the male nurse asked from behind Ase. Jase was aware they had quite the audience with the nurses. God, the gossip would be awesome. He felt himself flush.
The hurt in Ase’s eyes disappeared, replaced by a blankness Jase didn’t like. He was completely unprepared for the overwhelming emotions trying to spill out of him. And with a co-worker right beside him. In his hometown. Full of homophobic assholes so far as he remembered. You’re in uniform. Deal with work first.
That helped him try to form words but there was no reason. Ase turned, kissed the male nurse on the forehead and slung his leather jacket on before waltzing out of the doors Jase couldn’t chase him out of right now.
What the fuck?
He wanted to chase him. Four years. They’d stopped e-mailing a long time ago but Ase didn’t think he should send some kind of message saying he was in Jase’s fucking home town?
And… Jase cleared his throat and looked around at the audience he still had. The male nurse was eying him, and not happily. “Sorry.” But he didn’t elaborate fully, too pissed at himself.
He felt like the lowest form of shit as his eyes drifted back to the glass doors, watching as a blue and black BMW motorcycle zoomed from the side and out of the parking lot without so much as a yield. He held back on the smirk that tried to free itself, knowing Ase damn well deserved a ticket driving like he was, but knowing he’d sure as hell not be the one to do it.
“Wrong person?” Miller asked. When he looked to her and nodded, Miller’s brow went up, saying she believed him as much as she believed Mr. Asani when he said he’d only had one drink last night.