CHAPTER 5
At eleven on the nose, Travis pushed back from his desk at the station. “I’m going for coffee,” he said as he passed Jeanine, his right-hand assistant and dispatcher.
“I’ll catch up,” called Weston from his spot where he stood holding up the wall while flirting with Jeanine. Good luck with that. She was a tough nut to crack. She’d been at the station longer than he had, and he’d seen countless guys vie for her attention over the years. It was downright entertaining the way she could reduce even the toughest cops to a puddle with a witty insult.
Travis pushed out the door and into the humid mid-day sun. He’d sweat through his uniform on the walk over. But it could be worse. He could be on a jungle floor in Kevlar in Colombia. No thanks. He kept fresh shirts at the station for just this purpose. Donning his aviators, he started across the street. The three-block walk took no more than five minutes, and he scanned the area for Elaine as soon as the picnic tables came into view.
What shirt would she be wearing today? He stopped at the corner of the food truck as soon as he spotted her. Pink. She bent to pick up trash from a table, and he ignored the rush of blood that bypassed his brain and dove straight to his balls. But what struck him today and didn’t sit well with him was the way she pulled on her shoulder after she dumped the garbage in the barrel. It hit him with the force of a charging bull. Fuck him for never noticing before. She was exhausted. He could see it now. Plain as day. The pinch at her shoulder blades, the slump of her shoulders when she thought no one was looking. He pushed off the corner and moved to intercept her. “Here,” he said gruffly as she turned his direction, her hands full of paper plates and cups, the top one filled with plastic silverware and napkins. “Let me.” He took them from her and made the trip to the barrel. “Why doesn’t Dottie make a big sign telling everyone to pick up their trash?”
“Because then I’d be out of a job,” Elaine answered quietly.
Come to think of it, why had Dottie kept Elaine on? Elaine was right. There was nothing for her to do here but pick up trash and pour coffee refills. And when push came to shove, people could do that themselves too.
“But thanks for your help.” She smiled shyly at him, pink staining her cheeks the same color as her shirt. “I’ll grab your coffee.” Air stuck in his lungs. The pink shirt was his new favorite color.
He should move to a table. Have a seat. But instead, he stayed planted in the middle of the picnic area, tracking Elaine as she wove through the tables to the coffee maker, and then carefully made her way back. He’d almost hugged her the other day, when they’d dropped her off. But in the end, he’d forced himself to take a step back even though every cell in his body yelled at him to move forward. The urge came over him again. Pull her flush, so he could feel her softness molding against him. Instead, he held himself still, bracing for the zing of contact when she handed him his cup.
Her eyes flew to his when they touched, and she froze as he wrapped his hands around hers. Chickory. Her eyes were as blue as the wild chickory that grew in the ditches alongside the highway. He zeroed in on her mouth, noticing for the first time tiny lines of tension, as if she worried too much when she was alone. Could he kiss that tension away? Suck on that sweet lower lip until she cried out from the madness of it all? And the corded muscle at her neck… would that soften after an orgasm or four? God, he was half hard at the thought.
No. No. No.
Too young. Single Parent. Keeps the doors unlocked. The laundry list torpedoed through his head. Reluctantly he released her, taking the cup. He was doing the right thing by staying away, but why did it leave him so deflated and generally pissed off?
“Tell me again why you’re making a third career out of being a stalker instead of asking the girl out?” Weston asked after Elaine had moved away.
He’d been so focused on Elaine’s mouth, he hadn’t even noticed Weston approaching. So much for being alert to danger. Elaine had his senses befuddled and turned upside down. Travis took a gulp of the scalding coffee, the burn jolting his mind away from his cock. Too much more of this, and his taste buds would be gone.
Weston crossed his arms, looking pissed. “Well? I’m waiting.”
“You really want me to say? Out loud?”
“Yes,” he snapped. “I want you to hear with your own ears how stupid your reasons are. Go on.”
Weston could push all he wanted on this one. He wasn’t giving in. “Fine. For starters, she’s a resident. She’s too young. She refuses to lock her doors.”
Weston glared at him and scoffed. “This has nothing to do with Elaine and everything to do with shit you still can’t let go of. When you gonna stop carrying those guys around with you like a ball and chain?”
He grimaced at the analogy. He’d carry his fallen friends as long as he needed. “It was my fault. I was lead.”
“Bullshit,” Weston spat. “We all thought that kid was safe. You just happened to be the one who voiced it.”
“Because I was lead,” he gritted. “And I gave the order to let him go, and we lost half the team because of it.” And what made him sick, what he couldn’t reconcile in the punishing quiet of a lonely dark night, was that the scared look in the young boy’s eyes was the same damned look he’d seen in Colton’s eyes the night he’d kicked his brother off the ranch. He’d been a heartless bastard that night, and in some fucked up way the Universe had of evening the score, he’d taken a look at that scared kid halfway around the world, and thought of his brother. His guilt had killed his teammates. Fuck. That.
Weston’s voice softened. “Can’t you see how this is eating you up? Stopping you from living in the here and now? It’s time to shake things up. Run for sheriff.”
“Who’s running for sheriff?” Dottie asked as she held out the coffee pot.
Travis clenched his jaw. Jesus, that woman had the hearing of an owl at midnight.
Weston pushed his shoulder. “Travis is.”
Dottie looked him over, a critical light in her eye. “Lord knows you’d be a sight better than that Lawson.”
That got his attention. Why would Dottie have an opinion about Lawson? Furthermore, why was it bad? You had to be a real chump to get on Dottie’s bad side. Then again, the diner had been like a newsstand. Maybe Dottie had heard something. It was why he made a point of coming in around lunchtime every day and sitting at the counter. All he had to do was sip his coffee and listen to the chatter. It had nothing to do with the pretty young woman in the pink shirt and the jeans that perfectly framed her curves currently scrubbing the picnic table.
“You’ll need a treasurer to file, and there’s your lady,” Dottie tilted her chin in Elaine’s direction. “I’ve never seen a girl as good with numbers as she is.”
Travis’s head snapped up and he looked over to Weston. He looked like the Goddamned Cheshire Cat. “I suppose you knew this too?”
Weston shrugged, grinning shamelessly. “I suspected. Haven’t you seen her add a bill and calculate tax in her head? Perfect every time. And she can do it faster than I can with a calculator.” He shook his head and tsked. “For someone who can calculate bullet speed and wind drift and hit a target dead on from 200 yards, you’re remarkably clueless. Oh, wait…”
Weston was going in for the kill. He could feel it.
“Maybe it’s because you were too focused on the sway of her hips to notice anything like her math skills.”
And bullseye. Dottie swung the weight of her gaze toward him, eyes narrowed. “I always suspected, but I couldn’t say for sure. You make her your treasurer, Travis. Lord knows I can’t pay her much of anything right now, and her second job disappeared when the library got destroyed. But–” She wagged a finger at him “You be good to her. That girl has had enough trouble thrown at her for three lifetimes. I don’t want to hear you’ve behaved badly.”
There were few things as uncomfortable in life as being scolded by Dottie. “I will be a perfect gentleman.” Even if it killed him. “But what does a campaign treasurer do?”
“In a small race like this, keep track of your expenditures and receipts,” Weston answered. “Help you budget. They can help with fundraising.”
“Fundraising.” What in the hell was he getting himself into?
“You’re going to have to raise money. Ask for donations.”
“Oh hell no. Not while we’re recovering. I’ll pay for it myself. If I do it.”
“I can look into the campaign finance laws here, but you can probably do that too, although campaigns can get pretty expensive.”
“How much are we talking?”
“Forty, maybe fifty grand for a county race.”
Travis’s stomach pitched. “You’re kidding.”
Weston shook his head. “Welcome to politics.”
He had a nest egg that would more than cover the expense. But he’d always imagined using it to refurbish the ranch and get it running again once he retired from the police force. He’d do it now, but you couldn’t be a ranch of one. So he’d continued setting something aside each month for someday. But what if someday never came? Should he pull some of it now? Challenge this Lawson character? Lawson’s name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it.
Dottie and Weston waited expectantly. Was he supposed to tell them now? No way. He wasn’t doing that. But he wasn’t comfortable saying flat out no either. “I’m not saying yes, but I’ll think about it.”
Dottie clapped her hands. “Good. I want to see Steve Lawson get what’s coming to him.”
Weston gave him a look that spoke volumes. He was so screwed.