CHAPTER 6
Zoe
I was getting booked. Booked! Like on one of those shitty reality TV cop shows, where they wrestle a suspect to the ground outside a dilapidated apartment building. Come to think of it, this whole thing would be a lot more fun if Officer Robertson would just wrestle me to the ground.
I’d been so close to getting off the hook. Now I was going to lose a vital day of work in the race to finish these cakes. And if I didn’t get the milk into the fridge in time, that would be another half day gone to a second grocery expedition. However, the cold temperature was cooperating, so the milk would be fine for now. Who knew if I’d even be able to fill the order? My shoulders slumped at the prospect of failing to deliver, and thus ensuring that my business would never regain its good name.
I spent most of the car ride in a grumpy slouch, daring either officer to engage me in conversation. Frankly, this whole thing would’ve been a bit more fun if I could’ve continued flirting with the hot cop named Dylan. But after spotting that ring, I was a goner. Being on the receiving end of said cheating, I knew it fucking sucked. And we hadn’t even been married. I wasn’t going to enable anyone to inflict that level of pain on another woman, not when I knew how deeply it burned.
But those eyes… and those thighs… I’m just saying, I’m not perfect. My brain may have been vehemently against engaging in even harmless flirting with a married man, but my body craved him like he was greasy food after a hangover. What can I say? I’m only human. Cut me some slack here.
I wrestled with my feelings over the course of the ride and hadn’t drawn any further conclusions by the time we skidded to an icy halt in front of the station. When a hot piece of ass like his was on the line, what was a girl to do? Not to say that I’d forgiven the whole arrest thing, but the more I stared at the stubble on his jawline, the more I was amenable to hearing his presumably forthcoming apology.
He got out and opened my door, and even though I knew it was because the vehicle had kiddy locks, I pretended it was an act of gentlemanly kindness. Besides, he seemed like the kind of man who would open a car door for his date. He exuded the variety of Midwestern chivalry I had quickly come to recognize in the men of Fallow Springs. I could say one thing for country boys, they had manners in spades.
In a little cluster, the two officers and I made our way into the station. It was old-fashioned, to put it mildly, and resembled a quaint schoolhouse more than a prison. It was tiny — the town itself was tiny, after all — and there were two single cells, in addition to a front desk and a corridor I assumed led to a handful of offices. As I watched Dylan lumber into the rooms, it occurred to me that he was both too big and just the right size for this place. Physically, he looked like the Hulk next to the sixties wooden desk with a green lamp in one of its corners.
But emotionally, or whatever you want to call it, his aura fit just right. Like the station, he emanated a disdain for modernity. I doubted he’d ever progressed beyond a flip phone, or that the computer in his house ran on anything besides a modem.
Besides, this wasn’t a job you joined to buy cool tech and live in the lap of twenty-first-century luxury — there wasn’t much pay in being a police officer, I assumed. This seemed like a job you joined not for the healthcare, but because it was a calling.
He came back from what I presume was his desk and I got to have a good look at him without his jacket on.
The manufacturer had made the police-issued department T-shirt fabric blessedly clingy. I could see definitive outlines of firm pecs, maybe even the tops of some abs. I was able to focus in on his T-shirt riding up, and the small strip of hard, tanned skin emerging. Who the fuck is tan during winter in Wisconsin? The more I stared with abandon, the more convinced I was that he was not of this Earth.
My reverie was broken by Dylan explaining that he needed to take my prints.
“Sorry about this,” he said. “I know it seems ludicrous, but it’s protocol.”
“Don’t apologize for doing your job,” I replied, with a graciousness I didn’t quite feel. If he was surprised at my sudden generosity of spirit, he didn’t show it. I envied him the ability to hide his emotions so well. I wore mine like fresh laundry, newly starched and visible for the whole world to eyeball.
He trotted me over to a counter where a smudge of black ink stood at the ready. He took my hand in his, and pressed my fingers into the smudge, then onto a piece of white paper. Even though I was being booked, my earlier feelings of raging sex were beginning to return with the proximity of the officer. I worried that he could feel my pulse throbbing in the webbing between my thumb and index finger. His touch raised my ancient, animalistic instincts. I thought of how wonderful it would be to consume him, to take my ink-smudged fingers and grasp his face, leaving my mark along the angles of those perfect cheeks.
And his ring caught the light. I pulled my hand back. Right. I was still getting arrested, and he was still married.
“Hey, careful,” he said, grabbing my still inky fingertips. He extracted a white linen handkerchief from his pocket.
“You don’t have to get that dirty on my behalf,” I offered. “I’ll just wipe it on my jeans.” The pants had seen worse, and I didn’t want to once again forget my previous resolve to treat him like the cheating bastard he was. Because if he continued with his touch and used his old-timey handkerchief, I reckoned I would just about change my mind about being angry with him.
He tsked. “Don’t be crazy.” The linen, led by masterful hands, began to dab at my fingertips, rubbing away all traces of the stamp. He worked swiftly and tenderly, so much so that for a moment, I forgot I was in a police station, and not in bed. I imagined those hands tracing circles on my naked back and following the length of my spine down to the dip just above my ass.
Oh God. Why was my mind playing cruel tricks on me? Focus, Zoe. Remember that he’s a cheater. Remember that you hate cheaters. Don’t think about what he’d look like in your rumpled sheets. Definitely don’t think about what he’d look like beneath you.
“I gotta go talk over your papers and intake with Officer Morton,” Dylan said. “If I leave you here, do you promise to behave? No running out the front door?”
What, he was just going to take my word on this? Pretty lax police work, if you asked me.
“Sure,” I replied. “I’ll be good.”
“Great. When I get back, you can be bad all over again.”
I desperately needed his handkerchief to pat other, ah, wetter parts of myself. Dylan turned, and strutted down the aforementioned ill-lit corridor, leaving me to mosey over to a stiff wooden bench, take a begrudging seat and contemplate my predicament.
Because while I might have been preoccupied with those big blue eyes — and the cheating, Zoe, don’t forget the cheating — there were other pressing matters that demanded my attention. Like, how the fuck was I going to fill the cake order now? My loan payment was due in a week and a half. If I didn’t have the money for a second month, sharks were going to start coming after me. As it was, they were already scenting blood in the water.
I’d moved to here to pursue my dreams — opening a bakery. A simple dream, I know. But if I couldn’t even manage that much, if I couldn’t keep a bakery afloat in a tiny town with rental prices less than a tenth of what they were charging in NYC… well, I was screwed. In other words, if I couldn’t hack it here, I couldn’t hack it anywhere. Would I have to move back in with my parents? It seemed like a real and daunting possibility.
Dylan returned and I noticed he’d taken off his hat, revealing close-cropped brown hair. It was full, with a slight wave to it, and I melted. Men with brown hair were my weakness. My eyes were so absorbed with his hair that they took their time getting to his arms, which were now exposed. The jacket apparently was discarded in the back. His pecs bulged in the tight black sleeves of his shirt. I thought I should probably write a thank-you note to the manufacturers of that garment for what they had done for humankind.
“So,” he said, sauntering up to me. “Got some good news.”
“Oh yeah?” I replied, moving in, like a moth to a flame.
“We’re gonna let you go. Theoretically, we’re supposed to make you stay the night, so let’s keep this our little secret, okay?”
I nodded vigorously. “Yes, sir, understood.”
“Call me Dylan.”
“Yes… Dylan.”
“Besides,” he added, “it sounded like you have big stuff going on at your bakery. We don’t wanna keep a small business owner down. That’s not what we’re about in this department.” He said this last bit with an undercurrent of pride, and I smiled.
“But,” Dylan continued, “you’ll still have a court date. Shouldn’t be too big of a deal.”
I sighed, nodding my head reluctantly. Not worth the fight. “I understand.”
“Meanwhile, I can give you a ride to your car, if you’d like. Officer Morton is busy with some paperwork.”
Fuck, of course, it was still on the side of the interstate. That was a pain, but I relished the notion of spending more time in Dylan’s presence.
“Okay,” I replied a little too eagerly. “I’d hate to leave it by the highway all night.”
“Oh uh… it’s not there.”
“What? What happened?” I questioned urgently. “Did it get stolen?”
“No, no, not stolen.” He scratched at his neck and averted his gaze, like a schoolboy caught with gum under his desk. “Um… impounded.”
“Uh, why?”
“Protocol.”
I groaned at this non-answer. Protocol. Not helpful. I resigned myself to the situation.
“All right,” I responded. “Let’s go get it.”
No sooner had the words left my mouth then he was jogging back out of sight, and shortly thereafter, returning with his jacket. I mourned the fact that he’d be covering those arms back up, but I supposed I’d also feel bad if he froze.
He grabbed the keys off the desk, and we walked back outside into the chilly air. It was late afternoon, and because it was wintertime, the sun was already beginning to set.
Dylan hit the key fob, and his squad car beeped a reply.
“We’re going in that?” I asked, pointing at the vehicle.
“Don’t worry,” he replied. “You can sit in the front this time.”