Join the Club - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,54

saw that it was black and charred.

When had that happened?

I thought back to that moment that I realized the man in the truck was my friend.

A man that I’d just seen get married.

A man that, I’d found out today, was going to be a father. At least, he’d wanted to be, anyway. They’d decided to start trying the day they’d gotten home from their honeymoon. She could be pregnant at this very moment, and Jason wouldn’t get to see his baby grow up.

If that didn’t gut me the moment she’d said it…

“…Bourne.”

I blinked, surprised to see that I’d drifted off.

“I’m sorry, what?” I cleared my throat. “I was walking to my cruiser.”

“I said that I’m going to let you get back to work,” she said. “I just wanted to tell you how the appointment went since I knew that you were wondering about it.”

I hadn’t been. But not because I didn’t care, but because I just hadn’t had time to be curious how it went.

I was glad to know that Asa was going to be okay.

“All right,” I said softly. “Y’all be careful, okay?”

“We will.” Then, very softly to the point where I almost didn’t hear her, she said, “Love you, Bourne.”

Then she hung up, not giving me a chance to reply. I felt a burn in my gut as a very unwelcome thought flowed through me.

What if one day I left her like Jason left his girl?

Would she be okay? Or would she completely freak out the way that Ellie had today?

I didn’t like thinking about it, and I certainly didn’t like replaying that scream in my head, but it was something that I couldn’t get out of my head now that the thought had been planted.

My stomach was fucking roiling as I leaned hard against my police cruiser.

There was a steady ache in my chest, and my eyes were stinging.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I counted to ten and willed my thoughts to control themselves.

It was as I was doing this that I heard the crunch of gravel underfoot.

Opening my eyes, I wasn’t surprised in the least to see the big male standing there, arms crossed over his chest, staring at me.

He was assessing me.

“You’re done,” Lucas Roberts, one of my father’s best friends, said. “Head on home. We’ve got things covered now.”

I didn’t bother to argue.

I was fucking tired.

Even more, I wanted to go home, drink a beer, and pet my dog.

I’d love to have my woman in my lap, too, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be at Delanie’s place if anybody needs me.”

Luke walked up and pulled me in for a tight hug.

Something he’d done a hundred thousand times over the years. Something that never got old, no matter how grown up I got.

“It looks pretty fuckin’ grim right now,” Luke said as he let me go. “But don’t think that we won’t figure this out.”

I pressed my hand to my chest.

“I literally just asked him to look into shit for me. Concerning Delanie’s dad. His wife said that he never even made it into the office because he stopped by a friend’s place on the way home. He called to tell her that he’d be coming by to see what she could collect, though. It, apparently, was a game they played. She’d see what she could find in as short of an amount of time as he could manage. Sometimes it was an hour. Other times it was five minutes. But he never got there,” I said. “The last thing I asked my friend was for a favor.”

Luke’s unwavering eyes met mine. “Didn’t he ask you last month to pull a double shift for him?” he asked.

My jaw twitched. “Yeah.”

“And do you think he would’ve felt bad if, after that shift, you drove into a tree on your way home?” he asked.

Jason would’ve felt terrible.

“We do favors for our fellow boys in blue because we love them. Don’t turn this into what it wasn’t. This was just us. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, go home and get some sleep,” he ordered.

With that, he left, not once looking back.

And I climbed into my truck and drove to Delanie’s place.

Thankful that I got a key from her that morning, I wasn’t at all in the right place when I showed up and found her father on her front porch looking pissed.

I shoved my hand into my pocket and glared.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, trying to control my temper.

“I’m