Busted (Promise Harbor Wedding) - By Sydney Somers Page 0,62
stick around for a bit. Josh was still out of town, leaving him few options aside from a tow truck.
Absolutely fucking perfect.
Hayley nearly kept driving past the rink even though she’d spotted Jackson inspecting the engine in the rain. An hour spent pouring drinks at Stone’s hadn’t been nearly long enough to cool off, not even after Brent told her that Jackson had stepped in when his brother, after drinking too much—again—had picked a fight.
That was probably the only reason she found herself turning the truck around.
Jackson lifted his head, giving the truck a weary glance when she pulled up, but quickly went back to studying whatever he found so fascinating under the hood.
She stepped out of the truck, shielding her face from the rain as best she could. “Get in.”
“Waiting to use a billy club on me next?”
Knowing she probably deserved that made her even more determined to get him in the truck. “I’m not going to ambush you.”
He crossed his arms, clearly comfortable with having a conversation in the rain.
Fine. She wouldn’t melt. “Look, I talked to Brent. I’m sorry for assuming you picked that fight.” Though they would have been hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn’t have believed that. His reputation as a fighter preceded him, unfortunately. And he hadn’t exactly said otherwise. “And I’m sorry for what I said about you not playing hockey.”
His shoulders stiffened, and she waited for him to tell her to go. He didn’t. He closed the hood, locked the car and walked toward her. By the time he reached the truck, she’d slid back behind the wheel.
He settled into the passenger seat and met her gaze. Was he waiting for something?
“What?” she prompted.
“Just thinking that your apology would be even better if you were naked.”
The tension dissolved between them instantly. She laughed. “You’re sick.”
He grinned, and the sight of it warmed her stomach, even if something about it felt a touch forced.
Focusing on the road, she pulled out of the rink parking lot. “You’re staying at your parents’, right?”
“Is that your way of saying I’m not staying with you tonight?”
Her cell phone rang, buying her a few seconds before she’d have to answer. With a glance at the screen, she knew it was work. “Detective Stone.”
While she listened to Mabel ask her to check out a house a few blocks away, she watched Jackson from the corner of her eye. He was thoroughly soaked and a layer of white grime clung to his clothes from the fire extinguisher. He fiddled with his seat belt, his expression guarded, and when he glanced her way, she fixed her attention straight ahead and focused on Mabel.
“Possible robbery in progress. A patrol car was dispatched to check it out but was tied up at an accident scene, so I need to check things out. Probably nothing,” she told him after Mabel hung up. She turned the truck in the opposite direction of both his parents’ and her grandfather’s. They reached the two-story Cape Cod-style home in under three minutes.
“Do you usually get a lot of false alarm calls?”
“No, but the robberies have made people more leery of anything out of the norm.” It also meant they were receiving more calls that turned out to be nothing, and this wasn’t the first time she’d taken a turn following up on a call from a concerned neighbor.
Jackson peered through the rain-splattered window. “Nobody’s home, I take it?”
“Owners are apparently visiting family in Kentucky. The neighbor saw some suspicious lights.”
Suspicious lights they saw for themselves a few seconds later. Flashlight maybe. The outside light at the front door was on, probably on a timer. The house had power then, making it unlikely a family member was stumbling around in the dark.
She reached down between Jackson’s legs.
“Couldn’t wait until we got home, huh?”
Hayley snorted and tugged a small black bag from under the seat. Inside it, she keyed a combination into a lockbox and withdrew her Glock. She checked the magazine and made sure the safety was on.
“Don’t you wear a gun strapped around your ankle?”
“You watch too many movies. I spend too much time around curious kids to carry a gun when I’m not on duty.”
“What about the Taser?”
She slipped her weapon into a holster she clipped at her side. “I need to be within fifteen feet or less for optimal use.”
He mulled that over. “So if I’d been another five feet away the other night, I could have escaped the shock of a lifetime. Good to know.”