Piper unwrapped the cellophane and took a large bite from the overstuffed sandwich, moaning as the flavor of beef and tangy barbecue sauce hit her tongue. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten anything so good or hearty or decadent. She felt a little guilty that she was enjoying it without her sister. She managed to eat only half the sandwich and the small container of potato salad. Wrapping what was left of her sandwich, she returned it to its bag and walked into the break room so she could stow the leftovers in the fridge.
Turning around, she exited the break room. The phone started ringing and she hurried to her desk, her shoulders squaring back and her chest swelling slightly with something she had never felt before. Something that felt like purpose.
She’d always felt driven when it came to her sister. Purpose and determination had always been there, motivating her to take care of Malia. But waitressing at Joe’s had never fueled her with any great sense of personal fulfillment. She had that now though. Doris training her to answer these calls, talking to people on the other side of the line and being the one person that stood between them and whatever danger was threatening to pull them under. She’d never had anything like that before.
And it was all because of Hale. Damn it.
She didn’t want him doing nice things like bringing her lunch.
She didn’t want to like him. She’d never wanted to like him, so what was she supposed to do with all these new emotions she felt toward him? How was she supposed to deal with working with him every day when she couldn’t look at him without remembering what had happened between them at the club? What she had instigated?
Dropping onto her chair, she picked up the phone midring and answered slightly out of breath. “Sweet Hill Sheriff’s Department. How may I help you?”
Piper had the weekend off. She couldn’t remember the last time she didn’t work a weekend. Maybe not since high school . . . not since her brother was arrested. Definitely not in the year she had worked at Joe’s.
She slept in late on Saturday and then drove Malia to her afternoon game. She parked her lawn chair on the sidelines thirty minutes early and watched the girls warm up. Like a normal parent who worked normal hours and did normal things.
Amanda, Claire’s mom, was there. “Hey, stranger,” she greeted with a hug. “Nice to see you.”
“Yeah, hopefully you’ll be seeing more of me at these games.”
Even as short as Piper was, Amanda was smaller. She shielded her eyes with her hand to look up at Piper curiously. “No kidding?”
Piper nodded, eager to share her change in circumstances. “I have a new job.”
Amanda lifted her eyebrows. “You quit Joe’s?”
“Yep.” It was easier than explaining that she had technically been fired. “And I’ve got a new job working as a dispatch at the Sheriff’s Department.”
Amanda gave a small happy clap. “That’s terrific! I know you’ve been trying to find another job forever. So happy for you! You deserve this.”
Amanda was one of the few people who didn’t judge Piper for her past. She didn’t know how she would have handled getting Malia to and from soccer without Amanda’s help. “Thanks, Amanda.”
“Now you have no excuse. You’ll have to make it to one of our weekend barbecues.”
“And finally get to try the fajitas your husband is so famous for grilling? It’s all Malia talks about.”
Amanda nodded proudly. “That’s right. My man can grill some meat.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “And speaking of meat . . . we’ll have to make sure to invite his sexy cousin.” She waggled her eyebrows. “He’s single.”
Piper laughed and shook her head. “No thanks.”
“Did I mention he prefers brunettes?”
“No matchmaking, please.”
“C’mon, girl. You deserve a good man in your life. Now that you’ll be keeping more normal work hours you can actually go out on a date.”
Except Piper couldn’t do that. She didn’t even want to. An image of Hale filled her mind. She quickly shoved it away. He was not the reason she didn’t want to date.
“I will let you know when I’m ready to date,” she promised Amanda.
Amanda huffed and crossed her arms, seemingly appeased.
They turned their attention to the game and spent the next hour cheering themselves hoarse as they watched the girls run back and forth across the field.
After the game, Malia and Piper joined the other players and their families at a local pizza place. She sat at a table with the parents and drank a glass of wine and ate pizza and bemoaned the ref’s bad calls and talked about the upcoming soccer tournament.
It felt right. It felt good. Normal. She felt like a well-adjusted person raising a happy, well-adjusted kid.
And she owed it to Hale Walters. That was a difficult thing to accept. Especially considering how much he had infuriated her on Thursday with his remarks and his little display of . . . well, she didn’t know what that was. She almost suspected jealousy except she knew that wasn’t possible. A man who didn’t do relationships didn’t get possessive or territorial about a woman he wasn’t even sleeping with. And not only were they not sleeping together, they weren’t even grinding all over each other like two horny teenagers anymore.
A week had almost passed since that madness. Those two nights when they had made out like two sex-crazed monkeys felt like a lifetime ago. As though it happened to someone else. Or as though it happened in a dream. Certainly the memory of those nights had been relegated to her dreams. She actually woke up several times, panting and achy, her hand pressed between her legs in a desperate attempt to assuage the throbbing twinges. Sex dreams. She was having sex dreams. She knew it beat the nightmares that at times plagued her. Maybe.
Whatever the case, she was done fooling around with Hale. It wasn’t happening again.
“Today might have been the best day ever,” Malia declared in the seat beside her. “You never get to go to any of the team dinners with us.”
Piper smiled as she pulled onto the narrow road leading up to their apartment complex. Soon, with her current salary, they’d be able to move out of this dump and get a better place. “I know. And I should get to go to all of them now.”
Malia grinned. “I think I’m in love with Sheriff Walters.”
Piper’s smile slipped. “W-what?”
“For giving you a job.”
“Oh.” She laughed awkwardly, her heart steadying back into a normal pace. “Yeah. Of course.”
Malia gave her a funny look as they pulled into the Sunset Views parking lot. “What did you think I meant? That I looooved him?”
Piper continued laughing nervously. “No. Course not.”
“He’s so old.”
“Old? He’s thirty-one.” She pulled into the parking spot in front of their building.
“Yeah. Practically ancient. But not too old for you. You should go for him. Old or not, he is hot. And he’s got a great body. He must work out.” With that remark, Malia climbed out of the car.
It took her a moment to refocus and follow her out of the car. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“What? He’s a total DILF.”
“A DILF?”
“Yeah. That’s what Claire calls him. You know, like a MILF? Except a DILF.”
Mortification washed through her to think her sister was having this kind of conversation about Hale with Claire. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. You don’t need to explain. I know what it means.” Dads I’d Like to Fuck. “The question is, how do you know what it means? It’s not exactly appropriate.”
Malia rolled her eyes. “I’m fifteen. I watch TV and go to high school.” High school. The corrupter of all innocence.
Piper stopped and stared at her sister’s back before her feet remembered how to walk again. She resumed her pace and caught up with her.
Malia cocked her head and sent her a glance. “Although I guess the sheriff’s technically not a dad.” Her eyes br
ightened. “But he could be. You should totally marry him! Oh!” She gave Piper a nudge that nearly knocked her off the path. “You would make the cutest babies! And then I’d be an aunt.”
She sputtered, “Malia! Stop it!” Please. She didn’t need any unrealistic aspirations. “I’m not marrying the sheriff.”
But suddenly she couldn’t stop considering the idea.
What would it be like to be married to Hale? To live in a house together? To eat meals across from each other? To spend nights snuggling on the couch watching TV? And then her mind drifted to other things a married couple would do.
All kinds of inappropriate things.
All kinds of naughty things.
These things flashed through her mind, making her breasts grow heavy and achy inside her bra. She envisioned his big cock sliding deep inside her as she rocked on top of him, riding him until an orgasm ripped through her shuddering body. His wife would always have that. Him. Whenever she wanted it.
“Piper? You okay? You’re breathing hard and you have this funny look on your face.”
“Yes, yes. I’m fine,” she said too quickly as she fished her keys out of her purse with a trembling hand.
Reaching her door, she pulled up hard as she realized it was ajar. The additional lock she had installed on the door had been cut. “Malia,” she murmured over her shoulder. “Go to the car and wait there.”
“What is it?” Her taller sister peered around her.
If she had to guess, management had ruled against her installing an additional door lock on her own.
“I’m not sure. I think someone’s in our apartment.”
Malia gasped, her grip tightening on Piper’s arm. “Piper . . .”
“Go on. I’ll take care of it.” She already had a pretty good idea who was there. Her blood burned to think of him walking through their home as though he had every right. It wasn’t that late. Only a little after eight. He wasn’t even concerned with being discovered.
Leaving her sister behind, she entered the apartment, walking slowly, easing her steps as though concerned about alerting the intruder of her presence. Almost instantly, she identified sounds that told her someone else was in fact inside her home.
She inched carefully forward through the main room, casting a glance into the tiny kitchen and living room space and verifying the rooms were empty.
She hardly breathed as she hovered in the threshold of the bedroom she shared with Malia. The room was small. She’d tried to make it nice for them, covering the bed with a soft teal comforter she got on clearance at Wal-Mart. The plastered ceiling was cracked in multiple places. The wall a dingy white in desperate need of repainting. But it had always been their sanctuary. In that bed at night, with her sister snoring softly beside her, she would imagine a better world for herself and Malia.
But now that room had been invaded. She spotted him immediately in his dingy wife-beater, tufts of back hair peeking out around the edges of cotton fabric as he riffled through the drawers of their dresser.
Speech abandoned her for several moments as she stared in mute revulsion. He was going through her underwear drawer. Bile rose up in her throat as she watched him lift a pair of her panties to his nose and inhale long and deep.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
Raymond whirled around. For a brief moment, his expression looked almost guilty, and then that sentiment was gone.
“I came over with those rat traps for ya.” Now he was suddenly interested in handling her vermin problem?
She’d asked management to do something about that long ago, but she’d mostly been thinking along the lines of an actual exterminator. Not Raymond. “And you needed to look through my underwear drawer for that?”
He smiled slowly, lifting a hand to scratch at the patchy scruff covering the rolling flesh of his jaw. “Well, I was just being thorough.” He still clutched her underwear in his other hand. She knew the only thing she would be able to do with those panties after this was throw them in the trash.
“I don’t see any traps,” she accused.
“I left them on the counter in the kitchen.”
“And so why are you in my bedroom?”
Several beats passed before he answered. She could almost see him searching his little mind for an excuse. “I thought I would investigate and see if the rats had spread to any other places in your unit besides the kitchen.” He took a few steps in her direction. “They like sweet things, you know.” He glanced down at her panties and grinned.
Pervert.
She nodded to her underwear clutched in his hand. “You can put that down.” Not that she would wear them again, but it was unnerving as hell to see him holding them.
He pushed the black, thick-framed glasses higher atop his nose with the same hand that gripped her underwear. He wasn’t even bothering to hide his creepiness anymore.
He thought he could do this. Corner her and intimidate her. He turned his gaze on her, looking her over in her sleeveless blouse and shorts, taking his time on her legs. She had thought her shorts totally modest, but now she felt indecent with his gaze crawling over her legs.
She inhaled a bracing breath. “I think you need to leave.”
“Now don’t be rude, missy.” His voice sharpened to a scold. “You could be more mannerly. Specially after I went out of my way for you.”
“This isn’t appropriate.”
“Appropriate?” he scoffed. “You think you are so much better than me? So high and mighty? I know who you are. Who your family is.” He fluttered his fingers in the air. “I’m just doing right by you and I don’t like the disrespect you’re treating me to—”
“Either you leave or I will. And I will be taking this up with management.”
He laughed harshly. “Think they’re going to listen to a bit of trash like you? They put me in charge and they’ve already got you pegged as trouble.” She winced, having no doubt he was the reason they made that judgment about her.
He glanced around the space with a sneer. “You pay three hundred a month to live in this shit hole. They’d just as soon toss you out on that tasty ass of yours than listen to any more of your complaints. I’m the only reason you’re still even living here.” He stabbed a sausage finger in her direction. “You better start treating me better, you hear me?”
A deep voice rolled over the air: “I hear you.”
Piper’s chest squeezed at the sudden sound of Hale’s voice. She would know it anywhere. She’d heard it in her dreams now for so many nights.
She whirled around to find him directly behind her. He was wearing his uniform and looking as stern and imposing and beautiful as ever in the dark blue.
“O-Officer,” Raymond sputtered.
Hale studied him stonily, his gray eyes as cold as a snake’s. “I received a call that someone had broken into this residence.”
Someone had called him? Just then Piper caught a movement beyond him. A wide-eyed Malia stood there, her cell phone in her hand, and something else in her other hand. A little white rectangle. Hale’s business card. The one that he had given to Malia that night he hauled her into the department. He’d given it to her with the understanding being that she should call him if she was ever in trouble. Of course, at the time he had thought that Piper was likely the source of all trouble in Malia’s life.
Her sister had kept it. She’d used it at the first hint of trouble.
Relief coursed through Piper even as much as she wanted to reject it. She liked to think she didn’t need him or any man. She liked to think she could have handled Raymond by herself. Even if he did outweigh her by two hundred pounds and his mind was foul and twisted.
But she wasn’t a fool either. Better than anyone she knew how easy it was to become a victim. It didn’t mean you were weak or stupid. It didn’t mean you had done anything wrong. More often than not it meant you were unlucky enough to run smack into a giant douchebag bent on all manner of assholery.
“Everything’s a
ll right, Officer.” Raymond patted both hands on the air in a placating manner. “I’m the manager of this facility. We got this under control.”
Piper snorted and opened her mouth to protest when Hale broke in. “No, I got this,” he said sharply, his gaze cutting. “And it’s Sheriff. Sheriff Walters.”
Hale turned his attention to Piper. “What’s going on?”
She exhaled. “We came home to find him in our apartment—”
Raymond interrupted. “I came inside to set up some rat traps—”
“Rats?” Hale scowled and looked around, assessing the room.
With a start, she realized he had never been inside her home before. She experienced a flash of embarrassment. “We had rats getting into the kitchen pantry,” she quickly explained. As though living with rats was a normal thing. “I found him in here going through my underwear drawer.”
“As the manager of this complex, I have every right to enter the unit—”
“You were going through her underwear drawer?” Hale asked, his voice lethally soft.
Raymond laughed uneasily. “C’mon. I’m harmless.”
“Sounds like you’re a sick fuck,” Hale pronounced.
Raymond’s eyes bulged. “Hey. You can’t talk to me like that.” He stepped forward, puffing out his chest.
Hale flexed his hand on his gun belt. “If I were you, I wouldn’t come at me.”
Raymond halted, his eyes wide. For the first time, she read fear there.
Hale continued. “I’m going to put in a call to the management of this complex and make certain they’re aware that they’ve placed their trust in a predator. I expect that they’re going to fire you—”
“You can’t do that!”
“I serve the County of Sweet Hill. It’s my duty to protect the public from men like you. I would tread carefully. My officers are going to keep a close eye on you. Whatever hole you crawl into, just know that someone will always be around watching you.”
“Just because I put a hand in her underwear drawer?” Raymond blustered.
Hale stepped forward, closing the distance between him and her landlord. His deep voice reached her ears, but not the words. She couldn’t hear what he uttered. Piper moved to stand beside her sister. Whatever Hale said, the color bled from Raymond’s face. The man nodded jerkily and then scrambled past Hale. He didn’t even look at her or her sister as he exited the door of her bedroom.