Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 76780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
“Do you have a matching one in the back?” Ned asks Jarrett.
“No, I—”
“Go look.”
Jarrett sighs and then strides off, stepping over cats like hurdles. He’s barely out of sight before I feel Ned’s presence looming over me.
“Trash.”
I snap my head up to meet his hateful stare. “Excuse me?”
“You and your brother are trash. Disgusting filth.”
This coming from a man whose son went to prison for beating the fuck out of a kid with a baseball bat. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
“Whatever, man.” I clench my jaw. “Tell someone who cares because I sure as hell don’t.”
Ned’s face pinches, and his skin flushes red. Not the pretty kind of red. The horrible, disgusting type of red. And then he spits.
The fucker spits on me.
I stare at the pile of thick mucus clinging to the arm of my coat in absolute shock. This backwater, redneck town…
“No lamps,” Jarrett barks out, rushing back toward us. He inspects the way Ned stands over me in a threatening way and the expression on my face. It takes all of three seconds for him to compute it all. “Is there a problem?”
“No problem at all,” Ned says in a pleasant tone. “I’ll take that lamp then. One will have to do.”
Ned turns on his heel and walks over to the register. Jarrett’s eyes drift to the spit on my coat, his nostrils flaring.
I sit up and shed the coat before tossing it to the floor. “Burn it.”
Jarrett opens his mouth like he’ll say something, but I snatch up my bags and hurry out of the store. The wind is icy and horrible and cruel, but it’s nothing compared to the encounter with yet another Townsend. As I walk past the police department, I’m tempted to report it. To tell Jax or Brie what a piece of shit Ned is, just like his son.
Instead, I lift my chin, bravely facing the wind that’s whipping at me, and make the long trek home with my dignity still intact.
Atlas
He’ll come around. I know his type. Callan is wildly independent but still needs someone to depend on. Luckily for him, I can let him be both. A lover and a fighter. Trapped and free.
I just have to capture him first.
Thoughts of handcuffing him to my bed while I have my way with him have a smile tugging at my lips.
“You’re not allowed to be happy,” Jax grumbles from his desk as I walk into the station for my shift. “You’ve arrested yet another problem I have to deal with.”
I toss my keys on my desk and wrinkle my nose at the peculiar smell. “What’s that terrible—”
“It’s my lotion,” Brie huffs, storming up the hallway toward the lobby. “Don’t worry. I just washed it off since it seems to be an asshole repellent, and your precious noses are being violated.”
“Throw the whole bottle away,” I suggest with a shrug.
Brie flips me off before grabbing her purse. “Whatever. I’m out of here. There’s a guy I’m meeting up with for dinner.”
“Need a chaperone?” Jax teases.
“I hate you both.” She stomps out of the station like she’s thirty going on thirteen.
I drop down into my seat and swivel around to face Jax. “You read the report?”
“I did.” He sighs. “The Powers family owns the country club.”
“And?”
“They’re…influential.”
“And the Powers little shit is a hateful prick who would have beat up your brother-in-law had I not stepped in.”
Jax’s lips purse together. “Man to man, thank you for that. But as the sheriff and glorified babysitter of this town, I think a stern talking to could have been sufficient.”
“I beg to differ.”
He scrubs a palm over his face. “No, you’re right. Fuck that brat.”
“You hired me to help deal with the increasing crime in this town. Hate crimes are crimes. Don’t mean shit if they’re sons or grandsons of the rich and well-known. They’re dicks who’ll only continue to hurt people if we don’t make an example out of them.”
“Mr. Powers is getting his attorney involved. If we don’t drop the charges—”
“We won’t,” I growl. “And he can involve his attorney all he wants. I’ll drag my ass to court and tell the judge exactly what I think of that monster.”
“Who are you going to arrest tonight?”
I spin around in my chair, my gaze catching the dark Main Street and the glow of Blur’s sign, before stopping to stare at Jax again. “Maybe that bank president douchebag.”
“For fuck’s sake.”
My chair creaks, and I grind my teeth together. A little before my shift, I spoke to Jarrett, the crazy-ass antique guy, and learned something that pissed me right the fuck off.
“Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” I state coolly. “I’ve got my eye on him.”
“What did he do?”
“Jarrett said he spit on…” I trail off. “A gay man while he was in his store.”