Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69511 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69511 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Since dispatch was in a different building from the PD, it wasn’t often that I saw them.
But they still stopped by to say hi.
You tended to make friends with the men and women you talked to, day in and day out.
They also stopped by to bring treats to thank us.
I guess I should’ve expected to not hear from, or see, Gable, though.
I mean, he was undercover, and had been for months.
He was undercover more than any cop I’d ever known.
He’d been in two such stints since I’d known him, and from what the Carter family had shared in my presence, Gable stayed fairly hidden in case he was needed to go undercover again.
My car puttered into the parking lot, and I quickly took a look around to see if I could spot Gable’s bike.
I couldn’t believe I was back at the bar, but it was the only way I knew I could get ahold of him.
It took a lot of courage for me to ask him.
I mean, we’d had sex two times.
Sure, it’d been in a single day, but on his way out he had said if I needed anything, to just get in touch with him.
This counted, right?
I found his bike—and him—in the corner of the lot, standing underneath a streetlight that’d just turned on for the night.
He saw me instantly and narrowed his eyes.
My eyes were locked on the woman in the circle of his arms.
My heart shattered in two at the beautiful woman.
She was everything that I would never be.
Tall, blonde, big boobs, and fantastic legs.
She looked like Carrie Underwood.
Was she his type?
Was…
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked.
When had he walked toward me?
How had I missed that?
“I’m, uh, here…” I didn’t know what to say.
There was no way that I could tell him what I’d actually come to tell him.
I had to make something up. Fast.
Only, the longer he looked at me, the more I felt like I was most assuredly not wanted, and that made my tongue tie up even further.
“Why are you here, Athena?” he pushed.
I opened my mouth, closed it, then just blurted it out.
“I wanted to ask you if you wanted to go to Japan with me,” I babbled. “I have these tickets. They’re paid for fully. I’m going. Next week. By myself. So I thought I’d ask if you wanted to go. With me. There.”
He was already shaking his head. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Wow, he was short.
“But it’s a free trip,” I said. “With me.”
Wow, I sounded desperate.
But to my credit, I really didn’t want to do this trip by myself.
He patted my shoulder like he was consoling a sullen child, then said, “Go home, Athena.”
I looked down at my lap, then nodded once.
Reaching for my window, I started to roll it up, but his angry words had me halting.
“Don’t read more into it than there actually was,” he snarled.
With my tail tucked between my legs, I rolled the window the rest of the way up, put my car in drive, and sped out of the parking lot.
May your coffee kick in before reality does.
—Coffee Cup
GABLE
I felt like utter shit for what I’d said.
I should’ve been nice about it, but seeing her there, especially that night, scared the holy hell out of me.
“You ready?” Tyrone asked.
I looked at the building that we were raiding in ten minutes.
“10-4,” I replied.
“Little harsh with her, weren’t you?” Tyrone asked.
Maybe. Probably.
“Not at all,” I snapped, disagreeing with him on general principle. “You know why she couldn’t be here.”
The warrant we were executing was going to be brutal.
I fully expected a lot of shit to happen in ten minutes, and the last thing I wanted was Athena to be there when it all went down.
“Yeah, but you could’ve just asked her to leave,” he suggested. “She would have if you’d been sincere.”
I thought about the last two weeks, and how Madman had talked about her nonstop, and shook my head. “No, Madman is being a fucking creep when it comes to her.”
Which he knew.
“Yo, Carrie, you ready?”
‘Carrie’ was Callena Baron, an agent with the FBI, and my ‘girlfriend’ for the night.
She was going in as my backup as I waited for the castle to be stormed.
“You should probably apologize about how you acted.” Callena suggested. “If you like her, you must apologize. I know how that looked.”
“It’s okay, we’ll figure it out later,” I said, trying not to give a shit.
The problem was that I did give a shit, and she was all I could think about already. Now, her face would haunt me.
Tyrone fit his bulletproof vest under his shirt, then slipped his cut on over it.
I had done the same earlier.
Callena had hers on under her sweatshirt, giving the three of us a little peace of mind as we made our way from the parking lot of the bar to the clubhouse.