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“And he’s been staring at Hastings all evening, with his lip curled up in disgust,” Aurora said, aiming her glare right back at the man that was still sneering at me.
Me.
Not Aurora.
Why me? We both had the same freakin’ parents, and I knew for a fact that Aurora resembled my mother more than I did.
Luke Roberts pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Patman,” he said. “I’m not sure why you felt the need to use this excessive force, on a civilian that was here to learn from you no less, but this is the final straw. You will no longer be working in any form with the Kilgore Police Department.”
Patman laughed. “I don’t work for you, buddy. I work for the academy and Kilgore College.”
Luke looked over at him. “Well, I’ll be making my recommendations to them as well. Hastings, would you like to press charges?”
I immediately shook my head. “No, sir.”
“I suppose you’re going to put this into a book, too?” Patman popped off, cracking his neck from side to side. “You’re going to humiliate me all over again?”
I pinched my brows together in confusion. “I’m sorry, what?”
He laughed. “Oh, you didn’t know that the book you dedicated to your mother a year or so back had everything to do with me?”
I felt my eyes widen a bit.
The ‘book’ that I’d dedicated to my mother had to do with her high school boyfriend. The one that had treated her so badly that it’d sent her into the arms of my father. When I’d learned all that had happened one night when my mother had been drinking a little too much wine, I’d asked her the next day if I could write about it, and she’d agreed.
To know that Patman was the cause of all her pain made me want to claw his eyes out.
“You think it’s okay to play two friends against each other, and you are humiliated that my sister writes about your stupid ass in a book? A book that doesn’t even mention you by name? Get a life. The only person that would be pissed about that kind of thing is a guilty one,” Aurora snapped.
That was true.
Why the anger at what I wrote? I mean, I wrote fiction. I didn’t use his name. My characters weren’t even based out of Texas. They were based in Montana, for Christ’s sake!
“Whatever,” Patman said as he walked toward the door. “Good luck finding someone else that can teach this class.”
The door slammed shut behind him and Luke sighed before turning to me.
“Are you okay?” Luke asked, his eyes now soft as he looked from me to Sammy’s still bristling form, and then back again.
Understanding crossed over Luke’s eyes, and then he sighed.
“Sammy,” Luke said. “Take her to the clinic. Get her checked out. We have to have this on file. And while you’re there, call her parents. Baker would have my balls if he didn’t find out about this when it happened.”
“We’re not calling my parents from the clinic,” I said. “They don’t know about the baby yet. I… we’re not calling them. I’ll tell him after I get checked out. Call him tomorrow. But not right now.”
Not when I was feeling so freaking disconnected.
I needed to get my head on straight.
I needed to…
“I’ll take her to the clinic,” Sammy promised as he looked at Luke. “In the meantime, you should get a couple of statements from everyone here. While I’m at it, I’m going to try to convince Hastings that she needs to press charges against his stupid ass.”
Luke snorted. “Good luck with that, kid.”
Aurora turned to Sammy. “I drove her here.”
Sammy nodded. “I can take her home. You’re okay to drive?”
Aurora nodded her head. “Perfectly fine. Just pissed.”
Sammy’s lips twitched, causing Aurora to roll her eyes. “I hate people like him.”
Sammy’s smile fell off his lips entirely. “Patman is the worst of the worst. He’s been doing sneaky shit to hurt people for years. When I went through the police academy, he hit me across the forehead with his baton during hand to hand. He, of course, said it was an accident, but I didn’t believe him then, and I don’t believe him today with Hastings. He’s not going to get away with this.”
I imagined not.
The door opened and Luke walked out without saying goodbye to us.
I sighed and hopped off the counter, which put me in close proximity to Sammy.
Which happened to be a good thing because the moment that my feet hit the floor, my left knee started to go out from under me as a sharp pain in my lower back throbbed.
It was a normal feeling, of course. Just bruised or tweaked muscles, nothing a trip to the chiropractor wouldn’t fix.
But still.
It hurt.
And when I kind of stumbled against Sammy, he caught me around the waist and hauled me into his side. “Let’s go.”
