AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I shrugged. “Obviously, someone had to.”
“This shit can’t keep happening every time you stop by, Thatch,” Charlie grumbled behind us as he tried to rouse a snoozing Johnny. “I’m calling the sheriff.”
“C’mon, Charlie,” Thatch begged as he stared down at me with a tickled grin. “Just let it go. He assaulted my fiancée.”
I grinned back.
God, we were both fucking insane. It made my belly flutter and my smile consume my face until I felt like my cheeks might burst.
Charlie laughed incredulously. “He didn’t lay a finger on your fiancée. I watched it all from behind the bar. And you know this cocksucker is gonna try to press charges the second he comes to. Hell if I’m going to be the one who has to deal with Miller tomorrow morning.”
Thatch put both of his hands on my shoulders. “Honey,” he said with amusement in his voice, “I have a feeling I’m going to be the one bailing you out of jail this time.”
“Well…” I shrugged. “It was worth it.”
“Hey, Sheriff Miller, do you mind if I use the ladies’ room and grab a snack from the vending machine?”
“Call me Bill, darling,” he responded from his comfortable position behind his desk—chair leaned back, boots kicked up on the metal table. “And help yourself to the snacks in the break room.”
“Thanks, honey.”
After I knocked Johnny out in one shot, I got arrested by the Frogstown Police. Sheriff Miller had placed me in cuffs and put me in the back of his patrol car while Thatch had tried to convince him otherwise.
But it hadn’t worked. Obviously, my fiancé had been a troublemaker back in the day and had zero pull in his hometown. The sheriff had actually made it pretty clear that if Thatch tried to come with me right away, he’d put him in cuffs right next to me. The sweet fucking giant had looked like he was considering it.
But thirty minutes of flirty banter and fluttering eyelashes had gotten me on the sheriff’s good side, and he had taken the cuffs off and given me free rein of the station.
He had even apologized for having to keep me for the required six hours.
Yeah, Bill and I were good buddies now.
Once I took a quick pee break and grabbed a bag of chips from the station’s break room, I plopped down behind one of the deputies’ desks and mimicked the same position as the sheriff. “Mind if I use my phone for a minute?”
“Go ahead, darling.” Bill flashed a grin in my direction before returning his attention to the small TV across from his desk. He was three episodes deep into a Bonanza marathon.
Thatch answered on the first ring. “You okay, honey?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m fine. You can pick me up in about thirty minutes.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Fantastic. See you in a few.” I ended the call and relocated to a chair beside Bill. “Mind if I join you?”
He glanced over his shoulder and shook his head.
“I love these old shows,” I said as I opened my bag of chips. “I used to watch them all the time with my dad when I was a kid.”
“They don’t make ’em like they used to, that’s for damn sure,” he answered with a wistful smile.
Bill and I got through another episode of Bonanza before Thatch powered into the station to pick me up exactly thirty minutes later. He’d obviously timed it so I didn’t have to be here even a minute longer than necessary. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me sitting behind the sheriff’s desk, teaching him how to use Facebook.
“Honestly, Bill, it’s not as hard as you think it is,” I told him as I scrolled through my newsfeed. “Plus, it’s pretty awesome how you can keep in touch with pretty much everyone in your life without having to pick up the phone.”
He chuckled. “I think I could get used to that.”
“Well, my ride is here,” I said as I logged out of my account. “But don’t be a stranger, okay?”
Bill grinned. “Same goes for you.”
“Did you get me all bailed out?” I asked Thatch as I stood up from my chair and threw my snack wrappers away in the trash.
“Pretty ladies don’t pay, darling.” The sheriff didn’t give him a chance to answer. “Now, you’ve had a late night, so be sure to go home and get a good night’s rest, okay?”
“Thanks, Bill.” I leaned down and kissed his cheek. “Don’t work too hard.”
I grabbed my purse and walked over to Thatch. “Ready?”
He glanced around the room in confusion. “Did they change jail?”
“What?”
His chocolate eyes were equal parts amused and surprised. “This is not the kind of jail experience I got the last time I was here.”
I grinned up at him.
“I should’ve fucking known,” he said as he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and led me toward the doors.
“Should’ve known what?”
“That you’d be the one person to get Sheriff Miller wrapped around your finger.”
Once we got in his car, I turned in his direction.
“Can I ask you a question?”
His eyes met mine. “Of course, honey.”
“And you’ll be honest with me?”
He nodded. “Always.”
“Why did Johnny call you a murderer?”
Thatch’s face grew tight. His jaw ticked several times in response. “Is that what pushed you to hit him?”
“Yeah,” I answered honestly. “Obviously, I knew his words were complete shit. But it was the fact he had the balls to say something like that. It didn’t sit well with me, Thatch. Someone saying something like that about you.”
He watched me for a few quiet moments, and I gave him his space.
“When Margo died, she was with me,” he explained. “She was spontaneous and stubborn, and when she was set on doing something, there was no stopping her. She made a reckless decision that took her life, and I couldn’t stop her. I tried to stop her, but I couldn’t.”
I grabbed his hand and squeezed it gently. There was more to tell, but he’d tell me in his own time if he wanted too. Knowing that much was enough. “Thanks for telling me, Thatch.”
He stared out the window while his thumb rubbed soothing circles over my hand. “Thanks for being you, Cassie.”
Eventually, he glanced over at me and smirked. “And thanks for defending my honor.”
I grinned. “Thanks for letting me go all Fight Club on someone and for stopping by McDonald’s on the way home.”
He chuckled. “You’re hungry?”
“So hungry,” I groaned. “The Frogstown Police have shit snacks in their break room.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You were in their break room?”
“I’m not kidding about that or the fact that I’m hungry.” I snapped at the windshield and held my stomach. “Get moving, baby. I’ve got a Big Mac with my name on it.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kline said as he and Georgia walked up to us arm in arm. “You brought the pig? To this?”
“Hey! Watch it, Big Dick. Not everyone’s animal is an asshole,” Cassie retorted.
“Um, excuse me?” Georgia cut in, and I tuned the women out.
“We couldn’t get our usual sitter,” I told Kline ridiculously. He looked like he was constipated with amusement—fucking dying to get it out, but it was all backed up in there.
We’d just gotten back from my parents’ house last night, but we’d both promised Maureen we’d be here, at her charity Black Light Slide event, months ago. Of course, we’d responded separately, to two very separate invitations. Now, we were a real “we.” Living together. Engaged. Fuck, I’d been the one to do it, to demand that it happen, and part of me still couldn’t wrap my mind around it.
Two serial daters with nearly blank relationship histories were engaged. To each other. I’d have been tempted to call an exorcist if I weren’t fucking thrilled to be chained to this devil.
“Georgie!” Georgia’s dad, Dick, called from the opposite side of the slide. People filled the closed-down street, and only the bright lights of several light trees on the perimeter made it so you could see anything. The whole thing about a black-light event is that it needs to happen at night.
“Hey, Dad!” Georgia yelled back. We all waved like little puppets in time with one another.
Dick looked to us and back again, trying to find an easy way to get around the slide. It ran nearly an entire block in length, and people clogged the only available space along its sides. When seconds turned into a minute of trying to navigate the people and stuff around him, Dick gave up and just climbed right fucking through it, sloshing the glowing water with his feet and ignoring anyone who called after him.
I didn’t even try to stop my laugh as Georgia grumbled, “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
Kline wrapped his arm around her shoulder as her mom, Savannah, followed in Dick’s footsteps, clad in nothing but a string bikini. Cassie tucked her face into my chest to hide her laughter. She might have even snorted, but when I looked at her, she pointed down at Phil.
“It was the pig.”
“Hey there, Kline!” Dick greeted with excitement, slapping him on the shoulder first, then his back, and then finally pulling him into a tight man-hug. Their little father-son-in-law bromance never got old.
