Page 3 of Hooked on Trouble

Lily bites her lip. “Are you sure?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense, and my one picture of Rose was inside, along with my driver’s license and credit cards and health card and fucking bank card.” My purse caves under the pressure of my fisted hand.

Shay’s nostrils flare. “That little shit. We better go, then.” She attempts to stomp away, but her flip-flops sink in the sand.

“Go where?” I call.

She stops and swivels back. “The police station. You’ll have to file a report.”

“Yeah,” Lily agrees. “And maybe we should cancel tonight? Sawyer was looking forward to seeing you, but we can reschedule.”

I wave her off. “No. I haven’t seen Kolton and him since moving here. It’ll be a good distraction. But I might need one of you to spot me some cash.”

“No problem,” they say at once.

I offer a half smile and rub my eyes. I planned to visit a couple of photographers this afternoon to hand out résumés and hopefully find a paid apprentice job. Now I have less money than I did an hour ago, no ID, and I have to put off my job hunt. The warmth of the summer air is suddenly suffocating, a bout of heatstroke imminent. Things can only go up from here.

* * *

But things go down. At breakneck speed. A plummet off a steep cliff. Unwilling to ruin both my friends’ afternoons, we drop Lily at home, then Shay drives us to the police station. Not my favorite place. A portion of my teen years were spent getting booked for having a rare disease: bad decision-itis. Walking into a station still makes me itch.

We push through the glass doors and are directed toward a counter at the back. Men and women in uniform weave around us, a number of regular citizens among them, including a belligerent man in stained pants who belches as a cop drags him through a set of doors.

Any old day at the lockup.

Except on this particular day, as we near the back counter, a deep male voice says, “Shay?”

My day ricochets from bad to worse.

Cursing my luck, I glance over. Of course Nico is wearing his uniform blues, like he isn’t hot enough in his usual jeans and T-shirts. Now I have to endure all that male power packed into drool-worthy clothes. He swivels to talk to someone, and my throat dries. His thighs and ass look delicious, his massive shoulder blades massive. The man could be a professional wrestler. I should have known I’d see him here, should have thought this through. Unaware what station he worked from, I’d ignored the possibility. Vancouver’s a big city, and getting into it with Shay meant inviting questions. After today’s fiasco my stress level has reached capacity.

Now I’m faced with the Sexy Beast.

Shay grabs my arm. “I didn’t know he’d be here. I can ask for someone else.”

I will not be that girl. I will not play hide and seek, worried I’ll run into my ex-hookup. “No. Whatever. It’s fine.”

Nico flips back and lowers his gaze. He scrubs a hand over his buzzed head. “Why are you guys here?” He directs the question at Shay, but his attention darts toward me.

The sensation is immediate, the way his proximity raises my pulse. He shouldn’t still affect me. One glance shouldn’t have my belly tightening and my arms wanting to slip around his waist. I shouldn’t thirst to nuzzle into his broad chest and feel his heartbeat against my ear.

It shouldn’t hurt this much.

I shoot him my best glare, and he looks away quickly.

Shay has on a loose tank top with a pair of skis printed on the front, the hem hanging over her shredded jean shorts. She widens her stance and plants her hands on her hips. “Some asshole bumped into Raven on Wreck Beach, and now her wallet’s gone. Pretty sure the guy stole it, so we have to file a report, and if I see him again, I will personally reassign his gender.”

“What she said,” I add, making sure to avoid Nico’s blue eyes.

Everything about him is dark and imposing: dark skin, dark stubble if he doesn’t shave, eyebrows set in a dark line. All but his eyes. There’s something about those light blue stunners that are so disarming. They’re probably why I opened up to him in Aspen, why I told him things I’d never shared, ever, with anyone. For the first time in my life, I opened my heart to a man, then he blew me off.

A fresh wave of humiliation rocks me, shocking in its intensity.

He narrows that penetrating stare on me. “Some guy on Wreck Beach bumped into you? Naked?”

Swallowing down the sting seeing him revives, I shiver at the thought. “No. I was not accosted by any geriatric genitalia. Some young guy, a student maybe, clothed, was playing Frisbee. He probably saw my purse was open and figured I was an easy mark. Which, clearly, I was.”

Nico shifts on his feet, his gaze raking over every inch of my body in a very non-public-servant way. Awareness lights through me, a memory of his hands dragging up my thighs fanning the flames. Big hands, heavy hands—the weight of them plaguing me with months of flashbacks. And here he is again, raising the temperature in the room. I doubt all the civilians he deals with get this sort of probing attention. Unwanted attention, I remind myself. As hot as he is, as intense as our time was, I do not need to walk that road again. My family has gifted me with a lifetime of disappointment. No point suffering in my personal life, too.