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Another hour passed before they led me to the main office, was told to sit down and handed a desktop phone. Mark, who looked much older than his fifty-some years, slammed the unit down in front of me and dropped his ass into his squeaky office chair. His usually tidy tan uniform had ketchup and mustard speckles on it.
“Someone douse you with condiments?” I asked because it was the polite thing to do.
He glared at me. “Make your damn call.”
I picked up the phone and stared down at my ragged knuckles. Who the hell would I call? Will? Nope, he wasn’t talking to me yet. Nate? Maybe but then I’d get a fucking lecture. Landon? Hell no. The owner would probably fire me and I needed this job. That left one person and so I dialed Shepherd’s number and waited. It took a bit, but he finally picked up, his voice sleepy and sexy. So fucking sexy…
“Hey, so it’s me Kyle, and I need you to post my bail.”
A long pause followed. The coffee pot resting on top of a filing cabinet plopped and spat.
“Did you say post your bail?” Shep asked.
“Yeah, I’m being charged with…” I looked from my hand to the sheriff. “What am I being charged with?”
“Well, we can start with drunk and disorderly conduct,” Mark replied, not even looking up from whatever he was typing on a laptop. Probably my arrest paperwork.
“I’m not drunk.” The very tired sheriff gave me a look. “Seriously, I never got to have a drink.”
“Fine, disorderly conduct and being an asshole.”
“Is being an asshole an arresting offense? Because if it is, you’re going to need a much bigger cell, just saying.”
“You have two minutes left. Make them count,” Mark grumbled and returned to his typing.
“You got into a drunken brawl?” Shepherd asked, sounding much more awake now.
“Just a brawl. I wasn’t drunk. Your brother, on the other hand…”
“You’re such an asshole.”
“That’s the general consensus. So can you help a guy out here?”
“What did you say to my brother?”
I rolled my shoulder, and it creaked. Ouch. Fuck. I was getting to be too old for bar fights. “Not much. I was too busy trying to knock his teeth out to spend time chatting.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“No need to bring him into it. Will you please just bring my bail money and give me a lift to Marble Mary’s to get my truck?”
“Fine. I’ll be there in an hour or less.” The line went dead. I thought to ask Mark if I could call Shepherd back to tell him how much he would need to bring. “If I asked to make a second call…”
“Get back to your cell.” Mark waved a hand in the general direction he wanted me to go.
“Right.” So up I stood and back to the cell I shuffled. Morgan was sitting in a small room having his lip glued back together by Enrique the new deputy. I stuck my head into the office. “Do the world a favor and sew his mouth completely shut will you?”
Enrique sniggered. Morgan called me a cocksucker.
“Yep, just had your brother’s in my mouth last night. Mm-mm-good,” I tossed over my shoulder as I walked away.
Morgan came slightly unglued. I thought I caught the sound of a taser but that might have been wishful thinking. The cell was empty, so I spread myself out over a cot, my body sore from head to toe. My balls still ached. That bastard. Closing my eyes, I lay there listening to the hum of the overhead lights as I tried to sort out what road I had taken that had brought me to this place. Obviously, in retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have left the ranch with my ass up.
Maybe I should have talked it out with Shepherd. Told him I had missed him at the big house party. Fuck but that felt like years ago, not hours. Perhaps if I had simply said that I’d wanted him there at my side as my date, things wouldn’t have spiraled as they had. I heaved out a sigh. What good were what ifs and could have beens? He’d overreacted and so had I, and now here we were. Me covered in sweat, beer, blood, and regurgitated nachos and him on his way with whatever cash he had on hand.
We’d just have to deal with whatever came of our petulance. Sleep snuck up on me. It felt as if I had just drifted off when someone was slapping the toe of my boot. I shot up, groaned at the pain lacing through me, and blinked at Shepherd standing in the open doorway of the cell. He looked rumpled, unshaven, and devastatingly beautiful. Also really aggravated. Which only added to his beauty.
“You’re sexy AF when you’ve got a burr under your saddle,” I told him.
