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“Fuck no.” A hint of a smile plays at his lips. “It’d be too much paperwork, and I hate paperwork.”
I perk up in my seat in victory.
“You’d better spit out an address and calm your arrogant ass down before I change my mind,” he warns at my response.
“My parents.” I raise a brow when he snorts. “What?”
“I’m back in town. You’re staying at your parents’. A bit of nostalgia is creeping in.”
The same feeling is bursting through me. “I guess so.”
I want to punch him in the face.
I want to apologize.
I want him to know I regret what I did and that my heart beats only for him.
But it wouldn’t change anything.
No amount of apologizing will reverse the betrayal and pain I caused.
Two
Gage
I don’t findenjoyment in arresting people.
That changed when it was the woman who smashed my heart with her small fists. It changed when it was the person I’d thought I’d spend the rest of my life with who bailed on me. I grew up loving Lauren Barnes, and so help me God, I’ll die loving her.
I’d been careful since arriving back in our hometown, Blue Beech, Iowa, avoiding all the places Kyle said she frequented. In the back of my mind, there was the reality that, eventually, we were bound to cross paths. This town is small, and the gossip is heavy.
Although I couldn’t have planned our reunion better myself. It stung, seeing her, touching her, and when I pulled out the handcuffs, I wished I could’ve been using them for a different reason—preferably in my bed.
She’d ruined the chance of that happening years ago. Lauren made her choice to leave me, and my life has been shit since.
I struggle with myself on what to feel about today’s events. Relief clung to me when she told me to drop her off at her parents’, not a boyfriend’s. No diamond graced her finger. It was the first thing I’d looked for when handcuffing her. I won’t lie. I feel some satisfaction in knowing she hasn’t found love again either.
I rub away the knot of tension in my neck.
Why do I give a fuck?
She’s not why I came home. It was for my dad … for my fucking sanity … so I wouldn’t charge into the Department of Corrections every time I got drunk and demand Missy pay more for what she did.
My keys hit the kitchen table next to the stack of decade-oldTimemagazines. My father is seated next to them with a newspaper in his hands, and his oxygen tank is at his side.
“She knows I’m back,” I say.
He folds up the paper and places it in front of him. “How’d it go?”
“I arrested her.”
His sunken chestnut-colored eyes study me before he responds, “Son, I understand you’re upset with her, but was that necessary?”
“Absolutely. She set a building on fire.”
He rubs his chin. “I think we both know you weren’t doing it for the safety of the town.”
“Of course I did it for that reason.” I cock my head. “I can’t say it didn’t give me pleasure though.”
