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“I should go,” Belle said.
“Okay, well, I guess I’ll see you at work later in the week.” Katy waved and walked away. Belle jiggled her key into the lock again as Bently stopped only a foot from her.
“Hey, uh, I wondered if we could talk?” He shoved his hands into his pockets.
The key found purchase and she inserted it and twisted. “I really need to get home.”
“I just wanted to know if you’d have dinner with me sometime. Now that I’m no longer your instructor,” he added with a smile.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Sheriff.” She used the title like a shield.
He frowned. “We all gotta eat sometime. I promise, just dinner and a little conversation. I’d like to get to know you better.”
Like she couldn’t see straight through that invitation. Did he think she was born yesterday? “Men,” she grumbled under her breath as she opened the door and threw her water inside.
“We men are good for some things.” He winked and smirked.
What part about this was funny to him? “I don’t need a man,” she grated.
“I’m not proposing marriage—just dinner.” He shrugged.
There it was. He’d spelled it out for her. He wanted sex, company for a night, and then he’d be on his merry way with no care in the world for the devastation he’d leave behind. Here was another man, trying to take from her. “That’s exactly why this will never happen. I said no, Sheriff. Isn’t that what these classes are about? To help women deal with men who don’t take no for an answer?”
He stepped back as if physically struck. As if he’d never heard the word no directed at him before.
Maybe he hadn’t earned the jab, but her anger for every man that had ever hurt her bubbled to the surface. She would burn this bridge and move on. “You’re a pig.”
Bently’s jaw tensed. His body turned rigid. The vein in his neck pulsed rapidly under the light of the streetlamps. Anger radiated off him in waves as his eyes narrowed. “Because I’m a man or because I’m a cop?” he asked, his expression grim.
“Both.” She climbed in and shut the door before quickly starting the engine. He turned around and walked away, each step tugging at her chest.
“Fuck!” she yelled. Her mind and body were so mixed up. Had she taken it too far? It didn’t matter. She wanted nothing to do with that man or the feelings he stirred up inside her.
It was better she was left alone.
Chapter 8
Belle
Belle walked towards the nurses’ station.
“Belle, patient in room one needs stitches, so get the suture kit set up, please,” Doctor Stanley said.
“Sure thing.” She got to work preparing everything the doctor would need.
She checked her watch—four in the morning. Three more hours to go. She’d offered to cover third shift for a nurse. Belle yawned. She’d need coffee to make it through.
“Belle, they need a SANE nurse in room six. I’ll take over here,” an older nurse said, slipping on a pair of gloves.
“Okay.” She walked back into the hall, her stomach knotting as she prepared for the worst and hoped for the best.
She peeked in the empty room. After picking up the chart, she reviewed the information. Patient’s name was Charlotte Reed. Brought in via ambulance after she was attacked.
“Oh good. You’re already here,” Doctor Stanley said as two men pushed the hospital bed inside. Belle stepped out of the way as they maneuvered it in the middle of the room.
Dried blood streaked down her patient’s face from a gash on her eye and nose. Her lip was swollen and purple, but she was still familiar.
The woman from the bar.
