Her Cowboy Doms(50)
She laughed, but mirth wasn’t in the sound. “Oh, sure. I can see it now. My captain, the Chief of Police, and the mayor are going to love it when I say I deserve the Medal of Honor because I’m your submissive. Yeah, that’ll go over well in the newspaper interview, too.”
Destin turned his chair to face her. “Damn it, if you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for everyone else. Show Atlanta that they have a great policewoman—”
“Who’s leaving the force to move to Texas.”
“That doesn’t matter. Show the murderers and criminals that no matter how long it takes, the law will find them. Show little girls everywhere what a strong woman looks like.”
Paul stood and went to the porch railing before facing her. “If you won’t do it for us, if you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for the families he killed. Let their loved ones have that closure.”
They had a way of making her rethink things. Maybe going back, standing up for the victims was the right thing to do. “If I decide to do this, will you two come with me like you promised?”
Destin squeezed her hand. “Where else would we be except by your side?”
Epilogue
Two weeks later
“This is it.”
Georgia took the entrance onto I-85, heading toward downtown Atlanta. “Yep. It’s my last night on the force.”
She and the Casing men had come back for a week to attend the ceremony that had bestowed the Medal of Honor on her. After receiving the commendation, the captain had asked her to give them one last night of duty. She hadn’t wanted to. All she wanted was to get back to the ranch, but she’d given in when Mack had asked her to stay. She owed him a night to say their good-byes.
“Look, Georgia, I don’t want to get all mushy or nothing, but…” He turned his head to gaze out the passenger window.
She fought back a tear. “But you’re going to miss me?”
“Sure I am.” He cleared his throat. “I put in a lot of time training you, then you up and move to the middle of nowhere, Texas. You’re leaving me high and dry.”
“Aren’t you scheduled to retire next month anyway? You didn’t have any qualms about leaving me high and dry.”
“Yeah, well, that was different. After tonight, I’ve got to suffer through a whole month of having to put up with another damn rookie.”
He’d never have said the way he really felt. Not the whole of it. But she could. “I’m going to miss you, too.”
His snort was his answer, but it was enough. She was saying good-bye to a lot of people, many of whom regretted doubting her. Although she’d made it clear that Paul was the one who had brought Warton down, everyone felt the same way he had. That she’d done the groundwork, staying on the case, and finally bringing him out of hiding.
Mack went back into senior officer mode. “Looks like a broken taillight up ahead. A Mercedes, no less. You’d think anyone who could own a car like that could pay to keep it in working order. You want to take it for one last go?”
She’d taken the lead a lot of the time, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. Besides, it was better than listening to him complain about his arthritis as he hauled his body out of the car. She flipped on the lights and hit the siren, letting the driver know to pull over. Once he had, she parked behind his car on the side of the highway.
She got out, then took her time approaching the car. As she’d done so many times before, she kept her hand on her gun, prepared for the unexpected. Glancing back once, she wondered why Mack was watching her instead of running the license plate through the system to check on outstanding tickets or warrants.
As she came closer to the driver’s side, she could see the man rolling down the window.
“What seems to be the problem, officer?”
She froze, then tried to keep from smiling. And failed. “What are you two doing here? I thought you were going to hang out at the hotel bar for the night?”
Paul offered his driver’s license and registration to her. “Don’t you want to check my ID, officer?”
“You are too funny.” She leaned down to see Destin in the passenger seat. “And you? I thought you were supposed to keep him out of trouble. And yet, here you two are again, driving around with a broken taillight.”
“Don’t worry, officer, we’ll tell the rental company about that taillight as soon as we can.”
“If you broke it on purpose, I don’t want to know about it. I wouldn’t want to have to ticket you, or worse, take you in. That’d be too much paperwork for my last night on the force.”