Exposing Clara to the dangers of my job when I have no intention of sticking around past a few nights of pleasure and maybe a dinner or two is not a move I’m willing to make.
But I want to, selfish ass that I am, because the fiery-haired, green-eyed little school marm does it for me in a big way.
“Jeremiah Bradford Lane, are you going to tell me why you see fit to run Clari off every chance you get, or am I going to have to set your father on you, young man?”
Should have known Ma wouldn’t make it through dinner without unleashing the seven levels of hell on me.
“Ma, I didn’t run her off. She left under her own steam.”
I get a look that would deep-fry chicken, and sigh in resignation when a glance around the table confirms that everyone, including Jace, who pops up whenever he smells food, is pissed at me.
They’ve all adopted Clara and consider her family, something I’m not too happy about because it means that my efforts at making her too uncomfortable to stay are going to come back to bite me in the ass.
“You did. I saw you scowling at her on the driveway and that girl looked fit to start running.”
That’s not true, not entirely. Clara is the type of woman who avoids conflict at every turn, but she wasn’t afraid of me earlier.
The woman looked about ready to climb me like a vine. I can see her attraction to me clearly. I also know that touching her and then stepping away so abruptly accomplished what I wanted to, and that was to confuse and embarrass her enough to make her hightail it out of here before I did something crazy like drag her back inside and seat her at the dinner table beside me.
I wanted it way more than I should have, and after hearing her tell Ellie about her six-year dry spell, I’d just barely stopped myself from throwing her over my shoulder and taking her up to my room to show her what her beautiful body is capable of.
Hearing her confess that her asshole ex hadn’t so much as piqued her pleasure made me so hard and downright ready—
“Jeremiah!”
“Geez, Ma, I didn’t do or say anything to scare her off, I swear. She said she had some work to do and I let her go. Did she call you?”
“No,” she answers mulishly, giving me a narrowed-eyed glare.
That ticks me off, because now instead of hitting the sack with a few drinks to knock me out, I know I’ll be doing a drive-by on her little house and a quick window peak to ensure that she’s safe and where she belongs.
I already do it on a nightly basis. Clara is a part of the family, and as such she’s one of mine…sort of…and what kind of person would I be if I didn’t look in on my family to make sure they’re okay and unharmed?
It makes it difficult to come back home to my empty bed, but I find myself doing it every night without fail if I’m not working, and even then, I have a unit do a drive-by just to check.
Tonight was going to be the first night I forced myself to stay in and fight the urge. Now, though, I know I can’t, not when anything could have happened to her between here and her little house on the outskirts of town.
***
“Yo, Lane, get your ass in here and close the Goddamned door.”
I’m dragging ass by noon the next day and feeling every one of my almost twenty-nine years, thanks to my vigil outside Clara’s last night. So when I say that having the chief call me into his office is not rubbing me the right way, I actually mean he’s more than likely to get a boot up his ass if he pisses me off.
“Yeah?”
Chief Dobson is fifty-five going on eighty with his balding head, sagging jowls, and a gut that resembles a mini keg wrapped in marshmallows. I despise the man and see eye to eye with him about as much as I do the other assholes working this unit.
Working IA is not ideal, not when I’ve been ordered to investigate almost an entire precinct, but I do it because I won’t allow a repeat of what happened to my old partner back in the last house I worked.
“There a reason you keep asking Gonzalez to drop by Mason Street?”
Christ, and here I thought the little shit was trustworthy.
“Just trying to keep an eye on my sister-in-law’s friend. She’s new in town and living too far out for comfort. If it’s a problem, I’ll just do it myself.”
Yeah right. I’ll have that shit Gonzalez pulling shift all week for this and we all know it.
“I heard you’re going up to DC next week.”
Ah, so we finally get to the point.
“Yeah, my brother’s re-upping and he wants me there in case he deploys immediately.”
Not really, but that’s the whole point of spreading the story. With them trying to keep an eye on me in DC and trying to find me, I can move some things around and get the taps and video feeds up and running.