Maximum Witch: That Old Black Magic, Book 3 (8 page)

Relief swept her when she spotted her keys dangling from one of the hooks on the whitewashed pegboard rack hung near the front door. She plucked them free and snagged her purse. Darting outside, she raced to her car, feeling a little too uncomfortably like a woman trying to sneak away from a one-night stand.

Oh yeah. She was.

Wincing, she jumped behind the wheel and keyed the ignition. Although she knew the Taurus’s engine was relatively quiet on start up, her guilty conscious elevated the slight chug and purr to being more along the lines of a convoy of semis roaring to life. Hands shaking on the steering wheel, she waited for Max to appear next to her door, an accusing scowl on his face and those damning sweats still hanging down around his knees.

“I’m a horrible, horrible person.” Repeating that mantra another time or twenty, she rammed the gears in reverse and squealed out of Max’s driveway. Okay, technically she didn’t really squeal because that pretty much would have defeated the whole sneaky, illicit-getaway plan. But the tires did make a groaning noise that she swore sounded a little too much like “you dirty whore” as they hit the slight dip in the drive.

Less than ten minutes later, she pulled in front of her townhouse. Right about then, it hit her how close she and Max lived to one another. What were the chances they would never smack into each other in an unlucky twist of fate?

Cheeks flushing, she debated the feasibility of going into the witness protection program. Okay, that was probably a little severe. Moving to the outer suburbs of Savannah—or more preferably, Mongolia—should suffice in helping her avoid any potentially embarrassing crossing of paths.

Satisfied she’d concocted a relatively feasible solution to her problem, she peered at the dashboard clock. Eight a.m. “Oh
shit
.” The guild was having a state-of-the-union meeting in half an hour. Her goose would be cooked if she wasn’t there on time to take notes.

One problem down, another shuffled in to take its place. She glanced at the beckoning front door of her townhouse before shifting her focus to the rearview mirror. Her frazzled, messy appearance reflected back at her with harsh mockery. There was no way she could show up at work looking like a poster girl for a one-night stand gone wrong
.
Which meant she’d just have to face Domino’s displeasure and show up a little late.

Snuffing her frustrated wail, she jumped from her car and dashed in the direction of her apartment.

An uncomfortable crick in his neck wrenched Max from a raunchy, wicked dream starring a lusciously naked Willa. He rubbed the aching tendon and rolled up onto his elbow. His gaze landed on his kneecaps—which for some weird reason were bound together by the twisted tangle of his sweats. He dropped his hand, blinking. In a hot rush, the previous evening’s sexy adventures tumbled through his brain. His cock stood at instant attention in fond remembrance. He automatically jerked his focus sideways, fully expecting to see Willa tuckered out next to him, but he was the only one occupying the woefully pathetic makeshift bed on the floor. He glanced toward the four-poster and frowned when he noticed it was empty.

With one hand, he hiked his sweats in place and pushed to his feet, various muscles protesting their less-than-stellar sleeping arrangement. He walked down the hall and halted in the kitchen, his inner alarm bells starting to toll.

Willa was nowhere in sight.

He booked it across the room and yanked the front door open, practically ripping it from its hinges. Sprinting onto the stoop, he gaped at the vacant spot where Willa’s Taurus was supposed to be. “Sonofabitch.”

She’d taken off. Why? She knew damn well she was under doctor’s orders to stay put. Well, Boone’s orders, anyway. Close enough. Plowing fingers through his hair, he stormed inside and went in search of his shoes. His cell phone buzzed impatiently as he passed his office. An irritated growl leaking free, he pivoted and stalked into the kitchen. He swiped his cell from the counter and grumbled a distracted “What?” into the receiver.

“Sheriff? It’s Jona. We have a bit of a situation down at the station.”

Max scratched his jaw, his frustration vanishing. It wasn’t like Jona to come to him with anything unless it was important. His deputy was damn good at his job, but it wasn’t exactly a secret that Jona wasn’t thrilled about working under Max. He wasn’t the only one. Pretty much the entire unit was leery of Max. His position as an outsider automatically excluded him from the Good ol’ boy’s club. Then there was his shark-shifter status. That alone earned the others’ wariness. Any way you looked at it, he’d been screwed the second he’d accepted his assignment to parish nine.

“I’ll be right there.” He hung up and retraced his steps to the bedroom, where he exchanged his sweats for cargo pants and a black crewneck. It was as formal as their uniform around here got. Fine by him, though. He’d never been the jacket-and-tie type.

He slipped open the top drawer of his nightstand and grabbed his 9mm and shoulder holster. There’d never been much need to carry it since most of his time on duty was spent under water, but Jona hadn’t elaborated on what the ruckus down at the station entailed. Better to be safe than sorry.

Less than fifteen minutes later, he parked in front of the nondescript cedar-shake building that served as the station for parish nine. From all outward appearances, the structure blended seamlessly with all the other weather-beaten cottages hugging the Atlantic’s shoreline—an illusion that served their purposes well. The more in the dark the residents of Tybee remained regarding the true scope of the facility, and the necessity of having it, the better off for everyone.

That judgment was validated a million times over the moment Max strode into the receiving area and spotted his deputy and two other men tussling with a scrawny guy dressed in tight pleather pants and a mesh muscle shirt. Ronnie Despano, AKA The Shock Factor. Ronnie lived up to his nickname as a series of loud crackles popped through the air, followed by a volley of grunts and curses by Max’s men. Lesson number one—never jump into a fight with an electric eel without properly arming yourself.

Heeding his own advice, Max crossed to the small closet housing the office and janitorial supplies and located a pair of rubber gloves. Snapping them in place, he journeyed across the room to where Ronnie and the officers were still duking it out. Not wasting any time, Max calmly and efficiently reached over Jona’s thrashing form and crunched his fist into Ronnie’s nose. The eel shifter’s eyes rolled back, and a second later he crumpled to the floor, down for the count.

Three pairs of sheepish expressions met Max’s head-on. He bit back the urge to reprimand them for being so dumbass as not to have taken precautions with Ronnie. Back when he was a rookie, his commanding officer would have reamed him a new one with no remorse for such a mistake, and rightfully so. But Max was still on shaky ground trying to earn the trust of his men. Chewing their asses out while his temper was riding high would only reinforce their belief that a shark shifter possessed no control over its teeth. Instead, he peeled off the gloves and nodded his chin toward the line of vacant cells in the rear of the building. Taking the hint, Fritz and Colby towed Ronnie’s limp body away.

Slapping the gloves against his thigh, Max watched their departure. “What happened?”

“We fucked up.” Jona’s voice held a wealth of chagrin. “Ronnie was three sheets to the wind when we dragged him in, but that’s no excuse to let down our guard.”

Max inclined his head. “True. So I take it Ronnie’s here on a public drunk and disorderly again?” He checked the clock hung over the booking desk. Ten a.m. Had to be a record for the good ole Shock Factor.

Jona swiped a hand over his jaw. “Yeah. He made a big scene at The Shipyard when they refused him a table. Not that I blame them with the condition he was in. Stupid bastard only made things worse when he started making lewd suggestions to the hostess.”

“Mike Talbot the one who called dispatch?” Relief eased a fraction of the tension pinching the upper vertebrae of Max’s spine when Jona nodded. Max whistled a slow breath between his teeth. “Thank Jesus for small miracles.” Mike Talbot was the owner of The Shipyard diner, as well as a fellow water shifter. If Mike hadn’t been on the premises at the time, who knew what might have happened. The frightening possibilities pumped Max with dread.

A sudden bellow erupted from the direction of the holding cells. “He broke my fucking nose! I’m suing your asses for this.”

Jona groaned. “Sounds like Ronnie’s regained consciousness. Too bad we didn’t take him out with a tranquilizer dart.”

Yeah, that would have saved them all a shitload of trouble. Grinding his molars, Max stalked across the room. In the holding tank, Ronnie was pacing behind a set of bars, a trickle of blood leaking from his left nostril. He stopped his aimless prowling and glared at Max. “You the one who did this to me?” he demanded shrilly, pointing toward his crooked nose.

“Yep.”

Max’s easy pronouncement only seemed to fuel Ronnie’s fire. “Fucking shoulda known. Ain’t never had no problems before you showed up and made it your personal mission to screw up my life!”

Ronnie’s endless string of ranting was nothing new. Despite having a mile-long rap sheet that went back long before Max took on the role of sheriff to parish nine, Ronnie—being the conniving little shit he was—refused to acknowledge the fact, instead preferring to see Max as the big bad brute who was gunning to get him at every turn.

“Someone get me a phone so I can call my goddamn lawyer.”

A growl shot from Jona. “You tried to fry us, asswipe. Don’t you suppose you oughta be more concerned with getting
your
dick out of the sling than inventing cock-and-bull excuses to sue the department?”

Ronnie’s face somehow turned an even brighter shade of red, and Max dragged in a breath. What he really wanted to do was reach between the bars and provide Ronnie with a black eye to compliment his crooked nose, but that wouldn’t exactly help their situation. “Go get him a phone.”

Jona looked none too pleased by the command but stalked off anyway, Fritz and Colby hot on his heels. In the wake of their absence, Ronnie continued sending Max death glares. Cocky little bastard was brave enough with metal bars separating them. It’d be a different story if Max was in the cell with him.

Ronnie resumed his pacing, but his beady eyes never left Max. “Used to be a fella could have himself some fun in this town without landing in the clinker.”

“You call disturbing the peace and upsetting good, decent people a fun time?”

A snort blew from the eel shifter. “Decent, my ass. If anyone around here should be convicted of a crime, it’s them damn snooty assholes for serving the slop they call food. I’m fucking glad they kicked me out so I wouldn’t have to eat that shit.”

Ronnie’s twisted logic never ceased to baffle Max. And make him eternally grateful for the few times when The Shock Factor managed to not get arrested when Max was on duty. Any day he didn’t have to deal with Ronnie was a winner in his book. And to think the morning had started out so promising. Well…up until Willa ran out on him. The reminder of her sneakiness only stoked his irritability.

As if he’d somehow sensed the steep, downward shift in Max’s mood, Ronnie gave a grating laugh that rubbed like sandpaper on Max’s nerves. “Ain’t no wonder you’re sticking up for Talbot. Fucking manatee is a freak of nature, same as you.”

“That’s laughable, coming from an eel.” Adopting his most menacing smile, Max approached the cell, a sliver of satisfaction coursing through him when Ronnie quickly backed away from the bars and gulped. Obvious relief flashed across the eel shifter’s features when Jona stormed into the room with the cordless from his desk. Rather than stand around and listen to Ronnie’s sniveling conversation with his lawyer, Max returned to the front of the station and plunked down into his seat with enough angry frustration to make the casters groan.

This definitely wasn’t how he’d envisioned spending his day off. He could think of a million and one things he’d rather be doing. Top on the list was tracking Willa down and giving her a good spanking for disobeying strict orders to stay put. Once he got that out of the way, he’d drag her back into bed and spend the rest of the day giving her plenty of reason not to leave it. His cock swelled beneath his fly, giving a resounding thumbs-up to that plan, and he smothered a groan. Much as he’d like to go after Willa,
now
, he couldn’t leave his men to deal with the problem of Ronnie on their own. Particularly since he’d been the one to break the asshole’s nose.

He hoped like hell though that the damn lawyer didn’t take all day to get here.

Six hours—and several curses—later, Max finally escaped the stationhouse. Ronnie was out on bond, but at least his lawyer had advised him of the foolishness of bringing suit against Max, considering Ronnie had almost electrocuted the deputies.

Max jumped in his Jeep, and after plugging in his GPS, he punched in the address he’d memorized from Willa’s license. He had a good idea of where she lived, but this made it a whole lot easier and saved time. The coordinates loaded and a second later the computerized voice he’d nicknamed She Who Must Be Obeyed commanded him to turn left out of the lot. He sped in the appropriate direction, and less than eight minutes later arrived at a two-story duplex. Willa’s was the one on the right. Although he didn’t spot her Taurus anywhere, he got out and walked up the driveway, figuring he might as well scope things out while he was there.

He scanned the exterior of the building, automatically checking to ensure there were no easily scalable lattices or shrubbery. There weren’t. Good. Tybee was a safe community, but a woman couldn’t be too careful. Particularly if she lived by herself, which he was almost certain Willa did. She hadn’t mentioned a roommate, or, God forbid, a live-in boyfriend. After what happened between them last night, the idea of having any competition for bed space sat on him with less-appetizing appeal than a bucket of maggots.