Moving_Violations (15 page)

Rebecca’s stomach twisted and nausea swam over her. She wanted to scream at this man who didn’t seem to understand the meaning of the word “no”. If she could take back that year she’d spent with him she would. She’d moved four states away to try to be free of him, heal and move on. Now she sat here, avoiding Jackson’s perceptive gaze as she listened to Todd’s saccharine sweet endearments, and all the while refrained from exploding with rage. The image of Todd’s face contorted in disgust, the threats, and the bruises he left on the surface as well as deep inside her, they were all still fresh in her mind. “Yes, Lawrence. What do you need?” She struggled to keep the fury out of her voice, her expression blank.

“Still so cold.” He sounded as if she’d wounded him. God, he was infuriating. She grit her teeth. “Rebecca, I need to see you. We have to talk.”

“No.” It was simple, firm, clear.

“Rebecca, we will work through this. You’ve had enough time to calm down.”

“Officer Lawrence, I’m on duty. Is there something job related you…?”

“You aren’t alone are you, darling?”

“I can’t see how that’s relevant?”

“Rebecca, listen to me, sweetheart. I’ve heard things about the sheriff. Has he been harassing you?”

“That’s not your concern, Officer.”

“He has, hasn’t he? Has he made a pass?” Rebecca’s eyes widened and she glanced up at Jackson. In any other circumstance she would have laughed at Todd’s asinine question. Pass, ha! He had no idea.

“Sheriff Montgomery has been a complete gentleman and as I said before, not your concern, Officer Lawrence.”

“Oh, Rebecca darling, but you are my concern. I’ve heard that Montgomery has a reputation as a lady-killer. Be careful, I’d hate to see you get involved and get hurt.”

Jackson’s eyes were cold and hard.

“Officer Lawrence, I can see no reason for you to contact me in any way. I was never your subordinate and am no longer of any consequence to you.”

“Rebecca. I love you. Please, don’t lock me out. I’m worried about you.” He had softened his voice and injected just enough faux emotion to make her temper boil.

“Relax, Officer, I am perfectly capable of handling my affairs and dealing with assholes…as you well know. Now, if you don’t mind I have work to do. So take your bullshit to someone who hasn’t smelled the stench before.” She slammed the receiver onto the cradle and worked on reining in her rage.

* * * * *

75

Lora Leigh and Veronica Chadwick

Jackson watched the fury that washed over Becca in silence. He narrowed his eyes as she took a deep, steadying breath, her breasts rising against the uniform top as she rose from the chair.

“You want to explain that?” he asked her carefully, his own anger rising.

His meeting with Mr. Pretty Boy Lawrence in the mayor’s office hadn’t quite lost its sting.

“How does he know about you?” She turned to look at him quietly.

Jackson watched the uneasy suspicion that entered her gaze as she stared at him.

Her brows were knitted into a frown, her hazel-green eyes narrowed on him.

“What’s going on, Jackson?”

Jackson sighed wearily, leaning back in his chair and watching her thoughtfully.

“I was called into the mayor’s office this morning. I met your ‘pretty boy’ there.”

Rebecca clenched her teeth. “He’s not my ‘pretty boy,’ Jackson. Don’t pull that shit with me now.” He lifted a brow and held her gaze. “What did he want?”

“He tried to convince me he had talked to you this morning and you were accusing me of sexual harassment,” he stated calmly.

Jackson watched the shock that flashed over her expression. Her eyes widened, her face paled.

“He didn’t?” she gasped.

“Oh yes, sugar, he did.” He grimaced. “And in the next breath demanded that the mayor demand my resignation from office.”

Rebecca collapsed in the chair beside his desk. She didn’t take her rounded, bemused eyes off him. Her mouth was parted, and the pale features began to flush with anger.

“That son of a bitch,” she bit out. “Why would he do something so stupid? Did he think you wouldn’t ask me about it?”

Jackson rubbed his chin. “Well, honey, to be honest, if I wasn’t curled up nice and tight with you about the time Lawrence said he talked to you, I might have been pissed enough to doubt your word. I’m not a real trusting type.”

Her eyes widened further in mocking amazement. “Are you telling me you

wouldn’t have at least asked me about this?”

“Eventually.” He shrugged. “Thing is, people know about the night we left together at the Wild Rose. There’s already talk somewhere, because a friend of mine heard it, and evidently the mayor has as well.”

Rebecca groaned. She laid her head on the table, covering it with her arm as she shook it in slow denial.

“This isn’t happening,” she mumbled despairingly.

Jackson grinned. He couldn’t help it. She was just so damned pretty.

“Well, sugar, I can understand his desire to get you back in his bed, but his means leave a lot to be desired here. And problem is, he’s here now, and it didn’t look like he was going to leave any time soon. Unless I miss my guess, him and our dandified little mayor are just a little too tight to suit me.” Hell, they acted like damned bosom buddies.

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“This doesn’t make sense.” She shook her head. “Why would he want to lie, or even care if you resigned? Why would he even be here?”

Jackson shrugged. His earlier conversation with Ted only added to his misgivings.

Todd Lawrence was already under suspicion in his own precinct. Moving to some small town and weaseling his way into the department could just be a career move on his part.

The fact that he was aligned with the mayor, who was aligned with Deputy Martin, had his radar going crazy.

“Is Lawrence a dirty cop, Becca?” Jackson asked her straight out. She was so furious with the man that it made him wonder.

Rebecca sighed and blew out a hard breath.

“He’s a dirty, rotten, scumbag of a man.” She shook her head. “I don’t know if he’s a dirty cop or not. He never gave that indication to me.”

“How well did you know him?”

Rebecca flushed, shrugged.

“We were lovers for a year. We got engaged, I lived with him. But I can’t say it was the happiest year of my life. Todd’s not easy to get along with.” Her hesitation had him frowning fiercely.

“Did he hit you?” Jackson knew he would kill the bastard if he had.

“Once,” she bit out. “But there are worse ways to hurt a woman, Jackson. He was demanding and very vocal in his disappointments. Our relationship was one battle and one lie after another. He cheated and lied, and undermined everything I tried to do. No, he didn’t hit me. But I could have handled that. It would have been easier.”

He heard the confusion, the hurt that resulted from the relationship, in her voice.

He fought to keep his expression bland, merely curious, but it was damned hard not to growl in possessive fury. The bastard had dared to hit her. He clenched his fists, raging silently and vowing that no one, ever again, would hurt her like that.

“Well, sugar, your taste is definitely on the upswing since you came home. I gotta commend you on that.” He patted her arm, keeping his voice comforting and saccharin sweet.

“Oh, you think?” Her voice rang with exaggerated offense. “Dammit, Jackson, you don’t have an opinion of yourself, do you?”

He leaned back in his chair, lowering his eyelids as he watched her, allowing a knowing smile to tip his lips.

“Tell me Mr. Cuke and Bubba wasn’t just the best experience of your life, darlin’?”

Come to think of it, it was the best-damned experience of his life, for sure.

She flushed, her cheeks turning rosy, her eyes darkening with remembered arousal.

“Conceited,” she bit out. “You are so conceited, Jackson, it’s not even funny. I don’t remember you yawning with boredom when ‘Bubba’ was seated to the hilt in my mouth.” Bubba responded as if he’d heard his name at the memory of her hot wet mouth wrapped around him, sucking, milking him for all he was worth…Damn.

Rebecca smirked as if she knew the impact her words made on him. “Better watch out, hon, someone might knock you on your fine arrogant ass one of these days.”

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“Done happened,” he told her, unconcerned. “You own my ass, Becca, you just don’t want to admit it yet.”

Hell, he hadn’t wanted to admit it until Mr. Fancy Pants made his appearance.

He had shocked her. Her eyes widened.

“Okay, time for me to go to work.” She jumped to her feet, checking her clothes quickly, avoiding his eyes.

“Coward,” he accused her gently.

“Oh yeah.” She nodded, heading to the door. “You know it, Jackson. Catch you later. Maybe you and Bubba can show me what you do for an encore after work.”

Damn, that woman was never short of a smartassed remark. He watched her escape his office quickly, his cock throbbing, his chest tight. This Todd Lawrence thing could become a problem. A damned big problem if the bastard didn’t stay away from Jackson’s Sugar.

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Moving Violations

Chapter Sixteen

Driving around in the patrol car was making the day drag, and boredom was giving way to thoughts and memories Rebecca would rather not dwell on. Todd wasn’t going to leave her alone. She couldn’t believe he would follow her across four states. Did he take so much pleasure from making her miserable that he just couldn’t let her go? And what was he up to? He had never heard of Jericho, Tennessee before she got reassigned.

She never mentioned it.

Damn, she wished she could have kept the whole transfer a secret altogether. Who was she kidding? Even if they hadn’t thrown the party and teased her about her country roots, Todd would have dug and dug until he found her. If she didn’t know that before she knew it now. What was most disconcerting was that he already knew about Jackson and he went straight for the man’s jugular like a rabid dog.

Jackson…what was she going to do about that man? A sly smile flitted across her lips as she slid into the assigned cruiser. Everything in her wanted to sink her hooks into him and never let him go. He’d made her laugh; she hadn’t even known she needed that, and he made her feel wonderful, strong, incredibly feminine, and God help her, she was falling for him. The scary thing was that she didn’t give a damn. It made her hot just thinking of his hands, his mouth, his tongue…

“Hey.” Matthews gave her a questioning glance. “You okay?”

“Hmm? Oh yeah, fine. “ Rebecca leaned down and turned the air up.

“I guess being on patrol in Detroit is a lot more exciting, huh?” he asked.

“I don’t know if I’d call it exciting. It can get boring too, in a different way.” Detroit seemed a world away now. A world she was thankfully no longer a part of.

“Yeah, that makes sense.” He nodded then pointed to the road ahead. “Hey, turn up here and we’ll work our way around and back to the station.”

“Cool, shift’s almost over anyway.” Rebecca turned onto the narrow two-lane road.

“It’s been a slow day.”

“Yeah, I’m hoping to get Jack to let me off a little early.” He rubbed his hands together.

“Hot date?” She grinned, keeping her eyes on the road.

“Man, I hope so,” he said, smiling sheepishly.

Rebecca laughed, and then her smile faded as the camper in front of them weaved a bit. “How long have we been following this rickety camper?” she asked, getting frustrated with the ten miles under the speed limit she was forced to drive.

“Not too long, they probably noticed us and they’re bein’ cautious.” He shrugged.

Rebecca’s brows knit together. “A bit too cautious,” she murmured and

straightened in her seat.

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“Aw, you know how people get when a cruiser is behind ‘em,” he smirked, cutting his eyes to her.

“Yeah, but I get a bad feeling about this one.” Rebecca’s frown deepened. This was definitely not good.

It wasn’t too much longer before the camper began to weave again. Maybe the driver was just tired, but she had a feeling either they were drunk or worse, nervous.

“I’m gonna pull them over and check them out,” Rebecca said, hitting the lights.

“Okay, guess it wouldn’t hurt.” He shrugged again, watching the camper closer.

The driver in the camper seemed to ignore her for a while. She doubted they didn’t see her. She hit the siren in short bursts twice, then again. Finally they pulled over.

“Now, Rebecca, don’t go in with a ball bustin’ attitude. Rednecks tend to rebel against that kinda thing. Hell, maybe I should go deal with it?”

She gave him a sideways glance. “Sheesh, Bryan, give me a little freakin’ credit. I’ve been a cop for a while, I’ve even pulled people over before.” There was a little bite in her sarcasm. “I know how to talk to people, regardless of the color of their necks…”

“Yeah, but…” He looked at her dubiously. “You ain’t dealt with many rednecks yet.”

“Ha! Are you kidding? I grew up with rednecks. And now I’m surrounded by rednecks!” she snapped. She was sick to death of being second-guessed.

“Rebecca, don’t get mad, I’m just…” He gave her a worried puppy dog look and his shoulders slumped.

Good grief. “Look, Bryan.” Her voice softened a bit as she reached for her ticket book. “Don’t stress, I got it. Just call in the tags.”

She rose from the car. She kept her hand on her gun and walked up to the cab cautiously. The driver rolled down the window. “Is there a problem, Officer?”

“License and registration, please.” She kept her voice firm and authoritative as she leaned down and took stock of the driver and his passenger. Both were Caucasian males, clean cut in jeans, clean shirts and baseball caps. The driver was a bit larger than the passenger. She guessed he might be six feet, tough looking but not all that muscular.

The passenger was a bit over six feet and wiry. She didn’t smell any alcohol on the man’s breath or in the cab and he seemed to be coherent. However, his movements were jerky, his shaky smile and nervous chuckle alerted her that something wasn’t right. The passenger fidgeted and wouldn’t look at her.