Dark Blue (South Island PD Book 1) (13 page)

He stared at the bruise beside her chin. The purple smudge showed from beneath the make-up she’d tried to hide it with, a little larger than a quarter. She’d either been hit or shoved against something.

“Mrs. Sanders. Can I help you with anything?”

She dropped her gaze and shook her head. Her dark bangs all but covered her eyes. “I’m sorry about – you know, the other day.”

“No need to be sorry. If you need help, that’s what we’re here for.”

Too late, he realized what a stupid thing he’d said.
We’re
. Her own husband – a South Island officer – was her tormenter.

“I’m here to help,” he amended.

“I don’t need any help. But thank you for being so understanding about our … our mix-up.”

The muscles in his jaw tightened, giving life to a dull headache. He wanted to tell her to drop the façade, that it wouldn’t do her any good in the long run. He wanted to tell her that her husband was an epic piece of shit, and that she should get out from under his roof yesterday.

“How’s the baby?” he asked instead.

She flinched as if he’d raised a hand.

“He’s just fine. Napping right now.” She tapped a piece of equipment clipped to the belt loop of her jeans – a baby monitor.

Jackson’s reserve – his professionalism – wavered precariously. He didn’t normally have trouble keeping his head on his shoulders. His childhood had taught him to put up an impassive front, to suffer in silence. But that was exactly what made it so hard to look Kate Sanders in the eye and then drive away without doing jack shit for her or her baby.

“Mrs. Sanders, I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but I grew up with a father a lot like your husband. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. Not you, and especially not a child.”

Her mouth cracked open again, then drooped at the corners.

He lost eye contact and could sense that he’d lost her too.

“I’ve got to go,” she said. “The baby might wake up.”

“That bruise on your jaw looks painful,” he said. “Blows to the face can be dangerous – you should get checked out by a doctor, if you haven’t already.”

She looked away, frowning. “I’m fine. It – it’s not what you think. I have to go.”

She turned her back on him and hurried to her house before he could say another word.

He cursed as her screen door banged shut. As he drove away, hot pressure built up under his breastbone, a physical manifestation of his frustration.

He didn’t enjoy his lunch at the sandwich shop like he usually did. Feeling guilty for allowing himself the pleasure of sitting down to dine after his failure, he wallowed in negative thoughts for a while before shifting his focus back to last night.

Belle. The thought of their night together made him forget his headache. She was like a drug he could turn to at any time, taking a hit of the memories they’d made in her bed – memories that gave him an instant rush.

If he wasn’t careful, he’d get used to it. Then where would he be if this didn’t work out – if she decided she wanted more than just a beat cop with a headful of shitty memories he couldn’t even use to help others stuck in the same situations?

The thought sucked the joy right out of him, but then he remembered the way she’d sucked his cock, moaning with her lips tight around him, and the way she’d cried out and come around his dick afterward.

The thoughts he dwelled on the longest were the ones where she’d spent the night naked in his arms.

Last night had been good for both of them. So good that he sat there with a shit-eating grin on his face despite his fucked-up day. She might be a princess, but she’d made him feel like a king.

 “I could’ve sworn I had her transcripts and everything on my desk last week,” Belle said. She kept her workspace neat, and there was only one small stack of papers to rifle through.

Nothing.

“I need them today,” Keira said. “Actually, yesterday.”

“I’m sorry. I know we’re on a tight deadline with this one…”

“Well, we all lost time last week, what with the police coming into the office to investigate what our secret admirer left us. Can’t be helped. But I absolutely need those transcripts by the end of the day. She should’ve sent them in weeks ago.”

Belle nodded. “Let me call her schools and ask them to fax over copies. Those should suffice until we can get official copies in the mail, right?”

Keira nodded.

“Okay. Unless…” Belle pushed her office chair backward, wheeling toward the door. “Zackary?”

He abandoned the reception desk to approach her office. “Yeah?”

“Have you seen McKenna Shelley’s transcripts? I could’ve sworn they were in my office last week. She’s that nursing student transferring from out of state.”

“Uh-uh.” He shook his head slowly. “On my first day here, Keira told me that if I ever touched anything in your guys’ offices, she’d smack me over the knuckles with a ruler. I took her seriously.”

Belle glanced at Keira’s unapologetic expression and stifled a smile. “All right. If they turn up, let me know. Maybe I threw them out by mistake.”

Frowning, she picked up her office phone.

Keira and Zackary left her alone to make contact with McKenna’s high school and current college, trying to right whatever she’d done wrong.

She hated to make a mistake like this four months into the job. Sure, the “surprise,” as Keira put it, had been a minor distraction. But that was no excuse for losing a student’s documents. The true distraction had been Jackson – Belle had spent a lot of time lost in thoughts of South Island’s hottest officer, lately.

Only she knew that, but it made her feel guilty, just the same.

Was it possible the Charleston police officer who’d inspected their office last week had removed the transcripts from her office when he’d searched it for anything amiss?

Not likely. He’d had no reason to be interested in them. Maybe he’d moved them, though – picked them up and put them down somewhere else.

The distraction forced her out of her own head, necessitating that she put thoughts of the previous night on the backburner so she could focus on work.

It felt like penance, and the thought made her smile. Maybe it was for the best that something time-sensitive had come up. Otherwise, she probably would’ve spent most of the day reminiscing in her office.

As soon as she got off the phone with the high school, Zackary rapped on her door.

“Come in.” She kept ahold of the phone, poised to dial McKenna’s college.

“Any luck with those transcripts?” he asked.

“The student’s high school was cooperative, thank God. I still need to get in touch with her college, though.”

“Oh. Well, I’m heading out on a coffee run. Want anything?”

She grabbed her purse and fished out a bill. “A coffee would be great.”

“Cream, no sugar?”

“That’s right.”

“Gotcha. Back in fifteen minutes.”

“Thanks.”

After he left, she tried not to wonder whether he would’ve invited her to go on the coffee run with him if she hadn’t been so busy.

Probably not. He hadn’t hinted at anything like that since she’d refused to let him buy her lunch.

The thought made her smile despite herself. College guys seemed pretty much the same now as they had back when she’d been a student. Even then, she’d considered most of them boyish – nice enough in some cases, but usually immature. By the time she’d finished school, she’d had no romantic interest whatsoever in any of her classmates.

And she knew exactly why. Jackson had spoiled her rotten at the tender age of twenty-one. Much more mature in mind and body, he’d been a man in ways college boys just hadn’t had a chance of competing with. She’d been keenly aware of the contrast, especially after the summer break between her junior and senior year.

But it wasn’t just her college peers who’d paled in comparison. Nobody from her adult life had come close to measuring up either, least of all her asshat of an ex-fiancé.

“Good lord!” Minutes later, Keira’s voice carried straight through Belle’s office door, uncharacteristically shrill. “What happened to you?”

Belle paused mid-dial, then set down her phone. If something had Keira flustered, it had to be serious.

As soon as she opened her office door, she caught sight of Zackary.

He stood in front of the reception desk, empty-handed. Dark stains were spread over his khaki pants and grey polo shirt.

“Is that coffee?” Belle winced. It had to have been scalding.

“Yeah.” He looked down and frowned, not at his clothes, but at his hands.

They were an angry shade of red, and he held them in front of himself as if afraid to let them touch anything.

“That looks painful.”

He grimaced. “I tripped over a rift in the sidewalk. My hands got the worst of it.”

“Let’s get them under cool water.” Keira marched to the small bathroom by the annex and turned on the cold water for Zackary, who followed.

“You need to see a doctor,” Keira said as he held his hands below the faucet. “Those burns need treatment.”

He shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Well, you’re not working anymore today, if that’s what you’re thinking, so yes you can.” Keira crossed her arms.

“It’s not that. I don’t have insurance.”

Keira frowned. “That doesn’t mean you don’t need use of your hands.”

“It’s okay. I’m almost to graduation; I can treat it myself.”

“You’re studying to be a radiologic technician. I don’t know why you think knowing how to take an x-ray will help you treat burns. You’d do yourself more harm than good.”

“Well, then I’ll—” He paused, the picture of befuddled misery as he stood hunched over the sink. “I’ll get someone else to do it. But not a doctor. Even an express clinic would cost a fortune without insurance.”

A pang of sympathy struck Belle. He was right – an uninsured doctor’s visit would be a financial black hole for a college student working on campus to scrape by.

“The treatment is simple,” he said. “All I need is some ointment and bandages.”

Keira exited the bathroom, shaking her head.

“That boy needs help,” she said, shooting Belle a serious look. “His burns don’t look to be any worse than second degree, though. If he won’t go to the doctor, he could probably keep them clean on his own if he’s careful.”

“I could drive to the drug store on the corner a few blocks from here and pick up what he needs.” Belle thought of Zackary tripping while carrying three drinks – one of them hers – and her hot coffee spilling onto his hands. “I could be back before he’s done rinsing his hands.”

Guilt hit her. She remembered what it’d been like as a student on a tight budget. Regardless of what Jackson thought, her parents had scrimped and saved for years in order to send their three kids to college. They hadn’t been wealthy, and she’d worked part-time in an ice cream parlor to cover her living expenses.

Every dollar had mattered to her in those days, and she’d budgeted her paychecks scrupulously.

Keira nodded. “I have an appointment with a student in ten minutes, but I’ll call that college about those transcripts while you’re gone.”

“Thank you.”

Belle went to the nearest drug store and back as quickly as she could, returning in fifteen minutes with ointment and sterile bandages. When she got back to the admissions office, Zackary was sitting in her office chair with his hands resting on his thighs, palms up.

“Keira told me to wait in here, where I wouldn’t freak anybody out,” he said when she walked in.

“That’s fine.” She set the drugstore bag down on her desk.

He nodded. “Thanks. I’ll pay you back for that stuff.”

She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it – it was my coffee you were getting when you were burnt.”

He shrugged. “Not just yours, though.”

She applied the ointment and bandages without saying anything. She hadn’t spent much, and felt bad that he didn’t have insurance and had to rely on her inexpert first aid. Paying for the bandages really wasn’t a big deal.

When she was finished applying them though, he kept thanking her as if it were.

“It was no problem. Really.” She cast her glance beyond her office door. Had Keira managed to get in touch with the college?

No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than Keira emerged from her office and approached Belle’s. “Good news,” she said. “A new transcript is on the way.”

Belle breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s great. Thank you so much.”

Keira nodded, then tipped her head in Zackary’s direction. “Time for you to head home.”

His jaw dropped. “But I’m supposed to work until three.”

“You can’t answer phones or type, so unless you can use your feet like hands, I suggest you take the rest of the day off. You can make up the hours later.”

Eventually he nodded, peering down at his bandaged hands. “Guess I’ll take the bus.”

Belle was almost tempted to offer to drive him home. Almost, but not quite. Ever since she’d applied those bandages, he’d been giving her some lingering looks.

Maybe she should’ve asked Keira to apply the bandages – now that it was all said and done, she got the feeling that she’d encouraged whatever ideas he had about winning her over.

Which was almost as awkward for the office as finding their recent “surprise” had been.

* * * * *

“She walked back into the house after that,” Jackson said, lying sprawled on Belle’s bed, his arms folded over a pillow. “I could see her shut down when I made that comment about not wishing that shit on a child.”

Belle lay on her side, her head propped on a hand. Her hair was mussed, her chest was flushed pink and she was completely naked – just like him. He could still feel the sweat that’d beaded on the back of his neck as he’d fucked her.

“You did what you could,” she said, her brows drawing together. “I don’t think you were wrong to say it.”

He tore his gaze from Belle for just a second and let it settle on the heap of dark clothing lying on the floor beside the bed – his uniform. She’d taken it off him and he’d reveled in every second of that and what had followed, but now the day came crashing back down on him.

“She was talking to me before that. Making up bullshit excuses, but she was talking. It was over as soon as I said that.”

“Maybe it struck a chord. Maybe she’ll think about it.”