My arms looped around Maddie’s waist, and I nuzzled her neck as she downed the last of her morning coffee. I couldn’t stop touching her. Smelling her. Feeling her.
It was as if years of pent-up need had burst free now that the dam had been broken. Each time the panic that I’d made a catastrophic mistake reared up, I shoved it down. I lost myself in Maddie.
“You sure you need to go to work?” I nipped at her pulse point. “We could both call in sick.”
She chuckled, the sound husky from lack of sleep. “Because everyone wouldn’t see right through that.”
“They can mind their own damn business.”
Maddie set her mug on the counter and turned in my arms. She pressed a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “I like my job. And I like my coworkers even more. So, I’m not going to leave them in the lurch so I can have my wicked way with you. It’ll have to wait until tonight.”
The corner of my mouth kicked up. “Wicked way, huh?”
“Yup.”
“I like the sound of that.” I leaned in, my lips meeting Maddie’s and drinking her in. I’d never get enough.
Maddie pulled back on a groan. “I know what you’re doing.”
“What? I can’t say good morning?”
She gave me a playful shove and slid out of my hold. “That tongue should be registered as a dangerous weapon.”
I grinned. “Good to know I have an effect.”
Maddie shook her head. “No ego at all.”
A ding sounded from Maddie’s purse, and she stiffened.
I was instantly on alert. “What’s wrong?”
“I, uh, I meant to tell you yesterday, but I got distracted…”
I understood the distraction. The hottest sex of your life would do that to a person. But the anxiety radiating from Maddie had me on edge. “Did you hear from Adam?”
Just saying his name had anger pulsing through me.
She nodded, pulling her phone from her purse, unlocking it and scanning the screen. “This one’s from Grae, but I got an anonymous one yesterday. I told Lawson when he was here.” She tapped a few buttons and then handed it to me.
I scanned the text on the screen. The sender was another unknown number. The anger flowing through me turned to fury the moment I read the message. Come home with me or your best friend loses his badge.
I’d changed Maddie’s number myself. How had this asshole gotten her a new one so quickly? I pulled out my phone and hit Holt’s contact. He answered on the third ring.
“Since it’s eight-thirty in the morning, I’m guessing this isn’t a brotherly bonding call.”
I heard Wren’s voice in the background, asking if everything was okay.
“I need you to run a couple of unknown numbers for me,” I said.
Holt was quiet for a brief moment. “You’ve got access to a database.”
“I know, but you can sometimes get information I can’t.”
My brother read between the lines. Holt had access to less-than-legal information.
“Text me the numbers, and I’ll get my guys on it. It may take them a bit. This kind of thing requires a light hand,” he said.
“I get it.” It took time to make sure you didn’t leave any trace behind. “Thanks, Holt.”
“Of course. You guys hanging in there?”
I looked at Maddie as she worried the corner of her lip. Even with anxiety radiating through her, she was beautiful. The morning light made her blue eyes almost glow. “We’re hanging in there.”
“Good. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“I will.” I hit end on the call and scrolled through Maddie’s messages, grabbing every unknown number to send to Holt. There were at least four. That was another bad sign. How many phones had Adam bought with the sole purpose of terrorizing his ex-fiancée?
I handed Maddie her phone. “We’ll need to record the texts at the station.”
She nodded. “I told Law he could sign into my cloud account and take whatever he needed.”
I shoved down the flicker of annoyance I felt that Lawson had known what was going on before I did. But Maddie’s and my heads had been somewhere else last night, working out what we desperately needed to.
“Sure.” I moved into her space, wrapping my arms around Maddie and holding her tightly. “You okay?”
“I’m worried about you. That wasn’t a threat. It was a promise. Adam will make trouble for you however he can.”
“He can try,” I grumbled.
“You don’t know how good he is at getting people on his side.”
Maybe not, but I’d seen glimpses of it. The guy was a master manipulator. But he wasn’t a local. I had history and deep relationships on my side. “Don’t let him get in your head. He sent you that text for a reason. Because he knows your heart is as big as they come and the one thing that would get to you would be threatening someone you care about.”
Because Maddie was the kind of selfless that could get a person into trouble.
She let out a sigh. “You’re right. I know you are. But the idea that you could run into issues because I brought this mess back to your doorstep? It kills me.”
I lifted a hand, running it along her jaw so I could tip her face up to meet mine. “We share the burdens. That’s what we’ve always done. We’re here for each other, no matter what. Whatever you’re struggling with is mine, too. Got it?”
Maddie’s eyes glistened. “Got it. But the same goes for you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her fingers kneaded my lower back. “How’s your shoulder feeling?”
It ached a little thanks to last night’s festivities, but not too badly. “Pretty good, all things considered.”
Maddie arched a brow in question.
A grin curved my mouth. “Considering the workout we got last night.”
Maddie’s cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink. “Oh.”
I couldn’t help but kiss her. “Yeah, oh.”
She stopped me when I tried to take the kiss deeper. “Oh, no, you don’t, Casanova. We need to get to work.”
I groaned but pulled back, studying her. “Is there anything besides the texts I need to know about?”
I saw a flicker of something in Maddie’s eyes. It wasn’t the look she got when she lied, but something was off. She shook her head. “I haven’t seen or heard from him other than the texts and possibly that flower.”
My gaze narrowed on her a fraction. “You’re sure?”
She nodded. “Come on. We need to get going.”
But I stayed put for another few seconds. Something told me Maddie was holding a piece of information back. And in a situation like this, that secrecy could be deadly.
I rapped on Lawson’s closed door.
A muffled “come in” sounded through the wood.
I opened the door and stepped inside.
Lawson looked up from a stack of paperwork. He had a healthy dose of stubble covering his jaw, and the dark circles under his eyes were more pronounced.
Concern swept through me. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a late night last night. Luke and I got into it, and then I had a mile of paperwork to get through.”
My brother’s eldest son had officially entered the surly teen years and was giving Lawson a workout in the parenting department.
“Everything okay with Luke?”
Lawson sighed, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t know what’s going on with him. It’s like the kid I raised just disappeared and was replaced by this angry teenager who only grunts and slams doors.”
“Maybe he’s been hanging around Roan too much.”
Typically, a joke like that would have at least made Lawson chuckle, but this time it barely got a flicker of his lips. The worry I felt dug in deeper.
“Why don’t you let me take him out on the four-wheelers once my shoulder’s fully healed? Get a little one-on-one time with him and see if I can figure out what’s going on.”
Luke and I had always had a good relationship, but he’d declined my offers of outings over the past six months or so, opting to hole up with his video games instead.
Lawson nodded. “If you can get him to go, that’d be great.”
I lowered myself into the chair opposite the desk. “I’ll bribe him if I have to.”
A soft chuckle left Lawson at that. “Always a sound plan.” He studied me for a moment. “You look…happy.”
“You sound perplexed by that. Isn’t happy a good thing?”
“Sure, but it’s not something I would’ve expected given how I left you yesterday…” Lawson’s words trailed off, and then a grin a mile wide spread across his face. “You and Maddie figured things out.”
I instantly tried to mask my smile. The last thing my brother needed was the knowledge that his interfering had actually helped things. “Not sure what you mean, but I don’t appreciate you meddling where Maddie’s concerned.”
Lawson’s grin only widened. “You two got together.”
“Law…”
He smacked his desk and let out a whistle. “It’s about damn time. You realize Mom is going to lose her mind when she finds out, right? She’ll be planning the wedding before you even bring Maddie over for dinner.”
Sweat gathered at the base of my spine, fear digging in that I’d screw this up, and Maddie and I would be ruined for good.
The smile slipped from Lawson’s face. “Hey, where’d you just go?”
I swallowed, my dry throat sticking with the movement. “I just—I don’t want to screw this up. And you know that’s what I’m good at.”
Lawson’s brow furrowed. “Nash, you like your fun and harmless trouble, but when it comes to the things that matter, you always come through.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. “I’m not the one people turn to for help. The dependable one. That’s you.” My family never asked me for anything other than a laugh.
“I’m the oldest. I think that’s natural. But no one thinks you’re undependable.”
I shrugged, not agreeing or disagreeing.
Lawson leaned forward to rest his arms on his desk. “You’re a good brother and son. I don’t know where you got the message that you aren’t, but it’s bullshit.”
A lump formed in my throat. “I can’t lose her.”
Lawson’s expression gentled. “You’re not going to. That doesn’t mean you’ll get things perfect every step along the way, but you and Maddie will figure it out. When you screw up, you’ll apologize and make things right. You forget that she’s known you practically your whole life. You’ve both messed up before, and you always work things out.”
A little of the pressure in my chest loosened. My brother had a point.
“Just take things one day at a time,” he said.
“I can do that.”
Lawson’s phone rang, and he picked up. “Chief Hartley.” There was a brief pause. “Hello, Mayor.”
Lawson’s grip on the phone tightened, and his expression went blank. “You know what this is about. Petty jealousy. He’s nothing but trouble—”
My brother’s words cut off as he listened to the mayor, his jaw hardening. “Yes, ma’am. I understand. Of course, we’ll cooperate completely with the investigation.” Another pause. “Talk soon.”
Lawson hung up.
“What was that about?” I asked.
He met my gaze. “Someone filed a complaint against you with the mayor’s office.”
A trickle of unease slid through me. “Adam?”
Lawson shook his head. “Dan McConnell. And the mayor’s launching an official investigation into your conduct.”
