Page 17 of No Sweet Goodbyes

I snort in response. I saw Daisy being a jackass like she almost always is with Remy, but I hadn’t seen Linc making faces at his sister.

“Are we going to be responding to calls today?” Again, Emma’s question catches me off guard, and it shouldn’t have. “If you’re not on patrol, I mean.”

“No,” I tell her. “You’re going with me to follow up on cases of mine that have been covered by the other detectives while I’ve been out of town. Just chasing down paperwork and wrapping things up.” I pull onto a side street and park. “First, we need to get a few things straight. You don’t interact or offer any type of advice. You don’t police. You’re training. Stand to the side. Do not interact with any subject unless I invite you into the conversation or they address you directly. When or if they do, I want you to defer to me.”

There’s more than a little a flash of defiance in her eyes, a lot like the look she had when she pulled four flasks from under her bridesmaid dress at Remy’s wedding.

“This isn’t up for discussion.” I open my door when I get to the first stop, sliding out of my truck with ease. “You’re a rookie, you may think that you know what the response should be, but you’re not trained. You’re here strictly in an observational capacity, to get your sea legs and understand what should and shouldn’t happen.”

“Understood.” She takes me completely by surprise.

I swear she was going to argue with me.

But she didn’t.

I walk ahead of her—because if I’m behind her, I’ll stare at her ass again—and lead the way.

Eight hours later I want to poke my own eyes out with an iron. Or maybe the rusty spork that I know some of the wives have threatened their husbands with before.

“Thank you, Dom.” Emma smiles at me as we finally pull into the parking lot for Birch PD. “I really appreciate everything I learned today.” She grabs her notebook, one I hadn’t even noticed in her hand when she got into the vehicle at the start of shift. One that is now almost half-full of notes that she’s scribbled after each and every call we made. She’s also peppered me with question after question about policy and procedure. I gave her every answer that I knew and told her when I wasn’t sure, until she had to have enough material to write her own book.

She was taking notes through all of it, and damn if she isn’t the best rookie I’ve seen on day one.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” She waves chipperly and bounces away, leaving me staring at her as she goes.

“I could kill you for staring at her like that, you know.” Linc leans against my truck, but I don’t take my eyes off his sister’s ass. “I really should.”

“No, you couldn’t even if you wanted to. I’m a better shot. Better with my fists. Better in every way, really. Besides, you keep trying to set us up.”

“Yeah, he does,” Remy pipes up from the other side of my truck, where I can hear Daisy’s nails clicking on the pavement. “If I hadn’t stopped him, he might have asked for you to be her TO. Luckily enough, I think her dad went ahead and made that particular call. Maybe they’re all in on it. Trying to set you up so that you can take her off their hands.”

“Fuck my life,” I tell them both. “Your parents are in on the whole matchmaking thing now, too?”

It would be just my luck for Robert Hayes, the fire chief for Birch County, to make a call to his best friend, the police chief. There will be no getting out of being her TO after that, if that’s the case.

“Hey.” Linc raises his hands defensively. “That had nothing to do with trying to get you to take her off our hands and out of our hair. That’s all because of who you are. Neither of us can be her training officer, man. That leaves the rest of the assholes we work with… or you. If he paired her with Amie, you know she wouldn’t get a fair shot. They’d assume Amie took it easy on her or something like that for the entire week and they’d make it their mission to wash her out during the second week before she even goes to the academy. With you, everyone knows you’re a hard-ass.” He stares down at his hands, mocking me by making a satisfied face. “You might as well accept it, Dom. You’re the only real candidate to be her TO.”

“We’ll see about that,” I tell him honestly. “There’s got to be someone else.”

Remy, now on our side of the truck with Daisy sitting on his feet like she is a lapdog, coughs. “There is. But you’re not gonna like it.”

“Anyone else,” I snap. “Anyone else can be her TO. Just not me.”

As soon as he opens his mouth, I want to take it back. “The only other one with the time on the force to qualify is Stryker. At least, the only one who might give her a fair shot at this. I can make that call and ask, if I need to.” The emphasis he puts on need makes me cringe.

Eddie Stryker. A good cop and a decent man. But I’ve already wanted to drive my fist into his face for being Emma’s date to her senior prom. He also had to be the one who teasingly said that Emma was hot as she walked into the chief’s office that morning.

Linc, the smartest and closest man available, slapped him before I could put a bullet in his head. And yes, that may have been an overreaction, but where Emma is concerned, I turn into a bloodthirsty asshole and I make no apologies.

“Someone else,” I amend my statement.

Before either of them can call me on it or make it a point to mention that there isn’t anyone else, I walk away.

Amie can train her for a week. Hell, I don’t care if Linc trains his sister after the week with Amie is up. He won’t take it easy on her. Anyone who thinks he would is crazy, anyway. The two of them would torture each other, at least in the cruiser and away from the public.

Taking her out with me to follow up on my cases had been a mistake. I knew it before we even left, but I can’t help it. I didn’t want to sacrifice a day on desk duty, not when I only have two weeks to wrap everything up and hand it off to someone else. The more I finish, the less there will be when I come back. I can’t trust anyone else to get it done.

I walk into the building and through the bullpen without a word to anyone. When I see the chief’s door open, I step inside.

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