Page 5 of Captivated

Birdie smacks me upside the head, the sting of the connection making me wince.

“Hey! If you had put down that word, I would have defended you too,” I argue while rubbing the side of my head as her face focuses back down on the letters in front of her.

“You’d better,” she winks at me as I reach for the bag of tiles and place the box of Cheez Its on the table. “And watch your language, young man. I taught you better than that.”

“Yes, ma’am. Can you formally accept my apology with these delicious crackers?”

“Ah, my cracker dealer to the rescue,” Birdie moans as she grabs the box and rips the bag open, shoving a handful of the powdery morsels in her mouth. “You are partially forgiven. So, how was the Labor Day event?” She asks through a mouthful of carbs.

I shrug my indifference off while I scour the board and my letters in front of me. “It was nice. Cooper killed his proposal, the booths seemed to be raking in the money we need to fix up the library… and while on patrol, I actually had to pull someone over because they were driving the wrong way down a one-way street.”

“What idiot can’t read a street sign?” Samuel interjects, taking his own handful of crackers from the box.

“That’s what I said. Turns out it was a woman…”

Birdie lifts an eyebrow my way. “What’s that supposed to mean? And if I hear you say some chauvinistic comment about how women are lousy drivers, I’ll smack you upside the head again.”

I chuckle. “No need for that. She actually said she was new to town and got lost with all the road closures.”

“A new lady in town, huh? Was she smokin’ hot?” Samuel wiggles his eyebrows at me, accentuating the wrinkles in his forehead even more, and all I can do is shake my head. I mean, I appreciate hot women as much as the next man, but Samuel takes the term ‘dirty old man’ to new levels. Good thing he locked down Birdie to keep him out of trouble.

“She was… attractive,” I answer, avoiding their eyes, unsure of how much I want to share about how meeting Piper today has continued to rattle my brain since I saw her.

“You hesitated,” Birdie declares.

“I was thinking,” I lie as I decide on my word and place it on the board. Since I came into the game late, I needed to make a big move, so I lay downsqueezeand earn a respectable seventy-five points to get my score started. Anytime you get that Z tile, you never know how long you’ll be stuck with it, and I just so happened to pull the Q as well. Lucky for me, I made both of them work in record time.

“What the hell? Why do we let this kid play with us, Birdie? He lays down one word and is already tied with me!” Samuel says with a jut of his thumb in my direction.

“Because he’s my son and even though he’s too smart for his own good, I’ll never tire of him kicking both of our butts in Scrabble,” she gazes over at me, pride apparent in her smile as her ebony hand finds my tan one.

On the surface, people could clearly see that this woman is not my biological mother. She’s black and I’m white. But when I was growing up, Birdie was the closest thing I had to a mom. She was the one who guided me. She was the one I was afraid of disappointing. She was the one who taught me how to be a respectable man and believed in me when I told my parents that I wanted to go into law enforcement and they proceeded to inform me that I was stupid for that choice, but in much more colorful words.

Birdie encouraged me to follow my dreams, and so when she moved to Emerson Falls to retire, I quickly followed her after college and before I enrolled in the academy—becausesheis my family. The people who biologically created me have never loved me the way she has. And even though she was the housekeeper and my non-official nanny, the love this woman showed me is something I will never take for granted.

“That’s right. Don’t fuck with my mom, Samuel, or we’re gonna have some words,” I purse my lips and draw my face closer to his.

“I would kick your ass, son, if I was back at your age. But seeing as how I’m older than dirt, I guess I’ll just have to settle on kicking your ass in Scrabble instead,” he glares back at me. We hold each other’s gazes for as long as possible before Samuel blinks and I bark out a laugh.

“You can’t even beat me at a staring contest, old man! But I appreciate you wanting to defend your woman’s honor. Now, sit back and watch how the professionals do it,” I boast.

“So did you write her a ticket?” Birdie pulls the conversation back to the mystery woman I know nothing about besides her name. I mean, I guess I could run her through the system, but I’ve done that before and realized no good could come from it. I used to do that with the handful of women I tried to date right after the academy and all it turned me into was this paranoid man who would find red flags before I ever had a conversation with the woman, convincing me that sex was the only reason to make the date in the first place. It was actually Birdie who convinced me not to use my benefits as a deputy anymore until I felt there was a reason, but seeing as how most of my interactions with the female population end in sex and not much else, no one has intrigued me that much to be concerned about the skeletons in their closet for a while.

Until Piper Davis.

“Nah, I let her off with a warning.”

It’s Birdie’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “That was nice of you. Did you let her off because you thought she was beautiful?”

I narrow my eyes at her, knowing she’s trying to rile me up. “No. I let her off because I remember what it’s like to be in a new town. She was on her way to a job interview too, so I didn’t want her to be late.”

Birdie smirks. “How gentlemanly of you.”

I tilt my head in her direction. “You taught me to be that way, Birdie. But somehow I feel like you’re giving me shit because I did a nice thing for Piper…”

“Not at all, but nice to know you caught her name. I just know you, Cash. Did you ask for her number?”

That question startles me. “What? No. I was on duty. I don’t ask for numbers while on the job. Now… if the woman offersmeher number while I’m in uniform, that’s a totally different story,” I wink over at Samuel, who’s grinning from ear to ear.

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