Page 24 of Warrant
He blew out a heavy breath. “Leave it to you,” he muttered. “Fine, I won’t stand in your way, but figure it out before you do serious damage. For my sake?”
“Who said I’d do serious damage?” I asked, offended that he’d think I’d intentionally break a woman’s heart. Women were these amazing creatures. Soft and sweet and they deserved to be treated well. Anytime I broke up with girlfriends in the past, I’d always done my best to make sure it ended as amicably as possible. I wasn’t a douche. Well, I was, but notthatkind of douche.
I flirted. Sure. Not when I was in a relationship—which hadn’t been in many years now—but otherwise, I always respected women. My mom would string me up by my ankles if I didn’t. And my dad would have his teaching moment once Mom was finished with me.
“Just promise me you won’t do anything stupid,” he sighed.
I thought about that. “Not sure I can actually promise that,” I told him. “But I’ll do my best. Nothing stupider anyways.”
He groaned. “Get out of here. We’re too busy for you to be loitering today.”
Taking that as my cue, I left the building. There’d be time over the next couple days to finish up in Ainsley’s office. Those locks would only take a few minutes to finish up, even though I’d stretch the job out for days so I could see her.
Eyeing Ainsley’s Tahoe, I grinned and headed in that direction.
CHAPTER 10
Ainsley
Doreen stuck her head in through my office door. “Sheriff?”
“Yeah,” I asked, looking up at her.
“There’s a call about a traffic accident in town. Everyone else is busy…”
I was out of my seat before she had a chance to say more. “I’ll take it. Where at?”
She handed over a slip of paper that had all the pertinent information on it.
“Thanks, Doreen,” I told her as I grabbed my keys and headed out of the building. I scanned the paper as I got into my Tahoe. No injuries. Just two hotheads about to come to blows over who hit who at a traffic light.
Starting my vehicle, I pulled out of my spot and hit the lights and sirens on my way to the accident. I didn’t really need to runcode, but if these guys were about to come to blows over a fender bender it was better to get there quickly.
“Fuck! I forgot how loud those sirens are.”
I would think about the sound that came out of my mouth for the rest of my life. And I would cringe every time. The scream was so loud it rivaled my sirens, and wassooogirly. My eyes flashed to the back seat of my Tahoe and landed on Warrant as he sat up.
His short hair was a little mussed and his eyes looked sleepy. His eyebrows were also raised high as shock and amusement played over his face.
“You asshole!” I gasped, gripping my steering wheel tight. It was a good thing I wasn’t a panicker or he could have had me swerving and flipping this damn vehicle. The fact that I screamed—which would forever haunt me—was a good indicator that he’d scared the shit out of me. Still, I mostly kept my cool.
“That was an impressive decibel, Sheriff,” he said with a smirk while theatrically rubbing a finger in his ear.
I reached over and hit the switch that turned off my sirens. I left the wig wags going to get people to move out of the way faster though. “What the hell are you doing back there?” I asked, ignoring his taunting. Wasn’t my fault he’d been hiding in the back of my SUV like a psycho and scared me when he popped up out of nowhere.
“Looked like a decent place to take a nap,” he said with a shrug of his muscular shoulders.
Denison had noted down, multiple times, in Warrant’s file folder that he was a ‘menace to society’. Denison was an idiot, from everything I’d seen, heard, and read from his reports so far, but he wasn’t wrong about that. Although at this point you could replace society with me personally. I seemed to be Warrant’s main target right now.
I pressed a hand to my racing heart. It was only doing that ‘cause Warrant had popped up like a Jack in the Box, not because of the smile and look he was giving me right now. I blew out a breath and glared at him. “This is the property of Sentinel County, Warrant. You can’t just take a nap wherever you want.”
“I pay my taxes,” he insisted.
Giving him an incredulous look in the rear view, I shook my head in confusion.
“Means I can use it if I want.”
“That’s not at all what that-” I swore as I made a turn and saw the chaos up ahead. The fight was on. Two men were rolling around on the ground, exchanging blows while others watched from the sidewalk.
