Page 1 of Needing Your Love
Chapter 1
Sutton
17 years ago
“Rich Riley’s kid just called in.”
Babs’s voice broke over the radio, and I took my foot off the gas pedal, slowing my cruiser. It’d already been a long shift from hell, and my guts clenched up in anticipation of her next words.
“He said his dad is dead on the living room floor.”
“Goddammit,” I muttered, yanking the wheel to pull into the closest driveway, the late afternoon sun blinding me briefly through my windshield. “Is little Jimmy still on the line with you?” I asked, shifting into reverse.
“Yes.” Babs’s tone usually suggested strength and resilience, but this call had her choked up. She’d been the station’s dispatcher long before I’d become chief of police in February and had seen enough shit to last a lifetime.
“Tell him I’m on my way, and I’ll let you know if I need an ambulance or the coroner.” Figuring the young boy was probably upset enough, I didn’t turn on my lights or siren. I gunned the engine, lips in a thin line, forehead furrowed into a deep dent.
Pippen Creek was no more than two main throughways and half a dozen side roads, but our community was strong andtight-knit. I’d been appointed by our mayor after five years as an officer to keep watch over our town and took great satisfaction in seeing to our residents’ needs.
Rich Riley was one of our two town drunks and had spent plenty of nights sleeping off the vodka in our holding cell. Jimmy’s mom had died in childbirth, and he only had a single grandparent left who raised him until he was six. He’d been sent back to Rich when they had become too old and sickly to care for him.
And now, the poor kid might not have anyone.
Muscles tightening, I approached the southwestern edge of town. The tires of my cruiser crunched on worn-down gravel as I slowed and pulled in front of the Riley house. I shut off the engine, and heavy silence caused my ears to ring.
Jimmy sat on the stoop, bare legged, a torn T-shirt hanging off his thin frame. Tear streaks lined his filthy face, and he hugged his knobby, skinned knees, arms appearing scratched to hell.
Chest aching over how his lower lip trembled, I climbed from my car and quietly shut the door behind me. “Just arrived,” I quietly let Babs know through the two-way.
Wet, blue eyes tracked me as I moved closer, softening my features in the hopes he wouldn’t feel threatened by the big guy in uniform with a gun on his hip.
Jimmy sniffed and dropped his gaze, causing more tears to stream over his cheeks.
Phantom pain lanced through my heart as I closed the distance between us, and I tore my focus off his face to glance behind him at the house that had seen better days. A few clapboards hung crooked, ready to fall into the un-mowed grass surrounding the ranch-style home. One shutter clung stubbornly at an angle, and the other three from the windows were long gone. The front door stood open, darkness beyondeven though the sun’s rays shone on the young boy’s pale blond hair.
He peeked up at me as I stopped before him.
“Hey, Jimmy,” I stated quietly, laying a hand on his shoulder.
Flinching, he whimpered, and I quickly released my light hold.
First time I’d touched my wife Darla’s arm back when we were teens, she’d reacted the same way…
A muscle ticked in my jaw. Did Jimmy have a bruise under that shirt like she had, or was it my bulk looming over him that made him afraid? Sixteen years separated me and the boy, the difference in size substantial. I crouched in an attempt to make myself appear less intimidating, hoping he had a better childhood than Darla.
I doubted it.
Dried crust rimmed Jimmy’s nose. He sniffed again, scrubbing at the unrelenting tears. Up close, his arms appeared inflamed from red marks as though he often scratched himself. His legs showed no such signs of scuffed skin or gouges.
Was the scratching an anxious tic?
I ached to hold the kid against my chest and promise him everything would be okay. Wrap him in my arms and ease the emotional pain he was too innocent to be dealing with, same as I often did with my own son, who was a couple of years younger than Jimmy.
“You stay here while I go inside and check on your dad,” I murmured, unable to help myself from pushing wavy locks of hair off Jimmy’s forehead and smoothing back the matted strands.
He leaned into my touch, and a shuddered sigh made his entire body tremble.
Goddamn, this boy tugged on my need to nurture and protect, same as Darla had all those years ago.
