Page 12 of Second First Kiss

“Their parents have come to get them.”

“We both know my dad isn’t coming,” she said, and Carl lowered his gaze to the floor because Abe’s dead-beat syndrome was well-known within the community. “Don’t punish my sister because he won’t answer his phone.”

They’d already tried Abe three times, and after the third strike Kat was out of options, leaving her with the only lifeline left to her—begging.

“Just say my dad answered. No one will know,” she said.

“I could lose my job,” he said with so much apology in his voice Kat wanted to cry. It reminded her of the way Nolan had looked at her right before he’d put Tessa in his cruiser, apologetic but determined to do his job.

But in order for them to do their job, they’d blocked Kat from doing her job—which was protecting her sister.

She was trying so hard to keep it together for Tessa. Putting her fist through the glass window protecting the deputies from people like her would only make the situation worse. She took a deep breath.

Carl glanced around as if he were about to impart the launch codes to nuclear bombs. “I’m not supposed to say anything, but the sheriff is trying to get ahold of Judge Cramer to see if we can release her into your custody.”

Her heart sank to her toes, and the bile that had been roiling in her gut rose to her throat. She’d been thinking that she’d hit the worst-case scenario. She’d been wrong. This was now the worst-case scenario.

“You need to stop him!” Kat said so loudly that the station came to a halt to see what the hysterical woman was going to do next. So she took a breath. “Please, Carl, you have always been a nice guy to me. And now I need your help. Judge Cramer is the judge presiding over the custody hearing. If he gets word about tonight, I’m sunk.”

She glanced over at her sister sleeping on the bench and tears swelled up. Kat had one month to polish her reputation to that of guardian status, and that mean keeping the judge in the dark about tonight.

“What the hell are you doing?” a familiar and annoying voice came from behind, his tone implying that she’d chosen to spend the night at the station.

“Living the dream,” she snapped back. “What the hell does it look like I’m doing? I’m cleaning up the mess you started when you just had to take my sister, who knew nothing by the way, in for questioning.”

She clung to her false bravado and suppressed the urge to make a run for it. Her heart lodged itself painfully in her throat as she watched Satan himself pass through the swinging front doors to the sheriff’s station.

Anger and fear filled her chest as she mentally struggled to keep it together when Nolan’s intense blue eyes locked with hers. His voice went low, almost a whisper. “Are you okay?”

She was about to tell him to go fuck himself but was thrown by the gentle concern in his tone. Concern for her. It was something foreign and unexpected when it came to the men in her life. He wasn’t exactly a fixture in her life, but he was about to become her best friend’s brother-in-law, which would make them family of sorts.

“Do I look okay?” she answered, rubbing her arms to rid of herself of the sudden onslaught of goose bumps. He mistook her actions for a chill because he took off his jacket and slid it over her shoulders, zipping it up.

It was still warm from his body and smelled like yummy man and the early morning air. It also threw her off-balance because it was a shift in their normal spiteful banter. And she didn’t know what to do with this side of Nolan.

“I don’t need to wear your coat,” she said and began to unzip it.

He stopped her and when their hands touched, she lit up like a Christmas tree. “Maybe not, but I need to know you’re okay. And that means that you’re warm. It’s freezing out.”

“Thank you?”

A small smile touched his lips. “Was that a question or a statement?”

“Both?”

His smile faded. “Is accepting help from me really that hard?”

Accepting help from anyone was hard. Kat had learned the hard way that the only way to avoid disappointment was to rely on oneself. She knew guys like Nolan, had dated one, and once their excitement of walking on the wild side wore off, they went looking for a woman who was marriage material. And Kat was definitely not marriage material. Not that she was looking for a husband. She barely had time for more than a one-night stand.

But accepting help was like admitting defeat. Accepting his help felt like she was saying yes to something she didn’t quite understand yet.

“I just didn’t want to give you mixed signals, that by wearing your jacket there was any chance of us going out on that date you were talking about earlier.”

He did that mind-reading thing of his, studying her with intention, so she flattened her expression, but not quite fast enough because his gaze zeroed in on hers and didn’t falter when he quietly said, “My offers don’t come with strings. Ever.”

She felt exposed and naked standing there, as if he’d stripped her bare and could see the parts of her soul she purposefully kept hidden for exactly this reason. Because once a man knew her weak spots, he knew how to hurt her. So she did what she always did when confronted with her fears, she met it with sarcasm.

“Just your Superman complex in action?” she said.

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