I parked crookedly outside the station. It was the middle of the night and everyone else was gone.
Luke wasn’t.
I’d known that because we’d driven past on the way home and seen the light shimmering from the shadowy building. No one but Luke was that dedicated to their job as a small-town police officer.
The front door was locked, of course. I picked it with a rogue bobby pin.
“The only Templar who would break into a police station,” I muttered to myself as I walked down the dark hall.
My heels clicked loudly in the eerie quiet; it would’ve been creepy, if creepy and scary weren’t what passed for normal in my world. The only creepy thing, even through my drunken haze, was what I was about to do. There was a small, sober voice prattling in the depths of my brain, commanding me to snatch up my self-respect and hightail it the fuck out of there.
Drunk Rosie never listened to Sober Rosie.
Shit, Sober Rosie never listened to Sober Rosie.
So I kept walking, glancing around at the cookie-cutter desks, some scattered with files, other freakishly clean. Posters here and there. I was surprised to see Gage on one.
Wanted.
“Hmm, interesting,” I muttered.
I wasn’t surprised that he was running from something, but I was surprised that the police were in possession of this and he was yet to be arrested. Then again, as long as Bill was sheriff, we were unlikely to be arrested for anything. As long as Cade kept delivering him fat envelopes every month.
It was when Luke took the reins that we had the trouble.
And there I was, running right into trouble.
What’s new?
The light in his corner office was brighter now, offending my eyes that had become accustomed to darkness.
My soul had too.
And there was I seeking out the light when I wasn’t designed for it, nor used to it.
I didn’t hesitate at the door because if I hesitated, it would’ve been over. Hesitation was for cowards and sober people. I was neither.
Luke was bent over a black folder, concentrating so hard that he obviously hadn’t heard the not-so-stealthy break-in. He did hear the creak of his door opening. He wasn’t one to hesitate either, his gun up and pointed at my forehead in a matter of seconds.
Most people’s immediate reaction to having a gun pointed in the region of their brain might be to scream, cry, plead and definitely hold up their hands in the universal “don’t shoot me” gesture.
I did no such thing.
The only thing I did was reach into my purse and slip out a cigarette, put it between my lips and light it up. I took a leisurely inhale.
Not that I even liked to smoke. It made my clothes smell like shit, fucked with my teeth and may or may not give me cancer. It was something I was trying out. Plus, it went with my look. I was wearing tight leather pants with some third-hand Manolos, towering me high above my regular 5’7, and a see-through blouse that showed off my lacy red bra. My hair was straight—it took about two hours to do that—and tumbling down my back. My red lipstick left an imprint on the white filter as I took the smoke from my mouth.
“Jesus, Rosie,” Luke yelled, letting his gun clatter onto his desk.
I took another inhale, mainly to hide my nerves. “Nope, it’s just me. Don’t think the other guy’s been seen in a few thousand years, and even if he was in this neck of the woods, he wouldn’t be hanging out with me.” I watched him glance down at the file he’d been so focused on, snap it closed and shove it in a drawer. I wondered idly about that, for about a second. “He’d most likely be in here with you, Luke. The saint.”
I wandered into the room, glancing around with interest. It was clean. Neat. Obsessively so. Framed photos spaced evenly, diploma on the wall.
“You know I’m not a saint, Rosie,” he gritted out.
I focused on him, raising my brow. “Oh really? Because you’re pretty sure who the sinners are in this ’burb, and I thought only saints had the authority on sinners. The rest of us can’t see the grass for the trees, being sinners and all.”
He glared at me, then at the plume of smoke. He was out of his seat and in my face in seconds, my cigarette out of my mouth in the same time.
“You can’t fucking smoke in here,” he growled.
He didn’t leave my atmosphere immediately, holding my lit cigarette with the red lipstick kiss on the end, watching me.
“You’re not a sinner,” he murmured. “And I’m not a saint.”
“What makes you so sure?” I whispered.
The moment lasted longer than it should have, giving me butterflies of hope.
“Because saints don’t want things that they can’t have,” he said finally.
And before I could grasp onto that moment of hope, hold it in my hands and use it as proof that coming here—drunk or not—was a good idea, he was gone.
Luke rounded his desk, stabbing my smoke out on a scrap piece of paper before throwing it in the trash. He stayed on that side, keeping the piece of furniture between us like a shield. From my feelings or his, I wasn’t sure. I just knew it wasn’t working for me. There was no shield thick enough for that.
“What are you doing here, Rosie?” he sighed, crossing his arms. He looked me up and down, and that time really looked. He couldn’t really look in public. Or that’s what I told myself. Not that he wouldn’t. Or didn’t want to. That truth would make me all the more pathetic.
I entertained the idea that now that it was just us, with no one to hide from, real hunger danced in his gaze.
But then it was gone.
Maybe with just us, there was so much more to hide from.
“How’d you get in?”
I smirked, a good ploy to distract from my hurt. “The front door was open.”
Luke frowned. “It was not.”
I shrugged. “It is now.”
“Jesus, Rosie, you broke in?”
I looked around. “You keep mentioning this guy. Can I just not see him or something?”
“This isn’t a joke, Rosie,” he clipped. “You broke into a police station.” He looked at me again, but it wasn’t the Luke look. This was the Deputy Luke look. “You’re drunk.”
I eyed him. “It’s the middle of the night and I broke into a police station. You think I’d do that sober?”
He looked at me for a long time. “How did you get here?”
That was not the question I expected him to ask. I expected a lecture about the laws I’d broken, not to do it again, yada yada yada.
Knowing that telling him I drove would not be a good idea, I shrugged. “Flew in on my broomstick.”
Luke’s glare deepened to the point that one could possibly call it pure fury. “You fucking drove?” he roared, not buying the broomstick thing.
That time he forgot the shield between us and rounded the desk.
His hands were biting into my shoulders and he shook me a little.
“Are you fucking out of your mind?” he shouted. Right in my face. No more Mister Nice Deputy. No more Mister Deputy at all.
This was Luke, pure and simple.
But not simple.
Because this was the rage of that night he’d wrenched the guy out of my car. The rage that didn’t make sense. Because rage like that was only roused when you cared about someone. A lot.