Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 58108 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 291(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 194(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58108 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 291(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 194(@300wpm)
CHAPTER
TWO
MEGAN
“Paperwork wouldn’t take as long if you knew how to do more than hunt and peck.”
I tilted my head to glance around the computer monitor. Dan’s familiar face had a wide grin.
I narrowed my eyes. “They didn’t have a typing class at the academy.”
He wiggled his fingers in the air as if he were a magician ready to pull a rabbit from a hat. “A semester in high school was all I needed to become a pro.”
I thought of the GED I received in juvie, where learning how to type definitely hadn’t been part of the curriculum. Not that he knew anything about that. No one did since my record as a minor had been sealed.
“Everyone’s got their skills,” I countered. “No matter how hard I try, I’ll never be as good a typist as you. I mean, you’ll never be as talented a shooter as I am, so I’d say we balance each other out.”
He humphed and crossed his arms over his uniform. Mary, the station manager, laughed from her desk at our banter. The phone rang, and she answered it.
“I’m a good shot,” Dan muttered, dropping into his desk chair. He wasn’t a huge man, but the thing squeaked with the strain. He had a few years on me, a wife, and two kids. High school sweethearts. He had everything I was never going to have, including a receding hairline. He wasn’t a bad shot at all, but I did suck at typing, so I had to pick at him about something. “I finished the report for the hit and run at the quickie mart.”
The place was out by the highway, and someone had clipped another car at the gas pumps while the owner was in the bathroom. There was video footage, and I had no doubt the guy from Nebraska would be getting a call from an insurance company for damages. Fortunately, we didn’t have too many bad calls in Sparks, which was one of the reasons I’d returned here. A quiet, simple life. My father had left once with me in tow, and I figured he wouldn’t be returning. Ever. Which was perfect for me.
I was alone here with my secrets, with my fucked up past. The older folks in town remembered when my mom left, then me and my dad, but that was it. Even Dan had been a kid when we’d left. Everyone in Sparks had been thrilled when one of their own returned to take the deputy job instead of some city slicker, but noone had prodded for too much more. Montanans were friendly but respected boundaries.
“Then you’ve got time to get me some coffee,” I replied, turning back to my report on the screen. “From the Seed ‘n Feed,” I added. He knew the stuff that was brewed here in the break room was bad and only ingested in dire emergencies… which meant never.
I shifted in my chair. My body was sore in the best possible way, and those orgasms I received yesterday up against the side of a barn? So good. I was more relaxed than I’d been in a long time.
Last month, my friend Indi told me about Ford Ledger returning and setting up a security company on his family’s property. Like me, he’d left town, but unlike me, he’d left to help others. In the Navy. As a SEAL.
The fact that he recruited fellow ex-SEALs to work for him had piqued my interest, along with every other single woman in town. They were all amazingly gorgeous, like right out of a Hollywood movie, but there had been something about Hayes specifically that did it for me. The chemistry between us was crazy. Better than I’d fantasized.
We’d first met when he and the others were adding a security system to Indi’s house. Then we’d worked together when she’d been kidnapped on a guide trip. Hayes had worked closely with me and other law enforcement to get the family on the trip to safety then to ultimately retrieve the body of the kidnapper.
In all those times together, we hadn’t even kissed. Or been in a bed.
No, he’d fucked me up against the side of a barn. Wasn’t that the hottest thing ever?
My lower back was tender from where he’d pressed me against the building, and I still remember the stretch of him between my legs. God, he was big. My pussy clenched, wanting more.
He’d been everything I could ask for. Six feet of solid muscle, attentive with my body yet also rough, which was exactly how I liked it. I didn’t need the roses and wine crap. I had no intention of forming a lasting relationship with my hookups. Not even the sexy ex-SEAL.
Lord knew, my life was not conducive to that. I wasn’t. No strings was easy. Fun. Of course, men didn’t usually see it that way. They were the ones who were supposed to walk away, to forget my name after they came. They also took one look at my face–the one I got from my long-gone beauty pageant mom–and started a whole fantasy in their heads that had absolutely nothing to do with who I really was. I might have been pretty on the outside, but not even becoming a sheriff’s deputy could make them understand there was nothing soft and feminine about me, other than my pillowy lips and big baby blues.