Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 27101 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 136(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27101 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 136(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
“I was actually headed to my parents’ for brunch,” I offer, as if this will somehow endear me to her. “I have three brothers and we’re all firemen.” Like that will help my case.
“I know,” she says. “Your brother, Beckett, gave a safety talk at my orientation.”
“Oh.” Well, fuck me. I’m so goddamn tongue-tied, I don’t even know what else to say.
We ride in silence for a minute, just the sound of the road and the faint click of her turn signal as she takes the shortcut through town to the station.
I figure I have one last shot at not making a complete ass of myself. “So, you know all about me, but I don’t know anything about you.”
She finally looks at me, and her eyes are dead serious. “What would you like to know?”
“Your first name, for starters.” At least she’s speaking to me.
She inhales, the faintest of sighs. “Isla.” I file away that information as we pull into the station. She parks in the shade and comes around to open my door. There’s something gentle in the way she helps me out, one hand on my elbow to keep me from face-planting onto the curb.
Inside, it’s all linoleum and bad lighting, the front desk manned by a civilian clerk who barely glances up as Isla leads me down the hall to processing. The only other person in sight is a janitor waxing the floor, who gives me a bored look before going back to his mop.
She uncuffs me long enough to take my fingerprints and a mugshot, which is every bit as humiliating as I’d expected.
Afterward, she leads me to a holding room without windows. There’s just a plain desk with four very uncomfortable-looking chairs and a vending machine that’s older than me. “You can use the phone on the desk to make your one call,” she says and turns to walk away. I stare after her, mouth half-open, and for the first time in my life, I understand exactly what my brothers meant when they explained you don’t see it coming until it’s already got you by the throat.
As the door shuts, I think about how quickly I went from “never been arrested” to “desperately wanting to get arrested again if it means getting cuffed by Isla Merrill.” The love at first sight bug has bitten me.
I lean back, look up at the water-stained ceiling, and wonder what it’s going to take to break through that fortress of hers. Whatever it is, I’m all in.
CHAPTER TWO
ISLA
The minute I step away from the holding room, I hear Hot’s voice bounce off the acoustics of the concrete hallway. “I swear to God, Beckett, if you tell anyone about this, I’ll kick your ass.”
I shake my head and keep walking. I can’t believe the crazy emotions zinging through me right now. The moment I laid eyes on Dawson Hot, I felt the ground shift under my feet. I’ve never ever felt anything like this. And I don’t freaking like it at all.
It’s already hot as hell in the station with the air conditioner permanently stuck at “barely tolerable.” My uniform clings to my back as I cut through dispatch, ignoring the ancient clerk’s eye roll and the janitor’s bucket obstacle course. When I hit the breakroom, I make a beeline for the old Coke machine, needing something cold to cool my ass off.
Back at my desk, I flip open the logbook and start the arrest paperwork. “Subject was observed traveling at approximately ninety-three mph in a posted fifty-five mph zone. Subject was cooperative.” I skip the part where he flirted with me the entire ride. And I especially skip over the part where I enjoyed it.
I type in his license number and the system coughs up his entire driving history. Two minor speeding tickets in the past. That’s it. I’m not shocked. The Hot Brothers all have squeaky-clean reputations.
Every five seconds, my brain replays the first moment I laid eyes on him. The man was dangerous with a capital D.
I finish the incident report, print the copy for records, and staple it with a satisfying thwack.
Three hours left on shift. I still have to swing by the school and check on the weird loitering complaint, then do a drive-through at Main and Elm for the construction detour. If I’m lucky, I’ll clock out before the Friday night drunks start rolling in.
The rest of my shift thankfully flies by. At seven-fifteen, I unlock my door and step into my small apartment. Sunset pours through the windows I scrubbed yesterday, catching on every polished surface of my twelve-hundred-square-feet domain—not an item out of place, not a speck of dust allowed to settle. I kick off my boots onto the designated mat and drop my keys into the ceramic dish on the tiny credenza by the door, where they land with a satisfying clink against the polished wood.