Steele: Into Your Heart (Carolina Bad Boys #3 (20 page)

Redemption

TEN MINUTES OF HURT silence. I kept my eyes straight ahead on the road. Ashe stared out her window. How different this strained drive was than the one to my house hours earlier.

Once I parked in her driveway, I got out to open her door.

Ashe planted her feet on the ground and pushed me away. “Don’t,” she spat at me. “You don’t get to do the gentlemanly thing with me after what you said.”

So be it.

I spun around and returned to the truck. I sat in the cab until she let herself inside and closed the front door.

Leaving her house, I felt dirty about myself. Jesus Christ. If truth was told, I wanted to do things slow and easy with Ashe. I wanted to be her man, and if she couldn’t deal with that . . .

Twatson was the only company in my bed that night, my bed that smelled of Ashe. Floral and dark and sexy. Twatson burrowed against me, purring so loud she put Boomer’s snoring to shame, but it wasn’t her throaty thrum that kept me wide-awake.

I called Ashe the next morning, tossing the squeezed leftovers of orange rinds into the garbage.

She answered with a wary, “Yeah?”

“We’re done for good this time.”

Maybe she slammed her eyes shut. Maybe she gripped her kitchen counter like I did mine. Maybe she swallowed an enormous amount of pain in her throat . . . like me, just speaking those words.

Maybe she doesn’t give a shit.

“We were done before we even started,” Ashe said.

Wasn’t that the truth? “Just like you wanted, huh?” I hung up on her.

****

August continued with hot-as-hell temperatures, and no word from Ashe. In the old days—March or April—I’d have just walked off with a got-me-some grin on my face, happy not to get straddled with a chick. Wasn’t so easy with Ashe. Maybe that was what had made everything better with her. And the aftermath so much worse.

One afternoon my phone jingled on the workbench at Chrome and Steele. A reminder to pick up Cara from soccer. Before the big bust up, I’d taken on every other week duties with the little lady. I hadn’t deleted the reminders. I wiped my hands on my rag, then my brow with my arm. In the brightly lit garage, I looked at the chopper rake kit I was working on. The rest would have to wait.

In the john, I washed my hands and face, scowling in the mirror. It’d been two weeks. I hadn’t contacted Ashe. She didn’t call me either. Didn’t stop me from missing her or wanting to reach out. We’d said some bad shit to each other. Stupid shit. But I was just stubborn enough to let it ride if she was, revisiting that bad blood that had always brewed between us.

I stepped outside where Boomer glared at a delivery order in his big hands.

“Where you going?” he asked, tucking the clipboard under his arm.

It wasn’t quitting time, but it wasn’t as if I punched a time clock either.

“Gotta pick up Cara. Promised her.” I dug out the kid’s-sized booster seat I’d bought and stowed in my truck after the first time I’d done the soccer-dad run. I set it up on the bench seat for Cara.

Boomer’s dark brows pinched together. “You broke up with Ashe.”

“Correction. She broke it off with me.” I scuffed my boot on the pavement.

“Semantics.”

“Semen-what?” I raked the hair falling from my leather band out of my face. Sweat trickled down my temples. It was only ten thousand degrees outside in the glaring sunshine. “You get one of those ‘Word of the Day’ desk calendars again?”

“Semantics: when the words you say can be turned right around and mean the same thing. Or something like that. No word calendar, just an encyclopedic memory.”

I snorted.
Right
. Whatever. “Not like I’m gonna leave the kid high and dry and waiting for a ride just because her mom and I can’t get our crap together. I told her I’d be there, and I will.”

Boomer stroked his chin for a moment before nodding. “Right on. I knew you’d grow up some day.”

I gave him the big FU. “Thanks for the pep talk, you prick.”

“Save those pretty words for your own personal police officer,” he called.

“She’s a motherfucking detective. And she’s not mine.” Getting inside, I keyed the ignition.

Appearing right at my window when I rolled it down, Boomer grinned. “Semantics. Like I said.”

I sent a quick text to Ashe before pulling out:

About to pick up Cara from soccer. U at home?
You don’t have to do that,
came her quick reply.

Said I would. Want to. Just tell me where to drop her off.

At the station. Thank you Brodie.

The Big House. Great. Just the thought of the place gave me hives.

So I was either the biggest pussy-whipped schmuck around, or . . . I didn’t even want to think about the other option. Because I was pretty sure Ashe had already done a number on my heart, and I hadn’t admitted the whole truth to myself yet. I wasn’t about to start now.

I got to the soccer fields early—hell, every kid deserved someone to watch them play, right? Yep, I was a schmuck. I didn’t know how Cara could run around in this insane midday heat, but there she was, blonde braid swinging, cheeks pink, zigzagging down the field and dribbling the ball like a pro. I couldn’t help but smile. The kid had some serious moves.

After practice, she walked over and gave me a fist bump. “Yo.”

“’Z’up?” I replied.

We made it to my truck amid groups of women tittering with their eyelashes fluttering, generally all-around eye-fucking me.

Cara wrinkled her nose. “The truck again? When are you going to take me on your motorcycle?”

She slung her gear into my pickup like it was her second home and settled in the booster seat.

I climbed in next to her, revving the engine as a warning to the broads milling around behind us to move along before I mowed them down. “When I decide life is no longer worth living and I don’t care if your mom kills me.”

“Don’t die on my account. Your bike’s pretty cool though.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Besides, you know Mom would never kill you.” She flipped the A/C vent so it blew across her face.

“Mom” has a gun. Hates my guts. And time for a change of subject.

“How was practice?” I slipped into reverse, maneuvering between the slack-jawed soccer mom contingent in the packed parking lot.

“AWEsome!” Cara singsonged, full-strength sass back on. “Scored six goals. Probably more than you.”

She was not wrong. Sure, I could’ve scored plenty of easy pussy, but I was over that. Ashe had tied my nads in knots. I didn’t mention that.

“That’s great. You’re a shoe-in for the Olympics in year 2030 or so.” I winked at Cara.

She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Yeah. But you won’t be around to see it. You know Mom mopes around the house now, right? She’d started humming again, when you showed up.” Cara flipped her blonde braid over her shoulder, facing me. “You two need to grow up and get over your crap already because you make each other happy.”

My foot faltered on the gas before I made my voice stern—even though I grinned inside. “First of all, you are not allowed to say
crap
. Second, when did you turn twenty instead of eight?”

“When did you turn eight instead of twenty-nine?”

“Christ. You know you’re just like your mom?”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” She beamed at me.

“Good. Because it is.”
Sort of
. “So knock it off already and put that
crap
on the radio you always listen to.”

The little miss flicked on the pop rock station I very generously left tuned in.

Cara sang along with the songs while I tried to block out the boppy noise coming from the speakers. Just before we turned into the police station, she reached over and put her hand on mine.

“I missed you, Brodie.”

I squeezed her fingers, my heart walloping in my chest.

“Mostly because I always beat you at Monopoly,” she continued.

I shook my head and chuckled. “That’s it. Next time, all the railroads are mine.”

Getting through security at the Mt. Pleasant Police Department was all kinds of fun.
Not
. Just another reason not to date a cop. Cara was ushered right in, of course, while I waited in line to go through the body-sized metal detector.
Joy
.

I had the
decency to blush when I set off the alarm because Cara stood on the other side looking at me with a confused expression as to why I made the damn sirens wail when I’d already emptied my pockets, taken off my belt,
and
put my wallet with the chain into the plastic bin along with my rings.

Leaning toward the officer manning the detector, I dropped my voice and
discreetly
told her about my piercings.

I fucking hoped she wouldn’t take me to a private room and ask me to whip it out.

She blushed hotly—just like me—then briskly patted me down before motioning me through.

Who wanted to bet I’d be the subject of gossip over murky coffee and stale donuts in the break room later?

Ashe breezed into the lobby a moment after I appeared, scooping Cara into her arms. She looked up at me, soft eyes, not glittered and hard like the last time I’d seen her. “I thought you’d be here a little sooner.”

I gnawed on my lip for a moment. “Set off the metal detector.” I raised what I hoped was a very explanatory eyebrow.

“
Ohhh.
” Ashe was the third one to blush about my piercings.

“Yeah.”

Silence, not exactly as uneasy as the break-up silence, fell over us. Ashe looked goddamn good. No longer in her dark blue uniform but a well-fitted light tan suit because of her detective status. Her badge was hooked on her hip, along with a gun, and a swinging pair of cuffs. A woman with a loaded weapon should not be so hot, especially when she’d taken me to the curb on more than one occasion.

Cara broke the quiet with a stream of constant chatter. I tuned her out, just like the pop music. I was too busy getting my eye-fill of Ashe. Then Cara upped the ante, dragging her mom toward me.

Definitely time to cut and run.

Especially with everyone from plain-clothes cops to suited-up officers looking at me like I was the next perp in one of their cases. Hey, I watched
CSI
—Vegas was the best. A franchise oughtta know when to quit, right?

I stood in the lobby in jeans, boots, a black T-shirt. My colorful ink ran all up and down my arms. Leather cuffs on my wrists. Hair tied back, and my goatee grown back after Cat’s beach party-
cum
-wedding reception, thank you very fucking much. I used to like the smell of Ashe on my short whiskers after a night with her.

So yeah, maybe I did look a little on the deviant side.

All thoughts fled as Cara towed Ashe ever closer. Goddamn my speeding heart. It knocked around my chest—
ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom
. I stooped to tweak Cara’s braid, and that was as close as I wanted to get to Ashe.

Backing away, I said, “See ya Thursday when I pick you up again, right, squirt?” Hell, if Ashe would let me spend a few minutes every so often with the kid I’d grown to like, I’d take it.

Cara hissed something at her mom, but I swung away and started out of the station. I couldn’t stand seeing Ashe and not being allowed to touch her.

“Brodie, wait a minute,” Ashe called. I looked back at her. “Thank you. That was sweet of you to get Cara for me.”

I steeled my jaw and nodded stiffly. “That’s me. Sweet as can be.” I started walking away again, but she placed her hand on my arm. Her touch zapped through me, and I inhaled deeply.

Ka-boom, ka-boom, ka-boom
.

I wished I’d been able to do the drop-and-ditch with Cara, because the sight of Ashe churned me up inside. “Ashe—”

“You taking him in for processing, Detective?” Some asshole—way more of a schmuck than me—shouted from across the lobby.

“What?” Ashe whipped around to face the Probie-equivalent of a pantywaist police officer. Her glare was freezing cold.

I bet the dude with the fresh-out-of-the-academy ’tude just pissed his pants from that look alone.

“I just meant . . .” Cue the foot shuffling, armpit-sweating dance of I-just-stepped-in-the-shit-big-time. “Isn’t he a suspect?”

Toeing up to the young officer, Ashe somehow towered over him even though he stood several inches taller.

That shit made me hard. Too bad Ashe and I weren’t together, had broken up, never got a chance to start in the first place.

Then she said, “This is Brodie Steele. Business owner. Philanthropist. He is not a perp.”

My eyebrows almost shot clear off my forehead. A yearly charity motorcycle ride did not a philanthropist make me, but okay.