Busted: Promise Harbor, Book 3 (34 page)

“Yeah.”

His entire body felt primed for a fight, his pulse thumping out of control.

“Don’t hit him.”

She hadn’t meant it as a joke, but some of the tension loosened inside him, and he hugged her again. His attention fell to her mouth and all he wanted to do was kiss her senseless for taking ten years off his life.

“Stay put.”

Cody gave up on moving to a sitting position as Hayley pulled free of Jackson’s arms and stood.

“Do you have your phone on you?”

Jackson dug it out of his pocket, listening as she called in to the police station, asking them to send a car and notify Cody’s parents that they needed to meet them at the police station.

“What happens to the money?”

Money? Christ, Cody was the thief Hayley had been looking for?

“It goes back to its rightful owners.” Hayley crouched down opposite him. “We’ll find another way to raise the money Kyle needs.”

Cody sniffed and wiped his sleeve across his eyes.

Jackson might have admired the teen’s determination to do anything to help his kid brother if he hadn’t gone about it in the most monumentally stupid way possible. And nearly killed Hayley in the process.

Hayley retrieved the weapon and they helped Cody to his feet. A few people living nearby, along with the homeowners of the property where the fight had taken place, had emerged to see what was happening. Assuring everyone that everything was fine and to go back inside took the kind of patience and authority Hayley excelled at.

She also excelled at holding Jackson at bay. Two hours later he’d only managed to catch glimpses of her at the police station. He tried to stay out of her way but refused to leave altogether.

He wasn’t convinced she was okay. She’d dealt with a lot in the last few days, and bringing in one of her hockey kids on top of everything else had to be eating her up inside. He’d seen and heard what she did for those boys when Coach got sick.

And she’d figured out that those teenagers were the key to making Jackson realize he wasn’t the washed-up has-been he’d convinced himself of.

So he stayed out of her way, content—for now—just to keep an eye on her. He’d come far too close to losing her tonight, and it took serious effort on his part not to reach out every time she passed and pull her into his arms.

He was in love with her.

A police station wasn’t the place he would have expected to have that particular light-bulb moment. Worse was feeling it all the way down to his fucking toes and not being able to do a damn thing about it while watching Hayley go through the motions of dealing with Cody.

Unfortunately, it also gave him way too much time to think. What if he was the only one who felt this way? Would she have referred to it as fun if she had feelings for him too?

“Jackson, go home.” Hayley stood a few feet away, flipping through her notes.

The sight of the blood on her shirt made his gut knot up all over again.

“I’ve got a ton of paperwork,” she continued, “and Cody is being released to his parents for the night under the provision he turns over everything he stole.”

Jackson stood. “Can we talk for a minute?”

She shook her head. “I really need to get back in there.” She nodded to the room down the hall where Cody waited with his parents.

“Then breakfast in the morning.”

“I…”

“I’m not leaving until you say yes.”

A flicker of a smile touched her lips. “At least you didn’t bother with bribery or blackmail this time. Okay,” she relented, then walked away, making him wish like hell he’d insisted on talking to her now.

And then what? Tell her he loved her and send her back in to finish up with Cody, without a clue how she’d process the new development? He’d been clear from the start that he planned on leaving, never expecting he’d find everything he was looking for in Promise Harbor. There was a chance she hadn’t been as blindsided by their attraction as he was, though he was fairly certain he hadn’t imagined the relief and emotion in her eyes earlier.

Just caught up in the moment? Or had she needed him as desperately as he needed to hold on to her?

Either way, he wasn’t taking any chances. He was done living his life on the sidelines and would do whatever it took to win her over. There was a good chance she’d only agreed to breakfast to get him out of there. He needed to be prepared in case she put him off in the morning. He needed a backup plan. Something she absolutely could not ignore.

Although it was nearing two in the morning, Jackson looked up the directions he needed on his phone and headed across town. He knocked on the front door, waited and knocked again.

Sleepy-eyed, Bernice opened the door. “Jackson?”

“I need a favor.”

The sound of a fist pounding on the front door brought Hayley awake. Groaning, she rose up on her elbows and pried her eyes open long enough to read the alarm clock. It wasn’t even seven in the morning yet, and it felt like she’d only been asleep maybe an hour tops.

The pounding continued.

Promising herself she’d go straight for her Taser if it was Jackson—and this early she couldn’t imagine who else it would be—she rubbed at her gritty eyes, slipped on a pair of shorts to go with the tank top she was wearing, shoved her phone in her pocket out of habit and headed for the front door.

She should probably be grateful that Jackson hadn’t let himself in. A locked door hadn’t stopped him before. She flipped the lock and hauled the door open. And stared.

“Gavin?”

Hayley launched herself into her best friend’s arms. “What are you doing here?” She drew back. “Where’s Allie?”

The woman standing just behind Gavin was definitely not Allie. With chin-length dark hair streaked through with red and a nose ring, the woman couldn’t be much more than twenty years old.

“This is Lydia. My housekeeper.”

“Nice to finally meet you.” She arched a brow at Gavin. He’d never been the type to travel with an entourage. “What’s going on?”

Gavin gave her one of his it’s-a-long-story looks and picked up his suitcase. Lydia did the same, both of them walking past when Hayley held the door open.

“Did your flight just get in?”

Lydia yawned, nodding.

Although Gavin didn’t look like he’d spent a couple weeks lost in the wilderness like he had the last time she saw him, the lines of tension bracketing his mouth were deeper and his eyes weren’t nearly as bright as the moment he’d carried Allie out of the church.

“We could use a place to stay for a night or two until I get things sorted out, if you have room.”

“I always have room for you.” She resisted the urge to glance around at the barely put together house that Lydia openly gawked at. “We’ll make it work.”

Lydia masked her skepticism with another yawn.

“You can take the bedroom at the top of the stairs on the right. It was my grandparents’ room.”

“I’m so sorry, Hayls.”

Her throat instantly closed up, but she managed a nod, holding herself in check until Gavin’s housekeeper climbed the stairs and disappeared from view.

Tears burned, and she wiped at her eyes before they spilled over the edge and ran down her cheeks. “I still can’t believe he’s really gone.”

Gavin didn’t wait for her to reach out again and pulled her in for another hug. “I wish I could have been here.”

She gave herself a minute to lean on her best friend, then straightened. “Judging by the fact that you’ve been in Promise Harbor more in the last two weeks than you have the last ten years, I’m guessing you’ve had your hands full with Allie.”

“Something like that.” He poked the bruise on her face, and she winced. “Rough night?”

Playfully slapping his hand away, she led the way to the kitchen. “Something like that.” Eager for a change in subject, she filled him in on the robberies and that one of her hockey kids had been responsible. “Which leads us to what you’re doing here. Where’s Allie?”

“At her place.”

“And you’re not with her because…”

“It’s complicated.” He slumped in one of the chairs at the kitchen table. “Bottom line, she needs me. So here I am.”

She slipped into the seat opposite him. “You may want to stand in front of the mirror and practice saying that last part without sounding like you’d rather be anywhere else.”

He forced a smile. “That bad, is it?”

“Let’s just chalk it up to you being tired.” She rubbed her eyes.

“You look like you could sleep for another day yourself.”

More sleep didn’t sound like a bad idea at all really. Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she fished it out. She wasn’t surprised to see Jackson’s number on the screen. Without answering, she stuffed it back in her pocket.

Gavin gestured to her phone. “Does that have anything to do with what else I heard in your voice when you called the other night?”

Hayley fiddled with a pencil lying on top of the table, unsure where to start.

“How are you and Jackson doing?”

Her gaze flew to his. “How do you—”

Gavin laughed. “Lydia. She’s been spending a lot of time Skyping with Allie’s brother Charlie. Plus I came across an older copy of the
Harbor Gazette
on the way through the airport. Interesting headlines. You actually arrested him?”

She nodded. “There’s a lot more to it than that though.”

“I can’t imagine you risked your reformed rebel image without a good reason.”

Laughing, Hayley punched him in the arm. “You’re one to talk.”

Gavin shrugged, then stood up. “How about we pick this up in a few hours when I’m not so jet-lagged? I want to make sure I don’t miss a single detail of how you escaped persecution for arresting Jackson Knight. Or what possessed you to date him.” He tacked on the latter like it was the least important part when they both knew otherwise.

Once she had Gavin settled on the couch in her gramps’s den, she trudged back to her bed and spent the next three hours tossing and turning, unable to get back to sleep. Right up until she came awake to the sound of hammering.

She rolled over, staring once more through blurry eyes at the clock. It was nearly ten o’clock now.

Dragging the pillow over her head, she rolled back over. She’d already ignored a few phone calls, a couple of them from Jackson, whom she’d foolishly agreed to meet for breakfast. She knew she needed to get it over with and just be perfectly clear that she was not interested in keeping anything going between them.

Last night had shaken her. She hadn’t been fully prepared for their suspect to be someone she knew, let alone someone she saw regularly, interacted with and liked. And she definitely hadn’t been prepared for the intensity of the emotion that nearly knocked her on her butt when Jackson had reached for her.

She could have stayed right there in his arms all night, could have given in to the tears she’d been holding on to, but then she wouldn’t have been able to do her job. It had taken everything inside her to let go of him and do what needed to be done.

And now she had to do it again.

She couldn’t hide from Jackson just because she’d been stupid enough to fall for someone whose life was now on the opposite side of the country.

She’d survived her father’s death, along with the grief and anger and lashing out at the world when she would have given anything for few more minutes with him.

She had made herself understand when Gavin moved away, and focused all her energy on building a career. And she’d done what she had to when things didn’t work out with Eric.

Although the pain of losing Gramps was still fresh, she still had Matt and her mom. And Jackson…

Her heart squeezed painfully in her chest.

She’d find a way through his leaving too. What other choice did she have?

Outside, the hammering continued, and she dragged herself out of bed and to the window. With her view obstructed by the oak tree in the corner of the yard, she walked down the hall to her nan’s sewing room. She brushed the plastic aside and looked down at Bernice pounding a real estate sign into the ground.

For fuck’s sake.

Groaning, she stopped in the bathroom long enough to splash her face with cold water and brush her teeth. Afterward she dressed in clean jean shorts and a white T-shirt and walked out to talk to the pain-in-the-ass real estate agent.

Maybe Bernice hadn’t gotten the memo that the house wasn’t ready yet. Or maybe she was intentionally trying to get on Hayley’s bad side today. It wouldn’t be difficult.

She knew Matt had signed off on the house being listed at Gramps’s request, but had assumed his passing would have slowed the process.

Gavin met her at the bottom of the stairs, looking equally unimpressed with their wake-up call. “Is that Brace-Face Bernice out there?”

Still rubbing her eyes, Hayley nodded, yanked the door open and stopped. Bernice had added a SOLD sign to the hooks hanging beneath her picture and company logo.

What the hell?