Things We Never Got Over

Then I got to his eyes. They were a cool blue-gray that made me think of gun metal and glaciers.

He strode right on up to me and stepped into my personal space like he had a standing invitation. When he crossed tattooed forearms across a broad chest, I made a squeaky sound in the back of my throat.

Wow.

“Thought I made myself real clear,” he growled.

“Uh. Huh?”

I was confused. The man was glaring at me like I was the most hated character on a reality TV show, yet I still wanted to see what he looked like naked. I hadn’t exhibited such poor sexual judgment since I was in college.

I blamed my exhaustion and emotional scarring.

Behind the counter, Justice stopped mid-latte creation and waved both hands in the air. “Hold on now,” he began.

“It’s okay, Justice,” I assured him. “You just keep making that coffee, and I’ll take care of this…gentleman.”

Chairs pushed back from tables all around us, and I watched as every last customer beelined for the door, some with their mugs still in hand. None of them made any eye contact with me on their way out.

“Knox, it’s not what you think,” Justice tried again.

“I’m not playing any games today. Get the fuck out,” the Viking ordered. The blond god of sexy fury was rapidly plummeting lower on my sexy checklist.

I pointed at my chest. “Me?”

“I’ve had enough of your games. You got five seconds to walk out this door and never come back,” he said, stepping in even closer until the tips of his boots brushed my exposed toes in their flip-flops.

Damn. Up close, he looked like he’d just stormed off a marauding Viking vessel…or the set of a cologne commercial. One of those weird artsy ones that didn’t make any sense and had names like Ignorant Beast.

“Look, sir. I’m in the midst of a personal crisis and all I’m trying to do is get a cup of coffee.”

“I fucking told you, Tina. You are not to come in here and harass Justice or his customers again, or I’d personally escort your ass out of town.”

“Knox—”

The bad-tempered, sexy man-beast held up his finger in Justice’s direction. “One second, bud. Looks like I gotta take out the trash.”

“The trash?” I gasped. I thought Virginians were supposed to be friendly. Instead, I’d been in town barely half an hour and was now being rudely accosted by a Viking with the manners of a caveman.

“Darlin’, your coffee’s up,” Justice said, sliding a very large to-go cup onto the wooden counter.

My eyes darted toward the steamy, caffeinated goodness.

“You even think about picking up that cup, and we’re gonna have a problem,” the Viking said, his voice low and dangerous.

But Leif Erikson didn’t know who he was messing with today.

Every woman had her line. Mine, which was admittedly drawn too far back, had just been crossed.

“You take one step toward that beautiful latte that my friend Justice made especially for me, and I will make you regret the moment you met me.”

I was a nice person. According to my parents, I was a good girl. And according to that online quiz I took two weeks ago, I was a people pleaser. I wasn’t great at doling out threats.

The man’s eyes narrowed, and I refused to notice the sexy crinkles at the corner.

“I already regret it, and so does this whole damn town. Just because you change your hair doesn’t mean I’m gonna forget about the trouble you’ve caused here. Now get your ass out the door and don’t come back.”

“He thinks you’re Tina,” Justice cut in.

I didn’t care if this ass thought I was a serial killing cannibal. He was standing between me and my caffeine.

The blond beast turned his head toward Justice. “What the hell are you saying?”

Before my nice friend with the coffee could explain, I drilled my finger into the Viking’s chest. It didn’t go very far, thanks to the obscene layer of muscle under the skin. But I made sure to lead with the nail.

“Now you listen to me,” I began. “I don’t care if you think I’m my sister or that weasel who jacked up the price of anti-malarial drugs. I am a human being having a really bad day after the worst one of her life. I do not have it in me to stuff down these emotions today. So you’d better get out of my way and leave me alone, Viking.”

He looked downright bemused for a hot second.

I took that to mean it was coffee time. Side-stepping him, I picked up the cup, took a delicate sniff, and then shoved my face into the steaming hot life force.

I drank deeply, willing the caffeine to perform its miracles as flavors exploded on my tongue. I was pretty sure the inappropriate moan I heard came from my own mouth but I was too tired to care. When I finally lowered the cup and swiped the back of my hand over my mouth, the Viking was still standing there, staring at me.

Turning my back on him, I flashed my hero Justice a smile and slid my emergency coffee twenty dollar bill across the counter. “You, sir, are an artist. What do I owe you for the best latte I’ve ever had in my life?”

“Considering the morning you’re having, darlin’, it’s on the house,” he said, handing my license and cash back to me.

“You, my friend, are a true gentleman. Unlike some others.” I cast a glare over my shoulder to where the Viking was standing, legs braced, arms crossed. Taking another dive into my drink, I tucked the twenty into the tip jar. “Thank you for being nice to me on the worst day of my life.”

“Thought that day was yesterday,” the scowling behemoth butted in.

My sigh was weary as I slowly turned to face him. “That was before I met you. So I can officially say that as bad as yesterday was, today beat it out by a slim margin.” Once again, I turned back to Justice. “I’m sorry this jerk scared away all your customers. But I’ll be back for another one of these real soon.”

“Looking forward to it, Naomi,” he said with a wink.

I turned to leave and smacked right into a mile of grumpy man chest.

“Naomi?” he said.

“Go away.” It felt almost good to be rude for once in my life. To take a stand.

“Your name’s Naomi,” the Viking stated.

I was too busy trying to incinerate him with a glare of righteous anger to respond.

“Not Tina?” he pressed.

“They’re twins, man,” Justice said, the smile evident in his voice.

“Fuck me.” The Viking shoved a hand through his hair.

“I worry about your friend’s vision,” I said to Justice, pointing at the mug shot of Tina.

Tina had gone bleach blonde at some point in the past decade-plus, making our otherwise subtle differences even more obvious.

“I left my contacts at home,” he said.

“Next to your manners?” I quipped. The caffeine was hitting my bloodstream, making me unusually feisty.

He didn’t respond with anything other than a heated glare.

I sighed. “Get out of my way, Leif Erikson.”

“The name is Knox. And why are you here?”

What the hell kind of name was that? Was it a hard Knox life? Did he tell a lot of Knox Knox jokes? Was it short for something? Knoxwell? Knoxathan?

“That’s none of your business, Knox. Nothing I do or don’t do is your business. In fact, my existence is none of your business. Now, kindly get out of my way.”

I felt like screaming as loud as I could for as long as I could. But I’d tried that a couple of times in the car on the long drive here, and it hadn’t helped.

Thankfully, the beautiful oaf heaved an annoyed sigh and did the decent, life-preserving thing by getting out of my way. I swept out of the café and into the summer swelter with as much dignity as I could muster.

If Tina wanted to meet up with me, she could find me at the motel. I didn’t need to wait around and be accosted by strangers with the personalities of cacti.

I’d head back to my dingy room, take every last pin out of my hair, and shower until the hot water ran out. Then I’d figure out what to do next.

It was a solid plan. It was only missing one thing.

My car.

Oh no. My car and my purse.

The bike rack in front of the coffee shop was still there. The laundromat with its bright posters in the window was still across the street next to the mechanic’s garage.

But my car was not where I’d left it.

The parking spot I’d squeezed into in front of the pet shop was empty.

I looked up and down the block. But there was no sign of my trusty, dusty Volvo.

“You lost?”

I closed my eyes and clenched my jaw. “Go. Away.”

“Now what’s your problem?”

I turned around and found Knox watching me intently, holding a to-go coffee cup.

“What’s my problem?” I repeated.

I wanted to kick him in the shins and steal his coffee.

“Nothin’ wrong with my hearing, sweetheart. No need to yell.”

“My problem is while I wasted five minutes of my life getting to know you, my car was towed.”

“You sure?”

“No. I never have any idea where I park my car. I just leave them everywhere and buy new ones when I can’t find them.”

He shot me a look.

I rolled my eyes. “Obviously, I’m being sarcastic.” I reached for my phone only to remember I no longer had a phone.

“Who pissed in your Cheerios?”

“Whoever taught you to express concern for a person did it wrong.” Without another word, I stalked off in what I hoped was the direction of the local police station.

I didn’t make it to the next storefront before a big, hard hand locked around my upper arm.

It was the sleep deprivation, the emotional rawness, I told myself. Those were the only reasons I felt the jittery zing of awareness at his grip.

“Stop,” he ordered, sounding surly.

“Hands. Off.” I flailed my arm awkwardly, but his grip only tightened.

“Then stop walking away from me.”

I paused my evasive flailing. “I’ll stop walking away if you stop being an asshole.”

His nostrils flared as he stared up at the sky, and I thought I heard him counting.

“Are you seriously counting to ten?” I was the one who was wronged. I was the one with a reason to pray to the heavens for patience.

He got all the way to ten and still looked annoyed. “If I stop being an asshole, will you stay and talk for a minute?”

I took another sip of coffee and thought about it. “Maybe.”

“I’m letting go,” he warned.

“Great,” I prompted.

We both looked down at his hand on my arm. Slowly he loosened his grip and released me, but not before his fingertips trailed over the sensitive skin inside my arm.

Goose bumps broke out, and I hoped he wouldn’t notice. Especially because, in my body, goose bumps and pointy nipple reactions were closely related.

“You cold?” His gaze was most definitely not on my arm or shoulders but my chest.

Damn it. “Yes,” I lied.

“It’s eighty-four degrees, and you’re drinking hot coffee.”

“If you’re finished mansplaining internal temperature, I’d like to go find my car,” I said, crossing my free arm over my traitorous boobs. “Perhaps you could point me in the direction of the nearest impound lot or police station?”

He stared at me for a long beat, then shook his head. “Come on then.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ll give you a ride.”

“Ha!” I choked out a laugh. He was delusional if he thought I’d willingly get in a car with him.

I was still shaking my head when he spoke again. “Let’s go, Daisy. I don’t have all day.”

TWO

A RELUCTANT HERO

Knox

The woman was staring at me like I’d just suggested she French kiss a rattlesnake.

My day wasn’t even supposed to be started yet, and it had already gone to shit. I blamed her. And her asshole sister, Tina.

I also threw some blame in Agatha’s direction too for good measure, since she’d been the one to text me that Tina had just walked her “trouble-making ass” into the cafe.

Now here I was, at what counted as the asscrack of dawn, playing town bouncer like an idiot and fighting with a woman I’d never met.

Naomi blinked at me like she was coming out of a fog. “You’re kidding me, right?”

Agatha needed to get her fucking eyes checked if she mistook the pissed-off brunette for her bleach-blonde, baked-tan, tattooed pain-in-the-ass sister.

The differences between them were pretty fucking obvious, even without my contacts. Tina’s face was the color and texture of an old-ass leather couch. She had a hard mouth bracketed by deep frown lines from smoking two packs a day and feeling like the world owed her something.

Naomi, on the other hand, was cut from a different cloth. A classier one. She was tall like her sister. But instead of the crispy fried look, she went in the Disney princess direction with thick hair the color of roasted chestnuts. It and the flowers in it were trying to escape some kind of elaborate updo. Her face was softer, skin paler. Full pink lips. Eyes that made me think of forest floors and open fields.

Where Tina dressed like a biker babe who’d gone through a wood-chipper, Naomi wore high-end athletic shorts and a matching tank over a toned body that promised more than a handful of nice surprises.

She looked like the kind of woman who’d take one look at me and high-tail it to the safety of the first golf shirt-wearing board member she could find.

Lucky for her, I didn’t do drama. Or high maintenance. I didn’t do doe-eyed princesses in need of saving. I didn’t waste time with women who required more than a good time and a handful of orgasms.

But since I’d already stuck my nose into the situation, called her trash, and yelled at her, the least I could do was bring the situation to a fast conclusion. Then I was heading back to bed.

“No. I’m not fucking kidding you,” I stated.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“You don’t have a car,” I pointed out.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious. I am aware I don’t have a car.”

“Let me get this straight. You’re a stranger in a new town. Your car disappears. And you’re turning down the offer of a ride because…”

“Because you stormed into a cafe and screamed at me! Then you chased me down and you’re still yelling. I get in a car with you and I’m more likely to get chopped into pieces and scattered about in a desert than end up at my destination.”

“No deserts here. Some mountains though.”

Her expression suggested she didn’t find me helpful or amusing.

I exhaled through my teeth. “Look. I’m tired. I got an alert that Tina was causing trouble at the café again, and that’s what I thought I was walking into.”

She took a long hit of coffee while looking up and down the street like she was debating escape.

“Don’t even think about it,” I told her. “You’d spill your coffee.”

When those pretty hazel eyes went wide, I knew I’d hit the mark.

“Fine. But only because this is the best latte I’ve had in my entire life. And is that your idea of an apology? Because just like the way you ask people if something’s wrong, it sucks.”

“It was an explanation. Take it or leave it.” I didn’t waste time doing things that didn’t matter. Like making small talk or apologizing.

A bike roared up the street with Rob Zombie blaring from the speakers despite the fact that it was barely seven a.m. The guy eyed us and revved his engine. Wraith was knocking on seventy years old, but he still managed to nail an astronomical amount of tail with the whole tattooed, silver fox thing he had going on.

Intrigued, Naomi watched him with her mouth open.

Today was not the day Little Miss Daisies in Her Hair would take a walk on the wild side.

I gave Wraith the fuck off nod, snatched Naomi’s precious coffee out of her hand, and headed down the sidewalk.

“Hey!”

She gave chase like I’d known she would. I could have taken her by the hand, but I wasn’t exactly a fan of the reaction I’d had when I touched her. It felt complicated. “Should have stayed in fucking bed,” I muttered.

“What is wrong with you?” Naomi demanded, jogging to catch up. She reached for her cup, but I held it just out of reach and kept walking.

“If you don’t want to end up hog-tied over the back of Wraith’s bike, then I suggest you get in my truck.”

The disheveled flower child muttered some uncomplimentary sounding things about my personality and anatomy.

“Look. If you can stop bein’ a pain in my ass for five whole minutes, I’ll take you to the station. You can get your damn car, and then you can get out of my life.”

“Has anyone ever told you you have the personality of a pissed-off porcupine?”

I ignored her and kept walking.

“How do I know you aren’t going to try to hog-tie me yourself?” she demanded.

I came to a stop and gave her a lazy once-over. “Baby, you’re not my type.”

She rolled her eyes so hard it was a miracle they didn’t pop out and fall to the sidewalk. “Excuse me while I go cry myself a river.”

I stepped off the curb and opened the passenger door of my pickup. “Get in.”

“Your chivalry sucks,” she complained.

“Chivalry?”

“It means—”

“Jesus. I know what it means.”

And I knew what it meant that she’d use it in conversation. She had fucking flowers in her hair. The woman was a romantic. Another strike against her in my book. Romantics were the hardest women to shake loose. The sticky ones. The ones who pretended they could handle the whole “no strings” deal. Meanwhile, they plotted to become “the one,” trying to con men into meeting their parents and secretly looking at wedding dresses.

When she didn’t get in by herself, I reached past her and put her coffee into the cup holder.

“I am really not happy with you right now,” she said.

The space between our bodies was charged with the kind of energy I usually felt just before a good bar fight. Dangerous, adrenalizing. I didn’t much care for it.

“Get in the damn truck.”

Considering it a small miracle when she actually obeyed, I slammed the door on her scowl.

“Everything all right there, Knox?” Bud Nickelbee called from the doorway of his hardware store. He was dressed in his usual uniform of bib overalls and a Led Zepplin t-shirt. The ponytail he’d had for thirty years hung down his back, thin and gray, making him look like a heavier, less funny George Carlin.

“All good,” I assured him.

His gaze skated toward Naomi through the windshield. “Call me if you need help with the body.”

I climbed in behind the wheel and fired up the engine.

“A witness saw me get in this truck, so I’d think long and hard about murdering me at this point,” she said, pointing to Bud, who was still watching us.

Obviously she hadn’t heard his comment.

“I’m not murdering you,” I snapped. Yet.

She was already buckled in, her long legs crossed. A flip-flop dangled from her toes as she jiggled her foot. Both her knees were bruised, and I noticed a raw scrape on her right forearm. I told myself I didn’t want to know and threw the truck into reverse. I’d dump her at the station—hopefully it was early enough to avoid who I wanted to avoid—and make sure she got her damn car. If I was lucky, I could still grab another hour of shut-eye before I had to officially start my day.

“You know,” she began, “if one of us should be mad at the other, it’s me. I don’t even know you, and here you are yelling in my face, getting between me and my coffee, and then practically abducting me. You have no reason to be upset.”

“You have no idea, sweetheart. I’ve got plenty of reasons to be pissed, and a lot of them involve your waste-of-space sister.”

“Tina may not be the nicest of people, but that doesn’t give you the right to be such an ass. She’s still family,” Naomi sniffed.

“I wouldn’t apply the label ‘people’ to your sister.” Tina was a monster of the first degree. She stole. She lied. She picked fights. Drank too much. Showered too little. And had no regard for anyone else. All because she thought the world owed her.

“Listen, whoever the hell you are. The only people who can talk about her like that are me, our parents, and the Andersontown High graduating class of 2003. And maybe also the Andersontown Fire Department. But that’s because they earned the right. You haven’t, and I don’t need you taking your problems with my sister out on me.”

“Whatever,” I said through gritted teeth.

We drove the rest of the way in silence. The Knockemout Police Department sat back a few blocks from Main Street and shared a new building with the town’s public library. Just seeing it made the muscle under my eye twitch.

In the parking lot was a pickup truck, a cruiser, and a Harley Fat Boy. There was no sign of the chief’s SUV. Thank Christ for small miracles.

“Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

“There’s no need for you to come in,” Naomi sniffed. She was eyeing her empty coffee with puppy dog eyes.

On a growl, I shoved my own mostly untouched coffee at her. “I’m getting you to the desk, making sure they’ve got your car, and then never seeing you again.”

“Fine. But I’m not saying thank you.”

I didn’t bother replying because I was too busy storming toward the front door and ignoring the big gold letters above it.

“The Knox Morgan Municipal Building.”

I pretended I didn’t hear her and let the glass door swing closed behind me.

“Is there more than one Knox in this town?” she asked, wrenching the door open and following me inside.

“No,” I said, hoping that would put an end to questions I didn’t want to fucking answer. The building was relatively new with a shit-ton of glass, wide hallways, and that fresh paint smell.

“So it’s your name on the building?” she pressed, jogging again to keep up with me.

“Guess so.” I yanked open another door on the right and gestured for her to go inside.

Knockemout’s cop shop looked more like one of those co-working hangouts that urban hipsters liked than an actual police station. It had annoyed the boys and girls in blue who had taken pride in their moldy, crumbling bunker with its flickering fluorescent lights and carpet stained from decades of criminals.

Their annoyance at the bright paint and slick new office furniture was the only thing I didn’t hate about it.

The Knockemout PD did their best to rediscover their roots, piling precious towers of case folders on top of adjustable-height bamboo desks and brewing too cheap, too strong coffee 24/7. There was a box of stale donuts open on the counter and powdered sugar fingerprints everywhere. But so far nothing had taken the shine off the newness of the fucking Knox Morgan Building.

Sergeant Grave Hopper was behind his desk stirring half a pound of sugar into his coffee. A reformed motorcycle club member, he now spent his weeknights coaching his daughter’s softball team and his weekends mowing lawns. His and his mother-in-law’s. But once a year, he’d pack up his wife on the back of his bike, and off they’d go to relive their glory days on the open road.