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- Herausgeber: Lynn Burke
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
When my ex-wife left me financially ruined a decade ago, I became suspicious of everyone and swore off relationships. But pure temptation in skin-tight jeans, a crop top, and lip gloss has shown up in our small town, making me question that commitment.
Jimmy Riley was always getting into trouble as a teenager, and as Pippen Creek's chief of police, it was my responsibility to step in when his need for attention spiraled out of control.
And now?
Behind his façade, he is still broken, starved for connection, and desperate for praise, calling out to my desire to nurture. But he is also dead set on getting into my bed, raising red flags by using every manipulative tactic in his arsenal.
I can't deny the attraction I feel for him, but he has lied too many times for me to trust him with my jaded heart.
Will my walls hold firm against the tide of his insecurities that threaten to overwhelm me? Or will he find the courage to be honest and give us both the chance for fulfillment we both crave?
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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Needing Your Love
Pippen Creek 2
Lynn Burke
Copyright © 2025 by Lynn Burke
All rights reserved.
Editor: Katherine McIntyre
Proof Reader: Deborah Peach
Cover Artist: Golden Czermak / FuriousFotog
Cover Model: Robert White
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. This book is copyright. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review or article, without written permission from the author. No generative ai has knowingly been used in the writing of this book or the creation of its cover. No part of this book may be used as data for ‘training’ any large language model or as part of any machine learning or neural network architecture.
Visit Lynn’s website at www.authorlynnburke.com for a comprehensive list of titles, free reads, trope guide, and printable reading list.
Contents
1. Sutton
2. Sutton
3. Sutton
4. Jimmy
5. Sutton
6. Jimmy
7. Sutton
8. Jimmy
9. Sutton
10. Jimmy
11. Sutton
12. Jimmy
13. Sutton
14. Jimmy
15. Sutton
16. Jimmy
17. Sutton
18. Jimmy
19. Sutton
20. Jimmy
21. Sutton
22. Jimmy
23. Sutton
24. Jimmy
25. Sutton
26. Jimmy
27. Sutton
28. Jimmy
29. Sutton
30. Jimmy
31. Sutton
32. Jimmy
33. Sutton
34. Jimmy
35. Sutton
36. Jimmy
37. Sutton
38. Jimmy
Epilogue
A Letter From Lynn
About the Author
Also By Lynn Burke
Needing Your Love
When my ex-wife left me financially ruined a decade ago, I became suspicious of everyone and swore off relationships. But pure temptation in skin-tight jeans, a crop top, and lip gloss has shown up in our small town, making me question that commitment.
Jimmy Riley was always getting into trouble as a teenager, and as Pippen Creek's chief of police, it was my responsibility to step in when his need for attention spiraled out of control.
And now?
Behind his facade, he is still broken, starved for connection, and desperate for praise, calling out to my desire to nurture. But he is also dead set on getting into my bed, raising red flags by using every manipulative tactic in his arsenal.
I can't deny the attraction I feel for him, but he has lied too many times for me to trust him with my jaded heart.
Will my walls hold firm against the tide of his insecurities that threaten to overwhelm me? Or will he find the courage to be honest and give us both the chance for fulfillment we both crave?
Sutton
17 years ago
“Rich Riley’s kid just called in.”
Babs’s voice broke over the radio, and I took my foot off the gas pedal, slowing my cruiser. It’d already been a long shift from hell, and my guts clenched up in anticipation of her next words.
“He said his dad is dead on the living room floor.”
“Goddammit,” I muttered, yanking the wheel to pull into the closest driveway, the late afternoon sun blinding me briefly through my windshield. “Is little Jimmy still on the line with you?” I asked, shifting into reverse.
“Yes.” Babs’s tone usually suggested strength and resilience, but this call had her choked up. She’d been the station’s dispatcher long before I’d become chief of police in February and had seen enough shit to last a lifetime.
“Tell him I’m on my way, and I’ll let you know if I need an ambulance or the coroner.” Figuring the young boy was probably upset enough, I didn’t turn on my lights or siren. I gunned the engine, lips in a thin line, forehead furrowed into a deep dent.
Pippen Creek was no more than two main throughways and half a dozen side roads, but our community was strong and tight-knit. I’d been appointed by our mayor after five years as an officer to keep watch over our town and took great satisfaction in seeing to our residents’ needs.
Rich Riley was one of our two town drunks and had spent plenty of nights sleeping off the vodka in our holding cell. Jimmy’s mom had died in childbirth, and he only had a single grandparent left who raised him until he was six. He’d been sent back to Rich when they had become too old and sickly to care for him.
And now, the poor kid might not have anyone.
Muscles tightening, I approached the southwestern edge of town. The tires of my cruiser crunched on worn-down gravel as I slowed and pulled in front of the Riley house. I shut off the engine, and heavy silence caused my ears to ring.
Jimmy sat on the stoop, bare legged, a torn T-shirt hanging off his thin frame. Tear streaks lined his filthy face, and he hugged his knobby, skinned knees, arms appearing scratched to hell.
Chest aching over how his lower lip trembled, I climbed from my car and quietly shut the door behind me. “Just arrived,” I quietly let Babs know through the two-way.
Wet, blue eyes tracked me as I moved closer, softening my features in the hopes he wouldn’t feel threatened by the big guy in uniform with a gun on his hip.
Jimmy sniffed and dropped his gaze, causing more tears to stream over his cheeks.
Phantom pain lanced through my heart as I closed the distance between us, and I tore my focus off his face to glance behind him at the house that had seen better days. A few clapboards hung crooked, ready to fall into the un-mowed grass surrounding the ranch-style home. One shutter clung stubbornly at an angle, and the other three from the windows were long gone. The front door stood open, darkness beyond even though the sun’s rays shone on the young boy’s pale blond hair.
He peeked up at me as I stopped before him.
“Hey, Jimmy,” I stated quietly, laying a hand on his shoulder.
Flinching, he whimpered, and I quickly released my light hold.
First time I’d touched my wife Darla’s arm back when we were teens, she’d reacted the same way…
A muscle ticked in my jaw. Did Jimmy have a bruise under that shirt like she had, or was it my bulk looming over him that made him afraid? Sixteen years separated me and the boy, the difference in size substantial. I crouched in an attempt to make myself appear less intimidating, hoping he had a better childhood than Darla.
I doubted it.
Dried crust rimmed Jimmy’s nose. He sniffed again, scrubbing at the unrelenting tears. Up close, his arms appeared inflamed from red marks as though he often scratched himself. His legs showed no such signs of scuffed skin or gouges.
Was the scratching an anxious tic?
I ached to hold the kid against my chest and promise him everything would be okay. Wrap him in my arms and ease the emotional pain he was too innocent to be dealing with, same as I often did with my own son, who was a couple of years younger than Jimmy.
“You stay here while I go inside and check on your dad,” I murmured, unable to help myself from pushing wavy locks of hair off Jimmy’s forehead and smoothing back the matted strands.
He leaned into my touch, and a shuddered sigh made his entire body tremble.
Goddamn, this boy tugged on my need to nurture and protect, same as Darla had all those years ago.
Hugging himself tighter, Jimmy dipped his head in a nod, and I tore my soft touch from his head.
Fucking Riley…if the man was no more than passed out, dead-drunk, I was going to be tempted to smother the life from his worthless lungs. At least Darla’s dad had a heart attack a few years after she and I had married so we no longer had to deal with his ass.
My footfalls on the three stairs sounded loud, a dog barking in the distance the only other noise meeting my ears.
The scent of cigarettes clung to the stale air as I paused on the threshold, my nose curling at the offensive, acidic stench. Passing into the interior, I blinked, my eyes slowly adjusting to the dimness. A quick scan of the living room on my left assured me the place hadn’t been cleaned in months if not longer. Litter lay in every corner, crushed beer cans, Pedro’s Pizza boxes, and Dig-In takeout containers making up most of the mess. Dirty clothes piled on a chair and draped over the back of the couch.
A lump of a man sprawled in between said couch and scarred coffee table, an empty bottle of cheap vodka clutched in his meaty fist.
“Rich,” I hissed, not wanting Jimmy to hear in case his dad didn’t answer—which it didn’t appear like he would.
The man didn’t move.
I kicked his bare foot, and he didn’t so much as twitch.
Sighing, I bent closer to check his pulse. Maybe the man really was dead—
A snort escaped from his parted lips, and adrenaline shot through my veins. I straightened, watching his chest rise and fall a few times.
“Asshole,” I muttered at his face-down form. “I ought to leave you like this. Maybe you’ll get sick and drown in your own vomit. Deadbeat motherfucker.” I strode through the hallway toward the bedrooms. “Babs,” I said into my two-way, “Riley is passed out, not dead.”
“Oh, thank goodness.”
I couldn’t agree with Babs after seeing Jimmy. Neglect was spelled out in black and white from his filthy appearance to the state of the house. I expected the cupboards and fridge would be empty of anything edible or semi-healthy for a growing child. And I couldn’t begin to imagine what discoloring might lay under the T-shirt the child wore.
Lips in a thin line, I grabbed a pillow off the unmade bed in the master and returned to find Rich unmoved. While we were roughly the same six feet and not quite an inch over, the guy had a good thirty to forty pounds on my two hundred.
I moved the coffee table out of the way, rolled him onto his side, and propped his dead weight against the front of the couch. I lifted his head by a nice tight grip on his greasy hair and shoved the pillow beneath before taking the vodka bottle and setting it aside with the other cans and empties on the floor.
Once sure Rich wasn’t going to slump forward and possibly end up like his son had suspected, I went back out onto the stoop and settled onto the top step beside the boy—who mindlessly scratched at his left forearm.
“He’s just sleeping, kiddo.”
My statement caused his filthy fingernails to stop digging into his skin.
I kept my hands to myself when I wanted to ruffle Jimmy’s hair. Maybe sling an arm around his stooped shoulders and give him comfort, which was what the kid appeared to need.
A shuddered exhale made the poor boy tremble beside me, and my body responded in kind, hairs raising on my arms, as though the trauma of the afternoon had somehow connected us.
Although it was late September, warmth still shone down with the sun, but a foreboding lay in the breeze, the scent and promise of a long, cold winter. Harder times with nothing but the spring to look forward to.
I wondered what joys or dreams filled Jimmy’s thoughts when he crawled into bed at night.
“Your dad drank too much, but he’ll be fine,” I reassured him, and his audible swallow had the muscle in my jaw ticking again. “You did the right thing in calling the station, Jimmy. Your dad is lucky to have you. It takes a real man to look after his family.”
I’d meant that last bit as a dig at Rich, but Jimmy straightened a bit, swiping his forearm over his wet cheeks.
“You’re a good kid.”
“I’m a worm,” he said, thin shoulders once more rolling inward, and my eyes stung at the confidence in his voice. He glanced over at my cruiser. “You’re the hero.”
How often did he get called names? Having learned all about Darla’s childhood, I knew words hurt more than fists in the long run.
Fingers itching to pull my gun and go back inside to take care of Jimmy’s problem, I eyed the bones of his clavicles poking through the thin shirt. While committing murder to make his life better wasn’t exactly an option, I would do what I could to ease some of his suffering. “You hungry?”
He shrugged. “A little.”
“Don’t move.” I hopped up and retrieved a Snickers bar from my car. Babs had tossed the chocolate to me earlier in the day when I’d been grumpy about one thing or another. She’d informed me I needed a pick-me-up. Thankfully, I’d forgotten about the empty calories until now.
I sat beside Jimmy again and offered the candy to him when I’d rather have taken him home and fed him a proper meal. My son Jamie wouldn’t mind having a younger kid to hang with.
Jimmy’s hands shook as he accepted the gift, struggling to rip the thin wrapper. With dirt under his fingernails, he tore the candy bar in two and handed half to me.
Rather than argue, I took the chocolate, and we ate in silence, once more seeming to share more than food or space. I couldn’t watch as he licked every bit of sweetness from his fingertips.
When was the last time he’d showered?
I expected Rich didn’t care for the kid any better than he did the house.
Running a hand over my face, I told myself I would have to call the Department of Health and Human services in the morning and get someone out here to check on Jimmy.
The world-weary look in his eyes suggested he’d lived a lifetime of pain and suffering in his ten years. I knew all too well the path being paved for his future, and it sickened me.
“Are you doing okay?” I asked, keeping my tone calm and kind when I rather would have raved.
He shrugged. “I’ll be fine,” he answered with words that sounded like a repeated lie if ever I’d heard one.
“I’ve got a question for you, Jimmy, and I need you to tell me the truth, okay?”
“Mmm,” he hummed.
“Your dad—does he ever hurt you when he gets drunk or angry?”
Jimmy swallowed hard and gazed down the dirt road.
“Jimmy,” I prompted when he didn’t answer.
“No.” He whispered what I would have bet money on was another outright lie.
My stomach curdled. “Do you feel safe here?”
He shrugged.
I inhaled deeply, torn over the entire fucked up situation. “I want you to go inside and lock up as soon as I leave.”
Jimmy picked at the scrape on his knee. “Is Dad gonna want coffee and pills in the morning?”
“Probably,” I agreed. But I expected he’d be after more vodka rather than caffeine.
Jimmy nodded, squaring his thin shoulders, and I wondered how much rested on them. “I’ll take care of him,” he stated, chin lifting in either stubbornness or resilience. I expected both.
I pulled a small notebook I kept in my front pocket out and wrote my number. “This is my cell phone number,” I said, handing it over. “If you ever need a grown-up for anything, I want you to call me. Can you do that?”
“Yes, sir.” He crumpled the paper in his hand, clutching it tight.
Fathomless blue eyes peered up at me, and the overwhelming urge to wrap him in my arms and promise him that everything would be okay rushed through me again. My fingernails dug into my palms as I stopped myself from reaching for him.
“Head on inside now,” I ordered quietly, standing to my feet. “Dad’s probably going to sleep in tomorrow morning, so you can make that coffee and set out some pills and water if you want, but you get to school on time. Even if he’s still lying there, you take care of yourself first, you hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” he whispered again, pushing upright.
I glanced down, noting how badly the boy needed to bathe. “And make sure you shower tonight. Or sit in the tub and soak for as long as you want—no one is going to tell you to stop wasting water.”
Wetness welled in his eyes again, causing his irises to shine like sapphires in the setting sun. He nodded, making me feel a little bit like the hero he’d said I was.
Never had I been more proud of the uniform I wore.
“Go on,” I murmured with a smile, nodding toward the house.
Jimmy scurried inside, shut the door behind him, and I didn’t turn away until I heard the lock click into place.
Once back in my car, I radioed Babs to update her fully, then sat silent, staring at the Riley house.
Jimmy needed help, and maybe DHHS could give him that since legally my hands were tied.
But I feared, from experience, that this was only the beginning.
Sutton
9 Years Ago
“Thank fuck,” I muttered to myself after sealing the final envelope that would get me out of debt. I tossed the mail atop the pile on my right, eyeing the evidence of hard work and dedication toward rebuilding my bank account and reputation.
Of course, if Darla hadn’t seriously fucked me over two years ago, I wouldn’t be feeling this satisfaction over getting my life back in order.
Shaking my head, I shoved up from the kitchen table, ready to shower and hit the sack. I’d spent the day at the station, dealing with one headache after another paperwork-wise. At least the officer patrols around town had been quiet.
But having to make apologies to investors, bankers, and contributors for fundraisers and attempting to right all the wrongs Darla had done had been tougher than anything I’d faced in law enforcement.
I’d known Darla was a liar from the day she’d gotten me drunk and suggested I take her virginity out beneath the stars that summer night between our junior and senior years of high school.
We’d been each other’s firsts experience with intimacy of any sort, and although Darla had lied to me, manipulated me into getting her out of her dad’s clutches through pregnancy, she’d gifted me the best thing in my life—my son Jamie. I’d set aside dreams of playing football in college and had taken care of my family as any good man would have done.
Our marriage hadn’t been the greatest, but it was peaceful at least.
Until she’d gotten caught siphoning off town fundraisers she’d headed up as the chief’s wife, ruined my credit, and accumulated various accounts of bank fraud. She’d hightailed it out of town like her ass was on fire.
But being the caring bastard I was, I hadn’t gone after her for damages. Sure, she could have been sitting in a jail cell, but the hurt she’d endured throughout her childhood, the trauma she’d carried into our marriage, had been enough.
“You’re soft.” I snorted at myself in the bathroom mirror, eyes tired, beard in need of a trim. Should have pressed charges and let her pay the consequences of her actions.
But I feared fucking up our son in the process and figured letting her simply disappear from our lives would be less painful. He would be sixteen this spring, and I’d decided it was time to sit him down and tell him the truth of why she’d abandoned us.
He’d been livid. Pissed at me for not throwing her in the slammer.
A smirk curled my lips.
My boy intended to play in the NFL someday, but he would have made one hell of a cop with his preference for truthful communication and doing the right thing. At least he’d gotten that part of me rather than his mother’s lack of ethics.
Hot water beat on my shoulders a short while later, and I heaved a sigh, my shoulders sagging.
I was officially debt free.
The shit of my existence that had been Darla was officially gone, and for the first time in I couldn’t remember how long, I had the house all to myself since Jamie was spending the night over at his best friend’s.
Quietness hovered over the house, and I couldn’t wait to crash face-first into my pillow instead of staring in the darkness long into the early morning hours over financial crises.
Rubbing a weary hand over my face, I set my thoughts on scrubbing so I could maybe catch up on the sleep I’d lost over the too-long months since she’d left.
Only two people had managed to thoroughly manipulate me, and I wasn’t unhappy the first no longer looked to me for support of any sort. Darla’s lying ass could stay gone forever as far as I was concerned.
The other?
A grimace marred my face even though I chuckled while sudsing my underarms.
Jimmy Riley rarely accepted help even though almost every single one of his actions screamed of desperation to be seen, heard, and comforted. He’d done all sorts of scheming over the years, and even though he was still a bit of a runt, his power of persuasion and getting his way when it came to Pippen Creek’s Chief of Police was often snickered over by the townsfolk.
I didn’t really care what people thought. It was his constant fibbing that irked the hell out of me.
I’d spent years looking out for Jimmy since DHHS had deemed his dad capable of parenting and the house livable. Jimmy had been the first kid to insist on ride alongs, and I’d gotten to know him pretty well—or, at least, what he allowed me to see through the facade of confidence and cockiness he wore as a shield to protect the tender boy beneath.
He’d been deprived of and needy for attention, often crying wolf after that first time I’d gone over to check on him and his dad. Made it hard to trust the kid, that was for damned sure. More often than not, he got in trouble at school, and a real wide smile would stretch his lips when he saw me striding in like the hero he’d claimed me to be since his father couldn’t be bothered to answer the principal’s call.
A soft spot in my chest had remained after we’d split our first chocolate bar, a weakness that didn’t allow me to brush him aside as the years passed. I kept a supply of Snickers in my console during the cooler months, because the one person I could count on to be in constant need of me was that boy.
His smile remained in my mind when I finally crawled between the fresh sheets of my bed. He would be eighteen tomorrow, and although he told me once he dreamed of having an emotional connection with a man someday and riding into the sunset toward his happily ever after, I wondered over his plans for the immediate future.
He’d assured me that didn’t include college of any sort. Other than working at Mary Wallace’s consignment and gift shop, he didn’t seem to have any thoughts on pursing anything greater for himself.
The boy could be a con man, take his skinny ass down to Boston, and make a killing schmoozing his way into rich men’s lives and their wallets. No doubt he would thrive under a sugar daddy’s care, but the idea of him leaving to pursue his desires didn’t sit right in my guts.
Wasn’t sure why, because I’d have been better off not having to deal with his lies on an almost weekly basis.
Soft.
I snorted at myself and rolled over, burrowing my face in my pillow and allowing sleep to finally claim me.
A loud knock pulled me from a dream of Darla of all fucking people. Guessed paying off her debt hadn’t rid me of her memory like I’d hoped for.
Grumbling, I blinked at my alarm clock to find it was only a few minutes after midnight.
The rap reached me through the house again. It couldn’t be Jamie—he had his own house key.
“If that’s Darla, I swear to fucking God…” I muttered a few more curses, thankful I’d changed the locks. The last thing I needed was her crawling back and begging for forgiveness or a second chance. While I felt bad for the woman’s upbringing, I wanted nothing to do with her. Once bitten, twice shy and all that shit. Wouldn’t ever trust her again. She hadn’t only left my heart jaded, but my thoughts turned suspicious toward just about everyone else too.
A peek out my bedroom window showed a beaten-down vehicle I was well acquainted with parked by the curb and its blond owner below on the stoop.
Frowning, I pulled on a pair of sweats but didn’t bother with a shirt before hurrying down the stairs.
The knock came again, more persistent.
I yanked the door open, and a rush of cold air slid over my sleep-warmed skin.
Jimmy huddled in tight jeans and a long-sleeved shirt like he usually wore to hide his scratched arms. His hair was an artful mess of blond waves as though styled even though it was past midnight.
I had expected disingenuous tear-filled eyes, but his blue irises were bright, lacking the haze of alcohol I tended to see more often than not these days. Pink flushed his cheeks, and he shifted on his feet. The boy was up to something…
A knot twisted my stomach as I stepped outside onto the stoop with him. “Everything all right, Jimmy?”
“Fine,” he breathed the word with a smirk I’d been receiving a lot over the previous year or so.
My gaze narrowed, lips pressed flat. I should have invited him in from the cold, but my sixth sense and enhanced suspicious nature kept us in the night air. “What trouble are you up to tonight, boy?”
His smile faltered, and a hint of vulnerability flashed in his eyes before disappearing completely. The usual facade of confidence he wore slid into place, and I readied for whatever shit he was about to spew. “I want to give you something.”
Darla had said the exact same words on the night she’d manipulated me into sleeping with her.
Surely, I’d heard Jimmy wrong.
“What?” I snipped through my tight jaw.
Jimmy trailed a fingertip from my sternum to my belly button before I realized he’d moved.
I caught his wrist, electrical charges skittering up and down my spine.
He closed the distance between us, and I stood my ground, the cold settling into my bones. His wrist was thin, small in my wide palm, and the look he gave me after tilting his head up to hold my gaze hit me like a boot to the groin.
I’d known Jimmy was gay for years, but this was the first time he’d peered at me with blatant hunger.
“Let me get on my knees for you, Chief,” he whispered, already starting to sink.
I yanked hard on his arm, keeping him upright.
“Or you can bend me over.” He shrugged, his flirty smirk in place as he pressed fully against me. “I’ll spread my cheeks, and you can wreck my virgin hole.”
“Jesus—” I choked and released my hold on him, stumbling back a step.
He moved closer, insistent as always, hell-bent on getting his way.
My silence must have led him to believe I toyed with the idea of accepting his gift, because he grabbed hold of my cock, which lay limp inside my sweats—until his hand closed around me.
“Let me have this, Sutton.”
Hissing, I jerked away from him as my dick continued to swell. And why wouldn’t it? Two-plus years had passed since anyone had touched me below the belt. A simple reaction. Nothing more.
“I don’t want you like that,” I told Jimmy.
He opened his mouth to argue, but I swung the door shut in his face, cutting off whatever other deviousness he’d planned.
Rock in my gut and ears straining, I stood in the entryway, staring at the oak separating us.
What the fuck had just happened?
And why the hell had I shut him out like that?
The boy hadn’t worn a coat.
Or hat.
And it was January for fuck’s sake.
Guilt crept in, and I reached for the door handle.
His piece-of-shit car started up, and I listened as he drove away, leaving me in stifling silence.
Had I unknowingly groomed the boy? Led him to believe his hero was interested in pursuing a sexual relationship once he was of legal age?
“Fuck.” I ran both hands through my hair before spinning on my heel and stomping up the stairs.
My dick remained wide awake, my first goddamned hard-on in months.
I refused to take care of it before trying to sleep again though, because I feared Jimmy’s face would be in my mind no matter how I tried to erase the memory of those needy blue eyes.
Hopefully, tomorrow the boy would pretend as though he hadn’t propositioned me, grabbed my cock, and felt it begin to thicken with interest before I severed the connection between us.
But the next day, Mary informed me that like the other liar in my life, Jimmy had left Pippen Creek. Unlike Darla’s disappearance, however, I secretly mourned the loss of the kid who’d weaseled his way into my heart, woken something new inside me, and taken off without a backward glance.
Sutton
Now
Unrest burrowed into my bones, and I found myself patrolling the streets of Pippen Creek rather than slaving away behind my desk on paperwork that made my eyes as dry as the Sahara. It hadn’t rained for weeks, and the hot August air caused the atmosphere to feel like a desert rather than a valley surrounded by thousands of trees and the mountains beyond that had been home for my entire life.
Change was coming. I could sense it—
My cell rang, and I pulled my cruiser into The Market’s parking lot to answer.
“Jamie,” I said, a grin stretching my lips.
“I bought him a ring,” my son said by way of a greeting.
I barked a laugh, not surprised in the least. “When are you going to propose?” I asked, my heart lighter than it had been in months since he’d moved in with his best friend turned boyfriend.
“After the party,” Jamie stated even though his voice hinted at a lack of surety.
Jamie graduated from the police academy tomorrow, and I looked forward to my son joining the force and working under my command starting next week. We were a small band of brothers, just me, Babs, who was finally contemplating retirement, and two other officers. Jamie would be the perfect addition to the station.
Same as when my son was a young boy, he’d done drive alongs with me when he’d returned home last summer after a knee injury ended his short NFL career. He’d been devastated over the loss of his dreams but had gotten together with Chaz, who he’d always been in love with. A solid win as far as I was concerned. He and Chaz were attached at the hip, and I couldn’t have been happier for my son.
I told him as such, and his sigh radiated happiness over the line.
“He’s the best thing that ever happened to me, Dad. A couple of years ago, I never could have imagined the life I have now, but I’m so goddamned thankful.”
“Same.” I smiled and waved at Georgie Ellis, who was loading groceries into the delivery van. “I’m excited to see you at your desk on Monday morning.”
“I have to get through tomorrow and the rest of the weekend first.” Jamie released another heavy exhale. “I’m scared.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’ve earned that badge, and there’s no chance in hell Chaz will say no. I’m proud of you, son.” I swallowed hard as tears stung my eyes.
“Thanks for believing in me,” Jamie said, his tone low too. “For pushing me to enter the academy—for always having my back.”
“Always will, too,” I promised.
“What are you up to?”
“Patrolling.”
Jamie snickered. “Bored, huh?”
I chuckled. My son knew me well. “Tired of paperwork.”
After promising to see him at graduation tomorrow, I hung up and turned onto Pippen Street to continue my attempts to make the day pass faster even though I only had the promise of a quiet house waiting for me at the end of my shift. Loneliness had settled in after Jamie had moved out, but I wasn’t about to tell him.
That afternoon of patrolling didn’t offer me the usual sense of fulfillment in knowing I did a damned good job of keeping my people safe, but at least no need arose that caused me to flick on my siren.
My wanderings led me southwest, and I slowed as I approached the abandoned house I thought of more often than not.
Rich Riley had passed three years earlier, and although Jimmy hadn’t returned for the cremation and burial he’d arranged from Boston, the boy had yet to sell the place. According to Town Hall, the taxes were paid every year, and I wondered about his plans for the property. The house and land had been in disrepair over a decade earlier and had only gotten worse with every passing season.
While the one-story home could be rehabbed and inhabited, I doubted Jimmy had any intentions of doing so. I hadn’t seen or heard from him since that night I’d turned down the offer of a blow job and shut the door in his face.
I pulled to a stop, eyeing the sagging stoop where Jimmy had huddled all those years ago when we’d first exchanged words. Tall grass had taken over the stone walkway that used to lead to the porch we’d sat atop countless times after that September afternoon. Even more clapboards hung in disarray, and the lone shutter that had hung on for dear life now lay beneath curtained windows hiding whatever filth had piled up inside.
Why didn’t he just sell the place and be done with it? Why cling to a building that housed his childhood trauma?
I’d often wondered if telling Jimmy taking care of his dad was a real-man thing to do had pushed him toward defending his abuser when DHHS had come knocking. Guilt lay heavy on my heart since that day, and I expected it would continue to haunt me to the grave.
Exhaling heavily, I drove away, turning my focus on the other houses amidst the trees as sunshine warmed my arm through the cruiser’s open window. While this wasn’t the best side of Pippen Creek, the residents received the same care and thoughts from their chief.
I didn’t allow discrimination. Couldn’t see a man’s wealth or lack thereof shaping who they were. Our residents had chosen the Live Free or Die state, and I’d committed myself to making sure those I was responsible for could do just that.
Twice on my way back downtown, I rolled to a stop and leaned out the window to check in with people enjoying the too-warm day. I scanned every house and business, watched couples and moms with strollers meandering down sidewalks as I cruised past, proud of how our town ran like a well-oiled machine. There hadn’t been any major trouble in decades, only skirmishes here and there and a few fender benders to cause a blip in our mundane lives.
But something hovered on the horizon, a similar sense to the one I’d felt all those years ago while sitting beside a filthy kid who had called himself a worm.
Pulling into the station’s lot, my mind turned toward the manipulative terror who somehow continued to live rent-free in my head.
Jimmy had always been too thin and gaunt, tiny compared to me and my son who’d passed him in size not long after that first call out to their property. I’d taken to bagging up clothing Jamie had outgrown and secretly leaving them on the Riley porch while on the night shift. Every few weeks, I’d ordered staples from The Market for the Ellis family to deliver anonymously.
Rich might have been an asshole, but he’d never turned the gifts away.
Jimmy had been fourteen the first time I’d let him sleep off drunkenness at the station. While the right choice according to the books would have been for me to call his dad, I’d let the kid sack out on the same small cot Rich sprawled across on a monthly basis.
While Jimmy was tougher than most of the other kids in Pippen Creek’s tiny school system, it was the fact he’d tended toward feminine that had gotten him into trouble. But things had changed since those days. No longer did we allow bullying of any sort, and homophobia, while it probably hadn’t disappeared entirely, now sat silent in the back of minds of those who refused the “wokeness” that had slowly crept into and rooted deep inside my town’s limits.
Jamie and my soon-to-be son-in-law weren’t the only queer folk in Pippen Creek. My best friend, Dex, who worked at the fire station on the other side of the intersection was an out and proud gay man. The owner of Scone Haven, Kelly Powell, was as well, along with the lesbian couple who owned Frenchie’s, the local bar in town. And while I hadn’t announced my own queerness, those closest to me knew I swung both ways.
I hadn’t realized the truth about myself until that night Jimmy had wanted me to wreck his virgin hole.
I’d become obsessed with Jimmy after he’d left. I’d kept tabs on him, going so far as to hire a detective to make sure he hadn’t ended up in a ditch somewhere. Dex called me a stalker, but I reasoned my infatuation away with years of seeing Jimmy as my responsibility.
I stumbled upon a website’s page that showcased him for hire as an escort around the time he’d turned twenty-one. The images of his trim torso and pale, smooth skin no longer marred by scratching shouldn’t have made me hard, but the suggestive poses and familiar glint in his blue eyes had fully roused that secret desire inside me.
He was stunning—and all man.
Longing to see the little liar saunter back into town and once more offer that ass many others had paid for swept over me whenever I allowed my thoughts to linger on him. Jimmy Riley had become my obsession, the man I dreamed of at night.
My dick thickened in my uniform pants, and I cleared my throat, denying myself another minute of fantasy. Lips pressed into a thin line, I shoved my cruiser’s door open and stepped out into the heat.
“I was starting to think I needed to radio in help,” Babs said when I entered the air-conditioned station. Shrewd eyes slid over me as I ran a hand through my hair while passing her desk. “Got a call from Georgie,” she continued, and I paused. “He hit the Dixon’s lab while out delivering groceries and was pretty upset. He asked for you, but I sent Officer Jones.”
“How long ago?”
“Five minutes.”
“I’ll handle it.” I turned toward the door that had just shut behind me.
“You stop right there, Chief Sutton Forrester.” My feet paused at Bab’s order, same as they always did when she used that tone on me. “You’re a magnet to needy people, and they take advantage of your goodness and desire to help—”
She didn’t lie. Needy people were my kryptonite.
“—but Jones has this one covered.” She set aside a file and leaned onto her desk, arms crossed and gaze probing. “You’ve got another voicemail from you know who.”
“Fuck.” I rubbed a weary hand over my beard. Darla had called out of the blue earlier in the year and persisted in begging for a chance to talk to me even though I never rang her back.
Babs was the only person besides Dex who was aware that my ex had skewed my thought processes when it came to believing a person was innocent until proven guilty. At least my suspicion made keeping my town safe easier. “Was she crying?”
“Of course she was,” Babs grumbled. “Manipulative little bitch. Are you sure I can’t tell her to fuck off next time she calls to wail about her woes?”
Heaving a heavy sigh, I shook my head.
Babs’s lips pursed, eyes narrowing. “Don’t let her use you again, Sutton—I mean it. She comes sniffing around this town again, and I’m going to have to ask you to look the other way while I pull out the three S’s.”
Shoot. Shovel. Shut up.
I couldn’t stop my lips from twitching. Babs might have twenty-plus years on me, but she was still a feisty force to be reckoned with. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
She hmphed, finally settling in her chair. “Have you told Jamie she’s been harassing you?”
“No, and I would appreciate if you wouldn’t either.”
“Fine,” she snipped, her annoyance over my shutting down her usual gossip factory spelled out across her face. “On to better things—how are you feeling about Jamie’s graduation and joining our small force?”
The satisfaction I’d felt earlier leaked back in, a hint of excitement over the change I’d been desperate for lately overshadowing the fact a voicemail from my lying ex-wife awaited me. “Can’t wait.” I stated the honest truth.
“Been missing having him around, have you?”
“More than you could imagine.”
Babs nodded, knowing eyes looking over my pristine uniform. “You did a damned fine job raising him on your own after she left. I’m proud of the both of you.”
I couldn’t keep my mind from turning toward the boy who’d had everything going against him.
“What’s the frown for?”
Erasing the furrow between my eyebrows, I tried for a grin. “Just…tired.”
Babs raised an eyebrow, calling me out on my bullshit. “Go grab a Snickers,” she suggested, and I huffed a non-happy laugh while turning toward my office, my heart aching the slightest bit.
The candy bar had become my favorite after sharing countless ones with Jimmy, and I still had a weakness for the satisfying sweetness.
Kind of like my weakness for the kid himself.
“It was a good thing Jimmy left when he did,” I muttered to myself while eyeing the phone on my desk and the blinking light that indicated a waiting voicemail that would doubtless be a woe-is-me story about the latest mess my ex-wife had gotten herself into.
Sure enough, Darla sobbed more than she managed to get words out. Something about her partner? Husband? Taking out his anger on her for their financial troubles in ways I wouldn’t usually condone.
No doubt, she’d lied to him.
Manipulated his ass in order to get what she wanted.
And now she was broke and had no place to go.
She probably lied about his abuse in order to draw on my protective instincts too.
I deleted her message, my stomach churning, jaw clenched. Stretching my neck side to side, I attempted to rid my body of tension, needing to think on anything but her.
