Page 36 of The Way Back Home

“Nobody’s putting a stop to it. In fact, now we’ll work quicker.”

“I don’t understand you,” she says, and it isn’t an insult—I can tell she’s genuinely baffled by me.Good. I don’t need her inside my head with her shrink bullshit about how I need some animal to pick up my cues and stop me from hurting another human being. Though the second that thought manifests inside my head, I see the desperate pleas in her eyes from when I had her shoved up against the wall with my hand squeezing her throat.

“You don’t have to, darlin’.” I walk toward the door and catch her sigh as she follows behind me a beat later.

She turns to Sheriff Webb. “Alright then, bring in the perps.”

“Well, you heard the woman. Get to work, boys,” Shona says, ruffling Josiah’s hair and glaring at Beau as they pass her and file inside. “I’ll be back around five to pick you up.”

Neither one of them look at her as they trudge up the stairs, though Beau mutters under his breath, “You can’t keep us here. It’s called kidnapping.”

“Dude, shut up,” Josiah says.

“Honey, I’m the sheriff. I can do whatever I want, and this is what I want. Now, you get your skinny little ass inside, and if you sass me again, you’ll be headed straight for juvie. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they both say, and wander inside with their tails between their legs.

“They give you any trouble, you just let me know.” The sheriff opens her door. “I take it you’re goin’ to be here, Mr. Cotton?”

“Yeah, I’ll be here.”

“Mmhmm, that’s what I thought.” She climbs into the cruiser and starts the engine.

The second her car pulls out of the drive, Olivia turns to glare at me. “I can’t believe you did that.”

I shrug. My stance on letting those two little shits get away with it hasn’t changed any in the last five minutes, so I just stare until she’s uncomfortable enough to walk inside, and then I watch her ass as she goes. It’s something akin to torture, not being able to touch her, not being able to bend her over a counter, or a chair, or the fuckin’ hood of my truck and take her like I would have before war ruined me.

Balling my hands into fists until my bones creak, I force myself to focus on the pain and forget about getting closer to this woman, because it ain’t ever gonna happen. I keep my eyes firmly fixed on the ground and follow her inside.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Olivia