Page 24 of Protected By West (San Antonio S.W.A.T. #1)

TRACY

Tracy was still at the credit union into the evening.

Her RING camera at her door said that Weston had gone by every hour on the hour.

And he'd called her every thirty minutes.

He'd left her that many messages. He looked more than a little haggard after the wait and while she wanted to talk to him about it, every time she reached for the phone to answer it, she'd remember one time or another when her mother had a sleepless night waiting for her dad to come home.

Or the way she'd crumble to the ground when the news would talk about an officer shot or killed on duty and then she'd wait, pacing between the door and the telephone, her eyes red and raw from tears.

Over the years, those memories had dulled in her head, but after she'd seen the news and then all the follow-ups.

Some of the footage online from cell phone cameras showed law enforcement officers wearing SWAT vests.

She recognized the faces of the Rangers shown, but the scene was filled with officers, press, and vehicles all over the place.

When reporters tried to interview law enforcement officers, everyone was tight lipped about what happened and after a while all she heard was what wasn't being said.

Her mind was full of all the things they weren't saying.

They said they were going to have a press conference at the San Antonio Ranger Station and that's when she had to turn everything off.

The TV was off.

The internet was off.

All of the possible news notifications on her phone were off.

Sure, some of those notifications might be good ones, but at this point she didn't want any news.

She looked at the bottle ofEspolòn's Reposado Tequilaon her desk and it made her smile. The exaggerated expressions of the skeletons on the label looked really funny after the three or four shots she'd enjoyed.

Well, enjoyed wasn't the word that clearly described it.

The first shot was always like a hard crack of a slap across her cheek. The taste like fire in her throat.

It was only the second and third shots that really brought out the flavors.

It tasted like spicy fruit and caramel. The color of the tequila might help with that impression. Brewed and bottled in Texas, if she was going to pick a liquor to burn out the anger and frustration she was feeling, it was good to pump some money back into the Texas economy, right?

She poured another shot into the glass she always kept in her desk drawer and managed to spill a little on the blotter of her desktop.

It wasn't the only mark on there.

She let out a breath and realized she didn't want to drink it.

She didn't even want to stay there at the credit union anymore.

She'd go home and if the asshole showed up, she could tell him where to step off and then she'd go inside.

And, she growled to herself, if he tried to stop her and talk to her... Well, then she'd call the police!

Smiling to herself, Tracy couldn't help the self-satisfaction of that idea. Calling the police on a Texas Ranger!

Wouldn't it be like stalking?

He had been to her house over and over that night and calling her!

Her anger deflated a moment later.

As angry as she was, she wasn't about to use 911 for a stupid reason. She doubted if she'd ever get that drunk.

She sighed and pulled open her desk drawer and took out her purse and her keys.

No, she wasn't that drunk either. But she knew she wasn't going to be able to drive.

She picked up her phone and turned it over so she could open it up and call a ride share car to take her home.

Being more than a little bit angry and feeling childish, she closed her eyes and swept the notifications away.

There were more than a few of them, including texts.

She opened the first app she saw. She usually liked to price shop, but she didn't want to waste the time.

She'd just keyed in her address for home and hit the 'FIND RIDE' button when the credit union's door alarm sounded.

Tracy shot up out of her seat and reached for the letter opener in her standing desk organizer.

"I'm warning you!" She hoped her words weren’t slurring as she yelled. "The response time in this area is damn good with police!"

She could hear the rushing sound of blood in her ears and knew her blood pressure must be off the charts.

"And... and my boyfriend is a Texas Ranger! So you had better turn around and-"

Tracy stopped short and blinked as her empty doorway was suddenly not so empty after all.

"Weston?"

It took her a heart-pounding second to realize that the alarm wasn’t screaming any more.

He held up his cellphone. “I called the alarm company and told them I was on the scene.”

That made sense in an odd way, but it also made her tingle all over.

Damn, his smile was too sexy for my sanity.

"Really now?"

And... I just said that out loud .

"Yes, you did."

Damn it! She turned and glared at the bottle of tequila on her desk. It's all your fault.

"Did it pour itself into the glass? Down your throat?"

He leaned against the door frame, folding his arms across his chest.

"You-"

She pointed a finger at him.

"Babe, you're going to have to move that finger a few inches to the left unless the door has pissed you off."

Narrowing her eyes she moved her finger an inch or two to the left, not wanting to do it.

"You're on my shit list, Weston Cooper!"

He pushed away from the frame and stood, lowering his chin toward his chest. "Yeah. I knew it as soon as I got back to the station. We leave our personal phones in lockers at the station when we go out."

She nodded, her head a little heavier when she tried to lift it. "Well, that's none of my business, I guess."

"Trace..."

He stepped closer and looked down at her hand.

"Are you going to put that letter opener down or..."

She tossed it down on her desk. "Don't think you're going to use your hand-to-hand combat skills on me! I'm just going to put a knee in your crotch and that'll be enough to take you down."

He lifted a brow at that, shrugging. "We have cups we wear."

She looked down at him and squinted.

Weston cleared his throat. "Uh, babe?" He snapped his fingers in front of his fly. "My eyes are a few feet higher."

She folded her arms across her chest and wavered a little. "I'm looking for the cup."

"Babe, you're making me all kinds of nervous." Weston moved closer and put a hand down on her desktop. "At least I don't have to worry about you stabbing me in my dick."

She raised a brow back at him. "This is my office, Ranger Cooper. I have more than one weapon at my disposal."

He nodded and moved closer. "Now you're really starting to turn me on."

"How I'm feeling," she leaned toward him and felt the burn of the tequila in her belly. She hadn't bothered to order in with all the worry souring her stomach, "has nothing to do with sex."

Even as she said the words, she felt her anger bleeding over into other areas, but she'd be damned if she'd make things easy at the moment.

"It's been hours since I heard about the manhunt that was happening and there I was thinking that if something was going to happen that was dangerous, I'd get a call, or a text, or... something."

She sighed, angry at him but more upset at herself.

She’d gone silent on him. Hiding because she was mad.

She wanted him to talk to her but then she’d gone and done what had made her angry.

She had to remember that it took two people to be in a relationship, but it also took two to fix it and she hadn’t been all that helpful in the situation.

That was something she had to do. Reach out.

If she wanted this to work.

And she did.

WEST

There it was.

The trouble he was in.

"And I know I made a mistake." She opened her mouth again and he rushed out an apology.

"I came here to apologize to you. I also went to your house.

" He drew in a breath and let it out. "I spent a few hours going to your house and around that area.

I just figured you were holing up somewhere on the way home, letting me sit and spin until you wanted to kick my ass in person. "

He smiled a little when her eyes widened.

"I know I should have messaged you before we left. The transport had an accident, a group of detainees were on the loose and we were called in to apprehend the guy with the worst record."

Her expression changed and Weston realized that he probably shouldn't have shared that little bit.

"It went fairly well. My team is really good. Creative, too."

He was watching her expression and knew that she was listening intently to his words, but she wasn't all that eager to forgive him.

"I know I'm saying a lot of stuff right now."

A hint of a smile lifted one corner of her mouth.

"But I know it's beyond the point of this."

Her shoulders relaxed a little. No, not relaxed. They sagged. It was different.

"I'm sorry, Trace. I'm sorry that I didn't think about what would happen if you got wind of what was happening."

Her brow, the smooth bit of skin between her brows pinched a little and her lips parted on a breath.

"I'm not saying that it would have been better to hope that you didn't hear.

I know now what I stupidly didn't even consider when we got the call, that after what you and your mom had been through with your dad, that you need more from me than just 'I'm sorry I didn't think about this ahead of time. '"

He reached for her, and she didn't pull away or even tense when he put his hands on her upper arms.

"Babe, I hate to excuse this, but I don't know what else to say.

This," he pulled her closer and loved the way she put her cheek on his chest and relaxed against him, "this is new for me.

Caring like this. It's all the things I haven't had to consider before.

I'm not trying to be an asshole, babe. I am one by default. "

He held her against him, waiting to see what she had to say about his admission. His hamfisted apology.

"I..." She drew in a deep breath, and he didn't know if he should hold her tighter or ease up on his hold. "I don't know how this works, either."

She leaned back and looked up at him.

Damn it.

She had tears in her eyes.

"Babe," he lifted a hand and touched it to the side of her face, using his thumb to wipe away the tear that spilled out onto her cheek, "I'm sorry."

Tracy shifted in his arms, bringing up her arms and reaching up and around his neck.

He felt her fingertips play across the hair at the back of his neck, the short clipped hair that he liked to keep neat was just something he cut and scrubbed in the shower.

Nothing he really thought about, but once he felt Tracy's fingers play across that little bit of flesh just below his hairline, his knees went a little weak and his heart. ..

Well, damn, he knew he'd lost that completely.

Before, there were women who turned him on. And women he liked to talk to. Some he even liked spending time with, but not all together in one person.

Never like her.

Since the moment he'd seen her in the bar, he'd wanted her.

Wanted to be near her.

When he found out about her aversion to law enforcement, his first instinct should have been to beg off and walk away.

Should have been.

Instead, he just wanted to be with her.

To prove her wrong.

And what did he do?

"I fucked up, Tracy."

She nodded, her fingers moving along the back of his neck and up a little higher.

"I'll probably fuck up again."

She smiled, just a hint as the fingers of her other hand wrapped around the back of his neck, her short nails digging just a little into his skin. "I will, too."

He shrugged a little. "It's human."

"Ah..." She leaned in, tightening her hold on his neck, her eyes narrowing at his. "That's the trouble. We're both human. Fallible. Sometimes idiotic."

He smiled. "It sounds like you know me."

Tracy's eyes watered with tears and shit, he wanted to kick his own ass.

"What did I-"

"I want to know you, West. I want to go through these moments and come out the other side a little stronger together."

She closed her eyes, squeezing them tightly. When she opened her eyes again, she was smiling, but her eyes were still watering.

"I don't want things to push us apart and that means I don't want to let things go.

Ignore them. I think... at least I remember it that way, that after a while it wasn't the yelling that broke them apart.

It was the silence. The apathy. On the random days when my dad would come home it was like they were two people in.

.. in parallel planes. I was worried they'd walk right through each other instead of crash.

"And then I almost missed the yelling. The nights when I'd hide in my room, just behind the door."

Her gaze moved to different parts of the room. He didn't think that she was avoiding 'him' just the memories.

Weston moved his hand against her back, just a gentle sweep of the heel of his hand against her.

"At least then..." her voice was softer, almost as transparent as she'd described her living situation at home. "At least then it was like they were trying to communicate with each other."

He moved one hand up her back and gently cupped it at the nape of her neck. "Babe-"

"I don't want to get to the point where we're just moving around each other. I don't mind a good fight every once in a while. Verbal only..." She gave him a look to say she meant it, but he was already there, too.

"I wouldn't touch you like that, Trace. My family would put me six feet under if they thought I was hurting you."

"My friend Jamie would run you over with her car." She smiled and laughed at it, but he knew.

"I'd stand there and let her do it and wait for her to back it up and finish the job."

"I..." she drew in a breath, and he felt her whole-body tense with it and then she let it all out again. "I don't think you would. I just want us to communicate. Once a couple has gotten to a point where they don't bother talking things out-"

"That's not going to be us."

She smiled wider and he didn't see any more tears in her eyes.

"We can't let it get that way, Trace." He let his hand slip lower from the curve of her back. "I mean, who's gonna get custody of the kids? I can tell you right now, I'm not claiming Oxy or Myles. The rest..."

She pulled him down by the hand on the back of his neck and the hand she fisted in his hair.

Just before her lips touched his, she smiled. "We've got kids to take care of, West. No divorce."

He forgot any idea of a snappy comeback to that, because she tasted too good.

It wasn't the tequila.

It was Tracy.

And he was damn lucky she was his.