Page 2 of Trial By Fire (Hope Runs Deep #11)

CHAPTER

TWO

J ackson Anderson threw his bag onto the couch in his living room, his teammate and second-in-command walking in behind him. He looked over as Bradley Johnson shut the door to the apartment and headed towards his room.

“Hey, Cap. You making plans for tonight?”

“After the clusterfuck that mission was, yeah, I’m thinking of heading out to Bernards to have a few drinks. You want to join me?” Jackson asked his best friend.

“Sure. Maybe I’ll find someone I’ll actually want to defile tonight.”

“That sounded wrong on so many levels!” Jackson laughed as he threw a pillow from the couch in Brad’s direction.

“Like you weren’t thinking that same thing! Maybe you’ll get lucky and that psycho nurse that keeps chasing you around will be there.” Brad wiggled his eyebrows Jackson’s way.

“Not only no but fuck no! That bitch was a one and done. How the fuck she got my number is beyond me. I even changed the number, and she still got it.” Jackson glared at Brad when he started laughing.

“Yeah, I remember that. She wasn’t happy that one day she showed up and found out you were on a date with some other chick.

You need to talk to the big dog and see if there’s a way to do an investigation to find out how she’s getting private information on you,” Brad agreed, sitting down on the couch after he threw the pillow back at Jackson.

“He is. The only thing we can figure out is she’s friends with one of the girlfriends on the team.

Looks like she has them believing there’s something going on.

Now that we’re back, he’s setting up a meeting with the entire team on Monday morning to go over everything and let them know what is going on. ”

“It’s not me. I’m like you. No permanent chicks. Besides, you haven’t had a serious girlfriend since that cop chick two years ago.”

“Trish?” Jackson asked, looking over at Brad as he walked back into the living room in just his shorts.

Jackson had to stop and really think. Shit, that was one woman he couldn’t get out of his fucking mind. Trisha fucking Malone. She was the one woman who made him think about forever. He just had an issue with her job.

She was a cop in the SVU department. They dealt with a lot of heavy shit.

While he understood when she had to postpone or cancel a date because of the job, he sometimes hated waiting for that call that she wouldn’t be doing their dates period.

He knew her job was dangerous. Hell, his job was dangerous too.

But he didn’t want a future with someone whose job was as dangerous as his was.

He didn’t want their kids to wonder which parent wouldn’t make it home when they were called out.

“Yeah, well, I still think you were a dick for the reason you ended things,” Brad commented, breaking into his thoughts.

Jackson sat down on the loveseat across from Brad, rubbing his face with his hands.

He knew Brad was right. It was a dick move the way he had ended things with her because she wouldn’t end her job.

Truth was that the feelings he was starting to feel for her scared the ever-loving shit out of him.

He had promised himself, after his mother had died from depression when his father was killed in combat when he was younger, that he would never put a woman through that.

The night he almost said the “L” word to Trish when he kissed her, after a rather intense fucking session, he knew he was falling in deep with the woman.

In a dick move, he ended things with her over the phone the next day.

He ignored her text messages asking what she did wrong or what happened for him to end things. He just blocked her number.

He’d seen her a few times out and about since they lived in the same town, and she worked for their local sheriff’s department.

He would see her in the grocery store, the gym now and then.

He started using the one on base after running into her a few times.

Seeing her all sweaty in her tank top and shorts had his dick jumping for attention.

No matter how many women he’s slept with since ending things with her, he couldn’t get her off his mind. He’d always been a one and done type of guy. With Trish, her personality won him over. Her sarcasm always made him laugh. Her touch lit him on fire and her kisses drowned him.

Like a drowning man, he’s tried to reach out to her a few times when they’d ran into each other in town, but as soon as she saw him, she’d go the opposite way. He couldn’t really blame her. He did do her kind of dirty when it came down to it.

Fuck! Why couldn’t he get her off his mind?

He was in love with her. No matter how many other women he fucked to try and get her off his mind, it didn’t change that fact.