Page 10 of Wild Card (Foster Bro Code #2)

Dalton

My pulse roared in my ears as I got into my cruiser outside the Forrester junkyard. What the hell had I just done?

I normally didn’t fuck around with guys in my town to avoid a potential conflict of interest. All it took was one call to send us careening into each other’s paths.

I liked to keep my private life separate from my work, and when my work involved the whole dang county, my private life pretty much didn’t exist within a two-hundred-mile radius.

But this was so much worse. This wasn’t just a hookup with a local. This was sex with a suspect. I’d put him in cuffs and shoved my dick down his throat.

The memory sent a shiver down my spine.

It wasn’t supposed to be sexy. It was fucked-up. But try telling that to my body, still flooded with endorphins and already craving more.

Not that it would get it. Bad enough it’d happened once.

I started the engine and cast one last look through the window. Axel was pulling the gate closed, muscles standing out in his strong forearms, ink twisting and swirling over his toned skin.

His long hair had come loose from its tie and trailed out behind him, but it did nothing to soften his angular jaw covered in scruff or the sharp jut of his cheekbones. His lips were soft, though. They were still swollen from sucking my dick, and just the sight of them sent hot blood rushing south.

The bill of his cap shadowed his ice-blue eyes, but I remembered how glassy they’d gotten as he spoke about that dog as if she were a precious loved one.

I’d never seen that side of Axel before. Someone who loved. Who was vulnerable.

He’d been touchy as an angry cat, hissing out threats, but that was mostly a cover for his fear. I could see that now. See just how fragile the man was. He put on a good front, but there was a hell of a lot going on beneath the surface.

The gate swung closed, blocking my view. Breaking the spell. Finally, I drove away.

I used my hands-free set to call the station. I had some work to do if I was going to keep Axel out of jail.

“Sheriff’s Department, how may I direct your call?”

“Ava, it’s Dalton.”

“Dalton, hon, what’s going on? The sheriff has been grilling the new deputy about why you’re not with her. He got her set up at a desk, but he’s not happy.”

“Shit. Can you let me talk to her? I have an update.”

“Better be a good one.” The hold music came on the line as I pulled onto the highway. Something generic and instrumental.

Instead of turning right toward town, I took a left to head back to Rusty’s trailer park.

There was a click on the line.

“What’s up, Harvey?” Chloe answered. She’d probably heard Ava greet me on the phone. “Sheriff Hale wants some answers.”

“I’m sure he does.”

I had to tread carefully here. Giving the sheriff ammunition against me was a bad idea. He wouldn’t fire me; I knew too much about his corruption. But he could make my life less pleasant in any number of ways.

“Well?” Chloe said. “Did you talk to the perp?”

Talk. If only that’s all we’d done.

“Yeah, I’m on my way back to Rusty’s place. I’m going to get him to drop the charges.”

“You found the dog?”

“I did.”

“So, you’re returning it?”

“I’m…still negotiating that.”

“What’s to negotiate? It’s stolen property. You return it.” She paused. “Right?”

Rusty’s trailer park was coming up on my right. I flipped on my blinker.

“It’s not that simple. This is a living creature we’re talking about, not some tools out of a shed.”

“That’s fair,” she said, “but that’s not how the law sees it.”

“Well, sometimes a situation is not black-and-white, and you have to make a judgment call.”

“Okay, so what is your judgment telling you?”

My judgment told me that the sheriff wouldn’t understand what I was doing.

He wouldn’t care what was fair, only what was easiest. But Axel had a good heart, and in this case, he was as much a victim as a criminal.

He’d stolen Banshee, yes, but Rusty had dumped her and then stolen her back from a guy good enough to care for her.

Nothing about that sat right with me. Even if it wasn’t Axel involved, even if it was a guy I hadn’t just gotten down and dirty with, I liked to think my judgment would be the same. Axel regularly took in the county’s discarded animals, and this wasn’t how we should repay him for his good deeds.

Rusty was the asshole here, but he had the legal proof on his side, so I had to play this carefully.

“My judgment tells me that sometimes we can work out a dispute without an arrest being made. That’s what I’m going to do.”

“Okay, if you’re sure you can persuade Mr. Waters. He seemed pretty determined to have his way.”

“He sure did, but I’ll figure it out. Start updating the report. I’ll get Rusty to drop the charges.”

“Okay.” That was the tapping of keys in the background. “I’m just typing in here that the two parties resolved their differences over a misunderstanding with mediation from Deputy Harvey. Does that sound good?”

“Yep, that’ll work. Thanks, Deputy.”

Now, all I had to do was get Rusty to play ball. I was going to keep this all aboveboard, which meant I had to get that irrational man to listen to reason.

It might be easier to take a page out of Sheriff Hale’s playbook and threaten or blackmail the guy. But that wasn’t me. I was going to have to persuade Rusty.

Nicely, even.

I disconnected the call and turned into the trailer park. Rusty’s red car was still in the drive when I arrived.

I strode up the wobbly porch steps and pounded on the metal door. “Rusty? Open up.”

He yanked the door open, red-rimmed eyes unfocused, pupils dilated. “Well? Did you get my dog?”

“Your dog is safe.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I know.” I pushed past him, observing Candy passed out on the lumpy brown sofa. “Is your girlfriend okay?”

“She’s fine,” Rusty said dismissively.

I crossed to the sofa and knelt next to her. I placed my fingers at her throat. Her skin was hot, but her pulse thrummed strong and steady. She was wasted, but she didn’t appear to be in any immediate danger.

With a sigh, I got to my feet and turned to Rusty. “You should get her into treatment. Meth is nasty stuff.”

He ignored me. “Where’s my fucking dog?”

“She’s with Axel, safe and sound.”

“Why didn’t you bring her back? He stole her!”

“Because you didn’t tell me the whole story,” I said. “It’s messy, Rusty. I could arrest you just as easily as him.”

“But she’s my dog. I have proof.”

I nodded. “Yes, you do, but we both know you dumped that dog illegally. So let’s work out an arrangement where everyone wins. Otherwise, Axel won’t be the only one in trouble here.”

“I’m listening,” he said grudgingly. “But I’m not just giving him my dog for nothing.”

“No one would expect that. But perhaps we can come to an agreement that serves everyone.”

I filled him in on the plan I’d been cooking up on the way over here. It was beyond the call of duty, but it would keep Axel out of jail, protect the dog, and get Rusty on board. Sometimes you had to think outside the box, right?

Way out of the fucking box.

On my way back to the cruiser, I got a phone call. Not the station. My friend Hunter, who I’d reconnected with when I returned to the area. We’d gone to Granville High together back in the day.

I almost let the call go to voicemail. I had my hands full right now. But I could use a sane voice after listening to Rusty ramble incoherently for fifteen minutes. The man’s mind kept darting off in random directions. Keeping him focused, much less reasonable, was like herding cats.

It’d taken a lot of smooth-talking to get Rusty on board, but he’d finally agreed to my deal. Though he’d seemed confused as to why I was working so hard to keep the dog in Axel’s possession—and rightfully so.

I shouldn’t be doing it. But here I was, heart skipping at the thought of seeing Axel’s face when I delivered the good news.

I picked up Hunter’s phone call as I climbed back into the car. “Hey, man. What’s up?”

“Hey, sorry to do this, but I think I have to cancel drinks tonight. Clark’s got a school program to oversee, and Toby needs help with a project, so…”

Damn. I could have used a drink tonight. One that didn’t involve me holed up in my cabin with Bluey anyway.

“No problem,” I said.

“Sorry. I hate to pull the Dad card,” Hunter said. “It’s been too long since we got together. Maybe this weekend?”

I’d be going over to Granville to eat with my family on Saturday. I could meet Hunter afterward.

“Sounds good,” I said. “I’ll probably be busy tying up some loose ends for work, anyway.”

“You’ve been burning the candle at both ends lately,” Hunter said, concerned. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. We made a new hire. It should be getting better. Today has just been…” I trailed off.

Hunter chucked. “That good, huh?”

“Yeah.” I groaned. “I may have lost my mind.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there’s this guy. He’s always getting in trouble. Not someone I should be interested in, and I just keep breaking all my rules for him, you know?”

“Mm-hmm. Is he hot?”

“That’s not the point.”

“So, he’s hot,” Hunter said with a chuckle. “That explains everything right there.”

“No, it doesn’t.” I huffed. “I go to Miami twice a year. I fuck my way through dozens of hot men. I don’t need some troublemaker in Riverton to rev my motor.”

“But he does it anyway,” Hunter said. “And maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe you need more than a sex-cation.”

I couldn’t afford to want more, though, especially with Axel.

“It’s a conflict of interest. I’m out here twisting myself into a pretzel to keep him out of jail. That’s not right.”

“Does he deserve to go to jail?”

“Not this time.”

“If he did deserve to go, do you think you’d really break the rules for him? If he did something bad, if he hurt someone?—”

“Of course not. He’s got a good heart, though. He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“Well, there you go. You’re still a good judge of what’s right and wrong. You wouldn’t even like this guy if he was so bad, would you?”

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “I hope you’re right.”

Because if not, I would end up no different than Sheriff Hale. And I despised that man.

It was a good thing Axel didn’t want more than a taste of me. I could probably devour him whole and go back for seconds, but it was better for us both if that didn’t happen.

I was still an officer of the law, and I’d already made too many exceptions for him. Today wouldn’t be the last time he got into trouble.

Axel was a wild card—and it was my job to keep him in check.