Page 8 of Breaking All The Rules
“It’s a small town. I know everyone in Credence and the surrounding areas, and I don’t know you at all.”
He said it like he’d remember if he’d ever met her, and Bea couldn’t decide if that was a compliment or even why in the hell it mattered. “And what else do you know?”
“You drive a BMW.”
“Oh, really? And how exactly do you know that?” Putting two and two together over her identity seemed fair enough, but this seemed kinda specific.
“Because a brand-new M3 has been in the parking lot at the back of Déjà Brew for two weeks. Nobody aside from Wade Carter can afford to drive a Beamer around here, and A) he’s not in town right now and B) he drives a Tesla since CC came on the scene.”
Bea had discovered after that dart had landed on the Credence dot on the map that it was also the home town of the famed ex-QB of the Denver Broncos. She’d never had time to watch football, but even she knew who he was. “I refuse to confirm or deny.”
“Suit yourself.” He shifted, bending forward at the hips a little, his arms sliding between the uprights, his elbows resting on the middle crossbar, his fingers interlocking on her side of the cell. “I can just go ask Jenny Carter.”
“Okay, then.” Bea shrugged. “You do you.” She reached for the brown packet and opened it, her nostrils flaring instantly at the waft of pure sugar. Salivating like a St. Bernard after a Lidocaine tooth extraction, she buried half her face inside the packet and inhaled the essence deep into her lungs. “I’ll just be here, eating my pie.”
But which one? She’d bought three different slices. A piece of cherry, a piece of apple, and a super-size piece of key lime.
“Ma’am…are you sure you’re okay?”
The note of genuine concern in his voice drew Bea’s attention away from the pie, and she sat back, the crown of her head bumping against the cinder-block wall behind. “Do I seem a little unhinged to you?”
She probably did. Or erratic, at least, with the sweats and the bunny slippers and her face practically shoved inside a paper bag, breathing in carbohydrate essence like she was chroming paint fumes.
Well…good. Bea was tired of being so damn predictable and centered and sensible. She was on a break.
“No,” he admitted. “But maybe you…tripped and hit your head on something?”
Bea put the pie aside. “You think I’m having some kind of…neurological event?” To be fair, she was pretty sure that’s what Charlie Hammersmith, the CEO of Jing-A-Ling, and the five other male executives had thought when she’d told them to shove their job up their asses.
“Do you know where you are? Or what year it is? What about the day of the week?”
“I don’t know. But my underwear says Tuesday, so…”
He laughed again, and this time she noticed that the skin crinkled at the corners of his eyes, which made him look older, and that made her feel a little better about her salacious thoughts. “Your panties have the day of the week on them?”
Oh, dear lord, the way the man said panties did strange, tingly things to her body. Not the way she was probably supposed to be reacting in a cell in a police station in Buttfuck, Colorado, with a cop who was about to write her up for several infractions of town bylaws.
There was something low and male about how the word rolled off his tongue.
“What? You’ve never worn day-of-the-week underwear?” she asked.
“Of course. When I was five.”
“Yes, but this is designer.”
“Oh, well then.” He grinned, and it was just a little bit wicked. Kinda like Dean Winchester. “That makes all the difference.”
And damn if that grin didn’t make Bea’s heart do a funny little giddyap and her mouth curve into an answering smile, and before she could check herself, she was asking, “What’s your name?”
He pointed to his badge. “Officer Cooper, remember?”
Bea bugged her eyes at him. “I mean your first name.”
“Excuse me?” He feigned insult, but he didn’t look that insulted. In fact, Bea thought the man was probably too laid-back to take insult at very much at all. “So I have to tell you my name, but you get to plead the fifth?”
“Yeah, it sucks to be you, right?”
He chuckled then—actually freaking chuckled—and that was more lethal than his grin. God, he was so damn…cute.
