CHAPTER THREE

Bea had never been in a police station in her life, so she hadn’t really known what to expect, but it didn’t seem that different from a lot of cop shows she’d snatched glimpses of throughout the years. Kinda old and worn around the edges, the color scheme something drab from who knew how many decades ago.

This place needed some serious help with branding.

A long desk—the top of which appeared to be made out of a thick slab of wood—was the first thing Bea saw. A middle-aged man in uniform and glasses stood behind it. He looked up curiously as they entered but didn’t say anything as Officer Cooper ushered her beyond the desk to a central area, where four desks, each with their own computer monitor, had all been pushed together in a square formation.

Like kindergarten, minus the pots of paint and the Play-Doh.

One of them was occupied by another middle-aged uniformed man—there was a lot of testosterone around here—who took in Bea and her bunny slippers with a grin before saying, “Arlo’s just going to love this,” and turning back to his computer.

Bea wondered who this Arlo might be for about two seconds before Officer Cooper said, “Bite me, Reynolds.”

Beyond the central desks were two offices. One had a large window with the blinds open but the door shut. The other office was open, a smaller glass panel in its door displaying the word Chief in some kind of hackneyed Wild West font. Her graphic-artist brain winced at its inelegance.

On the far wall to her left was a bank of filing cabinets—two on each side of a central open doorway. They looked a little dinged up, with various objects from flashlights to handheld radios to a yo-yo sitting on top. She could make out a corridor beyond the doorway, but where it led or what was behind it was hidden from her view.

A cell? Probably.

Removing his hat, Officer Cooper said, “Sit down.”

Bea looked at the chair he was indicating and shot him a mutinous look. “This isn’t the pokey.”

The officer called Reynolds sniggered as the guy who had brought her in shoved his hands on his hips and shook his head at her before hooking his thumb over his shoulder. “It’s that way.” He opened the drawer at what she presumed was his desk—his very neat desk, of course, because he was a rules guy—and took out a set of keys. “Follow me.”

He headed in the direction of the doorway, and Bea, still clutching her brown paper bag, followed, noticing for the first time that Officer Cooper had a very fine ass. It wasn’t what she should be thinking, because he was literally about to lock her in a cell and was also a man and she wasn’t fond of any of his sex right now.

Also, he had to be about ten years younger than her.

But it wasn’t like she was going to jump him—that had been more her mom’s thing—and she wasn’t that mad at men that she failed to recognize the magnificence of his tush. And, while she was at it, the truly fabulous way his broad shoulders filled out his shirt and the seriously effortless length of his stride. Also, the way his sandy-blond hair just brushed the collar of said shirt at the back.

Following him to the left as they walked through the doorway, he took three paces—five for her—and they were at a cell. The first of two. A bona fide cell with bars and everything.

“In you go,” he said, pulling the door open. “The pokey awaits.”

Bea, her pulse speeding up, took two paces into the cell. It was small, spare, cold, and ruthlessly neat with only two pieces of furniture. A bench that was attached to the wall and a bare, metallic toilet bowl—no seat—in the corner, tucked in behind the bench. She figured it was supposed to afford some privacy but ugh.

Suddenly she regretted that breakfast beer…

But as the door clanged shut behind her and the key turned in the lock, she realized that, for most people, being put in here wasn’t a choice, and how freaking awful would that be in this Spartan, dehumanizing, freezing box? With a toilet that was giving her hemorrhoids just looking at it and a camera, she noticed, up high in the opposite corner, watching her.

A long-buried memory hit then, of her mother being arrested at some protest march and her father bringing her home from the police precinct, absolutely furious. Bea had been sitting on the top step in her pajamas, hugging her knees, listening to their argument filter through the shut living room door and up the stairwell through the gaps in the banister. Her grandmother had found her and ordered her to bed.

“You want out?” Officer Cooper said.

Bea heard the not-so-ballsy-now-are-you note in his voice and shook the memory off. Voluntarily walking into a cell was not the same thing as being involuntarily shoved into one. She wasn’t about to go full mom no matter her father’s dire predictions after he’d heard she’d quit her job.

Squaring her shoulders, she crossed to the bench and sat her ass on it, placed her bag of Annie’s pie beside her, and moved around a little. The seat was hard as a rock.

“How do you feel?”

She folded her arms and jutted her chin as she looked at him with what she hoped was an air of defiance. “Like a rule breaker.” Bea hadn’t been sure about it when she’d first blurted out the words. It felt a little too close to something her mom might have said. But then she’d realized her mom hadn’t ever followed rules to start with, which was a very different thing.

“Okay…”

He leaned a shoulder against one of the bars, obviously resigned to this playing out as he hooked his thumb in his belt near his hip. It was casual and relaxed—he really didn’t see her as any kind of threat—and she dragged her gaze down to the way his police-issue pants molded to his narrow hips and long legs. They weren’t tight but hugged and cupped everything just right. “Let’s take this from the top,” he said. “Your name?”

One of the things Bea had enjoyed most about the last two weeks was her total anonymity. She wasn’t sure she was willing to give that up just yet. “Why do you need to know my name?”

“Because, if I’m going to write you up for all those offenses you just committed, I’m going to need a name. And an address and a social security number.”

That seemed reasonable enough, but Bea was done being reasonable. “Yeah…” She shook her head. “Still pleading the fifth.”

His mouth curved into a smile, which drew her attention to his face. Without the brim of his hat throwing a shadow over his features, he was really something. A very nice mouth, spare cheekbones, square jaw. The scruff covering his jaw seemed more lazy than designer. And those shoulders were just as good from the front, too.

“Ma’am, I know you’re the woman who’s rented out the apartment above Déjà Brew.”

Bea was beginning to like the way he ma’amed her, which was all kinds of screwy. “Oh?” She arched an eyebrow. “And how do you know that?”

“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.

“You’re quite good-looking, aren’t you?”

Shaking his head, he laughed some more. “Do you always say whatever’s on your mind?”

“No.” Bea sighed, the thought horribly sobering. “I never say what’s on my mind.” She just kept everything crammed inside until she was ready to explode in a fit of shrill female hormonosity.

Yeah, not a word, but that hadn’t mattered to that asshole Charlie Hammersmith.

“That’s not the impression you’ve given me so far.”

She drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around them and tucking them under her chin. “I’m turning over a new leaf. From now on, I’m just going to say whatever crosses my mind.”

“Lucky me.” They smiled at each other, and his lack of foreboding was charming as all heck. “It’s Wednesday.”

Bea, a little more befuddled by that smile than a woman of her age and experience should be, scrunched her brow. “Your name is Wednesday?”

“No.” He grinned. “The day of the week. My name is Austin.”

“Of course it is.” God…even his name sounded young.

“Oh yeah?” He turned his head to the side—his smile deadly even in profile—then back again. “I look like an Austin to you?”

Bea wondered if there was a city ordinance she was breaking right now by imagining how scruffy whiskers belonging to an officer of the law would feel rubbing in unmentionable places. Unauthorized fantasizing over a county official, maybe?

Or mental undressing of a police officer on duty?

“More than you look like a Wednesday,” she quipped.

He hooted out another laugh, and the fact that he seemed to be enjoying himself during this verbal ping-pong was a curious delight to Bea.

“I have a suggestion, if I may,” he said after he’d sobered, “to do with keeping track of what day it is. It’s probably highly”—he glanced up at the camera in the corner—“inappropriate. But…why not, especially given your possession of designer day-of-the-week panties?”

Oh lordy… She could listen to him say panties all day long.

“Just correlate the days with the underwear. Like, tomorrow is Thursday, right? So…if you wear your Thursday panties tomorrow, then hey, presto. You’re back on track.”

Thursday panties.

God, she loved her Thursday panties more than all the others already. Hell, she might even go home and get into them immediately. Or after she’d washed them, anyway. Bea mentally apologized to the other six days of the week, then wondered if it was possible to orgasm from a man rolling the word panties off his tongue with such dedication and frequency.

Oh…for heaven’s sake. Pull your shit together, Bea!

She dropped her legs, returning her feet to the floor as she sat a little straighter. “I’m afraid that’s just not possible,” she said, trying to channel Cranky Bea from outside Annie’s.

He eyed her speculatively for a beat or two. “Let me guess. Because you’re a rule breaker now?”

Bea tucked in her chin. “Damn straight I am.”

“Okay…I’ll bite. Why are you a rule breaker?”

Even the question got Bea’s motor running. The rage and impotence from a month ago, when she’d walked out of her cushy advertising role in LA after being screwed over for a promotion yet again by a boardroom full of men, returned. As did the injustice of her father’s scathing condemnation. A corporate ad man himself, he’d called her actions harebrained and impulsive—just like your mom.

When she’d tried so damn hard all her life to be the exact opposite.

Officer Austin Cooper McCutie and his panties were temporarily forgotten as the visceral double gut punch of that day was revisited. She pushed off the bench and started to prowl back and forth across the width of the cell. Six paces to the wall opposite and six paces back.

“What good did following the rules get me?” she asked finally, whipping around to face him from the middle of the cell.

Being a good girl as per her grandmother’s constant refrain.

“What have I gotten for it?” she demanded. “Nothing, that’s what.” She started to pace again. “More than fifteen years at the same agency and passed over for promotion time and again. That corner office I’ve been coveting ever since I was a junior copy editor, the one that has been promised to me every year for the last five years going to yet another less experienced, better connected man.”

She kinda yelled the last word as she stopped and glared at him, and Austin Cooper, the police officer, held up his hands—still clasped together through the bars—in some kind of surrender.

It would probably be funny if she was viewing this from the outside.

“I haven’t had more than six hours of sleep a night in the last decade. I haven’t had a pet. I haven’t had…a girls’ night.” She gave a laugh that tasted bitter. “Who am I kidding, I don’t have any girlfriends anymore, since all I do is work.”

She paced again, the rage complementing the air of hopelessness in the cold cell to perfection. Reaching the middle, she turned to him again. “I haven’t eaten a carb.” She held up her thumb to count off all her woes. “I haven’t been on a date in forever.” She raised her index finger to indicate woe number two. “I think my boobs are dropping.”

She went to stick up her middle finger but changed her mind, looking down at her chest as she clasped both hands over her breasts, weighing them up for evidence.

Definitely dropping.

“Hell—” Removing her hands, she glared at him again. “I haven’t had sex in more than a year.” A thought hit her. “God…I haven’t had an orgasm delivered by a human being for longer than that.”

“Oh-kay.”

If Bea had been less sad about that sudden realization, she might have been embarrassed to have groped her own breasts and admitted something so deeply personal to not only a virtual stranger but a police officer who’d put her in a cell and turned her to mush with his frequent use of the word panties. But, as with everything since quitting her job, there were no fucks to give.

He didn’t seem to be too perturbed by her frankness, at least. Not that a young, sexy guy could understand the tragedy of going without sexual gratification. She doubted he went a week without seducing some young, perky-boobed woman out of her panties.

Momentarily exhausted of rage and words, Bea headed back to the bench, her eyes landing on the brown paper packet. Oh God yes, shhhugar! She snatched it up, reached in, and pulled out the first piece of pie her fingers touched.

Pie would make it better.

Barely stopping to check out the type, she took a huge bite. Mmmm. Cherry. Plump and gooey. Tart and sweet all at once. With a hint of vanilla and something else she just couldn’t place. Bea moaned as she took another bite, her blood sugar rocketing straight into the danger zone as her eyes practically rolled back in her head.

So. Freaking. Good.

So good, in fact, she turned back to face Austin just so she could share in the marvel. “Oh my God,” she said around her second mouthful, “this pie is ah-mazing.”

He grinned. “I know, right? Annie is a goddess.”

Bea nodded, crossing over to him, because she couldn’t believe that anything could taste this good, and she needed to make sure Austin understood that this pie was a total party for the mouth. Stopping about a foot from where his hands were still clasped together through the bars, she took another mouthful, her eyes shutting involuntarily on a wave of bliss.

Hell, her left nipple hardened.

Swallowing her mouthful down, her eyes blinked open to find him watching her intently. Up this close she noticed his eyes were blue. Not the kind of intense blue of a sapphire or the hot blue of a gas flame, but the temperate kind of blue that said, Come on in, the water’s warm and there are margaritas here. And pie.

Her right nipple hardened.

And a very pleasant sensation twinged between her legs. Any more of this and she could reset the clock on the orgasm thing.

“You should eat pie more often,” he said, his voice a low kind of rumble that wrapped around her waist and urged her closer. “It looks good on you.”

She resisted the pull but let the compliment go to her head, where it mixed with the heady aroma and sweet decadence of cherries, sugar, and pastry. “I intend to.” She took another bite. “They don’t have pies like this in LA,” she said around the mouthful.

He grinned then, his intensity evaporating like a mirage. Perhaps that’s all it had been—one her pie-addled brain had conjured up. “LA, huh?”

Bea ignored him, continuing to devour the pie.

“You’re a long way from home,” he said. “Why Credence?”

Swallowing the last mouthful down, she decided to throw Officer Blue Eyes a bone. “I wanted out of the rat race for a while. I wanted to spend some time in a cute, small, friendly town where nobody knows my name, but they welcome me with open arms anyway.”

“And yet you haven’t come out of your apartment for two weeks.”

“You noticed?” Bea asked, intrigued by Austin’s ninja-level observance.

“Ma’am, this is a small town. Everyone’s noticed.”

Hmm, okay, not quite as thrilling as the notion that McSexy had been keeping tabs on her for the last two weeks, but still kinda sweet that the town she’d chosen to call home for the moment was already looking out for her.

Or maybe everything was looking better now she had pie on board. Not that she didn’t have room for a second piece. Returning to the bench, she grabbed the slice of key lime out of the bag, then bit into it as she returned to where she’d been standing. Citrus—light and tangy—exploded across her tongue, and everything below her belly button went a little weak.

Annie’s pies had gotten her closer to orgasm in a few minutes than she’d been for a long time. They should come with a warning. Or a red light.

Conscious of Austin just there, watching her, Bea cleaned up her pie-eating act, nibbling and quietly savoring instead of moaning and fitting as much in her mouth as possible.

“Apologies for my absence,” she said around bites. “I haven’t been able to drag myself away from Dean and Sam.”

He quirked an eyebrow, but his eyes were laughing. “You’ve been having a threesome up there for the last two weeks?”

Bea’s eyes laughed back. Well, she was pretty sure they did, anyway. “I’m sorry.” She batted her lashes at him in an exaggerated fashion. “You going to write me up for that, too? There must be some kind of indecency bylaw I’ve broken?”

A Winchester sandwich seemed deliciously indecent.

“No, ma’am. What you do in the privacy of your own home with fictitious television brothers is entirely up to you.” He grinned, and Bea couldn’t help but laugh. Clearly Austin was up on his pop culture. “And if you ever want to switch them out for, say, Sansa and Arya, then let me know so I can come watch.”

Bea had no idea who he was talking about, but she was pretty damn sure Austin Cooper was flirting with her now. And it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Preposterous, of course, and possibly breaking some fraternization rule, but not unpleasant.

“Cooper?”

Bea startled at the intrusion of a male voice echoing down the corridor. She’d forgotten for a moment they were in a police station, and she blinked as a guy an inch or so taller than Austin appeared at his side. He filled out his uniform very well, too, but with his unquestionable air of authority and dark military-style buzz cut, she put him closer to her age—maybe late thirties?

Something told her this was Arlo. It seemed like Credence was punching above its weight in the hot-cops division.

Even if it was a true dick fest.

“Yeah, Chief?” Austin, clearly unconcerned by the irritation in the other man’s voice, glanced at him casually as he straightened, removing his arms from between the bars.

The chief gave her a polite nod and said, “Ma’am,” before turning his attention back to Austin. It was brisk and polite, nowhere near as lethal as Austin’s ma’ams. “Is there a reason why this woman is in a cell?” He glanced at Bea again, his gaze falling on the piece of pie she was trying to eke out and not stuff into her mouth like Cookie Monster. “Are we opening a diner I don’t know about?”

Austin shrugged. “She was insistent about being put in the pokey.”

Arlo studied her again for a moment before continuing his conversation with Austin. “Because she’s done something wrong, or does she have a…fetish?”

Bea frowned. Fetish? “I’m a rule breaker,” she announced.

Arlo looked at her, then back at Austin, who nodded. “She’s a rule breaker. Although I think she might also have a bit of a fetish going on.”

“Hey!” Bea protested around a mouthful of pie.

The chief shrugged. “She wouldn’t be the first.”

“It’s definitely a thing,” Austin said, although it sounded like he had no idea why, and given that she was on the locked side of these bars, Bea had to agree.

Arlo raised one shoulder. “Not up to me to yuck on someone else’s yum.”

Bea blinked. So did Austin. Was he also wondering why his no-nonsense boss, the chief of police in Tiny Town, Colorado, sounded like a Gen Z TikToker?

“She’s refusing to give me her name,” Austin said, obviously deciding not to do a deep dive into Arlo’s surprising turn of phrase.

“Because she’s a rule breaker?” Arlo asked.

“Uh-huh.”

Arlo turned his head and locked his gaze on Bea’s. “Ma’am, this cell is for actual criminals.” Then he turned to Austin and said, “Fix this, Cooper.”

Bea swore he muttered something about the full moon under his breath as he departed, but she was down to the last two bites of her pie, and that, frankly, seemed more important right now. Thank God for her sweatpants and their stretchy waist.

“Okay.” Austin leaned in again, sliding his arms between the bars. “How about I guess your name?”

“This a slow crime day, Officer Cooper?”

“Humor me.”

“Okay, sure.” This ought to be good…

He regarded her for a moment or two, his eyes roving over her with a thoroughness that led her to believe he was probably very good at taking down descriptions. A good trait for a cop, but it didn’t feel professional. It felt like something just between him and her. Hot, wild, thrilling. And damn if she wasn’t just a little bit out of breath by the time he finished.

That’s what happened after two weeks away from her nemesis—the elliptical.

“I think,” he said, pausing a little, obviously enjoying prolonging the suspense, “you look like a—”

“Beatrice?”

The incredulous female voice coming from somewhere off to the left had Austin grinning big. “Beatrice,” he said triumphantly.

Just then, Jenny Carter appeared by Austin’s elbow. A lot smaller than the last person who had stood there, although no less a presence as she practically vibrated with incredulity and shock. “There you are. Arlo told me you were back here. I couldn’t believe it when Annie called to say you’d been taken away in a police car. What are you doing in a cell?” She turned to Austin, indignant eyes blazing. “What’s she doing in a cell, Austin? Did you arrest her?”

“Nope.” He shook his head, thoroughly bemused now. “She’s not under arrest.”

“Then what are you doing? Let her out,” Jenny demanded. “Since when is this the way we treat a guest to our town? I thought we were trying to attract people to Credence, not drive them away.”

Austin cocked his eyebrow at her, and Bea sighed a little and nodded. This had been a fun, if slightly strange, morning, and she didn’t think Jenny would understand why or how she’d ended up in the town clink.

How could she, when Bea didn’t even understand herself? When the wild impulse that had seen her goad Austin into locking her up still beat its wings inside her chest.

God…maybe she did have a fetish.

Austin reached into his pocket for the key, undid the lock, and pulled the door open. “She’s free to go?” Jenny asked, oblivious to the strange vibe that hummed between Bea and Austin as she brushed by him on her way out of the cell.

Bea felt alive, and she hadn’t realized she wasn’t until just now. A small-town cop who’d taken her ranting in stride and flirted with her had bucked her right up—even her boobs felt perkier. Between Austin Cooper and the Winchester boys—now there was a sandwich—she was riding high.

All younger men, she noted. But that was fine—two weren’t even real people and the other was just a…fleeting distraction.

“You’re not fining her?” Jenny continued. “There won’t be any record?”

“Nope. She’s free as a bird.”

For some strange reason, Bea remembered that totally sappy thing she’d heard once about letting go of something you loved, and if it returned, that’s how you knew it was reciprocated.

Or some such garbage.

Why that was on her mind now, she had no idea, but as she walked out of the station with Jenny apologizing profusely at her side, Bea wasn’t thinking about Dean Winchester anymore. She was thinking about small-town cops, fetishes, and Thursday panties.