CHAPTER FOUR

Pie drove Bea out of the apartment again the next day. She’d pretty much mainlined Supernatural since returning to her apartment after her time in the pokey and had only slept for four hours after being woken by a completely inappropriate dream about a certain Credence police officer. But she was halfway through season fifteen now—the final ever season, sob!—so the end was in sight. And she planned on being totally unsociable until then.

But a girl had to eat, right?

Tomorrow she’d stick her head out of the apartment and do a shopping run, maybe even try meeting a few folks. But for now, it was a pie run, then Supernatural until Dean and Sam drove off into the sunset in their Chevrolet Impala. And if they didn’t? If one of them so much as had a cold at the end, she was going to be seriously pissed!

But when she got to Annie’s—her wardrobe of choice still sweats and a hoodie, with her hair twisted up into another haphazard knot, but no bunny slippers this time—the older woman convinced her she really needed to try the pancakes, as well as taking some pie to go, and, well…who was Bea to rebuff someone who clearly knew quality food?

She was scarfing down a stack of blueberry pancakes with maple syrup, ignoring the probing looks she knew were sailing her way, when Austin Cooper sat his very nice ass down on the other chair at her table.

“Hey,” he said.

It was so friendly and casual, and he looked so freaking hot in his uniform, ruffling his hair as he removed his hat, that Bea was suddenly very aware of her Thursday panties. She was sure as hell pleased she was doing something else with her mouth, lest it decide that licking a police officer was a better use of its time.

So much for a fleeting distraction.

“Officer Cooper,” she acknowledged as she swallowed her mouthful of pancake.

“You can call me Austin.”

Yeah…but Officer Cooper sounded older. She sighed. “How old are you?”

He grinned. “Twenty-five.”

Oh God…he was barely out of the academy. So that dream she’d had about him last night with the handcuffs? She was going to hell. Probably also giving her grandmother apoplexy.

Annie shuffled up to the table. “Coffee, hon?” she asked Austin, tipping her chin at the cup upside down on the saucer.

“Yes please, Annie.” He turned the cup over. “And can I get a serving of those pancakes, too?”

“Sure can,” she said as she filled up the cup from her ancient pot. “I’ll send them right over.” And she shuffled off.

“No bunny slippers today, I see?”

Bea ignored his observation. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

“I am working.”

Bea snorted. This was some life he had. She’d never stopped for pancakes anywhere when she’d been toiling away at the agency unless she was at a breakfast meeting with a client. But even then, she’d have eaten an egg-white omelet or granola. “So, the whole doughnut-eating cop thing is true, then? Not just some giant cliché?”

He patted his stomach, and Bea’s eyes were drawn to the flatness of it, to the snug fit of fabric, the fascinating line of buttons. Was his skin smooth underneath all that or was there one of those endlessly fascinating trails that led all the way down to his boxers? And beyond…

“A man’s gotta eat.”

Determinedly pulling her mind out of Austin’s boxers, she said, “You wanna watch it. You won’t be so young one day, and those pounds will creep on before you know it.” It was a kinda mean thing to say, but the fact she was now daydreaming about him in full view of an entire café and the man himself was flustering. And that made her cranky.

Also, it was true—pounds were sneaky little suckers.

Clearly completely unperturbed by her dire predictions, he shrugged. “I’m not so worried about that. I have a pretty good metabolism.”

Yeah, that was the problem with Austin Cooper. He had a pretty good everything.

“So, Beatrice, huh? As in Potter?”

She sighed. “That’s Beatrix. Bea-trix Potter, the English author of cute animal stories. I’m Bea-triss. As in Beatrice of York, the English princess.”

“Ahhh,” he said, but he was smiling, and Bea wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t known that already and was just being deliberately obtuse. “So, you’re Beatrice, formerly of LA, now of Credence?”

“For now, yes. At least until I’ve decided what to do with the rest of my life.”

“Do you have a time frame for that?”

“Nope.” Screw deadlines. Bea was over deadlines.

“Are you feeling better today?” he asked.

“I was feeling fine yesterday,” she said with a glare, a chunk of pancake speared on the end of her fork. “I just needed some sugar.”

“And to break some rules.”

“Yes.” Bea lowered her eyes as she shoveled the fork into her mouth. She was a little embarrassed about her behavior yesterday. Everything she’d said she’d meant, but she barely knew this guy, and she must have come across as slightly nutty.

Annie interrupted with Austin’s food, placing the plate in front of him. “You want more, doll?” she asked, assessing Bea’s almost empty plate.

Bea wanted more pancakes with a craving that was entirely foreign—this was the peril of succumbing to simple carbohydrates. But she was almost full, and she was taking pie to go, so… “Thanks, but no. I’ll be over for my pie soon.”

“Already boxed up for you.” Bea had decided to go with a whole pie this time because it should see her all the way through to episode twenty.

Annie departed, and Bea returned her attention to what was left of her food and the hole that Austin had already made in his—he clearly liked his pancakes. “So,” he said around a mouthful of food, “you’re determined to break some rules, huh? Any thoughts on which ones?”

Bea wondered what ordinance she was breaking now, thinking about drizzling maple syrup all over Austin’s abs. In public. “Well, that depends,” Bea said, eyeing him speculatively. “Is this Austin asking, or is it Officer Cooper?”

“Well, that depends.” He smiled at his repetition. “If you want to know the number of each law you intend to break, then it’s Officer Cooper. If you just want to shoot the breeze about it, then it’s Austin.”

“Can I take a little bit of A and the rest B?”

“Beatrice,” he said, his loaded fork poised between the plate and his mouth, “you can take whatever you like.”

Beatrice.

Only her grandmother called her Beatrice. It had seemed drearily old-fashioned as a kid, when all the other girls had been called Kimberly and Crystal. So she’d grabbed hold of the shortened version, Bea, and run with it. But this guy using her full name? That was something else. It rolled off his tongue soft as a caress and made it sound contemporary.

And…swoony.

Austin Cooper seemed to know all her swoon buttons, and she hadn’t even known she possessed any. Hell, she hadn’t even known swoon buttons were a thing.

And then he grinned, his face so arrestingly sexy and his damn…teeth so straight and white and even and…young. Popping the food into his mouth, he ate with relish, forcing Bea to look out the window to stop herself from wondering if he was a fan of eating things other than food, and she didn’t want to take that into her dream world tonight.

Younger men were a hard limit. Even in her sleep.

“So, come on,” he said, after he’d swallowed and before his next pornographic swipe of his tongue across sticky maple-syrup lips. “Spill. What’s on your rule-breaking list?”

“I don’t have a list.”

“That’s a pity.” He shook his head, his expression faux crestfallen before his gaze locked on hers. “You said you were going to be my worst nightmare. I was looking forward to that.”

Bea’s breath hitched at the low note in his voice. “I was suffering from a sugar rush. I may have exaggerated.”

He grinned. “I would never have guessed.”

She shot him a quelling look. “I’m just not sure I want to be on that corporate treadmill anymore. Working all hours of the day and night and being the same boring, predictable Beatrice with no life.”

“Okay, so that’s what you don’t want. What do you want?”

There was a challenge in his voice that needled at Bea. How could a twenty-five-year-old dude have his shit together more than she did? To be fair, she’d had her shit together waaay back in her twenties, too. Why hadn’t anyone told her she was going to regret the hell out of that?

“I just want to be…” She shied away from the word impulsive because that was synonymous with her mom. “I want to live a little. For a change.”

Not forever. Just for now. She’d held back from doing things other people had told her not to do her entire life. Maybe it was time, while she was taking a break from the rat race, to do exactly the opposite. To do everything she’d been told not to do.

He nodded encouragingly. “Like?”

“I don’t know.” Bea cast a net for something impulsive and outrageous. “Flash somebody. Or maybe moon them. Or…go skinny-dipping.” Her grandmother, who had practically raised her, was very specific about the perils associated with a lack of feminine modesty.

“Ooh, now…that’s badass. They all fall under ordinance seven four two, subsection three of the public nudity act.”

Bea blinked. She was badass? And there was a public nudity act? “You’re just making this shit up now.”

“God’s truth,” he said, placing his hand over his heart, but he was smiling in such a way that Bea still didn’t believe him. “What else?”

“Um…” She tried really hard to think of something outrageous. “I’d like to do something reckless in my car, like burn rubber or compete in a drag race?” Her father considered it the height of irresponsibility to drive recklessly. Which, for him, meant going any more than five miles over the speed limit.

“Yup.” He ate more pancake, then chewed and swallowed it before he continued. “There’s a couple there. Reckless driving. Number two sixty-two. And public nuisance, number four one nine slash ten.” His tongue flicked out to remove the shine of maple syrup from his lips. “What else? Feel free to really test my knowledge of local and county statutes here.”

Bea toyed with the idea of saying rob a bank just to see what Officer Syrup Lips would say to that. But essentially, she was coming up blank, because she’d spent thirty-five years being a law-abiding citizen—and less than twenty-four hours as the opposite. “It’s not necessarily about breaking the law,” she clarified. “It’s about breaking the…strictures of my life.”

Put on her by her father and her grandmother and every damn boss she’d ever had.

“Okay…like?”

“Like…” Bea flailed around mentally for a moment or two. “Sleep in. Drink beer for breakfast.” She realized those probably sounded pathetic. Plus, she’d already done that quite a lot these past two weeks. “Ride a horse.” They had to have horses around here somewhere, right?

Her best friend in high school had a horse, but Bea had been expressly forbidden to ride it because apparently smelling horsey wasn’t ladylike.

“Dye my hair.” Charlie Hammersmith had intimated that women in advertising were far too distracting to the men in the room, so it was important to be inconspicuous.

Attractive, of course, but not flashy or showy.

She rooted around inside her head for something else. “Shoot a three-pointer.” That was better, considering Bea had never played basketball in her life. “And…line dance.”

God, her grandmother would be horrified by a line-dancing Beatrice. The only form of dance she rated was the ballet. And only if it was at Carnegie Hall.

“Line dance?”

He’d said it exactly the way her grandmother would have, like it was some kind of abomination that should be outlawed.

“Yes.”

She sat a little taller in her chair. Why not? She was far too old to learn ballet, and if beer for breakfast and Annie’s pie became a regular thing—from her brain to God’s ears—she’d need to do some form of exercise. It was probably a hell of a lot easier than a three-pointer, too. “Also, sleep under the stars.” Camping had been considered low-class by her grandmother. Another thought popped into her head. “Get a fondue set.”

God, cheese. Gooey, melty cheese. Her mouth watered just thinking about it. But she’d denied herself the pleasure of cheese since Charlie freaking Hammersmith had informed her at a work function, just after she’d been promoted to junior executive, that the firm had a certain image to project, as he looked pointedly at the third portion of deep-fried Camembert she’d snagged from a circulating platter.

So she had to be attractive—but not distracting. And God forbid she even be the teeniest bit fat.

Austin, who clearly thought she was getting significantly less badass, shot her a pitying look. “What else?”

Bea thought hard. “Get a cat. Something cute and sweet and adorable.”

“You had a rule against getting a cat?”

Stabbing a glare in his direction, she said, “I was never home to either look after or give proper attention to an animal.”

“Okay.”

His tone suggested this item was probably the most pitiable of them all and, goaded by that and by the way he licked his lips—again—she blurted out what was really on her mind. “Have a lot of orgasms.”

It occurred to Bea that this might not come across as cool and edgy but, rather, a little TMI. And, well…sad. It shouldn’t be a surprise, given she’d told him about her lack of satisfaction yesterday, and reiterating it today was probably bordering on desperate, but hell, she was desperate. Not that he seemed to be judging. In fact, he seemed to be very much enjoying it, a smile quirking his lips to one side.

“Lucky you. No town ordinances against that.”

Ha! There was the way she was planning on having them. “They’ll be very loud.” And because she felt it needed further clarification, she added, “And with outrageously unsuitable men.”

“What does outrageously unsuitable mean, exactly?”

Someone like you.

Except, yeah, she wasn’t going to say that. “Someone who doesn’t know the meaning of brand awareness.”

He laughed. “That’s who you deem as unsuitable?”

“What’d you think I’d say?”

“I don’t know.” His laughter dropped away. “An ex-con or a…circus clown?”

Bea could probably give the ex-con a chance, depending on what he’d done, but she wasn’t sure how desperate she’d have to become to let a circus clown get her off. Although she supposed there was no reason why they weren’t just as good at delivering orgasms as everyone else in the general population. It seemed discriminatory to exclude them, after all.

And now she was thinking about clowns in an entirely inappropriate manner…

Bea’s brow wrinkled in irritation. “I just meant someone who isn’t an ad executive. Who isn’t suitable.” Her grandmother loved that word. “Someone who doesn’t have a good job and a flashy suit and an expensive car.”

Like they were the holy grail of the male species.

He made a face. “They sound boring.”

“No.” Bea sighed. “They’re not. They’re perfectly fine. They’re just not…” A hot young cop from Hicksville who says panties and licks his lips like he’s in an ad for blueberry pancake–flavored ChapStick. He was definitely unsuitable. “Dean Winchester, you know?”

“To be fair…there is only one Dean.”

He grinned then, and Bea grinned back—the man was impossible to dislike. “This is true.”

Pushing his plate away, Austin picked up his cup of coffee. “Well, now you got yourself some ideas, what are you going to do first?”

Bea stared at him. Just coming up with those things had been hard enough for one day. He couldn’t seriously expect her to pick one and do it as well? He quirked an eyebrow and murmured, “Bok, bok, bok.”

Chicken noises? He was making chicken noises. “Aren’t you supposed to be maintaining law and order around here? How would your chief like it if he knew you were encouraging anarchy?”

“Oh yeah, let me know when you buy the fondue set so Arlo can call in the SWAT team.”

Goaded by the implication she was no threat to civilian order, she sorted through the ideas she’d put forward and picked one. “Burn rubber.” Why not start at the beginning? Especially given how pissed she was at her father for his suck-it-up-and-go-apologize response to her quitting.

“Great choice.” He nodded appreciatively. “You do know how to burn rubber, right?”

“Nope.” Not the first clue. “That’s why God invented YouTube.”

“Would you like me to show you?”

Bea blinked at the suggestion. Not just because a member of the police force offering to help (wasn’t that aiding and abetting?) her break the laws he was sworn to upheld didn’t seem right but by how swiftly it had been delivered. “Wouldn’t that be wrong? You showing me how to commit an offense? What number was it again?”

“Number two three nine.”

Bea was pretty sure that hadn’t been the number and Austin was just pulling these statutes out of his ass, but she honestly didn’t care.

“If I’m on duty, in my uniform, not a good look, but when I’m off duty and I’m just Joe Citizen? Then Arlo’s gotta catch me first.”

He broke into a broad grin, and Bea laughed despite herself. But, hell, there was no denying doing something like that made her nervous. “I don’t know, maybe I have to work up to that one?” She should choose something less risky as her opening salvo.

“Bok, bok, bok.”

“Really?”

“Come on, Beatrice. Ask yourself, WWDD?”

Trying not to get sidetracked by how good her name sounded on his lips, Bea tried to figure out what WWDD meant. She came up empty. “Okay. I give up. What the hell is WWDD?”

He smiled a smile then of such supreme confidence and sex appeal, Bea didn’t just feel it between her legs—it reverberated through her entire reproductive tract.

“What Would Dean Do,” he said, then waggled his eyebrows.

Bea laughed. What would Dean do? Well hell…what wouldn’t Dean do? Burning a bit of rubber was very low on the hazard scale compared to, say, demon slaying. Bea had to admit, WWDD might be a very good catchphrase going forward. Why not use him for bravado as well as eye candy?

“Okay.” She nodded. “Let’s do it.”

“Great,” Austin said, and Bea noticed how he was very careful not to seem too triumphant, but he was clearly pleased by her agreement. “I know the perfect spot. Why don’t I pick you up just after four out front of Déjà Brew?”

“Oh, sorry.” Bea remembered she had a prior commitment. “Can’t.”

“You have someplace else better to be?” One eyebrow kicked up. “Got a hot date?”

“As it happens, I do.” Dean and Sam were calling. “The Winchester brothers wait for no one.” She picked up her napkin and dabbed at her mouth to wipe away any pancake crumbs. “How about same time tomorrow afternoon?”

She’d have finished the season by then, and it was time she stopped hiding out in her apartment. Credence might just be a stopgap for her while she figured out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, but she had every intention of getting fully involved, so it was time she stuck her head outside.

Might as well start with Officer Syrup Lips by her side.

“Yep,” he confirmed. “Sounds like a date.”

“Nope.” Bea eyed him seriously. She might want orgasms and Austin Cooper was outrageously unsuitable, but younger men cut a little too close to home for her and was a line she would not cross.

And, in the meantime, she’d brought her vibrator. Sure, it had been a long time since she’d used it, but it had three speed settings and it never snored, ate soup too loudly, or stared at other women’s boobs.

“Definitely not a date,” she said. “A purely instructional joint outing.”

“Okay.” He shrugged. “Whatever.”

Bea was so used to men always trying to push their own agendas or take an inch, she didn’t know what to do with one who wasn’t.

“See you tomorrow,” she said before heading to the counter for her pie, excruciatingly conscious of every eye in the diner following her progress but of one pair in particular staring at her like twin X-ray beams, trying to discern the word Thursday stamped across her ass.