Page 73 of Playing With Danger

He looked shocked but to his credit he didn’t comment.

“I’ll call in someone from Bravo. Keep me posted. Go.”

“Will do. Thanks.”

I jogged through the station and out to my Rover, ignoring another call from my father.

Shame and fear.

Neither took a fucking holiday.

17

“Why a cop?” I asked.

We were in my bed and I was curled into Valentine, doing my best to forget how embarrassed I was.

This was after he’d shown up at the hospital and stormed into my room like there was a bomb threat and he was there to clear the room. And that was after I’d spent hours in the hospital being poked—blood draws—and prodded—blood pressure, stomach ultrasound looking for appendicitis.

It was decided I hadn’t been intoxicated—no, duh—appendicitis ruled out, no flu, negative for food poisoning, negative for pregnancy—again no, duh. Nothing. So I was discharged with a prescription to treat ulcers and the directive to reduce my stress level, curb my coffee intake, no spicy foods, and nothing fried even though the breath test that was administered came back negative for some bacteria I couldn’t remember the name of. Bottom line was, the doctor couldn’t find anything wrong and when the cramping and nausea went away I was fine.

Now I was mortified I’d gone to the hospital for a tummy ache. Though, in my defense when I’d agreed to let Hayden take me in I felt like I was growing an alien in my stomach and it was both fighting to escape and eating my insides at the same time.

“Being a cop was my backup plan,” Valentine answered.

“What did you want to be before a cop?”

“A truck driver.”

A startled laugh escaped.

“A truck driver?”

“Yup. I had this friend in the sixth grade, his dad was a truck driver. He owned his own rig, if he was home when I was spending the night he used to let us sleep in the truck. Mr. Shorty had these bumper stickers in the sleep area. There wasn’t a space that wasn’t covered. Every new place he hauled to he got a sticker. To me that truck represented adventure.”

“And nine-year-old you wanted adventure?”

He was quiet a moment.

Then he confirmed, “Nine-year-old me wanted adventure. I knew I didn’t want a job like my dad who wore a suit to work and sat in an office. I didn’t want to do the same thing every day.”

I thought back to when I was nine. I had no idea what I’d wanted or didn’t want. I was too busy playing with my Barbies to think about important life issues. Hell, when I’d gone to college, I hadn’t concerned myself with a major. The thought of deciding what I wanted to do for the rest of my life at eighteen paralyzed me. At twenty when the time came to declare, I went behind my mother’s back and chose marketing over her demand I get a degree in human resources management.

“Maybe my mother is right and I’m aimless,” I muttered.

With my head resting on Valentine’s chest, I couldn’t see his face but I knew he was staring down at me. I could feel it, his attention. He was interested in what I had to share, and he’d wait and listen to whatever I had to say.

“I didn’t know what I wanted at nine or eighteen or twenty-five or thirty. All I knew was what I was doing wasn’t what I wanted for the rest of my life. My mother knew and the more she pressured me to find something, settle in, find a man, get married, be an adult, the more I pushed back. And now I’m wondering if I did that out of spite or rebellion or immaturity. All I know is the longer it went on, her hounding me, the more annoyed I became until I purposely did the opposite of what she wanted.”

Valentine’s arm resting across my back, holding me to him, tightened.

“There’s a fine line between guiding and being overbearing.”

He’s right.

“I’m not disagreeing,” I started before blowing out a breath. “But now I can’t stop wondering how much of it I caused.”

“Soph—”

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