Page 73 of Deputy Brand Gets Her Man
“Special circumstances.” He didn’t look up, so the brim of the hat hid his eyes.
“Yeah?”
“Girlfriend dumped me,” he said. Then he poured the tequila down his throat in one gulp, pulled his lips away from his teeth, and sucked air.
“Is that what I was to you? Your girlfriend?”
“What did you think you were to me?”
“I’ll tell you what I didn’t think I was. I didn’t think I was the most convenient source of information on your father.”
“You were more than that,” he said.
She shook her head hard.
He poured another shot. “What was I to you, then?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Jeremiah. You didn’t give me a chance to find out.”
“I didn’t end it, you did,” he said.
“I didn’t end it either,” she snapped.
He didn’t reply. The brim of his ridiculous hat rose a little bit. She could feel him frowning at her, and it pissed her off that she couldn’t also see him frowning at her. She snatched the hat off his head, brought it around her and hung it by its string on the back of her chair.
He met her eyes, riffling his dark gold hair free of its sombrero-ring. No, she thought, it was more like tarnished bronze, his hair. And too long, so long she could bury her whole hand in it. And had.
“I’m sorry I went through your phone. In my defense, I wasn’t the one who did it; it was just kind of grabbed and shoved in my face.”
“And then you tapped ‘play.’”
She nodded. “And then I tapped ‘play.’” She shrugged. “I knew you were keeping things from me.”
“I have a right to keep things from you,” he said.
She lowered her head.
He said, “I’m sorry I used you. In my defense, it only started out that way. I was starting to really like you.”
“I was starting to really like you back,” she said.
He took a breath, watching her face with a kind of relaxed intensity she didn’t think she’d ever felt in her life. Like he’d be okay with whatever he saw there. “So uh, neither of us ended it, then,” he said, real deep and slow.
She could fall into his eyes, she could. The way they moved over her face was like a touch. The chatter and clatter of the patrons faded to a din. Right then all she wanted was to touch him. To just be close enough to touch him and?—
No. She snatched the shot glass from under his chin and downed it in a single gulp, then slapped it down again.
“Shit,” she said, wiping her chin. “I’m on duty.”
“And you never cuss.”
“Not before you.”
A tap on her shoulder, and she turned to see her uncle and boss, the sheriff.
“I saw that,” he said. “I was told you were returnin’ to duty today.”
“I am, I mean, I was, I just?—”
