Page 79 of The Scenic Route
“Finally.”
“What?” Her outrage was tempered by laughter as she tried to pull back to glare at him. His arms tightened, keeping her plastered against him, so she decided to subside against his chest and yell at him from there. It was extremely comfortable—and comforting—there after all. “What do you mean ‘finally’? We met, like, a second ago!”
He snorted. “I knew I loved you the first time I saw you.”
“That’s not love,” she scoffed, although her entire heart had melted at his declaration. “That’s lust.”
“Nope. Love.” He said it with such certainty that she actually started to believe him, even though the idea was ridiculous. “I saw you, and it was like someone squeezed my heart really hard.”
“Sounds painful. You sure you weren’t having a small heart attack?”
A laugh rumbled through his chest, vibrating against her cheek. “I’m sure. It just got stronger the more I got to know you. If it were a heart attack, I’d be dead by now. It’s definitely love.”
“I’m glad you’re not dead.” She burrowed deeper into his chest, smelling his comforting Bennett scent and wishing she could stay like this forever—or at least for a solid peaceful week. When he stiffened, however, she knew her time was up.
Pulling free, she looked around the darkness to see two headlights speeding through the darkness toward them. “Any idea who that might be?” she asked.
His grunt was definitely a no.
“To the golf cart then,” she sighed. “This night is never going to end, is it?”
Red and blue lights flashed on for a few seconds above the headlights, and Felicity paused before jumping into the passenger seat of the cart. “Good cop or bad cop?”
“Probably Chris.”
“And possibly Deputy Donkey-Face?” She grimaced. “Think we can make it back to Rory’s store before he catches up to us?”
Even in the near darkness, she knew exactly the look Bennett was giving her. “It’s a golf cart.”
“Fine,” she sighed, sitting back, regretting kicking the gun away from Clint rather than grabbing it somehow—maybe with her mouth? If it was Donkey-Face, she and Bennett were in a very vulnerable position without any way to protect themselves except for a heavily dented golf cart. Her muscles tensed as the squad car got closer, the headlights brightening the scene in a way she could’ve used a few minutes ago when she was trying to stumble through the darkness without falling on her face or getting shot.
The squad turned alongside them so the headlights were nolonger shining directly in their eyes, and the driver’s window lowered. When Chris stuck his head out, all the tension drained from her body, and it was all she could do to remain upright.
“You called?” he asked, smiling his usual good-natured grin. “I take it that Operation Free Gun worked like a charm?”
Felicity turned her head to meet Bennett’s eyes before letting out a peal of laughter.
“Yeah,” she said to Chris without looking away from her husband. “Like a charm.”
Chris got out of his squad car and walked toward a hog-tied Clint. Felicity knew the moment he recognized the man on the ground, because his body jerked before he turned to look at them. “You know this isn’t Dino Fletcher, right?”
Felicity, still feeling giddy from surviving and Bennett’s confession of love, giggled. “Dino’s at the store. A few things happened during yourtwenty-five-minuteresponse time.” She was still horrified by that.
He grimaced. “I was on a traffic stop on the other side of Liverton. I figured you could hang on to one skip while I convinced LeRoy Carson that he needs two functional headlights on his Buick. Want to explain why you have Clint—just the guy I wanted to talk to about his role in Cobra Jones’s death—trussed up and waiting like an early birthday present for me?”
“The skull was Cobra’s?”
He nodded. “DNA testing’s not back yet, but dental records match.”
She tried to take in this news, but it was a little too much on top of the evening’s events, so she pushed it to the back of hermind to examine more closely later. Instead, she concentrated on summarizing everything else that’d just happened. “A couple of Clint’s lackeys blew up Rory’s store.”
Chris stared at her. “Again?”
“Again?” Now she felt extra guilty. “This has happened before?”
“Not exactly this, but definitely the bomb in the store part. Everyone okay?” He rushed back toward his squad car while snapping out questions too quickly for her to fit in an answer. “Is Daisy hurt? Do I need to call for medical, or are they already on scene?”
“Everyone’s fine,” Felicity hurried to tell him before he zoomed off and left her and Bennett to deal with Clint who, by the sounds of his moans, was coming to. She really didn’t want him in the back of their golf cart. “No one’s hurt. There’s just a hole in the front of the store. In fact…” She squinted through the surrounding darkness to see another set of headlights coming their way, this time from the direction of Rory’s store. “I’m guessing you’re going to see for yourself that Daisy’s okay in just a minute.”
