Page 17 of Serve and Protect
I’m too restless to stay any longer. What I really want to do is drive over to Jennie’s house and check on her myself, but I can’t get past the fact that I’m the one who set her off in the first place. Maybe she doesn’t want to see me right now. So instead, I say goodnight to everyone and head home.
Five minutes later, I pull into my driveway and park the SUV in the detached garage. I walk into the house through the back door.
My house is nothing fancy, but it’s clean and tidy. It’s a veritable palace compared to the filthy, moldy, bug-infested trailer I spent the first eighteen years of my life in. The trailer had only one bedroom, which my mom took. I slept in the living room on a threadbare, brown plaid sofa mom and I picked up off the side of the road. It was destined for the trash, but it was actually better than the sofa we had at the time. At least this one didn’t smell like booze and piss.
There was only one bathroom in our trailer, and half the time the toilet didn’t work. I often had to use the public outhouse.
The back door of my house leads right into a small galley kitchen. There’s not enough room for a table, so I eat off a folding tray in the living room in front of the TV. There is a little dining nook, but it’s been taken up by my treadmill and free weights.
I’ve got a decent chunk of money saved up to purchase something nicer, but since it’s just me, and I’m hardly ever home, what’s the point? It’s not like I have a family to provide for. I might as well keep the money in the bank until I have need of it.
I remove my boots inside the door and grab a cold beer from the fridge. As I carry it to the living room, I pop the cap and plop down on the sofa. Out of habit, I turn on the TV for background noise and nurse my beer.
The image of Jennie flinching keeps playing in my head, over and over, and I wrack my brain trying to figure out what the hell I did wrong. I’ve danced with her before and never had an issue. We laugh, we joke, we touch each other casually all the time. We’re affectionate with each other like close friends are. We hug a lot.
So what was different about tonight? All I did was reach out to fix her hair. It was perfectly innocent. I relive the moment in slow motion, over and over, searching for a clue. There’s got to be something.
All I did was—
reach out,
with my hand,
toward her face.
Fuck!
My blood turns to ice. I’ve seen enough domestic violence cases to recognize an abuse victim when I see one. I come across them a lot in my line of work.
The question is—who in the fucking hell hurt Jennie Lopez? And why don’t I know about it?
Chapter 7 – Chris
The next day, just like I do every Saturday, I’m sitting across the table from Micah in Jennie’s Diner. I called him earlier this morning and asked him to meet me here so we could discuss what happened last night with Jennie.
He’s as clueless as I am.
“I have no idea,” he says, as baffled as I am. “She’s never said a word about anyone hurting her. Ruth has never mentioned it, either. If anyone knows everything that’s happened to Jennie, it’s Ruth and Maggie. They’ve been friends for years. Whatever it is, it must have happened when you and I were away.”
Micah left Bryce right after high school for a six-year stint in the Army. I left that summer, too, for Phoenix. What the hell happened to her during those four years I was gone?
“Here she comes,” I murmur, keeping my voice down when I spot Jennie walking our way.
“Hey, guys,” she says when she stops at our table. She automatically fills our coffee cups. “What can I get you?” She smiles at the both of us, acting as if last night never happened.
“The usual for me,” Micah says.
Jennie murmurs “scrambled eggs, sausage, and toast” as she jots his order down on her pad. Then she meets my gaze, calm as can be. “And for you?” she asks me, her gaze darting away as if she’s afraid to face me after what happened at the Tavern. “The same?”
My chest tightens at the knowledge she feels uncomfortable around me. That’s the last thing I’d ever want. “I’ll have the same. Except can I have a biscuit with sausage gravy instead of the toast?”
“Sure.” Jennie scribbles another note down. “How’s Robyn?” she asks Micah, turning her attention back to him. “She was so busy working last night I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to her.”
Micah’s dark eyes light up at the mention of his girlfriend. “She’s good. She’s at home this morning working on a paper for her lit class. It’s something to do with Jane Austen.” He rolls his eyes.
Jennie has a soft spot for Robyn, who worked for Jennie for a short while right after she arrived in Bryce with a broken-down car and no money. Micah secretly arranged for Jennie to hire Robyn to work at the diner so Robyn could ostensibly earn enough money to cover the repairs on her old Honda Civic, but when Robyn found out Micah had put Jennie up to it—and that he was actually the one paying her salary—she bounced. She ended up working next door at Ruth’s Tavern, instead. Ruth actually had a legit job opening, and Robyn took it.
“Tell her I said hi.” Jennie tucks her order pad into the pocket of her apron. “I’ll go put your orders in.”
