Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
He’s gained weight since I last saw him. Lost a lot more hair. Where he used to hide his true self behind a friendly smile and a wave, now his face is contorted in a permanent scowl of resentment and malice.
“You know what, we’re a little busy here,” Heidi says, cocking her head at him in a way that begs a fight. “But if you’d like to make an appointment, maybe we’ll get back to you.”
“Was that your car I saw parked across the street?” he asks me in a mocking tone. “Maybe I ought to run the tag for unpaid tickets.” Even Harrison seems uncomfortable at Randall’s threat, eyeing me with confusion. “What do you say, Genevieve?”
“It’s fine,” I interject before this gets out of hand. Heidi’s looking like she’s about to flip a table. And poor Harrison. He really has no idea what he’s stepped in. “Let’s talk, Deputy Randall.”
What more can he really do to me, after all?
CHAPTER 7
GENEVIEVE
I’d always had a bad feeling about Rusty Randall. When I used to babysit his four kids back in high school, he would say things—little offhanded comments that made me uncomfortable. But I never said anything back, preferring the money and figuring I only ever had to see him for a few minutes coming and going, so it wasn’t a big deal. Until that night last year.
Some friends and I had gone out to a bar on the outskirts of town. We knew it was a cop hangout, but after a couple hours of pre-partying, Alana had gotten in her head it would be a hoot. In hindsight, it was not one of her better ideas. We were knocking back tequila shots and rum runners when Randall slid up to our table. He was buying our drinks, which was fine. Then he started getting handsy. Which wasn’t.
Now, outside Joe’s, Deputy Randall leans against the cruiser parked at the curb. I don’t know what it is about cops resting their hands on their equipment belts, fingers always flirting with their weapons, that incites an instinctual rage in me. My nails dig into the flesh of my palms as I brace myself for what comes next. I’m careful to stay in the light of a streetlamp where people from the bar’s entrance are still visible.
“So here’s how it is,” Randall says, talking down his nose at me. “You’re not welcome back here. Long as you’re in town, you stay the hell away from me and my family.”
Not his family anymore, the way I heard it. But I bite back the snarky remark, along with the rush of scorn that rises in my throat. He has no right to speak to me in that tone of disgust, not after the way he behaved last year.
We were admittedly wasted that night back then, the girls and me, while Rusty kept trying to talk me into going out to his car with him and fooling around in the parking lot. I was gentle, at first. Laughing it off and making my way around the room to avoid him. Clinging to the girls because there was safety in numbers. Until he cornered me against the jukebox, tried to slather his mouth on mine, and jammed his hand up my shirt. I shoved him away and told him, loud enough for the whole bar to hear, to fuck off. Thankfully, he’d left, albeit cranky and dissatisfied.
That could have been the end of it. I could have gone back to my friends and let it go. Certainly wasn’t the first time I’d been hit on by an overaggressive older man. But something about the encounter had stung me right to the bone. I was pissed. Fuming. Absolutely irate. Long after he’d gone, I sat there stewing over the encounter and all the ways I should have stuck my foot in his groin and rammed the heel of my palm into his throat. I kept throwing down shots. Eventually Steph and Alana left, and it was just me and my friend Trina, who’s probably the only person in our old circle of friends who had me beat for wild instincts. She wasn’t ready to let what Randall did go and said neither should I. What he did was wrong, and it was my responsibility to not let him get away with it.
In front of me now, Randall stands up straight, bearing down on me. I back up onto the sidewalk, glancing around for my best exit. Frankly, I have no idea what this man is capable of, so I assume everything.
“Look,” I say. “I own that I acted crazy by showing up at your house the way I did. But that doesn’t change the fact that you felt me up in a bar after I spent the whole night trying to get away from you. Far as I’m concerned, it’s you who needs a reminder to keep his distance. I’m not the one looking for a confrontation.”