Protect (4 page)

With similar goodbyes Fritter and Tiny parted
ways at the curb, his bikes rumbling to life as Tiny gave the semi
horn a blow, then they peeled off in different directions down the
quiet Markham street. His Ma lived outside of the town limits on
the side closest to Hazeldale, so before long he could open up the
throttle and throw the wind and rain in his hair. It was still a
light rain, but it paid to be somewhat careful. For example, he
obeyed the posted speed limit.

The two-bed, two-bath bungalow sat quiet, not
a sign of life. She must have had a shift at the hospital where she
did laundry. That guaranteed him a good nap for a couple hours,
assuming she hadn’t left a list of chores to do. He may have been
overpaying the mortgage for her, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t
still running the household.

He pulled his bike all the way up to the back
of the detached garage, wiped the raindrops from it, and shut the
door before heading around to the backdoor off the porch. Inside on
the kitchen table he found a tented note reading,
Mow the lawn
if you’re home before it rains.

He smiled, moving past the instruction. “Just
made it in time,” he mumbled, shedding his kutte and pulling the
T-shirt off over his head. The shirt he threw in the laundry basket
at the end of the hall, his jeans and socks joining it. The kutte
was placed on its own hook in his room behind the door. He took a
long hot shower, then returned to his room while toweling the water
from his hair. His phone was chirping away that someone had left
him a message, so he dug it out of his kutte. Man, he hoped
everything with Gertie was okay—

Markham Manor. 210. 6pm.

He checked his alarm clock. It was two-thirty
now, plenty of time to get some rest. Fritter had never mastered
texting, so his reply was a lame
OK.

Then he set the phone on his nightstand and
crawled into fresh sheets, smiling.

A day off spent on paperwork was no day off.
Even if the paperwork was to save your job.

Sharon had spent the entire day filling out
her paperwork for the upcoming sheriff’s elections for Markham
County, although
County
was a misnomer. It was a small slip
of property that neither Kern nor Kings County seemed to want, in
danger of being absorbed. Or at least that’s what Sharon thought.
The people that lived here seemed oblivious to how insignificant
this town and the few tiny, surrounding communities were.

Markham was the central population of the
county, and the town was only named after the county was
established. This was where a steel mill had been built, and the
town sprang up around it.

As sheriff her department was responsible for
the municipal law enforcement in Markham, Hazeldale, and all other
tiny communities. Their beat also included clusters of homes and
businesses whose addresses were still, for all intents and
purposes, Markham. Her staff in Markham itself was made up of four
full time and two part-time officers. The part-time positions were
vacant at the moment, after a prisoner was nearly beaten to death
under their watch. They had two dispatch operators and a casual to
cover their holidays. That was it, but that was actually a lot for
the town size. All in all, Markham was home to only fifty thousand
souls, tops.

Her department was obsessive about enforcing
bylaws, since the paid fines made up nearly half their operating
budget. Without that money they’d really have to cut back.

She’d been in this position for eight years.
She had always run uncontested, until this year. The questions on
the forms seemed more loaded this time around, and even if she was
secure in her ability to do her job, there was a lingering doubt
that she’d be allowed to. And for some reason getting the required
signatures to back up her nomination seemed harder than she
remembered the first time she ran.

It was stress, that was probably what made
her send Fritter that text message. Stress and doubt and a day
spent alone with her own thoughts. She needed distraction. That’s
why she’d booked the motel room on her way to file her papers.
She’d sent the message as she was leaving Town Hall. She was out of
uniform, driving her own car since it was on her own time. She was
tucking away her phone as she headed down the concrete stairs to
the parking lot, and when she saw the man starting up the stairs at
the opposite end she had to pause.

Archie Turnbull stopped when he saw her too,
and the slimy smile he gave had nothing to do with the fact he was
a car salesman. This was the asshole trying to take her job.

The predictable anger was a flash of heat
behind her breastbone, an increase in her pulse. Such bullshit. She
went to cop college, she paid her dues working a shitty beat in
Pasadena then Bakersfield giving out parking tickets and letting
junkies spit on her and call her all kinds of terrible things.

What had this ass ever done? He ran a car
dealership his father had handed him when he retired. Such fucking
bullshit
.

“Sheriff Downey,” he bellowed, starting up
the stairs. Two steps in and he was already huffing and puffing.
Jesus Christ. “Always a pleasure.”

“Mister Turnbull,” she replied, not agreeing
with him. “Warm day.”

“Hot as balls,” he agreed with absolutely
zero charm. She fought back the expression of disgust that almost
overcame her. “Don’t tell me you’re working overtime, pretty lady
like you. You should get out, find something fulfilling to do with
your spare time.”

“Being a sheriff is more than a full time
job. It’s a lifelong job.” She put her sunglasses on and mustered
up a bright grin. “But you’re not going to need to worry about
that. You’ll still be taking your month-long holidays to Acapulco.
I wouldn’t worry.”

Turnbull’s smile lessened, just a fraction of
a percentage but she caught it anyway. “We’ll see about that,
Miss
Downey.”

“That’s still
Sheriff
Downey,” she
corrected. “I wouldn’t get out of the habit of using that
term.”

Without another word she pushed her way past
the fat ass and made for her car. He didn’t reply either, and she
wasn’t looking back to see if he was pissed or laughing at her. She
didn’t care.

As she started the car her phone pinged back
at her. She pulled it out of her jeans pocket, and when she saw the
simple
OK
sent back from Fritter she sighed.
Thank
God
.

This illicit dalliance wasn’t going anywhere,
she knew that. As it was, if they met once a month that was a lot.
This whole thing had started ... twenty months ago? Twenty-one? It
didn’t matter. She just needed the bit of male companionship every
now and then. It was once said if a women went out looking to get
laid she would, no problem. That might be true for any women other
than a sheriff. She couldn’t go out bar hopping, looking for a
one-night stand. And any man who’d shown interest was most likely
interested in the handcuffs, uniform and bragging rights.

No, she needed a man who could show up, do
what was needed, and then keep his fucking mouth shut. In a place
like Markham that was hard to find, but a member of the Red Rebels
fit the bill perfectly. He probably wouldn’t go spreading it out
around he was bedding the sheriff; contrary to what most people
thought of bikers, there was some pussy that could get him in deep
trouble with the club. Like hers, for example. So he wasn’t saying
anything, and she sure as shit wasn’t talking.

They spoke of nothing. Not her work, not the
club. It had to be that way. She just wished she’d been smarter
that first time she’d all but blackmailed him into bed.

He’d come to her eagerly, that wasn’t the
point. She’d tried to make it seem as though he could walk away,
but maybe it wasn’t as clear as she’d intended. He hadn’t minded,
however, and obviously their arrangement still worked just
fine.

Her not-so-subtle ruse aside, she’d done
something even dumber that first time. She’d let him kiss her. That
was stupid,
so
stupid.

Mark Horton was an amazing kisser. Not just
proficient, like
insanely
talented at it. And he smelled
really good close up. She could have lived without knowing that,
because that was close, intimate
boyfriend
type shit. She
didn’t want to zone out halfway through her day, remembering how
good he tasted or how amazing that tongue had felt in her
mouth.

No
. Just ... no. That didn’t happen
anymore.

Luckily he was sweet but not swift. He didn’t
notice when she avoided kissing, touching, close contact. As long
as she was mostly naked when he showed up she was guaranteed sex
without any of those lingering
feelings.

No, she went home sore and exhausted and weak
in the legs. The quickest their tumbles had ever been was
forty-five minutes. He wasn’t a teenager but he was younger than
her, and his stamina was ... She didn’t know if it was normal for
anyone
to be able to hold out like that. So maybe that was
what she was addicted to. There wasn’t a single meeting where she
didn’t leave satisfied to the point of exhaustion. Not that she’d
let him know that; she would just say thanks and leave, every
time.

There was no promise of exclusivity needed.
He had women flung at him on a regular basis, and he partook. She
knew that, she was fine with it. As for her ... her other man was
battery operated and named Jack Frost. He was no slouch in the
bedroom, either.

Her home was a two-level, wartime house in
the older but “good” part of Markham. The neighborhood was made up
of families about to lose their last-born child to university. They
were all older than her, but not by much in the grand scheme of
things. The rooms of the house were small by today’s standards but
she loved the house. The living room was off the front door, small
dining room beyond and the kitchen next to it off to the left. A
half-bath was off the living room, leading to a small hallway that
held a storage closet and the stairs leading up to two bedrooms and
a full washroom. The ceilings upstairs were gabled, adding even
more charm. A garage had been added in the backyard so her driveway
led all the way to the back, under the kitchen window. That was the
closest she felt to a neighbor; all the other windows seemed to
have views of tree branches.

She unlocked the front door and grinned as
her mutt of a dog, Earp, came bounding to greet her. The top of his
head came up nearly to her hip and he almost resembled a Shepherd
but his ears were floppy and the hair of his tail was short. He
looked like seven dogs patched together. She’d found him at the
summer fair when the ASPCA had set up a booth to get their pets
adopted. No one wanted him; he was too ugly. But he greeted every
spectator so enthusiastically she couldn’t walk away without
him.

“What were you up to without me?” she asked,
scratching at his huge ears. He gave a loud groan, eyes rolling
back in his head, and she had to laugh. “You are such a
goofball.”

She fed Earp and sent him out to run around
the yard, unusually large for the age of the house. It had been one
of the reasons she’d gotten Earp: that big yard needed a dog. And
she felt safer with him in the house, especially at night.

She headed upstairs to have a bath and shave
her legs. No matter the nature of her dealings with Fritter, she
wasn’t going in hairy and smelling terrible.

-oOo-

Her cobalt blue Ford Focus was pulled around
the inside of the motel complex, like always. The room she got
always overlooked the pool in the center of the four-sided motel
complex.

And like always she was there twenty minutes
ahead of the time she’d asked him to meet. She pulled the comforter
to the foot of the bed. Sheets got cleaned regularly but you could
never count on the comforter getting the same treatment. She left
her shoes near the door, peeled off her jeans and left them on a
chair in the corner. She removed her bra from under her T-shirt and
put it with the jeans, then headed into the washroom to check her
hair again.

It was loose, hanging over her shoulders. She
was finding more gray hairs, but luckily she was blonde so they
didn’t show. The lines at the sides of her mouth were getting more
pronounced, which was starting to bother her. So far her forehead
had remained smooth. Other than that she wasn’t anything special to
look at, at least, she didn’t think so. Blonde-haired and blue-eyed
was a bit of a cliché for California. She tended to blend in with
the crowd.

Out of a strange curiosity she lifted the
T-shirt. Her tits still looked pretty good. One child raised and
breast fed, and while they were a bit lower than they used to be
she couldn’t complain about their efforts thwarting gravity so far.
Underneath her stomach was flat, and that was just from diet and
exercise. She’d always eaten well, never been chubby in her entire
life. And what else was there to do for a single woman except
exercise? Three hours of cardio and five weight-lifting sessions
per week kept her where she was. Sharon knew she was physically
stronger than most women. She could bench press two hundred pounds,
and every time someone caught her curling forty-pound dumbbells it
drew rude stares.

Muscle was just practical for her work. She
had to wrestle and get physical from time to time.

The motel door opened, and she dropped her
shirt, looking at her face again, running a hand through her hair
to give it a bit more lift. What was she doing?

With a flick the bathroom light was off and
she returned to the motel room, leaning against the doorjamb.

Fritter Horton was shrugging out of his kutte
and pulled his T-shirt off before he saw her. She withheld a sigh.
He was a sight, to be sure. The physique of a fighter; broad
shoulders, narrow waist, well-developed arms and chest. His arms
both sported black and grey sleeves, a mixture of tribal symbols
and the Red Rebels fist worked in here and there. There was a quote
on his chest too, written out in a decorative script. The club’s
insignia spanned his wide back.