Chapter 1-3
874 Words
Lights flashed in the rear-view, and the blip of the police siren sounded. Motherfucker. Gunnar glanced down at his speedometer as he hit the brakes. This day could just go to hell. Hopefully Prairie’s police chief, Weston Tucker, had tagged him and not one of the recruits. Weston understood how Dottie could be when she got a bee in her bonnet. He also knew about the welcome party for the new doctor. Heck, he’d probably stopped in himself.
Gunnar rolled to a stop on the shoulder, giving a sigh of relief when he saw Weston step out of the SUV and adjust his aviators. He rolled down the window and nodded a greeting. “Sorry, man. My brain was elsewhere. Dottie’s fit to be tied that I’ve missed most of the welcome party for Dr. Winslow.”
Weston adjusted his stance and crossed his arms, shaking his head. “Do you know how fast you were going?”
“s**t, I don’t know. Fifty? I’ve been running late all day.”
Weston shook his head slowly. “Wanna guess again?”
He couldn’t have been going that fast. Weston was a stickler for drivers observing the speed limit. Everyone knew it, too. “Sixty?”
“Eighty-two.”
“I can explain,” Gunnar started. Weston seriously wouldn’t give him a ticket, would he? Heck, they’d just sold the guy a horse he was crazy about.
Weston cut him off. “I can’t let eighty-two in a forty-five slide. At that speed, you’re a danger to yourself and everyone else on the road.” He pulled out a small clipboard.
Gunnar dropped his head back against the seat. “Dottie’s gonna kill me.”
“Better a tongue lashing than vehicular homicide.”
He knew better than to argue. Weston was a hard-a*s. And that’s what made him a great police chief. It didn’t matter how much he liked you, he had no problem giving you a ticket when you deserved one.
The phone buzzed from its place on the console. Who was it this time? Dottie? His mom? Maddie? His sister? A weight settled across his chest. He hated letting them down, and right now it felt like that’s all he’d done lately. He held out his hand for the ticket. “Can I go now?”
Weston signed the ticket with a flourish. “I dropped it to thirty over. Still a hefty fine, but you won’t get your license yanked. Slow the f**k down, okay?”
Gunner nodded, clamping down on the smart-a*s retort on the tip of his tongue. He fell in behind Weston’s SUV and drove the remaining distance to Main Street doing five under. The parking lot was virtually empty when he pulled in. Not a good sign. Worse, he didn’t recognize any of the vehicles. His parents must have hit Gino’s Trattoria for a late dinner. Maybe he could join them after he’d accepted his tongue-lashing and drown his sorrows in a bowl of spumoni. Shutting the door with too much force, he rolled back his shoulders, jammed on his hat, and rounded the corner to the entrance. Normally a welcome sound, the bells jangled too brightly, announcing his arrival.
Dottie’s head snapped up from her usual position behind the counter. The fire in her eye, combined with the pinch at her mouth, told him everything.
Where in tarnation have you been?
I will never let you hear the end of this.
She jerked her chin in the direction of a youngish woman talking quietly with a couple of women he recognized as part of the granny brigade.
Gunnar paused, taking in the scene. Dottie was right, even from behind, he could tell the woman was a looker. Five-ten by his estimate, lush curves that tugged at his memory. Suzannah had been curvy as sin. A real-life Jessica Rabbit, but blonde. A memory seared him. The two of them, n***d, standing in front of a mirror, one hand splayed across her hips, the other nestled in a thatch of golden curls, caressing her s*x.
His body went tight. Was the memory of her bound to haunt him at every turn today? On second glance, the woman in front of him was too prim, wearing dark slacks and a light sweater, golden hair pulled tight into a bun at the nape of her neck. Although her a*s was damned near perfect, he preferred someone a little less buttoned-up. A little more passionate and fluid. A little more like how he remembered Suzannah – a woman in touch with her sensuality. From behind, this woman looked like she had a stick up her a*s, which would make it that much easier to maintain a strictly professional relationship, well-intentioned grannies or not.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he called, weaving through the tables to where the women stood.
Three heads turned his direction, but the floor tilted as he locked eyes with Prairie’s newest resident. Heat flooded his body and his boots stuck to the floor as the greeting died on his lips. Gunnar’s stomach dropped like a stone. He flushed hot, then lost feeling in his limbs as white hot anger replaced shock. For a split second, his head exploded – all the unspoken words, all the hurt, swirling with the fury of an F-5 tornado.
As if in slow motion, her eyes sparkled, then widened, and went blank. At the same time, the color drained from her face, smile freezing then vanishing.
So.
Suzannah Marie Harper recognized him too.
- Writer
