Page 15 of Wrong Number, Right Grumpy Sheriff

She couldn’t handle my job. And then I built an entire fortress on the belief that meant no one could.

chapter

eight

Griff

I’m not asleep. I want that on the record.

I’m resting my eyes. Stretched out on Hope Bailey’s too-short sofa with my head tipped back and that absurd duck robe doing its inadequate best, every muscle in my body unclenched for the first time in what feels like a decade.

The rain has slowed to a normal downpour. The county’s safe, everybody accounted for, and she did that with me — sat at the table and worked Burton’s list one stubborn old voice at a time while I ran things with my cell and her laptop. We did it together. As a team.

She slipped down the hall a while ago. Said something about getting comfortable. I’ve been lying here half-dreaming a whole life where I get to listen to her move around in the next room every single night.

Then my phone rings. I answer and a robotic voice alerts me to an elevated heart rate. The panic-threshold alert. The one that dropped my stomach through the floorboards of my truck the night the documentary got her.

Except tonight there’s no truck. Tonight I’m twenty feet away, and she’s got a murmur, and a heart-rate alarm is the one call that could be real. Eleven years of worst cases hit me all at once, and I’m off the sofa and down the hall with her name already in my mouth.

“Hope—”

I get the door open.

And every thought I’ve ever had leaves my head at once.

She’s on the bed, on top of the covers, completely bared except for a pair of light pink underwear. Underwear she currently has one hand down the front of. Her head is tipped back, lips parted, throat flushed… she looks fucking glorious.

Her watch makes a sound, then “warning: elevated heart rate.”

Her eyes fly open. She freezes. Her eyes meet mine and she gasps.

I should leave. Shut the door. Apologize through it like the gentleman my aunt raised.

I don’t move. I can’t. I wouldn’t walk away from her in this moment if my team called me. This is happening.

“Oh my God—” She snatches her hand back, going red to the roots of her hair. “The watch sent you an alert. This is so emba⁠—”

“Don’t.” My voice sounds wrecked. “Don’t you apologize. And don’t you dare stop on my account.”

Her breath catches. The whole room goes still and hot.

“Griff.”

“Tell me to leave.” I mean it, every word, even as my hands curl to fists at my sides to keep from crossing that room. “Say it and I’m gone. I swear to God I’ll go. But if you don’t say it, sweetheart⁠—”

“Don’t leave.” Barely a breath. Then her eyes lock on mine and hold, steadier, sure. “It’s been kind of a stressful day and I was just trying to relax.”

I nod.

She swallows. “And I was thinking about you.”

That’s the permission I need.

I cross the room and I go to my knees at the edge of her bed, because I feel like I’ve wanted her my entire life. And I’m done pretending I don’t. I don’t care how long it’s actually been.

“Look at you,” I say, low, hooking my fingers in those thin cotton shorts. “You were right here doing this all by yourself, weren’t you? Handling it. On your own.” I drag them down and off. “You’ve got to learn to ask for help, Hope.”

Her laugh breaks into a gasp when I get my hands on her thighs and spread her open and just—look. She’s already slick, already flushed and swollen and perfect, and I’ve thought about this so many nights I have to take a second so I don’t embarrass myself.