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Shelby let out a disappointed sigh. “It’s all right. I’msorry we didn’t get to finish our conversation. I really did want to help take your mind off your sister’s troubles.”
“Is everything okay?” Hunt asked, concerned.
Cyn pressed her lips tight. “She lives with a self-centered jerk who doesn’t care about her feelings and mistreats her. But she loves him,” she gushed with a false saccharine lilt to her words.
“It’s frustrating to see it happening to someone and they let it because they’re either too afraid to do something about it and leave or they think they deserve it. You can’t help someone if they aren’t willing to help themselves.” Hunt had felt that way when it came to Chase and his addiction.
“Yeah, well, I guess you see it a lot on the job. Still, I’d like to give her a big ol’ shove out the door of that place and show her that she doesn’t really love him. She’s clinging to an illusion that will never be reality. He will never treat her the way she deserves to be treated because he is a piss-poor example of a man. And of course she chose badly, what with our own father running out on us. If you’ve never seen a good man, how the hell are you supposed to recognize one?” Cyn turned to Shelby. “They exist, right?”
Shelby smirked. “I found one. You will, too.”
Hunt hooked his hands on his gun belt. “Take my advice. Steer clear of your sister’s boyfriend, so you’ll live long enough to find out.”
Cyn walked right past him and said over her shoulder to Shelby, “I’ll meet you at your truck.”
Shelby gave him a sympathetic look. “See you soon.”
He followed the two women out of the bar and caught up to Shelby. “Go home to Chase. I’ll drive Cyn home.”
Cyn glared at him like always. “The hell you will. I’d rather walk.”
Hunt rolled his eyes. “I’m here,” he told Shelby. “You’ve got a long drive out of town. Chase will be desperately waiting for you to get home.”
Shelby blushed under the bar’s neon lights. “I don’t mind taking her.”
“And now you’re both talking about me like I’m not here.”
Hunt turned to Cyn. “I’m just trying to do my brother a favor.” There’d been some bad blood between them for a long time. Because of their mother. Because of Chase’s addiction. But they were trying to move on from it. And Hunt wanted his brother to be happy, especially after how many times he’d nearly lost his life. If he’d died before Hunt fixed things, Hunt would have never forgiven himself.
Shelby made Chase happy, and so Hunt could do this small thing to get Shelby back to him tonight a little sooner rather than later.
“Fine,” Cyn said, exasperated. “Go home to your Wilde man. We’ll have lunch later this week.”
Shelby embraced Cyn in a big hug. “He’s a cop, doing his job. And a good man. He cares, even if he doesn’t show it sometimes.” Shelby released Cyn and walked past him with an all-too-knowing grin and a sparkle in her eyes that Hunt didn’t even want to try to read.
“You coming?” Cyn called as she walked toward his patrol SUV.
He had a feeling he’d follow her into hell just to keep her from taunting the devil and getting herself into more trouble.
Chapter Two
Cyn sat in the front seat of the patrol car for a change. Usually she ended up in the back seat. She ignored the big, broody man beside her, until he turned down the wrong street. “Where are you going? I thought you were taking me home?”
“I am. You live on Spruce. Right?”
“Uh, no.” How did he know that? Probably from all the times he’d checked her driver’s license to issue her a ticket. “I rented Shelby’s old place.”
He shot her a sideways glance. “Since when?”
“I moved in the week after your brother proposed to her.”
“Oh.”
She didn’t know if that meant he was okay with her living there or not. And what did it matter? She loved the quaint little two-bedroom house. She could walk to work when the weather was nice. It was much quieter than her old apartment, where she could hear her neighbors arguing and fucking at the top of their lungs. And don’t get her started on smelling everything everyone cooked, not to mention her chain-smoking pervert of adownstairs neighbor who liked to sit out in the courtyard and stare up at her through her window. Gross.
“Why did Rad come at you like that?”
“He was drunk tonight, but he’s always stupid,” she replied.
