She was matchmaking by food preferences now?
As Ty tried to come up with a polite, noncommittal response, an arm slung around his shoulders. He recognized the weight and feel of it before the other man even began to speak. “Reckon you’re too late, Crystal. Ty here was seen in the company of a mysterious brunette at Harrison and Ivy’s wedding. Could be he’s off the market.’’
Damn Sebastian.
Ty had been avoiding this for two weeks. It seemed his time was up. He turned a silent glare on the man who’d had his back on more missions than he could count. It was really too bad Ty was gonna have to kill him.
“Is that true?” Crystal vibrated with equal parts affront and and interest.
Ty thought of the brunette in question, startled to realize how much he wanted to say, yes. But what he had with Paisley wasn’t a relationship. It was... Well, he didn’t know what the hell it was. He wasn’t willing to share with the class either way.
“My food, Crystal? I really need to go.”
With a pout, she handed over the bag. Ty made as dignified a beeline for the exit as he could manage.
Sebastian followed him out the door. “So, who is she?”
The girl he’d once been willing to do anything for. Including letting her go when his life path would have broken her, no matter how much it had hurt him to do it.
“Just a wedding fling.”
Even saying it made him want to wince. Paisley Parish wasn’t just anything, but he wasn’t opening up that vein with Sebastian.
“Well, whatever it is, we’re all happy to see you get back out there. Garrett would be proud that you’re starting to live again.”
The familiar rush of shame and guilt swept over him, as it always did whenever anyone mentioned the best friend he’d failed to protect. Garrett would be anything but proud. He’d be lining up to kick Ty’s ass for the casual, no strings arrangement he’d agreed to. Paisley was a forever girl, not a fling. When they’d both been preparing to go into the Army with an eye toward Special Forces, Garrett had called Ty a fool for breaking things off with Paisley instead of marrying her as Garrett had his own long-time girlfriend. From this side of it, with Garrett dead and Bethany a widow, it was hard not to think that, on this at least, he’d made the right call.
Ty didn’t know if he was making the right call now, keeping in touch with Paisley. He hadn’t planned to. Then again, nothing had gone according to his plan since he’d run into her at that wedding reception. He’d been riding on nostalgia and lust and the embers of other feelings he’d thought long dead and buried. His entire adult life had been spent running headlong into situations where others feared to tread, yet somehow this felt more dangerous.
After losing Garrett in the line of duty and separating from the Army, Ty wasn’t in any shape for a relationship. He lived for the job now. It was the thing that had salvaged his sanity, if not his soul. That made him a shit bet for someone like her. All he had to give her was the physical. Knowing she deserved so much more than that, he’d tried to walk away from her. Again.
But Paisley hadn’t asked for more than the physical. And when push came to shove, he hadn’t been strong enough to do what he’d done at eighteen. He was enough of a selfish bastard to take her at her word because being with her was the first thing he’d done in two years that had made him feel anything but numbness or raging grief. Garrett would’ve been taking him to task for using her. Or advising him to call the damned preacher.
But Garrett wasn’t here. There was, for now, only Sebastian, who was lounging against Ty’s squad car, grinning.
Shit. How long had he been standing here thinking about Paisley?
“What?”
“Nothin’. I just think you’re mooning an awful lot over something that’s just a wedding fling.” The grin got broader, taking on a Cheshire Cat cast at the prospect that another of their circle had been hit with the love stick.
“Don’t be a dumbass. I’m not mooning.”
“Sure, you’re not.” He clapped Ty on the shoulder. “So, when are you going to see her again?”
“What makes you think I’m going to see her again?”
“Because, until you got ambushed by Crystal in there, that was the most relaxed I’ve seen you in…hell, maybe a decade. Certainly, recent memory. Seems a shame not to repeat the experience.”
Well, he wasn’t wrong. And Ty would’ve been lying if he said he hadn’t been thinking about her. Constantly. They’d been texting. He’d held himself back from calling her, as much to see if he could as to stick to the terms he’d agreed to. But he’d sooner be waterboarded than admit it to the asshat masquerading as his friend.
The radio at his shoulder crackled. “Deputy Brooks, this is dispatch.”
Grunting, Ty dragged open the door to his Sheriff’s Department cruiser and tossed in his food as he reached for the call button. “Dispatch, this is Brooks. Go ahead, Essie.”
“We’ve got at situation down at 583 Westinghouse Road.”
“What kind of situation?”
“Probable domestic dispute. Clyde is en route for backup.”
“On my way.”
Sebastian’s smile had disappeared. “Be careful, brother.”
“Always am.” He slid into the driver’s seat, nodding as Sebastian double tapped the hood in farewell.
Flipping on the light bar, he headed out to save the day.
Chapter 2
Paisley knew the moment she laid eyes on Detective Joel Fisher that today was not going in her favor.
“You don’t have good news.”
Detective Fisher opened his mouth as if to protest, then spread his hands with an apologetic wince. “There’s no way to trace the package.”
She’d known that when she’d contacted him, having learned more than the average bear at the citizen’s police academy she’d attended for book research eight months ago. Real life police departments didn’t have
