“What’s with all the scarecrows?” I asked absentmindedly while Oakley turned the cruiser around in an impressive three-point turn that didn’t have us tipping into the ditch on either side.
“Well, they keep birds away from the crops,” she began in a voice used for two-year-olds.
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks. Even a city boy like me knows that,” I said dryly. “No, but seriously, what’s with that many of them?”
Oakley shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe one didn’t work, so he figured he’d use a bunch of them?”
I nodded sagely. “Almost like the farmer found out the hard way that substitutes for the real thing don’t work.”
Oakley slammed a hand down on the steering wheel and came to an abrupt stop right there in the middle of the road. My upper body leaned heavily into the seat belt.
“Enough with the jokes! Some of us find that the imitation works better than the real thing.” She tilted her head and gave me a look so full of challenge I had to respond.
I leaned my elbow on the center console and wedged myself into her space. Her pale blue eyes went guarded, but the way her nostrils flared had me wondering if maybe I got under her skin too.
“You’re telling me that rubber bunny vibrator is better than a real live man between your legs?” I asked, voice so rough it scraped my throat.
Oakley inhaled and I could have sworn her pulse fluttered at her neck. The two spots of pink in her cheeks were the dead giveaway. Her hand came up and for a second there, while it hung undecided between us, I thought she might touch my face in an unusual display of softness. Instead, she used her fingertips to push against my chest even as her eyes told me she was fighting a war within herself. I complied, sitting back in my seat and giving her the room she needed to put her ice-queen suit back on. I could only push her so much. I needed this job.
“That’s none of your business,” she said coolly.
I winked at her, not put off by her act now that I knew what simmered below the surface. “I take that as a personal challenge.”
6
Oakley
“Looks like a big one,” Wyatt muttered, peering through the windshield at the lit-up barn way out in the countryside.
Today was our one day a week where we pulled an evening shift, and of course we’d get called out to the biggest party of the year. I squirmed in my seat under the cover of darkness, my underwear creating enough friction between my legs to unsettle me further.
How did I get here? Where an innocent remark from my partner got me so hot and bothered I could scarcely breathe? Ever since Wyatt had walked in on me—gah! I couldn’t even think about it. The whole thing was so salacious I’d tried my best to block it out. Pretend it didn’t happen.
Of course Wyatt was doing his damn best to make sure I never forgot. All his little innuendos. His suggestions. Asking me about my sex life. He was tearing down that wall of professionalism, one crude sentence at a time. It should have angered me, and normally it would have. Had it been anyone else. But Wyatt? All his comments did was make me go home at night and have to dig out Barney to relieve the pressure.
After checking my doors were locked, of course.
A loud bang had me jolting my thoughts back to the job at hand, where they should have been this whole time.
“Ah shit. Fireworks.” Wyatt shook his head like a disapproving parent.
“I’ll call in fire,” I muttered, grabbing the radio and letting dispatch know that the fire department should send a truck by shortly to make sure all the illegal fireworks didn’t start a brush fire.
“I don’t get it. What’s so amazing about blowing off mortars in the middle of nowhere?” Wyatt asked, his eyes narrowed and taking in the party before we got out of the cruiser to break things up.
I shrugged and went to get out of the car. “It’s just what people do around here.” I didn’t understand it either, but accepted it as part of the job in this county.
Wyatt got out and fell into step with me as our boots crunched over the gravel driveway and then the dead grass that led out to the barn. The whole damn thing was leaning heavily to the left, and it hadn’t seen a coat of paint in a few decades.
“Let’s shut it down and get out of here before the damn thing collapses, huh?” I said dryly, grabbing for my flashlight.
I clicked it on and approached the guy with the rocket launcher on his shoulder. “Hey, buddy. Want to put that thing down?”
He startled and whipped around, pointing the damn thing at us. Wyatt and I both ducked and moved out of the way. Wyatt’s hand somehow found its way to my back, a warmth I could feel through my bulletproof vest.
“Put the launcher down!” I yelled, not wanting to lose a limb over a drunk dumbass.
He dropped it all right, letting it roll right down his arm and hit the ground with a thump. Thankfully, nothing discharged from the mini cannon. He put his hands up, one still clutching a beer can.
“Who’s running this party?” Wyatt asked, approaching the guy now that his party weapon was out of the scenario.
The guy swayed a bit as he tried to focus on Wyatt’s face. “Um, well, I’m not exactly sure.” He scratched his cheek and then put his hand back in the air.
“Who owns this land?” I asked, looking back to the barn to see if anyone had joined us outside.
“Uh…I think Jimmy does.”
Wyatt grabbed the guy’s arm and joined me as we went over to the opening
