Page 98 of Breaking All The Rules
Austin had been too stunned, two weeks ago on the phone, to put up much resistance to Beatrice’s so-long, goodbye call. It had been a terrible moment to realize he’d fallen in love with her.
Terrible and ironic.
There she’d been, breaking up with him, and there was his heart realizing what, deep down, he’d always known and been too chickenshit to acknowledge—he was in love with Beatrice Archer. How was he supposed to compute the wellspring of love rising in his chest at the same time he was losing her?
How could he be elated and crushed in the same breath?
From the moment he’d confronted her outside Annie’s, eating ice cream in her bunny slippers, he’d been absolutely sunk. He’d dismissed it as attraction, a sexual thing, but even then, Beatrice’s funny, irreverent, pissed-at-the-world routine that day had opened a portal into his heart.
They’re giving me everything I ever wanted. Man, that had stung. He’d obviously been kidding himself that he might be everything she’d ever wanted.
What about me, Beatrice?
Those words had sloshed through the quagmire of his brain as she had broken up with him. Along with I love you. And then she’d shared how deeply it had cut being forced out of Jing-A-Ling, something she’d never talked about before. He’d thought she’d just been angry. She’d certainly arrived in Credence with a head of steam. But that had been hiding something much deeper—humiliation. And the way her voice had cracked…Then she’d asked him to let her go. Not exactly in those words, but it’s what she’d meant.
I need to do this. For me. Please understand.
What else could he have done? He hadn’t been able to deny her anything from the second he’d laid eyes on her. He’d put her in the pokey, for God’s sake, because she’d demanded it. And then he’d remembered that saying about setting something you love free and he’d done it—he’d let her go.
It had been hard—crushing, actually—but he’d done it. And he refused to mope around about a woman who had ended things so cleanly. Over the phone.
There was no point in acting like a grouch and taking it out on the people of Credence. It wasn’t their fault he’d been a dumbass and fallen for a woman who’d been wary of commitment from the get-go. So what if he’d written up an extraordinary amount of parking and speeding tickets, including one for Clay, who was still pissed? He’d even given out his first-ever jaywalking ticket to a disbelieving, generally otherwise upstanding member of the Credence community. And he was all over the noise complaints about the teenagers fooling around down at the lake now that school was out for the summer.
But other than that, he was dandy.
He’d moved through the five stages of grieving in lightning speed. He’d been disbelieving that first day, then kinda pissed for a couple of days, and had moved on to several days of thinking about ways he could have done things differently with Beatrice. That had morphed into a period where he was just so damn sad about the loss of what could have been.
Princess had ridden shotgun during that ride.
But now, two weeks after that phone call, he was out the other end. He was fine. Just fine. A shining example of how-to-survive-a-breakup-and-get-on-with-your-life.
Gold star for him.
It wasn’t his fault there was a sudden rash of lawlessness in Credence. He was a cop, for God’s sake. It was his duty. And he was feeling pretty damn accomplished about it, too, when he plonked his ass down on a stool in an almost deserted Jack’s and asked Tucker for a Bud Lite. He’d have a couple of those and some of that cheesy garlic bread he liked so much, then get back to the ranch so Princess wouldn’t start to fret, which she did if he came home late.
Poor kitty had lost two owners in only a few months. No wonder she was clingy.
“Cooper!”
His name cracked across the bar just as Austin was taking a sip. He looked over his shoulder to find Arlo striding toward him. “Boss?”
He flung himself down on the stool next to Austin. “Why in the hell do I have Bob Downey on my ass about police harassment?”
Austin sighed. “He has a bald tire. Left front.”
“So…give him a warning.” Arlo indicated to Tucker he’d have what Austin was having.
“I gave him a damn warning three months ago and it’s still bald.”
That was the day Beatrice had flashed him from her apartment window. One day, he hoped that memory would make him smile, but right now it was like a knife jabbing under his ribs.
“So. Take his keys and drive him down to the auto shop and make him buy one. Or go and get one yourself and bring it back and put it on for him. The man’s like one of those sticky little flies buzzing around a bad smell when he’s riled up.”
Two weeks’ worth of suppressed emotion gushed up inside Austin like a geyser. “He’s eighty years old,” he snapped. “He was the goddamn mayor back in the day. He knows this town’s bylaws better than I do, and he doesn’t need his hand held like some little kid.”
“Yes, he does. It’s called being a small-town cop. And this is what you”—he poked Austin in the chest—“wanted to be. When I interviewed you, you said you wanted to police in a small community. Well, this is what we do.” Clearly exasperated, Arlo took a long drag of his beer, then pointed at a booth. “Over there,” he said, his voice brooking no argument as he slid off his stool. “Now.”
Sighing, Austin drained the remainder of his beer, gesturing to Tucker for another one, who said, “I’ll bring it over.”
