Crossing Hope (Cross Creek Series Book 4) Page 3

  Lane tilted his head against the unrelenting sunlight for a minute before replacing the cuffs on his utility belt and turning toward his cruiser, which was parked a handful of feet away. “Let’s go, then.”

  A thought vaulted into Greyson’s mind, sending the first real strike of panic through him over the incident. “What’s going to happen to my truck?”

  Lane paused, his expression betraying both his confusion and his surprise. “Well, I can’t leave it here in the loading zone. Cody Garrity’ll have to come tow it to the impound.”

  The answer made sense, seeing as Cody was Millhaven’s only mechanic, and as such, owned the only tow truck within a solid twenty-five mile radius.

  Still… “You need to make sure he’s careful when he hitches it up,” Greyson insisted. “No manhandling it. And no scratches to the paint, you hear?”

  “The thing is already scratched to high heaven,” Lane pointed out, but Greyson’s irritation flared, and he stabbed his boots into the pavement to stand tall.

  “I mean it, Sheriff. No damage to the truck. At. All.”

  Whether it was Greyson’s tone or the unyielding look he’d just worked up to match it, he didn’t know. But something got the message across, loud and goddamned clear. “Okay,” Lane said, shifting a gaze at Billy. “I’ll radio for Cody to come pick it up as soon as we get in the cruiser. Can you make sure he’s careful?”

  “Yeah,” Billy said to Lane, then nodded at Greyson. “I’ll make sure.”

  Lane jerked his chin once in thanks. “Good. Guess that means it’s just me and you and a ride downtown, Whittaker.”

  “Great,” Greyson said through his teeth.

  This day officially couldn’t get any worse.

  3

  As soon as Greyson saw Amber Cassidy and her BFF, Mollie Mae Van Buren, lean their bottle-blond heads out the front door of The Hair Lair just in time for Lane to drive his police cruiser by the place, he knew his day had officially gotten worse. He paused for a second to curse Billy’s inclination to gossip like a middle schooler, although his frustration burned bright, then burned out. Millhaven was a small town, with circles more tightly knit than the socks and scarves old Mrs. Ellersby sold every year at the annual Watermelon Festival. It wasn’t as if the news wouldn’t have made the rounds at both Clementine’s Diner and The Bar by nightfall, even if Billy had kept his trap buttoned up—or, more likely, his fingers off his text screen.

  And it wasn’t as if anyone would really be shocked that Jeremiah Whittaker’s son had finally found his way to the back of a police cruiser.

  Lane pulled the car to a stop in front of the small, squat police station, popping the rear door open for Greyson to exit. “Come on,” he prompted, gesturing toward the main entrance. Despite the reputation that preceded Greyson like a game day banner, he had never actually been over the threshold of the police station, so he let Lane guide him past the glass door and down the narrow hallway leading farther into the building.

  “You’re really going to arrest me over a bunch of unpaid parking tickets?” Greyson pushed one last time, even though he knew the odds of getting out of this now were likely lodged between slim and none. But the fields at Whittaker Hollow weren’t going to tend themselves, and his father sure as hell wasn’t going to do anything more than the bare minimum to make things happen. The question might be a Hail Mary dressed in lottery-ticket wrapping paper, but Greyson had gotten by on less before.

  Lane snorted. “We’ve already covered this ground. If you want to argue, you can take it up with Judge Abernathy.”

  “Great.” Judge Pearl Abernathy had achieved relic status before Greyson had even been born, and she was battier than a belfry, on top of it. So much for gaining any ground there. The best he could hope for at this point was that Lane would at least be fastidious about his job and book Greyson quickly so he could figure out bail and get back to Whittaker Hollow by supper.

  Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans, Greyson walked down the hallway just a half-step ahead of Lane. They passed a small office with Lane’s name stenciled on the glass door, along with a utilitarian desk in an even smaller open area beside it that was currently unoccupied. The nameplate on the far corner marked the space as Woody Collingsworth’s, and sure, Greyson couldn’t have been nabbed by the soft-spoken nineteen-year-old deputy. At least that, he might’ve had a prayer of verbally muscling his way out of.

  “Here we go. Home sweet home, for now.” Lane pulled a key ring from his utility belt, coming to a halt outside the single, eight-by-eight holding cell at the end of the hallway. The thing was furnished—a generous word—with a long, thinly padded bench that was likely meant to double as a cot, a toilet that was shockingly clean but also highly un-private, and not much else. Greyson supposed he’d think the whole setup was antiquated if he hadn’t been born and raised in Millhaven, where the worst crimes to go down consisted of bar fights that ended in handshakes when one party beat the other, fair and square, and the occasional idiot teens playing mailbox baseball or shooting out street lights with BB guns. At least there was air conditioning, and maybe he’d get in a wink of shuteye while he waited for Lane to write up his paperwork. But the sheriff had no sooner trundled the steel bars along their track than a pair of footsteps sounded off from behind them, causing both Lane and Greyson to turn in surprise.

  Woody, Greyson recognized quickly enough, with his one-size-too-large uniform and his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously above his crookedly knotted tie. The woman beside him?

  Yeeeeeah. Definitely a far better subject, and oddly, not one he readily recognized. Greyson let his gaze move over her slowly, from the ground up. Her black motorcycle boots gave her just a hint of toughness without being overkill, especially with the way her long, shapely legs tapered into them at mid-calf. Toned thighs gave way to frayed cutoff shorts and a white tank top that fully held Greyson’s attention, snug enough to showcase the woman’s curves, yet not so tight as to leave nothing to the imagination. Dark, ruffled hair hid part of her face, but the half Greyson could see made his blood thrum faster in his veins. Full, peach-colored mouth set in a scowl he was tempted to wipe right off of her. Strong chin, high and defiant.

  The woman shifted her head, her hair tumbling from her forehead, and God damn it. Those eyes, flashing indignation with just a hint of wide surprise, were bright, beautiful Cross blue.

  Which meant she wasn’t just off limits, but entirely out of the fucking question.

  Marley’s boots clapped to a halt on the linoleum at the same time her heartbeat cranked way, way up in her chest. She blamed the former on the way the deputy—who had nervously picked her up from The Corner Market—had stopped short beside her, as well as the sight of her oldest brother Owen’s best friend standing a few feet away, his face locked in disbelief. The latter was entirely the fault of the man planted next to Lane, though. Between his tanned skin, the tall, muscular frame that nearly gave Lane’s a run for its money, and the inky black tattoo curling from beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt all the way to his left elbow, Marley really couldn’t help the visceral reaction.

  Even if the guy was leveling her with a dark and stormy gaze that said he didn’t like what he was looking at in return.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Lane’s voice crash-landed in Marley’s thoughts just in time to chase the flush from her face. What did she care what this scowling stranger thought of her, anyway? She had bigger problems at the moment, thanks.

  Case in point. “I, uh,” Deputy Collingsworth stammered, turning roughly the color of summer strawberries as he cleared his throat. “I made an arrest.”

  “I can see that,” Lane replied tightly. “What I meant was, would you care to elaborate on exactly why it is that you’ve arrested my best friend’s little sister?”

  Marley’s gut fluttered, but she refused to let the sensation get anywhere near her face. She’d known exactly what she was doing when she’d claimed those groceries as her own. Even if the
steel bars and jail cell were a whole lot more real now that they were standing starkly in front of her.

  Deputy Collingsworth straightened. “She was shoplifting at The Corner Market. Travis Paulson caught her red-handed, and she admitted it, to him and to me. What else was I supposed to do?”

  Shock streaked over Lane’s face, but it didn’t last. “Radio me, for starters,” he hissed, and the guy next to him released an audible, oh-please scoff that sent Marley’s brows hooking up. She opened her mouth to tell Lane and the deputy and God and anyone else within earshot that she didn’t want any special treatment. If Lane had been at the market, he might’ve seen what Travis and the deputy had missed, and she could not—would not—let Sierra be taken from her mother. Jail or no.

  But Lane was already shaking his head, the thought forgotten. “You know what, never mind. We’ve got a more immediate issue to deal with here.”

  “Okay,” the deputy said, enough of a question hanging in his voice that Lane huffed out a breath.

  “I’ve also made an arrest, as you can see.” He jerked his chin at Tall, Dark, and Scowling. “And we can’t put two people of the opposite sex in the same jail cell.”

  The guy’s face changed then, sending another curl of heat through Marley’s blood. “By all means. Ladies first,” he said, gesturing grandly at the single cell. His smirk was its own entity, taking over his unnervingly rugged and (ugh) undeniably good-looking face as if it had a life of its own. He could fill Wrigley Field with his arrogant attitude and ultra-cocky bravado. Even then, he was brimming with so much of both that he’d probably have to use a crowbar to cram it all in. Too bad for him and his sexy little smile, Marley was packing boatloads of backbone, herself.

  And she was in just the mood to let it fly like a fifty-foot flag.

  “Oh, no. Really. Age before beauty,” she maintained, planting her hands on the hips of her cutoffs and smiling so sweetly at the wide-open door to the cell, she damn near needed a root canal. “After you.”

  The guy’s black brows shot toward the tousled waves falling over his forehead. “It wouldn’t be gentlemanly of me to step on your cute little toes. Please. I insist.”

  Oh, my God, was this guy even for real?

  Marley parted her lips with every intention of informing his arrogant ass exactly where she was going to plant those cute little toes of hers—along with the rest of her boot-encased foot—when Lane stepped between the two of them with a frown.

  “While I’m half-tempted to let her have at you”—he fastened the guy with a sub-arctic stare—“that’s enough. Marley”—he turned toward her, arms crossed over the front of his uniform shirt—“get in the cell. Please.”

  “What?” she gasped, her shock turning to indignation, lickety-split. “Why me?”

  Before Lane could answer, Mr. Full of Himself kicked his smirk into fifth gear. “Guess being a Cross doesn’t get you out of everything in this town after all, huh, darlin’?”

  “I’m not a Cross,” Marley snapped, her heart crashing against her ribs, and the guy’s chin went up in shock, with Lane’s and the deputy’s quickly following suit. Shit. Time to get him—and everyone else—out of her emotional dance space, once and for all.

  “My last name is Rallston,” she said with cool indifference as she strutted into the jail cell and pivoted on her heels to be sure she still had him, eye to eye and glare to glare. “And I don’t play dirty to get out of being arrested. Unlike some people.”

  He looked like he was going to pop off with a haughty (and true, damn it) comment about how she was the one who’d been tossed into the business side of the jail cell while he still stood frustratingly on the freedom side.

  But this time, it was Lane’s turn to smirk. “I wouldn’t get too excited about your situation, Whittaker.” Lane slipped the handcuffs from his utility belt, his light blond brows all the way up. “Turn.”

  “You’re serious,” the guy said slowly, his grin faded as fast as Marley’s bloomed over her face.

  “As a heart attack. As a man and a woman, I can’t put the two of you in the same cell. But I can’t let one of you walk, either, and I don’t have anywhere else for either of you to safely wait to be booked.” At this, he shot his deputy a withering stare. “So, you get the outside, while Marley here gets the inside. Now, are we gonna do this the hard way, or…”

  “Fine,” he bit out, turning to the side to allow Lane to handcuff his left wrist to the bars of the now-closed cell door. Lane made a promise to book them both as quickly as possible, then muttered a low, “in my office, Deputy Collingsworth?” before turning to stride down the hallway with the deputy in tow.

  Marley’s glee at the guy’s comeuppance receded just enough for her to replay the exchange between him and Lane with more care, and wait…

  “You’re Greyson Whittaker?” she realized out loud, and God, didn’t that just figure?

  “In the flesh,” he replied. At least his smirk made a lot more sense now. Her brothers certainly talked enough smack about him. Even Hunter, who was notoriously even-keeled, made no bones about his dislike for the guy.

  “For the record,” Greyson threw over his shoulder, his dark eyes glinting in the over-bright fluorescent lighting as he sent a gaze right into her. “All the stories you’ve heard are true.”

  Unable to help herself, Marley knotted her arms over her chest and replied, “I see. So you did lose five grand to my brother Eli in that bet last fall, huh?”

  Ah, that got him. “I paid him every penny,” Greyson ground out, although the snap of his shoulders and the muscle that had visibly tightened beneath the healthy dose of stubble on his jawline said he hadn’t been happy about the result or the reminder.

  “Hmm.” Marley made the sound to cover her shock. She hadn’t known he’d made good on the bet, although the events leading up to it had happened before she’d arrived in Millhaven. Anyway, it didn’t much matter. She wasn’t exactly sticking around to record things. The less she knew, the easier it would be to forget she’d even come here.

  They settled into silence, with Marley perching on the bench—which was surprisingly comfortable, all things considered—and Greyson shooting her a salty glance, likely at the fact that she had a place other than the floor to park her butt. But he’d earned what he’d gotten, trying to brazen his way out of trouble, and she didn’t feel the least bit sorry for him. Not even when she wondered if those handcuffs felt as cold and hard as they looked, or if his arm would fall asleep if they had to wait here for a while before Lane and Deputy Collingsworth came back to get them.

  Of course, Greyson wasn’t one to be outdone by simple logistics. Turning with care, he shifted his body around so the side of the handcuffs that Lane had attached to the bars slid down low enough for him to sit on the linoleum with his back to her. Time crawled by like a glacier carving a valley through a mountainside, the silence pressing against Marley’s eardrums and making her fidget. She’d never been arrested before, and even though she didn’t regret an ounce of what she’d done to land herself in her current predicament, she was pretty much out of her element. She didn’t know how long this would take—an hour? Two? Ten?—or how much bail for this sort of thing would cost. Would she have to tap into the payment she’d planned to make to the hospital for the month? She hadn’t technically stolen anything, so retribution would be easy, but what if the manager from the market decided to prosecute anyway, like he’d threatened? If she didn’t have bail money, she sure as hell didn’t have money for a lawyer. For pity’s sake, she couldn’t even spring for vanilla extract.

  There was no way this wasn’t going to set her back financially, which meant there was no way she’d be able to keep to the payment schedule she’d meticulously crafted to get her out of Millhaven ASAP. The thought made Marley’s stomach drop, the unease that accompanied it quickly driving her bat-shit crazy.

  Something else. Anything else. Right now.

  “So,” she said, her voice sounding terribly loud in
her own ears even though she’d painted her tone with as much boredom as she could drum up. “What’d you do to land yourself in here, anyway?”

  “What do you care?” Greyson asked back, matching her boredom and raising her some attitude.

  God, he was such an ass. But, sadly, he was the only ass around, and Marley was likely to go off the deep end if she had to sit there, lost in thoughts of the family Greyson had just pigeonholed her into or what might happen to her and her finances now that she’d been arrested for shoplifting.

  She stretched out on the bench, propping herself up on one elbow so she could still see him even though his back was still fully to her. “I’m bored. Plus, you already know what I did. It only seems fair.”

  “You’re a Cross. What do you know of fair?” Greyson snorted. But the last thing Marley was in the mood for, now or ever, was to be lumped in with the family rivalry that seemed to be alive and thriving, stronger than ever. She wasn’t a Cross, and she never would be.

  “Don’t act like you know me, because I guarantee you, you don’t. And I already told you. My last name is Rallston. I’m not a Cross.”

  For one blazing-hot second, Marley’s stare zeroed in on Greyson’s back. He wasn’t wearing his T-shirt so much as the cotton had just surrendered to his work-hardened muscles, holding fast to the cords and hard curves just enough to dare her imagination into action. His sleeve had slipped farther over his bicep, revealing more of that mouth-watering tattoo, the dark design swirling over hard, smooth skin.

  Marley didn’t want to find him attractive. He was cocky. No, obnoxious. He was arrogant and made stupid assumptions.

  And, okay, fine. He was also really. Freaking. Sexy. Coal-black lashes. Full, firm mouth. Wide hands, callused and rough, yet strong. Strong enough to hold anything…