Hot as Heller (Aster Valley 3)

This was going to be good.

19

Declan

My back teeth were going to break off from the clenching.

As soon as we were alone in the car, Finn opened his mouth to speak. I could tell he was going to make an inappropriate comment, so I cut him off before he could say anything. “Cameras,” I growled, reminding him we were being recorded for posterity.

I spent the drive back to town lecturing myself about being exactly where I’d known this would go all along.

Compromising my ethics on behalf of an actor, for god’s sake. Just like all of my fellow officers in LA who’d gone down in the corruption scandal. And I’d been oh-so smug. As if I had the moral high ground.

Declan Stone would never cross that line for a celebrity.

Ha. The irony. Here I was making up bullshit just to get the man out of his job because I was worried about him.

Batshit terrified is more like it.

I bit back a sigh. I was a fucking idiot, but it was my own fault. I’d let this happen.

“You know I didn’t steal some old lady’s Buick, right?” Finn said softly from the passenger seat. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to put him in the back of the vehicle like an actual suspect.

“I’m not talking about it,” I ground out.

“Just tell me where you found false witnesses. At the diner? That’s pretty rich.”

I gripped the steering wheel tighter to keep from throttling him. “They aren’t false witnesses.” Even if they had been easily misled by the stupidly simple “disguise” of a Hot as Heller ball cap. A souvenir that was currently being sold at a hundred different locations in town, including the gas station next to the sheriff’s department.

“Why would I even do something like that? Jesus.”

“Celebrities get bored. They do stupid shit.”

He turned to stare at me. “Ahh, there’s that asshole chip on your shoulder. I almost missed it for a minute. Almost.”

“Am I saying something that’s not true?”

“Mpfh,” he said before slumping down in his seat and crossing his arms. He looked tired. And dirty. Like he’d been on the mountain all day working hard.

I reached into the center console and pulled out a cold water bottle before passing it to him without a word.

“Thanks,” he murmured. He cracked it open and took several large swallows. I almost wrecked the fucking vehicle watching his slender throat work.

“Are there beds in the jail? I could go for a catnap.”

I loved that he wasn’t scared. I selfishly hoped it meant he trusted me. He shouldn’t have. But if he did, that was nice.

“Yes. It doesn’t have a kitchen, though, so we’ll have to pick you up some dinner on the way through town.”

Finn’s lips curved up in an absent smile as he watched the warm colors of the sunset paint the town outside the passenger window. “Does the Greek place have a drive-thru? I could go for some hummus.”

I bit back my own smile. He was a damned delight, and I was a goner. This man had me wrapped around his little finger.

“I didn’t want you on the mountain after dark,” I admitted gruffly.

“I know.” He turned and gave me an affectionate grin. “And I kind of want to smother you in ki…” He glanced at one of the cameras in the dash. “My gratitude right now.”

I cleared my throat. “That would be… inappropriate. But, ah… nice.”

There’d most likely never be a reason for anyone to view the dash cam footage, but I still didn’t want an official record of my goofy infatuation with Finn Heller. Later, when he was long gone, I would want to keep the memories to myself, held tightly in the deepest part of my heart where I already knew they would live on forever.

I swung into the Greek place and told him to wait in the car while I grabbed us some food. After placing a quick call to the overnight dispatcher to get her order, I went inside and waited for the food.

What the hell was I going to do with Finn when I got him to the office? It wasn’t like he was a serious suspect for the Brainthwaite joyriding case. I was going to have to make it clear to him he was free to go. Would he feel obligated to return to the set and let them put him on that rock face?

Nerves twisted my stomach as I waited for our orders to be ready, but then damned if that cocky bastard didn’t make the decision easy for me.

“Sheriff?” Castor said from behind the restaurant counter. He pointed past my shoulder to the scene outside the restaurant. There, framed by the large plate glass window of Kozani’s was a scene I wouldn’t have believed if I wasn’t watching it with my own eyes. That blond-haired shitty sidekick of Finn’s had pulled open the passenger door to my vehicle and was screaming in Finn’s face about something I couldn’t hear.