“What about the dark-haired beauty living behind your house?”
“Just that. She is renting the property behind my house.”
“I don’t know. I heard the two of you looked awfully cozy at Angie’s last week.” Had it only been a week ago that he had joined Shelly and Abel for lunch? Preston recalled how he had ravaged her mouth only right before they had dined together. He knew their chemistry was electric, but other people noticed too?
“When did you become one of the town gossipers?”
“Hey, just relaying what I heard. You know people talk. So, what’s the deal.”
“I don’t know, man. I like her. She’s funny and nice, and a great mom, and fucking amazing in bed.”
“Oh, so you…?” Dylan interrupted.
“She was waiting for me to get home. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is she overheard me take the call from the boss and thought she should get a say in what I do related to my job.”
“Well, she should.”
“But, dude, we’re not serious. At least she made it seem like it was a one-time thing and I don’t do relationships. You know this.”
“What if being with you made her change her mind. Did she seem like she wanted to leave or did she hang around?”
“She hung around. Of course, we couldn’t seem to keep our hands off each other. Fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever had so much sex in one night.”
“Well, it seems like maybe she was second-guessing the one-time rule and was hoping for more. Unless you go home and apologize to her, I guess you’ll never know.”
Preston sat and considered what his friend was saying. He had a hard enough time reading a woman’s signals when they were merely flirting, but trying to read their lust versus love queues was even more daunting. Thinking back to the way she lingered at his house, patiently waiting for him to take his phone call when she clearly could have used that cue to leave. Even after she stormed out of his house, she had continued to stay in the cabin. He knew moving wasn’t the most straightforward task, but he knew Cassidy’s place was available to Shelly.
“Fuck,” he shouted, slamming his fist against the steering wheel.
“Just realize that you both have feelings for each other?”
“Dude, we barely even know each other. Like I only know what I do because of her exes case. She knows next to nothing about me.”
“First, love doesn’t care how long you’ve known someone. It happens when it happens. Second, I think it’s long past time you tell her about how your paths have crossed in the past.”
“She’ll hate me.”
“You really think so? I would think she would be glad to know that you’re the one that saved her. But, I don’t know women that well, so who knows.”
Leaning his head back against the headrest, Preston closed his eyes and imagined a scenario where he told Shelly that he was in love with her and he had been the one to arrest her and her boyfriend eight years ago, and she still loved him afterward. That situation would only exist in his dreams.
He took a few minutes to run through a bunch of different ways he could tell her, but every scenario ended poorly. He was doomed. Thank goodness he hadn’t told his mother about her yet.
“Nothing concrete on the image, but it did flag a few profiles, one of which was for a Damon Durcett who was pulled over for a non-identifiable license plate in Carson, North Carolina.”
“Hm. . .keep that information handy and submit. I knew something about him seemed fishy, though he did carry a Georgia driver’s license.”
“Sun is setting. I think this is everything that we’re going to get. Let’s head back to the headquarters.”
“Agreed. I’m ready to get home.”
“I just bet that you are,” Dylan added snidely.
Preston pulled out into traffic and began the tedious trek of heading toward downtown Atlanta. He stopped at the red stoplight, noticing a car pull in behind them and one stopped to his left.
“Behind and left,” Preston said, grateful for the dark tinted windows of the sedan so that the people in the other cars couldn’t make them out.
Dylan looked up from the computer and checked the two vehicles before nodding at Preston.