Behind the Badge (Home in Carson 2)

The light remained red, but Preston pressed the accelerator to the floor, gunning the vehicle across the intersection. He noted how the two vehicles darted forward a second later, colliding with each other.

“What the hell was that?” Preston asked, but he knew that Dylan had no answer. Someone had been spying on them, which explained why there were no conversions at the warehouse. He wondered where Damon Durcett fit into it all.

At the headquarters, they explained the information they gathered during the week and tacked on their suspicion of a mole in the case. The SAC and the assistant SAC agreed to look into the contacts on the case as well as gather more data on Damon Durcett.

After the debriefing, Dylan was ecstatic to be heading home, whereas Preston was filled with worry. He wasn’t sure how Shelly would react to seeing him, but he had to try and make things right with her.

It was early morning by the time he arrived in Carson, weary and worn out. The drive from Atlanta seemed longer than before and he wanted nothing more than to fall face-first into his bed. But he needed to stop by the veterinarian’s office where Ace was being boarded first. He would have asked Shelly and Abel to watch the pup for him, but with the way things had ended, he assumed that requesting their assistance wasn’t the way to go.

Of course, it was still dark outside when he crossed the main area of downtown and he decided to head back home to catch some sleep then grab Ace in the afternoon.

Continuing his journey, he drove the back roads by memory as Preston fought a losing battle against exhaustion. His brain began shutting off as he pulled his truck in front of the garage, knowing that sleep would soon be near. But from the corner of his eye, he saw a figure dart around the side of his house. That was all it took before he woke fully alert.

Alarms were ringing in his head as he grabbed his gun from the glove box and inserted a new magazine. Preston exited the truck, leaving the door wide open as he scooted around the opposite side of the house, hoping to sneak up on whoever was on his property.

A figure came into view, black material pooling around the body, appearing like a shadowy ghost in the early morning light.

“Stop where you are or I’ll shoot,” he commanded in his most authoritative voice.

“Preston!” the dark ethereal voice cried out and Preston didn’t know if he should be thrilled or enraged that she had been the one sneaking around his house.

Pleading with him, Shelly said as she approached slowly, “I promise I can explain.”

***

She wasn’t actually sure how to explain why she was gallivanting around his house in nothing more than her black silk robe that skimmed the bottom of her calves. All Shelly could hope for was that he would at least listen to her.

“Alright,” he replied, lowering his gun and flicking on the safety. He then looked at her with a sense of longing, or that was what she felt when she looked at him, and she could only imagine her expression looked similar to his.

“So, I was having trouble sleeping and I got up to get a glass of milk. When I looked out the front window, I saw headlights coming down the driveway. At first, I didn’t think anything of it, assuming it was you coming home. But as it got closer, I noticed that the lights were much smaller than your truck’s lights, and the vehicle was much closer to the ground. Like I just knew that it wasn’t you.

“So, I snuck through the path to see what was going on. That’s when I noticed someone come from around the other side of the house and get into the car's passenger seat. As they pulled away, I ran down the yard to see if I could catch a glimpse of them when they turned the bend in the path, but I tripped on a root and twisted my ankle a bit.”

He tore his gaze away from hers as he looked down at her dirt-covered bare feet. “Are you okay? I can take a look at it.”

“It's fine. Really. Anyway, something didn’t seem right, so after a few minutes, I put my weight on my foot and checked the house's parameter. Then you showed up.”

“So, you saw someone trespassing and possibly someone breaking into my house?” he asked skeptically.

“Yes?” she replied, the entire scene sounding strange even to her own ears now as she heard herself repeat it to Preston.

Tucking his gun into the waistband of his pants, Preston looke

d at her, his eyes trailing up her body from head to toe. “And you thought you should track them down wearing nothing more than a silk robe, putting yourself in danger.”

“Well, I mean. . .” she stuttered, her brain not triggering the right words to explain what she had been thinking. Sure, it was dangerous, but she hadn’t really considered any of the ramifications had the trespassers caught her.

By surprise, Preston cupped both sides of her jaw and leaned forward, kissing her with all of the pent-up frustration that she felt.

She had missed him incredibly and hated that her reaction to his job was the reason he had left on bad terms. The entire week she thought about how she would feel if something had happened to him. Would she be able to live with herself knowing the way she had spoken to him? It didn’t take a rocket scientist to tell her that she had fallen head over heels in love with the protective man that she knew far too little about. Her heart didn’t seem to care, though.

And as she opened her mouth to him, he slipped his hands inside her robe and rubbed the delicate skin of her back beneath her sleep shirt. Shelly knew it wouldn’t take much for this kiss to turn wild and ferocious within seconds, so it took all of her willpower to step away from him, her body aching for his touch as his hands dropped to his sides.

“Sorry, Abel is still sleeping in his room.”

“I missed you, Shelly. I want to apologize for the way things ended our last time together.”

“That was all my doing, Preston. You have nothing to be sorry for. I need to learn that not every man I meet is untrustworthy. And I missed you too.”