All Kinds of Tied Down (Marshals 1)

Normally doctors didn’t cast broken bones until a few days later due to swelling. But because I had no intention of riding my desk until it mended, and because it was a clean break, the ER doctor had made an exception. He said that if the cast got too loose, I might have to return and have another put on. I didn’t care; the important thing was that I could follow Ian back out into the field.

“Yeah,” I whined, scrutinizing the plaster cast on my wrist and then, more importantly, my now scuffed-up John Varvatos cap-toe boots. Pellegrino had taken one look at me standing in the doorway when he came up from the basement, and bolted. We had been responding to an anonymous tip and found him at his cousin’s house in La Grange. To keep him from making it out the back door, I dived at him. We ended up rolling over concrete before Ian had come flying around the side of the house and landed all over the guy. “They were new last week.”

“And they were gonna be trashed by now anyway,” Ian commented. “No way around it in the snow.”

I glanced up at him. “This is why I wanted to move to Miami with Brent. Snow would be a distant memory.”

He snorted out a laugh. “That guy was so not worth moving for.”

I arched an eyebrow.

“And besides,” he said gruffly, “you weren’t gonna leave me anyway.”

“I would ditch you in a second, buddy. Don’t kid yourself.”

He scoffed. “Yeah, right.”

Apparently he knew better than to believe such an outright lie.

“You guys want me to leave you alone?” Pellegrino said snidely.

Ian threw him up against the car, and Pellegrino screamed because he landed on his chest, the same place that had recently been in contact with exposed brick.

“Shut up.”

“This is police brutality.”

“Lucky we’re not the police,” Ian reminded him, smacking him on the back of the head before his light blue gaze landed on me. “And why do you wear your good stuff to work? I’ve never understood that.”

“Because,” I answered, gesturing at him, “Dockers and a button-down and an ugly tie is not what I wanna be seen in every day.”

“Well, that’s great, but you ruin a ton of shit and then bitch about it.”

“Hiking boots do not scream fashion.”

“Yeah, but your John-whatever boots are fucked up already, and mine are still good.”

“They look like shit,” I assured him.

“But still functional,” he teased, and the rakish curl of his lip did flip-floppy things to my stomach.

It was bad. So very, very bad. Ian Doyle was my totally straight best friend and partner. I had no right to even be noticing how the half trench coat molded to his shoulders; the roping veins in his forearms; or the way he touched me when he talked to me, sat beside me, or got anywhere in my general vicinity. How he was always in my personal space, as though I had none, was not something he was even aware of, so truthfully, it wasn’t right for me to notice. But trying to pretend I didn’t was eating me up alive. It was the real reason I should have asked for a change of partner, because I dreamed of being in bed with my current one.

“No snarky comeback?”

I coughed. “No.”

He squinted. “How come?”

“You have a point, I guess. I shouldn’t wear shoes to work that’ll get ruined.”

“I can get you a new pair,” the Cleaver offered quickly before Ian could form a reply. “Please.”

Ian smacked him on the back of the head again, opened the car door, pushed my seat forward, and shoved Pellegrino in.

“You’re such an asshole, Doyle!” Pellegrino yelled before Ian slammed the door shut.

“Don’t bruise him,” I cautioned like I always did.

“Why the fuck not?”

I groaned.

“And for the record,” Ian huffed, rounding on me. “You do not go into buildings alone. What did we say about that after Felix Ledesma?”

I mumbled something because my iPhone had buzzed with a text and I was reading.

“Miro!”

“I hear you.”

“Look at me.”

My head snapped up. “Yeah, fine, okay, shut up.”

“No, not fine. Not okay. Every fuckin’ time you take off your shirt and I see the scar right above your heart, I—”

“I know,” I soothed, leaning close to bump his shoulder with mine.

He growled.

“Oh,” I said, noticing the time. “You need to dump me and the Cleaver off so you can make your date with Emma.”

The way his whole face tightened was not a good sign, but far be it from me to tell him that his girlfriend, though wonderful, was not for him. It would have been so much easier if she was toxic and I hated her. The truth was, she was sort of perfect. Just not for him.

“What’re you gonna do?”

“When?” I was confused. “I’ll process our prisoner so you can be on time for once.”