Charming Hannah (Big Sky 1)

“Should I be?”

“I’m a mess, Brad. I worry about things that aren’t happening.”

“You’re not a mess. You have anxiety.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes it feels like they’re one and the same. So if you want to take me home and forget all about this, I’d understand.”

“I’m a cop,” he says and massages my calf. “I work all the time. I see shit that no one should ever see, even in a small town. I’ve been known to have an occasional night terror. I’m not prince charming, Hannah. We all have shit that we’re dealing with.”

“Yeah. We do.” I reach out and take his hand in mine, squeezing it hard. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m okay,” he says. “It could be a lot worse.”

“Do you have night terrors all the time?”

“No, but often enough. You should know that if we move forward because I don’t want to scare the piss out of you. I’ll never hurt you. But I might yell. Get restless.”

“What helps?”

He stops and looks at me as if he’s confused.

“What helps calm you down?”

“I don’t know.”

I nod, understanding completely. Until this afternoon, I didn’t know either.

“So, the same goes,” he continues. “If you’d like to go, I get it.”

“I can’t walk very far,” I reply. But I let the ice fall to the floor and scoot into his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck. “I’m not going.”

“Thank Christ.”

Chapter Five

~Brad~

IT’S THE END OF the work day and I’m ready to head out. I have a date with Hannah that I’ve been looking forward to all day, but just as I’m about to reach for my keys, I get a call on the work cell.

I send it to voice mail.

And then twenty seconds later, I get a call on my personal cell.

“Hell,” I mutter and answer.

“I know you’re done for the day, Chief, but I think you’re going to want to know about this,” Officer Thomas, a long time friend and cop says.

“What’s up?”

“I need you to come down to the city beach.”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

I hang up and hurry out to the truck, calling Hannah on my way.

“Hey there,” she says with a smile in her voice.

“I might be a little late,” I say. “I’m sorry, I just got a call.”

“If anyone understands, it’s me. Just keep me posted. Do you want me to go look in on Sadie?”

I grin, wondering how in the hell I got lucky enough to find this sweet woman. “She’ll be okay. She was with me until lunch time.”

“Sounds good. Be safe.”

She hangs up just as I’m getting close to the city beach, or the swimming area at the head of our lake where people can swim and launch their boats.

There’s an ambulance, two squad cars, a fire truck, and a crowd gathered around one of the boat launch docks.

“What’s going on?” I ask Thomas as I approach. “And why are these people standing around?”

“We haven’t had time to shoo them off,” he says with a grim frown. “It’s bad, Chief.” He leads me to the ambulance, which is angled away from the onlookers. Sam Waters, the head EMT with the department is standing inside next to a gurney with a body covered with a sheet.

“Chief,” Sam says. “We worked on him for thirty minutes, but there was nothing we could do.”

“Why aren’t you on the way to the hospital?”

“He won’t be going to the hospital,” Sam says. “You didn’t hear the call?”

“No, I turned the scanner down while I finished some paperwork. Who is this?”

Sam and Thomas share a look.

“Who the fuck is it?”

“Kendall Reardon,” Sam says and rubs his fingers over his mouth. “Kyle’s oldest.”

“Fuck,” I mutter and dig my thumb and forefinger into my eyes. “How?”

“From what we can tell, he dove into the water from a boat and was electrocuted.”

“What?” My head whips up.

“There was an underground electric box that surfaced, and it killed him.”

“No more swimming.” I yell over at the other officers who are managing crowd control. “Teller! No more swimming or boating until we get this figured out. Get all of the boats off this lake, and I want a team patrolling to make sure no one is swimming. Have the owner of the boat take you to where this happened, and call the damn electric company to get this taken care of.”

“Yes, Chief,” Dan Teller says and moves into action. I get on the radio and call in all of the men I have that are currently off duty. I need all hands on deck for this.

“I didn’t think you’d want just anyone to talk to Kyle,” Thomas says. “I know you guys go way back.”

“You’re right.” I nod and make another call for my chaplain. “Get Kendall to the morgue, and make sure no one sets foot in that water.”

“Yes, sir,” both Sam and Thomas reply at the same time. I run to my truck and take a call from the chaplain on duty.