Lord Have Mercy (Southern Gentleman 2)

He growled something low in his throat.

“I can do needy,” he teased.Chapter 22Twinkle Twinkly little bitch, mind your own business you nosey snitch.

-Coffee Cup

Flint

As I stepped out onto the front porch and looked at my truck, I felt a freedom that I hadn’t felt in quite a long time.

The chair that had been a constant pain in my backside—literally and figuratively—was now gone. Kind of.

Actually, the damn thing was sitting in the back of my truck, Camryn having put it there last night just in case I needed it.

The van that I’d rolled up to the school in was now gone also, and I had my truck back. Freedom.

Not that I didn’t love having Camryn there every time I wanted to go somewhere, always there to lend a hand or just listen to me bitch. But it was seriously nice to have the freedom to get up and leave if I wanted to.

Even if when I walked, it felt like I was doing so on baby deer legs.

I was going to work. I was going to do what I wanted.

I was free.

Smiling a little, I made my way down the porch steps, my cup of to-go coffee Camryn made me in one hand, and my uniform in the other.

I wobbled slightly on the last step, cursing when a splash of coffee hit the skin of my hand.

Dooley was at my side, looking back at me in concern.

Then, just as suddenly, he wasn’t.

He went from being docile and happy from having been fed a piece of buttered toast by Camryn on the way out the door, to snapping and snarling at something next to my truck.

A high-pitched man’s scream followed moments later, and I hurried as fast as my legs would take me to the side of the truck.

“Stop!” a wailing man’s voice screeched. “Stop!”

A metal bar hit the ground, and vaguely I heard the front door being yanked open.

I knew that Camryn was at the door watching, worried and concerned that I was taking too many steps too soon.

But now she had reason for concern.

Now there was a man beside my truck with my K-9 pinning him to the freezing concrete, and a metal bar that was now next to my feet that I could only assume was meant for me.

“Camryn, call 9-1-1!” I shouted.

I heard her running footsteps, but not the closing of the door, causing me to curse and move until my body was situated between the open door and the man.

The man who was still on the ground with Dooley growling on top of him.

I growled low in my throat as I thought about my morning being fucked up—again.

Luckily, this time it wasn’t going to end up with me spending months in the hospital and recuperating.

Thank God.

I stepped around Dooley and hit the flashlight app on my phone, blinking owlishly when I realized that the man Dooley had pinned was none other than Carver Brown.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Carver?” I barked.

Obviously, nothing good.

If he’d had good intentions, he sure the fuck wouldn’t have been hiding in the darkened shadows of my truck with a metal bar in his hand. He also wouldn’t have waited until I was nearly on top of him to announce himself.

Thank God I had Dooley with me.

If he hadn’t been there…

I shuddered to think what would have happened.

“Cops are called!” I heard Camryn call from the porch steps.

She didn’t come down, and I was thankful.

Carver may be pinned to the ground, but I didn’t want to take the chance that he was actually more dangerous than he let on.

The sirens in the distance had me backing away, not wanting to be confused for the intruder that meant to hurt me.

And by the time Schultz showed up, looking hacked off and tired at the end of his shift, I couldn’t help but grin.

“What’s up, buddy?” I asked casually.

He looked from me to the perp on the ground, to Dooley and then to Camryn and back.

“Why is it that you always seem to get into trouble?” he goaded.

And that was when it clicked.

***

“Ask him where his Suburban went,” I said softly.

Schultz looked at me in surprise.

“What? Why?” he asked.

“Just do it,” I ordered.

Schultz shrugged then walked into the interrogation room.

Carver Brown, after being deemed healthy by a paramedic, was taken straight to an interrogation room the moment he walked into the police station.

I’d followed behind with Camryn at my heels, calling my sister and her not-boyfriend Croft with orders to open the gym.

After hearing that I was almost brained with a lead pipe—that came with us as evidence—she was more than understanding.

“Do you think he’s what woke me?” Camryn asked. “It was only about thirty minutes before.”

“Possibly,” I said. “But we won’t know until Schultz begins to question him.”

“He’ll lawyer up,” she muttered. “He’s too bitchy not to.”