Wild Kisses (Wildwood 2)

“Shut up. Where’s Dad?”

“Asleep in one of the cells.”

Trace fisted the collar of Zane’s uniform shirt and yanked him back. Zane immediately swiveled and knocked Trace’s hand away with a what-the-fuck? look. At Trace’s height and weight with a hell of a lot more fight training behind him, Zane was no longer the kid Trace could dominate.

“You put him in a cell?”

“I didn’t lock him in a cell. It’s the only place he could lie down.” Zane took a breath, still scowling. “Don’t fuckin’ grab a cop like that, idiot.”

“You’re not a cop. You’re my little brother.”

“Who’s a cop?”

They continued around the corner to where the office opened to a large area filled with desks pushed together in pairs. Two other deputies sat across the room with their feet up, chatting, Austin Hayes being one of them. Perfect. This night just kept spiraling. “When you’ve been a cop longer than you’ve been my little brother,” Trace told Zane, ignoring Austin rising to his feet, “you can put ‘cop’ first.” Then he headed toward the cages in the back of the station.

“You’re welcome for taking care of him while you finished up work,” Zane called after him.

“You’re welcome for taking care of him for the last five years while you built a career,” Trace shot back.

“What are you going to do about the doors? We’re lucky Mrs. Coolidge was home when he wandered out.”

“I’m installing special locks and a video monitoring system tonight, because, yeah, I’ve got so much extra time and energy after working for the last sixteen goddamned hours.”

As soon as Trace stepped into the row of cells, the familiar chill, the familiar smell, the familiar echoes closed around him and formed a rock in his gut. The sound of his brother’s boots on the cement behind him made all his muscles tighten up and his teeth clench.

Trace found his dad asleep in the second cell on the left. He stepped halfway in, his skin jumping with nerves, his mind sparking with flashbacks. “Hey, Dad, wake up. Let’s head home, get you into a bed.”

Not a bed much better than this cot, but better than any kind of bed inside a cell. Trace had rented a house a little over a mile away from the construction site for himself and his dad for the short term. It had come furnished, but in truth the place was a dump, which was all Trace could afford even with Zane and their grandmother Pearl chipping in to care for George during Trace’s work hours. But because of Zane’s hours and Pearl’s age, Trace still ended up responsible for his dad 80 percent of the time.

“Dad,” Trace said again.

George didn’t move. His eyelids didn’t flutter.

Trace sighed, edged deeper into the cell, and tugged on his dad’s sleeve. “Wake up, Dad. Let’s get home.”

His father slowly rolled to his back and focused on Trace. “Where’s your uniform? Are you off duty?”

“It’s me, Dad. Trace. Zane’s right there.” He gestured toward his brother. “It’s time to go home.”

George pushed up to a sitting position slowly, painfully. By the scowl on his father’s face, Trace knew he was in for a struggle. “Where the hell am I?”

“At Zane’s station.”

Trace relented to reality and sat on the edge of the bunk. His father’s dementia had taught Trace a lot of things, but the one he used most often was patience. George’s mood varied from day to day. Situation to situation. Hour to hour. Sometimes moment to moment. Nothing moved quickly or easily in George’s world.

“Zane,” one of the guys called from the office. “Phone call.”

Zane left to take the call, and the sight of him walking away while Trace was still inside a cell rocketed ice through the middle of his chest. Anxiety crawled along his skin.

“Come on, Dad—we’ve really gotta go.”

His father rubbed his hands over the top of his mostly bald head and turned his scowl on Trace. “You in jail again, boy?”

A rich laugh sounded at the doorway to the office and scraped its way down Trace’s spine. Austin. Trace should have known the asshole couldn’t resist an opportunity to dig.

“Your daddy’s got your number,” Austin said, his boots making a slow clomp, clomp, clomp down the aisle. “He knows where you belong. And we all know there’s no such thing as a reformed drug addict. Once a druggie, always a druggie.”

Trace’s jaw clenched. The fight reflex that had been seeded in prison flared, but the control he’d developed since he’d been released prevailed. He stood and shook his father’s arm. “It’s late, Dad. Come on.”