Friendly Fire by Lorhainne Eckhart Read Free Book Online

they were to how kind, helpful, and terrific…blah, blah, blah. It was everything a parent wanted to hear, the smooth bastard.
    The final straw had come when Logan went to leave, carrying out the old espresso machine, telling Julia he’d take care of getting rid of it. She had thanked him, and he, of course, had nodded as she hurried back to the redheaded teacher; their voices light and chatty, her laughter pulling at his gut and setting his teeth on edge. He wanted that part of her for himself, not shared with another man—especially not the one sipping coffee with her now.
    As Logan strode into the station, moody and distracted, Rose followed on his heels. He set his coat on the hook in his office and then stood in the doorway, glancing out at the empty room. No Clinton, and Jordy had yet to make an appearance. Well, Logan damn sure intended to take care of that right now.
    “Rose, call up Jordy. Tell him to get his butt in here. And where’s Clinton?” he snapped as Rose set his messages on his desk. She looked up at him with an expression that told him she wasn’t buying his attitude, and he took a deep breath. “Sorry,” he added.
    “Jordy was here,” she said. “He left as soon as he saw you pull in.” She angled her head like a practiced mother.
    Logan grabbed the messages before glancing up at Rose. “He avoiding me or something?” he asked. He had four brothers, and they had pulled every antic possible, including the silent treatment. Coming from the toughest training ground in the marines, he knew when someone was avoiding him. This felt more deliberate; as if Jordy was intentionally screwing with him—and Logan Wilde was not a man to be screwed with. He set the messages down and leaned on the desk, both hands flat as he carefully gathered his thoughts.
    “Looks like it, doesn’t it?” Rose replied. “So what are you going to do about it, Sheriff?” she asked. Then she just waited, not nervously but as if she had already seen everything in life and could easily deal with whatever reply he gave her. He liked her. She was probably the glue that held this station together.
    “Well, let’s just see how things play out when Jordy finally shows himself,” Logan said.
    Rose started out the door. “Okay, Sheriff. I’ll call him now, and Clinton won’t be in until after lunch. Baby checkup,” she said. She paused, maybe from the puzzled look on his face. “He has a new baby girl, Sheriff, four months old, cute as a button. Annie is her name,” she said as if reminding him.
    “Oh, yeah, right,” he said, remembering how Clinton had practically shoved that photo in his face. To him, all babies looked the same, but Clinton…well, he loved his wife and daughter, and Logan couldn’t fault him for that. “He’ll be in when?”
    “Right after the checkup, Sheriff,” Rose replied, as if the question was ridiculous.
    Logan obviously didn’t understand the protocol for a man taking his wife and baby for a checkup, but it wasn’t as if crime was booming. He sifted through the messages: the mayor, the fire chief—and Mick Rhodes, a plumber. “Why is a plumber calling me?” Logan asked.
    “To fix the leak in the hot water tank. We have no hot water, remember?”
    Frankly, he didn’t remember; and he was trying to figure out how a sheriff’s duties included fixing pipes and overseeing maintenance. He handed the message to Rose. “You’re now in charge of all maintenance,” he said. “Oh, and one more thing: What do you know about the math teacher, Brent Maloney?”
    He hadn’t needed to write the man’s name down after Julia introduced them—he had burned every detail about the man into his brain, sizing him up. Was his dislike for Maloney just based on the fact that the man had set his sights on the one woman Logan possibly had feelings for? Julia did something to him that no other woman ever had; and the interest from Brent Maloney was putting Logan in a piss-poor mood.
    Rose was