Moving_Violations by Christina M. Brashear Read Free Book Online Page B

smirked at her! Oh, it was on now. She followed on his heels into his office and closed the door behind her. The room was small and plain. A few certificates hung on the white walls. A table with a Mr. Coffee sat beside a disheveled bookshelf. Two ugly gray-green file cabinets stood behind a wide wooden desk. A computer monitor sat among the many files, scraps of paper and post-it notes that littered the desktop, along with a fat coffee mug that said: Sheriffs do it with handcuffs. Rebecca resisted the urge to sneer.
    “Jackson, this is obviously not a comfortable situation. If we’d known beforehand, last night would have…gone quite differently. But it can’t be undone so let’s just be adults about this and put it behind us, move forward, pretend it never happened.”
    Easily said, she thought. Her body was heating up just being in the same room with him.
    Jackson had walked around his desk and sat in his chair. He gestured to the chair across from him and she sat down. Leaning back, he propped his booted feet on his desk and folded his hands over his stomach. He pursed his lips as if to consider her suggestion then slowly shook his head. “Nah, ain’t gonna happen. See, Becca, I saw the flash of heat in those sexy eyes of yours the moment you walked through the door. You can pretend all you want, darlin’, but fact is…” He sighed. “You’re hot for me. You always have been, you can’t help yourself.”
    “Re-becca, not Becca,” she hissed through her teeth. “I’ll do my best to control myself.” Now it was her turn to smirk.
    “Yeah, but you won’t succeed. We both know that, don’t we?”
    “Look, will you cut the snide remarks!” His smile looked more like a sneer and he nodded, at least it looked like a nod.
    “Sheriff.” She paused for emphasis and met his gaze. “I assure you, I have an excellent record and I play it by the book. You don’t have to worry about me doing my job.”
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    Lora Leigh and Veronica Chadwick
    “I don’t need you. I have all the officers I need. We don’t have a whole lot of trouble here in Jericho.” His gaze lowered to her breasts. She felt them stiffen involuntarily and had to struggle not to cross her arms. “No, I’m sure you’re very, very good…at your job, Officer Ree-Becca.”
    His double meaning didn’t go unnoticed. She wanted to slap that smug look from his gorgeous face. Damn him. She gritted her teeth. “Then call the mayor and get me reassigned…again.”
    “Can’t.” Disgust weighed heavily in his voice.
    “Why not?” Rebecca fought to control the near desperation sliding through her system. This was bad. Real bad.
    “Already tried. Mayor wants you here real bad for some reason.” His eyes narrowed as he watched her. Suspicion flared in those murky depths.
    “That doesn’t make sense, why would he care?” She scowled at him.
    He shrugged. “Says, it’ll be good for the community to have a girl cop runnin’
    around.”
    She felt the heat of anger crawl up her neck. “I am not a ‘girl cop’. I am a police officer and I take that very seriously, Sheriff Montgomery.”
    He studied her as he chewed on his pen. “Things are different here in the South, Officer Sugar, especially in the country. Maybe you forgot that, living in the big city for so long. You see, sometimes we have to go more on instinct than by the book. There’s a time to be serious, Becca, and there’s a time to…relax.” He sat up, dropped the pen on the desk and leaned forward, meeting her gaze. “The people of Jericho haven’t changed much. They’re essentially good, hard working, people. Farming community, mostly. We have very little call for police enforcement and I already have enough men. I don’t need some hardnosed gal comin’ around here hollerin’, ‘I am woman, hear me roar.’”
    Clenching her teeth, Rebecca fought the urge to roll her eyes. “Sheriff, I have no agenda and believe it or not, I’m not a women’s libber. I’m a cop.