Pierced: Pierced Trilogy Boxed Set (41 page)

“Why would someone swap out the original parts?” Sam asks.

“Might not have a choice,” I explain. “If the motor or the transmission can’t be rebuilt, then you’ve got to replace them. And you can look and look and try to find your make and model where the body’s shot but the parts are salvageable. That would be your best bet, and sometimes you get lucky but … doesn’t happen often.”

Sam is quiet for a while as she smiles at me. “Now I understand why you’re so obsessive about her,” she says softly. “And why she means so much to you.” I look over at her and smile, taking her hand again. “Why you fought so hard to be able to keep her. She must be like a last link to your dad for you.”

At her words, I feel as if she’s slapped me in the face and I let go of her hand. “No, she’s not,” I say gruffly. “It’s got nothing to do with him.” I can feel my hands tighten around the steering wheel again and I take a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm down.

“I’m … I’m sorry,” she stammers. “You just … you sounded so … nostalgic. I assumed it was because you were thinking about your dad.”

“Samantha, thinking about my old man makes me feel many things,” I tell her bitterly. “Nostalgic is not one of them.” I take another deep breath and venture a glance over at her. She’s looking at me with a deep frown on her face and I know that I have to clean this up and try to rescue the nice day I had planned for us. “Look, Sam,” I begin quietly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get upset. It’s just … my old man was nothing like yours, okay? We didn’t have the kind of warm, loving relationship that you and your brother had with your dad. We were never close. The only good thing my old man ever did for me was teach me to work on cars.”

“Oh,” she says softly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.”

“I know,” I say, letting her off the hook. “You had no idea.”

She’s quiet for a beat and then says, “Can you tell me about him?” Her voice is small and hesitant, as if she’s afraid. And I can’t blame her. Every time she asks about the old man, I meltdown on her. And right now, I can feel my heart pounding in my chest as if it’s trying to escape through my skin.

“No!” My voice is harsher than I mean for it to be. “Samantha, I don’t want to talk about him. I don’t want to tell you about him yet,” I mumble.

“Why not?” she asks quietly, and I can tell that she’s confused by my reaction.

I swallow hard and take another deep breath, trying to calm my erratic heart. “Because … once I do, you will walk away and never look back.” I can hear the fear and the dread in my own voice and my heart refuses to slow down. With both hands, I grip the steering wheel even tighter. And I can’t look over at her. I can’t.

“Why do you say that?” she asks softly, her voice disbelieving.

I hesitate for a second before I answer her question. “Because I would if I were you.” My voice is so small, it’s barely audible and my heart rate seems to accelerate even more. I can feel the sweat forming on my brow and my breathing shallows. I’m panicking. Shit! And I still can’t look at her. But then suddenly, I feel her fingers running gently through my hair at my temple, and my heart crashes into my ribcage as it trips over itself, immediately beginning to calm. I swallow nervously and take a deep, unsteady breath.

“Joshua,” she says softly as she continues to play with my hair, “I don’t understand why you feel this way. Why you believe I’ll go once I learn about your dad. That makes no sense to me. If you don’t want to talk about him, I’m not going to force you to. But I can tell you with complete and utter certainty that I have no intention of walking away from you. Not for any reason.”

Her words make me smile slightly because she’s so earnest. And I know that she thinks she means what she’s saying but, she doesn’t have all the information. Her feelings will change once she knows everything. Once she finds out what a monster I really am. Still, I can’t help but feel hopeful somehow. I shake my head and let out a soft sigh. Taking her hand from my hair, I bring it to my lips and kiss her knuckles again. Finally, I venture a quick, nervous glance her way and she is eyeing me with such sincerity. I sigh again and lightly squeeze her hand.

We’re quiet for several minutes and I’m feeling self-conscious as hell, not knowing what to say. The mood in the car has taken a huge nosedive and I have no clue how to get it back on track. I decide to go for honesty. “I’m sorry, Samantha,” I tell her quietly. “I didn’t mean to put a damper on our day.”

“You haven’t,” she says. “You’ve been honest with me about your feelings about your dad. I may not fully understand those feelings but, I appreciate the fact that you’ve shared them with me. That means a lot to me, Josh.” She looks so sweet when I glance over at her and I just want to kiss her. I squeeze her hand once more and continue to hold it as I drive. I don’t want her to feel unsure of me. I know that she wants answers from me, but I also know that not I’m ready to give them to her yet.

“Let’s talk about something else,” she announces, her voice brightening, and I can hear her smile.

“Like what?” I ask, smiling slightly.

“Um,” she murmurs, appearing to think for a moment. “Tell me about your friends.”

I frown at her. “My friends?” I repeat questioningly, and she nods. “What about them?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know … tell me about your partner. What’s his name?”

“David Conner.”

“Yeah, him,” she says. “Tell me about him. You said that he’s your closest friend?”

I nod slowly, not sure exactly what it is she wants to know. “Well, we’ve been partners for over four years. It’s a relationship that forces closeness,” I tell her. “You have to learn to rely on each other. To trust the other person to always have your back, so to speak. Basically … you have to learn to trust that person with your life, literally. So, yeah. He has become one of my closest friends.”

“Do you hang out together outside of work?” she asks.

I nod again. “Yeah, sometimes. We go to ball games and stuff,” I tell her. “We used to hang out a lot more before he got married.”

“He’s married?”

“Yeah. For a year now,” I answer.

“What about your band members?” she asks. “Do you hang out with them? How many are there, anyway?” she asks.

I chuckle at her, feeling like she’s interrogating me. “There are five of us,” I say, answering her second question first. “And we do hang out occasionally. But mostly, we just see each other at work and at rehearsals. And at the bar, of course.”

“Oh,” she mutters. “How often do you rehearse?”

“Back when we first formed, we would rehearse two … sometimes three times a week. Now, we try to get together once a week but, sometimes it ends up being every other,” I explain.

“Where do you rehearse?” she asks, continuing her investigation, and I laugh again. I look over at her and she is grinning like a loon and I can tell she’s enjoying herself. And I remember her saying once that she wanted to learn all about me. Well, I guess this is how she plans to do it.

“We rehearse at Butler’s house, in his basement,” I tell her with a smile. “And before you ask, Butler is our drummer.” She giggles and my heart skips a beat.

“Are they all detectives like you?”

“No. Simon and Butler are detectives in the Violent Crimes division with me. Drew is a patrolman on the motorcycle unit and Cody’s part of the K-9 unit. Next question?” I ask her, grinning ear to ear.

“Hmm, I’m not sure,” she says. “What else do I want to know?”

“You mean you’ve run out of questions?” I ask with mock astonishment, and she giggles even more.

“Never,” she exclaims, still laughing, her green eyes sparkling at me. “Let’s see. Hmm … Oh, I know. You said that your partner is
one of
your closest friends. Who are your other closest friends?”

I smile at her and hesitate a beat. Her question has brought up an unpleasant memory but, I push it away. I have to make more of an effort to talk about myself for her. “Parson,” say simply.

“Parson?”

“Yeah,” I say with a slow nod. “Detective Lee Parson. He’s one of the old timers at the PD. And I guess you could say he’s my best friend.”

“Old timers?” she says with a puzzled frown, and I chuckle slightly.

“Yeah, it’s what we call the older cops,” I say with a fond smile. “The generation that came before us.”

“And they’re okay with that terminology?” she snickers.

“Yes, they’re okay with it,” I chuckle. “It’s just cop lingo.”

“So, tell me about Detective Lee Parson,” she asks and I take a deep breath, trying to decide exactly how much to tell her.

“I was just a kid when I first met him,” I tell her quietly, growing nervous again. “And he was still in uniform. You remember me telling you that I got to know a lot of the Seattle officers when I was a kid,” I ask her anxiously.

“The ones who made you want to become a cop,” she answers softly, with a small nod, and I can see that she understands the magnitude of what I’m telling her.

“Yeah. Well, Lee was one of them,” I tell her quietly. And I swallow nervously as I feel her eyes on me. “For some reason he just took an interest in me. He was always, um … just really supportive back then.” I hesitate slightly, not knowing quite how to explain the beginnings of our friendship without talking about the old man. “When I hired on at the PD, he sort of … took me under his wing. Became kind of my mentor. I go to him whenever I have a problem and I need a man to talk to. Really, I guess you could say he’s been more like a father figure to me than a friend.”

She’s quiet for a moment and then I feel her lightly squeeze my hand, and I return the gesture. When I look over at her she is watching me with a warm smile and bright, shining eyes and I begin to relax again. The rest of our drive to Bellingham is peppered with laughter and light conversation. Samantha asks me about everything from my favorite color to my favorite foods and everything in between. And, in turn, I learn that her favorites are the colors green and pink, and she loves Italian food – something we have in common. Her favorite movie is the Twilight saga – all of them, which she vows to make me watch because she can’t believe I’ve never seen them. And her favorite band is The Faders, even though they were only together for a short time.

The normally 90-minute drive to Bellingham takes us just a little bit longer as I get off I-5 and take the very scenic and winding Chuckanut Drive that runs along the cliffs above Samish Bay. The detour takes us though Fairhaven, a historic suburb of Bellingham with lots of unique shops and boutiques that girls usually love. On the way back, if we have time, I plan to stop here so Sam and I can walk around a bit if she wants to.

At ten in the morning, we pull into the large parking lot that’s been designated for the car show and stop at the registration booth to see where my section is, and Sam seems fascinated by the whole process. She watches with great interest as I go about getting the Charger registered and then we pull around to the Dodge section and park her.

“What now?” she asks with those sparkling eyes of hers.

“Now the fun starts,” I smile at her. We get out and I go around to the trunk and retrieve two lawn chairs and set them up at the front of the car. “You can have a seat if you want, baby.” But I think she’s too fascinated to sit down, and she continues to watch my every move. I take a small tripod from the trunk and a board with color photographs attached to it, detailing my work on the Charger’s restoration, and set it up at the front of the car near our chairs. Then I get out a soft cloth and begin to go over the Charger, dusting her off carefully. Once I’ve gone over every inch of her, I put the cloth away in the trunk and open up the hood so that people can see inside her.

By the time I’ve finished setting up, I notice that Martin is lurking a few feet away, scanning the immediate area with hawk eyes. We make eye contact briefly and he indicates that, so far, all is well. It eases my mind having him here patrolling the car show, even though I know that the chances of this asshole actually following us out of town are slim. Not impossible, though.

“Listen, Sam,” I tell her as we sit down in the lawn chairs, “I want you to promise me that you won’t venture away from my side today. You stick right with me; do you understand?”

“Yes, of course,” she replies, her green eyes growing very serious. “I promise. Is everything all right?” she asks softly.

“Everything’s fine, baby. I just don’t want to lose you in this growing crowd,” I tell her, looking around at the rapidly filling lot. “And just so you’re aware, Martin is here.”

“Martin?” she asks, frowning at me.

“Yes. He’s been with us all morning,” I tell her, “and he’s going to stick with us until we’re back in Seattle.”

She blinks at my words. “Okay,” she says with a worried frown.

“It was just a precaution, baby,” I say as I caress her face. “I want you safe; you know that. And I figured, this way, I could relax a little bit and we could have some fun today. All right?”

She nods, smiling at me, and I lean in and kiss her gently on the lips. “Josh,” she says softly, looking at me with her magical eyes. “I’m having a really good time.”

I smile at her, laughing slightly. “We just got here,” I tell her.

“I know,” she says quietly. “But it’s been a perfect date so far.”

I shake my head at her. She is so fucking adorable and I can’t help myself. I kiss her again, more purposefully this time, and for a moment, it’s just the two of us as we get lost in the kiss, savoring one another. But our private moment doesn’t last long, as we hear someone clearing their throat very near by. I look up and there’s a gentleman with two teenage boys standing by the Charger. The boys are looking at the engine while Dad is looking right at me.

“Don’t go away,” I wink at Sam, and stand to talk to the man about the car.

“She’s a beauty,” he says, eyeing the Charger.

“Thank you,” I nod.

“Did you really do all the work yourself like it says on the board?” he asks me.

“Yes, sir, I did. Everything but the paint,” I respond.

“What do you want for her?” he asks, looking over the car, and I frown at his words.