Rocky Ride (Thompson & Sons) (16 page)

“Nothing unusual.” Anna wasn’t about to tell him she was planning to hold a private party with Mitch to celebrate that pile of shredded paper in the staff sergeant’s garbage bin. “You? Talk to anyone interesting out there today?”

“Pulled Mitch Thompson over. Well, a whole gang of riders, including Mitch.”

Hearing his name mentioned so soon after thinking about him made her smile, but she focused on staying nonspecific until they were officially back together. “So the bikers are out again, are they? With the great weather, I figured they’d be on the road soon.”

“That guy, I swear.” Nick shook his head. “One minute I think there’s a rational person under all that ink, and the next he proves he’s nothing more than brawn and attitude.”

Anna held her tongue.

“He’s obviously not stupid—he does listen to reason occasionally, but you should have heard the garbage he spilled at me today. Should have known one moment of sanity doesn’t make a man sane.”

Something about Nick’s comments didn’t sit right, especially not when mixed with the staff sergeant’s information. Anna turned slowly, trying to make sense of her forebodings. “Nick, when else have you talked to Mitch? Other than while pulling him over?”

He stiffened, eyes widening, and an awkward pause went on and on until she interrupted it. She might be leaping to conclusions, but something in her gut told her she was right. Mitch mentioning promotions. Nick being the one up for one.

“Did you say something to Mitch about me?” She felt her anger stirring. While she and Mitch had discussed the best way to deal with her reprimand, this sounded as if something else had gone down without her knowledge.

Nick walked around her and closed the door to their office. “I didn’t…exactly. I might have encouraged him to think of your future with the department and—”

Oh my God, her guess was correct. “So you butted into my life? You had no right.”

“You were making us look bad,” Nick snapped, colour flushing his cheeks. “Maybe you want to stay at your current level of near-incompetence, but I have aspirations to do a lot more and—”

Anna shot up a hand to cut him off again, utter fury creating a black hole in her belly. “Near
incompetence
? You want to explain that one to me? I have a perfect record with the department, including being involved in liaison work and high-risk security details.”

“You only got the liaison position because you’re a woman.” Nick’s control vanished, and his words came out a shout.

Her rage bloomed so quickly it had already passed being an inferno. Instead, her fury was blue hot, like a core of dry ice burning from the intensity of her frozen emotions. She ground out her words, soft and low. “If you have such a low opinion of my skills, why did you not decline when you were offered me as a partner?”

Nick wouldn’t meet her eyes.

Another thought whispered through, shock registering as revelation kicked in. Some of the pain she and Mitch had suffered through was because Nick had an agenda.
Nick
was the one looking for things.

“You asked to be my partner, didn’t you?”

He headed toward his desk. “Maybe we should put this aside for another day when we’ve cooled off.”

“Bull fucking shit on that,” Anna spat out. “You asked to partner with me in the hopes of getting some weird glory from being with the lone woman on active duty, didn’t you? What is your game, Nick?”

“I’m up for promotion, okay? Is that what you want to know?” Nick slammed himself down in his chair. “It’s my chance to get out of town and move to a position with some political clout.”

“This…was all about you getting ahead.”

“Of course. Like any intelligent person, I’m doing what I can to make sure my career advances in the right direction.”

Anna’s nails were digging holes in her palms. “By running roughshod over anything or anyone in your way? Oh, you’ve got all the makings of a great politician, I can tell already.”

Nick narrowed his eyes. “Getting involved with Mitch was a stupid move for your career, and there’s no way even you didn’t know it.”

Ice flooded her veins. “Even
me
? As in ‘Anna Coleman who isn’t that smart’ or is this some kind of ‘you’re a woman, and you should get your ass back in the kitchen’ comment? I’d suggest you consider real hard before you answer if you don’t want to find out exactly how well I learned self-defense during training.”

Revelation struck. This was why Mitch had insisted they break up. He’d fallen for whatever lies Nick had told him. Mitch had gone and done what he thought best—calling them off—without telling her why. Yes, she’d agreed in the end, but still…

It would take a little more time to work through exactly how she wanted to deal with him.

Right now, Nick was front and center on her shit list.

Her partner continued to prove he wasn’t very smart. He wasn’t shutting up. “The Thompsons aren’t the kind of—”

She’d had more than enough of his bull. “No more, Nick. Don’t even try to dig yourself out of this hole. From now on you will keep your nose out of my business and out of the Thompsons’ business, you understand? You don’t go near them. You don’t try to find things to mess up their lives. Consider them your own private kryptonite, or I will report every single thing you did, and not only will your current political aspirations die, but your career will be over.”

Actual fear shone in his eyes, as if Nick had finally realized he’d gone too far. “What are you going to do?”

“I need time to think, but my personal life is none of your goddamn business. I’ve told you that before, but if that’s not absolutely crystal clear this time around, we have a major problem.”

Nick nodded, then backed off. “The reports are supposed to go through in the next month.”

“Reports?” She wasn’t giving an inch. Staff Sergeant Max had already told her this, but making Nick squirm was as necessary as breathing.

He turned white, but continued. “Promotion reports. I’m up for one. I…told Mitch you were the one being considered.”

She had nothing left inside to burn as the final confirmation of her suspicions was revealed. “Then you’d better hope that for the next month I don’t get sick of seeing your face. Get out of here.”

Nick shot from the room as if jet propelled.

Anna sat in silence and tried to recalibrate her life. Her career was back within the safety zone. But her career wasn’t enough.

It appeared Mitch had planned to end them for her own good before they’d even spoken. Even more, he’d made the temporary break-up about him not being able to keep his hands off her instead of telling her about the potential promotion. He’d taken control of the situation instead of working as a team.

No matter that he’d had good intentions, he didn’t get to make those kind of life-altering decisions without her, and the sooner he came to understand that, the happier they would be going into the future.

The future. They had one, and she was looking forward to it with everything in her.

Once Mitch Thompson had finished the crap-ton of explaining and apologizing he had ahead of him.

Chapter Twelve

M
ITCH ZIGGED
instead of zagging, turning away from the large tents that had been set up in the community fairgrounds. The three days of May fair were usually a time for kicking back and relaxing.

Forget relaxing and enjoying himself—the numbness inside refused to go away. And while he’d promised his family he’d come to the grounds for a while, he was getting tired of having to duck around corners to avoid getting beat on by surly Coleman males.

The first time Steve and Trevor tracked him down Mitch had taken the punishment. After that, he wasn’t about to simply stand there and let them knock him around, but he figured hurting any of Anna’s kin also wasn’t on the agenda. Thus the ducking and hiding, and didn’t that chafe his ass in a whole new way.

Mitch glanced back at his sister and her boyfriend without really seeing them. While he was glad things seemed to be working out for her, his world remained in limbo.

Every day he and Anna were apart, it seemed more likely they were never going to be together again. He cussed his fucked-up life.

He slowed his pace and wandered aimlessly past the coffee tent. He didn’t want to go into the animal yard, didn’t want to head back to the main fairgrounds where the crowds were gathering for the arcade games and beer tents.

His feet took him toward the parking lot, and he eyed his bike, debating if he should simply go home. At the moment the last thing on his mind was partying.

He’d left his ride at the opposite side of the lot, and the farther from the fairgrounds, the more peaceful the air became. The quiet song of spring birds escaped from the branches, and Mitch stepped into the cool shade cast by the trees to breathe deeply.

The next second he was on the ground, his hands twisted behind him, the knee strategically pressed into his upper back rendering him immobile.

“Fuck.” The Colemans had caught up with him again. “Didn’t you get enough of my blood on your hands the last time?” Mitch demanded, struggling to break free.

“Not yet, but I’m considering it really hard.”

His brain clicked into gear the same moment cold metal clicked around his wrists.

“Anna?” He twisted his head, cursing the pain that shot through him that made him freeze in position even as hope rose. “Goddamn it, what the hell are you doing?”

“I’ll ask the questions. When I’m ready.” She let his handcuffed wrists go, a firm hand grasping his cheek as she rearranged herself over his body. Whatever training she’d had, Mitch couldn’t believe how tightly she had him controlled. The excruciating jolt of pain that struck when he tensed to buck her off encouraged him to lie very,
very
still.

“Am I under arrest for something?” He wriggled his wrists, shaking the cuffs. “What is going on?”

“I have three questions. You get three responses. Don’t waste them,” Anna suggested. “Number one. When you insisted we needed to temporarily call our relationship off, were you basing your decision on a discussion with Nick?”

Oh hell. Mitch scrambled to find an answer that wouldn’t get his balls busted. “It wasn’t like that—
ow
. Dammit,
stop it
.”

The instant he’d spoken she’d increased the pressure pinning him in place.

Anna ignored his complaint, just settled harder over him. “Two more tries. Did you really throw away all that time we’d spent together because you had some egotistical male idea you knew what was
best
for me?”

“Jesus, Anna, let me explain—”

She didn’t move. Mitch breathed slowly through his nose before opening his mouth and letting the words escape.

“I’m sorry. God, you can’t know how fucking sorry I am.”

The weight on his back diminished, even though she kept a tight hold on his neck. Mitch waited until she knelt beside him, her eyes meeting his for the first time in forever, and the pain that had built over the past five months exploded.

“I didn’t want to risk fucking up your job any further. When Nick told me you had a chance for a promotion—”

“Nick lied.”

Her sharply spoken comment made him recoil as if a knife blow had been aimed at his gut. “
What?
”

“Nick’s the one up for promotion. He thought me being associated with you was putting a blemish on his shine, so he lied to you.” She shoved a hand against Mitch’s chest and rolled him halfway to his back. “And you damn well believed him.”

Black anger rolled through Mitch, blurring his vision. “I’m going to kill him.”

“Get in line,” Anna snapped. “But this isn’t about him. It’s about you, and that you made a decision about my life without so much as blinking.
Damn you
, Mitch. No matter how wrong Nick was, you were just as bad. You were a bastard.”

Words poured out of him.

“The hell I didn’t blink.” Mitch struggled to a sitting position, his arms still trapped behind him. “I missed you so much. Every time I thought about you, it was like I was cutting myself in two. I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, you were all I saw. That damn reprimand had to be erased, and if you were up for a career promotion, I wasn’t about to ruin your chances. Breaking up with you was the only thing I could think of.”

“Fine. So here’s a different question for you. We agreed to break up. We said nothing about you walking away from me and straight into another woman’s arms.” Her eyes flashed at him, the pale blue burning him like dry ice. “You found another woman in less than forty-eight hours and shoved her under my nose? Did you even know her name before you fucked her?”

“I didn’t fuck her. It wasn’t like that.”

“You looked damn cozy that night at Traders.”

Mitch broke. “I haven’t been with anyone since you,” he roared. “And if anything, her twin was the one I had to worry about. Damn guy has grabby hands like no one I’ve ever met before.”

Her expression went blank with shock. “Really?”

“I’m organizing a toys-for-tots bike rally with that group, which is crazy like hell, but I’m serious. That’s all we were doing that night.”