Cuffed

EIGHT - 1

How could I have been so wrapped up in making sure I understood everything needed for my loan that I missed the signs Chris was giving off?

I press the pedal down harder. The speedometer hits seventy miles per hour, but it isn't fast enough.

First Chris.

Then the realization that I have no other option but to deal with him and his creep factor.

The needle hits eighty.

Nothing will ever be enough to outrun that feeling I get every time someone expects me to bend to their will. To be subservient. To play the victim.

never again.

No way. No how. Screw that.

The long road is stretched out before me, just fields, grape vines, trees, and flat asphalt, making me feel as if I were the only person on the face of the earth.

Hitting the outskirts of town, I push the envelope of safety. But when you jump out of airplanes for a living, that envelope is harder to breach than for most.

With each mile I put between myself and the restaurant, I feel the stress beginning to shed. The pressure of making sure all my documents are in order, so I don't lose the loan because of some stupid mistake eases. And with the clearing of my mind comes clarity.

Despite it being so much easier to pick up and move, when people started asking too many questions about my past, I let Desi talk me into coming back to Sunnyville. My need to put away the gypsy life I have been living and settle down to plant roots for myself was just a thought back then. Yet, I was willing to try.

Then I found Blue Skies, which was in desperate need of some TLC, and decided that the girl who liked to go where the wind blows her, suddenly wanted something permanent. A business, a fixture, something to be proud of.

My desire to own Blue Skies and make it one hundred percent mine made me stay to fight for something.

And fighting is what I'm doing.

The sirens come out of nowhere. Blue and red lights flash to tell me my fun-my reprieve-has been compromised and is about to be shut down.

"Shit." I pound a fist against the wheel, knowing this will be my second ticket in six months. The monetary fine, points on my driving record, the increase in my insurance. All the consequences ghost through my mind as I pull to a stop and wait for Officer Asshole to walk up to the driver's side and read me the riot act. I may even pull up the hem of my shorts some, so when he's met with an eyeful of tanned and toned thighs, he might be distracted.

Its worth a shot.

"License and registration, please."

I look up to the gravelly voice standing outside my window, and am met with my own reflection in his mirrored lenses. "Hi, Officer. How is your day going?" I'll try sweet-talking. I'm not good at it, but at least I'm not going down without a fight.

"License and registration, please, ma'am."

"What seems to be the problem?"

"How about going ninety in a fifty mile an hour zone?"

"Oh. Was I really going that fast?" I feign innocence.

"Are you in a hurry?" I stare at him doe-eyed, unable to make my synapses fire, so I can come up with some kind of brilliant excuse. "That's considered reckless driving. Endangerment of others. Should I go on?"

With each offense, my eyes see dollar signs that my wallet doesn't have.

The radio handset strapped to his shoulder sparks to life, and he responds in some kind of code that sounds like a foreign language. "No, Officer. The thing is I left my house in a hurry-"

"I think we've established that fact."

I look in my rearview mirror as another police car pulls up behind his, and my palms grow sweaty. Am I that dangerous that they need two units to handle this call?

"Anyway, like I was saying, I left in such a hurry that I didn't grab my wallet. I don't have my license."

He angles his head, and even though I can't see his eyes behind the lenses, I can feel them dressing me down. "Then your registration?"

"This isn't exactly my car." I hear the door of the second unit shut behind us.

And the award for Flake of the Year, ladies and gentlemen, goes to Emerson Reeves.

"Whose car is it then?"

"Blue Skies-the company I work for."

"Do you need any help, Off-Emerson?"

That voice. His voice has my whole body wanting to seize up and melt at the same time.

"You know this woman?" Officer Asshole says as I look at where Grant stands in his dark blue uniform with the setting sun at his back.

"I do."

"You want to handle this call?"

"Sure," Grant says, and after how things went between us the last time I saw him, I'm not sure if I'm relieved or worried.

"Thanks. You'll be saving me from John's wrath, coming home late from work again."

"Husbands," Grant plays along and shrugs.

"Exactly." He lifts his chin toward the back of the car, and the two men step back there for a few minutes. the speak in hushed tones, before Grant steps towards me and the other officer climbs into his car.

"Christ, Emerson. Ninety?" There's a disapproving tone to his voice, but under it is something akin to amusement. "Seriously? You're lucky Lyle didn't haul you off for reckless driving."

"We weren't quite done, but I'm sure that might have been an option."

"It is pretty serious. And hauling you off is a valid option for the safety of not only you but everyone else on the road."

"But there is no one else on the road. No harm, no foul. Can I go?"

"You could have gotten yourself killed."

He takes off his sunglasses and hooks them into his shirt. I stare at them hanging from his neck, because it's so much easier than looking him in the eyes. But he stands there, hands braced on the frame of my window and waits for me to meet his gaze.

While I had been certain sweet-talking would have worked with Officer Lyle, at least until Grant mentioned the other officer's husband, I have absolutely no idea what to say to ease the situation.

"You always had a flair for the dramatic."

The words are out before I even realize it, and I hate myself for being the first one to bring up the past when I don't want him to do the same.

"Dramatic is one thing, Em. Doing my job is another."

"Oh, I see what you're doing here. You're mad at me for the other night, when you have no right to be and-"

"This has nothing to do with the other night, and everything to do with the law and me enforcing it."

He always was a stickler for the rules. The longer this conversation goes on, the more irritated I become, and a big part of me wants it to continue. If I'm pissed at him, then I'll want him to go away instead of wondering what it would be like to see him again like I have been.

"Are you seriously going to arrest me?"

"Give me a good reason why you're in such a hurry that you need to go ninety miles an hour."

Because I can.

The truth almost escapes, but I stop myself before it does. Our eyes meet. Hold. Assess. Ask. And then I answer.

"I'm having a female emergency." I ignore the fact that I'm wearing skimpy white shorts no woman on her period would be caught dead wearing and give him the number one response to make a man uncomfortable.

His lips quirk for a moment before he leans down so that his elbows rest on the door. "And?"

"Well, I was rushing to the store."

"And that's why you were going so fast?"

"Yes." I nod, hating that he isn't shying away like any man in his right mind would.

"What were you going to the store to buy? Tampons? Monistat? Astroglide?" he deadpans.

If I could die a hundred deaths right now, I would. My cheeks burn, and I'd give anything to crawl under the steering wheel to avoid having to make eye contact with him. "Yes."

"All three? that's a feminine emergency if I've ever heard of one."

Already invested in my lie, I have no choice but to continue it. I clear my throat, but my voice comes out in a broken rasp. "Tampons. Just tampons."

"I see." He nods slowly. "Funny thing is, your car is headed in the wrong direction. All the drugstores are back that way." he throws his thumb over his shoulder and I cringe at my mistake. "But being new in town and all that, maybe you got turned around, huh?"

There's a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth while my embarrassment only intensifies. "Yes, that's definitely why." I squirm in my seat to try to sell it when I know he's probably not buying any of this. "Can I go now please?"

"Go? To the drugstore? Of course you can. I wouldn't want your situation to worsen because of all this time we're wasting. Tell you what, Em, if it's such an emergency that you were willing to risk life and limb to get there, I think I should give you a police escort."

"No! Thats okay-I-"

"Lights and sirens. The whole shebang all the way to... CVS, or is it Rite Aid? Which store has the brand you prefer?"

"A police escort, Grant? Really?" Irritation mixes with disbelief.

"Now that you're a resident of Sunnyville, I'm at your service. Here to protect and to serve." He flashes a grin that tells me he knows exactly what I'm doing, and plans to make me pay for it.

And pay for it, I do, with lights and sirens. Parading me the long way through town until we pull into the CVS parking lot.

His cruiser parks beside me, and I have every intention of running inside and buying some damn tampons I don't currently need just to get him off my back. So, I'm completely mortified when he climbs out of his car as I get out of mine.

"What are you doing?" I ask, eyes flickering toward the random people who are staring at the flashing lights and the police officer standing in front of me.

"Lets go."

I stiffen when he places a hand on the small of my back and starts ushering me closer to the entrance. He nods and murmurs a few hellos to people who address him by name, all the while I'm trying to figure out how far we're going to carry on this charade. He's obviously trying to prove a point while, at the same time, make my life miserable in retaliation for my rudeness the other night.

When we enter the store, I immediately begin to scan the directory signs above the aisles to see where the feminine hygiene products are located. Anything so I can put distance between him and this asinine predicament.

"Not so fast. Where are you going?" he asks as he grabs my bicep, keeping me in place.

"To find what I need."

"No worries. I have you covered. It's an emergency after all," he says, leading me to the front of the store.

"What are you-"

"Shh. It's under control." He points to his badge and smiles.

"No. It's okay. I can find them on my own-"

"Excuse me, where are the tampons?" Grant asks the service clerk at the front of the store. Some teenage boys waiting in line snicker, and the young clerk's face immediately turns bright red as he stutters a response. "Better yet, were in an emergency situation here. A ninety mile an hour type of emergency. Can you get on the PA and ask one of your associates to bring up a box for us, so this young lady doesn't have to search them out?"

Oh. My. God. Is he seriously going to do this?

Yes, yes he is.

That irritation I was hoping for just hit full force.

"I can get them myself," I grit out between clenched teeth.

"Oh, no need to. He's got it under control." He lifts his chin to the cashier, who looks less than thrilled to be asked to do this. "Go on," he urges the clerk.

"Can I get some assistance to the front please?" the clerk asks, his teenage voice cracking on the overhead speakers. "I need a box of tampons brought up."

"Tell them it's an emergency." Grant says as the kid looks over to me and then down to my pelvis before realizing what he's doing and snapping his head up, more flustered than ever.