Bad Cop Page 9

  Piper did her best to ignore Kong, but the ape positioned himself in her way, folding his arms over his chest and becoming an immovable object. Vance watched as King Kong forced his little Goldilocks to step around him to get to her door.

  No way was that shit going to fly.

  Vance threw out his chest, stretched his six foot two frame to six foot three and got right up in the ape’s personal space.

  “You the door man?” he questioned.

  “Nope,” Kong replied.

  “Do you live in this building?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, there is a no loitering sign on that door. So, if you’re not the doorman, and you don’t live here, I suggest you move on.” He finished by pulling out his badge and popping it into Kong’s face.

  “Really?” he heard Piper exclaim from behind Kong. “What are you going to do next? Pull out your handcuffs?”

  A yellow twirl of lightning flashed in front of Vance as Piper stepped in between him and the brute.

  “Officer Evans,” she started, glaring at him like she was some irritated school teacher.

  What the hell?

  “This man is standing here, minding his own business. He’s not creating a scene or disturbing the peace and he doesn’t appear intoxicated or homeless.”

  Oh! I get it. Ms. Beaumont the lawyer has arrived.

  “And what do you do?” she asked rhetorically. “You declare him a loiterer, shove your badge in his face, and demand he vacate the premises. As if you, a small-town cop, have any jurisdiction here.”

  And didn’t that just piss him off.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. Piper—”

  She whirled around, offering Vance her back as she stood between him and Kong, digging something out of her briefcase. She handed it to the ape. “If he arrests you, call me. I’ll be your lawyer, free of charge.”

  Kong took the card and then looked up into Vance’s face and smiled. Sucker.

  Vance was busy staring Kong down until he heard the door open and shut behind the ape. That’s when he realized Piper had left him standing out there. He sprang into action, sidestepping Kong, but the damn door locked on contact, leaving him to stare through the glass at Piper’s sweet little backside swinging quickly down the hallway.

  He banged on the door, yelling, “Piper!” and heard the words “Go home Vance” drift behind her as she disappeared.

  Vance threw up his arms. “What the fuck just happened?” he said aloud, turning to find himself stuck out in the dark with Kong.

  The ape turned a little human when he started to laugh. “I take it this is the first time you’ve run up against Ms. Beaumont,” he said.

  Vance just stared wild-eyed, not knowing what to say.

  “She’s not a fan of cops,” Kong said.

  “Yeah,” Vance said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I get that.”

  “I think pulling your badge was the thing that set her off.”

  “Ya think?”

  Kong laughed again, but it was more in camaraderie than amusement. “You should try going up against her in the courtroom. At least out here she cut you quick. Didn’t toy with you like you were some damn mouse—dangling you by the tail over the open jaws of a cat.”

  “You’ve gone up against her?”

  Kong held out his hand. “Officer Dash Stevenson. Her favorite mouse.”

  Vance shook the guy’s hand. “Vance Evans, small-town cop with no jurisdiction,” he said. “So what were you doing out here?”

  “I’ve lost fifteen cases to that woman. Good, solid cases. Yet she makes me look like a first-rate asshole in front of the judge and occasional jury every single time. Recently I hit my breaking point and have been throwing out a few opinions of my own. Although you saw how well that’s working. Tiny little thing could care less. And now she’s offered to be my damn lawyer,” he said, holding up her business card. “How am I supposed to stay pissed off at her now?”

  Vance grinned at the change of heart and at the same time stood in Kong’s shoes. He could well imagine Piper tucked into some frilly little dress, tossing her blond curls around while playing coy for the judge and flirting with the jury. They’d look over at Kong and see exactly what he’d seen five minutes ago—a threat and a bully. She’d make her case by inserting her so-called common sense and logic and then doing a fancy tap dance around the defendant’s idiot behavior and the actual law that had been broken.

  Poor bastard.

  Still. “So, are you planning on retaliating?”

  Kong shook his head in the negative. “No. Not unless I can catch her speeding,” he said, starting to cheer up. “Then all bets are off.”

  ***

  Piper leaned back against the door to her condo, shutting out Vance Evans and all thoughts of his glorious looks and smoldering appeal. She took a couple of deep breaths, doing her best to disconnect from her emotional turmoil. “After all this time,” she muttered aloud, setting her briefcase beside the couch as she entered the cozy living space.

  Her apartment was neat and cheerful. Annabelle Devine would love it, Piper thought, looking at the overstuffed upholstery done in splashes of color where yellow was featured prominently. At the moment, Piper found it hard to drum up any enthusiasm.

  Usually she loved coming home to her place. It wasn’t large, but it was hers and it was paid for, as was everything in it. Like the boutique-sized old-world dining room set complete with its bijoux chandelier which she passed on her way to the bedroom.

  She sighed when she hit the double doors and leaned against the jamb as she gazed at her favorite piece of furniture. The queen-sized sleigh bed with its carved footboard and headboard wasn’t dressed light or frilly the way one might expect from Ms. Piper Beaumont. By comparison, it was rather tailored and elegant in shades of green and ivory silk. It looked soft and inviting, until she blinked. Then it just looked lonely.

  She allowed her heart to sink just a little, her body to ache for the want of his touch. Of all the things Vance Evans could have grown up to be, “He had to be a cop,” she said aloud. She had been so hopeful when she saw him standing at the bottom of the courthouse steps today, because she had fantasized about a scenario just like that for the past five years. Yet her hopes had been dashed the moment Vance pulled out his badge.

  Because when he pulled out his badge, it took her right back to college. Right back to that terrible, awful, no good, horrible night.

  Classes hadn’t even started yet. It was only her third evening on campus and she was excited to have been invited by a friend of a friend to her first college party. Piper was coming out of the darling gingerbread-style house right off the edge of campus. Blissfully unaware of any peril, she stepped into a sea of happy freshman while carrying a can of beer.

  That’s when the overzealous cop, arriving out of the blue, made a beeline across the lawn and through the crowded party, zeroing in on her. Probably because she looked so damn young. He was tall and lean, and his expression was downright gleeful when he pulled out his badge and shoved it in her face. Then he took ahold of her arm, swung her around, and cuffed her in front of everybody.

  Well, everybody who wasn’t underage and hadn’t scattered into the wind.

  The cop cuffed her before he asked to see her ID. He cuffed her before he took the time to notice that the can of beer she had been holding was unopened. He cuffed her before she could explain that she was simply carrying the beer to an older coed who was of age to drink it. And Piper was too scared and too caught off guard to protest any of it.

  She was in the back of his police car, heart pounding, panic rising, before the cop finally realized the beer had never been opened and she couldn’t have consumed any of it. She could tell he wasn’t happy about that turn of events.

  It was at that point he decided not to take her to jail, but to write her a ticket. He told her she’d have to appear in court, but that things should go her way since she'd been cooperative. Then he took the cuff
s off and let her go.

  Only, things did not go her way.

  Not only was she immediately infamous campus-wide for being the first freshman “arrested” that semester but, due to the fact that her parents were already generously stretching their finances to send her to college out of state, she did not ask them to fund a lawyer for her day in court. Piper assumed it wasn’t necessary to spend eight-hundred dollars or more on a lawyer since the cop had told her things would go well for her and it wasn’t actually her beer. Not that she wouldn’t have liked to drink a beer—she was a college student after all. But being charged with possession made it sound like she was hawking marijuana, for goodness’ sake. She just needed a chance to explain all that. So, she decided to face the judge alone.

  Big mistake.

  She learned a valuable lesson that day. Lawyers are very, very important to uninformed college students.

  The judge had a full docket that day of what he seemed to consider pampered rich kids, and the cop who had caused Piper all this angst stuck to his facts without once mentioning the unopened beer or her cooperation. And since Piper didn’t have a lawyer by her side arguing that she hadn’t been given a breathalyzer, that the beer can in question was unopened, and that her record was clean, the judge threw the book at her.

  He didn’t care about her honest responses. He simply looked at the charge of possession and put her on probation until she turned twenty-one. Then scared her to death by telling her that she now had a permanent record, and that if she so much as got caught jaywalking before she turned twenty-one, he’d throw her in jail for thirty days.

  And that did not include the five-hundred dollar fine, the three-hundred dollar court costs, the drug-and alcohol-awareness classes she was now required to attend, or the six months of community service he gave her on top of it all.

  Her college experience went to hell faster than Grant took Richmond. Piper ended up lonely, sitting in her dorm room most Friday and Saturday nights while her new hallmates trotted off to parties and rush events. She was too scared to venture out, not wanting to chance temptation only to meet up with another cop who could make her life any more miserable.

  She was embarrassed, she was angry, and she was frustrated beyond anything she’d run up against before. For weeks, her mind cried out with the “it’s not fair” scenario. Out of sheer boredom and with way too much time on her hands, she decided to arm herself with knowledge of the law to protect herself and her friends from any future mishaps. Had she understood her rights and the law, and had the confidence to point them out that night or in the courtroom, events would have gone differently. She was convinced of it. As it happened, the events of Piper’s first Friday night in college changed the course of her life permanently. All thanks to a tall, lean, overzealous, I’m-pulling-out-my-badge-and-throwing-my-weight-around cop.

  And she had just watched Vance Evans do exactly the same thing.

  Officer Stevenson might be big and intimidating, but Piper had known him a few years—and the truth was the man was nothing but a giant teddy bear. She’d run into him working with kids’ charities where they'd shared a few laughs and even a couple tears trying to ease the plight of Raleigh's underprivileged children. At the moment though, she was definitely on his shit list because she’d gotten George Howling off with a hand slap—which even Piper had to admit was not what the kid needed—but she did not want to get into a debate over justice in front of Vance. So, as frightening as it may have seemed to have someone that big waiting on your doorstep, Piper had not been alarmed. She knew who Dash Stevenson really was.

  It was obvious that a whispered, “just ignore him,” did not convey any of that to Vance, however.

  “Why does he have to be a cop?” she moped.

  It’s so extraordinarily unfair, she pouted, propelling herself toward her walk-in closet, because so much else about the situation couldn’t be more perfect. Starting with Vance himself, she thought as she tugged down the zipper of her dress, stepped out of it, and tossed it into the dry-cleaning basket. Tall, dark, and yummy, like he’d been all those years ago that night at The Charlie Horse. Gorgeous dark hair worn just a little too long. Emerald eyes that could hypnotize a woman into doing just about anything. “Obviously,” she grumbled as she pulled a nightshirt over her head. After finding all that crap left in his bathroom, clearly she wasn’t the only female willing to drop her panties on the dance floor for him.

  She flicked on the light as she entered the bathroom and thought it had been for the best—Vance dumping her in the middle of their romantic liaison. She took a headband and pushed the curls out of her face, turning on the faucet and waiting for the water to get hot.

  It all would have worked out just fine, she sighed, if I hadn’t been spotted.

  She scrubbed her face clean, releasing that thought for the thousandth time and letting it slide down the drain. She’d been living with the consequences of that night for a long time now—and had accepted them—or so she thought, as she dabbed on some moisturizer and ran a brush through her curls. Of course a day like today would undoubtedly bring it all back, she supposed. And as she crawled underneath the covers, remembering her time with Vance’s grandmother, father, and Genevra DuVal brought an unbidden smile to her lips.

  She laid her head on her pillow and allowed herself to bask in how welcome they’d made her feel. She grinned as she thought of Mr. Evans’ quick wink, Emelina’s sweet hug, and Genevra’s warm smile—each of them completely enthralling in their own way. And so happy to meet her—obviously assuming that she and Vance had some kind of a relationship that warranted her presence among them.

  Ooooh Lord. Vance.

  In the five years since she’d seen him, there were subtle differences that caused a striking effect. Starting with those crazy biceps—like the guy pumped iron in his sleep. The moment she had wrapped her hands around one, she thought she was going to drool. Around Vance she felt like an adolescent at a boy band convention—and that boy band comment about her male first years had been funny. And that was another thing—he still had the same sense of humor she’d fallen in love with back in fourth grade.

  Piper reached over to turn out the light. As she snuggled onto her side and closed her eyes, she was immediately reminded of leaning against Vance during their long ride home.

  Even though she started out acting cool and aloof because he was taking her home, Vance didn’t put up with any of that crap. Once he got behind the steering wheel of his truck, he reached across with both arms, and pulled her over to his side of the bench seat without so much as a “Come here” or a “Please.”

  And didn’t that just set her desire soaring?

  The man smelled like cloves and oranges—rich, spicy, and extravagant. His body was hard and firm, and she spent a fair amount of time wondering what he’d look like with his shirt off, in a pair of low-riding board shorts, dripping wet as he got out of that pool he lives beside. For all that dark hair and tan skin, he wasn’t covered in manly fur. Just a respectable amount of hair ran down his forearms. She wondered about the hair on his chest and then the hair on his legs. He was solid and he was strong, handsome to a fault.

  And he was a cop—a cop with a badge. One he pulled out and flaunted the first chance he got.

  Piper turned over and groaned into her pillow. It was for the best, she tried to assure herself. His running out years ago, leaving her on the dance floor. Yes, it all would have worked out just fine, she sighed, if I just hadn’t been spotted.

  Or…if she hadn’t given in to the irresistible temptation that had always been Vance Evans.

  Chapter Ten

  Sprawled out on his stomach, Vance pulled his pillow over his head when he heard the door to the pool house open.

  Not interested.

  It was Saturday morning and he didn’t have to play cop. Until he smelled Genevra’s famous breakfast being served poolside, he was not interested. The only thing he might drum up interest for then was a pitcher of Blo
ody Marys, a stack of pancakes, and a lounge chair where he could spend a long, hard day working on his tan.

  Fuck running.

  Brooks was right—running was for spandex-loving freaks. Running every damn day since he’d left Piper at The Charlie Horse had done nothing but bring him full circle. And here he was, all by his damn self—again.

  So unless The Lawyer Beaumont was the one coming through his door to apologize for her freaking “Really? What are you going to do next? Pull out your handcuffs?” comment, he was not interested.

  “Vance?” Lolly whispered.

  Unless of course it was Lolly.

  Now wide awake, Vance tossed off the pillow and rolled over to find The Lollypop and Henderson’s Golden Boy standing at the end of his bed.

  “Y’all finally decide on that three-way we talked about?” he said, propping himself up. “I might be a little rusty, but I hear it’s like riding a bike. So, hop in.”

  Lolly squealed with laughter, bouncing onto his bed as Brooks threw out his patent “Fucking A.”

  The Lollypop bounced over, kissed him on the cheek and then stole both his pillows, propping them up against the headboard as she sat back against them. She was dressed for summer in a tiny little red skirt, a white eyelet halter top, and her hair tied up high in a pretty red bow.

  “We came for the details.” She tapped his sheet-covered thigh. “Start talking.”

  “Details?” Vance scoffed, throwing a look at Brooks he hoped conveyed that he needed to get better control over his woman.

  Brooks simply shrugged. “Sue me,” he said. “I’m curious, too.”

  “Let me guess,” Vance said, pulling a pillow out from behind Lolly and leaning back on it himself. “Genevra called you.”

  “She did,” Lolly acknowledged. “And she thought Piper was faaab-ulous.”

  “Faaab-ulous?” he repeated.

  “Yes, faaab-ulous. That’s exactly how she said it. So we couldn’t wait to come over to find out if you thought Piper was faaab-ulous too.”