Oxygen Deprived (Kilgore Fire Book 3) (11 page)

Grimacing, I stood up and stretched my arms high above my head.

“Depends on if it stretches or not,” I said almost without thinking. “If it does, small. If it doesn’t, medium.”

“Shoes?” The persistent man asked.

“Six.”

“Thanks. Bye.”

I glared at the phone, unsurprised that he’d called me in the dead of night.

I wouldn’t answer him any other time.

He had to trick me to get me to talk to him.

And I’d give him that. He was persistent, and he’d apologized more than once.

But apologies don’t mean shit to me. It’s the actions behind those words that are important to me, and the jury was still out as far as I was concerned.

I shut off the lamp on the table beside the couch, then went to move into the hallway when I happened to glance outside.

My window hadn’t been open much, but the angle of the blinds with how they came together in the middle of the wall was open just enough, and at just the prefect angle, that I saw it.

Two men.

One black man. One white man.

Both dressed in black.

Both standing close and talking animatedly back and forth.

Then the black man reached his hand up and slapped the white one on the back before he left.

The white man, apparently my neighbor, walked up to the house and opened the door, looking over his shoulder once quickly before closing it securely at his back.

“Weird,” I said. “Why would you come out and have a meeting in twenty-degree weather at three in the morning?”

My question wasn’t answered, and now that I had my heat back, my electric blanket was calling my name.

I’d make sure to ask Drew tomorrow.

My eyes fell closed on that thought, and it never once occurred to me that I was still mad at the asshole.

Not until the next morning, anyway.

***

Sunday

0400

The blankets slowly slid down off my shoulder, and my eyes started to flutter open.

The pull of sleep, however, had me only rolling over and ignoring the cold air that was now touching my upper body, absently searching for the warmth that eluded me.

I found it again, then dove down underneath, only to be pulled up short by a hand around my ankle.

Instinctively, I kicked out in blind panic, but whomever had my ankle was ready for that and caught my foot before I could get any muscle behind it.

“Settle down,” an amused voice growled. “You’re going to take the boys out.”

“What boys?” I gasped, sitting up in the bed in a daze, staring around the barely lit room in surprise
. “What are you doing here?”

“Come on,” Drew pulled me into his arms.

Without thinking I gave him my hand and allowed him to pull me free, only for him to freeze.

“Head to the bathroom and get cleaned up,” he said.

“What?” I asked in confusion
. “Why?”

“Just go,” he said. “Hurry.”

I went, shuffling into the bathroom, coming to a stop just inside when I saw all the blood.

“What…” then understanding dawned, and a blush covered my face. “Oh, my God!”

I cleaned up quickly, tossing my stained under garments into the trash next to the sink.

Normally, I’d just soak them and use them as future period panties, but I didn’t need another thing to embarrass me in front of Drew.

I came out with a towel wrapped around myself ten minutes later, freshly showered, sans my hair, and staring at Drew who was busy putting some new sheets onto my bed.

“Get some warm pants on,” he ordered.

He was acting so calm and collected, as if I hadn’t just embarrassed the shit out of myself and him.

“Drew…” I started, but I wasn’t sure where to begin.

He stopped me before the words came, and held up a hand to me.

“Aspen,” he said. “I’m a paramedic. I’ve seen way more embarrassing things than a woman with her period.”

My cat meowed at me as I passed him, and I stopped to give him a love tap that consisted of me shoving him off my clean clothes before walking woodenly into my closet and retrieving some clothes.

Once I was dressed in my warmest pair of leggings that were fur lined, a pair of wool socks I’d stolen from my brother, Jonah, at some point, and my Uggs that only got broken out on period days, I was ready to go.

Somewhere.

In my own house.

But still.

“Ready,” I called, waiting for him to explain.

He nodded, then proceeded to pick me up around the waist, toss me like a sack of feed over his shoulder, and stomp out of my room.

Then out of my house.

When he kept going even further, I started to get nervous.

“Put me down!” I screamed at the man that was currently holding me over his shoulder. “I can’t! I’ll go to jail!”

But when he crossed the line over the road, I stared at the ankle monitor on my leg in horror.

But it didn’t go off.

It didn’t even turn red. Nothing.

It was still a bright green.

“What…what’s going on?” I asked Drew’s ass.

“I’m taking you somewhere,” he said. “With me. It was something my ex-wife hated doing.”

“What is it?” I asked breathlessly.

“You’ll see,” he evaded. “No questions.”

I blinked, then nodded.

But I couldn’t help it. He at least had to answer one before I could sit in his truck quietly.

“How…how did you bypass it?” I asked softly.

“My sister came and turned it off for a day,” he shrugged.

And that only opened up even more questions.

I was dying to ask them, but the way he looked at me like I should shut my mouth had me doing exactly that.

Shutting up.

But the questions burned in my brain, and by the time we passed over the lake, I was practically bouncing in my seat with the need to ask.

“Okay,” he said. “My sister’s the lady that put your ankle monitor on.”

My mouth dropped open.

“What?” I semi shrieked.

He nodded.

“I asked her to look into it the first day of the storms, a couple weeks ago, to see if she could get it temporarily turned off.” He continued. “And I didn’t want to tell you that she might be able to if she couldn’t, so I waited.”

“Your sister’s
Risa Fairchild?” I asked
. “She’s a badass.”

He turned to me and laughed.

“She is. I taught her everything I know,” he teased.

I snorted.

“That’s funny,” I said. “So how long do I have until it’s back on? And why would she do that for me?”

“I didn’t have to do much,” he murmured, turning his brights on as he started to look around, scanning outside of his window until he spotted a dirt road. “She, as well as her entire office, were very much aware of you and your case, and none of them wanted to put the monitor on you in the first place. The law enforcement community is funny. It seems like they have two types of people. People that are loyal and faithful, and people that aren’t.”

“And what does that have to do with them?” I asked.

“It means that a lot of them know what it feels like, and they’re rooting for you. They didn’t want to follow these orders any more than you wanted to take them. But they had no choice. They sure didn’t have a problem requesting a day off from the judge. You’ll get a day once a week until the ankle monitor comes off.”

My mouth dropped open in pure shock.

“She said…she said that rarely ever happens. That I could request it, but that I should probably look into a food delivery service because it wasn’t likely that I’d get more than just the one day I requested,” I told him.

He tossed me a grin before his eyes went back to the road in front of him.

He stopped when the trees on my side of the road opened up.

Then he turned, and expertly started to back his truck and boat—which I just now noticed— down what I assumed was a boat ramp.

“There’re are a lot of people here for it being five in the morning,” I observed as I looked around at all the trucks and boats.

Drew didn’t reply as he stopped and got out, leaving me in the truck to stare at all the people.

He came around to my side, though, and opened my door, a box in his hands.

“Put these on,” he ordered, handing me the box.

I took it and watched as he left, then turned my gaze back down to the box in my hands.

Waders?

What the hell were we doing?

Nevertheless, I put the waders on,
slowly,
seeing as they were so freakin’ tight that I could barely get my leg down into them.

I’d just managed to get the material up and over my shoulder to hook up the Velcro on the front when a man appeared in front of me.

“Uhhh,” I muttered. “Hey.”

The man smiled.

PD sure was a handsome devil.

I’d seen pictures on Naomi’s Facebook page, as well as her phone.

She was a stalker like that.

“You forgot to put your jacket on,” he said, pointing to the jacket that’d been in the box, too.

I wasn’t sure that the jacket had come with it, but it’d been shoved none too gently in there.

“What?” I asked.

He smiled.

“You need to put your jacket on, and then pull your waders over the top of it in case you have water that gets up over your waist. Then
you won’t get your jacket wet.” He in
dicated his own jacket and waders.

I took him in, then looked at my body.

The waders looked like they were painted on already. If I added the jacket, there was no way in hell I’d be able to get them up and over it.

“I don’t think they’d fit,” I said, indicating the tightness of my clothes already. “And what are we doing?”

PD just grinned and walked away, going to the back of the boat where he then proceeded to help put bag after bag into the boat, followed by chairs.

I pulled the jacket on over my waders, knowing it would be impossible to make happen, and walked to the back of the truck, stopping where the boat attached to the truck.

“Ummm,” I said, then screeched in surprise when a wet nose touched my cheek at eye level. “Ack!”

I ducked down and turned, coming eye to eye with a black dog that was wagging his tail excitedly.

“Thief,” Drew said, also giving a hand signal. “Sit.”

The dog sat before the command came all the way out of Drew’s mouth.

“Stay,” Drew ordered, then turned to me. “Your jacket needs to go inside your waders.”

I looked down my body at my chest again, then shook my head.

“It ain’t gonna happen,” I told him sweetly.

He tossed me a look, then hopped over the tongue of the trailer to stop in front of me.

With deft movements, he ripped my jacket off and tossed it to PD. PD caught it and laughed as I had my waders yanked all the way down my legs by the annoying man. Then he put my jacket back on, zipping it all the way up to my nose.

“Hold this,” he said, pushing my hands down at my sides.

I held them down straight as he pulled my waders up and over my arms, securing them all the way before he told me to remove my arms.

“Feel okay?” He asked.

I nodded.

“I can’t feel my toes, though,” I licked my lips. “And I might have to pee.”

He looked at me like I was kidding, then when I didn’t laugh, he sighed.

“Hurry and go,” he pointed to a spot beyond the trees.

“Do you have any toilet paper?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Wipes?” I continued hopefully.

He shook his head once again.

“Fast food napkins?” I was persistent.

“I have those!” PD ran to his truck, grabbed a whole stack about ten inches thick, and brought them to me.

I took three, causing him to laugh.

“Thank you,” I said softly, hurrying to the spot he told me to go.

I hurriedly pulled my waders down my legs, struggling the entire time to get them where I needed them.

Then, with a little bit of acrobatics, I hunched down and relieved myself, holding the tail ends of the waders that went up and over my shoulders in my teeth just in case.

I shivered, shaking as the cool air met my ass and vagina.

“You done?” Drew’s amused voice asked from behind me.

I jumped up, turned, and hastily wiped myself before I pulled my panties up and over my ass.

“Jesus, Drew,” I said. “Couldn’t you have announced yourself?”

His grin said he clearly didn’t care that I was embarrassed, and he walked to me.

“I’m taking that as a yes,” he said, pulling my waders back up and over my jacket.

I glared while he did it, but he wasn’t the least bit affected by my scowl.

“Ready now?” He tilted his head in question.

I nodded, still unsure about all this.

I was still mad at him…wasn’t I?

But it was so easy to forget that he was still married.

He was so nice and attentive.

And I’d slept with a married man! I was such a slut!

But when he grabbed me by the arm and wrapped his large one around me, I instantly forgot about the fact that I was mad at him.

“You’ll sit up here,” he pointed to a seat that was at the front of the boat.

I started to climb up the boat, but he picked me up around the waist and deposited me where he wanted me, then emphasized the move with a slap on the ass.

I yelped, turning to him and giving him another frown.

“Hey!” I growled, instilling as much venom into my voice as I could.

The annoyance in my voice flowed right over his head, not even affecting him in the slightest.

I glared at him while he got in the boat, then smiled when ‘Thief’ came up to me and placed his head in my lap.

“Ohhh,” I cooed sweetly. “You’re just the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!”

“Don’t give him too much love,” Drew ordered as he sat in the very back of the boat. “He’ll get a big head.”

I glared at him, then proceeded to love and hug on Thief all the while PD continued to put the boat into the water.

The massive motor started up, scaring the bejesus out of me, and continued to rumble loudly as we waited for PD to come back from putting the trailer up.

“So can you tell me what we’re doing yet?” I asked hopefully.