Oxygen Deprived (Kilgore Fire Book 3) (19 page)

Two women who were currently staring out the window at the commotion with smiles on their face.

“God,” I groaned as I walked inside. “Don’t turn into Aspen,” I said to my daughter. “Then you’ll be calling me in the middle of work like she does and telling me about the woman cheating on the man two doors down.”

Attie’s eyes widened. “You what?”

Her eyes turned to Aspen.

Aspen was nodding emphatically. “For real. She cheats on her husband every time he leaves for work!”

I sighed and walked to the bathroom, took a quick shower, and contemplated what I was going to do next.

By the time I got back into the living room and found the two of them on the couch with a box of pizza in between them both, I had some semblance of control.

Taking a slice from the other box on the coffee table, I sat on the love seat and faced my daughter.

“I’m not mad,” I told her softly, studying the jalapenos on the slice. “But I’m a little bit disappointed.”

In my peripheral vision I saw Attie look down at her lap.

“I don’t know even how it happened. I was safe. We were safe!” She urged emphatically.

I laughed.

“Well, honey. Turns out condoms aren’t as effective as you’d like to think they are,” I said, looking over at Aspen whose face was now a shade of red I’d never seen on her before. “Maybe next time you’ll be a little more careful.”

She wrinkled her nose at me, but said nothing.

“There won’t be a next time,” Attie muttered under hear breath.

And I found I quite liked the sound of that.

Immensely.

Before I could go into much more detail with Attie, my pager went, causing me to curse.

“
Shit
,” I growled. “I gotta go,” I said without even looking at the readout.

I only got paged when I was needed, and apparently, I was needed.

Aspen came up to me and placed her lips against my jaw.

“Be safe,” she whispered.

I smiled down at her, dropped a kiss on her lips, then walked to my daughter.

My daughter was watching the two of us with an enraptured gaze, her eyes on the both of us as they bounced back and forth.

Once I reached Attie, I dropped a kiss on her head, then dropped down onto my haunches so I could look into her eyes.

“You need to think long and hard about this, baby,” I urged. “A baby at sixteen would be really tough. Although I’m not telling you to do anything rash, I want you to figure out where your head is at when I come talk to you, okay?”

She nodded.

“I’ll think about it all, Daddy. I know this is a huge decision,” she promised.

“And you can talk to Aspen, too. But you already know that, don’t you?”

She nodded, smiling shyly.

“I like her, Daddy,” she whispered.

I smiled.

“I like her, too, baby,” I whispered back conspiratorially.

“Whoa, Rambo. Take a chill pill.”

I looked over at Tai, shooting daggers at him from my hunched over position.

“Fuck you.”

Tai’s eyebrows went up.

“What’s your malfunction?” He asked.

“Why are you even here. I’m the one who got the page,” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning back further in my chair.

“They called me, too. Remember?” He raised a brow. “We already spoke about this when I first got here.”

I ignored him, or at least tried to.

Tai was persistent, which was why I fisted my hands in my lap instead of rising to the bait that Tai was dangling in front of me.

“What’s wrong with you, D?” Downy asked, his eyes sharp.

I turned my gaze on to him.

“Nothing to do with your sister,” I muttered darkly.

Downy’s eyebrows rose, but it was Luke who chimed in this time.

“Why would it have to do with his sister?” Luke
interrupted. “Are you two dating?”

I sighed, picking my hand up to pinch the bridge of my nose.

I chose to answer, though, because if I didn’t, they’d just keep bothering the hell out of me until I did.

“Yes,” I said. “Aspen and I are dating.”

“Who’s Aspen?” Luke asked.

“Downy’s sister,” I replied in exasperation. “Wasn’t that what I just said?”

Luke shrugged.

“I thought her name was Ridley,” he explained, his voice trailing off as his focus was caught by the man across the parking spot from where we’d been sitting.

We were waiting for a warrant to be issued, then we’d go serve the warrant and apprehend the suspect as well as do a thorough search of the property.

Well,
they
would.

I’d be there just in case one of them got hurt.

Which was very rare.

Although last time we were out I had to patch up Nico’s arm.

He’d scraped his arm on a nail, and I’d gotten to actually use some medical training.

Not that I was complaining. If I wasn’t utilized, then that was a good day, and how I wanted it to be.

“Her name is Aspen Ridley; I call her Ridley,” Downy explained when it was apparent that I wasn’t going to.

I snorted.

“Downy calls her Ridley because he’s too chicken shit to call her by her real name. Which, might I add, breaks her heart. She hates that you don’t like her,” I told him, turning to him to gauge his reaction.

“I do too like her!” He snapped.

I snorted.

“You do?”

He glared.

“What?” He asked, turning away from me. “I do.”

“Funny way to show it,” I muttered, sitting back and swinging my legs around when I saw Nico running towards us from the courthouse.

“Got it,” Nico breathed heavily, scooting into the seat beside me. “Let’s roll.”

I didn’t reply to the question I could see on Downy’s face; instead, I chose to stay silent and let him stew in his own thoughts.

But, by the time we arrived at the house that we were executing the warrant for, Downy’s thoughts were all about the job he was about to perform.

The doors opened and I half stood, eyes on the ground to avoid the equipment and feet of the other men in the truck with me.

Then I smiled when my eyes caught on the dog at our feet.

“Your dog’s eating your shoe,” I stared down at Mocha.

Downy cursed and pulled his foot away, but Mocha had still wrought some damage while no one had been paying attention.

“You’re such a bitch,” Downy growled, picking his foot up so he could examine the damage. “Anyone got some duct tape?”

A roll was produced from someone’s bag, and Downy used it to wrap his foot while Nico, then I, got out of the back.

Nico had a smile on his face when he turned to survey the house, one that quickly disappeared when he got his first look at the residence.

“This is going to be bad,” he muttered under his breath.

I couldn’t help but agree with him.

The entire damn yard
was a junkyard. The place was littered with many, many cars.

And boats.

And deer stands.

And RVs.

You name it, it was there, broken down in the man’s front yard.

“This is impressive,” Luke muttered as he took his first look.

“They should be on an episode of Hoarders,” Downy mumbled. “So tired of watching that show with my wife.”

I snorted.

“Your sister makes me watch Downton Abbey and old Saved By The Bell episodes,” I informed him. “I clearly have it worse off than you.”

Downy flipped me off and moved to the front of the truck, Mocha, for once, right on his heels.

That was something that happened when Mocha realized that it was time to work.

But when it wasn’t time…let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.

I would think she was a terrible dog if she didn’t do so well while she was on duty.

But the moment she was off, she was tearing stuff up or eating something that didn’t belong to her.

Just last week Mocha had eaten the birthday cake that Downy had picked up for his wife, and everyone in a three block radius had heard Downy’s bellow of outrage.

Of course, it’d helped that we were outside at the time.

“Okay,” Tai broke into my thoughts. “I think we should talk about this.”

“Talk about what?” I asked him.

“About the fact that you haven’t shared that you were with someone,” Tai continued. “Mia would love to meet her. Bring her to the fire station on Sunday.”

I thought about that for a moment, and then shrugged.

“I’ll ask her,” I mumbled.

It wasn’t likely that she’d want to go to a fundraiser at the fire station on her day off from house arrest, but I’d offer it to her anyway.

“Alright, boys,” Luke cut in, his voice saying that it was time for business to commence. “I have the plans. Let’s do this.”

I leaned into the side of the truck and watched as the rest of the SWAT team,
including
me and Tai, gathered around to go over the plan of action.

“Everyone good?” Luke asked a few minutes later.

We all nodded.

“Tai,” Luke said. “You’re here in case we need you. Drew, you’re with us.”

My stomach tensed as it always did right before I went in with the team, but this time was different.

I used to think of Attie right before I went inside, but this time, there was another
person
added to my worries.

If I didn’t come home, there’d be two ladies devastated, not just one.

And I found that I kind of liked that.

A lot.

All my life I thought air was free. Then I saw The Lorax and it all finally makes sense. You pay for the air as well as the potato chips when you buy a bag of Lays.

-Aspen’s secret thoughts

Aspen

“What’s wrong?” Attie asked as I closed the door on the man who’d just served me papers.

“I’ve been served,” I muttered in the same voice that the man had just used on me.

Attie blinked, her eyes going wide.

“Like, you’ve been sued, papers?” She asked worriedly.

“I don’t know,” I tried to be calm, taking the papers from the manila envelope and taking a seat at the dining room table so I could spread them out.

My eyes scanned the words of the first page, and the more I read, the more anger that built until I was about ready to scream.

“What…” Attie muttered as she read over my shoulder. “Abandonment? Who did you abandon?”

I gritted my teeth.

“Apparently, my ex thinks that I’ve abandoned him, and he’s suing me for support. When he’s the one who left me,” I said dryly. “And the court date is in two weeks. On a Tuesday, no less.”

“How are you going to get there?” She asked. “You can’t leave.”

I looked down at where she was indicating: the ankle monitor that was sticking out of my sweat pants.

“I can’t,” I agreed. “I guess I’ll either have to see if they will let me get off for the day. That or I’ll have to request a different day from the judge.”

She bit her lip, her finger twirling around a lock of hair that’d fallen down from her high ponytail.

“What?” I asked.

She shook her head, causing another piece of hair to fall from her ponytail.

“You look a mess,” I said. “Do you want to take a shower or something? Your mascara is dried to your cheeks.”

Her horrified gasp had her bringing her hands up to her cheeks in a manner only a vain teenager who cared about her appearance would.

“Does it look bad?” She asked, patting her cheeks.

I shook my head.

“No,” I lied.

She smiled, but excused herself to the bathroom to clean her face anyway.

Her horrified scream a few moments later had me chuckling, even though the words I was reading on the papers had me wanting to scream.

“You son of a bitch,” I growled, looking at Danny’s name. “You fucking suck.”

“Who sucks?” Attie asked as she came back long moments later,
her hair back up in a tidy ponytail, and her face scrubbed clean of makeup. “What’s wrong?”

I pointed at the papers.

“It states that we’re common-law married,” I growled.
“What the fuck?” I looked guiltily over at Attie
. “I’m sorry, but my mouth seems to run away with me when I get all hot and bothered.”

She snorted and raised her hand in a clearing gesture. “It’s fine. I’ve heard worse from the boys at school.”

I smiled at her, then my gaze fell back onto the papers.

“What happened?” She asked. “I heard a little bit about what you did to earn the ankle monitor from my mother while she was talking on the phone to someone about you, but I never heard why you beat the crap out of the cop’s car.”

I looked over at her.

“You want to know?” I asked.

She nodded.

So I told her everything, going all the way back to the times when I first slept with Danny.

“I didn’t like sex very much either,” she whispered.

I smiled at her.

“I imagine that you didn’t like it because boys don’t really know how to use their dicks at your age,” I told her. “Likely, he didn’t have the skills or the stamina, nor the knowledge, to make it good for you.”

Her eyes widened. “So that comes with age?”

I nodded.

“Age, practice and more practice,” I amended.

She licked her lips.

“Would you….one day…can we talk about this one day that’s not today? One day in the very far future after the baby comes?” She requested.

I nodded.

“As long as you let me take you to get birth control before I do it,” I promised.

She grinned.

“If I’d known you were so cool, I’d have come here a long time ago and spoken about this with you,” she whispered.

“Spoken about what?” Drew asked as he walked into the room

My eyes immediately fell on the pronounced limp he had going on.

Not to mention he was covered nearly head to toe in ash and smelled like a supercharged bonfire.

“What happened?” I asked in alarm.

He held out his hand.