Welcoming the Bad Boy: A Hero's Welcome Novel (3 page)

Jaws stood at attention, ready to work.

“You okay, buddy?” Griffin asked. Jaws was a new K-9 to him, but they’d trained together a lot in the last few weeks. In training, Jaws followed every command to a T.

Jaws jumped from the back of the SUV and trotted beside Griffin toward the front door of the house. The call had said there was a domestic dispute. Griffin always took those kinds of calls seriously. A few years ago one domestic dispute had turned into homicide. It was rare, but it happened, even in the safety of military housing communities. Griffin didn’t enjoy taking America’s heroes away in handcuffs, but sometimes he had to.

He hoped today wouldn’t be one of those times.

Standing behind the front door with Jaws at his side, he knocked three times. He could hear shouting from inside the thin walls.

“You called the MPs?” a man’s voice screamed at someone else inside, the rage evident in his voice.

Jaws grew rigid next to Griffin.

Griffin knocked again. “Military police! Open the door!” he ordered, ready to knock it down if he had to. He glanced back briefly to see if backup had arrived. He was first on the scene, but there would be other officers coming. That was a good thing because the guy behind this door didn’t sound like someone who would surrender without a fight.

“Open up!” he shouted again, pounding harder. He could hear a woman crying inside, which meant she was still breathing. Griffin wanted to keep it that way.

Another military police car sped up behind his and parked on the roadside.

Then, surprising Griffin, the front door opened. “What are you doing here?” a balding man with wild gray eyes asked. His face was flushed with anger.

“We got a call about a domestic disturbance.” From the corner of his eye, Griffin saw Jaws stiffen. He wouldn’t react without proper cause, though. Griffin had trained with him enough to know Jaws could be trusted.

“You got a call from who?” the man wanted to know.

Griffin shook his head. A jogger had made the call, telling the operator that shouting could be heard from the sidewalk. Calls were anonymous, though. He didn’t want any future joggers being harassed because this one had been a good neighbor. “Doesn’t matter. We check out all calls.”

Troy Matthews, another guy in the K-9 unit, stepped up behind him. He was sans dog right now. He’d probably left Bear in his vehicle, which was good because Jaws was intimidating enough. Griffin turned back to the escalating sound of crying coming from inside the house. “We would like to talk to your wife, sir.”

The guy folded his arms under his chest. He had huge arms, probably worked out twice a day. Still, he was no match for Jaws’s flesh-tearing teeth—if it came to that. “No. Now go help someone who actually needs it.”

Griffin wondered if the guy had been drinking. Events like these were usually exacerbated by alcohol. There was no evidence of drinking that Griffin could see. The guy wasn’t slurring or unsteady on his feet. “Bring your wife out now or we’ll be forced to cuff you for resisting, and we’ll talk to her anyway.”

The guy stepped forward. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking t—?”

Jaws leapt up and latched onto the guy’s arm.

“What the fuck? Get your fucking dog off me, asshole!” The guy flailed in the doorway, trying to get Jaws to release.

“Release!” Griffin ordered Jaws.

Jaws didn’t budge.

“Release!” Griffin ordered again, relieved when Jaws finally removed his teeth from the guy’s arm.

Jaws never should’ve attacked, though. There wasn’t cause. Griffin was handling the jerk, who’d only run his mouth at him to that point. Griffin glanced down at Jaws, who was rigid and still primed for action. He returned his gaze to the jerk.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Hell, no, I’m not okay. Your fucking dog attacked me,” the jerk whined, rubbing the spot on his arm where Jaws had sunk his teeth in.

“I’ll take you to the hospital to get it checked out,” Troy offered behind them.

This made the guy straighten. “I don’t need to go to a hospital. I’m fine.”

“You just said my dog attacked you,” Griffin said. “We take that seriously.”

“He didn’t break the skin. I’m good.” The jerk raised his sleeve to reveal teeth impressions in his forearm, but no broken skin.

“I still need to talk to your wife, sir,” Griffin said.

The guy swiped his arm across his forehead. “Whatever I need to do to get you and that meat grinder of yours to leave me the hell alone.” Cursing under his breath, he hollered back at the woman inside. “Get out here, Lisa!…She’s not my wife,” he said, meeting Griffin’s and Troy’s gazes again, daring them with his eyes to say something.

“Not your wife?” Troy repeated, seemingly not taking the hint. Griffin suspected it was more that Troy just didn’t give a shit.

“My wife is visiting her family in Colorado,” the jerk told them. “And if you tell her, I swear, I will get that dog of yours put down for attacking me.”

Griffin shook his head. “Threatening law enforcement officers is a crime, sir,” he said pointedly. “And it’s none of my business who you take to bed behind your wife’s back. Your command might be interested, though.”

The jerk sneered.

A woman came to the door. Her dark hair was disheveled and her eyes were red and swollen. Not from being hit, but from crying. A lot.

“We got a report of loud shouting,” Griffin told her, as if she hadn’t heard him talking already.

She kept her gaze down, nodding at the information.

“Is everything all right, ma’am?” he asked, lowering his voice an octave.

“Yes. Yes, everything is fine,” she lied, her gaze flitting to Jaws.

“This is a trained K-9. He won’t hurt you, ma’am.” That was Griffin’s blanket statement to everyone, but his faith in the truth behind those words was now shaken. Jaws shouldn’t have attacked just now.

“Everything is fine. It was just an argument,” she said again robotically, like she’d done this before.

Griffin ran his gaze over her. There were no bruises or evidence of harm. Just fear.

“I suggest you go home now. Let things calm down.” He looked at the guy, whose arms were still folded tightly. His features were tight, rigid, angry. Another few minutes between him and the woman and maybe things would’ve turned violent. Griffin was glad that hadn’t been the case today.

The only violence had come from Jaws.

The jerk nodded. “You heard the officers. Get your shit and go home,” he told the woman.

Griffin had to bite his tongue to keep from lecturing the dickhead on how to talk to a woman. It didn’t matter if you were angry, you treated women with respect. His mother had taught him that, among so many other lessons. She hadn’t been perfect, but she’d raised him the best way she knew how.

There was that sour feeling in his stomach again.

They followed the woman to her car and watched her buckle up. Then the woman offered a small wave, but no thanks, and drove off.

“What’re you gonna do?” Troy asked, walking back to their police vehicles together. “Just a heated argument between two people who shouldn’t even be together.”

Griffin shook his head. “Cheating and arguing at the top of their lungs isn’t a crime.”

Troy stopped beside Griffin’s unmarked SUV. “What’re you going to do about Jaws?”

Griffin shook his head. “I don’t know what happened. He’s never done that during training.”

“Is this his first scene?” Troy asked.

“One of ’em.” Griffin placed Jaws in the back of his Explorer and shut the door. Then he headed to the front seat to crank the engine.

“Trainings and the real thing are very different. Looks like Jaws is still a little overeager.”

“I’m just glad he didn’t seriously hurt that guy.” Because that would’ve been a problem.

“I don’t know. The guy would’ve deserved it.” Troy grinned. “I’ll see you later, man.”

“Yeah.” Griffin watched Troy head back to his own vehicle and pull away as he considered the situation. When he was a rookie officer, he’d been overeager on scenes, too. It took training and experience to settle him down. Hopefully the same would be true for Jaws.

Because K-9s who were considered a liability didn’t last long in the department.

He drove back to his office and led Jaws to the back building on the K-9 lot. Inside was a room full of single cells for the dogs. It was similar to a jail with its concrete-block walls and gated front. The dogs didn’t seem to mind, though. They had their own spaces, were fed well, and got lots of exercise through the day. They all watched Griffin walk past with Jaws, who seemed almost eager to get back to his cell. The comforts of home. Griffin could understand that. Tomorrow Griffin would take him out to the training grounds and work with him some more. If they were going to be partners, he needed to trust that Jaws wouldn’t attack unless absolutely necessary.

After settling Jaws in, he grabbed a cup of coffee and returned to his desk to write a report on this afternoon’s domestic dispute, wondering if the guy’s wife knew about the affair, and if she’d run home to her extended family to escape the drama here. It wasn’t any of his business. His only concern was whether or not everyone was safe. And at least for today he could say that they were—despite Jaws’s attack. Today was a good day. What would make it a great day was if he could end it seeing Val.

The thought escaped before he’d had a chance to censure it.
Damn unruly thoughts.
All he needed tonight was a beer, his dog, and maybe a game on TV.

Two days after her girls’ night out, Val pulled her Volvo into the parking lot of Seaside Harbor nursing home. The sun was high in the sky, unobstructed by clouds. It was the perfect beach day, which was one of the reasons she worked at the local elementary school—to have summers off and spend time lying on the beach, soaking up the sun and contemplating her next book. That was her idea of living the good life. Instead, she felt compelled to do a book club here with women fifty years her senior. It was something her mother had done when she was alive. In a way, Val felt closer to her mother when she volunteered here.

“There she is.” Louise grinned behind the front desk as Val walked in. “Whiter than a snowflake. You need to go back outside and spend some time in that sunshine, dear.”

Val laughed. “I thought you guys liked having me here.”

“We do. The women look forward to your visits,” Louise said.

“I look forward to them, too.” Val pulled the group’s latest book out of her bag and held it up. “We’re going to finish this sucker today. I’m just as anxious as they are to find out who killed Ann Marie.”

Louise shook her head. “Let me know when you find out.”

“But that would spoil it for you. How about I just pass the book to you when I leave?”

Louise raised a brow. “I don’t have time to read.”

Val shoved the book back inside her bag. “That’s like saying you don’t have time to breathe. You’ll love it. I promise.” She waved and continued down the long hallway toward the community area. The women would already be waiting for her. Last week Catherine Dale had refused her physical therapy session because she didn’t want to miss a chapter. Val was tempted to feel bad about that, but reading was exercise, too. It was good for the brain, for the imagination, and for the heart.

“Ladies,” Val said, walking into the room and doing a mental head count. “Where’s Ellie?”

“Her grandkids are here,” Marge Patterson said. “You can miss a lot of things, but you can’t deny grandkids.”

“True.” Val laughed, taking a seat at the center of the group. “I’ll just have to go to her room later and do a private reading session with her.” She reached inside her bag and pulled out the cozy mystery they were reading and a bag of mini chocolate bars. “Is anyone diabetic?” she asked, watching their heads shake.

One silver-haired woman raised her hand.

Val reached down again and pulled out a sugar-free chocolate bar. “For you,” she said, handing it over.

The group of women gathered around her as she passed out the treats. Some of the women sat in wheelchairs, some were still able to sit in the hard plastic chairs that even Val found uncomfortable. She ripped open her own candy bar and ate, making small talk with the women before opening the book. A hushed silence fell in their corner of the room as she began to read. In Val’s experience, it was a rare occasion when a group of women came together and didn’t talk over each other, squabble, or turn to gossip. At least that’s how it usually worked at the school.

“Speak up, dearie,” Marge said as Val read.

Val looked up and raised her volume a notch.

“I still can’t hear you. What are you saying?” Marge asked, her face straining as she talked.

“Is your hearing aid on?” Val asked, stepping over to check. “Well, no wonder.” Val helped the elderly woman with her hearing aid and sat back down.

“I’m on pins and needles. Keep reading,” Alma begged.

Val loved the enthusiasm. That’s how she felt about books, too. They excited her, drove her to turn one adventure-filled page after another. As a teenager she used to put her mother’s old romance novels inside her Bible at church and read during her father’s sermons. That was one of the few things she’d ever gotten away with under his watch. She was proud of that, although God had seen her. He saw everything, right? That’s probably why she was a thirty-year-old spinster, spending her summer vacation in a nursing home instead of with some hot, ripped man on the back of a motorcycle.

Griffin came to mind and Val blinked, stuttering on the sentence she was reading. She read it again.

Alma leaned forward. “Who did it?” she asked.

Val smiled to herself, ignoring the question. They’d all find out soon enough. The plot was pretty see-through in Val’s opinion. She could already guess who the gun-toting villain was. She liked mysteries. Not as much as romance, but that was hardly something she wanted to read out loud to a group of senior citizens.

The door to the community room opened and a man walked in as she approached the tell-all scene. The scene that all of the women had been waiting for. Val glanced up just briefly to see that it was Griffin. His mother, Helen, was also in the book club.

He headed over and Val politely stopped reading.

“Awwhhhh,”
the ladies whined. “Don’t stop now,” one insisted.

“I have to. We have a visitor.” Val pointed at Griffin and all the women looked up at him.

“Is he going to act out the last scene for us?” Alma wanted to know.

He shook his head. “Afraid not. I’m just here to see my mother, if you ladies don’t mind.”

Helen didn’t even look at him. Instead, she sat, patiently waiting for Val to continue.

“He’s here to see you, Helen,” Val said softly, leaning forward and placing a hand on Helen’s knee. “Your son is here.”

Helen’s eyes grew wide and she turned to look at Griffin. “No. That man is not my son. I don’t know that man.” Her volume started to climb. “I’m not going with him!…I’m not!”

Val patted Helen’s knee softly. “I can give you a private reading session later. Along with Ellie.”

“My mother doesn’t read fiction,” Griffin said, stepping closer. “She prefers nonfiction. Autobiographies mostly.”

Val met Griffin’s gaze. “Oh. Well, I can…”

“I want to finish this book now!” Helen said adamantly. Val had only known her a short while, but usually Helen was soft-spoken. She didn’t talk much. “He’s lying. He’s not my son, and I’m not going anywhere with him!”

“Mom.” Griffin crouched in front of Helen’s chair now and looked up into her frightened eyes. “Mom. It’s me. Griffin. I came to see you, and I brought you a treat.” He reached inside his pocket and pulled out a health food bar.

Helen’s face soured. “That woman already gave me a candy bar!” She pointed at Val, then turned back to Griffin. “Now leave me alone!”

Griffin looked around at all the women in the quote-unquote book club and blew out a breath. Rising to his feet, he glanced at Val. How did his mother prefer Val over her own son? That was more painful than the fact that his mother preferred Val’s candy bar over the five dollar protein bar he’d gone to two different stores to find. It was his mother’s favorite. Or it used to be.

“You’re not my son,” his mother said again, turning back to Val and laying her hands in her lap in a dignified way that reminded Griffin of how his mother used to sit during the long meetings he’d been forced to accompany her to as a child. He’d always carried a comic book with him to keep busy, which his mother hadn’t liked, but had agreed to in order to keep him quiet. “Please continue,” she told Val.

The rest of the women agreed.

Val offered a sympathetic look in Griffin’s direction, which rubbed him wrong. He didn’t need her sympathy. He needed her to stop treating his mother like all the rest of the women. His mother wasn’t like them. She wasn’t elderly; she was only fifty-five years old. Helen Black didn’t belong in a nursing home for the rest of her life.

Except she did now.

“You can sit and read with us if you like,” Val suggested. “Pull up a chair. We’re just getting to the good part.”

“We’re going to find out whodunit,” Alma said. Her cheeks blushed a little as she looked at him. He’d been smacked in the ass by her one of the last times he was here.

“No. I’m good.” He looked at his mother one more time, but she was done with him. Fine. So much for helping her remember her life tonight. He’d try again tomorrow, and hopefully—despite how much he enjoyed looking at the brunette—Val Hunt wouldn’t be here.

He walked back to his motorcycle in the parking lot and got on. A nice, long ride would relax him. Griffin reached into his pocket and pulled out the protein bar first. He’d missed lunch. Ripping the wrapper open, he took a bite. He stared down at the bar in his hands as he chewed. Yuck. Who would willingly eat these things? The MREs they provided on deployments were better than these. Griffin peeled off the rest of the wrapper, shoved it into his pocket for trashing later, and tossed the bar to the grassy area in front of him. Maybe the birds would like it, but he doubted it.

Placing his helmet on his head, he glanced in the rearview mirror, prepared to zip out of here and down all the back roads in the little town of Seaside. Instead, he watched Val walk toward him with those long, tempting legs.

Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.
That was a warning he’d never fully realized until now.

“Hey,” Val said, stepping up beside him.

Her voice was muffled by his helmet. Removing it, he looked at her, noticing the varying shades of blue and gray in her eyes. She folded her arms under her chest.

“She didn’t mean it. All the ladies are just so excited about hearing the end of the book,” she said.

“So why are you out here with me instead of giving them what they want?”

Val shrugged. “I needed a break. And I wanted to make sure you were okay. Are you?”

Griffin sucked in a long breath, unsure of how to answer that question. What was okay? He wasn’t sure anymore. He was living, breathing, and had food to eat that tasted better than that protein bar he’d just tossed to the ground. “I’m okay,” he finally said. “I’ll see her later, when I’m not interfering with her social activities.” He had to laugh at that.

“Why are you laughing?” Val asked, her dark brows slanting.

“Because that’s one thing that hasn’t changed about my mom over the years. She’s always loved her social life.” Good to know he didn’t have to start from scratch in getting his mother back.

Val was watching him, her eyes softening as she continued to stand there with her arms folded across her chest as if she were cold. It was ninety fucking degrees outside. “I’m sorry if I intruded on your time with her,” she said.

“Don’t be.” He gestured back to the nursing home. “Better get back inside. They’re waiting for you in there.”

Val shifted back and forth on her feet. “Your mother is pretty receptive to the people who work here. Maybe, I don’t know, you could take a job—”

“I have a job,” he snapped.

“Not a paying job. But maybe you could do a few odd jobs here at the nursing home. Volunteer your time instead of just coming in and singling her out. Helen doesn’t know you.”

Griffin’s jaw tightened. “You don’t need to tell me about my mother. Just because you read her a book and slip her candy bars doesn’t mean you know her.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“My mother doesn’t like fiction. She doesn’t eat junk food. She likes stimulating conversation and fancy wine. She likes to watch the news and be up-to-date with current events, not watch
The Golden Girls
reruns on TV.” His chest was tightening as he spoke. He’d left his mother alone for too long, and now, as hard as he tried, he couldn’t find her—not the woman he’d known, anyway.

“Maybe your mother has changed,” Val said quietly. She’d taken a tiny step backward as he’d talked. Scared of him? Because of how he was suddenly acting? Because of the way he looked? He encountered that sometimes, living in a small town. His mother had hated his tattoos. It was “senseless graffiti on the body,” she used to say. She’d hated his bike, too, so he’d gotten rid of his car and used the Harley as his sole transportation his first and only year of college, just to ruffle her feathers.

Now he ruffled her feathers just by walking in the room.

“Then I’ll just have to change her back,” he said, putting his helmet on again. End of story. There was nothing more to say. He reversed his bike slowly as Val took a few more steps off to the side, then he zipped away, glancing in the rearview as she grew smaller and smaller.

Val returned to the book club, surprised that everyone was still seated and waiting for her.

“We need to know whodunit already,” Alma said for the fifth time that day.

Val crossed her legs and smiled, opening the book back to where she’d left off. “Fine. I’ll continue.” Her mind wasn’t on whodunit anymore, though. It was on Griffin. She gave a sideward glance to Helen, who was as attentive as everyone else.

Val read, using inflection to make her voice more dramatic. Val’s own mother had enjoyed being read to before she’d died. Val had only been nine; she’d been limited in what books she could read, but her mother hadn’t minded. She’d lain in her bed and smiled as Val read slowly, sounding out the big words. During the weeks when her mother had received chemotherapy, her mother had closed her eyes and listened. Sometimes Val had even wondered if her mother was awake, if she was still alive. But then she’d struggle with sounding out a word and her mother would whisper it to her.

“Reading can take you anywhere, Valerie,” her mother used to say. “If you have imagination, you can do all the things you want to do. You can be all the things you want to be.”

Val remembered how her mother’s eyes filled with tears one day as she’d squeezed Val’s hand. “And we can always be together. Just close your eyes and imagine me there with you.”

Val’s throat tightened as she continued reading to the group. “Cristoff raised his gun, the very one that had shot Ann Marie.”

All of the women in the group sucked in an audible breath.

Really? They hadn’t figured that out already?

Val smiled and finished reading the scene. “The end,” she said with a sigh. There was no happily-ever-after in this book. Those were her favorites. If you were going to use your imagination to take you somewhere, you might as well go somewhere happy, she thought.

“What’s next?” one of the ladies asked, leaning forward.

“Next?” Val hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Well, I don’t know yet.” She closed the cozy mystery and opened her bag to drop it inside. As she did, another book fell out. It was one of her Sophie Evans books. She quickly bent to toss it back inside her tote.