thought that Silver Valley’s days of suburban serenity might be over, shattered by the opioid epidemic and now ROC’s entry into the area, but he kept those thoughts to himself. And he hoped against hope that he was wrong. If it were up to him, Silver Valley would again be the low-crime-rate town it’d been when he was a kid.
After a few hours of administrative work, Josh headed for the small break area. He sent up a silent thanks for the full pot of coffee on the heating plate, and he noted the plate of cookies someone had dropped off. There wasn’t enough coffee to keep him going today. Chief Todd wasn’t someone he’d want to whine to about how the paperwork for Becky’s needs had plowed him under these past months. He’d been up all night working out the finances for Becky to be able to leave home and live in her own apartment. It’d be possible in a community with other mentally challenged adults, and he was pretty sure he’d found the perfect one for her. She’d have supervision with autonomy. It was a fine line for his nineteen-year-old sister, who still asked about their parents, long dead. Becky knew they were gone and understood that part, but she didn’t understand why she had to still feel sad about it. Lifelong sorrow was too adult an emotion for Becky. Her pain crushed him.
Josh had been at the Jersey Shore on a spring break beach getaway when he’d received the phone call that had changed both of their lives forever in that split second. There were no adults named to take guardianship of Becky, so he stepped up to the plate. Instead of continuing the scholarship to Penn State, he’d transferred to a local private school for criminal justice, allowing him to take care of Becky once she was released from the hospital. She’d miraculously survived the accident that had taken their parents. Fortunately the college had given him a hardship scholarship, and their parents had left enough to help them survive. Becky received state and federal aid, too.
Becky had suffered developmental delays almost immediately and still had emotional difficulties from time to time, but her motor skills were intact. Becky functioned completely normally, for a nine-or ten-year-old girl, socially ahead of her mental capacity, which was closer to seven years of age. She’d never grow older, emotionally. Mentally, she grasped just about everything, but lacked the practical judgment to be able to live completely on her own. As he poured a large mug of the steaming coffee, he acknowledged that it was a blessing he’d found a local program. Upward Homes would handle her disabilities, emphasize her abilities, give her a job, friends to spend time with and a chance to enjoy whatever further education she was capable of. He sipped the coffee and told himself he didn’t need the cookies. The younger officers would appreciate them more, and they wouldn’t take an extra fifteen minutes to burn off in PT as they would for him.
He knew thirty wasn’t old, but he also knew his limits. The paperwork for Becky’s application was daunting, and his protective urges were hard to let go of. But if he ever wanted to freely work as a detective again, he needed to know Becky was taken care of round-the-clock. Worrying about her being on her own at home, no matter that he had a neighborhood friend to check in on her, was stressful. For both of them.
“Officer?” Cali, one of the SVPD’s receptionists, walked into the break room and stopped in front of him. How long had he been daydreaming about how to fix Becky’s problems?
“Hey, Cali. How’s the weekend looking for you? Because I’m going to be right here at my desk.”
She flashed a quick grin, nodded. “Been there. Hey, there’s a woman here who’s asked to talk to one of our detectives. Says she’s with NYPD and showed me a badge.”
“What about?” Cookie temptation evaporated.
“A possibility of domestic violence.”
He quickly added some French vanilla creamer to his coffee, one indulgence his six-foot-four-inch frame could still handle. He was painfully aware that at thirty, his fast metabolism days were quickly fleeing.
“Send her back to my desk.”
“Will do.”
He carried the navy ceramic mug with SVPD’s gold logo stamped on it. Before he sat down a tall, willowy redhead walked up to him. His body immediately recognized who his mind struggled to believe was standing before him. The woman he’d never expected to see again. The one who’d got away. The woman his eighteen-year-old self had thought was his one true love.
Annie Fiero.
Josh thanked his stars he had the seat to catch him because the sight of Annie after all these years sent him reeling. As soon as his ass hit the leather padding he shot back up, ingrained respect having nothing to do with it.
Josh wanted to be on his feet for this reunion. “Annie.”
He took her in, from the crown of her head still framed by her flaming-red hair, her catlike eyes luminous in her beautiful face and her lips—hell, her lips. He licked his own as he allowed his gaze to meander farther south, seeing how her formfitting white T-shirt under her open ivory cardigan clung to her breasts. He wished the sweater was off and he could tell if her nipples were hard, if she felt what he did. Her curves were nonstop, evidenced by how she filled out her dark, tight jeans. Pink polished toes in sandals underscored her femininity. And his reaction to it.
Damnation. He needed to get Becky situated so that he could start dating properly again. Ever since he and Christina broke up, he’d been afraid to bring another woman home. It was too hard on Becky when they left.
“Josh?” The incredulity in Annie’s voice hit him in the solar plexus. Her tone, the soft quality of her speech, was the same. As were her startlingly blue eyes. “Josh.” It wasn’t a question as she said his name the second time. The pulse at the base of her throat danced under her smooth skin.
Apparently he’d caught her by surprise, too.
“Annie.” He took his time to look her over again. Since they’d once been best friends, she wouldn’t misconstrue it for unprofessional police behavior. And damn it if he didn’t check her left hand. Bare as his. Not that it meant anything, necessarily. It didn’t matter either way. He wasn’t available, and if Becky were already situated, Annie would be the last person he’d risk his ego with. “I didn’t recognize you at first.”
She ran her fingers through her hair, flipped it lightly over her shoulder. A smile as she looked up at him. “Time marches on, right? You’ve grown at least a foot!”
He couldn’t help it, his chest puffed up at that. Not that he was immune to a woman’s admiration, but this was Annie. Her opinion had meant so much to him in high school. And still did, to his surprise. And maybe a little bit of alarm.
“Six inches is all. Had a spurt after we graduated.” He froze when he saw her eyes narrow. Oh hell... “Annie, we didn’t leave it on very good terms, did we?”
“If you call telling each other we were done, never wanted to ever see one another again...” She leaned against the edge of his desk, her long, lean lines seeming to underscore how very aware of her each inch of him was. Too aware. He maintained eye contact, hoping like hell she would, too. That she didn’t notice what she was doing to him, because if she looked at his crotch she’d know. He hadn’t had his uniform on for a day yet, and already he wanted to shove it off, show Annie just how much he’d changed. How the years had taught him how to be a man who could give her more than he’d been capable of on their bungled prom night. Her eyes studied him, too, and he forced himself to mentally detach from his reactions.
What the hell was going on with him? So what if Annie was hot? It wasn’t like he didn’t see attractive women all the time.
But none he had such a deep history with. “Yeah, we left it on crappy terms. I am sorry for anything I did that might have hurt you. We were kids, though, right?”
She sighed. “We were, but I’d like to think we shared more than the typical teen friendship.”
“I’m sure I was old enough to be more polite. I