Undercover Engagement by Samanthe Beck

Chapter Twenty-Five

Fatigue sat heavily on Swain’s shoulders. His head ached. Along with other deputies, he’d spent the better part of the afternoon and evening zigzagging all over the place, picking up Rawley’s named “associates”—they’d rolled all over one another—and transporting them to county lockup. But still, he strolled through the Bluelick PD at ten fifteen, flashed his badge at the personnel on the desk, and asked to go back. They waived him through. No point in rushing home to the cottage. Malone had informed him earlier that Eden intended to pick up her things that evening and preferred to do it without the pleasure of his company.

Fine. She’d scored the win for herself, but maybe facing the fool she’d climbed over to do it strained her straight-arrow sensibilities.

Buchanan’s office was dark, as were most of the doorways along the hall. Through a door at the end, he entered the small area containing two holding cells. Kenny occupied the first. Dobie sat in the second.

He dragged a metal folding chair between the two and set it up.

“Hey guys.” He sat. “You’ve been Mirandized?”

“Hey Swain,” Kenny said, morosely. “Yeah, they read us our rights.”

“So, you’re a cop,” Dobie added, without much malice.

“I’m a sheriff,” he corrected. “Are you choosing to talk to me?” He ought to get the legalities out of the way.

“Why are you here?” Kenny asked.

That amounted to yes. “A few reasons. First, to check on you. Make sure nobody’s rocking on the floor in a fetal position, sucking his thumb.”

Kenny laughed. “We’re fine. My dad’s already been by with the lawyer. We’ll go in front of the judge tomorrow, our parents will post bail, and we’ll be sprung.”

“Where’s Eden?” Dobie interjected. “Is she okay? You guys have to know she didn’t do anything wrong.”

He sighed. Nobody could be this dumb. “Holy shit, guys, she’s a cop. You get that, right? She’s totally fine.”

Kenny bounced up. “She’s a cop?”

“Yeah. Bluelick PD. Salute her when you see her.”

Dobie just stared at the floor. “Eden’s a cop. That was not on my Bingo card.”

“Cop or not, she cares about you both. We’ve been working this op for a while, and she’s been feeling guilty about using you two to get to Jeb. ‘Course we didn’t know it was Jeb at the time, but my point is, she felt guilty. When she comes to see you, go easy on her. She was just doing her job. Understood?”

Kenny nodded. Dobie sat on his bunk, digesting the information. When he looked up, a glint of hope lit his eyes. “So, you and Eden weren’t, like, together? It was all an act?”

Swain offered one firm, negative head shake. “Nobody’s that good an actor. We were together. Are together, as far as I’m concerned, but she’s shut me out, and I don’t know why. That’s the other reason I’m here.” He sat back and propped his ankle on his knee. “I’m thinking you do.”

“Aw, man.” Dobie turned away. “Don’t make me your snitch. Talk to her. If she wants you to know, she’ll tell you. If she doesn’t…” He shrugged. “It’s her call.”

He leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees and stared at the floor. “I’m sure she’d appreciate your loyalty, but”—he raised his head and stared at the kid— “c’mon Dobs, I’m dying here. I love her. I’ve never loved anyone before, but I am one thousand percent, soul-deep, in love with Eden.”

Dobie shot to his feet. “If you’re so in love with her, why the hell did you cheat on her? You stupid fuck. You had her, really had her. This morning when I told her what you’d done, it hurt her bad. Like, really bad. If you’d been home, I would have punched you.” He flung out an arm and spun away. “Then you probably would have put me in the hospital, but I wouldn’t have cared.” Dobie turned back around and walked to the front of the cage to glare at him. “You deserve some pain for breaking her heart.”

Now he stood, too, and approached the bars. “Hold up. Hold on,” he ordered when Dobie turned his back. “I never cheated on Eden. Why would you tell her I had?” More to himself, he added, “And why would she believe you?”

“This is why she doesn’t want to talk to you. She knows you’ll lie. Save your breath, Swain. I was at the Gas N Go this morning, heading out on a tow. Oh, yeah, now you know you’re busted,” he said when Swain uttered a curse. “I saw you and the blonde step out of the hotel room. Y’all looked real cozy, all wrapped up in each other. Then you went back inside. I think part of me couldn’t believe my eyes, so I waited, wondering what the hell I was going to tell Eden, and how. When you came out again, I was ready. I took a video of you two saying goodbye, complete with long hug and a sweet little kiss.” His voice took on an uncharacteristically bitter note. “Then I handled the fucking tow and drove over to your house to show Eden the proof. Which I hated doing, by the way. I hated being the messenger. Making her cry. Making her sick. She was—”

“Mistaken.” He didn’t have to explain himself to Dobie or Kenny. Couldn’t, actually, but he refused to let them believe he’d cheated on Eden. “You didn’t see what you think you saw. Yeah, I know—me and a blonde in a motel room,” he conceded when Dobie would have interrupted, “I’m not saying it didn’t look bad, I’m just saying it’s not what you thought. I know I’m the lucky one in the Eden-Swain equation. She’s it for me. She’s the one. Why would I cheat?”

Dobie looked doubtful. “I don’t know. Because you’re crazy? Some guys just can’t keep it in their pants. It’s like, a sickness.”

“Look, I’m not who you thought I was, right? I’m not a low-skill construction worker. I pretended to be one as part of a cover.

“Wait…” Kenny’s brows drew together. “What are you telling us?”

“Boys, I’m just telling you, you can’t believe everything you see. You, of all people, ought to realize the truth of that.”

Swain left the police station unaccountably optimistic. He should be pissed, he acknowledged as he climbed into the Bronco, because, clearly, Dobie and his video had shaken Eden’s faith in him—and how could she not understand how completely and utterly in love with her he was, no matter how incriminating the video looked?

Well, because you never told her.

Okay, yes. That was true. She hadn’t exactly confessed undying love to him, either. On the other hand, according to Dobie, the so-called evidence of his betrayal had broken her heart. Which meant she cared. A lot. Good. So did he.

He steered the car onto the road and focused on the bright side. She hadn’t purposefully elbowed him out of the op, due to ambition, or distrust, or whatever. No, that had happened due to circumstances beyond her control, and he wouldn’t fault her for taking the only opening fate had left them.

She had purposefully ghosted him. To nurse her wounds, because she had been wounded, and he felt awful about that, but it proved to him that her heart was, very definitely, involved. It went deeper than a sense of betrayal, or the anger of being lied to. And yes, maybe it made him a son of a bitch, but after long hours of confusion and abject misery, the knowledge made him feel better.

…

“Alvaresss, I can’t thank you enough for helping me pack up and move out of there. And for letting me stay here tonight.” Three margaritas didn’t dull the sincerity of Eden’s gratitude, but she heard a little slur in her words. This would have to be her last. From her reclined position on Alvarez’s slipcovered sofa, she looked over at her former roommate stretched out on the matching tan loveseat with one long leg hanging off the armrest. Her spikey dark hair fell over slumberous brown eyes. Her lips curved around the salted rim of her glass. A single table lamp held the evening at bay.

“Mija, come over anytime, for real, no questions asked, but…okay. Sorry.” She set her glass on the square coffee table between them. “I gotta ask a question. What’s going on? Did something happen with Swain?”

And just like that, Eden found herself blinking back tears. She swallowed the last gulp of her margarita. “I can’t tell you about the assignment.”

Alvarez stared at the ceiling. “This isn’t about the assignment. Even I can see that much.”

“We…uh…” She wasn’t sure she could explain without breaking down. “We were partnered on a joint op between my police department and his sheriff’s department—which I know you already know. Sorry.” She closed her eyes and shook her head.

“That’s okay. Tell it how you need to tell it,” Alvarez encouraged.

She nodded. “Over the course of working together, we got…close.” She drew in a careful breath. “Involved.”

“No!” Alvarez exclaimed, dry as dust.

“I didn’t mean to. Didn’t want to, honestly…”

“Oh, pleeeeease, Mija. At the academy we could all see the sparks flying between you two. That parking lot kiss on graduation day? Caliente.” Alvarez fanned her face. “Muy caliente.”

“That was…I had a point to prove that afternoon.” She squinted, trying to remember the specifics. “I think.”

“The point you proved was the chemistry between the two of you could not be contained. When you told me you’d been teamed on an assignment, I knew it was only a matter of time before you two got together.”

“Yeah, well. Biggest mistake of my life.” She sat up, balanced her forearms on her knees and stared at the floor. “He told me not to trust him. I shouldn’t have, because I knew he’d do whatever it took to make the op work, even if that meant using me, but over time I thought things were different. Real.”

“What has you so convinced they weren’t?”

Her eyes watered. Her nose ran. “He cheated on me. He was probably cheating on me the whole time.”

“Mija, are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You saw him?”

“Yes. Okay, no. Not like you saw your ex with your cousin, but close enough.”

“What happened, exactly?”

Keeping names and other identifying details out of it, she ran through the whole sorry situation.

Alvarez shook her head. “There could be another explanation. You haven’t talked to him about it yet.”

A keen sense of betrayal sliced through her. “Of all the people I could have confided in, Alvarez, I thought you’d take my side. You’ve been where I am. How can you say that to me?”

“Because Swain is not my worthless, cousin-fucking ex.”

“I don’t know that. You don’t know that. Going by the evidence, he’s the kind of worthless ex who fucks a nineteen-year-old administrative assistant employed by the county.” She wasn’t a trained investigator for nothing. It hadn’t taken more than a couple hours to figure out the blonde’s identity. Somehow, knowing made it worse. This girl wasn’t a random hookup. She worked for the county, as did he. Their relationship could have started before she’d even arrived in Bluelick. It could have continued after she’d come on the scene. They hadn’t spent every second together. Worse than knowing he might have been seeing the woman all along was the knowledge that the relationship might continue. It might have legs, and it could walk around right in front of her if she remained in Bluelick. She might see them curled around each other at Rawley’s or witness them sharing dinner at DeShay’s. And if she kept thinking about it, she’d throw up again. “I made a colossal mistake. We never got along at the academy. I should have remembered that.”

“He liked you just fine. You never got along with him. You distrusted how easy all the classwork came to him.”

Very true. She had. Of course, now she knew why it had been so easy for him to think like a criminal. He’d spent his formative years raised by a criminal, living a criminal life. And that hadn’t been easy at all. He’d learned those lessons a very hard way, and they still haunted him. But had they warped him? Had they crippled his ability to forge an honest relationship? Everything she’d learned today suggested they had…at least when it came to her. “I was right to distrust him.”

“Are you certain, Eden? I don’t know Swain all that well, but I’ve thought about Taser Day a lot since we talked and guess what I’ve figured out.”

“I can’t guess. I’m wasted. Just tell me.”

“He traded names with me because he didn’t want to hurt you. If he took such pains not to hurt you way back then, when you two barely spoke to each other, why would he hurt you now?

“I don’t know,” she admitted, and choked back a sob. “All I know is he did. He hurt me badly. At least if he’d Tased me, I would have seen it coming. I never saw this coming.”

Alvarez poured the dregs of the pitcher into Eden’s glass. “I’m sorry, Mija. I’m not saying Swain did it, but I do understand what it feels like to be betrayed by someone you trusted. It sucks.”

Eden gulped down the last of the watered-down margarita. “It does.”

“You’re in love with him?” Alvarez asked the question gently.

Eden let her head fall back against the sofa and closed her eyes. The room took an unpleasant spin. “I’ll get over it.”

“Does he know?”

“Uh-uh.” After attempting an ill-advised head shake to go with the reply, she opened her eyes and focused on her friend. “At least there’s that. One shred of dignity I can hang on to. Swain doesn’t know he broke my heart.”