Hot as Heller by Lucy Lennox

6

Finn

Riding along with Sheriff Stone was easier than I’d anticipated. I’d expected him to be harsh, annoyed, and stuck-up. He’d seemed to make a flash first impression of me that put me squarely in the “spoiled brat” category.

But today was different. He’d been kinder than I’d expected, and more patient in general. At least, at first.

After dropping the woman off in Silverthorne, Declan pulled into a sandwich shop so we could grab a late lunch. I asked him lots of questions about police procedure, but the minute I threw in a personal question about why he’d gone into law enforcement, his easygoing manner shut down.

“We should probably get back,” he said, balling up the wax paper from his sandwich and shoving back his chair to stand up. “You have your dinner thing.”

I looked down at my half-eaten salad. It wasn’t very good anyway, so I went ahead and threw it out before following Declan to the SUV. When we were back on the road, I tried again.

“Are you from here?”

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye before answering. “No.”

“Oh.” That wasn’t a question people usually answered with only one word. “Where did you—”

He interrupted me to point out an elk off the side of the highway. “Quick, look over there. See the antlers?”

I stared in awe at the big animal, who stood frozen in a stand of trees. After spending my entire life in the city, it was almost unbelievable to think the elk was real and wild, not part of a zoo exhibit or something.

“Wow,” I whispered as I craned my neck to look at it as long as I could before we were too far past it. “That’s amazing.”

“I often wonder if I’ll ever get used to it,” he said, almost to himself.

I kept eagle eyes on the edges of the highway after that, trying as hard as I could to spot more wildlife. The closest I came was seeing some kind of hawk fly over the trees.

“I can see the appeal of living here,” I said after a while. “The people are friendly, and the area of Aster Valley is stunning. It’s just as sunny here as in LA, but it’s fresh and clean.”

“So, you do your own stunts, you said?” Declan asked, turning the conversation away from himself again.

I opened my mouth to give my usual PR response about taking pride in doing my own stunts, but for some reason, I didn’t feel like lying to him. “Technically? I mean, that’s what we say. Most of the time, I do my own climbing stunts which is the bulk of what my career has consisted of so far. But when you mentioned Nolan’s plan to use actual explosives in the avalanche scene…” I looked out the window at the rolling hills to my right. “Well, let’s just say I hope he has some specialists who can show me what to do safely.”

He turned to me with narrowed eyes and a frown. The intense look on his face made the hairs on my arms stand up a little. “How could you not know? Isn’t it spelled out in the contract? Don’t you have an agent looking out for you?”

“I have an agent who looks over everything. If she agreed to it, I’m sure it will be fine.” Now I was definitely lying. As much as I appreciated Iris, I knew she was desperate to change my image from the clean-cut boy-next-door Chip Clover character to something edgier, more mature. I could see her accepting dicey stunt terms in an effort to make my image a little more badass.

But I wasn’t a tough, brave guy who relished putting myself in danger. I was an awkward, too-small-to-be-an-action-hero guy who’d accidentally fallen in love with rock climbing after taking private lessons with all the best safety equipment available. There’d been one other action movie, but I’d played the weakest link on the team, and I’d been well prepared with plenty of action choreography ahead of time. I assumed the same thing would happen on this film, but I was a little nervous the show runner hadn’t given me more information about it yet. Maybe I needed to take the initiative and ask. Regardless, I didn’t want to talk about it.

I wanted to know more about the sexy but stern sheriff with the tiny rainbow flag icon on his watch face. Did that mean he’d be open to a little flirting?

“When did you move to Colorado?”

“Six months ago.”

Talking to this man was like pulling teeth out of a rabid dinosaur. “Why did you leave California?”

“How’d you get into acting?” he asked instead of answering my question. The brush-off was rude as shit. He was behaving like an automaton.

“My mother took me to an open casting call as a newborn. She was a young single mom with delusions of grandeur, according to my grandparents. But her plan worked. I was offered a commercial. That led to modeling jobs for kids clothes and stuff. She used some of the money to enroll me in acting classes at a local theater program when I was very young.”

He scoffed. “Typical stage mom.”

That set my teeth on edge, not because he was wrong. He wasn’t. My mom was the worst kind of stage mom. She was the reason stage moms had the reputation they did. But she’d done it out of a violent desperation to get enough money to get out from under the thumb of my conservative grandparents and out of the horrible neighborhood we’d escaped to when they’d become too much.

“You don’t know me or my mom,” I said as calmly as I could manage.

“Bet I do,” he muttered, rubbing his hand over his face as if he was suddenly exhausted. “I’ve met a million people just like you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” So much for the flirting. The man was an ass.

He shook his head. “Never mind. Forget I said it.”

“Not possible. But I appreciate knowing you’ve prejudged me and my mother. That’s always nice. I’ll go ahead and put you in the bucket of people who think they know me without ever fucking trying.”

“I’m not trying? What do you think I’m doing right now? I’ve asked you a ton of questions about your work, for Christ’s sake.”

“You’ve used those questions to get out of answering questions about yourself. Don’t pretend you want to get to know me. I know people just like you.” I emphasized the last few words the same way he had.

We sat side by side in fuming silence. For the first time in a very long time, I wanted to punch someone.

“You tried to get me to park your damned car.”

I threw up my hands. “I apologized for that! For fuck’s sake, can you not let it go? So I got it wrong. I assumed Tiller Fucking Raine would have a valet service at his engagement party. Was that such a stretch to imagine?”

“I was wearing a sidearm.”

“You had on a white button-down and black pants!” And he’d looked like sex incarnate. I’d wanted to fuck the sexy valet over the hood of my car, but I didn’t dare tell him that.

“After I told you I wasn’t the valet, you still asked me to park your car.”

“I made a fucking mistake! I’m a nice guy. I swear I’m not the asshole prima donna you seem to think I am. I’m a nice, normal guy.” At least, I tried to be.

“Okay, Chip,” he said with a slight sneer.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I shouted.

He smirked at me as if satisfied he’d gotten a rise out of me. “Whatever you say, Chip.”

“That’s mature,” I muttered, crossing my arms and sitting back in my seat. “Real mature, Sheriff.”

We sat in stupid silence as the miles passed under the vehicle. The tension was thick and hot. I rolled my window down to let the sweet mountain air blow in against my warm face.

He opened his mouth to say something, but I didn’t want to hear another snide remark. Instead, I pushed a button on the dash. “What’s this do?”

The bark and whoop of a siren split the air. Declan jerked in surprise. Before he could reach to turn it off, I pressed another one. “And this?”

A red light swirled on the dash, and the car in front of us began to pull over.

“Cut that shit out or I’ll put you in the back,” Declan growled, turning off the lights and siren.

I pushed another button. “And this?”

A phone rang over the car’s speakers until a woman’s voice answered. “Dec, sweetie? Would you pretty please bring some ice pops home tonight? I’m positively craving them. This baby has a strange way of telling me he has a sweet tooth.”

We both stared at the button I’d pushed, and suddenly my stomach dropped from a great height.

The man was married to a woman with a baby on the way. So much for him swinging in a certain direction.

And I was a total fucking idiot.