First Surrender (Chance Encounters #3)

Chapter Ten

Natalie

J ackson: Where are you going?

Me: Excuse me?

Jackson: My deputy said you just left in a random car.

Me: Why is your deputy watching me?

Jackson: They do extra patrol at the hotels.

Me: I don’t believe you.

Jackson: Where’s Dec?

Me: None of your business.

Jackson: Nat…

Me: Don’t call me that. I’m busy, stop texting me.

Jackson: Busy doing what?

Me: I’m on a date.

Jackson: With Max?

Me: No, you’re absurd.

I checked my phone a couple of times throughout dinner but convinced myself that it was only in case Dec needed something. He’s at his friend Charlie’s house tonight and is usually more than content there.

Jackson didn’t respond again and I was hoping for more of a distraction by fighting with him. The local Mexican restaurant is good, but pretty basic like my date.

He might be worse than Max the firefighter who had the nerve to ask me out when we were still standing in front of my ashtray of an apartment. With a name fitting for a dog, I made sure to insult it and his mustache as I declined his offer.

Instead, I took a chance on a random dating app because I was starving and funds are incredibly tight right now.

I’d prefer to whip something up myself, but the single burner at the hotel can only accomplish so much. I also didn’t want our room and clothes to smell like my meal for three days.

“You ready to get out of here?” Ty, my Tinder match, asks while he reaches for the bill. I know my answer will determine whether he pays the entire tab or asks to split, so I play the part. I’ll be nice until we get back in the car. Then I’ll tell him to take me back to the hotel and ruin his chance of getting laid.

The conversation has been polite but boring. No one with any sense would think that there was any chemistry between us, but I know guys only go out to get their dick’s wet. He’s not looking for romance and luckily for me, I’m not either. This is a simple bait and switch. He’ll never see me again after our meal is over.

“Yeah, I’m ready. Thank you so much for dinner.” I bat my eyelashes for extra effect. He smirks, shoving his card into the folder and I know he thinks he’s got this in the bag. Dumbass.

As we’re leaving, I throw another $5 down on the table because I noticed he left a shit tip. If this was a real date then that would turn me off for sure. I can’t stand a bad tipper.

Only two minutes down the road, he reaches over and palms my knee over my jeans, wrapping his wiry fingers around it. “My place or yours?” He asks, channeling his inner Rico Suave.

“Um, you can drop me back at the hotel.” I shouldn’t have him let him pick me up. I wanted to drive but he was insistent and I was hungry. I figured he seemed harmless enough to get out of things by the end of the date.

We’ve been in the hotel for a couple weeks but to me, there’s no end in sight. I can’t find any other apartments for rent. I can’t afford a house, nor do I have the credit or savings to buy one. A used RV either, I checked.

The clock is ticking down until my world implodes once again. I’m working as much as possible to get as many tips as possible, but it’s not enough. It never is.

I refuse to leave this area. I am not making Dec move schools. His life has been turned upside down as it is without adding that social nightmare. I had to do it many times as a kid and it was traumatizing every time.

My mom would move us in with whatever boyfriend, drug dealer, or douchebag of the moment, and get drugs in exchange for doing housework. Or, sometimes worse.

Ty’s fingers tighten on my knee and it’s my first indication that he’s not going to give up as easily as I thought. “Are you going to invite me up to your room or are you going to pay me back for your meal?”

“Excuse me?” How fucking bold, dude.

“Your choice, honey.”

“I’m not your honey and I’m not inviting you up.”

He scoffs, tossing my knee aside roughly. This is bad, I might have screwed up here. I don’t respond to his little tantrum, my self-preservation is strong enough to know when to shut my mouth most of the time.

I should have played nice a little longer, especially when he takes a left where he should have continued straight.

“You are taking me back to my hotel, right?” I ask in a last-ditch effort, hoping that I’m worrying for nothing.

“Just a shortcut,” he replies in a clipped tone.

I don’t believe him but we’re not far enough out of town for him to be lying completely. He might be taking me there still in a roundabout way. It doesn’t matter though because 30 seconds later, blue and red lights are lighting up the dark road behind us, reflecting brightly in the car mirrors.

“What the fuck?” Ty grumbles, shoving the car into park on the shoulder, huffing and puffing as he does.

We’re both watching his driver’s side mirror, holding our breath for different reasons. He’s hoping to avoid a ticket and I’m hoping to vanish into thin air.

We both startle in our seats when a knock comes at my window instead of his. We never saw him approach which is hard to believe since he towers over everything around him, the car included. I don’t need to look closely to know that it’s Jackson. I don’t want to see the smugness on his face.

“Evening, folks.” Somehow his cop voice outweighs the triumph he’s probably feeling right now for catching me in this predicament.

“What did I do, officer?” Ty asks way too defensively. He’s like a kid who got the ball taken away at recess.

“It’s Sheriff. You were speeding. I need both of your IDs.”

“You’re kidding.” I cut him a glare, hoping he feels my wrath. He ignores me.

“I don’t kid,” Jackson says with all seriousness and I believe him. I don’t think he’s finding this as humorous as I thought.

We both hand him our license, but instead of taking them back to his car, he looks at them right there beside my door.

“Ma’am, step out of the vehicle.” He opens my door before I have a chance to reach for my handle.

I didn’t do anything wrong but whether it be because it’s late at night or his red and blues are distorting everything, I’m feeling slightly off balance. He wouldn’t actually arrest me, right?

I step out onto the side of the grassy shoulder but he doesn’t move his arm from the top of the door, making me stand indecently close to him.

“Do you want me to leave?” He asks the question quietly so there’s no way my date from hell can hear him but the depth of his voice vibrates through me, anyway.

There’s a silence that follows and I realize that he’s truly giving me a choice. If I asked him to leave, I think he would go. I’m not sure how that makes me feel but I know one thing for sure…

“I don’t want to go with him.”

Jackson studies me closely for only a moment, his eyes burning into mine. “Did he do something?”

I hesitate slightly and consider telling him that he is creepy and handsy but ultimately decide it’s not necessary. I’ll never see the guy again. “No.”

His jaw locks and pulls out handcuffs. What the fuck?

“You’re free to go, slow down.” He tosses Ty’s license onto the passenger seat and snags my purse from my seat.

“What about her?” Once again, Ty whines like a child getting his toy taken away.

“She’s being arrested for theft. She stole her last date’s wallet and car. Tried to cut his dick off, too.” Jackson snatches my wrists quickly and twists them behind my back, easily holding them together in one hand while the other giant hand clasps the base of my neck where it meets my shoulder. Before I can protest, he’s forcefully leading me from the car and toward his SUV.

The string of noises that comes out of my throat while we walk is nothing coherent.

“Don’t fight me until he drives away. Or, I’ll use the cuffs,” he warns just before Ty’s car pulls back onto the road, gunning it and leaving me in the dust. Jackson drops my arms immediately as if my skin’s on fire.

“Did you have to make me sound like a psycho?”

“Did I? Oops.” He folds his cuffs back into their spot on his vest.

“You’re such an ass. Why did you even pull us over?” I huff and turn toward the passenger door, waiting for him to unlock it. “Can I sit up here? Or, would you rather throw me in the back with those cuffs on?”

The double meaning in my question was unintended, but when he steps up to me, closer than he had been before, he’s looking down on me deviously .

My breath catches in my throat but I don’t look away. I wouldn’t want to give him the satisfaction even though my brain is mistakenly conjuring up all kinds of images involving me and Jackson in the back of his cop car.

His eyes track my facial features fiercely, reading every clue that he can from my demeanor like a predator about to pounce. I can’t breathe, I don’t even blink as he assesses me but I see the exact moment his thoughts shift and he reigns himself back in.

“I’ve been driving around in circles looking for you all night.”

My jaw goes slack. “What? Why?”

He blows out a deep breath, softening his facial features altogether as his head tips back, staring at the dark night sky. A silent prayer before answering me.

“Things are bad around here. People are going missing. Being killed. Women are being picked up off the side of the road and barely making it out alive. I wasn’t going to sit back and let that happen to you because you thought it was a good idea to go on a date with some random man.”

I ignore the dark things he just told me, finding it easier to argue with him about the last part instead. “How do you know that I didn’t know him? We could have gone way back. You don’t know me and you certainly don’t get a say in my dating life.”

“Yeah, then why are you standing here with me right now and not with that loser?” He glares at me hard, daring me to challenge him.

“I’d rather walk.” I turn my back to him but before I can take a step his arm shoots out to block me from walking away.

“I’d rather not be here. I’d rather you not need me at all but I will be here every time you need me.” He steps back out of my bubble and unlocks the car, reaching past me to open the door.

“Get in before I change my mind about the backseat, Nat. ” He enunciates my disgusting nickname on purpose, doing whatever he can to avoid any reverence toward me.

My ass plops into the seat, folding my arms dramatically as he shuts my door. When he rounds the front of the vehicle he looks as put together as he normally does. Even slightly pissed off and stoic as hell, he’s a handsome bastard.

“Why do you insist on calling me, Nat?” I ask once he’s driving.

“Because you hate it for some reason and you’re like a pesky bug that won’t leave me alone.”

“You’re such a dick.”

“Yeah, well. So, are you.”

I scoff. “Most men would refer to me as a bitch, not a dick.”

“I would never call you that.”

“But, you’ll call me a dick?” I ask incredulously.

“Well, I’m not perfect.” He shrugs.

If I wasn’t so frustrated with him, I’d laugh. It only makes me more frustrated. Nothing good ever comes when we’re in the same vicinity as each other but we keep ending up in the same place. Whether by chance or by choice. I think he’s the pesky bug that won’t leave me alone.