The Map Home (Collier’s Creek Christmas)

Chapter 4

FOUR

Dakota

Dakota’s phone rang overly loud in his studio apartment. For the briefest of moments, he regretted joining the Sheriff’s Office. The requirement to leave the damn thing on 24/7 and answer if it was Morgan or the dispatcher calling sometimes felt like just too much, particularly in the mornings.

Glancing at the screen, he saw it was a 360 area code. Washington State. He had to answer this call too. Could be his half brother, Niall. But even more likely, it was Niall’s husband, Mat, calling to check in and wish him a happy holiday.

“Dakota here.”

“Well, that’s a step up from what, anyway,” Mat said with a deep chuckle. “I’ve given up on reforming Niall, although Ryder still gets on his case about it.”

“‘What’ is a perfectly reasonable way to answer the phone,” Dakota retorted. “Cuts out the unnecessary chitchat.”

“Ah,” Mat chuckled. “There’s no question you and Niall were cut from a similar piece of cloth. How’s the new job? I assume you worked today. How’d it go?”

Mat was the Sheriff of Piedras County in Washington State, so he was very familiar with small budgets and long hours. He’d taken it upon himself to act as a sort of deputy-mentor to Dakota. Which Dakota wanted to resent, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so, even if it gave him an annoying feeling in the center of his chest because it was similar to how Tad made him feel. But—thank god—he didn’t want to bang his half brother’s husband.

“It’s good so far.” Officially, Dakota had been a deputy for about two months now. “I mean, most of the time, it’s fender benders, people doing stupid stuff, loose dogs or livestock.” He paused, then added, “We might have a missing person right now though.”

“Huh. Those are tough. Maybe whoever it is decided they’d had enough of small-town living?”

“Maybe,” Dakota said. “But her landlady says she left her cat behind. The cat’s name is Pound Cake.” For reasons unknown to himself, Dakota was convinced that a person who named their cat after a dessert would not abandon it.

“Maybe that means she plans on coming back.”

“The landlady’s concerned. She’s the one who reported her.” Dakota was too. In his experience, a missing person didn’t have a happy ending.

“No luck yet? No sign of her?”

“I’m not assigned to the case. There sort of isn’t one, but we’re keeping our eyes out. The missing person is an adult with no known medical conditions and appears to have left of her own accord,” he quoted Sheriff Morgan. If her own accord meant leaving no notes and not alerting her landlord. And leaving behind her cat.

Mat made a sound that could mean anything. It didn’t sound like he agreed or disagreed. “I know how it is, and I’m not going to tell Morgan how to do his job. Sometimes missing persons are in trouble, and sometimes they’ve just checked out for a while or, for reasons only known to them, decided not to let their family know where they were going. Anyway, enough shop talk. Did you get any good eats today?”

It was conceivable that Marcy Auchler had just gone somewhere and not wanted to let anyone know for some reason, but Dakota didn’t have to like it.

“I snagged a hot turkey sandwich from the gas station around the corner.”

“A hot turkey sandwich, huh. Well, I guess that’s better than a bag of potato chips.”

He’d scarfed down a bag of barbecue chips too, but he wasn’t telling Mat that now.

“Hey, Niall wants to say hi.”

Dakota seriously doubted that but also knew that Mat called so Niall would talk to him. He and his brother both seemed to have inherited the same inability to have a normal conversation over the phone. Phone calls were always stilted and awkward, and he hated not being able to see people’s expressions. How did he know the person on the other end was being sincere? He wouldn’t be surprised to learn Niall felt the same.

“Dakota.” Niall’s voice was deeper than Dakota’s but had the same timber. Mat complained he had a hard time telling the difference the rare times that Dakota called him. “I was going to call but Mat beat me to it.” A derisive sound in the background had Dakota snickering too. “Knock it off, I was getting to it,” Niall insisted.

“Well, I probably wasn’t going to call you, so it’s a good thing Mat took care of it for us.”

Niall snorted. “I suppose so. But I’m not telling him you said that because he’ll just lord it over me. How was your day?”

Dakota recounted what he’d already told Mat concluding with, “I wish we knew more about the missing person— like if there’s something, I don’t know, that would make her disappearance more of a priority for the department. Or the opposite, so I could just let it go. Maybe she just needed a break and flew off to Florida for some sand and sunshine.”

“You said her name is Marcy Auchler? A-u-c-h-l-e-r?”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll have Ryder run a search. If there’s something to come up with, he’ll find it. And if there’s not, you’ll know you did your best.”

“Isn’t that… I feel like it’s kind of cheating if I go behind Sheriff Morgan’s back,” Dakota said.

“The key in this sort of thing is to ask forgiveness later. If Ryder finds something, you can decide how to approach Morgan with the information. If he doesn’t, it’s no big deal.”

That sounded like a bit of a stretch to Dakota. But he also wanted to help if he could. A muffled laugh that could only be Mat’s response to Niall’s logic reached his ears.

“Who reported her missing?” Niall asked, ignoring his husband’s scoffing.

“Her landlord—er.” He checked his notes just to be certain, “Sorry, Sabrina Suarez.”

“Isn’t Suarez the last name of the woman who owns the Collier’s Creek Bed and Breakfast?” Niall asked.

“I think so? It’s not that uncommon of a name around here though.”

“Ryder will find out,” Niall said confidently.

“Ryder seems to be doing a lot of work he doesn’t know about yet,” Dakota said dryly.

“The guy lives for this kind of stuff, and if I’m at all lucky, it will keep him busy for half a day. He’s like one of those super smart herding dogs—he has to have a project at all times or else we end up with complete chaos in the office because he’s randomly decided we all need to move desks around for the Ryder Mann version of feng shui.”

In the background, Dakota heard Mat comment, “Remember that time he went in over the weekend and changed all your passwords just to prove how easy it would be to hack your information?”

Dakota snorted.

“ Anyway ,” Niall continued, “email me the info you have. Have fun keeping an eye on folks this weekend.”

“Will do.”

“You working the Christmas holiday too?” Niall asked.

“Not sure yet. Supposedly not, but I kind of think I will be, just because of staffing.”

“In my experience, Christmas Day is pretty quiet, but who knows out there. Talk to you later.”

It was a relief to put his phone down. Dakota appreciated Niall making the effort to get to know him—well, Mat Dempsey making the effort—but it was cringy and so awkward.

It was getting late and he did have to be at work early in the morning, but Dakota pulled his laptop from its spot on the coffee table and fired it up. He figured he might as well see what he could find on Marcy Auchler, and social media was the perfect place to start.

Rolling his neck, Dakota glanced up at the time. Fuck, it was after midnight.

He’d fallen down a rabbit hole and lost track of the time. Marcy Auchler loved her cat. Her social media posts were filled with pictures and videos of a creature Dakota had learned was a Maine coon, a fluffy orange-and-white striped living pillow with massive feet and a haughty expression.

There were a few pictures of her out and about. Hiking a trail outside of town in the spring, having an espresso at CCs. She’d vacationed in Puerto Vallarta the previous winter—there were several pictures of the beach there, some friends, and a post about missing Pound Cake.

Marcy rented a room from Sabrina Suarez. She didn’t seem to have a love interest, at least not one she posted about or had pictures of. Her employment wasn’t listed, but Suarez had reported that she’d worked seasonally for a real estate office and also at a florist’s shop in town called The Wild Bunch.

Dakota clicked off his laptop and flipped his spiral notebook closed. Writing things down by hand helped him sort out ideas and sometimes even find patterns to information. He’d been teased by the rest of the deputies for his little notebook, but it came in handy. For one thing, a notepad never got too cold or hot to work properly.

His last thought before crawling into bed was that he might stop by the florist tomorrow if it was open over the holiday weekend. If it was, he might ask a few questions. Surely people Marcy Auchler worked with would have a better idea of her habits and activities.

Dakota slowly rose from asleep to awake. Next to him, on the antique wooden apple crate he’d repurposed as a nightstand, his phone was buzzing. After turning off the alarm, he stared up at the semidark ceiling, the vestiges of the early morning dream clinging to his consciousness. He’d dreamed about Tad Gillespie. Again.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

Appropriate because the dream which had involved Tad hadn’t been memories of them being fifteen years old and romping in the pastures around the G-Bar. Instead, it had been a fully Technicolor, everything-but-penetration sex dream that still had Dakota breathless and fucking hard, his hand wrapped around his cock.

The sensible part of him argued that he shouldn’t finish what the dream had started because—well, he just shouldn’t. But another part of him—a louder, more insistent voice this morning—demanded Dakota see through what his subconscious had begun. Tad would never have to know, right?

Tad Gillespie was a problem Dakota didn’t plan on unwrapping this morning, or any future morning. Tad was officially off-limits in real life, he reminded himself. Instead, Dakota pulled up his knees, spread his legs, and began stroking his hard-as-steel cock. It wouldn’t take long for him to finish. In the dream, the sexy, lanky, too-nice-for-his-own-good Tad had been naked and on his knees, his ass in the air, begging Dakota to fuck him.

Dakota wanted to fuck real-life Tad, but dream Tad was going to have to do. He moved his hand faster as he pumped his hips, thrusting into his own tight grip.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he mindlessly chanted.

Almost too quickly, the spark at the base of his spine flared into pulsing heat. Precome spilled over his fingers, making his cock slick, and fuck if that didn’t feel good too. He kept pumping almost mindlessly until his cock throbbed and come poured over his fist. A few more pumps and Dakota was groaning, relaxing into the futon, his chest rising and falling in the aftermath of orgasm.

“Great, dude, now you have to toss your sheets in the wash and you get to feel guilty about getting off thinking about Tad.”

Flipping the blankets off himself, Dakota got out of bed faster than he wanted to and stumbled to his bathroom and his tiny shower, where he turned the taps on hot. At least he had a shower that worked, right? At least he had a place he could call his own. Stepping into the small cubicle, he stood under the spray and let the hot water wash over him, wash away the dream of Tad.

As if.

He was so fucked.

Ten minutes later, scrubbed down, rinsed off, and toweled dry, Dakota pulled on a clean white t-shirt and stared into the mirror. He needed to shave. Shaving made him think about Tad’s porn-stache and that in turn had his cock thinking about things too.

And he didn’t even like the fuzzy thing.

“For fuck’s sake.”

Back in his bedroom, he dragged out a fresh CCSO uniform and put it on. It was time to face the day and put all thoughts of Tad Gillespie aside.

A little voice in his head reminded him that he’d been trying to set Tad Gillespie aside for over a decade and since it hadn’t worked yet, why did he think it was going to work in the future?

“Because it has to.”

With that, he shrugged into his winter coat and heavy boots and made his way down the stairs to the lobby of his apartment building. He pushed outside, noting that the building’s owner had shoveled and salted the sidewalk. Across the street, he spotted Geraldine and the excuse of a dog she called Barky.

“Morning, Geraldine.”

“Good morning, Deputy Green,” she called back. Barky, ever true to his name, noticed Dakota and began pulling on his leash and sounding the intruder alarm. “Hush, Barky!”

“Be careful out here today,” he called across the street.

“Oh, we’re just out so he can do his business. I’m not planning a trip to the emergency room. Did you see the ambulance Wednesday night?”

“No, I missed it.” Hopefully, nothing terrible had happened. Dakota figured he would’ve been called in if there’d been an incident.

“I guess that’s good news, right? Whatever happened wasn’t so bad they called you guys out.”

“I’ve got to get going. Like I said, be careful.”

“Will do. A lady always has to listen to a burly policeman.”

Shaking his head at the senior citizen and her damn dog, Dakota walked over to where he’d parked his truck the night before and climbed in behind the wheel. He’d much rather deal with Geraldine and Barky than think about the dream he’d had.

Tad Gillespie was untouchable. The Gillespies may have taken him in as a teen, but would they welcome him as Tad’s boyfriend? The forecast was cloudy at best. It was time to spend the day freezing his balls off so he wouldn’t walk around with a hard-on the entire time. And, also, remind himself that Tad could do better than some guy without a background, without much of a future, and with more than his fair share of massive trust issues.