Read Online Captured Again by L.L. Akers - Free Book Online

happy to run you to your errand if you’re in a hurry. The bad news is I don’t know shit about cars.”
    Emma tilted her head and blew out her breath in a grunt at him and then laughed. “Seriously?”
    “Seriously,” he answered meekly, giving her a half smile, surprised to finally hear the sound of her laugh and hoping for her forgiveness for his lack of manly mechanical skills. He really did want to help; this wasn’t another attempt to hook up with Emma. He would’ve tried to help anyone—but cars were not his thing.
    “Okay. You’re a cop, so I’m assuming I can trust you. I really do need to get to my sister’s house in a hurry. And I won’t be there long. So if you could just wait for me and then bring me back here, I’ll call someone to come look at the car—someone who knows something about cars,” she added, laughing again.
    “Cool. I’ll take you. No problem,” Dusty answered while walking over to slam the hood shut. He grabbed his backpack off the ground and was heading toward the other side of the parking lot in a quick walk.
    Emma quickly shut the door of her car and locked it and had to run to catch up to Dusty’s long strides.
    “Oh, crap,” Emma nearly shouted.
    “What?”
    “That’s your patrol car you’re headed for, isn’t it?”
    “Yeah, so?”
    Emma huffed. “I don’t want to ride in a patrol car to my sister’s house. I’m in enough trouble with them as it is. If they see the car, they’ll freak out!”
    “Oh. Well, that’s what I’m driving today, so if you want a ride... this is it,” he said as he made it to the car and opened the passenger door, gallantly holding his hand out as if to welcome her in.
    Emma stood with her hand on her hip, looking up into the sky and shaking her head, as if the answer were there. Finally, she answered, “Okay, there shouldn’t be anyone there anyway.”
    Dusty waited for her to settle in and then shut the door, moving to the other side and climbing into his own seat. He looked over at Emma, giving her a big grin, and said, “Click it or ticket!”
    “Very funny,” Emma answered as she yanked the seatbelt and clicked it in place. “You’re off duty. You can’t ticket me.”
    “Yep. I can, actually,” he answered with a wink.

“S o... let me get this straight,” Dusty said. “You’re going into your sister’s house—not the one that picked you up at the station—but her twin , to raid her husband’s closet, and you have to hurry and do it before she gets home?”
    “That’s right, Officer Rowan,” Emma answered distractedly while texting Gabby to see if she was still at work.
    “Call me Dusty. And why is this seeming more like a breaking and entering, and possibly theft, than the urgent errand you originally led me to believe? Does your boyfriend not have enough money to buy his own clothes?” Dusty asked, trying to pull the information out of Emma as they were making their way up Gabby’s street.
    Emma’s phone chirped. She quickly read the text and breathed a sigh of relief. “Cool, she’s still at work. Come on, it’s the next driveway on the right.”
    “Again, Emma. Before we... I mean you— definitely you —do this, can you explain a little more to me?”
    Emma knew she couldn’t, or shouldn’t, explain anything to Dusty about her family’s business, especially their current crisis. She would just have to give him the short version, although it wasn’t the whole truth—it would have to do.
    “In a nutshell, Gabby and her husband, Jake, were in a terrible car crash a few months ago. She had a head injury and has been diagnosed with PTSD. Some days she’s fine, but not many. She’s grieving for him and teetering on the edge. Since she got out of the hospital, she refuses to listen to reason—she functions, and she went back to work where she does okay there too, but she’s still in denial. Our family has been told by her doctor to stop trying to reason with her for now, just try to be