Read Online Unbound (Crimson Romance) by Nikkie Locke - Free Book Online Page A

until it was time to go home. He remembered his father helping him do his homework at the dinner table while his mother cooked. He remembered doing dishes as a family. His mother washed, he dried, and his father put them away. At bedtime, his mother read to him. Then his father helped him say his prayers.
    He remembered them as a family. He remembered them happy. It was sad to remember, though, because he knew it hadn’t stayed that way. He hadn’t understood what was happening then. To be honest, he still didn’t understand why things had changed.
    He remembered that it did change, though. She changed. He could remember his mother screaming and yelling. He could remember her crying, too. He remembered her crying a lot. He remembered the day she threw his father out. He remembered it clearly. He cried with her that day.
    She didn’t scream anymore after his father moved out. She still cried, though. It was just Dean and his mom for a while. His father would take him for the weekend sometimes. For the most part, though, it was the two of them.
    His mom remarried when he was nine. It lasted a year. Then it happened. The tragedy. His grandmother had called it that. After it, Dean and his nightmares went to live with his father.
    His father was devastated by his ex-wife’s death. His father was a true Whitley man and loved Liv even after their marriage was over. He and Dean were both trying to survive her loss. It should have brought them together. It didn’t.
    When it came down to it, they didn’t know each other. They had learned how to deal with and how to avoid one another, but really nothing beyond that. It tended to make things awkward when he and his father had to talk.
    Dean sat in his truck in the small parking lot in front of the police station, debating not going in when he saw Payten walking down the sidewalk. She stopped in front of the police station and went in.
    What the hell?
    He grabbed the uniform he was there to return off the seat and bailed out of the truck.
    • • •
    “Hey, stranger,” Kalvin hooted when Payten came through the door of the police station.
    “Kalvin!” She launched herself across the room and flung herself into Kalvin’s open arms. She hugged him tightly. The two were good friends, and she hadn’t seen him for almost two weeks.
    The week before she’d had to cancel on their standing plans for Saturday night dancing at the local bar. She’d been too tired that night to keep up with Kalvin. He must not have had time to stop in the diner lately because she hadn’t seen him there, either.
    “How are you, pretty Payten?”
    She released him and stepped back. “I’m feeling much better now.”
    “Please tell me you’re taking him with you.” Sitting at the desk behind Kalvin, a woman Payten had never met before was watching them. “He’s the most annoying son of a — ”
    “He grows on you,” Payten told her.
    “Like mold?”
    She laughed. “Exactly.”
    “Sounds like she really likes you, Kal,” Dean called from the front door.
    “I’m growing on her,” Kalvin informed him as he started across the room.
    “I don’t think so,” Smith grumbled.
    “Hey, Smith,” Dean greeted her. “Is anybody else around? I have to return this uniform.”
    “Burke’s hiding in the chief’s office. He claims he’s working on paperwork. I think he wanted to get away from your idiot friend.”
    Dean looked at Kalvin. “You are growing on her.” He looked back at Smith. “I’ll take him with me.”
    “Thank you.”
    Dean pulled Kalvin with him into his dad’s office.
    “Can I help you with something?” Smith asked.
    “I’m Payten Bailey,” she said, introducing herself.
    “Dylan Smith. Your parents own the diner, right?”
    “Yeah. We haven’t seen you in yet, have we?”
    Smith shook her head. “Not yet. Devin and I are trying to get settled.”
    “Is Devin your husband?”
    That caused the grim-faced woman to smile widely. She looked so much prettier when