We rode hard and fast. We pushed on through the rest of Arkansas with the minimum of stops and ate an awkward and mostly silent lunch when we crossed into Mississippi. Every mile we rode closer to Lowry made me nostalgic and nervous at the same time. A man never forgot where he came from, even if he had tried his hardest. I didn’t exactly feel very welcome when we stopped and I had to endure several obvious sneers and dirty looks as I escorted Dixie to and from the ladies’ room. Some things didn’t change no matter how much time had gone by and it reminded me why, even though this place was home, I had decided to leave it behind and not look back. I was used to tuning out that kind of reaction and judgment, but there was no way to stop the way it made me tense up and get overly territorial where Dixie was concerned. I didn’t want her to get the same kind of flack I remembered my mother getting. Neither one of them deserved that kind of reaction just because of the company they chose to keep.

We blew through Tupelo, Dixie oohing and awing over the old plantations with their stately columns in the front and the giant weeping trees. She kept telling me to slow down as the main roads turned into barely paved country roads so she could snap pictures with her cell phone. I was anxious to hit the county line but I couldn’t deny her simple request, so we were cruising along, slow and steady when suddenly red and blue lights lit up behind us.

The siren whirred and Dixie went ramrod straight behind me. “We’re barely moving. Why would they stop us?”

I didn’t want to tell her it was a common occurrence in Lowry. If you didn’t look like everyone else the cops had no problem pulling you over just so they could let you know they were watching you. That had happened less when I became a cop’s kid but there was only so much Jules’s position could shield both me and Mom from.

“No big deal. Probably just wondering what we’re doing in town.” That was partly true because I didn’t want to lie to her. I didn’t want to share with her the other reasons they could be pulling us over, so I kept my mouth shut and my eyes on the vehicle behind us.

I watched in the side mirror as the cop grabbed his hat and climbed out of the car after we both stopped on the side of the road. The tall figure was achingly familiar and recognizable as he ambled his way up to the side of the bike. A face that I hadn’t seen in a decade stared down at me from behind mirrored shades. He looked like he hadn’t aged a bit except now there were threads of gray in the ever-present goatee that surrounded his mouth.

I took my sunglasses off and tilted my chin up at the tall man. “Jules.”

The cop’s mouth twitched and his head turned to take in my pretty passenger. “Glad to have you back, son.”

“Glad to be back.” And I was. That surprisingly wasn’t a lie.

“We got a situation, Dash.” Jules’s deep voice sounded like home but his tone was serious and it made my very honed instincts stand up and take notice.

“What kind of situation?” I felt my eyes narrow as his head turned so he could look at Dixie where she was silently taking in our exchange.

“Got a call into the station about an hour ago about a kidnapped woman. The call hit dispatch in Tupelo a couple hours ago and they passed it on to us to keep an eye out. Got a description of a redheaded woman, small in stature, last seen in Arkansas. Caller said she was abducted by a man on a brand-new sportster with temp plates out of Colorado. The description that dispatch operator sent along sounded awfully familiar.”

Dixie stiffened behind me. “Wait … you’re saying someone reported me kidnapped?” She sounded incredulous and alarmed.

Jules lifted a hand and rubbed it over his mouth, a gesture I must have picked up from him along the way somewhere. It took time and distance but I could now see a lot of the man that had picked me to be his in myself. I wondered if that gave him a sense of pride or disgusted him seeing as how I’d left, him and the good life he’d tried so hard to give me through thick and thin.

“That’s what it sounds like.”

“No way. That’s crazy. Church asked me to come a couple of days ago and I agreed. I’m with him by choice.”

She was with me by choice and through a little bit of coercion, but I was starting to wonder if her being unable to tell me no when it came to something I really, actually needed her for was the worst mistake she had ever made. After all, she was nothing but good and I had a really bad track record when it came to being able to keep a good thing going.

Dixie

The cop looked almost exactly like Shemar Moore. The afternoon sun glinted off his shaved head and cast his confident swagger in shadow as he approached us. He even had the neatly trimmed goatee surrounding his mouth and the kind of smile that made me forget my own name. I was having a really hard time listening to what he was saying and not gawking with my tongue hanging out. He was tall, built, and gorgeous, just like the man sitting stiffly in front of me. They might not be related by blood, but there was no mistaking that Church was every inch his father’s son and there was also no missing that his dad felt it was long past time his eldest returned home.

“I am very obviously not kidnapped.” I couldn’t believe that someone had reported me missing. For a second I wondered if it could be Kallie going above and beyond to get my attention since I wasn’t around to keep her world from crumbling around her like I normally was. I wouldn’t put it past her, but I quickly dismissed the idea when the hot cop took his sunglasses off and pinned me with a hard, chocolate-colored stare several shades darker than my own.