Chapter Five

CORD

“Are you kidding me right now?” My mouth dropped open in shock as my old high school basketball teammate, Jake Walker, now the chief of police in Love, snapped the shiny pair of handcuffs around my wrists. All eyes in the café were on me but for very wrong reasons, and it made me feel like my head might explode from the hot swirl of rage and mortification. Leann stood a short distance away with her arms crossed over her chest and a smile plastered on her face. She looked so much like Sami but wasn’t Sami at all.

Jake hitched up his belt and shrugged. “Afraid not, bro. As far as I can tell from all the witness statements, you barged in here this morning and harassed one of the owners, to the point of grabbing her. You should know better than that, Cord. This is the South. We don’t tolerate men being unkind to our women. A real man doesn’t lay hands on a woman, neither. I’m going to have to take you down to the station until Miss Hartley decides whether she wants to press charges.”

“This is ridiculous!” I burst out. “I just wanted to talk to Sami, that’s all! I didn’t hurt her, for God’s sake.”

Jake’s ice-blue eyes were cold. He chewed his gum and blew a bubble, then popped it between his teeth.

“Like I said, we’ll have to talk to Miss Hartley. She may wish to hire an attorney or file an order of protection against you. I’ll personally make sure she knows the options available to her.”

“What the hell, Jake? I thought you and I were friends. You should know me better than this! I don’t mean Sami…or anyone…any harm! This is my hometown too, you know.”

“We used to be friends, Cord,” said Jake. “’Used’ being the operative word. I haven’t heard from you in six years. No one has, except for your mother, who keeps mostly to herself. This is the first time you’ve been back to Love. Let’s just say your true colors are showing.”

“I can’t believe this is happening,” I muttered.

I was utterly dumbfounded. People I thought I’d been on good terms with—Leann, Jake—had completely done a 180 on me and were now treating me as if I were the devil himself. I couldn’t make sense of it. Just because I’d been out of touch for a while made me Enemy Number One?

“Let’s go, buddy,” said Jake, pointing to the door where another officer stood glaring at me. Their police cruiser was parked outside at the curb, it’s flashing red and blue lights drawing the attention of passing motorists.

“No way,” I protested, shaking my head vehemently. “I am not going to jail. I refuse to be treated like a common criminal. My limousine driver is waiting in the parking lot for me. Let’s just part ways and forget this ever happened, all right? Maybe we could go shoot some hoops like back in the day?”

“Oh, so now you’re resisting arrest and trying to bribe an officer of the law, are you? What do we think, folks?” Jake asked with a sweep of his beefy arm, addressing the café staff and patrons. “Is he resisting arrest and attempting to bribe an officer of the law?”

“Absolutely,” Leann said firmly.

“Yep,” said the young redhead behind the register.

“Boy howdy,” piped up an elderly man in a cowboy hat from a nearby table. He picked up his cane and shook it at me.

“You have a choice,” said Jake, snapping his gum. “You can come with us now peacefully, or not. If not, I’ll bet the news stations would be all over a story about tech’s newest It Boy falling from grace.”

“Fine,” I replied through gritted teeth. “You got me. I’ll come down to the station with you. But I demand to call my lawyer.”

“You can go ahead and do that,” said Jake, beckoning to the other cop. “Read him his rights, Oscar. Let’s escort this fella out. Maybe some time in a nice six by six cell will help him remember what we value around here. Forgetting what you left behind ain’t one of them.”

***

Could this be some sort of prank? Was I being featured on one of those reality tv shows where the joke is on me? Sitting on the thin cot in the jail cell, I held my head in my hands. For the life of me, I couldn’t come up with any other explanation for what the hell was going on. Thank God Albert said he’d take a red-eye and be here by morning. I should probably have him reach out to PR just in case things went sideways. I groaned, thinking of my punch list. Without my laptop, I wouldn’t make any progress on developing the new app.

Or progress in Sami.

How would I ever be able to make her fall in love with me again in the next few days? When she won’t even speak to me? Maybe this whole thing was a huge mistake, and they were right that I shouldn’t have come back here. I should probably hop on the next return flight to New York, wire the money to Hale, and then lick my wounds in peace. That scenario sounded more pleasant than the current one, anyway.

“Sandwich, Cord?” asked Jake, appearing on the other side of the bars to my cell. He knelt and slipped something wrapped in parchment paper through the inch of space underneath. “It’s bologna on white with processed cheese. Hope you like it.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Sounds disgusting.”

Jake smiled. “It will be.”

Suddenly a phone pinged. It was Jake’s. He removed it from his pocket and glanced at the screen. “Well, well, my lunch will surely be a whole lot better than yours, Cord. Guess who just texted me? Your girl Sami’s on her way here now, and what’s more, she’s bringing me a fresh-cooked meal. It’s bound to be almost as delicious as she is, wouldn’t you say?”

My lips tightened. I wouldn’t take the bait and respond to his jibes. He was just trying to rile me. But inside I was seething. He knew how in love with Sami I was. He and the girl from the next town over he’d been dating at the time—what was her name—had even gone on double dates with us to the movies. A thought flashed into my mind that turned my stomach even more than the idea of a stale bologna sandwich. Was it possible that Jake and Sami were an item now? Could they be dating? That would explain, at least somewhat, why everyone had gotten so upset when I showed up at the Cuddle Cup after having sent Sami a bouquet of her favorite flowers. My fingernails dug into my palms at the idea of my former friend and teammate dating the only woman I’d ever loved. The one I loved so much that after she broke up with me, I vowed never to set foot back in Love again. For fear of what seeing her beautiful face would do to my heart. Which was exactly what it was doing now—breaking it, all over again.