Playin’ Cop (Heroes of Henderson ~ Prequel) Read Online Free

going to roll all over them.” She turned back to the TV. “And it’s gonna hurt.”
    “I hear that.”
    They watched a few uneventful plays in silence.
    Annabelle finally glanced at her watch. “Do I need to ….”
    “All taken care of, sugar bee.”
    She turned her head and asked, “You talk to Brooks or Vance?”
    “Vance. He was on his way to City Hall to wait for you. Apparently Brooks had to make an urgent run to Raleigh.” That got a smile out of Annabelle. Her father went on. “I told Vance we’d settle up tonight.” She nodded at that. Then she got up and came over to kiss her father’s cheek.
    “Thanks for setting all that up for me, Daddy. You were right. I think I just might like this Officer Friendly.”
    Her father grabbed her hand as she started to walk away. “His name is Duncan James, sugar bee. And it wasn’t long after I met the boy that I thought he might be perfect for my Annabelle. After all, I know just how picky you are. He’s got good manners, a firm handshake and solid eye contact. Word is he works hard, but is no stick in the mud. He lives in Raleigh so he can go home to his own damn place after a date. And although he made the poor decision to go to NC State, we won’t hold that against him because he got his law degree at Carolina.”
    Annabelle laughed.
    “You go have fun tonight and see what you think.” Annabelle nodded and started to walk away. “Gotta be better than swapping spit with old Lewis Kampmueller.”
    “I hear that,” she heartily agreed.
     

 
    Chapter Three
     
    On the outskirts of Henderson stood a long and dreary ranch-style house that would only be called a fixer-upper by an optimist. Good thing Brooks Bennett had his share of optimism in spades, because he’d been its proud owner for six months now. Time enough for him to pull down all the wallboard and strip the thing to its studs, opening the kitchen, dining and living room areas to make one big great room. New wallboard was now up, taped, sanded and ready for paint. But all his furniture was crammed into one of the three bedrooms down the hall. The place was clean for a construction site and had a working refrigerator filled with beer––which seemed to be the only requirement for the four men who made do by sitting in three beach chairs and on top of a cooler right in the middle of Brooks’ new great room.
    “No problem,” said Lewis. “Staying with your parents will be a heck of a sight better than this dump. Duncan is welcome to it.”
    “I appreciate it,” Duncan said, popping open a can of beer and handing it over to Brooks before he sat back down on the cooler. “I hate to bust in on this bromance the two of you’ve got going. I know you don’t get to town much these days, Lewis, with all your app inventions and technological leaps and bounds.”
    Brooks took a sip of beer and then pointed it at Lewis. “You don’t know the half of it. He’s got something so big in the works right now he’s not even telling me about it.”
    “Not even telling your significant other, Lewis?” Vance Evans goaded. “That’s harsh.”
    “Not as harsh as what the three of you pulled on Annabelle Devine,” Lewis said through a laugh. “Explain to me again how a bogus three hundred dollar speeding ticket managed to get Duncan a date with the Keeper of the Debutantes.”
    “Yeah,” Vance said, “because if three hundred dollars was all it took to snag a date with one of the Devine sisters, you would have worked that angle long ago.”
    “Damn straight,” Lewis muttered before taking a swing of beer.
    They were a sight, the four of them, Duncan surmised. Him sitting here in his casual business attire and expensive shoes. Vance and Brooks still in their uniforms, stretching their long, lanky, baseball-playing frames out in the beach chairs (clearly they’d done this a time or two)––and Lewis, the one who could buy and sell each of them a dozen times over wearing only a tattered t-shirt