Andie had come home from Dublin for Christmas break, taken one look at Jake and me together, and knew. I’d gotten the safe-sex talk from her and now she was urging me to go on the pill, something I knew Jake wanted me to do too. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to—it was just that in a small town like Lanton, these things had a way of getting back to parents.

The thought of having to discuss my sex life with my parents?

They may call me Supergirl, but I wasn’t that brave.

I’d have to do it sometime soon, though. I knew that.

Fun.

“Did you tell your mom and dad about Edinburgh?” Jake asked, wiping his mouth with his napkin. I knew that satisfied look on his face. He was such a liar when he said he didn’t like Hub’s food.

“Yeah? Did you?” Just before Christmas I’d told Jake that I wanted to spend my third year of college abroad. Andie was having such an amazing time in Dublin and she promised me that it was an experience that would change me and help me grow up a little. I’d always wanted to travel, so a year abroad sounded awesome. My aunt Cecilia had visited Scotland years ago and when she came back, she showed us all her fantastic photographs. The ones of Edinburgh and its awe-inspiring castle resonated with me and I’d never let go of the idea of visiting someday. Why not for a study abroad? The University of Edinburgh had a fantastic reputation as an international school and Cecilia’s money was sitting in the trust fund waiting for me to spend it.

As soon as I’d mentioned it to Jake, he was all for the idea. After a ten-second conversation, it was decided he was coming with me. This was similar to the discussion we had regarding the schools we were applying to back home. We’d decided to apply to Northwestern, Purdue, and the University of Chicago. It depended on who got in where but we were planning to either attend the same college or go to the colleges that were closest to one another. At least with those three, we were talking a few hours at the most.

“Yeah,” Jake answered, “they think it’s a great idea. They like the influence you have over me.” He winked at me, and I so wished his winking wasn’t as hot as it was.

“My parents are resigned to the idea as long as I apply for pre-law.”

“They’re still on about that huh?”

Delia and Jim Redford just couldn’t get to grips with the idea of their daughter becoming a cop. I think they were now just beginning to realize that this wasn’t a phase I was going through. Now they were pushing hard for law school. My mom had even downloaded brochures.

“I think they’d be okay with it if my intention was to be a deputy here.”

Jake smiled affectionately. “But of course, you want to join the illustrious ranks of the Chicago PD.”

“I do. I want the chance to advance, you know. Specialize.”

This caused a little furrow between Jake’s eyebrows. Although I’d talked at length with him about being a cop and he’d spoken at length about getting into engineering, we both just listened in that I’m-there-for-you-and-I-care-that-you-do-what-makes-you-happy-but-I-have-no-idea-really-what-you’re-talking-about kind of way.

“You’ve never mentioned that.”

I shrugged. “It’s just something I’ve been thinking about more and more lately.”

“Well, specializing to what?”

“I don’t know. Homicide, maybe.”

Jake tensed and then moved back in his seat. “What?” I noted the concern in his voice and hoped to God I wouldn’t have him to contend with as well as my parents when it was time to apply to the academy. “Do your parents know this?”

I nodded, sighing. “I told them a few nights ago. Please don’t tell me you now agree with them?”

Jake rubbed his eyebrow in thought and then shook his head. “You should do whatever will make you happy, but Charley … a homicide detective in a place like Chicago? You’ll see things you can’t erase. Ever. Why would you want to see that shit every day?”

The reason was something that had been in the back of my mind since it happened. It wasn’t something I’d shared yet with Jake because it was pretty sad, but I wanted him to understand me like no one else did. “I’ve always wanted to be a cop, ever since I knew what one was. I just …” I smiled ruefully, “I wanted to do something that mattered, that makes people feel safe. Working in homicide? Well … three years ago my big cousin Ethan was shot and killed in his Miami apartment for his laptop and some cash. The police never caught the guy. My aunt and uncle don’t have any closure. It was a mindless crime and there’s no one to perpetrate justice on. You can still see that in their eyes.” My throat constricted and I felt that same rawness inside of me that I’d felt last summer when I spent a month in Miami with them. They got through each day for my cousins Emily and Seth, but it was like something was weighing them down, something eating at any chance of contentment they might have. “I guess if I can’t give them closure, I’d like to try and do that for other people. And I know that I’ll see some really horrific stuff, Jake, but I also know I want to at least try to see if I can handle it.”

Jake regarded me with an intensity that held me still. “I bet you can.” He slid his arm along the table until his hand found mine. He squeezed it, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles. “I’m sorry about Ethan.”

“What’s this? Young love?” a rough voice mocked as a shadow fell over us.

Jake and I looked up at the intruder and I tensed. Jake’s grip on my hand tightened and suddenly, it was me squeezing his reassuringly.

“Mr. Thomas,” I murmured unhappily, eyeing the weathered, obnoxious face of Trenton Thomas—Brett’s dad.

He shot his son’s table a smirk before turning back to look down on me. “I see all your friends have dumped you since you started dating the enemy. Maybe you should think on that, Charlotte.” He grinned, as if he’d cracked the world’s funniest joke.

I sneered. “Grow up.”

Just as abrupt as a blackout, Trenton’s face darkened. “You watch who you’re talking to, young lady. Around here, we treat our elders with respect.”

So I was supposed to respect this forty-year-old bully just because he had twenty-four years on me? I didn’t think so. “You want respect? Earn it.”

Trenton was practically bearing his teeth at me. “Pfft, just like your momma. Delia was a stuck-up bitch too.”

Flinching at the insult to my beautiful mother, I had to take a couple of breaths, concentrating on Jake’s hand in mine. Before I could respond calmly, however, a familiar voice said, “Delia just didn’t like you, Trenton. That’s why she said no when you asked her to prom, and that doesn’t make her a stuck-up bitch. That makes her smart.” Hub, the owner of the diner and a six-foot-four bear of a man with a scruffy beard and usually kind eyes, was standing beside Trenton, wiping his hands on a dish towel. His kind eyes were sharp and filled with warning. “If you’re smart, I won’t hear you speaking about Delia or any good woman like that again, and I won’t hear you trying to intimidate kids in my establishment or elsewhere … or you and I got problems. Understood?”

It took everything I had not to grin triumphantly at the strained look on Trenton Thomas’s face. Tall at six foot and strongly built, it wasn’t as if Brett’s dad couldn’t handle himself, so it was galling when he came up against someone who wasn’t afraid of him. Especially someone as well liked and integral to the town as Hub.

We watched as Trenton gave Hub a short, sharp nod and then turned tail and stormed out of the diner.

Hub sighed and then looked at our empty plates. “Enjoy that, did you?”

I laughed. “The food or the show?”

Hub chuckled and shot Jake a sly smile. “Hope you can handle this one. She’s as sharp as her mom.”

As soon as he’d disappeared behind the counter, conversation started up in the diner again and Jake pulled on my hand to get my attention. “I can handle you. I want to handle you right now.”

I shivered at the look in his eyes. “Are your parents home?”

“You want to check?”

“What do you think?” I chuckled and slid out of the both.

Jake paid for the food and I didn’t bother arguing with him. We’d already had a massive blowout about this. I told him I was a modern girl and I wanted to pay my own way, or at least take turns paying, and Jake told me he was raised in a world where the man paid. This seemed awfully old-fashioned for a sixteen-year-old boy, but he would not be budged. Today I was too interested in fooling around to get pissy about it.

Pulling up to Jake’s house, I felt the mood in the truck plummet. His dad’s car was in the drive. Jake sighed. “What now?”

Groaning in annoyance, I shook my head. “My parents are home too.”

“Our parents need to get lives.”

I laughed and followed him out of Hendrix and up to the house.

As soon as we walked inside, we knew something was wrong.

Logan Caplin was pacing the living room floor, and he was seething. Jake’s mom, Beth, stood to the side, a grim expression on her face.

“What’s going on?” Jake asked quietly.

“What’s going on?” Logan growled. “What’s going on is that I’m going to teach that son of a bitch a f**king lesson!”

“Logan,” Beth snapped. “Charley is here.”

“It’s okay,” I assured her, frowning with concern. “Mr. C., what’s going on?”

He stopped, shaking his head as he tried to control his anger. “I stopped by my office early this morning to pick up some papers I needed over the weekend. My office was trashed. Papers shredded, my computer smashed to bits, and there was pig excrement smeared everywhere.”

I gasped and Jake choked out, “What the fuck?”

“Jacob!” Beth admonished. “Just because your father is angry does not give you an excuse to use that word.”

“Sorry, Mom,” he said before focusing back on his dad. “Please tell me it wasn’t Trenton Thomas.”

“Who else?” Logan threw up his hands, an angry vein throbbing in his neck. “Sheriff Muir and his deputies have lifted some fingerprints and have taken the tape from the cameras outside so we’ll know soon enough. I don’t need the evidence, though. I know it’s that f**king moron.”

Beth blanched at the continued cursing and I blanched for an entirely different reason. Both Jake and Logan looked ready to blow, and I didn’t want them retaliating. Trenton and Brett Thomas weren’t worth it. They were school bullies and always would be. Jake and his dad were better than that.

Beth walked cautiously over to Logan. She placed gentle hands on his chest and murmured to him to calm down. When that didn’t seem to work, she took his hand and led him into the kitchen.

The kitchen door had only closed milliseconds when Jake whirled around and started toward the front door.

“Whoa, there, mister,” I ran after him and grabbed his arm, jerking him to a stop. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Jake’s handsome face was taut with fury. “My dad’s a good guy. He doesn’t deserve this shit and we don’t deserve the snide comments and alienation we’re getting at school. I’m sorting this out between me and Brett.”

“No,” I pulled him harder when he tried to dislodge me. “No, you’re going to calm down and come upstairs with me and forget about it. We’re going to make out and fool around until we hear one of your parents coming up the stairs. It’s Brett … or me.” I narrowed my eyes. “And I’d consider your answer very carefully or you’ll have bigger problems on your hands than the Thomases.”

Jake glared at me for a couple of seconds until I felt the tension slowly melt out of him. “You’re a pain in my ass, Redford.”

My lips curled up at the corner in triumph and I turned and started walking up the stairs. “And you’re a pain in mine, Caplin, but I’m stuck with you.”

“I’m sorry for the hardship,” he teased. I smiled harder at his changed tone, knowing I’d won.

At the top of the stairs I turned and began walking backward into his room, unzipping my jacket as I went. “Don’t be. I’ll survive … as long as you lose some clothes.”

Jake smiled and quietly shut his bedroom door. He strode toward me with purpose, “Anything you say, baby.”

I pulled off my jacket, grinning as he came to a stop inches from me. He reached for me but I pressed a hand against his chest and shook my head with a secretive smile. When I pulled the small envelope out of my jacket pocket, Jake frowned.

“Happy seventeenth birthday, Jake.”

His eyes instantly brightened and he gently took the envelope from me. “It’s not until Monday.”

I gave a little shrug. “I know, but you won’t get to thank me properly in front of everyone at school if I give it to you then.”

He was still smiling as he opened the envelope. His smile grew huge and gorgeous when he saw what was inside. “Two tickets to Blind Side? Are you kidding me?”

I laughed, happy he was happy. Blind Side was a really cool indie band from Seattle who Jake had come across on the Internet. We’d spent the last few months listening to them. “I’ve been stalking them and found out they’re doing a small concert in Chicago in June.”

Jake kissed me, still smiling. When he pulled back, he gestured to me with the tickets. “This is a great f**king present.” He frowned as he reached over to put them on his dresser. “I’ve just got to find someone to take with me.”