Tempting Fate (A Rolling Hills Romance Book 1) Read online

  Tempting Fate

  A Rolling Hills Romance

  Elisa Leigh

  Elisa Leigh Romance

  Copyright © 2020 by Elisa Leigh

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Join my Reader Group

  About the Author

  Also by Elisa Leigh

  Chapter One

  Beauregard Granger

  I just left the police station after my eight-hour shift turned into a twelve hour one. A three-car pile-up on the busiest road in town required all hands on deck. Thankfully everyone was safe, if not just a little banged up. I’ll take this any day over the beat I was on in the city.

  Right now, all I want to do is go home, take a shower, and relax with Thor, my German shepherd mix I adopted from the pound a couple of years ago. When I moved back to town a little over three months ago, I bought a place with ten acres and a nice sized pond in the back. Thor likes to run back there and chase the ducks into the pond. He’s a lot happier now that he’s not cramped up in an eight hundred square foot apartment in a loud city.

  While I’d like to get home, my captain made another comment about my hair today, the third one this week in fact. I figure I better go and get a trim so he’ll get off my back about it. Captain Reece even went as far as giving me the name of his stylist. He said she stays open late. So, here I am driving to Cuttin’ Up at seven o’clock on a Friday night.

  The place is deserted except for a baby blue Jeep Wrangler parked out front. That’s a chick’s ride if I’ve ever seen one. I shake my head and pull up beside it. Getting out of my truck, I’m ready to get this thing over with so I can start my weekend. Pulling open the front door a bell dings, letting whoever is here know that they have a customer.

  “I’ll be out in a minute.” A muffled voice calls from the back.

  Sitting in one of the chairs in the front of the salon, I start scrolling through my emails on my phone. After about five minutes, and no one coming out, I stand to leave. At least I made an effort, right? My hand is on the door handle and I’m pulling it open when I hear someone walking towards me.

  “I’m so sorry. My aunt was on the phone and I couldn’t get her off. Please don’t leave.” Says the huskiest voice I’ve ever heard. I haven’t even seen her yet and my dick is hard as a rock.

  I turn to face her, and I’m stunned by the woman standing before me. She has to be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. With dark curly hair pulled into a bun on the top of her head and a few loose curls framing her round face, she looks breathtaking. Wearing skin-tight dark skinny jeans and a black tank top that is showing far too much cleavage, I’m hooked on the woman. She clears her throat and for the first time in thirty-one years, I blush in front of a woman.

  Recovering quickly, I clear my throat and hold out my hand. “I’m Beau.”

  She gives me a warm smile. “Hi Beau. I’m Charlotte, but everyone calls me Charlie.” She tells me, reaching her hand out.

  The minute her soft hand touches mine I can’t help imagining what it would feel like to have her hand touching me in other places. Fuck I need to get this out of my head. “I need a haircut,” I say gruffly.

  She giggles and pulls her hand out of mine. “Of course, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” Turning, she doesn’t wait for my answer and walks to the back. I watch the curve of her thick ass the entire ten seconds she gives me.

  “Are you coming?” She asks, turning to look over her shoulder and catching me staring at her ass.

  Not fucking yet, I groan inwardly. “Yes,” I say gruffly and walk to the back, sitting in the chair she’s standing behind.

  When I sit down, she lowers the chair as far as it will go. She’s a short little thing, only coming up to my shoulder when we’re standing. She goes to her station and pulls a cape out from a drawer and leans in close to drape it around me. Her perfume drifts through the air and hits me square in the chest. The woman smells like cotton candy and flowers all mixed together. Having her this close is the sweetest hell.

  Once she’s ready to begin, she runs her fingers through my long hair and I almost let a moan slip out of my mouth. How is it that I’ve been single for years, haven’t even slept with a woman since college, but this unsuspecting woman has me ready to come in my jeans?

  “So how do you like it?”

  I raise my brow, staring at her in the mirror. “Like what?”

  She blushes, and for the first time, I’ve caught her off guard. “Your hair? It looks like it's been quite a few months since you’ve had it cut. Do you want me to use the clippers on the sides and then scissors on top? Or just the clippers?”

  “Yes.”

  She laughs and raises her eyebrow, eyeing me in the mirror that’s hanging on the wall in front of us. “Which one?”

  “I don’t give a shit. Do whatever you think will look good.”

  “You probably shouldn’t tell a hairstylist she has carte blanche with your hair.”

  “It’s only hair darlin’. It will grow back if you screw it up.”

  She smacks my shoulder and I laugh, enjoying this back and forth. When I smirk and don’t say another word, she shrugs her shoulders and gets started.

  I stare at her the entire time she cuts my hair. I love watching her work and by the time she’s done, I’m cursing myself for not talking to her, finding out important information, like if she has a boyfriend. She obviously isn’t married because she isn’t wearing a ring. I grunt when I picture my ring on her slender finger. If she were mine, that ring would never leave her hand.

  “Okay Beau, you’re all set.” She says, brushing the hair from around my neck. She unsnaps the cape and sets it in the chair beside me before walking towards the front. I sit a few more seconds before I stand with my back to her, trying to adjust my raging hard-on before I turn and walk towards her. The last thing I want is for Charlotte to get the wrong impression about me. Yeah, she has me hard, but I’m not looking for instant gratification. For the first time in a long time, a woman has got me to take notice. That means something in my world.

  “That will be ten dollars.” She says looking up at me, her hazel eyes sparkling.

  “That’s it?” I question.

  She studies me a moment, cocking her head to the side as she looks at me. “You’re the new detective with Rolling Hills Police Department, aren’t you?”

  I nod. “I am. How did you know?”

  “My uncle is Captain Reece, he was talking about you at dinner the other night.”

  Well fuck me sideways, this just got a little more complicated. I probably shouldn’t ask out my captain’s niece, not that it’s going to stop me. “He forgot to mention that bit of information when he told me to come see you.”

  She smiles, “Yeah, he’s not much of a talker. Rolling Hills PD gets a discount. A little perk to the job you could say.”

  I get my debit card out and hand it to her, still stuck on what she said. Jealousy is never something I’ve experienced but knowing that the other guys in my department come see Charlotte has me pissed. They’ve probably been coming to see her for years, why haven't one of them made a move on her? What if they’ve dated her? I run through
a dozen scenarios, none that I like, while she slips my card into the microchip reader. We wait silently until she turns the reader toward me to enter my pin and the other questions it has. When the receipt prints, she hands it to me. Once I’ve signed the receipt, leaving her a twenty-dollar tip, I hand it back to her. When she sees how much I left her, she bites her bottom lip and shakes her head. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Darlin’, I never do anything I don’t want to. You got me?”

  She nods. “Have a good night Beau.”

  “You too Charlotte.”

  I want to find out everything there is to know about her, but this is enough for tonight. Now that I’ve found her, I can figure out how to make her mine. I stop at the door as I’m about to walk out when a thought occurs to me. “When do you close?”

  “I’m closing now.” She tells me, giving me an odd look.

  “But when are you leaving?”

  Charlotte shrugs her bare shoulders. “Soon-ish. I have to clean up a little bit and run some reports, make sure everything is ready for tomorrow. Saturdays are one of our busiest days.”

  I nod, not liking her answer. “Have a great night Charlotte, and thanks for the haircut. You did a great job.”

  “You’re welcome, Beau. Come back when you need another trim.”

  “I will,” I say then walk out to my truck. I’ll be coming back a lot sooner than that, I think to myself. Sitting in my truck, I watch her sweep up the hair from my hair cut. When she goes to the back, I tell myself I need to leave, but I can’t force myself to turn my truck on. I need to know she is safe. I’m sure closing by herself is normal, but I don’t like that she’s alone at night, in the dark, where anything could happen. Who would know if she got hurt, or if someone tried to take her? The parking lot has one light and it’s too far away to give enough light for her to see properly. Someone could come out of nowhere and she wouldn’t even see it coming. I guess that’s the cop in me, and all the years I spent in Nashville. Too many times I’ve been the one to show up after the fact when it was too late. For once I’d like to be the one that prevented someone from getting hurt in the first place. I’ve seen too many horrible things happen to good people, people I cared about. I can’t let anything happen to her.

  A few minutes later she turns out the lights, and eventually, I see her walking along the side of the building and toward the parking lot. She stops when she notices my truck and stares for a minute then looks around. She looks freaked out, so I roll my window down to talk to her. “It’s just me Charlotte.”

  She grasps her chest. “What the hell are you still doing here Beau? You just scared the crap out of me.”

  I get out of my truck and go around to where she’s standing. “I didn’t like that it was so dark out and you were here all by yourself. Do you usually close by yourself?”

  “No, but Hannah’s daughter has a fever, so she had to leave earlier than expected. Everything is fine, Rolling Hills is a safe place.”

  The way she says it makes me believe that she’s trying to convince me, but she isn’t so sure of it herself.

  “I had to be sure you got to your car safely.”

  “Thank you, Beau, I really appreciate you looking out for me.”

  I pull my phone out of my back pocket and hand it to her. “Call yourself with my phone, that way you have my number if you ever need me.”

  She looks at it, then grabs it and dials her number. She lets it ring once before ending the call and handing me back my phone. “If you wanted my number, you could have just asked.” She tells me and winks, the fear from before gone as if it were never there.

  I smirk. “I got your number, didn’t I?”

  “Smooth move Detective Granger,” Charlotte says then gets into her Jeep. She rolls her window down when I turn to leave. “Have a good night Detective.”

  “You too Charlotte. Drive safe.”

  “You too.” She tells me before rolling all of her windows down and backing out of her space. A few seconds later, country music is blasting from her Jeep and she’s dancing in her seat. I watch as she makes a right and pulls out of the parking lot before I get back into my truck. I’m itching to follow her, but I know how crazy that would appear. There’s this need inside me to make sure she is safe. I’ve been a police officer for over eight years, but the way I feel about Charlotte, it isn’t out of duty, it’s something stronger, deeper, infinite.

  Chapter Two

  Charlotte Reece

  I haven’t been able to get Beau out of my head since I left him in front of my shop. I tossed and turned all night thinking about him and his dark penetrating stare. I finally fell asleep around three. My alarm went off at seven and I needed a few extra minutes. I thought I had hit snooze, but I inadvertently turned my alarm off entirely. When I finally woke up, I had enough time to throw on some jeans and a black t-shirt, brush my teeth and walk out the door in enough time to open my shop on time for our first clients.

  When I got home last night, he’s all I could think about. Even now, three hours into my twelve-hour shift, I can barely pay attention to what Julie, one of my regulars, is talking to me about. Bless her heart, she’s a stay at home mom with two kids under two. So when she parks her butt in my chair every six weeks to get her hair colored, she talks my ear off.

  “Charlotte. Charlotte, you okay hun?” Julie asks me.

  I grin down at her, “Mmmhmm.” I check her head to make sure I haven’t missed a spot, and don’t need to put any more foils in her hair for the highlight job I’m doing.

  “Nope. I know that look. You’ve met someone.” she says excitedly and claps. When I say nothing, her eyes go wide and she jumps out of her seat to look me in the eyes, instead of my reflection in the mirror. “You have! Who is it? Did you finally talk to Jackson?”

  I make a face. I’m about to tell her that I would never in a million years ago chat up Jackson Margis, the boy who used to put worms in my lunchbox when we were in kindergarten, but I don’t get a chance.

  “Who the fuck is Jackson?” Beau growls, walking towards me.

  I shake my head, knowing in my head that Jackson is no one important, but I’m caught off guard by Beau standing in my shop. He’s walking towards me with a severe look on his handsome face. He looks even hotter today than he did last night, with his ball cap snug over his new cut, white t-shirt, and worn jeans snug against his thighs and ass.

  Standing before me, he uses the edge of his index finger to lift my chin, so my eyes are on his. “Who is he Charlotte?”

  I shrug and shake my head. I have no words for him. I’m still in shock. “No one, he’s no one,” I mutter.

  “He better be.”

  My heart beats hard in my chest and I’m utterly lost in his deep brown eyes. When Julie clears her throat, she breaks the spell and I tear my eyes away from Beau and look at her. The lovable bitch is smirking as she winks at me. Jesus.

  I take a step back, putting a few feet between Beau and me. When I’ve gathered enough composure, I look at Beau. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m installing some floodlights out in the parking lot. These are top of the line, solar powered so it won’t impact your costs. Just let me know when a bulb needs to be changed, I’ll come out and do it. Now, if they sense movement, they’ll turn on. This way when you or one of your girls are walking out to your cars late at night, you’ll be able to see anything coming at you.”

  I look around at my busy salon. My girls and their clients have all stopped talking and everyone is listening in on our conversation, their eyes on us. Not one to have my business, personal or otherwise, discussed in front of people, I grab him by his shirt, pulling him with me to the back and out the back door.

  “You can’t just come in here and tell me you’re putting lights up around my building.”

  “Why the fuck not?” He growls, his hands on his hips and his eyes boring into mine.

  I throw my hands into the air. “Because it isn’t your fuckin
g shop Beau, it’s mine!”

  He starts laughing and the serious look on his face from before is gone. Now he’s looking at me in an entirely different way, making my tummy flutter.

  “You’re too fucking adorable when your pissed Charlotte.” He steps towards me, but I step back, keeping a safe distance from the man who, if I’m not careful, will get anything he asks for.

  “Don’t patronize me, Beau. I own this building and the business that’s in it. No one gets to tell me what happens with it.”

  He nods. “You’re right, but I’m not going to be able to be here every night. There will be nights that I’m working a late shift and can’t be here to make sure you make it home safely.”

  “That’s not your job. No one asked you to look out for me. I’ve been doing it for a long time. It also doesn’t hurt that everyone in this town knows who my uncle is. No one messes with me, ever.”

  “No one has messed with you yet baby doll, and I’m fucking stoked about that. It doesn’t mean someone won’t get a wild hair up their ass and do something stupid or what if a stranger wanders in from out of town?”

  “I highly doubt that will happen. This isn’t the big city where there’s a crime on every corner. This is Rolling Hills, Beau. It’s safe.” I tell him, enunciating the last bit.

  “Fair enough. It’s been so long since I’ve lived here, I forget what small-town living is like.”

  Wait, what? How do I not know this? “You’re from here?”

  “Born and raised. I left for college in two-thousand-four. I’ve only been back a dozen times to see my parents, other than that I’ve stayed in the city.”

  “Why did you come back then?”

  He shakes his head and I watch as the light in his eyes dims. I immediately regret asking the question. I’ll figure it out, but perhaps it’s a story for another time.