KENNICK: A Bad Boy Romance Novel (18 page)

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

On the morning that Ricky's article was published, Kim
and Kennick woke up in her apartment, where they'd spent the better part of the
night getting no sleep and talking themselves hoarse in between lusty wrestling
matches. Kim yawned the last bit of sleep from her body as she turned over,
watching his eyes move in a tight flutter behind his still-closed eyelids. He
was dreaming. She wondered what he was dreaming of.

For two and a half weeks they'd been working on
whatever it was that called them to each other, that made their bodies fit like
perfect parts of a yin-yang, that made them feel both vulnerable and strong. It
scared Kim as much as it excited her. She’d never been much a fan of the idea
of love at first sight; lust, sure. But, it seemed, lust at first sight could
turn into love within 14 days, and wasn’t that something?

Even then, after having spent the whole night in his
arms, she wanted to stroke his stubbled cheeks and open her legs around his waist,
to feel him hot and soft against her, to rub until he was hard and ready to
enter her. But it was already late in the morning, and she had work to get to.

Slipping from the bed, she threw on a robe as she
entered the living room, where her cell phone waited on the coffee table in
front of the sofa. That sofa had been the starting place of last night's
adventure, and she felt the blush in her cheeks when she remembered how he'd
pulled her onto his lap and kissed her so deep she felt like he was trying to
tell her a story, a long and beautiful tale of lovers who would never be lonely
again.

Picking up her phone, she quickly checked for any new
texts. She saw a message from Ricky that had been sent a half-hour earlier, and
remembered what was so important about that day. Opening the front door yielded
a copy of the Kingdom Times, and she carried it with her into the kitchen,
reading it even as she distractedly began to brew a pot of coffee.

The article wasn't front page news, a high school
scandal involving stolen SAT tests having that distinction. It wasn't on the
second page, either. Instead, Kim found it in the editorial section; that made
sense, she supposed. It wasn't exactly hard hitting news, after all. But it
wasn't really an editorial, either. Ricky introduced the facts but didn't offer
her own interpretation of them. She asked questions but didn't answer them.

As always, Kim was proud of her sister's writing. It
was clean, clear, and consistent with journalistic ethics, but had a uniquely
Ricky-esque flair that made it stand out from the usual dry tone of the
newspaper. The editorial was a full page, and it included everything Kennick
had discussed on the day Ricky had spoken to him, with Ricky's editorial eye
dissecting all the possible angles. When Kim finished reading, the coffee had
finished, and she read it once more as she sat sipping it.

“I thought I smelled something good in here,” Kennick
said, making Kim look up from the paper. He stood in the doorway, a tired smile
on his face. “And you made coffee, too.”

“Help yourself,” Kim said, gesturing to the extra mug
she'd set out for him. “And then come read what my sister wrote about you.”

Kennick's body tensed momentarily. He was naked except
for his boxers, and when his body firmed Kim saw every muscle go taut, his
strong arms bulging slightly. Then, he relaxed, crossing the room to look over
Kim's shoulder.

“New Light Shed on Thirty-Year-Old Case,” he read the
headline aloud, then kissed Kim's neck before sliding into the seat beside her
and taking the paper from his hands. As his eyes scoured the printed word, she
rose and prepared his coffee, setting it down in front of him. The automatic
intimacy of the moment struck her; the easy flow of the morning, as though
they'd known each other for months instead of weeks. But when she glanced at
the clock, she saw that she'd left herself barely enough time to get to work.

“Shit,” she murmured, barely drawing Kennick's
attention from the paper. “I gotta run. You stay, hang out, okay? Just lock the
door behind you when you leave.”

“Alright,” Kennick said, returning to the paper as she
busied herself with getting ready for work. Shooting a quick text to Ricky to
congratulate her on the article, she left Kennick with a kiss on the cheek and
made her way to the Mayor's office.

Kennick heard the click of the door as she left and
tried to focus on the article. But he couldn’t. He’d been trying since he took
the paper from her hands. Even though this was the whole reason he’d come to
Kingdom, it couldn’t draw his attention away from the woman he’d woken up next
to. They’d talked all night, like there was nothing that could dam the flow of
conversation between them, like they’d never run out of things to say.

She’d told him how, the very moment she heard about
her father’s death, she’d been microwaving a bowl of tomato soup, something
that her father had always made for her when she was sick, and that ever since
she hadn’t been able to stomach it. She said she’d never told anyone that
before, thinking it was so silly. He stroked her arm and told her it wasn’t.

He’d told her about the time, as a child, when Damon
had gotten so ill he’d slipped into a coma for a week, and the horrible limbo
of grief and hope that had trapped him. That had been his first real hint at
what loss could be, and every loss that came after had been tinged, in a way
that felt selfish to him, with relief.
At
least it’s not my brothers or my sister,
he’d always think. Even when his
father died. Even when Baba died. He’d never told anyone that before, finding
it shameful. She’d held his hand and told him it wasn’t.

And then the funny stories, and the embarrassing
stories. Teenage shames like unexpected boners and period-stained jeans.
Childhood anecdotes like calling Baby Jesus “Baby Diseases” and bad haircuts
administered by a reckless sister. Adult faux-pas like sneezing during oral sex
and waking up after a night of drinking with half a barbecue sauce and butter
sandwich in your hand.

Even the boring stories, the ones you usually only
told yourself because you’re sure no one else could ever care.

He wished she hadn’t left. He wanted to talk to her
more. He wanted to hear her voice, telling him about a dream or even just
reading a grocery list aloud.

Kennick Volanis was smitten, and he barely knew what
to do about it.

But he’d rolled with worse things before, and he could
roll with this, too.

Especially because he had a feeling
this
was the woman Baba Tayti had
foreseen.

And that made him very, very happy.

Chapter
Twenty-Eight

Mayor Gunderson wasn't in yet when Kim arrived at the
office, which wasn't unusual in the least bit. In fact, Mayor Gunderson seemed
to be spending less and less time in the office, and more time, Kim figured, in
the bottle. She assumed this was a side effect of the growing ire of certain
citizens regarding the gypsy's arrival and the proposed strip club. Mayor
Gunderson wasn't the best at handling conflict, and preferred to avoid it
whenever possible.

A little after 10am, while Kim was scrolling through the
Mayor's official e-mail, to which she had the password because she often wrote
his replies for him, her phone rang. She recognized Ricky's extension on the
caller ID. Just as she picked up, Mayor Gunderson arrived, looking under the
weather and quite distraught. He barely waved at Kim as he disappeared into his
back office.

“You’re never going to guess who just called me,
ranting and raving like I was Satan,” Ricky said in a hushed voice that
indicated she was still in the office.

“Who?” Kim asked, not in the mood to play Twenty
Questions. She could hear Mayor Gunderson loudly slamming drawers in his office
through the closed door.

“Bob Talkee,” she said. “He is p-i-s-s-e-d. Says I
ought to be exiled from the state!”

Kim bit her lip. Bob had been rather unhappy when
she’d seen him at the bar that night, but he had never struck her as the type
to go off the rails that far. As one of Kingdom’s elected officials, losing a
vote because he couldn’t keep his temper in check was a dreadful thing.

“Did he say why? It was a pretty, I don’t know,
objective piece. You weren’t really taking a side…”

“Well,
he
didn’t
say why,” Ricky gushed. “But I found
out
why.
He and Rhonda used to date. Like, big time serious high school sweethearts. I
guess before Pieter came and swept her off her feet.”

“No kidding,” Kim said, a sick feeling in her stomach.

“Yeah, no shit,” Ricky said. There was a pause. “Um,
don’t you, like, hate that guy? I thought you’d find this a little more
interesting…”

“No, I do,” Kim said, sighing as she reminded herself
she didn’t need to go around playing Sherlock. It wasn’t her place to try and
solve a thirty-year-old murder, and just because Bob dated Rhonda meant
nothing. “That sucks, sis. What did you say to him?”

“I told him he lost my vote in the next election,” her
sister said, her smirk clear in her voice. Kim smiled.

“Hit ‘em where it hurts, huh?”

“Right in the big, fat, tax-dollar paycheck,” Ricky
said, unable to keep her voice hushed anymore.

“Listen, thanks for calling, that’ll brighten up my
day, but I really ought to go. Mayor’s in a
tear
right now,” Kim said, loathing the idea of going back into that office.

“He mad about the article too?” Kim could hear Ricky’s
smugness. It always got her sister’s motor running when she wrote something
that pissed people off. It was just in her nature to cause trouble. Blame it on
being the younger sibling.

“I don’t even know,” Kim said, honestly. “He just
stormed right past me.”

“Heard he’s been on a bit of a bender,” Ricky
confided. “Should the good people of Kingdom be worried?”

“Nah,” Kim said. “I can handle him. The town is safe
for another night of shots and pints at Sammy’s.”

After hanging up with her sister, Kim listened for any
more signs of distress from Mayor Gunderson's office. To her relief, he seemed
to have calmed down; or, he was in the eye of the storm. Either way, she knew
this would be a good time to poke her head in.

“Mayor,” she asked, knocking gently before sliding the
door open a bit. “Is everything alright?”

He looked up at her and offered a wan smile. She
wasn't entirely surprised to see that he had a copy of the day's paper open
before him.

“Everything’s fine,” he said, leaning back in his
chair. His salt-and-pepper hair was slightly mussed and he ran his fingers
through it, which really only served to emphasize the fact that his hair was
truly not long for this world. “Long night is all.”

He pointed down at the paper. Kim didn't need to
approach him to figure out he was pointing at Ricky's
 
article.

“Your sister,” Mayor Gunderson continued, now leaning
forward slightly and joining his two index fingers together under his nose in a
sharp peak, “is a very,
very
good
writer. And the story is...intriguing. You've read it, I'm sure?”

Kim nodded. It was extremely well written. And
extremely intriguing, despite her own personal investment in the manner. Kim
thought “provocative” would also be a good way to describe it, but she didn't
offer that suggestion to the mayor.

“What do you think?” he asked. When he looked at her,
she saw only curiosity.

“Well, I mean, you know,” she said, “I'm not quite an
unbiased reader. Not just because of Ricky...”

Mayor Gunderson chuckled.

“I suppose not,” he said, then sighed. “I wonder if
there's something I missed all those years ago. You know, I was on this case. I
never got over it. I went to high school with Rhonda. I was always fond of her.
She was such a sweet girl. This article...it just makes me wonder if I could
have seen something at the time...”

“Oh,” Kim said, entering the office fully to take a
seat in front of Mayor Gunderson. “I mean, you can't beat yourself up about the
past like that. You were just one man. If Pieter Volanis didn't do it...I mean,
even the detectives and lieutenants and stuff working the case overlooked
things, then. And you were just an officer.”

“I know, Kimmy, I know,” Mayor Gunderson said, his
head still lowered. “It just makes a man wonder.”

There was a moment of silence, broken only at the
sharp ring of Mayor Gunderson's phone. He jumped, having been lost in his
thoughts, and then let out a single hearty laugh.

“Time moves on though, doesn't it, Kimmy? Gotta deal
with the now, you know...now,” he said, and picked up the phone. His smile
immediately turned into a grimace and Kim thought his eyes might actually roll
back into his head. He waved his hand at her and she rose to leave.

“Yeah, Hendrix, I've read it, of course I read it! I'm
the damn Mayor, I always read the paper...”

Kim bit back a smile; Pastor Hendrix was giving it
good to Mayor Gunderson. She could hear his yowling even as he back to the
door. Gunderson made a face at her to show his exasperation.

“I'm a man of God, too, Dick...”

She shut the door behind her, the smile turning to a
grimace as she remembered Pastor Hendrix's anger, his cruel words. She didn't
understand how Mayor Gunderson could abide a friendship with a man like that.
But Pastor Hendrix held plenty of sway, and endorsed the incumbent Mayor every
time an election came around. Kim's stomach clenched slightly. This was why she
could never run for office: there was no amount of ballots that could inspire
her to kiss up to a bigot.