The Viper (Untamed Hearts #1)(8)

“Excuse you,” Ashley huffed indignantly.

Katie didn’t like Ashley when she was the head cheerleader of their graduating class. She liked her even less now. The only difference was, Katie wasn’t intimidated anymore. She just looked the striking blonde in the eyes like Marcos had told her to do and arched an eyebrow.

She might have made a snarky comment, but making fun of jocks was something she had struck off her list. It was called being an adult. Not all cheerleaders turned into washed-up, broke twentysomethings who spent their weekends at the bar hoping the bottom of her beer bottle would somehow help her reclaim the glory of eighteen.

Just this one.

She actually smiled as she brushed by Ashley. Katie wasn’t perfect. Her arm was scarred to hell and back, but she had paid off the few college loans she had since getting the new teaching job. She wasn’t hiring their local lawyer to fend off all the creditors.

Yes, Katie had looked at Jules’s desk when she she’d gotten up. Terrible of her. Oh well. Ashley had made her life miserable since grade school. If Katie got a small amount of pleasure knowing the washed-up cheerleader was living with her mother again and had lost everything due to outrageous credit card debt, she just chalked it up to karma.



“I’m sorry, but I’m not helping you with this delusion. Let it go.”

Katie glared at Jules across her desk, but it did little good. This woman once held a spot on the US Olympic team for judo. She was a sheriff’s deputy in her younger years and was now the only lawyer in all of Garnet County. Plus there was that incident a while back where she and her husband faced down a whole crew of real-life mafia guys and lived to tell about it—those mafia guys hadn’t been so lucky.

Jules Wellings was not an easy person to intimidate.

“Please,” Katie whined out of desperation. “I just need a phone number. I know your friend Chuito has it. If you could just—”

“No,” Jules repeated as she glanced up from her work with a frown. “And what the heck makes you think he’s gonna give it to me even if I did ask him for it?”

Katie gave Jules a look, because they both knew Jules usually got whatever she wanted if she put her mind to it.

“Please,” Katie repeated.

“Okay, let’s actually discuss this.” Jules pushed aside her file and gave Katie her full attention. “What is the obsession with Marcos Rivera?”

“He was nice to me.” Katie shrugged self-consciously. “I never got a chance to thank him.”

“He crashed into you and ruined your New Year. You have the scars to prove it,” Jules said slowly, looking at Katie like she’d lost her mind. “He may have been below the legal limit, but he did have alcohol in his system. What the heck have you got to thank him for?”

“That wasn’t his fault,” Katie argued. “If you’d seen how that woman was driving—”

“He has a record,” Jules cut in before Katie could finish. “He served time for stealing cars. Did you know that?”

Katie stared at her, knowing she should feel more apprehension than she did. It wasn’t a huge shock. Jules had claimed before that Marcos had a colorful past. “That doesn’t mean—”

“Bullshit.” Jules cut her off before she could finish. “You know exactly what it means, Katie.”

Before she could stop herself, Katie blurted out, “Didn’t your husband do time?”

“We’re not talking about me.” Jules’s glare became icy, making it obvious Katie had stepped into dangerous territory. “But for the record, the situation with Romeo was unfair and unavoidable. Your fella Marcos served time for stealing not one but several cars. He was caught hacking them up for parts in an abandoned warehouse. Does that sound like someone you wanna get mixed up with? What if it was your car that was stolen? You think you’d still be wanting to get in touch?”

Katie folded her arms over her chest, knowing it seemed childish, but she just couldn’t forget Marcos at the crash site, willing to face a DUI head-on rather than abandon her. That sort of integrity was intriguing, and she’d be lying to herself if she didn’t admit she’d been attracted to him, but this quest was about more than her long-dormant sex life. She wanted a chance to talk to him once more. That’s it.

“You’re not a college student anymore. You’re a teacher now,” Jules reminded her before Katie could put words to her convictions. “You cannot afford to get mixed up with someone like Marcos. He’s states away. Be thankful for it and move on with your life.”

Jules’s reasoning made sense. Katie knew she should do just that, but for some reason, everything felt unfinished. She needed closure.

Grasping at straws, she huffed, “But I still have his jacket.”

“Consider it his gift to you for totaling your car.”

“I have resorted to posting notes to him on craigslist,” Katie admitted with a blush of embarrassment. “You should see my inbox. It’s full of messages from every weirdo in Miami.”

Jules shook her head and laughed. “You honestly think a fella like that spends his Saturday nights reading the personals on craigslist?”

Katie shrugged. “Maybe.”

“If that boy had to read the personals for a date, you wouldn’t be coming in here every other day asking for his number. He’s good-looking, I’ll give ya that.” Suddenly Jules frowned and leaned past her desk. She narrowed her eyes at the staircase as if her cop senses were on high alert and called out, “In or out. Stop eavesdropping.”