Free Dark Blue (South Island PD Book 1) by Ranae Rose Page A

supposed to have your back.”
    Her words echoed his thoughts, and he sat up straighter in his seat. “Exactly. It’s a shitty situation for everyone involved, but especially his wife and kid. Worst part is that I feel like I’m the only one who sees that.”
    “What about your lieutenant? I thought you said you two were on the same page.”
    He nodded. “Yeah, but there’s not really anything she can do about it. Sanders isn’t in my platoon, and with no charges being pressed…” He shrugged as a hot prickle of irritation made the back of his neck itch.
    “At least that means you don’t have to work with him.”
    “There’s that.” It was a silver lining around a dark cloud. And now that he’d born witness, he felt partially responsible for whatever horrors his wife would endure next.
    “Maybe his wife will come to her senses and press charges after all.”
    “I doubt it.” It was hard to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He knew damn well that most women who were abused by their partners either couldn’t or wouldn’t leave. It just wasn’t that simple.
    “Well, you have a much more experienced perspective on this than I do.”
    Something must have showed on his face, because she grimaced. “I meant because of your job. I wasn’t trying to say—”
    “It’s okay. You’re right either way.” Belle already knew he came from shitty stock. Anyone who’d known him prior to his police days did. It was hard to keep stuff like that quiet when your dad was constantly checking in and out of jail as if it were a cheap motel and you were always showing up to school bruised.
    And then there were the charges his father been arrested on… Possession. Dealing. Once, picking up a prostitute. Jesus, the humiliation still grated, even after all these years.
    The only thing stronger than the embarrassment was the relief. Relief that he was a grown man, years from the tumultuous shit storm that had been his childhood, and relief that he hadn’t been sucked into the same sort of pathetic, wasted life.
    That was the one good thing his parents had done for him: disgusted him so thoroughly that he’d been repulsed by the things they’d idolized. Their lack of shame had left him with an excess of it, and it’d kept him on the straight and narrow path they’d never shown any interest in.
    “I’m setting records left and right when it comes to putting my foot in my mouth,” Belle said. “At this rate you’ll be sick of me within a week.”
    “Not hardly.”
    She smiled, and he admired the smooth line of her jaw and her creamy, unblemished skin. Fair, with the barest hint of golden tan from the South Carolina sun.
    Her beautiful, happy face stood in stark contrast to the haunted, tired mask Kate Sanders’ had been. Even after all his years of living as a victim of it, Jackson still didn’t understand how someone could abuse someone they’d sworn to love that way.
    God willing, he’d never personally experience the depths of whatever depravity was necessary to lash out that way. He’d rather eat his Glock than live like the puny tyrant his father had been: a raging, self-absorbed ass who’d lived for whatever high he could get his hands on.
    “At least now I know it wasn’t just me,” Belle said.
    “What wasn’t just you?”
    “When you wrote me that speeding ticket, I wondered if you were always such a hardass. Now I know you are. I’d be willing to bet there are officers who would’ve turned a blind eye to a call like the one you responded to, but not you. You did the right thing, even though it meant arresting one of your own. In comparison, my little speeding ticket seems insignificant.”
    That made his face heat up. “Listen, about that ticket—”
    “Don’t worry about it.” She shook her head. “Truth be told, I admire your consistency. I think you have more backbone and integrity than the average cop.”
    “You know, most people I give tickets to would like to see me fed alive to