Free KENNICK: A Bad Boy Romance Novel by Meg Jackson Page B

search her room, before all her shit wound up in
a landfill – but they never found anything, or at least never found anything
that went public. I imagine she might have thrown it all away, too. Would you
keep a knife someone had stabbed into your favorite teddy bear?”

 
    A shiver ran through Kim. This time, it wasn’t from
looking at Kennick, or imagining what it would be like to be underneath him. It
was the cold reality starting to form around their conversation. This really wasn’t some suspense novel. This was
real. Thirty years ago, a pregnant girl had been shot dead in cold blood. Time
was starting to seem irrelevant to the hard emotion at the heart of that fact.

 
    “Jesus,” Kim breathed. “This is actually…this is,
like, really strong. Evidence, I mean. I just can’t believe it was kept hidden
for so long…”

 
    “Can’t you?” Kennick asked, eyes flashing. “You’ve
lived in this town your whole life. And you’ve seen how rarely people change
their minds.”

 
    “That’s not true,” Kim said, defensive now that she
felt her town attacked.

 
    “Isn't it?” Kennick said, shaking his head with a
pitying smile on his face. “I'll make you a wager. They'll let us live here,
let us start our businesses, let us pay our taxes and funnel cash into Main
Street. But they'll still look at me and mine like we’re lepers. They want us here
because they know we’ll save their asses from total desolation. But they sure
as hell don’t want to rub elbows with us in the store, or see one of their
precious daughters slurping milkshakes with a gypsy at the Tastee Freeze.”

 
    Kim bit her lip, not wanting to admit to this
double-sided nature of the people she’d known all her life. Good people. People
who hosted potlucks and didn’t complain when a family was too poor to
contribute anything. People who showed up at the soup kitchen on Thanksgiving.
People who bought the fireman’s charity calendar every year. People who adopted
dogs from the shelter instead of buying them from a pet store. People who
smiled and said hello on the street and asked how you were doing, who brought
casseroles during hard times and bought rounds during good times. Her people.

 
    “So,” she said, wanting to change the subject. She
leaned forward, turning her head slightly to look over the rest of the
scattered pages. “Anything else?”

 
    “Yeah, some things, like…”

 
    At that moment, they were interrupted by a telltale
whooping noise. Kennick’s body immediately stiffened; Kim thought she even saw
the bristly hair on his massive arms stand up for a second. Turning to look out
the window, she watched a patrol car roll up to the trailer.

Chapter Eleven

 
    Kim saw Jimmy Marone in the driver’s seat or the
patrol car. She’d gone to school with Jimmy, had even dated his best friend for
a short while. But, when she turned back to Kennick, she saw nothing but cold,
seething hate in his eyes.

 
    Woah, she
thought, for the first time realizing what really lay at the bottom of this
man’s heart. She’d been lusting after him so hard, she’d barely even thought
about who he was. She saw his jaw
set. Fear coiled in her breast.

 
    What the
hell are you doing, Kimberly James, she thought, but even that thought
didn’t stop her hand as it flew across the counter, grabbing onto his and
squeezing. His whole body seemed to radiate heat, the massive energy in his
skin a tactile presence. The hate left his eyes for a fleeting moment as he
looked down, wide-eyed, at her hand covering his. She felt his fist clenching
as he turned those eyes towards her, taking her breath away; not for the first
time, and not for the last time.

 
    “Hey,” she whispered, gathering her wits. “Don’t worry.
That’s Jimmy. He’s a good guy. A good cop.”

 
    Kennick ripped his fist away from her, and she
flinched as though he’d lunged at her.

 
    “No such thing as a good cop, not where my people