Free Head Start (Cedar Tree #7) by Freya Barker Page A

I managed to impress myself—and my sergeant. As excited as I was when I managed to eliminate target after target on the range, the shine disappeared quickly the first time I had a living, breathing target in my sights.
    “Holy schnikes. What’s gotten into you?” Kendra’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts and her hand covers mine on the table. “I hope it wasn’t me you were thinking about,” she says quietly as she turns my hand palm up. I’m surprised to see I’m bleeding. Glass is scattered over the table. I slowly become aware of the noise in the diner. A quick look around establishes that whatever just happened, no one seems to have taken much notice. Even Julie, our waitress, has her back turned. Only Arlene, who stands behind the counter on the far end has her worried eyes fixed on me. A tug on my hand has me turn back to Kendra.
    “Let’s go clean you up,” she says calmly, wrapping her napkin around my hand, which seems to be bleeding quite a bit now. I don’t feel a thing, though.
    I let her lead me through the diner past Arlene, who is waving us through to the kitchen.
    “Grab the private restroom beside my office. I’ll fetch the first aid kit.”
    Seb turns around from the grill. “Hey. How’s it going?”
    Still a bit dazed, I don’t answer immediately, but Kendra jumps in. “We had a little accident with a glass. Just gonna use your bathroom.”
    “Sure, sure,” he says, waving us through.
    In the small room, Kendra holds my hand over the sink and turns on the tap. I’ve still not said a word. It’s like my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth. She doesn’t push, just calmly rinses away the blood from a nasty gash right across the palm of my hand. A soft tsssk sound comes from behind me as Arlene pushes into the confined space.
    “Impressive.” She winks at me while taking some gauze and a bottle of something out of the kit she brought in and handing them to Kendra. “I’ll be up front if you need me.” The soft click of the door behind her leaves Kendra and me steeped in silence.
    Kendra pushes me to sit down on the toilet and examines the cut, after pouring on some kind of disinfectant. That, I can feel. It starts with a stinging and slowly turns into a steady, deep throb. Fuck .
    “You’ll need some stitches,” she says, taking great care as she stacks squares of sterile gauze on the wound before wrapping it up tight with a bandage.
    I still haven’t uttered a word.
    Her hand comes up to cup my jaw and she leans down to get in my face. “What’s going on?”
    Instead of answering, I wrap my other hand around the back of her neck and pull her down farther so I can kiss her. I can taste the salt from the fries on her lips, licking them slowly before sliding my tongue in her mouth and filling myself with just the taste of her. With her hands landing on my shoulders to balance herself, her body instinctively moves in between my legs.
    “I like kissing you,” is what I end up mumbling against her mouth. I can feel her lips forming a smile against mine.
    “You’re relentless,” she whispers back. “But we really should get you stitched up. Give me your keys, I’ll drive.”
    After our little spat on the sidewalk this afternoon, I managed to convince her to come grab a bite at Arlene’s. I figured being with her in the familiar surroundings might help her start seeing me in a different way. This was obviously not part of my plan. “I’ll drive. It’s a manual.”
    “So?” she snaps, rising to her full height, which, given that I’m still sitting on the can, allows her to look down on me. “Any rules I should be aware of that state women can’t drive standard?”
    I chuckle at her vehemence. “No. But I noticed you’re driving an automatic yourself, so I wasn’t sure.”
    “I’ll have you know that my previous car was a Mustang and it certainly was not an automatic.”
    “A Mustang, huh? What happened?” I’m intrigued. Not that I can’t see Kendra