Justice for Erin (Badge of Honor: Texas Heroes Book 9) Read online

  Justice for Erin

  Badge of Honor: Texas Heroes, Book 9

  Susan Stoker

  Stoker Aces Production, LLC

  Contents

  Blurb

  Author Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Also by Susan Stoker

  About the Author

  Part-time bartender Erin Gardner is friendly to everyone who bellies up to her bar, including the local law enforcement and firefighters who keep her city safe. That’s where she meets game warden Conor Paxton, a regular who she asks to join a canoeing trip she’s leading for her university day job. When the trip leads to something more, Erin couldn’t be happier.

  Conor adores Erin, more than enough to help her continue to get over lingering self-esteem issues from her childhood. He’s thrilled he’s found someone who enjoys spending time in nature as much as he does.

  Just when the couple thinks they’re on their way to a happily ever after, Erin finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. But there’s no way she’ll just lay down and die. She’s woman enough to save herself—and lead her man to her when she’s done.

  ** Justice for Erin is the 9th book in the Badge of Honor: Texas Heroes Series. Each book is a stand-alone, with no cliffhanger endings.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Susan Stoker

  No part of this work may be used, stored, reproduced or transmitted without written permission from the publisher except for brief quotations for review purposes as permitted by law.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover Design by Chris Mackey, AURA Design Group

  Edited by Kelli Collins

  Manufactured in the United States

  Author Note

  Many of you know by now that I tend to write heroines who are struggling with something in their lives…thus making them more like you and me than perfect, fictional cookie-cutter women.

  In this story, Erin has struggled with food and her weight her entire life. This is a fictional story, but what has happened to her, happens to thousands, maybe millions of women all over the world. Being overweight (or underweight, or any other kind of “different”) is no excuse to treat someone like crap.

  There’s a reason someone is overweight. A reason you probably have no idea about. Molestation when they were young, verbal abuse, anxiety, a cry for attention…I could name a hundred different reasons…all of them perfectly understandable why someone would turn to food for comfort. The bottom line is that it is never okay to belittle, make fun of, take pictures of, mock, laugh at, or otherwise treat someone in a way you wouldn’t want your own mother/sister/brother/husband/friend treated.

  Think about it. You’re at the gym and you see someone who is overweight. Instead of making fun of them or taking pictures to show your bestie later so you can laugh, why don’t you encourage them? They’re there! Trying to do what’s best for themselves. I’ll never understand how people can make fun of others when they’re working out.

  Take the time to watch a show like My 600-lb Life. Every single person on that show talks about how they want to die. How painful it is to get out of bed every day. How terrible it feels to go out in public because they’re always made fun of. How they would do anything to lose the weight. And every single person has reasons for how/why they turned to food for comfort. And those reasons might have broken you and me, but they’re still here. Trying to live their lives in this awful world that looks down on them because they’re overweight.

  Before you roll your eyes at someone using an electric cart in Walmart or the grocery store, think about their feelings. Help them get something off the top shelf if they need it. And for goodness sake, if they happen to stumble and fall, be a decent human being and help them.

  There’s too much hate in this world. Maybe if we all stopped making fun of others, and holding everyone up to the advertising standards of “beauty” that are forced down our throats, we could look around and see beauty in our differences.

  I hate to sound preachy, but I’m afraid I have. And you know what? I don’t care. This is important. You have no idea what someone is going through simply by looking at them. None. So be nice. That’s all. Just be nice.

  1

  Erin smiled at Conor Paxton, the Texas Parks and Wildlife game warden she’d invited along on the annual Thanksgiving trip she chaperoned, as she tried to stop freaking out. She’d spent the entire day telling herself that Conor wouldn’t actually show up, that he was just being polite when he’d agreed to come. But when she’d pulled into the parking lot of the rec center at the University of Texas-San Antonio, he was waiting for her.

  And what a sight he was.

  Standing next to his beat-up old Chevy pickup with his arms and legs crossed, looking as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Erin knew he was good looking, it was hard to miss, but when he smiled, it completely transformed him. He went from a solid eight on a scale of one to ten, to a twenty.

  He was tall, a bit taller than she was. He had brown hair, and brown eyes that twinkled when he was teasing her. His shoulders were broad and the muscles in his arms made it clear he wasn’t a man who sat around eating doughnuts with his law enforcement buddies. He moved with an athletic grace that seemed effortless. Erin had seen him step in and control a drunk man twice his weight at the bar without breaking a sweat.

  In other words, he was so out of her league, it wasn’t even funny…but that didn’t mean she didn’t fantasize about him.

  Erin had thought her heart would stop when he’d aimed that happy welcoming look her way, but she’d managed not to wreck the fifteen-passenger van she’d been driving and calmly parked.

  She’d known Conor for a few months. Every now and then he came into The Sloppy Cow, the establishment where she worked nights as a bartender, with his friends. More often than not, he made a point to stop and talk to her at some time during the night. She lived for those talks.

  She wasn’t a very social person. Didn’t have a lot of friends. She was too busy, and too wary, to cultivate true friendships. Between her day job of being a professor at UTSA in the kinesiology department and working nights at The Sloppy Cow, not to mention her background, friends had been hard to come by.

  But when Conor started paying attention to her, it felt good. Really good. It had been a long time, if ever, since Erin had felt good about herself. Somehow Con
or had broken through all the walls she’d built up. Then one night at the bar, she’d spontaneously invited him to join her on a UTSA-sponsored canoe trip to Big Bend State Park and the Guadalupe River.

  She’d been kinda shocked when he’d immediately said yes.

  Since then, they’d exchange emails and a few texts. She’d seen him at The Sloppy Cow and, if she wasn’t mistaken, he’d flirted with her. Her. Eat-more Erin. She would’ve thought it was a cruel prank if she wasn’t thirty-five and well past the age where people played mean jokes on her.

  She’d tried to ignore the flutter of her heart and had greeted him in what she’d hoped was a normal tone. They’d met at eleven forty-five at night on Thanksgiving Day. The plan was to drive through the night, arrive at Big Bend State Park when the ranger office opened and pick up their backcountry permit, which would allow them to canoe and camp over the next three days.

  Erin was responsible for everyone on the trip, including Conor, although she had a feeling the game warden could easily take care of himself. She had the required personal floatation devices for the group, along with extras. She’d inspected the canoes and paddles before she’d loaded them on the trailer. She’d given Conor and the college guys strict instructions on what they could and couldn’t bring, including weight limits. This was the third time she’d done this exact trip, and she knew the river almost as well as the back of her hand.

  The drive typically only took six hours, but she could extend it if needed by making pit stops for gas and to stretch their legs, making them arrive just as the ranger office was opening. They’d be on the river by noon and on their way. They’d have two nights to spend in the backcountry, and on Sunday, if there were no issues, they would head back to San Antonio by noon and home by seven that night.

  Not too long after she’d arrived at the rec center parking lot, the four college kids who were also going on the trip had joined them. Erin didn’t know them very well, but she’d had two meetings with them in the last month, and was satisfied they weren’t going to give her a hard time. After they’d arrived, she’d searched everyone’s bags for contraband. Not her favorite thing to do, but the last thing she wanted was to have someone bring an unauthorized weapon into Mexico or have to deal with drunk kids because they’d snuck some tequila or other alcohol on the trip.

  Happily, she didn’t find anything she shouldn’t have and they were soon on their way. The guys—Alex, Chad, Matthew, and Jose—seemed like good kids. They were juniors at UTSA, except for Alex, who was a senior. They were in the same fraternity, which made Erin a little nervous, as she didn’t have a good history with men and women involved in the Greek life, but so far, they’d been nothing but polite.

  The guys were sitting in the last two rows of the van, their bags stacked in the two seats between them, and her and Conor, giving the adults a sense of privacy, although Erin knew if she spoke too loud, the boys would easily be able to hear her.

  “I’m really excited about this trip,” Conor told her with a smile.

  They’d just turned onto I-10 and had at least five hours to go before they headed south on State Road 385. Erin smiled back at Conor. “I’m glad. I’d hate to think you were dreading it.”

  He chuckled. “Are you kidding? I not only get to spend three days outside enjoying nature, but I get to do it with a pretty woman by my side.”

  Erin knew she was blushing, but tried to blow off his words. He didn’t mean them, he was just being polite. She knew exactly what she was and what she wasn’t. “You spend a lot of time outside, huh?”

  As though he knew his words had made her uncomfortable, Conor went on as if he hadn’t paid her the best compliment she’d had in a really long time. “Yup. Perks of being a game warden. I put a good amount of miles on my work truck, but I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.”

  “What do you do? I mean, I know you’re a game warden, but I’m not exactly sure what that entails.”

  Conor slouched down in his seat and crossed his legs at the ankles. He settled in, getting comfortable, then said, “Basically, I enforce all Texas Parks and Wildlife rules. I’m also a state peace officer as well. I provide testimony in court when needed and can arrest someone for breaking the law just like any other police officer can. I help with emergency management operations in regards to natural disasters, conduct investigations of hunting licenses…making sure people hold the correct licenses to be fishing and hunting.”

  “Wow,” Erin breathed. “I had no idea. I guess I thought you just worked with animals.”

  “Well, I do, but it’s a lot more than that. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve arrested people who were camping or fishing for DUI or marijuana possession. They think that just because I’m a game warden, I’m not a real police officer.”

  “You like it.” It wasn’t a question. Erin could hear the pride and excitement in Conor’s voice when he was explaining what his job entailed.

  “Yeah, it’s amazing. Some days I can be tromping through the woods looking for a poacher. Other days I’ll be sitting in court, and still other days I’ll be chasing down leads on who shot and killed a bald eagle. I admit that I decided to apply to the academy after I graduated from college simply because I couldn’t imagine sitting behind a desk all day, but now that I’ve been doing this for almost fifteen years, I have a newfound respect and affinity for wildlife.”

  “Fifteen years? You don’t look old enough.”

  “I’m thirty-five,” Conor told her. “And if you wanted to know how old I was, you only had to ask.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t trying to pry,” Erin told him, horrified he might think she was digging for information.

  “I know you weren’t. It was my awkward way of wanting you to know.” He shrugged. “And I figured if you knew how old I was, you wouldn’t mind reciprocating.”

  Erin glanced at Conor out of the corner of her eye. Was he flirting with her? She saw his eyes glued to her and a smile on his face. Yup. He definitely was. Feeling out of her depth, but for once liking the feeling, she said, “I’m also thirty-five.”

  “How long have you been working for UTSA?” Conor asked.

  Erin tried not to stiffen. She wasn’t used to talking about herself. Taking a deep breath, she told him the basics. “I graduated with my undergraduate degree with a double major of kinesiology and education. I worked as a middle school gym teacher for a while, then took some time off, went back to school, got my master’s degree, and was hired by UTSA. I’ve been there about four years now.”

  “And you love it.”

  “I do.”

  “Is the pay really so bad that you had to take the second job at The Sloppy Cow?”

  Erin shrugged and tried to play off the question. “Not really. But I like to be busy.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. She didn’t need the money. The salary from her teaching job at the university was plenty for her to live on, but she didn’t like to be by herself in her apartment. She knew it was weird. For someone who didn’t have any close friends, she sure spent a lot of time away from home. But she had her reasons.

  “I get that,” Conor said easily. “There are days where I’m around people from the time I start work to the time I get off shift. I want nothing more than to go home to some peace and quiet. But then I get home and sit down to watch TV and realize how bored I am.”

  “What do you do when you get bored?” Erin asked, genuinely curious.

  He shrugged, and she thought he seemed a little self-conscious. “Usually go for a run.”

  “You run?” Erin asked, surprised, even though she shouldn’t have been with how in shape he was.

  “Yup. Love it.”

  “Me too.”

  “We should go together sometime.”

  Erin’s breath caught in her throat. Did Conor just ask her out? She decided to play it cool. He was probably just being polite, and working out together wasn’t exactly a date. Was it? “Cool.”

  “You do any races?”

  Sh
e nodded. “Yeah, usually just 5 and 10Ks. I’m not really into the marathon thing.”

  “Me either. I figure there won’t be a time when I need to run for twenty-six miles to get away from any kind of animal. Being able to run fast for one or two miles is more likely,” he said, grinning.

  “Do you have to run from animals a lot?” Erin asked with a tilt of her head.

  He chuckled. “Nope. I’ve learned to read them way before that happens. Besides, there’s no way I could outrun most of them. Although it has come in handy when I have to get away from a mama skunk protecting her babies.”

  Erin laughed quietly, ever aware of the guys in the back of the van. She could hear them snoring from all the way in the front seat. It was dark outside and it felt like she and Conor were in an intimate bubble in the front of the van. “You ever do triathlons?”

  “Yeah. I prefer the straight runs, but I’ve done one or two. I can’t stand being wet from the swim and having to jump on a bike. I tend to get chafed, if you know what I mean.”

  She did. She so did. After the last triathlon she’d competed in, her inner thighs were rubbed raw after the bike portion and hurt for a week. “Yeah, it sucks.” She smiled over at him once more.

  They talked about nothing in particular for the next couple of hours. Erin had never felt so comfortable with a man before. Some of it was the darkness of the night, but she knew most of it was simply Conor.