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“I’m really sorry for speeding, I won’t do it again. I promise. I mean, I wasn’t going that fast, right?”
“You were going ten miles over the speed limit.”
Crap. Crap. “Is that bad? That’s bad, right? Please don’t take me to jail and lock me up in a cell with some scary woman doing time for cutting off her husband’s penis. Because if she could cut off a penis then what could she do to me? I have no self-defense skills. None. My only skills are nails and facials and I don’t think that’s going to help me against someone who can turn a bar of soap into a shank.”
“Can you turn a bar of soap into a shank?” the cop asked curiously.
“Yep, I saw it on one of those real-life crime shows. Or was it a fictional crime show? I’m not sure. Do prisoners get bars of soap?”
“Well, we do let them wash themselves. We’re not completely heartless.”
“I’m doomed.”
“Okay, someone has been watching way too much TV.” The voice still sounded calm, even amused.
“Sorry,” she muttered. She clenched her hands into fists, trying to calm herself down. The last thing she needed was for him to think she was on something.
“So do you do this a lot?”
“Ramble on about penises and shanks?” She gaped up at him.
He’s not him. He’s not him.
He cleared his throat. She got the feeling he might be trying not to burst into laughter. She didn’t know why he would be laughing. None of this was funny.
If she didn’t end up in a cell then her aunt was going to kill her for getting a speeding ticket.
“Ah no, I meant speeding. Since you seem to have this fear that I’m about to drag you away to a jail cell I wondered if that meant you had a whole ream of unpaid speeding fines.”
“Oh no, I always pay my speeding fines. I mean, I don’t get that many. At least, not in Montana. Those sorts of things don’t follow you from other states, do they?”
The policeman made a strangled noise and she finally dared to look up at him.
All right, he was tall. But then she was sitting down so it was kind of hard to tell for sure. Broad shoulders. Like Linc.
But this guy was a cop.
Easy, Marisol.
It’s not him. This isn’t the same. Not all cops are corrupt assholes with enormous egos who think they can threaten little girls.
She couldn’t tell much else about him considering it was dark and his headlights cast his features into shadow.
“License and registration please.”
“Huh?”
“License and registration.”
“Oh right. Should have thought of that. I’m just gonna get them from my glove box.”
“That would be good, thank you,” he said politely.
Okay, so far, he was blowing all her preconceptions about cops into pieces. Her hand still shook slightly as she passed over the bits of paper.
“Ma’am, are you okay? Have you been drinking tonight?”