Colin: Steamy Alpha Bad Boy Cop Romance (Ridge City Recruits Book 2) Read online

  COLIN

  Ridge City Recruits Book 2

  Mazzy King

  MZK Publishing

  Copyright © 2020 by Mazzy King

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover by DesignRans.

  Proofread by Jenny Hanson.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Meet KHALIL

  Coming Soon

  1

  Colin Leary

  I’ve been called to the office a lot throughout my life. I was always a smart kid in school but was also the class clown—nothing was better than getting a collective laugh out of my class for one of my antics, even if it meant I got sent to the principal’s office as a result. That never changed, even throughout high school.

  In college, I got called to my professor’s offices, where they’d accused me of not applying myself. I thought that was just a made-up line on TV, but if I had a nickel for every time I heard, “You’re so smart, but you’re just not applying yourself,” I would’ve graduated without a penny of student loan debt.

  Now, my welding mask in one hand, getting ready to go back on the floor after a quick break, and my cell phone in the other, I sigh inwardly. Called to the office again. Some shit never changes.

  Only thing is, it’s not the factory manager’s call I’m taking.

  It’s my dad.

  And the office he wants me to meet him at? It’s at Ridge City Police Department headquarters, where he’s the captain of the undercover patrol department.

  Totally casual.

  “Fuck,” I groan. The request is to meet him when my shift ends in a couple of hours. This isn’t a request that can be ignored. He will track my ass down. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a warrant written for me too. Being a police captain’s son means exactly dick in my family. That was never made clearer than last year, when after a night of drinking, my buddy got pulled over. He was much less inebriated than I was—hey, it was my birthday, and turning twenty-six is a big deal to some people—so being the responsible friend he was, he drove my car for me.

  Little did I know until we were stopped on the side of the road that he had what turned out to be ten grams of cocaine that he’d stashed under the driver’s seat when I was busy getting shitfaced.

  “Please, Colin,” he furtively whispered to me. “Please. You have a clean record. You’re a fucking police captain’s son. I’m a nobody. I can’t lose my fellowship. Please.”

  My drunk ass, overconfident it’d all be just fine because I was who I was, and my dad was who he was…said yes.

  Have you ever been bent over the hood of a cop car before? Ever felt the cold bite of handcuffs? Heard a voice loudly read your Miranda rights to you?

  That shit will sober you up like that.

  Needless to say, things did not work out in my favor. I was arrested. I was booked. My dad was notified. I got to sit in a small room with him and a couple of detectives who all knew that shit wasn’t mine, but I refused to give up my friend.

  I suppose my dad did use his influence to help me. Instead of getting ten years in a federal prison for intent to sell, the amount was relatively low enough that he worked something out with the judge presiding over the trial. I just got six months in county lockup.

  The police captain’s son, who didn’t grow up rich but definitely comfy, whose family is active and respected in the community, who attended a top school for business, became a convict.

  You can imagine how well that’s gone over in my family.

  So, despite having a bachelor’s in business and what I’m told is a brilliant, enterprising mind, I’m now a welder at a local factory who only hired me because they were desperate for help and I grew up learning how to be extremely handy. And I’m brilliant and enterprising.

  Whatever.

  I finish my shift and shower in the locker rooms, then change into jeans and a polo.

  I head to HQ to meet with my dad. It’s not the first time I’ve been here in recent months. He launched a super-secret, covert, intelligence-gathering program a few months ago and recruited me to be a part of it. He’s always wanted me to follow in his police footsteps. I considered it, once upon a time. Now, that’s out the window with my record. My record that truly doesn’t exist.

  Do I sound bitter?

  I am. I fucking am—at myself.

  He wanted me to start training in the Program with the idea that maybe I could contribute positively to the community somehow. I’m not sure how that works since the training I’ve been doing is nothing short of hand-to-hand combat, intelligence-gathering techniques, surveillance, defensive driving, and the like. The only thing I can’t legally do is carry a weapon and they can’t train us to do so. I grew up shooting guns, but the fact that I can’t own one now makes this prospective undercover work a little disconcerting.

  Weapons aside, I now know a dozen ways to incapacitate and probably kill someone without even breaking a sweat, so, I’m probably doing okay.

  I nod to the guard on my way in. Most people around here know me. That used to bring me pride, but now it’s kind of embarrassing, all things considered.

  As I take the elevator up to his floor, my mind whirls. A sinking feeling in my stomach tells me that my number in the Program has probably just been drawn, and I’m about to be drafted.

  I head to Dad’s office. An older man in a polo and slacks sits across from my father, and a tall, broad man leans against the wall as they all shoot the shit, waiting for me. I recognize the tall man with a jolt—Dominic Black, a former vice detective who recently got promoted to sergeant over narcotics. The other man, who’s closer to my dad’s age, I don’t recognize.

  They all look up as I walk in.

  “Son,” my dad says, standing up and holding a hand out toward me. “Gentlemen, this is my son Colin. Colin, this is Sergeant Dominic Black and Mr. Timothy Whisler, owner of Ridge City Country Club.”

  I shake hands with both, puzzled. What’s the owner of the country club doing here? “Nice to meet you all. So…what’s up?”

  “Got a job for you, Recruit,” Dominic says with a smile.

  And here we go.

  2

  Hendrix Whisler

  I swipe my pen across my notepad with gusto then lean back in my desk chair to stretch and moan loudly with relief.

  Managing a country club and planning its first-annual, members-appreciation gala in a little over two weeks has taken up the first six hours of my day without me even trying. I prefer being able to walk around the club, check on things, chat with the employees and the guests alike, but the event planning has me practically chained to my desk, which is my least favorite thing.

  I grew up here, at the Ridge City Country Club. My dad opened it thirty years ago after a wealthy relative left him gobs of money. Sometimes I feel I should’ve moved away, but this place feels like a home away from home.

  It also feels like a prison sometimes, too. What the hell even is a social life? Sometimes I forget I’m only twenty-five years old and that there’s life—and dating—outside these beautifully manicured grounds.

  “Dating,” I mutter, snorting so
ftly. “Whatever that is.”

  The stretch isn’t quite enough, so I stand up this time. An enormous yawn almost splits my head open. I lift my arms overhead and lean back, then lean forward to touch my toes.

  There’s a knock, a cough, and a chuckle behind me. “Miss Whisler?”

  Oh, for God’s sake. I completely forgot my dad scheduled the club’s new maintenance guy to come fix the drywall in my office. And here I am, greeting him ass-first. In a dress.

  I whirl around, face on fire. The fire reaches incendiary levels when I see how goddamn sexy he is. “Call me Hendrix, please.”

  A sexy maintenance man—every woman’s fantasy that never seems to actually be real, but here he is.

  He’s not much older than me, maybe a year or two, but he’s tall and built, with broad shoulders, well-defined arms, and a narrow waist. His dark hair is short on the sides and a little longer and mussed on top. He wears a khaki country club uniform shirt, the short sleeves rolled around his biceps, and khaki pants with a giant utility belt.

  But it’s his twinkling green eyes and devil-may-care smile that make me weak in the knees.

  “I’m Colin,” he says. “Should I…come back?”

  “Nope,” I say brightly without smiling, willing my face to cool. “Now’s good. Sorry about—I was stretching.”

  He grins, teething his lower lip. “Please, do not apologize.”

  Oh, fuck.

  He gestures to a small hole in the wall by my desk. “That’s the spot, I assume?”

  “Yeah. I had a new desk delivered last week and the delivery guy had some depth perception issues.”

  Colin nods, kneeling to examine the hole. “Were you stretching then, too? I almost walked into a wall, myself.” He flashes me another panty-dampening smile. “I’m just kidding. I mean, I’m not, but, you know, I’m trying to not be a creep.”

  He’s outrageous. But it makes me smile anyway. “Not trying to be a creep? It must come naturally, then.”

  Chuckling, he takes out a small plastic jar filled with putty-looking stuff and a few tools. “Only when beautiful women who answer the door very uniquely are involved.”

  I could swear I’ve known this guy forever, based on our easy banter. “So you’re new here?”

  He nods without looking up, using what looks like an offset spatula to spackle putty onto the hole. “Yep. First day.”

  “What do you think so far? Of the club, not the job. I’m assuming you know what you’re doing.”

  “Either that, or I just put liquefied Play-Doh on your wall.” He smiles, and I notice the slight dimple in his cheek. “I actually haven’t had a chance to really look around the place. I’ve been pretty busy.”

  “Oh, well, you have to have The Tour,” I tell him. “It’s an onboarding requirement.”

  He arches a brow. “Is it?”

  “No, it isn’t. But I like to do it for new hires. This place can seem pretty large and it’s easy to get lost.” I glance at my watch. “I’m in meetings for the gala the rest of the afternoon starting in ten minutes, but would you like to meet me back here around five?”

  His emerald eyes lock onto mine. Is that my heart beating faster? “Yeah. I’d like that. That’s nice of you, Hendrix.”

  I swallow. My mouth is suddenly dry. I just smile and nod, then lean over my desk to grab a notepad and my cell. “No problem. I’ve got to run. See you in a few. And thanks for patching that hole.”

  “It’s my job.” He glances down, then back up. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear a shadow passed over his face, but that cute, cocky grin is back in place. “See you in a few hours. Maybe I’ll beat you here and be the one to greet you booty-first.”

  I can’t help chuckling. My initial humiliation has faded, though my cheeks are still warm. “I can hardly wait.”

  Colin

  Well, that was one small detail my dad, Dominic, and especially Mr. Whisler left out—that the general manager, who I didn’t know until I walked up to her office, was not only Mr. Whisler’s daughter but the most stunningly gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen.

  Maybe five-five, with wavy, dark-golden brown shoulder-length hair and warm, pretty brown eyes, she and the dimple in her right cheek immediately pulled me in.

  Okay, fine. Catching her bent over at the waist with her magnificent round ass set off to perfection in her pretty, pale-green wrap dress, was pretty damn eye-catching too.

  I was a little surprised she asked to meet me back at her office for a tour, but I’m definitely not complaining. More facetime with a beautiful, funny woman? Hell yes. Even if she wasn’t the boss’s daughter, I’m sure fraternizing with the general manager would be a no-no, but she has this magnetism that immediately drew me in and made me feel as though I’ve known her my whole life.

  I count down the hours to when it’s time to meet her. I’m surprised at the number of actual tasks I have to do, but my dad and Dominic warned me that it would be a true cover. I’m on the payroll with the false credentials they gave me, but I’ll actually be getting a paycheck while I’m here. How they worked that out is beyond me, but all I know is that the money will come to me on a pay card rather than direct deposit.

  That’s good, since I’m not working at my other, actual job at the moment, and need to earn money somehow. I’m not getting paid leave from my welding job, but they are holding it for me after my dad called to speak to my boss to tell him I’m on a “civic assignment.”

  Shortly before it’s time to meet Hendrix, I head to the locker room to put away my gear and wash up. I have a change of street clothes with me, since they gave me the uniform this morning.

  The locker room is one of the nicest ones I’ve ever been in. The lockers are made of wood—nice, heavy duty wood. The whole place is sparkling, which is really saying something for a men’s room. There’s a section of stalls and then a whole separate room of showers. Just beyond the showers, there are large, double-sided vanities with blow dryers, toiletries, and large magnified mirrors for shaving.

  As I’m scrubbing my hands at the sink, I hear two guys talking on the other side of the counter I’m at.

  “Can you believe Martin claims he got an eagle on the twelfth hole?” one of them scoffs.

  “He was lying or high,” the other guy says with a disdainful laugh.

  “He was cheating.” There’s a short pause. “And probably high.”

  I perk my ears up at the mention of “high.” Well, that didn’t take long.

  My “civic assignment” is to uncover the apparent drug ring here at the country club—apparently, the well-to-dos seem to like their blow. A lot. And someone here is making a killing off it.

  “Sure you want to shit where you eat, Dad?” I asked him when we met in his office. After years of wanting to become members, they finally joined a few months ago and seem to love it. He’s invited me golfing several times, but I never had the time before. The irony now isn’t lost on me.

  My dad exchanged a look with Mr. Whisler across the desk. “I started hearing rumors about it,” Mr. Whisler told me. “It broke my heart. The club just isn’t that kind of a place. I knew, of course, who your father is, and approached him about it in private.”

  “I’m not ready to make a big thing of it,” Dad said. “I want some hard intel first. And it’d look pretty damn questionable for me to start asking people about blow.”

  Understanding dawned on me then. “But your loser son who has a drug record…”

  “You’re not a loser,” my dad said quietly. “And this is your chance to prove it.”

  And so, here I am.

  Not as Colin Leary, son of James Leary, Ridge City PD captain. I’m here as Colin Smith, brand-new maintenance dude nobody knows or has seen around here before.

  “Speaking of high,” the second dude says in a much lower voice, “did you ever end up scoring that blow from Judo?”

  Who the fuck is Judo? I wonder.

  The first guy whistles. “Yeah, but he upped his price
s. Two eight-balls used to be six hundred bucks. He charged me fifteen hundred.”

  “Shit!”

  “I mean, that’s nothing in the grand scheme,” the first dude says. “But for a Friday night’s worth of blow? Come on.”

  “Not to mention how many people here he’s supplying,” the second guy says with a chuckle. “He could quit working here and buy this place.”

  “Fuck, yeah, he could!”

  So “Judo” works here…

  I don’t know how involved this person is, but the first step is finding him and talking to him.

  The rest of their conversation devolves into unrelated shit, about which tennis instructor or yoga teacher at the gym they want to bang. But I can’t believe I stumbled across my first bits of intel here without even trying.

  I glance at my watch. I’m officially twelve minutes late for my tour with Hendrix, so I rush to her office. She’s sitting at her desk, working on her computer, and glances up as I walk in. She smiles.

  “Thought you stood me up.”

  “I,” I huff, trying to catch my breath, “would never. Got held up in the locker room.”

  “I hope not literally,” she jokes, then rises. “Well, let’s go!”

  She was right—the club is monstrous. And it’s important for me to know how to get everywhere, for the job I was officially hired to do and the one I’m here for unofficially. There’s the huge, rolling green golf course that I will thankfully never have to touch, because they employ a special lawn service, and an on-site fitness facility, a couple of restaurants, a ton of conference and event rooms, a café, a golf shop, a spa, and a huge pool area.

  We end up near the main restaurant, standing on the walk out front. “So that’s the whole campus,” she says, squinting up at me, the setting sun in her eyes. “I know it seems huge now, but you’ll have it down like the back of your hand in a few days.”