Smoking Gunn by Tatum West

Chief Steele told me to pick my battles when it comes to Cole Gunn. He must not know me very well because I haven’t even started to fight.

Jamie:
I only have two rules: first, I don’t tangle with anyone who wants a relationship. And second, I’m the one who decides when it’s over. The guys I see are fun and easy—exactly how I want them. I keep my head down and my heart to myself. The only person who sees the real me is my daughter; I don’t make friends or keep them in a town that hates me. I don’t need redemption. I just want to make it through the day.
The minute I see Cole Gunn, everything changes. I can’t keep him off my mind—or out of my fantasies—even when I’m interrogating him at a crime scene. Cole makes me want to bend both of my rules—but he’s an ex-con, I’m a cop, and my boss thinks Cole is the one behind a recent string of thefts.
Screw that. Cole Gunn isn’t going to prison again. He gives me hope, passion, love: all the things I thought I didn’t deserve. I’ve never been a hero before, but when it comes to Cole, I think it might be time for a change.

Cole:
I don’t fit in here in Abingdon. I don’t have a fancy job, and I got my degree in prison instead of Jackson Academy. My only goal is survival on the outside. I ain’t got time for anything else. Yeah, I had dreams. I wanted a boyfriend, maybe a family. That went down the tubes the second I was convicted. My name has been cleared, but the scars are still there—and no good man would want anything to do with me.
Did I say Jamie Grant was a good man? He’s not. In fact, he might be the brashest son of a gun I’ve ever met. He rolled up to my uncle’s farm the week after I got out of the clink to accuse me of stealing the beehives on my property, and before I could even prove my innocence, he asked me for my number.
I dodge every one of his advances. I keep telling him he’s pissing me off, that he’s a fool for hanging around. But I’m lying through my teeth, and that smirk tells me he knows it. I can’t get that infuriating man off my mind—the things I’d do to him in bed would make a stripper blush.
But in the midst of an investigation where I’m getting framed again, it turns out Jamie Grant is the only one who gives a [email protected] about my story. Unlike everyone else who’s abandoned me at the first sign of trouble, he keeps coming back, begging for more.
Turns out he’s the part of my story I never expected. But it’s only when Jamie’s lost to me that I realize: he’s the love of my life, and I’m not ready to give up on my happy ending.