Miss Understood (The Coletrain Twins #2) - Miranda Elaine

Nate

I've wanted to be a police officer for as long as I can remember. I was three years old when my momma bought me a police costume for Halloween. It came complete with a badge, a baton, and plastic handcuffs. From that moment on, I knew what I would be when I grew up. And, when I decide on something I don’t waver. I was never a great student. I didn’t apply to a single college. But the day after I’d graduated from high school, I showed up at the state police academy, ready to enroll, and six months later, I was ready for my first day on the job.

That was six years ago, and still to this day, I cannot imagine doing anything else. There’s only one thing I’ve ever wanted more than being a cop, and currently, she is Sugar Hills’ number-one fugitive. She isn’t a hardcore criminal, but in our small town, a big crime day is when the local teenagers shoplift a six-pack from the Quick Stop and trespass on some of the local farmers’ properties to get drunk by the ponds.

I’ve always seen good and bad as black and white, but leave it to the only girl I’ve ever wanted to be living in a world of gray. Tillie Coletrain has been the one for me since I first developed hormones. Even though there is an actual carbon copy of her out there in the form of her twin sister, Millie, she is the only girl I’ve ever wanted. The only one I need.

Somehow, while my brain says to follow the rules and fight for what is right, my dick has only ever gotten hard for the girl who makes it her daily task to break every rule written. We couldn’t be more different. While I followed my path into the law, she followed her con-man father’s guidance, which led her into a life of petty crime. Everyone in town has written Tillie off as a bad seed, but I’ve watched her since we were little, when no one paid her any mind, and I see the goodness she works so hard to hide. Despite knowing how wrong we look for each other from the outside, I know—and have always known—we are a perfect match.

I look into the rearview mirror, thankful to be pulling away from Brody and Maisy’s place. A week doesn’t go by without me or one of the other officers having to come by and break up a domestic dispute between those two. They’ve been together since we were all in school, though they were a couple of years ahead of us, but their relationship has been nothing but turbulent the entire time. I pull to a stop at the end of the street and hear my personal cell phone ringing, so I reach into the console to answer it, knowing that no one would call me while I was on duty unless it was important.

A brief call from my good friend and local bounty hunter, Jake, alerts me to the fact that Tillie is in his custody, but thanks to a mix-up with Millie, he’s preoccupied and unable to take her in for the warrants she currently has out. She’s been dropping bad checks around our town as well as the surrounding areas like there is no tomorrow. I rub my hand across my face in frustration, accepting that the day I’ve been dreading is here. I have to take Tillie Coletrain in, and hopefully, once I make all of my intentions clear, she can get past the part where I arrest her.

Thankfully, when Jake calls to inform me that Tillie is in the process of attempting to climb out his bathroom window, I’m patrolling just a few streets over. There may not be a lot of crime in Sugar Hill, but I like to think our presence on the streets is one of the reasons for it being such a safe town. A quick U-turn has me just a couple of minutes from Jake’s house, but before I can even get there, I see my girl walking along the edge of the road. Alone. At night. Unacceptable.

I roll the cruiser’s front windows down as I get closer to her. I can’t help noticing the way her pert ass fills her cutoff shorts just right as it sways side to side in an exaggerated fashion. A simple, tight, white tank top clings to her, and her long, blond hair is pulled into