Deirdre tugged on a pair of cute ankle boots, anxious as Wyatt was set to arrive any moment. Sure enough, the doorbell rang before she’d zipped up the second boot, and she hurried to finish the job. Jumping to her feet, she darted out of her bedroom and down the hall, calling, “Coming.”
She pulled open the door, her heart racing in her chest. Wyatt stood there, tall and broad and utterly charming with that small smile on his face and all that salt peppered in his dark hair.
“Evening, Deirdre,” he said, his deep voice strumming something deep inside her stomach.
“Hey,” she said. “I’m almost ready. You wanna come in?”
“Sure.” He stepped into her house as she inched back, still holding the door. She closed it behind him and went to get her purse.
“I just need my bag and to make sure I have lights on, so I don’t have to come home in the dark.”
“Smart.”
Deirdre’s cells rioted as she reached for a switch to flood the kitchen with light. She smiled at Wyatt as she turned, and her ankle buckled in the wedged boots. She grunted as she righted herself, her hand flying out to catch herself against the kitchen counter.
“You okay?” Wyatt asked, his hand landing on her arm too, as if he could steady her. Her skin sizzled where his met it, and she first looked at his fingers and then his face.
She swallowed, because she knew why she was so nervous. Yes, he was ultra-handsome and Deirdre was a tiny bit anxious because of that. She liked him a lot, and his opinion of her was very important to her.
And as soon as she told him about her daughter and the restraining order, she didn’t think he’d fight quite so hard to be in her life.
“Deirdre?”
“I’m okay,” she said quickly, sliding her hand away. He removed his fingers from her arm and backed up a step.
“Where are we going for dinner?”
“The Indian House?” Why she’d phrased it as a question, she wasn’t sure. “Do you like Indian food?”
“Love it,” he said. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.” She preceded him to the door, and relief spread through her when she saw he’d driven his own car. A civilian Jeep. Not his police cruiser. The last thing she needed was every eye in Getaway Bay on her for a simple dinner date.
They’d texted quite a bit over the last three days, but Chief Wyatt had a strict ten p.m. bedtime that he did not break. Deirdre had trouble sleeping after their late-night texting sessions, and she wondered if it might have been easier to tell him about Emma and the restraining order via text instead of face-to-face.
But she’d been worried that this face-to-face dinner would be called off if she did, and while she’d said no to his dinner invitation a week ago, she now found herself desperately wanting to see if they could make a relationship work this time.
He helped her into the Jeep, which was quite the step up in her wedges, his hand warm on her lower back. “Tell him,” she muttered to herself as he rounded the hood and opened the driver’s side door.
“Wyatt,” she said.
He started the vehicle and looked at her.
“I have to tell you something.” She slicked her palms down the front of her jeans. Deirdre hated feeling like this. The nerves. The uncertainty. The guilt. The shame.
She’d sat in a courtroom and felt this level of unease. She really disliked being falsely accused, and she couldn’t stand that sometimes there was injustice in the justice system.
“Deirdre,” he said. “If you don’t want to go out with me, it’s fine.”
“I do,” she said, finally forcing herself to look fully at him. His dark eyes drank her up, and Deirdre could get lost for a good long while in eyes like that. “It’s not that.”
“What is it then?”
“You’re a public figure, right?”
“Oh, boy,” he said.
“People like to dig into the past of people like you.”
“It’s not an elected position,” he said. “I’m not the Sheriff.”
“But you can’t date like, a criminal or anything.”
Wyatt opened his mouth to speak but promptly shut it again. His eyes held a new glint now, and Deirdre could see the detective in him. “Deirdre?”
“I have a restraining order against me,” she said. “My daughter filed it, and though it’s pretty much a load of crap, it still got approved because I called her cell phone before the hearing. I thought I had the phone in my car, and I couldn’t find it. I wanted to give it back to her father, but that violated the temporary order, and the judge didn’t care that I thought I had the phone. He said it was an attempt to contact her, when I’d been ordered not to.” She was aware that she’d turned into Michelle DeGraw, talking faster and faster without breathing.
She took a long breath and slowed down. “That’s why I don’t talk to my daughter. When all of that happened, I moved to Getaway Bay.”
He said nothing, those police eyes searching her face.
“So I understand if you don’t want to go out with me,” she said, her heart wailing a little bit at the prospect of losing him before she’d really had a chance to be with him. He hadn’t been ready last time, and she’d blown him off last weekend.
Finally, Wyatt flipped the Jeep into reverse and backed out of her driveway. “Indian House? My wife loves the butter chicken there. What’s your favorite dish?”
Chapter Nine
Wyatt hadn’t been sure what would happen at dinner that night, but he certainly hadn’t expected to hear the beautiful blonde say she had a protective order against her.
At the same time, he knew sometimes those things were issued for suspect reasons.
“Loves?” Deirdre asked, and Wyatt felt whiplashed all around. He didn’t drive the Jeep much, and he pushed on the brake too hard, sending them both toward the dash.
A nervous chuckle came out of his mouth. “Uh, I talk about Christine in the present tense,” he said. “It was something I learned at grief counseling.”
“Oh.” She folded her arms and looked away, and Wyatt eased through the four-way stop. “You don’t care about the protective order?”
“It’s a civil matter,” he said. “You’re not a criminal.” He did want to hear more about why her minor daughter would file a protective order against her, but he wasn’t going to ask. Deirdre would tell him when she was comfortable doing so.
“I would be, if I violated the order.”
“But you haven’t violated the order,” he said. “I never would’ve known had you not told me.”
“You wouldn’t have run a background check on me?”
Wyatt laughed, some of the nerves dissipating now that he’d spent longer than five minutes with her. “Deirdre, I trust you.”
“I heard some cops do that. You never can be too careful.”
“Would you like me to run a background check on you?” He glanced at her, and a small smile played with that mouth as she shook her head no. Oh, that mouth. He wanted to kiss her so badly, and that sent his pulse running like a scared rabbit.
He hadn’t kissed anyone but his wife in a very, very long time.
But the twinge of guilt that had been behind his heart last time he and Deirdre had tried a relationship wasn’t there this time. Not even a tiny pinch.
So he was ready.
The real question was whether or not Deirdre could trust him enough to tell him all the intimate details of her life. She’d spoken true when she’d said he was a public figure. He felt like most people in Getaway Bay knew all about him already.
Maybe they didn’t know his favorite color or how he preferred his eggs, but they knew enough.
“I miss Christine,” he said. “She took care of everything for me, and she worked at the library a few days a week.”
“I bet it is hard,” she said. “Even though I was the one who filed for divorce, I missed my husband for the first few months.”
“Did you?” Wyatt pulled into the parking lot at The In
dian House. “I wonder why.”
“I don’t like being in the house alone at night,” she said. “It was something I had to get used to.” She looked at him, pure vulnerability on her face. “That was when I developed my obsession with lemon drops. I’d hear something in the house that scared me, and I’d pop in a lemon drop. I couldn’t go look for an intruder until I finished it. And by then, I was usually asleep or absorbed back into my book.”
“And clearly, still alive,” Wyatt said, smiling.
“Clearly.” Deirdre turned to her door and got out of his Jeep. They met at the front of the truck, and Wyatt slipped his hand into hers.
“So you love lemon drops. What do you dislike?” he asked.
“Tomatoes,” she said. “You?”
“Scallops.”
“Fascinating,” she said. “Most people on the island love seafood.”
“I love crab and lobster,” he said. “Mahi mahi, especially with pineapple-mango relish. Shrimp. But there’s something funky about the texture of a scallop.”
“It’s like seared, soft butter.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I feel like it’s not done.”
Deirdre giggled as he held the door open for her, and the scent of Indian spices met his nose. “Fair enough. What do you like here?”
“The butter chicken,” he said. “And plenty of naan.”
“Oh, the bread. Of course.” She stepped up to the hostess station and gave the woman standing there her name. At least four couples waited on the couches, and Wyatt felt all of them look at him.
The woman—Nita Reddy—looked at him, and her eyes rounded. “Chief,” she said. “Right this way.”
“But—”
Wyatt squeezed Deirdre’s hand to silence her, and he followed Nita past the podium. “Nita,” he said. “There are other people.”
“We have all the tables coming in minutes,” she said over her shoulder.
“We can wait,” Wyatt said, increasing his pace to step past Deirdre. “Really. Take the next person on the list.”
Nita put the menus on a table and turned to Wyatt. “Is this okay?’
“No,” he said. “You know I like a booth, and that I don’t mind waiting my turn.” Wyatt really should’ve called ahead to give Nita this talking-to. He didn’t want to embarrass her, but he was embarrassed in front of Deirdre.
“Look, Krisha is already taking back two more couples,” she said. “I’ll go get the other two now.” She swept her arm around the restaurant. “We have plenty of tables now. Our rush just ended.”
“Wyatt,” Deirdre said, picking up the menus. He watched as she smiled up at him. “If you have a booth, Nita,” she said. “We’ll sit down and get out of your hair.”
“Right here.” The Indian woman moved several feet to an empty booth and indicated it.
Wyatt let Deirdre lead him to it, and he sat with his back to the majority of the restaurant. Christine had teased him once that he was part feline, because he believed if he couldn’t see people, they couldn’t see him.
“Thank you,” he said as Nita patted his shoulder. He took his time settling in and spreading the napkin across his lap. When he finally looked at Deirdre, she was watching him. “Sorry. I should’ve warned you about that.”
“What’s the story there?”
“Where?”
“With you and Nita Reddy.”
“Oh, when Christine and I were first married, we lived on the same street as the Reddy’s. Their daughters are quite a bit older than Jenn, and they’d come babysit or take her for walks or whatever. They opened The Indian House, and we were some of their first customers.” He smiled at the fond memories, the old times. “So we go way back.”
Deirdre kept all of her emotions behind a careful mask, and Wyatt didn’t like it. But he couldn’t very well reach across the table and swipe it away. “That’s great.”
“She always tries to seat me before everyone,” he said. “No matter how many times I tell her I don’t mind waiting.”
She looked out across the restaurant. “Well, they all have a table now, too, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”
That was because Deirdre didn’t have to shoulder all the glances, all the eyes. Wyatt did, and had for years. But he wasn’t going to argue with her.
“I suppose you want to know more about my daughter.”
Wyatt picked up the menu, though he had the thing memorized. “Only if you want to tell me.” He focused on the specialty drinks to give Deirdre a moment to organize her thoughts. A waitress arrived before she spoke, and Wyatt beamed up at the girl.
“Evening, Chief,” she said, cutting a glance at Deirdre. “Your usual?”
“Yes, please,” he said. “And I want the strawberry infused peach lemonade tonight. With two shots of cream.” He handed Myra the menu and they both looked at Deirdre.
“I can see this is on,” she said. “I want whatever his special is.” She hadn’t even picked up a menu. “And lots of Diet Coke.”
Myra smiled at her and leaned closer to Wyatt. “She’s pretty.”
Wyatt could barely hear her, so Deirdre certainly couldn’t. Still, a flush crawled up his neck as Myra walked away and Deirdre said, “What did she say?”
“She said you were pretty.” Wyatt cleared his throat. “And she’s right. You look great tonight.” He couldn’t remember if he’d told her or not.
“Just tonight?” she teased, and Wyatt relaxed a little bit. The heat in the restaurant shot up—or maybe that was all inside his body.
“Always,” he said, smiling at her. “I’m glad we’re finally doing this.”
“No major incidents tonight,” she said.
“Nope,” he said. “And I’m not on-call.”
“Who is?”
“My second,” he said. “Jeff Alveada.”
“I don’t know him.”
“Good guy,” Wyatt said, wondering how to salvage this conversation. “So you’re doing the department party.” He wanted to kick himself in the teeth the moment the words left his mouth.
Deirdre’s eyes shuttered for a moment, but then she blinked and looked at him. “Yep,” she said. “But I don’t want to talk about work.”
“No?” Maybe if she led the conversation, he could get out of these dangerous waters.
“No.” She leaned forward. “I’ll talk fast, so we can then enjoy the food.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to.” She swallowed and sucked in a breath. “After the divorce, I got full custody of Emma. She was only ten. By thirteen, she’d started drinking and hiding the vodka bottles in the top of her closet. I found them one day, and in her words, I ‘freaked out’.” She made air quotes around the last two words.
“I guess I threw the empty bottles and the glass shattered and we both stepped on some of it. She was crying, and she was so angry.” Deirdre paused, her words no longer rushing over themselves. Her eyes took on a faraway quality that spoke of old memories too, but not the good kind.
She gave herself a little shake. “Anyway, she accused me of being overbearing and controlling, and she ran out.” She pushed her breath out now, a great big sigh of air. “She walked the few miles to her father’s, who called me, irate that Emma—a thirteen-year-old who had been drinking and partying in my house—had cuts on her feet. There were all these bloody pictures.” She waved her hand, and Wyatt had no idea how a person dealt with all of this. From their only child.
“She wouldn’t leave his house, but I had custody.” Deirdre’s eyes crackled with lightning, and Wyatt knew this was still a very hot topic for her. “So she got her dad to file a protective order against me, take her to the hospital, all of it.”
“And she didn’t have her phone.”
“No, she left the house without it. Dalton was plenty mad about that too. He pays for a tracking feature on it, but she didn’t have it. She could’ve been kidnapped, etcetera, etcetera.” Deirdre wasn’t making light of it, he could
tell. She looked downright miserable. “All of that amounted to me being too controlling—her phone had been charging in the car—because I made her give up her devices by nine o’clock. That was what she told the judge. That she didn’t have her phone because I was the Phone Nazi.” More air quotes. Lots of bitterness. So many hurt feelings.
Wyatt reached across the table and took both of her hands in his. “I’m so sorry, Deirdre. I can see that this is very hard for you.”
She practically sagged under the weight of the world. “It is.”
“So you left the North Shore.”
“It’s a big place,” she said. “As far as geography goes. Lots of beachfront and all that. But the actual physical places to shop and dine—not so many. If I ran into Emma at all, she could call the cops, and I could be arrested.”
“You didn’t fight the order?”
“I did,” she said. “But Emma lied. She’d had Dalton take her to the hospital again, and she claimed I wouldn’t take her to the doctor. I wouldn’t let her go out with her friends. Basically, she accused me of beating her, hurting her, flying into violent rages, and being a prison warden.”
She drew in a deep breath, and Wyatt wished he could take her pain from her. He’d been in the depths of sorrow too, but never accompanied by this much anger. Pain, sure. Grief. Misery. Depression. Anxiety. A sense of drowning, being so overwhelmed he’d never get caught up.
Yes to all of those.
He’d had a brief moment of anger, but it had only lasted a few weeks. If that.
Deirdre had been in Getaway Bay for about a year and a half. Still, his heart went out to her, and he looked down at the table, unsure of what else to say.
“Sorry,” she said, her voice a little higher than normal. She pulled her hands out from under his and swiped at her face. “I’m fine. But there’s the story.”
“Thank you for telling me,” he said.
Myra returned with their drinks, and the words, “Your food is right behind me,” and that broke the tension at the table.
Wyatt leaned away as his platter of naan and butter chicken with a full serving of white rice and one of pork fried rice was set in front of him. A smile crossed his face, and he looked up to watch Deirdre’s reaction to his “special.”
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