by Liz Isaacson
Tate wanted to ask what he’d said wrong, but he honestly couldn’t think of anything. And while he thought it would be nice to have some friends on the force, it didn’t have to be Jordan. He followed him to a locker room and got his assigned spot to change.
“Chief Rasband should be expecting you.” Jordan left him in the locker room, hardly the delivery he’d promised earlier. Tate could find his own way, but he felt like just as big of an imposter in these clothes as he did in the cowboy hat and boots.
He approached Lesli’s desk, noticing a vase on the corner of it. “Nice flowers,” he said. “Who’re they from?”
“My husband had them delivered. It’s my birthday.” Lesli seemed to be glowing today, and there wasn’t an ounce of paperwork in sight.
“Happy birthday.” He smiled at her and slicked his palms down his thighs. The pants were made from heavy fabric that didn’t breathe, and Tate was already uncomfortable. “Is the Chief expecting me today?”
“Sure thing. Go on back.”
Tate did as he was told and Chief Rasband looked up when he gave a cursory knock on the doorjamb. “Entry-level police officer, reporting for duty,” he said.
“Come in.” The Chief jumped from his chair and came around the desk to shake Tate’s hand. “And you’re hardly entry-level, son. Weren’t you in the military for a decade?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Chief perched on the edge of his desk. “You’ll fit right in here.”
Judging by Jordan’s hot-then-cold attitude, Tate wasn’t so sure of that. But he wasn’t going to say anything about his fellow officer. Though his mother had died when he was young, he’d learned it was always better to say less if possible.
“So I’ve paired you with Dahlia Reid. She’s one of my top officers, about to move over to the detective side of things.”
“There are detectives in Brush Creek?”
“We share a pair with Beaverton,” he said. “And one of theirs just announced his retirement. Dahlia’s been waiting for a few years for the advancement, and it should come through in the next six months.” He glanced over Tate’s shoulder and he did too, nodding to a slim, no-nonsense woman with dark hair and eyes. “Until then, you’ll be her shadow. He’s all yours, Dahlia.”
She sized him up, and then said, “You’re Tate Benson?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He stood very still the way he’d been taught when speaking to a commanding officer.
“All right, then. We’re on Oxbow today, and there’s a festival tonight.” She nodded to the Chief, and her ponytail swung over her shoulder when she turned to exit the room.
“She’s ex-Army,” Chief Rasband said with a grin. “You guys should have a lot to talk about.”
Tate almost saluted before walking out, and he was eternally grateful he hadn’t. After all, this wasn’t the Marines—as he found out as he spent the next several hours patrolling a park while children played on slides and mothers chatted on benches.
Dahlia was nice enough, didn’t ask prying questions, and taught him where teens liked to hide and tag the restrooms. But the day would’ve been infinitely better had Sully been at his side, and he wondered if the department had any police dogs.
When he asked Dahlia, she said, “Nope. Nobody to train them.”
“Well, I could do that,” he said.
She gave him the side-eye, and he asked, “What?”
“Jordan said you were brought in to take the Chief’s place. Is that true?”
“What?” Tate stared at her, forgetting completely about the scan constantly rule she’d drilled into him that morning. “Where’s the Chief going?”
“Rumor is he’s going to retire soon. As soon as Jordan heard you were a Marine, he figured you were the replacement.”
Tate couldn’t help laughing. “That’s ridiculous. I don’t even know where teenagers like to hide in a park.”
But Dahlia didn’t laugh, and Jordan hadn’t been super pleased either.
“I don’t want the Chief’s job,” Tate said. “Trust me, I’m not here for that.”
“Why are you here?”
“I retired from the Marines. I had a house available here, and there was a job opening. It was as if the stars had aligned.” He sent a quick prayer of gratitude toward the heavens that everything had indeed fallen into place so quickly after Jeremiah’s death.
“And the dog training?”
“Something I’m good at, and that this town needs.”
“Oh? To aid in all of our drug busts?”
Tate simply stared at her. “If we can share a pair of detectives with Beaverton, we can share a pair of trained police dogs. They do a lot more than sniff out drugs.”
Dahlia still looked dubious, but Tate didn’t mind. He could bring the idea to Chief Rasband while the man was still in charge. Then, if he could train dogs to be part of a K9 unit, maybe coming to work would be a lot more than a boring walk in the park.
Chapter 9
A week passed. Then two. Wren got comfortable in her new routine of seeing Tate each evening. After work, she went over to his place and curled up with him while he napped on the couch. She didn’t mind, but he did seem extra tired in the first few weeks after starting at the police station, and she missed talking to him.
Instead, she’d taken to murmuring things about her day and her family to his dog. The German shepherd was a very good listener, and as Tate had said, harmless. He’d lie on the floor next to the couch, and Wren found great comfort in stroking him as she told him little tidbits about her life, spilled some secrets about her family, and maybe caught a few winks of sleep herself.
Tate usually only slept for an hour or so, and then he’d wake up, apologize for napping, and they’d eat something he’d bought on his way home from work. Then she’d go home. He seemed distant at times, but Wren determined not to ask him what was bothering him. He was perfectly pleasant—he was just tired. Still working on the house, though the projects had shifted from the interior to the exterior. Learning a new job where he claimed not many people liked him.
She wasn’t sure how that was even possible, until he explained the entire force thought he’d been brought in to replace the Chief. That was about all he’d told her since starting his new job. He admitted he wasn’t looking in the yearbooks anymore, and he didn’t seem all that interested in finding someone who’d known his mother.
Her aunts hadn’t been able to help, and she wondered if Etta was younger than her mother, or much older than Wren thought. She wanted to ask Tate, but she got a weird vibe from him whenever she even got close to the topic of his mother. So she’d let it drop.
She’d let a lot of things fall, and when she walked into her house on the day before the Fourth of July, her arms laden with grocery bags so she could make a vat of potato salad for her family’s big shindig, she found she didn’t have a clear space of countertop to put the groceries on.
So she set them on the floor and returned to her car for more. Her stomach clenched, and along with it, her teeth.
She’d spend the whole morning making the potato salad, and then Tate was meeting her family. The whole kit and caboodle. All seventeen of them—and that baby bump. They’d managed to avoid all the siblings and grandparents every week at church by leaving early and going up the horse farm.
He’d kissed her every time he saw her, but she noticed he didn’t come to her cottage; she went to his place. He always wanted to drive his truck when they went out, though she offered to drive when he was tired. Those little details nagged at her, making her wonder if he could really ease into her life as seamlessly as she’d hoped.
Please let them like him, she prayed as she started washing and peeling potatoes. He’d already met her parents, and Brennan, and she had Berlin on her side. Everyone else had seen them sitting together at church, and someone must’ve warned them away, because no one had come to the back row to meet him.
Wren very nearly sliced her fingertip right off as she cut th
e potatoes into cubes, trying to get them as perfect as possible and all the same size. Her mother would expect such things, even in potato salad.
The potatoes were in the pot of boiling water and the eggs in the pressure cooker when her phone rang. She smiled at Tate’s name on the screen and swiped a towel from the counter to wipe her hands before she answered the call.
“Hey,” he said. “Your trunk is still open. You want me to close it for you?”
She darted over to the window next to the small circular table in her kitchen and saw him standing in her carport. “Yeah, sure. Then come inside, if you want. I have leftover Chinese food from last night.”
“Just that spicy chicken, or some of the beef and broccoli?”
“All of it. Those noodles you’re so fond of.”
“The noodles are delicious.” He slammed her trunk and turned toward the window. He lifted his phone and grinned, and all the doubts and worries Wren had been entertaining the last few days dried up as he climbed the steps and then appeared in the doorway just a few feet from where she still stood with her phone at her ear.
He hadn’t given her even a moment to clean up, and his gaze swept the granite countertops that were still laden with the groceries she hadn’t unpacked yet. Compared to the military precision with which he kept his house clean, her place looked like a bomb had gone off.
“Wow, you need to hire a maid.” He chuckled and started unpacking her groceries.
She wanted to laugh fully, but it didn’t quite come out right. Truth was, she did normally hire Jazzy to come keep her cottage clean, but she hadn’t dared have her come since she’d started dating Tate, because she didn’t want to answer any questions.
Jumping in to help, she and Tate got the kitchen cleaned up and things put away only moments before the timer went off on the potatoes. She tested them and found them still the teensiest bit al dente, which was perfect for potato salad.
“Can you peel the eggs?” she asked, stepping over to release the pressure as that timer shrilled too.
“I think I can probably do that.”
Since it was the first time Tate had been to her house since he’d helped her carry in the boxes full of memorabilia, Wren enjoyed having him in her small space. “How’s the yard work coming?”
He cracked an egg and slid the shell into the sink. “Coming along.”
“You should hire my dad to come put in the sod.”
He scoffed. “Right. Like you need more cash to make this place more spectacular.”
Wren whipped toward him, but he continued peeling eggs like he’d said nothing out of the ordinary. But her heart practically whacked itself against her breastbone. “You think my house is spectacular?” She tried to keep the extreme curiosity out of her voice, but failed.
“Sure,” he said, reaching for the last egg. “It has the nicest of everything.”
“My dad and brothers did all the work,” she said. “We get things at practically cost.” She didn’t actually know if that was true or not, but she did know she saved a lot in labor.
“Exactly the reason I’m doing the landscaping myself.” He finished with the eggs and added, “I’m hopeless with a knife. You’ll have to cut them.”
She smiled at him, though she still felt a bit wobbly inside. “It’s called dicing.” She set to work on them. “You can get the pickles, mustard, and mayo out of the fridge.”
He squeezed behind her, both hands landing on her waist as he did, and he paused there. “Mm, there’s that sugar scent I like so much.” His lips touched the sensitive spot on the back of her neck where her hair didn’t quite cover.
Her natural giggle came now, and she leaned into his chest. “Stop it. This has to get chilled and ready to go in the next couple of hours.”
“Maybe we can skip the family barbeque,” he murmured.
She turned in his arms, glad for the first time of the narrow passage between the counter and her island. “I don’t think I can put them off again.”
“I know.” He gazed down at her, and Wren saw something in his eyes she hadn’t seen before. Could it be love? So quickly?
He inched sideways and opened the fridge. “Pickles.” He set them on the counter. “Mustard. Mayo. What else?”
“Salt,” she said through a dry throat, turning to hide her own deepening feelings so she could finish the eggs and get the salad in the fridge to chill.
With that done, he said, “Well, I’m going to go get some work done on my yard before the picnic.”
“I’ll come sit on your porch.” She’d been doing that on the weekends he wasn’t working, and she enjoyed watching him fill a wheelbarrow with dirt and move it, or lift a bag of decorative river rocks like they were feathers.
Today he worked in the back yard, setting pavers into a pattern to make a path from the deck he’d built to the gate in the back that connected to the riverwalk. When he finished, he ran inside to shower and she hurried next door to collect her salad.
By the time they arrived at the huge mansion where she’d grown up, Wren didn’t think she’d be able to enjoy a single bite of the salad she’d worked so hard to get right.
She spun back to him at the great double doors before they could swallow her whole. “Don’t try to remember all their names,” she said. “And the twins will try to confuse you on purpose.”
“Jazzy and Fabi. Identical twins, but Fabi still has a bit of pink left in her hair from the last time she colored it.”
“Right.” Wren smiled and pressed a quick kiss to his mouth. “All right. Prepare yourself.”
Chapter 10
Tate wasn’t sure why Wren was so worried about bringing him to meet her family—until she pulled into the driveway of the house where she’d grown up. As if the car wasn’t enough to scream about her wealth, the house before him broadcasted it to the entire universe.
Sure, she had a big family, but this house could accommodate twenty people easily. In fact, when she opened the door, the ceilings stretched up and echoed back the conversation from further inside.
“Are we last to arrive?” he asked, his nerves making his voice lower than normal.
“Sounds like it, but I didn’t see Milt’s car in the circle drive.”
Tate had seen almost a dozen cars in the driveway, and as he moved with Wren through the formal living room and around the corner, there were at least that many people gathered in the kitchen. Her mother directed traffic and sent this man out to put something on the picnic table on the deck and then told that woman to get the hot dog buns out of the pantry.
“Oh, Wren’s here!” someone cried, and a hush fell over the crowd. Then, all at once, her siblings rushed them. She hugged them all and kept saying, “This is Tate. Tate, this is Patrick,” and then “Tate, this is Kyler,” Then “Jazzy,” and “Fabi,” moved through the line.
He shook hands with them all, hugged the girls who glommed onto him, and basically made it through the siblings in record time. He met both sets of grandparents, who wore smiles like it was the cutest thing to see Wren with a boyfriend, and then her great-grandfather who stood on shaking legs and shook his hand with firm fingers.
“Sir.” He stepped over to her father, who wore an apron and wielded an extra-large pair of grilling tongs. “Good to see you again.”
“Hello, Tate. How are you with hamburgers?”
“Decent enough.”
“Great. Take these outside and get them on the grill.”
Happy for the chance to escape, he stepped through the double-wide French doors with a plate of perfectly formed hamburgers and into a beautiful outdoor kitchen. It was covered by a deck above, so it could certainly be used in the winter, and the smell of cooking meat met his nose.
He paused and took a deep breath, feeling so far out of place here. He set down the plate and moved to the steps that led up into the yard. Stopping when his feet touched grass, all he could do was stare.
The Fuller house was indeed in an older, more established sec
tion of town, with homes that were larger and made of beautiful red or white bricks. Theirs was constructed of brown and gold stones, and sat at the end of the cul-de-sac, which meant their yard butted up against the forest and river land.
It stretched for what seemed like a mile, and he could see a duck pond in the distance. The same towering trees that he loved to listen to while trying to fall asleep stood beyond that, and they had their own walking path in the yard.
This is ridiculous, he thought. Women like Wren were completely out of his league, and he knew it. She knew it. Every man in town knew it, which was why she hadn’t dated in years. Probably why her brother Brennan had shown up at church with a different woman for the past three weeks, and why all the girls still sat with their parents.
They were untouchable. So wealthy normal people didn’t know how to interact with them.
The doors behind him opened, letting some of the sound out of the house and into the yard, and Tate turned to find her father, Collin, joining him in the outdoor kitchen. “Did you do this yard yourself?”
“With my sons, yes.”
“And you own a landscaping business, right?”
Collin gave him a warm smile, and he certainly didn’t seem arrogant or caught up in his wealth. “That’s right. Wren manages it all for us, as I’m sure you know. All I do is check the calendar and show up where and when she tells me to.”
Tate moved down the steps and opened the grill on the right at the same time her father opened the one on the left.
“How are you liking the department?” Collin asked.
“It’s going…okay,” Tate said. He hadn’t found the other officers to be as warm and receptive as he’d hoped, but he got along fine with Dahlia, and as he spent his entire shift with her, he couldn’t complain too much.
“Chief Rasband is an old family friend,” Collin said to the sizzle of raw meat on the hot rack of the grill. “His family’s lived in Brush Creek for generations.”