by Meg Cabot
“Uh, no, thanks.”
“You need to think about your actions. You never think. You just—”
“Excuse me.”
The click of pool balls, which had ratcheted up again once Rick had left the vicinity, stilled as a tall shadow fell across the patio. I could hardly believe it when I looked up to see the sheriff standing there—in full uniform, no less—with Rick Chance standing right behind him.
My eyes widening, I glanced from Rick to Drew, but the latter appeared unruffled, reaching down to take hold of Socks’s collar, since the dog had given a delighted whine at the appearance of his owner and made a motion to rush to his side.
“Lucy.” The sheriff gave a polite tip of his hat toward the older woman. “Ed. Sorry to interrupt.”
“Oh, you know you’re never interrupting, John.” Mrs. Hartwell’s face was lit with genuine pleasure. She didn’t seem to have any idea what the presence of the sheriff meant. “We were wondering when you were going to drop by. I saved a plate of my brisket for you. I know how much you love it.”
“Kind of you,” John Hartwell said. “I was actually just on my way over.”
He was tall, with Drew’s dark hair and blue eyes, since like almost everyone else on the island he was related to Ed Hartwell, as well—though exactly how, I wasn’t sure. I’d waited on him numerous times. He liked his coffee black and his eggs over easy. Like most of the Hartwells, he said little but tipped a lot.
“But I guess this isn’t a social call anymore,” he went on, “since I ran into Rick here, on my way in, and he says somebody hit him.”
“Not somebody,” Rick insisted. “Him!” Rick pointed at Drew. “Drew Hartwell hit me, and everyone here saw it!”
Chapter Nine
Do not count on aid from first responders during and immediately after the storm, as they will likely have evacuated with their families for their own safety.
Sheriff Hartwell looked around the yard, his cool blue eyes narrowed.
“That true?” he asked the party in general.
I held my breath. Authority figures—anyone in uniform—had always intimidated me.
But someone was going to have to come to Drew’s defense. Rick had obviously had it coming. Who went around kicking poor, innocent animals anyway?
Except that it would be obstruction of justice (or perjury) if someone lied for Drew. I had been a miserable law student—in more ways than one—but even I knew that under the right circumstances, failing to report a crime—not to mention lying to the police—could get you slapped with criminal charges of your own.
Glancing at the faces of those around me, I recognized in each the same stony resolution I felt—to not get Drew in trouble for what he’d done, which had, after all, been the right thing.
But I saw also a hint of indecision . . . no one wanted to get themselves in trouble, either.
If there was anyone at the Hartwells’ party who could fight off a perjury charge (or afford to make bail) without any trouble, it was me. I was Judge Justine’s daughter, after all.
I guess that’s what I was thinking as I found myself, against my better judgment, tentatively raising my hand and saying in a soft voice, “Uh, Sheriff?”
The tall man glanced over at me.
He wasn’t the only one. I felt as if every gaze in the yard was boring into me. My cheeks flared red. What was I doing?
“Miss?” The sheriff obviously didn’t recognize me outside of the café, without my Mermaid tee and nametag.
“Um,” I said, lowering my hand. “I didn’t see anyone hit Mr. Chance,” I lied, in my politest tone. “But I did see Mr. Chance kick that dog.”
As I pointed from Rick to Socks, a number of the heads around me began to nod, and I saw the expressions on them turn from shocked to knowing.
“Me, too.” Angela, beside me, took a step forward. “I saw him kick that dog, too.”
“He kicked him a couple of times,” one of Drew’s friends said. “Hard,” added another.
“He’s always kicking that dog,” claimed a third. “It’s disgusting.”
The sheriff glanced at Rick, his cool blue gaze narrowing. “Is that so?”
“Just a tap.” Rick was beginning to back away from the glow of the party globes, into the shady darkness of the yard, far from the accusation of the stares he was receiving. “You know how dogs can be. And that ain’t even my dog—”
“Really, Rick?” Drew was having to keep a tight hold on Socks’s tattered collar, the dog was bucking so hard in his attempt to return to his master, since even abused dogs still love their owners. “You’re claiming this isn’t your dog?”
Rick shook his head vehemently. “I have never seen that dog before in my life.”
Everyone in the yard let out a groan of protest.
I’d waited on Sheriff Hartwell enough times to know two things about him. One was that he was a single father, but didn’t date—the same women who’d offered to fill Drew Hartwell’s saltshaker had made similar offers to the sheriff, to no avail—and two was that he was a dog lover. He always stopped to pat the head of any dog he saw.
It didn’t take him long to come to a decision about Rick.
“Come on,” the sheriff said, taking Rick’s arm.
“W-where are we going?” Rick’s eyes were wide.
“You know where we’re going.” The sheriff’s voice was surprisingly gentle as he dragged the smaller man from the shadows and back into the glow of the party lights. “Nowhere you haven’t been before.”
“But you can’t arrest me!” Rick’s voice rose to a pitch that bordered on the hysterical. “I didn’t do nothing! He’s the one that did it.” Rick pointed at Drew, who was observing the developments with an interested expression on his face. “He hit me!”
“He may have, Rick,” the sheriff said, half dragging, half propelling the man through the crowd of partygoers, toward the Hartwells’ back gate. “But no one here seems to be willing to stand up and say they saw it. What they are saying is that you kicked that dog. And that’s animal cruelty, and subject to a seven-thousand-dollar bond in this county. Time you had a little cooldown.”
“In jail?” Rick was furious. “There’s a storm coming!”
“Safest place in town for you to ride it out. Jail’s on high ground and rated Cat Five.” The sheriff threw a last glance at Drew before he and his prisoner disappeared into the night. “You’ll look after the dog?” It was a question the dog’s owner hadn’t thought to ask.
Drew nodded, tightening his grip on Socks’s frayed collar. The dog was whining, anxious to follow the only owner it had known in recent months, even though that owner hadn’t been a very good one.
“I got him,” Drew said.
Why did I feel so turned on by the tone of cool authority in his voice? Or the way the sheriff nodded crisply and left, completely accepting that Drew Hartwell did, indeed, “have it,” and that the situation with the dog would be handled?
There was something very wrong with me tonight. Maybe it was the alcohol (though I hadn’t had very much of it).
Maybe it was how good Drew Hartwell looked in that shirt.
Maybe it was the coming storm.
Maybe it was that I hadn’t felt admiration for a man in so long.
Whatever it was, I needed to get out of there before I did something I’d regret.
“Okay,” I said, turning to Angela. “I’m done. See you tomorrow.”
Angela looked shocked. “What? You just got here. You haven’t even tried the brisket!”
“I’m sure it’s delicious.” I set my empty wineglass down on a nearby wrought-iron garden table. “But I’m working the breakfast shift tomorrow—”
“Uh, excuse me, but so am I.”
“Great.” I tried not to glance in Drew’s direction, though I was aware he was the center of attention of most of the rest of the partygoers. They were congratulating Drew on his escape from prosecution for punching Rick, and petting Socks. Socks, at least, looked as if
he was loving the attention. Drew, not so much.
“I’m just really beat,” I said to a suspicious-looking Angela, who’d followed the direction of my gaze. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Now Angela sounded dubious. “Well, you can write up the breakfast specials on all the chalkboards, then.”
“Deal.”
I air-kissed her good-bye, then hurried over to Mrs. Hartwell, whom I’d spied by the wine grotto, pouring herself a glass from the champagne bottle I’d brought.
“Oh, Bree,” she said, smiling when she saw me approaching. “Have some of this, will you? You’re the one who brought it—and also the one to whom we owe all our thanks.”
I felt myself blushing for what felt like the millionth time that evening.
“No, thanks,” I said. “And I didn’t actually do anything—”
“You saved our boy from going to jail tonight.” Mrs. Hartwell gazed toward Drew, who was still receiving pats on the back from her other party guests, while surreptitiously slipping bits of brisket to Socks, who appeared to be warming up to his new, much kinder master.
I glanced quickly away, mistrusting how the sight of him made my heart jump. When I got home, I was going to check online to see if dips in barometric pressure affected one’s sex drive. Some people said that full moons did. Maybe there was some kind of similar phenomenon with approaching hurricanes.
I could think of no other reason for finding myself suddenly so attracted to Drew Hartwell.
“Not that I’m celebrating,” Mrs. Hartwell went on, plunging the bottle back into the large silver wine chiller. “What happened just now was very sad. I feel terrible for Rick, and even worse for his poor wife and kids.”
“Sure,” I said. “I totally understand. But—”
“I know. I know what you’re going to say. But he’s had that coming to him for a while.”
That was so completely not what I’d been going to say. All I wanted to do was leave, not get into a conversation about Rick Chance.
“And at least this way both he and that sweet dog will be safe for the storm,” Mrs. Hartwell went on. “The sheriff will take good care of Rick, and Drew will take good care of that dog.”
“Yes.” This was the kookiest town I’d ever lived in in my life, and that was saying a lot, considering I’d lived in New York City. True, Little Bridge’s kookiness was one of the things that had drawn me to it. But things seemed to be getting slightly out of control. Maybe it was time to move on. Too bad I was only figuring this out now, during a gas shortage just before a massive hurricane. “Well, I just wanted to say good night, and thank you so much for inviting me—”
Mrs. Hartwell nearly choked on the mouthful of champagne she’d just taken. “You’re not leaving, are you?”
Nevaeh, who’d been sitting nearby with her friend Katie, taking sexy selfies together while eating strawberries, bounded over, echoing her great-aunt’s concern. “Bree, you can’t go!”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “I’m afraid I have to. I had a lovely time, but I have the breakfast shift at the café tomorrow morning, so you know that means I have to be there before six—”
Mrs. Hartwell cut me off. “Oh, of course. But how did you get here?”
I pointed in the direction of the street. “On my bike,” I said, wondering what that had to do with anything. “Thank you again for a great—”
“Alone?” Nevaeh exchanged horrified looks with her great-aunt. “She biked over here alone?”
“Well, of course,” I said.
None of this was going the way I’d planned, which had been to say a polite thank-you to my hostess, go home, and snuggle with Gary in the safety of my apartment, where there were no darkly handsome brooding men saving cute dogs from abuse, and causing my heart—and other parts of me—to tingle uncomfortably. I had purposefully come to this island to be alone and figure out my next move. None of that had included becoming attracted to darkly handsome brooding men who were kind to dogs.
“I live really close by,” I offered, “just over on Washington. I barely had anything to drink. It’s very safe—”
“Of course it is, honey,” Mrs. Hartwell said, patting me on my bare shoulder as she looked around distractedly. “Under normal circumstances. But these aren’t normal circumstances. We’re under a mandatory evacuation. There’s hardly anyone left in town, and the ones who are here—well, let’s just say that except for the ones at this party, most of them don’t have good reasons to be here.”
What was she talking about?
“Looters,” Nevaeh hissed at me, under her breath, apparently recognizing my confusion. “They come down from Miami, knowing there’s a mandatory evacuation, wait for everybody to leave, then rob all the empty houses. And molest any girls they can.”
I stared at her, belatedly remembering Mrs. Hartwell’s story back in the grocery store about how someone during Wilhelmina had stolen the cash register and meat slicer from the Mermaid.
“Oh,” I said. “Right. But I’m sure I’ll be fine. I’m just going to hop on my bike and—”
“Let me get Drew to walk you home,” Mrs. Hartwell said.
“What?” My eyes widened. “No—”
“Oh, it’s no problem,” Mrs. Hartwell said kindly. “Drew!”
Chapter Ten
Time: 10:18 P.M.
Temperature: 80ºF
Wind Speed: 13 MPH
Wind Gust: 21 MPH
Precipitation: 0.0 in.
All the blood in my veins froze.
“What?” I said. “No. No, no, no, that is not at all necess—”
But it was too late. She was already calling across the festively lit yard to her nephew. “Drew? Oh, Drew!”
“No, really, Mrs. H.” I was dying inside. “I’m perfectly fine—”
Even as I said the words, however, I could see Drew loping obediently toward his aunt, Socks the dog—who’d been won over by his new master completely with only a few pieces of brisket—trotting at his side.
“You rang?” Drew’s expression was at once curious and sardonic as he stood before his aunt, taking in, no doubt, my burning cheeks.
“Bree has the breakfast shift at the café tomorrow and needs to leave now,” Mrs. Hartwell said. “She rode her bike here, alone, and you know it isn’t safe for any young girl to be out this time of year by herself.” Young girl? Since when was twenty-five a young girl? “Could you walk her home?”
The last thing I wanted was to look into those eyes of Drew Hartwell’s one more time.
But of course as soon as I raised my gaze to meet his, there they were: those bright blue irises, the same color as the water in Mrs. Hartwell’s pool . . . and gleaming just about as brightly.
“Sure.” Drew gave me one of his snarky half grins. “Guess I owe you one, anyway, right, Fresh Water?”
That grin. Oh God, that grin.
“Honestly,” I said again. “I don’t need—”
“Then that’s decided.” Lucy Hartwell gave a satisfied clap of her hands. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Bree. Nevaeh, Katie, will you help me bring those dips inside? They’ve sat outside in the heat long enough, I think it’s time they went into the AC of the dining room.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The girls rushed to help the older woman.
“Really,” I said, striding after Drew as he headed for the back gate. “I don’t need an escort home. Nothing’s going to happen to me in Little Bridge Island, of all places.”
“Hey.” Drew held up both hands in a “What-do-you-want-from-me?” stance as both Socks and I followed him. “I do what Lu tells me to. I’ve learned better than not to follow her orders.”
“And I appreciate that.” We were in the front yard, which was appreciably quieter—and darker—than the back, lit only by the front porch lamp and the glare from the decorative streetlights, streaming through the branches of the large gumbo-limbo trees that took up most of his aunt and uncle’s lawn. The fragrance of night-blooming jasmine was heavy in
the air. “But she’s not here now, and I’m telling you, I’m fine.”
“This your bike?”
Other party guests had chained their bicycles to streetlamps as well, but Drew zeroed in on mine.
“Why do you think that one’s mine?” I asked. “Because it’s purple?”
“That,” he said, poking at the wicker basket, “and the plastic flowers. They’re a nice touch.”
“Yes, it’s mine,” I growled ungraciously, stooping to unlock it. “I happen to like flowers.”
“I’m not saying anything against flowers.” He watched as Socks sniffed his aunt’s fence. It was a white picket, which the Little Bridge Island historic board had deemed was the only acceptable kind of fence for homeowners to install. “The bike just looks like something you’d own, that’s all.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped, certain he wasn’t giving me a compliment.
“Nothing. It was simply an observation. What are you getting so hot under the collar for?”
“I don’t need people making judgments about me based on my taste in bicycle colors.” There is a segment of the population that feels that anything feminine—such as purple bicycles with flowered baskets, and perhaps even pink salt—is less worthy than more masculine things. I was positive he was a member of it. And this certainty was helping me to remember to dislike him, and thus push him away, despite his good looks, because good-looking men especially weren’t to be trusted. “And I don’t need you to walk me home. It’s nice of your aunt to worry about me, but I’m perfectly capable of—”
“Look.” Drew leaned forward to seize both handles of my bicycle. “I was not making judgments about you—”
“Weren’t you?” I stuffed my bike chain into my basket. We were the only two people on the quiet, moonlit street, so my voice sounded especially loud. “My bike’s the only purple one out here with flowers on the basket, and you knew it belonged to me? That wasn’t a judgment?”
“I assumed it was yours because it’s kind of girlie.” He released the bike handles and threw his arms into the air, walking a few steps away in frustration. Socks, done sniffing the picket fence, trotted after him, thinking they were going somewhere. But then Drew turned back toward me, so Socks followed. “And you were the only person at that party wearing a kind of girlie dress. It seemed like a logical conclusion. So sue me. What is wrong with you?”