by Meg Muldoon
“That sounds fun,” I said. “But I’ll only go on one condition.”
“What’s that?” she said, raising her eyebrows.
“We talk about something else other than Dog Mountain police lieutenants.”
“Aw, that was going to be half the fun,” she said, shooting me a mischievous grin.
I stifled a smile.
“Give my best to Phil,” I said.
Her face darkened, and she started up the engine.
I began walking away.
“I will,” she shouted from the window. “I mean, if I ever see that jerk again.”
I stopped in the middle of the empty road, intrigued by the last thing she said.
But before I could ask, the turquoise Jeep Cherokee was rolling down the street past me. Bogey turned his head from the passenger’s seat, watching me as the car pulled away.
Maybe I would have stood there longer, pondering what she’d meant by that last line.
But I didn’t have time to think much about it.
Someone was waiting on me.
And like usual, I was going to be late.
Chapter 2
“Wow… You look…”
I trailed off, my heart skipping a few beats too many for comfort as I caught sight of him sitting there at my kitchen table.
Not that he didn’t usually look good in his uniform or work shirts or casual after-work t-shirts. But tonight, it was obvious that he’d made an effort. And that effort was making it hard for me to complete even a simple sentence.
He was wearing a crisply pressed white shirt and a black jacket that matched his shaggy dark hair and brought out the roasted hazelnut color of his eyes. The beard that he’d been growing out since August was gone, revealing the strong lines of his jaw. And the fresh smell of his aftershave, which lingered faintly in the air, was just…
There I went again. Too lightheaded to even finish a simple sentence.
When he saw me standing there in the hallway, he cleared his throat and stood up from the chair. He reached for something on the dining table in front of him.
A moment later, a bouquet of sunrise-colored roses were resting in my hands.
Lt. Sam Sakai leaned down, kissing me softly on the cheek.
I was overcome by a weak-knee feeling that had become all too familiar lately. It took everything I had not to slump down to the kitchen’s cold tile floor.
“You look… so… uh…” I stuttered, taking a deep breath of the sweet, fragrant flowers.
I looked up into his dark eyes.
“Good.”
I sounded like a Neanderthal. But it was the best I could do. My usual arsenal of clever words eluded me when I got nervous.
“And you look so…” he started saying.
Sam cracked a smile, eyeing my navy work blazer and dark jeans.
“Furry.”
I laughed, looking down at my outfit covered in Bogey’s dog hair. I suddenly realized that Mugs was sniffing the bottom of my pants, interested, no doubt, in the new canine scent I’d tracked in with me.
I reached down and pet his soft little head. That sent his tail wagging uncontrollably and he clawed at my leg.
“I guess you could call it a hazard of the dog beat,” I said. “Look, Sam. I’m sorry I’m late. I was—”
“Just being ace reporter Freddie Wolf,” Lou interjected from the kitchen. “The perpetually tardy dinner guest.”
Lou had a pair of oven mitts on and was hovering over the stove top. Buddy, our big orange tabby, was at her feet, gazing up at her wistfully, ignoring the fact that I’d gotten home in his efforts to guilt her into giving him a taste of whatever she was making. By the warm smell of sugar, butter, and oil in the air, I gathered she was testing out her new pumpkin powdered sugar donut recipe again.
I’d been her stalwart taste-tester for the past few weeks as she perfected the fall recipe. And I had the extra three pounds around my hips to prove it.
Beneath her black frames, Lou gave me a look that spoke volumes about how she thought my punctuality-issues were going to be detrimental to my relationship with Sam.
I might have been the perpetually tardy dinner guest. But Lou was perpetually an older sister.
“I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” I said, turning my attention back to Sam.
“No, not that long,” he said. “Besides, the wait hasn’t been all bad.”
He dusted off his jacket, which had smeared traces of powdered sugar on it.
I felt my face light up.
Sam Sakai might not have been a donut head, the way Mindy Monahan had described the other officers at the Dog Mountain Police Department. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t a sucker for fried dough, key lime bars, or gooey chocolate chip cookies.
“All right,” Lou said, pulling off her oven mitts and coming out of the kitchen, ushering us toward the door. “You two get going. Sam’s been waiting long enough, Freddie. And besides, I’ve got to finish frying the rest of these before Greg gets here.”
She said it in a bossy big-sister tone, but she was smiling at me genuinely when she did.
Greg was Lou’s new boyfriend, and had been a regular at her bakery, The Barkery, for some time now. The two of them had been seeing each other for close to two months, much to the distress of her ex-husband and head baker, Pete, who often asked me when Lou wasn’t around whether or not I thought the relationship was getting serious. I felt bad for Pete, but I was happy to see that spark in Lou’s eyes again. It had been a while.
“Okay, okay,” I said, dropping my purse on the counter. “Just give me five minutes to get this dog hair off and to change into something nice.”
I started heading upstairs, but then Sam stopped me, grabbing a hold of my arm.
“You’re beautiful just as you are, Freddie,” he said.
“But if we’re going out to dinner, then—”
“Nope,” he said. “We’re not. I’ve got something else planned. ”
I bit my lip to keep from smiling a ridiculous, uncontrollable grin.
Normally, I didn’t like surprises. But since I’d started dating Lt. Sam Sakai, I was beginning to like them more and more.
“Lou, could you—” I started saying.
“Yes,” she said. “Of course I’ll put those roses in a vase for you.”
“Thanks, Sis.”
I placed the bouquet down on the kitchen table and let Sam lead me and Mugs out the door and to his car sitting in the driveway.
Sometimes I still had to pinch myself to believe that any of this was really happening.
Chapter 3
The city lights of Dog Mountain sparkled like crystals in a chandelier under the blue velvet October sky. A yellow moon glowed over the city, rising up through silvery, fast-moving clouds.
The air here at the summit of Dog Mountain – the towering butte overlooking the town named for it – smelled damp and smoky and piney. Air that smelled that way only in autumn and only in the Willamette Valley. In my memory, the scent was intermingled with the smell of fresh wooden pencils and plastic lunchboxes and the sound of fast footsteps across scuffed linoleum floors.
I took a sip of my beer and glanced over at Sam sitting next to me on the hood of the car. He seemed to be lost in his own memories, too.
He caught me looking at him.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked.
“I’m thinking that three months ago today, we were in Milo Daniels’ shed,” Sam said.
I shook my head silently, gazing back down at the city.
Three months.
In some ways, that moment when Sam saved me from Myra Louden’s murderer felt like ages ago. In other ways, the incident still felt very close. So close, that I could practically taste the fear I felt then some nights while lying awake in bed.
“Thank God you got there when you did,” I said.
When I’d lie awake at night, haunted by the events of that day, I sometimes started playing the what-if game. And
it always ended with the biggest one all: what if Sam hadn’t gotten there when he did?
And the thought would cause me to shudder the rest of the night.
Sensing my unease, Sam reached over, draping an arm around my shoulder and pulling me closer to him. He smiled slightly and brushed my cheek with his hand.
“I was just doing my job.”
“No you weren’t,” I said.
“Well, I will admit that I felt more compelled to get to the bottom of that case than usual.”
“And why’s that?” I asked.
He met my eyes again.
“You already know the answer to that, Freddie.”
“Tell me anyway.”
He leaned down and kissed me softly. A tender kiss that would have knocked my socks off if I’d been wearing a pair instead of my work flats.
We’d been together for just under three months, and I was in the thick of that nervous, jumpy, new relationship phase. Sometimes when I was around Sam, I got so nervous, I felt sick to my stomach. He’d give me a certain look, and my insides would start jumping like popcorn kernels in the microwave. It was all I could do to get a hold of myself.
I wasn’t used to such feelings. Normally, I was a typical reporter: calm, cool, collected, and aloof about most things. It took a lot to get to me. It took a lot to make me feel something.
It took a lot to make me weak in the knees.
So I knew that when it came to Sam Sakai, I was in trouble.
Big trouble.
After a moment, he pulled away and smiled. I nudged the take-out cartons over, and we leaned farther back on the hood of the car, gazing up at the stars.
“I can’t believe it’s been three months already,” I said, shaking my head.
“I can’t believe it hasn’t been longer,” he said. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve known you forever, Freddie. You know what I mean?”
I did know.
Something about the two of us just… clicked. I felt it in my bones. I didn’t believe in such things as star-crossed lovers or soulmates. But what I did know was that when I was with Sam, I felt fearless and sick to my stomach and lightheaded and all of those things that people talked about when they fell head over heels in love with somebody.
I shivered, and he noticed.
“Maybe we should go back in the car,” he said. “I thought it would be romantic to sit out here and watch the city lights with some takeout. But it looks like this Indian summer we’ve been having is coming to an end.”
There was a chill in the air, especially here at the top of Dog Mountain. But it was a lot warmer this time of year than usual. And besides, I wasn’t shivering because of the early autumn air.
“No,” I said, wrapping my arms around his lean frame. “I’m okay. And you’re right. It is romantic out here.”
“But if you’re cold, then we could—”
“I’ve got all the warmth I need right here,” I said, cutting him off.
Though I’d initially thought returning to my hometown of Dog Mountain, Oregon, was something to be ashamed of, in recent months, my outlook on that had taken a 180-degree turn.
And it had started with that rainy day back in July, when Lt. Sam Sakai showed up at my house to tell me how he felt about me.
Since then, I’d learned plenty about him, albeit slowly since we’d both decided to not rush anything. Originally from Seattle, Sam liked his coffee black and his humor even blacker. He loved dogs, and spent more time making meals for the pack of rescue dogs in his backyard than he spent making his own. He had a rabid sweet-tooth, meaning that he had lucked out considerably by landing a girl whose sister owned the best bakery in town.
When Sam wasn’t on duty, he liked walking his rescue dogs and taking hikes in the surrounding woods. Or taking trips to the Oregon coast. Or watching old black and white movies and eating popcorn. Or when he had the time, cooking meals that were so good, they were almost criminal.
I’d come to discover that underneath the lieutenant badge, Sam Sakai was thoughtful, funny, intelligent, warm, caring, and had more heart than just about anybody I’d ever known – all qualities I initially thought the stern lieutenant had been void of when we’d first met in June at a dog board hearing.
“Any updates from the police station, Lt. Sakai?” I said, nestling in closer to him.
“Trying to get the inside scoop?”
I tilted my head.
“Well, you’re the one dating a reporter,” I said. “You should know that I’m nosy by nature.”
He grinned.
“So I’ve noticed.”
“No, but really. I want to hear about your day. Off the record, of course, Lieutenant. Off the record.”
“Well, there’s really not much to tell,” he said, shrugging slightly. “I caught a domestic dispute, a hit and run that damaged Grady Porter’s classic Mustang but thankfully didn’t hurt anybody, and old Edna Wallace called again saying she’s convinced that the young man living next to her is a meth dealer.”
“Sounds like a typical day in Dog Mountain,” I said.
“It was. Nothing all that interesting to report. How was your day?”
“I went on a stakeout,” I said.
“Ooh… Sounds exciting.”
“If watching dogs heed the call of nature while their owners pretend like it didn’t happen is exciting, then yeah, I guess you could say it was a real heart-pounder of a day.”
The edges of Sam’s mouth turned up and he started chuckling, the way he did sometimes when he tried to hold back laughter but just couldn’t.
It was one of the endearing things about him that sent butterflies flapping around in my stomach.
“Who came up with that story idea?” he asked. “Kobritz?”
I shook my head.
“Mindy Monahan. A teacher at Tabor Elementary School,” I said. “You might have seen her walking that big bulldog of hers around town? She dresses him up in a grey bowtie sometimes.”
Sam furrowed his brow for a moment, then seemed to place the description.
“She sometimes puts a pork-pie hat on him, too, doesn’t she?”
I nodded.
Mindy was one of those dog owners who derived endless pleasure from dressing their pooches up in ridiculous costumes.
“Mindy and I were in the same class in high school,” I continued. “She said her students have been slipping on dog droppings every day at recess because nobody’s picking up after their canines on the school’s new field. She’s tried to get you fine folks at the police department involved, but she just gets laughed at.”
“Who’d she talk to at the department?”
“Officer Anson Donnally.”
Sam’s eyes lit up with understanding.
“That figures,” he said. “Anson’s the wrong guy to talk to with a complaint like that. Wrong guy to talk to about anything other than NASCAR or domestic beer.”
“Yeah, well, she’s taking the issue up with the school board tomorrow night,” I said.
He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, obviously embarrassed by his lazy colleague.
“Okay. I’ll have a talk with Anson tomorrow morning. Let him know that he needs to be more professional. And I’ll give Mindy a call and apologize.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head sharply. “I mean, you don’t have to go to any trouble. Just… let it be.”
He didn’t say anything, and I could tell by his expression that I had come off a little harsh.
I cleared my throat, suddenly wishing that I hadn’t brought up the subject of what I was working on.
It wasn’t easy being a reporter and dating a cop. Even though I hadn’t taken the job as crime reporter at the paper because of my relationship with Sam, I had found that there were still ethical challenges I encountered anyway.
I wanted to tell Sam about my day. I wanted to tell him about my work. But sometimes, when I told him things, he’d offer to intervene, the way he had just done. I knew it w
as out of the goodness of his heart. But Sam interfering meant he’d alter the story somehow: which in my view, was a clear violation of ethics on my part.
Dating a reporter wasn’t a piece of cake for Sam, either. Anytime a bit of news slipped out of the department that wasn’t supposed to slip out, everyone immediately thought Sam might be behind it because he was dating me.
I sat forward and finished the rest of my hoppy beer as an awkward silence fell over us like a bank of fog. The way it often did when what we both did for a living seemed to clash.
“I’m sorry if that came off a little severe,” I said, breaking the silence. “It’s just—”
“I know,” he said, sitting up. “You don’t want me getting involved in your stories.”
“I just don’t want to give anybody a reason to accuse either one of us of being unethical in our jobs,” I said. “You know? We’ve got to be careful.”
“I understand, Freddie.”
“No, no you don’t,” I said. “Sam, I…”
I trailed off, swallowing hard.
Tell him, I thought.
I struggled to find the words. Those three little words that had been on the tip of my tongue now for the last few weeks. The three little words that had yet to see the light of day.
I searched his dark eyes, hoping the phrase would come. But just like the times before, it stayed put.
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking off into the distance. “I think I was crazy to think we could sit out here in October. Maybe we should start heading back—”
“No,” I said. “Sam, I…”
There it was again. The roadblock. Like sand in my throat, the words just wouldn’t come through.
I looked at him, feeling dumbfounded by my own inability to express what I felt.
He watched me a moment longer, and then smiled. A warm, kind, honest smile that made me feel like there wasn’t a thing I could ever do wrong.
“It’s okay, Freddie,” he said. “I think I understand.”
He reached for my hand, lacing his fingers with mine.
“Just promise me something, all right?” he said.
“Anything, Sam.”
“Just don’t let me fall.”