Jess looked suitably impressed. She wiped her fingers on her napkin and reached for her soda. One lonely taco remained in the paper boat. “Small world,” she said. “We just had a case with them last week. Scrap metal.”
Jarrett nodded. “I know. I wrote a story on it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course you did.”
He glanced down at the story he was reading.
“What?” Jess was sitting across from him, but she stood up and squeezed into the bench seat he was on, craning her neck so she could look at the screen.
Her proximity was distracting, and Jarrett felt his body immediately respond. But he didn’t move away. Not when their legs touched, and not when her hair tickled his shoulder.
“Why would Donovan Smith be at a party at Bill Lewis’s house?” he murmured. He was trying to stay focused on the task at hand, but damn it was hard.
“Maybe they’re neighbors?” Jess suggested.
“Maybe.” He stopped scrolling and looked at her. “Or maybe they know each other some other way.”
“I’m not following.”
He set his phone down. “Bill works for PCA. Donovan Smith owns a business in the industry Bill’s office is required to regulate. That seems a little…odd.”
Jess frowned. “Well, sure, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be friends,” she pointed out. “Maybe they’ve been friends for a while. Childhood friends. Old college roommates. There’s no reason they can’t have a personal relationship. They would just have to keep their business and personal lives separate.”
He gave her a skeptical look.
“Think about it,” she continued. “I’m a police officer in Aspen Falls. But I live there. I have friends there. Heck, my roommate is a great example. If Megan committed a crime, there’s no doubt in my mind that I would arrest her. That’s my job.”
She made a good point. And the same kind of logic could be applied to his job, too. Sure, he was a reporter and he wrote articles for the town paper, but it wasn’t as if every single thing he was told or learned about ended up between the pages of the Aspen Falls Daily. There was a separation between his work and his personal life. Sometimes he had to work harder at it than other times, but it was always there, however thin.
He ate another bite of his burrito and picked up his phone again, still acutely aware of Jessica’s physical presence. They’d finished looking at his phone, but she hadn’t moved back to her side of the table. Instead, she’d reached across and pulled her last remaining taco and drink toward her.
He scrolled through some more of the search results, then switched over to images.
And stopped.
“I don’t think they were college roommates,” Jarrett said, his eyes locked on the photo on his screen.
Jessica peered at his phone. “So he’s older,” she acknowledged. “A lot older.”
Donovan Smith was definitely that. A distinguished-looking man, Jarrett easily placed him in his mid-sixties. He had silver hair, combed back off a prominent forehead. Thick silver brows framed blue eyes, and his tanned skin suggested a man who either lived in warm climates or was accustomed to frequent warm-weather vacations.
Jarrett clicked through another link.
He smiled. “And he isn’t a neighbor, either.”
Jess leaned forward again, her hair like a silk curtain as the ends tickled Jarrett’s shoulder again. “Colorado?”
Jarrett nodded. “So he’s not a childhood friend or a college roommate. And he’s definitely not a neighbor.”
He picked up his drink and pointed it at Jessica. “Which begs the questions: who the hell is he, and what was he doing at Bill Lewis’s party?”
19
Saturday, June 30
11:30 am
Jessica was impressed.
Again.
It shouldn’t have taken her by surprise. Jarrett Pryor was an ace reporter and knew how to ferret out information. But to get all that so quickly—literally during the course of eating a burrito—was still something to be admired. To ask those questions and then to immediately find the answers…and then to formulate new questions…
Jess smiled. Yep. He was just like a detective.
She picked up the last of her tacos. It was lukewarm now, but she didn’t care. She could easily eat another boat full, which meant one of two things: either the scone hadn’t filled her up much, or the tacos were so good that she was willing to overstuff herself with them.
“It sounds like we need to find a way to talk to this Donovan Smith,” she said.
She shouldn’t have been thinking that, and she shouldn’t have said it out loud, either. It wasn’t something she should consider doing. At all. Immediately, she conjured up an image of a stern Kellan, giving her a dressing down for sticking her nose somewhere it didn’t belong. Somewhere he hadn’t authorized.
This wasn’t her case.
And, unlike the man sitting beside her, she wasn’t a reporter.
She was a police officer on vacation, a police officer who had no jurisdiction and who should never have tagged along in the first place.
Jarrett nodded in response to her statement. It was clear that he was distracted. He’d abandoned his burrito fully now, and his fingers tapped on his phone screen as he hunted down information.
Jessica sucked the guacamole off her finger. She wasn’t going to lose a single drop of it if it could be helped.
Jarrett continued scrolling through his phone.
Curiosity got the better of her. “What are you looking for now?” she asked, a little reluctantly.
“A way to talk to Donovan,” he responded.
She cocked her head so she could look at his phone. Doing so always brought her in closer proximity to him, which she didn’t mind at all.
He didn’t seem to mind it, either.
“How are you going to do that?” she asked. “He lives in Colorado.”
He tilted the phone so she could see it. It was opened to a website promoting some golf tournament.
“We go to this,” he said.
We? Jess thought. But she responded, “A golf event?”
“A charity golf event,” he clarified.
Jess frowned. “Uh, what does that have to do with Donovan Smith?”
He gave her a small smile. “He’s slated to be there. And it’s in Duluth. Tomorrow.”
Jessica leaned back against the bench.
What were the odds?
Not that Donovan Smith was still in Minnesota, and not that he was attending a charity golf event in Duluth. But because she had made plans to head home the next day, home to visit her mom in tiny Cloquet, the city just south of Duluth.
Jarrett must have mistaken her silence for indifference because he quickly said, “I can get up there tomorrow, no problem. I know it’s a long haul, and you probably don’t want to waste a day off doing that kind of drive. I’m happy to let you know what I find out. You know, since you came along today and helped with Bill Lewis and everything.”
“I’m…I’m supposed to be going to Duluth tomorrow,” she told him.
His eyes widened in surprise. “You are?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
“My mom lives in Cloquet,” she said. “It’s the little town—”
He cut her off. “I know where Cloquet is. They have that great burger place that’s only open for like six months out of the year, right?”
It was Jessica’s turn to be surprised. He knew about Gordy’s? “Yes,” she managed to say.
“So your mom lives up there? Is that where you grew up, or did she move there recently?”
“I grew up there,” she told him. “Lived there my whole life until coming to Aspen Falls.”
“College?”
“Duluth. The university,” she said. But even then, despite the size of the school and the ease of living on campus, she’d chosen to commute in every day. It was cheaper, of course, but as an only child and with her mom as her only su
rviving parent, Jess was close to her. And she was no more ready to leave than her mother was for her only daughter to fly the nest.
“Was it hard when you moved to Aspen Falls? Moving away, I mean?”
Jess didn’t answer right away. In truth, she didn’t know how to respond. Of course it had been hard to move out of her childhood home, to move three hours away and to try to acclimate to the fact that she would no longer see her mom on a daily basis. They were mother and daughter, sure, but they were also a little like best friends. Jess had been an easy kid and an easy teenager, and with her dad’s death, the two women had leaned on each other as they learned how to navigate life without him. So yes, moving had been hard.
But she’d also relished her newfound freedom. After the initial anxiety wore off, she found that she liked being on her own, making decisions—even the ones that ended badly—and creating her own life, not one shared with someone else. It felt like an important part of growing up, of becoming fully independent.
That didn’t mean she loved her mom any less, and it didn’t mean that she didn’t crave time with her. But living in Aspen Falls meant she had to plan her visits and carve out time for them to make them happen.
She’d done that with her upcoming vacation, had decided that she’d take the week of the Fourth off and head up to spend time with her mom for a few days. She didn’t know if she would stay the full week or not, and her mom was perfectly happy to play everything by ear.
“Maybe the question was hard,” Jarrett murmured.
Jess snapped out of her reverie. “Sorry,” she said. “Um…was it hard? Yes and no.”
He grinned. “Now there’s a non-answer if I’ve ever heard one.”
She blushed a little. It hadn’t been her intention to blow him off; it was just…complicated. And she wasn’t sure she wanted a repeat of the night before, when she’d literally spilled her guts to him.
He set down his phone and reached for his burrito. “I’ll plan on going,” he said. “Since you’ll be up that way, maybe we can meet up after? I can fill you in on what I find out. Or I can just call you. I don’t want to get in the way of any of your plans.”
It made the most sense, what he was offering. She could still see her mom, and he could see Donovan Smith and bring her up to speed with what he found out. Not that he was required to do that—he didn’t actually have to include her in any of this—but he was offering, wasn’t he?
Jess was about to nod, to tell him the plan was just fine by her, but something made her stop.
Because she realized that it wasn’t actually okay with her.
She wanted to go.
She wanted to be a part of the discovery, to be a part of the process. She didn’t want to be the one who got “caught up” at a later date. Hell, that was what her real job was like, day in and day out. She never got to do the hands-on stuff she craved.
And here Jarrett was, giving her the opportunity to do so.
The voice inside warned her that it was a bad idea. Reminded her of potential repercussions.
She didn’t listen.
“I’d like to come with,” she said quickly, before she could change her mind.
“Are you sure?” He sounded doubtful. “What about your visit home?” He thought for a minute. “I guess we could drive up separately, and I could either pick you up at your mom’s or we could meet at the golf course.”
“I can go to my mom’s later in the week.”
“But isn’t she expecting you?”
She was. But Jess could postpone. She had the entire week to plan a trip back up to see her mother. But only one day to find out what she could about Donovan Smith. Only one day to feel like her contributions to this particular case might matter, in whatever capacity.
She didn’t want to think about consequences, either with her job or her mother.
She just wanted a chance to do something.
She looked at Jarrett. “I’m coming with you.”
His face registered surprise at the finality of her tone, and he nodded. “All right. Looks like we have a date.”
20
Sunday, July 1st
8:00 am
A date.
Jarrett cringed when he thought about the choice of words he’d used the day before.
He was sitting in his car, just outside Jessica’s house. He’d parked in the driveway and was pulling the key out of the ignition, just seconds away from opening his door and heading up the sidewalk to her front door.
A date.
He’d used the term casually, indicating they’d be meeting up to make the drive to Duluth to see what they could find out about Donovan Smith.
But Jess’s reaction still made his own heart jackhammer in response. Her cheeks had turned a delicious shade of red and her eyes—those dark brown eyes—went liquid as they drifted to his lips. She’d mumbled something, coughed, then reached for her drink. And spilled it. The remaining soda had splashed against her shirt, which was unfortunate except for the fact that he was suddenly privy to very intimate knowledge of what type of bra she was wearing and just how nicely it clung to her cleavage.
He shifted in his seat, trying to adjust the bulge growing in his shorts. He needed to take it down a notch. Think about dead puppies or something—anything to get his traitorous body under control.
He took a couple of deep breaths and then pushed the door open. He loped toward the door, reaching his hand out to knock.
But it opened before he got there.
Jess was there.
Waiting.
God, she looked beautiful.
She was dressed in a simple summer dress, a blue T-shirt style number with a swing-style skirt, and black sandals. He noticed the pink polish on her toes. Her hair was wavier than usual, and he wondered if she’d styled it that way or if those were her natural curls. Her makeup was sparse, maybe just some light lipstick and eyeliner, but it was more than enough. She looked like a million bucks.
“You look great.” To hell with what had happened at lunch yesterday. She looked amazing, and he wanted her to know that he’d noticed.
Her cheeks tinged red and she glanced down at her dress. “I didn’t know what to wear. I’ve never been to a golf tournament, let alone a charity one.”
“I haven’t, either,” he admitted. He slowly spun around, more to laugh at himself and put her at ease than anything else. “You think this works?”
He watched as her eyes traveled the length of him, the way her gaze lingered on his chest before moving to his lips and then his eyes.
“Yes,” she whispered. Her voice was hoarse. “That definitely works.”
Jarrett sucked in a breath. Dead puppies, dead puppies, he chanted in his head as he escorted Jess to the car.
They settled themselves in their seats, and he watched as Jess’s gaze drifted toward the cup holders and the bag sandwiched between. She lifted her eyes in questioning.
“Figured you’d need coffee for the drive.” He grinned.
Her answering smile made his heart somersault a half a dozen times. She reached for it and took a long fortifying sip.
“Thank you,” she said. “You didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to,” he said simply. He handed her the bag. “Your scone.”
This time, she tore into it right away. “You’re spoiling me,” she told him as she broke off a piece and popped it in her mouth.
He wanted to tell her that she deserved to be spoiled. That he was ready to buy her a scone every day for the rest of his life if it meant he would be rewarded with that beautiful smile she’d just bestowed on him.
“A scone is spoiling you? I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “A steak and lobster dinner is spoiling you.”
She giggled. “I’ve never had one of those.”
“Well then, we’ll have to remedy that, won’t we?”
In less than five minutes, they were on the highway heading north, already out of Aspen Falls and entering the first of num
erous small towns that dotted the landscape between their city and the interstate that would eventually lead them to Duluth.
They sipped their coffee and ate their breakfast in companionable silence. Jarrett noticed that Jess’s knee bounced to the music on the radio, a classic Nirvana song, and he thought back to the music from Friday night’s concert. He liked that she seemed to appreciate an eclectic mix of music. He did, too.
He picked up his coffee again and took a sip. He hoped he was putting on a good front for her, keeping up his reputation for being relaxed and easygoing. Because that particular morning, he was feeling anything but.
His Saturday had quickly devolved after he dropped Jessica off from their visit to Bill Lewis and their subsequent lunch. He’d had every intention of heading home to spend his afternoon dealing with chores, digging up what else he could find on both Bill Lewis and Donovan Smith, and daydreaming about the beautiful brunette cop he’d spent the first part of the day with. And not necessarily in that order.
But a phone call from his sister, Melina, had put the brakes on everything.
“Where are you?” she’d asked, foregoing any kind of greeting.
He’d just pulled away from Jessica’s house, his hand on the gear shaft, ready to put the car into Drive. She’d given him one last wave before disappearing into the house, closing the door firmly behind her, and still he lingered.
His radar immediately went up when he answered the call. He could hear the worry, the tension in his sister’s voice.
He ignored her question and asked one of his own. “What’s up?”
“It’s Mom.”
That was all he needed to hear. His heart slammed into his chest and he shifted the car into Drive, peeling away from the shoulder and back out into the street. In less than ten minutes, he was at his mom’s, squealing to a stop behind his sister’s car already parked in the driveway.
He raced into the house, the adrenaline pumping, his senses hyper alert. He scanned the living room. Empty. Glanced toward the kitchen and dining area. No one.
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