by Devney Perry
Damn.
“I made some wrong assumptions about your relationship with Ben. Been an asshole this week. Sorry.”
Yep. Hell had frozen over. Why wasn’t it on the news?
In less than twenty-four hours, Jess had changed personalities. He’d been utterly mean to me last night, and now here he was being nice, buying me coffee and making apologies.
I appreciated his admission but I wasn’t going to let down my guard. One apology wasn’t enough to erase the way he’d treated me. To make me think he was as wonderful as everyone professed him to be.
“Would you mind expanding a bit on these assumptions? I’m interested to know what type of relationship you thought I had with an eighty-one-year-old man.”
His answer was a wide smile filled with perfect, straight white teeth.
Eff.
During our previous and rather unpleasant encounters, I hadn’t seen Jess smile. So far, I’d only gotten scowls, glares and smirks.
But damn if his smile wasn’t perfect.
Shivers erupted across my skin. My cheeks flushed and there was a throbbing sensation between my thighs. My core temperature skyrocketed a couple hundred degrees.
I was hot for the town sheriff. I was hot for a man who I absolutely did not like one bit.
He didn’t miss my reaction and his smile faltered. But instead of assuming the standard scowl as per usual when he caught me ogling, his gaze heated. Was he hot for me too?
He held my eyes with his intense stare, his ice-blue eyes firing. So they did darken when he was turned on.
The air around us was charged, hot and stuffy. I could practically see the sparks crackling between us. And the rest of the world disappeared. All I could feel was that magnetic pull.
My heart was pounding so loudly I was certain he could hear it. I held the air in my lungs so he wouldn’t see me breathing hard.
This was bad.
I tore my eyes away from his and focused all of my attention on my coffee cup.
I needed to get far away from Jess Cleary. Never in my life had I felt such an intense attraction to a man. His hotness did things to me. It made my brain misfire and my body want things it hadn’t craved in years. And I needed my brain fully engaged when he was around. I didn’t like him, but more importantly, I didn’t trust him. I couldn’t be stupid enough to fall for his perfectly handsome face and amazingly sculpted body.
Nate had dazzled me with his looks. And other than giving me Rowen, I regretted everything else about my decision to be with him.
As I struggled to get control of my hormones, I felt Jess’s eyes on me. Thankfully, I was saved from having to meet them again when the sound of footsteps rang in my ears. Sam was making his way toward us.
“Morning, Gigi,” he said.
I smiled and wiggled my fingers in a small wave before taking another long drink of my coffee.
Sam smiled back and looked at Jess. “Carlson called me a few minutes ago and wants us to go ahead and question John Doe now. He’s awake and lucid but in about an hour, Carlson’s going to give him more pain meds that could knock him out for the rest of the day.”
Jess nodded and Sam took it as his cue to get a move on. But before Jess left the desk, he grinned, saying, “Back in a few, Freckles. Enjoy your coffee.”
Freckles? He’d christened me with a pet name?
Oh, no. This was really, really, really bad.
I had no idea how long it took for the police to question the victim of an intense act of violence. Probably not long, maybe only an hour. I needed to reengage my brain, fast, and come up with an action plan to deal with this new, confusing Jess. If he was messing with me, trying to toy with me using his extreme hotness, I needed to be prepared.
I was well practiced at building walls around my heart. Leaving it raw and unsheltered was not an option with as much loss and heartbreak as I had experienced in my life. I couldn’t risk letting someone come in and obliterate me. Rowen depended on me. She needed those walls just as much as I did.
So I had an hour. One hour to throw up some new brick and mortar.
An hour and a half later, Jess and Sam walked downstairs from the second floor where John Doe was being treated. Both men looked perplexed. Sam was speaking quietly to Jess as they rounded the corner of the stairs and headed toward Maisy and me.
Maisy had returned from her random wanderings not long after Jess had left. When I’d asked her where she had gone, she’d shrugged and smiled.
Montana people often answered questions without actually speaking.
“So what did he say? Does he know who attacked him?” Maisy pounced on Jess and Sam as soon as they were within ten feet of the counter.
Maisy had to ask because she couldn’t not be in everyone’s business, it was just who she was. I assumed they’d give her a polite brush-off. Surely, any details regarding a crime would be kept very hush-hush.
“His name is Alex Benson,” Sam said.
Then again, this was Prescott. No wonder news traveled so fast here.
“He’s been traveling through Montana for the last couple of weeks to hike the national parks. Spent his first week in Glacier and was on his way to Yellowstone. Been camping out of his car by the river.”
Poor John Doe. He was on vacation and had gotten beaten within an inch of his life.
“Monday night after dinner at the Dollar, he figures it was around eight or eight-thirty, a guy jumped him on the way to the bathroom. Dragged him out to the alley. The attacker started beating him, then found a broken bottle and stabbed him in the leg. He blacked out after that. Can’t remember much about his attacker. Just that he was wearing a hat, sunglasses and a gray hoodie. He figured it was all for the eighty bucks in his pocket.”
Maisy muttered, “Huh.” I remained quiet.
“He’s got holes in his story,” Jess said. “We both think he knows more than he’s letting on. Maybe he’s lying altogether. A beating of that severity would have taken at least five minutes. Maybe ten. And it’s still light out at eight o’clock. Seems strange there were no witnesses when downtown Prescott is crawling with people during the summer.”
“Yeah. And the Silver Dollar isn’t that big of a bar,” Maisy said. “If he was jumped by the bathroom and dragged out back, he probably would have yelled or screamed for help. In a place that small, someone would have heard him. Right?”
“Right,” Jess said. “My guess is he was doing something illegal and didn’t want to tell us. We didn’t push too hard because he’s got a week or so left here before he can leave the hospital. We’ll let him get some rest for a day or two. Then Sam’s gonna come back and start pushing harder.”
Jess turned to Sam. “When you get back to the station, get this written up. Then pull the files for the three unsolved cases we’ve had this summer and put them on my desk. I’d like to go over them again this afternoon.”
“Sure thing, boss. You think they’re related?” Sam asked, flicking his head toward the stairs.
“Don’t know, but my gut’s unsettled. Never had this many cases in such a short time period. And I hate that we’re struggling to close them up. Feels like we’re missing something bigger at play here.”
“What other cases?” I asked. “Is there anything I should be concerned about?”
Both men turned to me and shook their heads but Maisy spoke up before they could.
“Oh, it’s nothing to worry about, Gigi,” she said. “Last month, someone broke into one of Jack Drummond’s barns and stole a bunch of fertilizer. Then there was a theft at the jewelry store downtown. Someone smashed through the back window and stole, like, a bunch of silver. Most of the expensive stuff was locked up, thank goodness, but their silver was left out in the open. Oh . . . and a couple of weeks ago, Silas Grant reported trespassers on his ranch. So totally sad. Whoever it was drove through one of his pastures and hit one of his baby calves and killed it.”
Before I could absorb it all, she kept going.
�
�I’m guessing the Drummond break-in was someone cooking meth up in the mountains and needed the chemicals. It would be pretty hard to resell stolen fertilizer. The jewelry has totally been pawned for cash. And the trespassing could have just been stupid kids driving around but I seriously doubt it. Local kids would never mess with Silas Grant. He’s ex-military and, like, terrifying.”
When she was finished, I swallowed a laugh at the look on Jess’s and Sam’s faces. Sam was wide-eyed, whereas Jess looked pissed.
Maisy had either missed her calling as a police detective or one of the deputies, probably Milo, had been a bit too forthcoming with information that should have stayed within the walls of the sheriff’s department
I was thinking Deputy Milo Phillips was about to have a not-so-fun conversation with his boss about what was and was not appropriate to share with Maisy Holt.
“All right, I’m heading out. Gonna drive up and take a look at Mr. Benson’s car. Make sure it’s still at the campground. Might be able to spot something from a window to give us a lead. Meet you back at the station, Sheriff.” Sam left with a two-finger wave.
Before I could excuse myself and run away from Jess—I mean, get back to work, Maisy asked, “Jess, you still eat at the café every Friday night, don’t you?”
He opened his mouth but she talked right over him.
“Because Gigi was telling me earlier that she’s planning on going there for dinner tonight. You know, as a celebration for making it through her first week. And, like, a break from cooking. Oh, and I told her she definitely needed to check out the homemade desserts. You guys should eat together.”
My mouth fell open and I stared at her, unblinking.
Was she trying to set me up with Jackass Jess?
Yes. Yes, she was.
Maisy and I had developed a fast friendship this week, and despite our age difference, we had a lot in common. But we hadn’t gotten around to discussing past relationships. She didn’t know enough about me or the previous men in my life to start playing matchmaker.
Plus, she knew how I felt about Jess. The day after he wrote me that ticket, I ranted to her for a good twenty minutes about how much of an asshole I thought he was.
I shook my head. “I’m not eating with him. I’m eating with my daughter.”
“I can babysit Rowen,” she said. “It would give you a chance to eat with another adult. And I’ve been dying to meet her anyway and check out the farmhouse.”
“I appreciate the offer, but Rowen doesn’t know you. I don’t feel comfortable with you watching her.”
The second the words left my mouth, I knew they’d come out wrong.
“You don’t trust me?” she whispered.
“Of course I trust you.” I sighed. “It’s not that you can’t watch her. It’s just—”
“Six-thirty,” Jess announced.
At the same time I asked, “Huh?” Maisy shouted, “Great!”
“Six-thirty. I’ll be at the farmhouse to pick you up. Maze is good with kids.”
“I’m not going to dinner with you.”
“Be ready,” he said.
I opened my mouth to tell him, again, that I would not be eating with him but he didn’t give me the chance. He turned and started walking to the door.
“I’m not going!”
He kept walking but lifted a hand to wave. “Six-thirty.”
I crossed my arms as he strode through the door. He was too far out of earshot for me to keep yelling. Who did he think he was? Who did he think I was? I wasn’t a woman who liked to be ordered around and I certainly wasn’t desperate enough for a dinner date to go out with him.
When I turned back to Maisy, she had a huge smile on her face.
“Would you mind telling me why you’re playing Yente today?” I asked.
“Yente?” She tilted her head as her eyebrows came together.
“Yeah, Yente. You know, from Fiddler on the Roof.”
Nope. Nothing.
“Yente was the matchmaker in Fiddler on the Roof,” I said. “It’s a popular musical. I’m surprised the Prescott High School drama club hasn’t done a rendition. My high school did it every two years.”
“Prescott High doesn’t have a drama club.”
“They don’t?” I asked. “Never mind. Whatever. That’s beside the point. Why are you pushing me to eat dinner with Jess?”
She shrugged. “He’s a good guy, Gigi. Even though he was a jerk to you this week. But he called me this morning and asked what kind of coffee you liked. He told me it was going to be a peace offering.”
“I appreciated the coffee and his apology, Maisy, but that doesn’t mean I want to have a meal with the man.”
Maisy’s mouth turned down and she peeked at me with doe eyes from underneath her lashes.
Eff.
I was not going to be able to stay mad at that face.
“I really like you, Gigi. I guess . . . I just already think of you as a friend. You guys might hit it off and that would be super cool. I mean, he’s taken care of that farmhouse almost his whole life. How awesome would it be if he hooked up with you and then he could finally live there? Plus, he’s way hot and a real gentleman. He could be so totally good to you. If you just give him a chance, you’ll see he’s not the jackass he’s been pretending to be this week. I promise. He is a nice guy.”
“I am really not a Jess Cleary fan. But I appreciate where you’re coming from.” I hoped she would drop this ludicrous idea.
“Please?” she begged. “Just consider going? I know! Don’t decide yet. Like, see how your day goes and then decide tonight when he comes to pick you up. I’ll still come by to hang with Rowen, just in case.”
“It’s not going to happen, Maisy, but you’re welcome to come by,” I said.
“You won’t even consider dinner?”
Letting out a deep breath, I dropped my eyes to my feet to think.
I was curious why Jess had switched personalities today, and maybe over a quick meal I could figure out what his angle was. Was he trying to hook up with the new girl in town? Brag about his conquest? Could this nice-guy façade last for more than thirty minutes? I was betting it couldn’t.
“We’ll see,” I said.
“I’ll take it.” A huge smile instantly replaced her sad, pathetic look.
I shook my head and changed the subject. “If you want to avoid a tirade tonight, I highly recommend not telling Rowen that Prescott doesn’t have drama clubs. In Spokane, she was part of a kiddie club called Glamour Girls where a group of little girls would get together once a week and pretend to be famous actresses and singers. She has a flair for the dramatic.”
Maisy smiled and pretended to zip her lips shut, then popped them back open to toss in the key and swallow it.
I giggled at the gesture and left her to finish my study of the patient charts.
An hour later, I was reading the same line for the hundredth time. With all that had happened this morning, I was having a hard time concentrating.
The crime spree in Prescott was concerning. Leaving Spokane meant leaving behind a city with a high crime rate, but now it seemed like some of the security I had been feeling just because Prescott was small and in Montana was naïve. Prescott certainly would never be as bad as Spokane, I hoped, but I would need to take more care than I had been so far with my safety and Rowen’s. I hadn’t even been locking the front door at night. Just because we were in rural America didn’t automatically make it safe. Look at what had happened to John Doe.
The rest of the free space in my mind was swirling around Jess. If I did decide to go to dinner, what could I expect? And could I control myself around his hotness?
I had no idea why he wanted to take me to dinner. I wasn’t anything special, just a single mother, trying to set up a new life for herself and her daughter. Maybe make some new friends along the way.
And Jess was in a whole different league. One where the plain and average girls, like me, didn’t belong.
; So why me?
Did he think a dinner was necessary to go along with the coffee he had brought me so I would forgive him?
Maisy’s comment about Jess and the farmhouse got me thinking. Perhaps Jess’s interest in me had more to do with my house than my panties. Maybe he was working an angle to keep the farmhouse. After all, what woman wouldn’t want the dreamy sheriff to take interest in her? And he’d told me himself he loved that house.
Dinner or not, I was going to find out what Jess Cleary was up to.
Fidgeting in front of my bedroom mirror, I assessed my outfit. I had chosen one of my favorite go-to ensembles for a boost of self-confidence. I was going to need it for the inevitable face-off with Jess about dinner.
I’d chosen to wear heels with my skinny jeans and sleeveless black top. The shoes were a risk in Montana but they were me.
My hair had been pinned up in a bun today so when I took it out, it had an awesome wave.
Rowen and I had gotten our hair from my mother. In the end, Mom had lost all of her hair from chemotherapy, and after she died, I made the decision to let my hair grow long, at least past my waist. I never wanted to take for granted how lucky I was to have it, and how lucky I was that every day I could look in the mirror and get a glimpse of something Mom had given me.
And tonight, it looked a lot like hers when it had been long.
I straightened my shoulders and held my chin high, inhaling and exhaling a deep breath.
But my shoulders slumped. The nerves pooling in my stomach indicated that I’d chosen the wrong outfit.
Who cared what I was wearing for a five-minute conversation with Jess to tell him I wasn’t going to the café with him?
Me. I always cared about what I was wearing.
My clothes helped me deal with my insecurities. I wasn’t super-model gorgeous and I could stand to lose ten pounds—or more as Rowen’s father had been certain to inform me. But the one thing he’d never done was ridicule my clothes. And when I stepped out in a killer outfit, I felt good. More sure of myself.
“Stop overreacting, Gigi,” I told my reflection. “Step away from the mirror.”