Young Buck: A Slow Burn Small Town Romance (Green Valley Heroes Book 5)

Chapter 19

Slow days at the office were few and far between. But the universe had smiled upon me today. I’d had six solid hours at my desk without a single call. The weather was warm, but not hot, with clear skies and the kind of breeze that put the good people of Green Valley at ease rather than let folks get too wild.

With that kind of time on this kind of day, I should have been productive. With enough focus, I could have closed out every file. But I was too preoccupied to do my job efficiently—too busy thinking about Buck.

He was just drunk. He wasn’t flirting.

I chided myself for making excuses. Then, I chided myself for caring. Why should I take anything Buck said last night to heart? I should have felt flattered by being hit on twice in one night by younger men and left it at that.

By lunchtime, my errant thoughts had addled me so badly, I found myself hoping for a call—some active situation I could assist. But peeking in on the board didn’t do me any better. I found myself paying closer attention to what was active from dispatch—not just what was happening on the police side, but what was happening over on fire.

I was still out of sorts hours later, after I’d gone home, changed my clothes, and taken to tending the gardens. I noted with a mixture of guilt and relief that Buck’s bedroom window was dark. I’d had to double back to my house ten minutes after leaving because I’d forgotten the cookies I’d made for Cheated On-Onymous. They’d been plated and waiting on the kitchen counter, right next to the Baileys I’d brought for after. Somehow, I’d walked right by.

“Loretta deserves chocolate.”

Seven pairs of interested eyes swung in my direction while my own puzzled gaze swung to Clarine.

“Why do I deserve chocolate?” I asked at the same moment I saw in her eyes what she was about to reveal.

“Did something good happen this week?” Shenita prodded.

“No,” I said at the same time Clarine said, “Yes.”

“Last night at Genie’s, Loretta had her honor defended by Lieutenant Buck Rogers, the very same firefighter who rescued her three weeks back.”

I shook my head lightly and sent Clarine an accusing glare. “I’m pretty sure he only saved Peggy. Remember? The one going into anaphylaxis?”

Clarine sent me a wicked look. “But you had an emergency of your own. Remember? Shock is a medical condition.”

“How did he defend your honor?” Peggy seemed impatient to know.

I waved my hand dismissively. “He just got a drunk guy off my back.”

Clarine leaned forward in her seat. “He grabbed a guy by the neck and, literally, threw him out of the bar.”

“It was just one of his co-workers, another firefighter who he knew was drunk.”

“You knew that guy?” Clarine shifted her attention back over to me.

“No, I didn’t know him. I mean, Buck told me—” I stammered.

“You talked to Buck since last night?” she prodded.

Everyone in the group looked on expectantly. I sighed, unable to escape Clarine’s line of questions.

“Buck stopped by last night to make sure I was okay.”

A tittering rose among the women in the room and Clarine dug in further.

“But he knew you were okay when he left the bar.”

“Come on, he was just being polite,” I said with emphasis.

“He could’ve just texted,” Shenita pointed out.

“I’ll take a Kit Kat please,” I said to Jolene. Maybe if I got my candy, it would be taken as our cue to move on.

“What’s wrong with him?” Jolene scrutinized me instead of getting me my chocolate. I would make no headway with her on the grounds that he was young, seeing as how the age difference between her and her husband was practically the same age difference between me and Buck. So I said the only thing I could think of to get them off of my back.

“Nothing’s wrong with him.” I lifted my chin. “But I have my reasons. I need to keep things professional. And that’s all I’m at liberty to say.”

Several pairs of eyes widened as folks reached the exact conclusion I’d wanted them to—that I couldn’t date Buck because he was a client.

“That poor thing,” Peggy breathed, jumping to the logical conclusion that Buck being my client meant that someone had cheated on him.

My stomach had never enjoyed the weight of a broken confidence, but the words I’d spoken had done their job. I couldn’t tell what bothered me more: that I had actively misdirected the people I trusted most, or that I was so desperate to deny having feelings for Buck.

Mindif we meet at my place?

I shot off a quick text to Buck just after putting my dinner in the oven, my favorite onion and goat cheese tarts. A watering can was half full in my sink and I readied myself for a quick trip to the garden. It was two days since Cheated On-Onymous and I was late coming off a job. Buck and I were meant to reconvene about his case.

Your place is fine.

His text came in just as I was hefting the can out of my back door. Crossing onto his side of the divide, I forced myself to keep my eyes on the fence line, toward the bushes and shrubs. Ogling Buck had been wrong enough when all he’d been to me was my hot neighbor. It felt doubly wrong now.

Ten minutes later, I’d harvested tomatoes and poblanos and zucchini, done some surface watering, and checked the timer on the sprinklers for the lawn. For reasons I didn’t care to consider, I took an extra five minutes to freshen up. I wet a washcloth with rose water that I’d made myself, wiped my arms and my neckline down to my bra, then replaced my dark pants and police polo with white cutoffs and a yellow V-neck shirt.

“Oh, hey Buck.”

I tried to sound casual when I swung open the door. The bell rang half a minute after I considered myself ready—forty-five seconds after I pulled out the gold geometric hoop earrings I’d briefly put on. I’d received compliments on how good they looked with that top and I’d have kept them on under simpler circumstances. The sensible part of me had kicked in just in time to remind me: I should not be looking good for a man I couldn’t date.

“Hey, Loretta.”

Ever the Southern gentleman, Buck stood at the door, waiting to be asked in, his mitted hand holding a large cast-iron pan like it was nothing. Whatever deliciousness was contained in said pan smelled impossibly good. His other hand held his iPad and he seemed to be freshly showered. I caught hints of his spicy scent over the smell of the food.

“You know you don’t have to feed me, right?” I waved him in, though the pleasure in my voice was clear.

“Working at a firehouse, you forget how to cook small. Besides, I figured you could use something to eat.”

“You did?”

“You work Wednesdays, right?”

I nodded as I led him through the living room and into the kitchen. I had, indeed, shared with him that small detail. I just hadn’t expected him to remember.

“I’ve got something in the oven—nothing homemade, but you’re welcome to it. Here, you can put your pot down on the stove.”

Buck did as I instructed, then set down his iPad and began to take in my space, much as I’d taken in his. We’d been working together for three weeks, and this was his first time inside. Grabbing the oven mitt that sat on the counter, I slid it on my hand and pulled out my tray of canapes.

“They’re just fig puffs and onion and goat cheese tarts.”

Buck gave a sexy half smile. “You throwin’ a party or something?”

“I don’t really cook,” I explained with a self-deprecating smile.

Buck looked pointedly at the vegetable basket on the counter before swinging his gaze out the window toward my garden in the back.

“You grow enough to feed the whole neighborhood. I pegged you for a cook for sure. What’s wrong? You don’t know how?”

I smiled a little sadly now. “It’s complicated.”

Buck didn’t press and I began to plate the hors d’oeuvres. When he saw me pulling place settings out of drawers and cabinets, he asked if he could help. In three short minutes, we were set up at my kitchen table, with my canapes and the chicken and biscuits Buck had brought.

“I heard y’all had an interesting day,” Buck commented after we dug in and I complimented him on yet another winning dish. The sauce was savory and rich, the chicken had texture, and the biscuits were nice and flaky. Buck was right—I could cook, but even back when I’d done it frequently, my food hadn’t tasted like this.

Of course he would have heard about the calls that came into the sheriff’s office. Word between law enforcement agencies got around. I’d spent the majority of my afternoon investigating the claim of a man who called in a complaint that his girlfriend had stolen his drugs.

“That’s an understatement.” I couldn’t help but smile. “She got scared and confessed, then gave him back his drugs, but he wanted to press charges. We had to arrest her for theft and for breaking into his car. Once he had his drugs back, he thought the sheriff was gonna let him walk away. Then, they arrested him for possession.”

Buck gave a little chuckle. “Criminals aren’t the smartest.”

“They certainly are not. The sheriff’s been having me tag along for more calls lately. It’s opened my eyes.”

Buck’s smiling gaze lingered on my face for longer than I expected. I wasn’t used to this—attention from someone who made me shy.

“If it’s any consolation, I spent half of last night responding to a 13-511.”

13-511 was the code for indecent exposure in Tennessee. The beginnings of a smile bloomed on my lips. “Do tell.”

“Eleven at night in a real nice area. The neighbor called it in. Guy was walking down the middle of the street eating a popsicle, naked as the day he was born. I figured out pretty quick that something was off with his meds. The guy was real nice, but pretty out of it. Took us forty-five minutes to talk him into putting on a blanket and another ten to get him on the gurney.”

I’d stopped mid-chew to blink over at him in disbelief, silent for seconds after he stopped. We burst into laughter at the same time.

“People do not understand what our jobs are like,” I said finally.

“People think firefighting’s all running into burning buildings and pulling kittens out of trees.”

“People think being a police scene processor is analyzing blood splatter and finding DNA.”

“So what do you actually do?” Buck asked like he was really interested.

“Other than turning cockamamie stories into cohesive narratives for police reports? If what happened is a mystery, I get to figure it out.”

Buck did that thing again where he smiled in a way I couldn’t read, looked at me unabashedly, and took his time to respond. It had puzzled me at first, but I was starting to get used to it—how Buck was so attentive, and thoughtful, and warm.

“You really love your job,” he observed out loud.

“Yeah. I really do. All three of them, in fact.”

“I’d say that’s a good problem to have.”

“Better to love it than hate it,” I agreed.

“I talked to my brother yesterday about his run for office. Seemed like the opposite is true for him. To tell you the truth, it was kind of sad.”

Mention of his brother snapped me out of fixating on his blue eyes and reminded me he hadn’t brought over dinner as a sweet gesture.

“Were you there for a pleasure visit or recon?”

“A little bit of both. I took your advice, to start spending more time there. To see a few things with my own eyes.”

“So what’d you find out?”

“My mom’s been getting away. She hasn’t done that in a while. She doesn’t like the way my dad gets during a campaign. He can be a little...intense.”

“How intense are we talking?”

“He’ll do anything to win. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you, he gets a kind of high. Between that and the things he’s done to keep an advantage to get elected...she distances herself from that.”

I wanted to ask Buck how he’d coped, growing up with a man like that. I wondered what it had done to him, not an adult who could take care of himself, but a child. But this wasn’t about me or everything I ached to know about him. This was about his mother.

“That’s one theory,” I mused. “Small-town girl marries a complicated man. Goes back to the place that represents simpler times. Reconnects with high school friends.”

“Is friends all you think they are?” Buck asked in the voice of a man who was bracing himself.

Right about here was where I told most clients not to let their minds run away—to wait until we had all of the facts before speculating. But I wanted to tell Buck what I really thought. Maybe it was the way he looked at me with those eyes.

“It’s obvious they still mean something to each other after all these years. Some old flames...they never burn out. I think I’ve got a positive ID. I’m having a full workup pulled on him right now.”

“Having it pulled?”

I shrugged before taking another bite of chicken. “I’ve got a guy.”

Buck started smiling as he chewed a bite of biscuit. “Anyone ever tell you, you’re good at this?”

“I thought that’s why you hired me.”

“But not good at cooking, apparently.” He looked at my vegetable basket again.

“You’re still thinking about that?”

He chuckled. “I’m trying not to be rude and pry but I’ll admit—I’m wildly curious. It’s obvious you’re some kind of goddess in the kitchen. If you don’t know how to cook, who are all these herbs and vegetables for?”

“I do know how,” I began a confession I’d never made to anybody. “But someone ruined it for me. And now I don’t do it anymore.”

“Someone . . .” Buck repeated.

“My ex.”

Buck slowed his chewing, something I couldn’t read coming over his eyes as the information sank in.

“He—his name was Floyd—liked for there to be a home-cooked meal on the table when he got home. But when it came to my cooking...well, he had a lot to say. It got to the point that I hated making dinner. When it ended, I decided my days of dinner-cooking were over. Even if I was only cooking for myself.”

“So instead, you eat.” He eyed my goat cheese tarts.

“Anything I can bake in the oven. I only use the stove top to make skincare products, like soaps and salves.”

Talk of salve compelled me to dart my eyes to his hand. Buck had texted me twice to thank me, once on the morning he’d picked it up, then two days later with praise. It seemed that my ointment had worked.

“At least you didn’t stop baking.”

I gave a little smile. “He never cared much for my baking either.”

Buck seemed offended on my behalf. “Your ex sounds like a jackass.”

I nodded in agreement. “Oh, he was.”