Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Willow had a flat tire and she was not in a good mood. She’d had her ass grabbed twice tonight, and she’d been called Pocohontas by a rhinestone cowboy from Jersey. Being in uniform, she couldn’t even throw a drink in his face about it.
“It’s because of what happened with the Barker boys the other day, that’s what,” she muttered, although that theory made very little sense. “I looked like a helpless female, bein’ saved by a gallant white boy. Everybody saw it. It’s prob’ly all over town.”
She opened the hatch of her black and white Quinn County Sheriff’s Department SUV and rolled the spare tire out onto the pavement.
It bounced as she rolled it around to the side and then went back for the jack whose handle doubled as a lug-wrench, and quickly bent to loosen the nuts.
She had to stomp on the handle to loosen the most stubborn one.
Headlights picked her out on the roadside. They weren’t the first, just the first to slow down and pull over.
Since civilization was ten miles away in either direction, she unhooked the strap on her gun belt, and rose with the jack-handle. Then she saw that it was Jeremiah Thorne’s russet orange Jeep. He’d pulled over behind her, and left his four-ways on, like a law-abiding citizen would do.
She refocused on her work, not trusting herself with a word, a smile, or a welcome. By the time he came up to her, she was jacking the car up off the ground.
“Hey, Willow. Can I give you a hand with that?”
Without even looking at him, she said, “You put one hand on this jack and I’ll beat you with the handle, you hear?”
He must’ve been surprised, since he took a step backwards. “I do something to make you mad, Deputy Brand?”
She stopped jacking, wiggled the tire off, and leaned it against the car.
Then she picked up the spare and fit it over the bolts, figuring it was good that her hands were busy.
“You need to understand somethin’, Jeremiah Thorne.
I didn’t need rescuin’ at Two Lilies the other evenin’.
I don’t need a man to defend me, or to protect me, or to change my goldang tires, and if I did, then I got a whole family of ‘em to choose from. But I don’t. ”
“I would’ve stopped to help anybody I saw along the roadside with a flat in the middle of the night,” he said.
She put on all five nuts, finger-tightening them in opposing pairs. “I didn’t get the chance to explain this to you before…actually, it didn’t occur to me right away.”
“Because I was so good looking under my beard?”
She shot him a look, not smiling at his humor. He was, though.
“Never do that again,” she said. “Never interfere when I’m on the job. You understand? Dumb question. You couldn’t possibly understand, being male. But you don’t need to understand.”
He was quiet for a moment, then said, “Be easier if I did, though.”
She finished tightening the lug nuts, then lowered the jack, picked it up, and threw it into the back of the SUV followed by the flat tire. There was a place for them in the floor, but she didn’t put them in it, just closed the hatch and headed for the driver’s door.
“Maybe you could explain it to me, so I can understand it better?” the Gringo said.
Whirling to face him, she said, “All you need to understand is this, and it’s real simple. If I need your help, I’ll ask for it. And if I don’t ask for it—”
“I keep my help to myself. I got you. And uh, I apologize.”
His eyes were innocent and wounded. They got to her and she felt like an ass. She’d opened her door, but she didn’t get in. Instead, she attempted to explain herself.
“I just responded to a call. A local said kids were harassing her milk cow. When I got there, she wouldn’t even talk to me. Said to send back a real cop.”
“Real, meaning…?”
“Maybe male,” she said. “Maybe white. Maybe both, I don’t know.”
He nodded slowly. “Me stepping in makes you the weak female.” He lowered his head until his chin touched his chest. “I should’ve realized. People around here can still be a little…”
“Yeah.” She closed the pickup door without getting in. “Sorry I yelled. You were only tryin’ to help. You’re a nice guy and I bit your head off for it.”
“Not really. I lied when I said I would’ve stopped for anyone. I only stopped ‘cause it was you.”
“‘Cause we’re family, sort’ve?” she asked and then cursed herself for asking.
“Nope. Nothing to do with that.” His eyes had hold of hers, and she didn’t look away. He smiled a little, and those dimples appeared again. “Would you have dinner with me?”
Willow lost her air, so she couldn’t answer. Her brain said no a hundred times over. She opened her mouth to say it out aloud, but the word that escaped, was, “Yes.”
He smiled and she swore those Hemsworth-blue eyes twinkled. “How about tonight?”
She frowned at him. “You crazy? It’s midnight.”
“So you’re saying you already ate?”
She lowered her eyes. This was a really bad idea. And then she made it worse. “I’ve got half a lasagna in the fridge. Aunt Chelsea has a thing about feedin’ people.”
“Tell me about it. I have most of her plasticware in the bunkhouse fridge. There’s enough for a feast.”
Willow took a deep breath. It would be a chance to get to know him a little better, one-on-one, and to figure out whether he took after his criminal father or noble brother. How better than over a meal? Alone. In the middle of the night.
This was a really bad idea.
“So, what’ll it be? Your place or mine?” he asked, with a wink that said he was kidding, and a glint in his eyes that said not really.
“Mine,” Willow said. “And for food and conversation only, you understand?”
“Scout’s honor,” he said, but he did the salute so wrong she knew he’d never been a scout.
“You can’t bring your car. Folks’ll talk.”
“Whatever you say, Deputy.”
Jeremiah couldn’t believe his luck. He’d fantasized about things like this. He did not dare believe that fate was finally throwing him a bone, but it sure seemed like things were going his way.
Willow had him follow her to a spot where folks pulled off to go fishing. He parked there, then rode the rest of the way to Sky Dancer Ranch with her. It was within walking distance, he noted.
When he first got into her SUV, she was stiff and nervous.
He figured it was natural. She was a woman behind that badge, and she was alone at night with an ex-con.
He tried to think of a way to ease her mind and couldn’t come up with any.
Then they were on her family’s place and he didn’t have to think. Words came naturally.
“This ranch is incredible.” Even in the dark, the rolling meadows and white fences stood against the horizon.
He’d seen it by day only once or twice, and only in passing.
He’d never come all the way down the driveway into its heart.
The house was modest but modern, with plenty of big windows and porches.
She took the driveway’s left fork, though, away from the main house, out past a copse of scraggly loblolly pines, to a small white cottage with a picket fence all the way around it.
There were flower boxes full of gold and orange, and a tangled flowerbed in front that looked like it needed weeding.
A row of sunflowers, their yellow heads drooping, stood guard along the white fence in front, and stepping stones led to the front door.
“Here we are,” she said.
“It’s like something out of the Shire.”
“You’re a Lord of the Rings fan?”
He shrugged one shoulder, averted his eyes. “I’ve seen it.” Multiple times.
“Huh.”
He didn’t like the sound of that, so he nodded at the pretty cottage’s weed patch border, the only unkempt spot in sight. “What’s up with that? You need a hand clearing it out?”
“No! That’s my herb garden. I’m lettin’ some of ‘em go to seed. They need to thicken up.”
“Herb garden.”
She nodded and led the way across her grassless lawn to the raised bed in front of the house. “There’s rosemary, nearest the door for the scent.” She ran her hand across the small shrub’s needled branches, then held her palm up. “Smell.”
He leaned close and sniffed and the scent lit up pleasure centers in his brain. Being that close to her lit up more, though.
“And there’s white sage, beside it. Desert thyme, basil, oregano, parsley… The chili pepper patch is around back.”
“You must do a lot of cooking.”
“Some.”
They moved across a small porch with bundles of herbs hanging upside down, then through her front door.
“No grand tour needed,” she said, flipping on lights as she walked inside. “Living room and eat-in kitchen here. Bedroom and bathroom over there. And if you don’t mind, I need to change.”
“Take your time,” he said. “You want me to heat up the lasagna?”
She looked back at him just a beat too long, like she was deciding whether she wanted him rummaging around in her kitchen. “That’d be great, thanks. It’s in the—”
“I’ll figure it out.”
She vanished into a room in back. He took off his shoes and headed into her kitchen, flipped on the lights.
It was golden yellow with white cabinets and woodwork, and there were plants in every window, some hanging, others resting on the sills.
The fridge was a simple white model, no extras.
The lasagna was easy to recognize. “Aunt” Chelsea’s plasticware was familiar to him.
He had to get a place of his own before that woman fed him into obesity.
He removed the square dish, loosened its lid, and stuck it into the microwave to reheat. The place was so small, he could hear the shower running.
Okay, maybe she wasn’t uncomfortable being alone with an ex-con after all. And why should she be? She was a cop and she had a gun.
Cops are always the enemy.
The words floated through his brain in the voice of his father. It had been a phrase he’d repeated often—like he was making sure he’d never forget it.
Jeremiah opened cabinets until he found plates, drawers until he found forks, and he set the table. When the microwave beeped, he scooped the sizzling, bubbling food onto the plates.