11. Tucker
“What do you think it opens?” Colt asked, turning the key over in his hand as he sat across from me. He studied it with the kind of intensity he usually reserved for puzzles, which made sense. This whole case was turning out to be a puzzle, and we still had no idea what the missing piece was.
“Nothing in that basement, as far as I could tell,” I replied, my voice gruffer than usual. My mind was still on the fact that Dakota had almost broken her ankle, and I had... reacted.
“As far as we could tell,” Dakota corrected, her voice cutting through the moment with that persistent, unshakable cheerfulness.
Colt grinned, first at her, then even wider when he looked at me. Whatever he saw on my face apparently amused him, and I fought the urge to kick him under the table. He was good at picking up on things I wasn’t ready to admit, especially when it came to women. And Dakota? She was a whole lot of something I wasn’t sure I was prepared for.
“Why is she here?” Austin asked, his brow furrowing as he glanced between us. “You never let civilians get involved in your cases.”
“Same reason you are,” I replied, keeping my tone even but knowing it wasn’t the whole truth. Dakota’s involvement was becoming harder and harder to shake off. She had a way of worming into things, and apparently, I was no exception.
Austin tilted his head, clearly not satisfied with my vague answer.
“I think he means because neither one of us knows how to take no for an answer,” Dakota jumped in, her eyes sparkling with mischief as she leaned back in her seat.
“Ah, yeah, that makes sense. I’ve never been good at that,” Austin said with a smirk. He shared a look with Dakota, and it hit me just how easily she fit in with us.
The thought made my chest tighten.
“Me neither,” Dakota added, tossing me a pointed look. “How’d you get here anyway? Please don’t tell me you hitchhiked all the way from Colorado.”
Austin grinned, but before he could answer, I cut in. “How’d you know we were from Colorado?”
She brushed imaginary dirt off her shoulder with a smug look that made me want to roll my eyes—and smile at the same time. “You don’t have to be a private eye to get the scoop in this town.”
“And you boys would do well to remember that,” a terse voice said from beside us. The unmistakable sound of the coffee carafe being set down made me glance up, only to find Norma, our server, standing there with a knowing look in her eyes.
Norma was the kind of woman who could run a diner single-handedly and still have time to meddle in everyone’s business. She had a no-nonsense air about her, but her eyes had the softness of someone who’d seen a lot and cared even more. She’d been eyeing us from the moment we’d set foot in her diner, and while she was polite, there was no mistaking her wariness of the newcomers—namely, me, Colt, and Austin.
“Hi, Norma,” Dakota greeted the older woman with a blinding smile.
Norma’s gaze softened slightly as she nodded at Dakota. “Does the family know you’re with these three?” she asked, her brows lifting in a way that told me she already knew the answer—or at least had a good idea.
“I’m sure they’ll find out soon enough if they haven’t already,” Dakota replied with a slight shrug, but I could tell by the way she shifted in her seat that the idea made her uneasy.
Norma hummed, her eyes flicking over to me, and I couldn’t tell if she was sizing me up or trying to figure out what Dakota saw in me. She set the carafe down and rested her hand on her hip. “Can I get y’all anything while you wait?”
“Wait for what?” Austin asked, his brow furrowing in confusion.
Norma shot him a look that could only be described as amused, like he was missing something obvious. “For Riley Conrad or one of the Wilson boys to show up and warn you away from this one here,” she explained, gesturing to Dakota. The way she said it made it sound like this wasn’t her first rodeo when it came to meddling men protecting their womenfolk.
I tensed, not liking the idea of Dakota’s “family”—whoever they were—getting involved. And yet, the part that bothered me most was the idea of them warning me away from her, as if I was some kind of threat.
Norma’s gaze swung to me. “Ya know, sugar, we all heard about how you thought you heard gunshots down in the square and then threw Dakota over your shoulder like a caveman and ran her to safety.”
I cleared my throat. “That’s not exactly what happened.”
“It’d be pretty dumb for him to throw her over his shoulder to protect her from bullets that are coming from behind him,” Austin observed.
Dakota reached up, tapping Norma’s arm. “What he really did was much smarter.”
Norma leaned her hip against the table, her eyes gleaming with interest. “That so? What’d he do?”
“He shielded me and Hope with his body .”
“Oh, yes,” she all but purred. “That is better.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Folks will love that,” Norma said. “I’ll be sure to pass that around now that I know the story from the horse’s mouth.”
“Please don’t,” I grumbled.
“Couldn’t hurt to set people straight, right, buddy?” Colt asked, winking at me. Then he turned to Norma as he flipped his white mug right side up on the table. “Coffee would be great, Norma.”
She began to fill his cup. “Sure thing, sugar.”
Austin moved to flip his own cup over, then stopped when I lifted a brow at him.
Norma filled Dakota’s cup and then mine before she left, promising to bring Austin a milkshake.
“So, you never did tell me how you got here, Little Black.”
Austin bristled, shaking his head. “Little Black? I’m taller than you. By a lot.”
“Not exactly a tall feat,” I mumbled, wincing when Dakota’s elbow connected with my bicep. I’d shifted on the bench seat to avoid the blow I’d known was coming, and that only shifted my weight onto my injured butt cheek, making it hurt even worse to be sitting on the worn red vinyl.
Unfortunately for me, all of the stools at the diner’s bar were taken by the high school’s basketball team when we’d come in, and I didn’t have it in me to ask them to quit their chatting so I could stand instead of sit.
It’d be rude, sure, but worse—the embarrassment.
“You’re right,” Dakota said to Austin. “You’re not Little Black. It doesn’t fit. Gimme time, I’ll come up with somethin’ better. Now, spill. How’d you get here without your big brother knowin’?”
“I took the bus.”
She gaped at him. “You didn’t .”
He nodded, confirming what I already knew to be true and had given him a serious talking to about. The kid wasn’t mine, but after his dad bailed the same way my own dad had nearly twenty years earlier, it was moments like that when I felt like I was. And not a very good one, either.
Dakota was still shocked by that news, and something in my chest pinched at the way her face scrunched up in concern for him. “You coulda been killed!”
Austin shrugged. “Better than hitchhiking, right?”
“Not much, honey. Not much.” She gestured to me with one hand while blocking my view of her lips with the other, whisper-shouting, “How mad was this guy? Bet he was big mad.”
“The biggest,” he confirmed, and they had a nice little laugh at my expense—Colt included.
“I’m right here.”
“You know it’s only because he loves you, though, don’t you?” Dakota went on, completely ignoring me. Her tone was softer now, and she’d dropped the act with her hand blocking her mouth.
All I could do was stare at it as I waited for Austin to reply. I’d almost kissed her in that dingy basement, and as easy as it would’ve been to do that if the goat hadn’t interrupted us… right now? Hearing her soft words reassuring Austin that I loved him made me want to kiss her even more.
“Sure, I guess,” Austin replied, failing to sound as casual as he probably wanted to. He cleared his throat, chuckling lightly. “Well, and he’s a total control freak.”
I rolled my eyes. “Still right here.”
Once again, it was like I hadn’t even spoken. Dakota reached across the table and took Austin’s hand, giving it—and my heart—a quick squeeze. “I can see that. From one youngest sibling to another, don’t let him push you around too much.”
He grinned. “I’ll try not to.”
“It’s a give-and-take thing, dealin’ with older siblings like him.”
“You mean the invisible kind?” I asked.
“What do you mean, give and take?” Austin replied, proving my point.
She winked.“You know, he’ll give you all kinds of crap, but he’ll also take care of you if you need him.”
“Oh, yeah. Cool.” Austin looked me over before turning back to her. “I guess he does that.”
“Cute,” I said dryly.
She grinned, putting her chin in her hand. “I really am, aren’t I?”
“You’re something…”
We spent the next few minutes drinking coffee and speculating about what the key could open, ideas ranging from the logical to the ridiculous. And sometimes, the most absurd idea was also the most rational: an actual treasure chest.
When Colt and I had first landed this case, part of me wondered if the whole thing was a hoax. It was far-fetched enough that Anthony Barto’s family had been searching for long-lost pirate treasure in the Caribbean for generations, only for Anthony to eventually find it. But to add that the guy brought it back to Colorado only for it to be stolen and placed in the care of a quiet police dispatcher’s grandpa in Tennessee?
It couldn’t be true.
But then, we’d found that key. As much as I’d wanted to deny it, it really did look like something out of a movie. Only, not a prop—the real deal. Suddenly, the whole story seemed more plausible. Why else would the older man have a pirate-looking key hiding under a loose floorboard in his basement? If it were a fake or some kind of kitschy souvenir he’d gotten while honeymooning in Bermuda, it would’ve been in a kitchen junk drawer with a bottle opener at one end.
“I’ll reach out to my guy to make sure it’s real,” Colt said after a while of spitballing.
“You have a guy for that?” Dakota asked.
“I have a guy for everything,” he replied with a wink.
It took all of my strength not to kick him under the table.
“Can I go back to the room with you?” Austin asked. He’d finished his milkshake five minutes ago, and judging by the way he’d been bouncing in his seat, he was probably sick of not having his game console in hand.
“Sure thing,” Colt told him, and I returned his nod, appreciating the silent promise that he’d keep an eye on my brother.
Colt was probably one of the only people on the planet I explicitly trusted, not just with my life but with my brother’s. He’d been just as shocked as I was when my mom announced her pregnancy, and even though we were both in the Marines by then, Colt jumped right into honorary big brother mode as soon as we got back to Colorado.
“So, now what?” Dakota asked when they were gone.
I hummed, leaning back in my seat and taking my time to answer. “Now, I’m gonna go speak to my client about the key to see if he knows anything about it, and you’re gonna–”
“Come with you?” she cut in, her eyes wide with expectation.
I blinked slowly at her, lifting a single brow. Did she seriously think she was tagging along to meet Barto?
She groaned, clearly reading my expression. “Oh, don’t start with me. We already settled this.”
“We did. But you helping me with the case doesn’t have to involve you meeting with a client.”
Her eyes narrowed in playful suspicion. “You worried you’ll have to split your fee with me if he finds out I’m helpin’?”
I chuckled softly, shaking my head. “That would imply you’re going to do actual work. Think of this more like a ride-along.”
Her eyes flashed with something fiery, that spark she always seemed to carry around with her. “Do you usually take cases so far from home?”
I took a sip of my coffee, using the pause to consider how much I wanted to give away. “Colorado isn’t home, it’s just where we’re based.”
“Where’s home, then?”
“Right now, it’s the Charlotte Oaks B&B,” I said with a shrug. “After that, we’ll get Austin back where he belongs, and then I guess we’ll see where the next job takes us.”
Her eyes flickered with something I couldn’t quite place. Maybe disappointment? I wasn’t sure. “What about roots? Don’t you kinda wish you had some?”
“Not in the slightest,” I replied, the words coming out more firmly than I’d expected.
“I can’t imagine that. But, hey, different strokes for different folks, I guess.” She leaned back in her seat, seemingly contemplating my response. Then, out of nowhere, she perked up again. “Are you hungry?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but her hand was already up, signaling for Norma to come back over.
I was hungry, but I hadn’t expected her to invite me to dinner. Was she suggesting we eat together? The thought rattled around in my head as I glanced over at her, wondering if she’d meant it in the way it felt.
“Norma,” Dakota said as the server approached, “can we please get a couple of menus?”
I shook my head. “We don’t need menus.”
She looked at me, surprised. “We’re not gonna eat?”
“Somethin’ wrong with the food here, stranger?” Norma asked, one hand planted firmly on her hip, her no-nonsense gaze piercing right through me.
I gave her a small smile, trying to reassure her. “Nope, the food’s great. I just already know what I want.”
“How do you know I don’t need a menu?” Dakota asked.
Norma let out a laugh that was almost a bark. “Dakota Jolene, the menu hasn’t changed since before you were born. You need a menu like I need a few more wrinkles.”
“Fine, but he didn’t know that,” she whispered fiercely, jerking her chin in my direction.
I shrugged, keeping my grin in check. “I had a feeling.”
Her eyes narrowed into a glare as I gestured for her to order first. She rattled off her choice, and I followed up by ordering the same thing I had the day before.
Norma’s eyes sparkled with amusement, but she didn’t say anything as she walked away.
Dakota tilted her head, her dark hair falling slightly over her shoulder. “How’d you know what to get without lookin’?”
“I’ve got a good memory,” I said, lifting my coffee to my lips. Then, after a brief pause, I added, “So, you’re really planning to stay here forever, then? No urge to leave? See the world?”
She held up a finger, mock seriousness on her face. “I left once. For nursing school.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Nashville.”
I tilted my head, smirking slightly. “Isn’t that a couple of hours away?”
“Yes, judgy,” she replied, drawing out the word. “It is. And it was great. Far enough to feel like I was on my own but close enough to come home for Sunday suppers with the fam. Not to mention lettin’ my momma do my laundry so I didn’t have to worry about anyone mixin’ up my scrubs with theirs at the laundromat.”
I pretended to shudder, playing along. “Oh, the horror.”
She glared at me for a second before her lips twitched into a reluctant smile. “I’m gonna pretend you’re not bein’ sarcastic.”
“Pretend away,” I replied, tossing her a wink just for the fun of it.
Dakota looked away, but not before I caught the flush that crept up her neck. Her eyes wandered around the diner like she was seeing it in a whole new light, her smile softening into something more serene. “You really can’t see yourself settlin’ down in a place like this, can you? You too cool for small-town livin’?”
I leaned back, taking in the diner’s surroundings—vinyl seats, chrome edges, a steady hum of conversation from the locals. Nothing about it screamed home to me the way it clearly did for her. “I think I’m too private.”
“Hah,” she snorted. “On account of you bein’ a private eye?”
I couldn’t help the chuckle that slipped out. “You’re kind of a cheeseball, you know that?”
She shrugged unapologetically. “I do, and I embrace it. Really, though, the lack of privacy around here is hard on a good day… but it can also be pretty great. Charlotte Oakians have each other’s backs in a way that just doesn’t happen in a big city.”
I tried not to get caught up on the nickname for the town’s residents and shrugged, brushing off her point. “Maybe. But it’s still not my style.”
Before I could elaborate, Norma returned with our food, taking her time to chat with Dakota about someone named Phoebe’s dance classes. The conversation went on so long that I was halfway through my meal by the time Norma left us alone again.
“See? I wouldn’t last a day in this town if I weren’t here for a job,” I said.
She grinned at that. “I had a feelin’ the girls were right when they warned me away from you. But hey, can’t blame a girl for tryin’.”
I paused mid-chew, nearly choking. “I’m sorry, what?”
“The girls,” she repeated, her tone nonchalant but with an edge of teasing. “I told them over pizza how hot I thought you were, but they told me not to catch feelin’s for you since you’re leavin’ as soon as you’re done with this case.”
I choked on a piece of potato, wishing I hadn’t taken a bite while she was answering. My brain scrambled to catch up. I’d hoped it would give me a second to stall in case I needed it. She was usually bold, but this? I just hadn’t expected her to say something quite so… direct. Flirtatious? Clearly. But coming right out with all of that? Didn’t see it coming one bit.
“So,” she went on while I chugged water to wash down the potato, “in the off-chance you were worried about that—don’t. I promise I won’t fall in love with you and make you stay here forever.”
My hand froze mid-air. Water flooded my windpipe, burning as I tried to swallow it down without losing what was left of my dignity. I choked again, harder this time, and it was all I could do to keep from spraying her in the face with it. She looked so amused—no, entertained—by my near-death experience.
She laughed, her face a cross between concern and wild amusement. Her eyes sparkled with the kind of mischief that made me both want to laugh and run in the opposite direction. “Are you aspiratin’ that water, or is that a blush on your cheeks?”
“Neither,” I rasped, my voice sounding like sandpaper. “Did you really just say all of that?”
“Well, why wouldn’t I?" She grinned, eyes dancing. "After all, you know as well as I do that Gertie interrupted what probably would’ve been quite a kiss. And if either one of us wants a chance to try again without her buttin’ her nose in, I figured it’d be best to let you know you don’t have to be scared.”
Scared?
I swallowed thickly, a little afraid to ask but feeling like I had no choice. “Scared of what?”
She shrugged, smiling as she speared another forkful of salad, like she was discussing the weather and not completely dismantling my defenses. “You know, scared I’d try to strangle you with all my roots.”
The laugh burst out of me so fast I didn’t have a prayer of keeping it inside. It felt like the first real laugh I’d had in… well, a while. Her eyes absolutely lit up, her smile widening as she watched me from across the table. She looked so pleased with herself, and I couldn’t even blame her.
“You should smile more,” she said softly, the teasing tone gone, replaced with something warmer. “It’s nice.”
“I agree,” an elderly woman said as she walked by our booth on her way to the door.
I blinked, startled. Where had she come from?
“Takes him from a nine-point-five to an eleven in my book,” the woman added over her shoulder, as if this was an everyday observation.
I scowled at the woman’s back, flicking my gaze back to Dakota, who was shaking her head, clearly trying to suppress a laugh. “Amen, Mrs. M,” she called out, her tone bright.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Now, she might scare me a little.”
Dakota nodded gravely, her face the perfect picture of seriousness. “Smart man.”