Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Emma
“ A nother day, another dolla!” Lily greeted me, throwing her hands up in the air like the absolute goofball she was. “How’s the most popular and most beautiful baker in town doing on this fine Texas evening?”
I rolled my eyes at my best friend, though I couldn’t help but smile. “You say the exact thing every time you roll in here after closing.” I went back to wiping counters as she locked the door behind her.
“So…” She leaned against the counter, her ashy blonde hair pulled up in a bun. “Anything interesting happen today? Because I’m not gonna lie, I’m always so envious that you get to socialize with adults and I have to spend my day with ten-year-olds.”
“You fit in well,” I teased, giggling as she gave me a warning look. “But really, it wasn’t that interesting today. Now that I’ve been here and open for a few weeks, I’m starting to have regulars more than new faces—oh, except for Sheriff Hewitt. I finally got to meet the mysteriously hot man that you told me about.”
“Oh my god, really?” she gasped. “He was here? Why didn’t you call me? I would’ve called in for a sick day!”
I swatted her with the rag. “I’ll bet Drew really would’ve appreciated that.”
“Oh stop. My husband is a good sport. He knows he’s the only one for me. Besides, Hewitt is literally the most unavailable man in the entire town.”
Now, that was intriguing.
“How come? I didn’t see a wedding ring?”
Not that I was paying attention.
“Oh, yeah. He’s not married. I don’t think he ever really dates, either. From what I know—which isn’t much—is that he’s not interested in anyone. Apparently, his ex-wife burned him bad, took him for all he was worth. Now, he just hangs out at the Lowe Creek Ranch all the time with his BFF Lucas Lowe.”
“Lucas Lowe?”
She frowned at me. “You really have so much catching up to do.”
“Well, I wasn’t born and raised here like you were,” I reasoned. “I only moved here because you’re here.”
“And you want to be a billion miles away from your crazy, helicopter mom.” Lily gave me one of her most sympathetic looks, her thin lips barely curving into a soft smile.
“You’re not wrong.”
“You still ignoring her calls?”
“I mean…” my voice trailed off as a pang of guilt hit me. “I wouldn’t say that I ignore them, per se. She just always calls during business hours, and I’m busy. I always text her and tell her to call me after work… ”
“And she never does.”
“Bingo,” I say with a sigh. “She’s just angry with me because I’m not settling down the way she wants me to. She thinks I should be married with a house full of kids right now, not going after some bakery business in the middle of a small town.”
“Ah, yeah. Sounds about right,” Lily chuckled, grabbing up the broom I had gotten out a few minutes before she had arrived. “Your mom loves you though… Just not in the conventional, unconditional way.”
“Well, that’s one way to put it,” I laughed, going back to wiping everything down. As I ran the damp rag over the register counter, my mind drifted back to Sheriff Hewitt. As much as I wanted to just blow off his presence as a hot stranger…
There was something so appealing about him.
He had this rugged, sexy look about him, though I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was that was so captivating about him. I had lived in Austin for nearly my entire life, so it wasn’t like I had been deprived of attractive men…
But, whatever it was, I couldn’t shake him and the electricity I felt when his eyes met mine.
“You okay?” Lily called from the other side of my café, her brow furrowed.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I said quickly, brushing off the heat between my legs. “So… Back to Sheriff Hewitt…”
The giddy grin on Lily’s face made me blush. “You’re into him, aren’t you? Since when is Emma Fisher into anyone?”
“Stop,” I warned her, but then admitted, “…there’s just something… intriguing about him.”
“Oh yeah, he’s definitely intriguing.” Lily laughed. “His daughter is Jess.”
I cocked my head to the side. “You mean, Dara’s best friend Jess?” I thought of the dark-headed blue eyed friend of Lily’s daughter. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Mason and Jess did share some similarities—not that I knew either of them well enough to make that judgment.
“Yep, that’s the one. Drew knows Mason better than I do, but I’d still say that he’s a very private kind of guy. He watches his daughter like a hawk, too.”
“I don’t blame him for that. Teenagers are full of mischief.” I let out a sigh, that old familiar longing for children knocking at my heart.
“Yeah, you know,” Lily paused, leaning against the broom. “Jess hasn’t been hanging out with Dara as much. She was at our house nearly every evening—or they were over at the Lowe Ranch. Now, Jess is only at the house a couple of nights a week.”
“Okay, so maybe they’re not together twenty-four seven. That’s not that concerning.” I shrugged, tossing the dirty rag into the hamper. I would have to take it with me to wash at home.
“Well, if you knew those two the way I do, you might disagree. I don’t know. Dara has seemed a little down, but blows me off when I ask her.” Lily went back to sweeping, shaking her head as she went. “Kids are so complicated.”
I laughed. “You mean teenage girls are so complicated.”
“Yeah, that.”
We finished cleaning up the café and put all the supplies away together. The sun was setting, darkness replacing the warm orange glow that once shimmered through the windows. I grabbed my purse and the bag of dirty rags before following Lily out of the front door. I left my silver SUV parked right out front, my parking options limited. Some of the businesses had back lots, but mine didn’t. However, I was okay with it. It just kept me from walking in the dark after work.
“So you’re coming to the annual BBQ and dance at the Lowe Ranch, right?” Lily asked me as I was locking up.
“The, uh, what?” I turned to face her.
“It’s like a huge cookoff, and then there’s a dance at the end of the night. Lucas Lowe puts it on every year. We go every year.”
“Ah, right. I guess this is part of your life that I’m not used to,” I said, giving her a poke in her upper arm.
“That’s because you’re used to being my best friend who lives in the big city—and I always came to see you. Not the other way around.”
“College besties for life though,” I shot her a wink, and then yawned. “Jeez, those early mornings are killer.”
“You really should hire someone to help you, especially in the afternoon and evenings since you’re dealing with quite the dinner rush—and I mean someone who can close up for you. Not just the girls that you have working part time.”
I nodded. “You’re right, I guess I could?—”
I was cut off by the sound of an alarm going off, piercing the quiet of the night. Lily and I both whipped our heads around, trying to figure out which business it was coming from.
She grabbed my arm, her eyes wide. “Do you think one of the businesses has been broken into?”
“I-I-I don’t know,” I muttered, trying to push away the fear that came with the eerie sound and the darkness settling in. The street was strikingly empty, which only made everything that much worse .
“I think we should maybe just go.” Lily’s voice trembled.
“Oh, don’t be such a wimp.” I shook my head. “Let’s go drive down the street and see if we can pinpoint where it went off.”
Lily was crawling into my passenger seat before I had even grabbed my door handle, and I couldn’t help but laugh. The alarm was still sounding as I started the engine and rolled the front windows down.
“We’ll just see what we see,” I said to Lily but mostly to myself as I backed out and crept down Main Street. The sound grew louder as we went, and finally, I realized the sound was coming from Millfield Florist.
“Oh! The front window is broken!” Lily gasped, her hand clapping over her mouth. “Do you think someone was trying to break in?”
The sound of sirens and the glimmer of red and blue lights behind us startled me, and I whipped into the parking spot out front as an older Bronco came to a screeching halt. My heart thudded in my chest as I recognized the cowboy clad officer climbing out of the front seat.
Sheriff Hewitt clicked on a flashlight and pointed it in our direction. “Miss Fisher?” His eyes narrowed beneath his gray Stetson for a moment. “Lily?”
“Guilty,” Lily threw up her hand. “Well, not guilty guilty, but you know what I mean. I was helping Emma close up when we heard the alarm and she had the idea to come down here and check it out.”
“Ah, so you… You know Emma?” Sheriff’s eyes caught mine, and I felt the butterflies take off in my stomach.
I forced a smile. “She’s my best friend and has been since we met back in college. ”
“Ah, I see.” His voice was flat, and completely unenthused as he pointed the light back toward the shop.
“There’s a broken window,” Lily called over my shoulder and out the window.
“Yeah, I see that. You ladies stay right there,” he directed as he shone the flashlight across the broken glass on the ground. He pulled out his pistol, making his way slowly to the entrance. He was only a few feet from the door when he dropped his gun to his side. He holstered his gun and reached through the broken window.
“What is that…” Lily murmured, saying aloud what we both were thinking.
“I don’t… I don’t know…” my voice trailed off as the sheriff appeared, a grin on his face.
“Here’s the culprit,” he chuckled, holding up a now-dead crow. “Flew right into the window. I’ll have to call Doris and let her know that her shop is just fine.”
“That’s good to know,” Lily called out as he walked up to my window. I caught a whiff of his cologne, an intoxicating mix of bourbon and sandalwood.
“Thanks for being good citizens and taking a look,” he said, his gaze bouncing between us. “But it’s not always safe to go playing vigilante. It can lead to getting yourself into trouble in one way or another.”
“Got it.” Lily gave him a thumbs up. “I’ll try to remind Emma of that the next time something like this happens.”
“Oh hush,” I said to her, laughing. “It’s not like I was going to go creeping around inside or something.”
Sheriff Hewitt’s gaze stopped on me, his piercing blue eyes boring into mine for a long moment. “Probably best not to tamper with a crime scene.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled .
“Have a nice evening, ladies.” He ripped his eyes from mine, tipped his hat and then headed back to his Bronco.
“Whoa, that was intense, ” Lily grinned at me. “Like wow , that was chemistry between the two of you.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I do, and now I know for sure you’re coming with me Thursday to the dance. Mason always works security—it’s the one time I know we’ll see him.”
My stomach tightened with nerves. “I…” I glanced back over to the sheriff, who was talking on the phone. “I guess I could go.”
But I’m not getting my hopes up.