5. Garrett
CHAPTER 5
Garrett
Owen slumped in the passenger seat with his arms crossed. He hadn’t looked me in the eyes once since getting off the couch and grabbing his backpack. He could be mad at me all he wanted. I wasn’t letting him get away with this.
Silence seemed appropriate on the drive to the bakery. He knew he was in trouble. I’d let him stew in it for a while.
But damn it, why had he done that? What had been going through his fourteen-year-old mind when he’d decided to skip school and rob a bakery? There was no shortage of snack food at home. I tried to keep us healthy, but I wasn’t a tyrant about it. If he was going to ditch school, why not just go home and raid the pantry? Why add theft to the mix?
I didn’t want to make it about me, but what would happen if people got word that Deputy Haven’s kid was a shoplifter?
We pulled up to the bakery and parked outside. The building was painted pink and white, with lines that evoked a fancy dessert. Black and white striped awnings shielded the windows and door from the worst of the mountain weather, and a sign in the shape of a cupcake said open .
I glanced at Owen. He hunkered down in the seat, as if he’d rather the ground open up and swallow him whole than go inside and apologize to Doris Tilburn.
“Here’s the deal, pal,” I said, deciding to give him at least the illusion that he had a choice in the matter. “You can go inside, apologize to Doris, and we’ll figure out how to pay her back. Or I can take you in and hand you over to one of the other deputies.”
He seemed to consider that for a second. When he answered, I could hear the hint of worry in his voice. “Fine. I’ll go say sorry.”
We got out and I motioned for Owen to go in ahead of me. He shuffled to the door, carrying his backpack, his shoulders hunched in defeat. I followed him inside and took off my aviators.
The scent of sugar, bread, and vanilla washed over me. Angel Cakes always smelled good enough to give me a head rush.
“Be right there!” a woman’s voice called from the back.
Didn’t sound like Doris. Maybe the woman who worked the front counter was there. Beth? Her name might have been Beth, but I didn’t remember for sure.
I put a light hand on Owen’s shoulder and nudged him farther inside. “We don’t need to hang out by the door. It’s not like you’re going to make a run for it.”
He looked back at me, eyes narrowed in a glare.
“Don’t test me. I can still catch you.”
“I’m not gonna run.”
I didn’t actually think he would, but I kept myself between him and the door anyway.
Habit.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, so I pulled it out to check. Aunt Louise again. I’d have to call her after I took care of this, or I’d never hear the end of it .
“Hi, can I help you?”
I looked up from my phone and froze.
It was like my brain completely turned off. All I could do was stare.
She was on the taller side with long blond hair tied in a low ponytail, a pink and blue floral headband keeping any loose strands off her face. She wore an Angel Cakes Bakery apron over her T-shirt and her eyes were a mesmerizing green. But it was her smile that almost knocked me over.
Big, bright, beautiful.
She was gorgeous.
I blinked. What was I doing there? Why was I standing in a swirl of sugar-scented air while this incredible woman smiled at me?
“Hi?” she said, her smile fading. “Do you guys need something?”
Owen hiked his backpack up his shoulder and looked at me like I was the most uncool, annoying person he’d ever seen in his life.
“Um…” I cleared my throat, hoping to restart my brain. It didn’t work very well. “My uh, son…”
“Owen,” he said when I didn’t finish.
“Right, my son Owen.” I paused again while she watched me, her big green eyes full of expectation. “He has something to say to you. Or to Doris, if she’s here.”
“No, I’m afraid she’s not. My aunt is retiring and I’m taking over. I’m Harper.”
Harper? This was Harper? The woman Aunt Louise had set me up with?
I’d bailed on a date with her ?
Shit. I’d stood her up and my son had shoplifted from her. We were not going to be her favorite people.
Owen dropped his backpack between his feet and pulled out the bags of cookies he’d taken. He took them to the counter and set them in front of her, then hesitated for a second before speaking.
The words tumbled out of his mouth like he was desperate to get it over with. “I took stuff and I’m really sorry please don’t let him arrest me.”
Harper’s eyes moved from Owen, to me, then back again. I glanced down, remembering I was in uniform. Yep, just your friendly neighborhood sheriff’s deputy with his delinquent kid.
“Did he say he needed to arrest you?” Her voice was gentle with the slightest hint of amusement.
“He said he might.”
She picked through the plastic bags, as if taking inventory. “Is this everything?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“You ate some already.”
“Yeah.”
She tapped her lips. “Hmm. What should we do about this?” Her gaze moved to me again. “What do you think, Deputy…?”
Oh, shit. Here we go. “Haven. Garrett Haven.”
Her eyes lit up in recognition. “Garrett Haven? As in Louise Haven’s nephew?”
Owen looked back at me. “Dad, do you know her?”
“We haven’t had the chance to actually meet,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s me,” I said. “And I’m sorry about that.”
“Oh, it’s okay.” She waved her hand, like it didn’t matter. “It was for the best.” She turned back to Owen. “Anyway, some of these are missing—in your stomach, of course—and others are broken or smashed. While I do appreciate, and accept, your apology, I can’t sell these now.”
Wait, for the best? Why? Had she met someone else while waiting for me?
I bet it was one of my brothers. Was it Luke? Theo? I’d have their asses .
“I don’t have money to pay for them,” Owen said.
“Hmm.” She tapped her lips again. “I have an idea. Dad, can I see you back here for a minute?”
She was talking to me. I cleared my throat again, trying to rid myself of the anger at my brothers that they probably didn’t deserve. I didn’t know if either of them had even met Harper.
“Stay here.” I leveled Owen with a stern dad-stare.
He nodded.
Harper’s lips twitched in the hint of a smile and she motioned for me to come around the counter. I followed her into the kitchen and my heart beat a little harder as she stepped closer to me. She cast a quick glance toward the front of the store, then took another step.
Right onto my foot.
“Sugar cookies,” she muttered, as if it was a curse word. “Sorry. I was just thinking, I don’t want to step on your toes because you’re the dad, and then I literally stepped on your toe.”
I didn’t feel a thing, except a mild pang of disappointment that she’d moved back. “It’s fine. Didn’t hurt.”
“Good. Anyway, it seems like it would be a good idea for Owen to pay the bakery back somehow. And I don’t mean you, I mean him. But, as he said, no money.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“What if he works off the cost of everything he took? He could come in on Saturday. Do dishes, sweep the floors, that kind of thing.”
“That’s brilliant.”
Her smile almost knocked me over again. “Yeah?”
Looking right into her eyes—and at that smile—my brain stopped working again. So I just nodded.
“Okay, great.”
“I’m sorry about all this. He’s usually a good kid. He’s never done anything like this before. ”
“Yeah, he doesn’t look like a hardened criminal. Yet.” She winked.
She was killing me.
“I’ll make sure he’s here on Saturday.”
“It’s a plan.”
We were done. I needed to go back to Owen. Take him to school or home or wherever I was going to take him so I could get back to work. But I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes away from Harper.
“So, okay then.” Her eyes flicked toward the front of the store. “You probably need to take him home or something. You know, before he goes on another crime spree.”
“Right, yeah.” I blinked, feeling like an idiot. “Sorry.”
She just smiled.
I kept hesitating. Should I say something about our date? Let it go? She’d said it had been for the best. Why? Now that she saw me in person, she wasn’t interested?
Ouch.
“And I’m sorry about last night. Work got in the way.”
“It’s fine. Like I said, for the best. I’m not really in a place where dating makes sense for me right now.”
That eased the tension in my shoulders a little. At least she hadn’t met someone else.
Or she was lying.
She didn’t seem like she was lying.
I needed to go. I’d blown past awkward and was barreling straight toward mortifying.
“Thanks again.”
I went back to the front of the store where Owen waited right where I’d left him. He cast a longing glance at the cookies on the counter and shouldered his backpack.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Bye Owen,” Harper called as we left. “I’ll see you Saturday. ”
The door shut behind us and the fresh spring air replaced the decadent smells of the bakery.
“What did she mean, she’ll see me Saturday?” he asked as we walked to my car.
“You stole from her. She can’t recoup the cost of what you took and you don’t have money to pay her back. So you’re going to work it off.”
“What?”
“You heard me. You’re going to go to the bakery this weekend to help Harper until you’ve worked off your debt.”
He sighed, his eyes downcast. “Okay.”
“And no bike until I feel I can trust you again. I’ll drive you to school and you’ll go to Grandma and Grandpa’s in the afternoon until I’m off work.”
“I’m grounded from my bike?”
“Hey man, you’re the one who broke trust. You have to earn it back. Maybe next time you’re tempted to steal something, you’ll think twice.”
He nodded and opened the passenger door.
I got in and checked my messages. No new texts, and nothing from work either. That was a small miracle.
“What was wrong with you in there?” Owen asked.
“Nothing. What are you talking about?”
“You forgot my name.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
I slipped on my aviators and turned on the ignition. “It was just a momentary blip.”
“A blip? What’s a blip? Is that like a senior moment?”
“A senior moment? I’m not even forty.”
“I know, you’re like super old.”
I rolled my eyes. Nothing like a teenager to keep you humble. “Yeah, I’m old and it was a senior moment.”
“Thought so.”
Maybe it was better that Owen assumed age was getting the best of his dad. Because the truth? That a woman I’d never met had just about dropped me to the floor with her smile? I did not need him to know that.
Because I certainly had no idea what I was going to do about it.