Chapter 7
Lake Road was slick with rain and visibility was terrible as rain slashed across her windshield. Grace drove with both hands on the wheel and the wipers on high, squinting at the weak illumination of her headlights as steam curled up off the asphalt.
In the back seat Lily narrated the drive in detail.
The difference between a regular cloud and a rain cloud.
Why Marshmallow didn't like to go outside in rain.
The order of importance of all eight of her stuffed seals, which had a complicated ranking system that Lily had apparently devised recently.
Then she went quiet, the way she always did when the car's motion lulled her into a relaxed, sleepy state. She watched the lake go by with the same fascination for water her father’d had.
Ironic that she had her favorite seal pressed against her cheek.
Grace had started giving Lily stuffed seals as a way of reminding herself that part of Liam was still here with her in the form of their baby girl.
Lily didn’t understand the significance of the seals yet, but one day she would.
The time she’d tried to explain to Lily about a year ago that her daddy was a SEAL, Lily had burst into tears, upset that her father was a literal sea creature.
Grace was grateful for her daughter’s silence now.
She needed time to compose herself and move past the unreasoning terror that had gripped her back at the cottage.
But no matter how hard her logical mind tried to tell her instincts that there was nothing to be afraid of, the jittery charge of adrenaline refused to fade.
She checked her rear view mirror at least a hundred times on the drive to Tessa’s place, and every time a set of headlights came into view behind her, she sped up until she left the other vehicle behind. Thankfully, none of them sped up to keep pace with her.
The Lawrence farm came up on the right. Even from the road she could see Loretta standing indignantly in the front pasture, registering her opinion of the rain to anyone who hadn't asked for it. Brown Dog was parked on the farmhouse’s wraparound porch, sitting by the back door like a furry traffic cone, watching her car turn in.
She rolled to a stop, and the dog ambled around the porch and out of sight with the dignity of a creature that had never been in any hurry.
Must be nice to be that unflappable. She didn’t think of herself as being flighty or nervous, but the strangeness around her store had her feeling both flighty and nervous.
She couldn’t imagine how scared she would be if Reno hadn’t been keeping an eye on the store and making common sense security suggestions to her.
Tessa was already on the porch, a jacket pulled over a long sweater and her hair caught back in a quick knot. How one woman could look that beautiful while that completely unprimped, Grace didn’t understand.
Behind her, Reno was leaning against the wall of the house with his black cowboy hat in his hand, looking out at the rain. His hat might be black, but he was definitely one of the good guys. He didn't look like he'd slept much recently. Of course, that was entirely her fault.
Grace got Lily out of the back seat and Lily took off across the wet gravel as if she'd been launched from a cannon.
"Hold on, Sweetheart, the steps are slippery," Grace started.
Lily was already halfway up them. Her feet slipped and she plunged forward, face first toward the top porch step.
Reno moved so fast Grace hardly saw the blur of him lunging forward and catching Lily, her face only six inches or so above the sharp stone corner.
Grace ran for her daughter and the cover of the porch and got there in time to hear him say cheerfully, "Hello, Princess. Loretta's been waiting for you."
Tessa stepped forward and gave Grace a quick, hard hug.
Lily demanded "Has Lo-wetta been working today?"
Reno looked up questioningly at Tessa and Grace.
Tessa laughed. “She’s working very hard right now. It takes a lot of energy to stand in the middle of a rainstorm and yell at every car that drives by, demanding that they make the sky stuff stop.”
Lily giggled. “Sky stuff? That’s funny, Aunt Tessa.”
"I try. Speaking of which, I hear you’re an expert at drawing. I happen to have a new coloring book and a brand new box of crayons inside, and I was wondering if you could test them out for me.”
“Yay!” Lily shouted.
Tessa held out her hand and Lily took it eagerly. Tessa shot Grace a look over Lily's head that said she expected to hear all about what happened between her and Reno later and steered Lily inside. The screen door bumped shut behind them.
Reno put on his hat and nodded to Grace. He didn't say anything.
"Ready to go?" she asked.
"Yes, Ma'am."
He came down the steps good leg first with a small hesitation each time he stepped down with his bad leg. She started to head for her mommy-mobile, but he said quickly, “Let me drive. My heavy duty truck is better suited for bad weather than your car.”
“You’re exhausted. I’ll drive.”
“Please. Let me do this for you. I can see how frazzled you are. And my truck really is safer. If nothing else, I have brand new, all-weather tires on the truck that’ll grip the road better than yours.”
She wrinkled her nose. She’d been meaning to take her car in to Emmett’s Auto Shop and have Boone put a new set of tires on it.
He’d mentioned to her the last time he changed her oil that the tire treads were worn down almost completely.
But she’d been so busy, and then so distracted, that she’d forgotten about it completely.
Reno strode ahead of her to the passenger side of his truck to open the door for her. She caught his wince, though, as he lengthened and sped his steps.
As she brushed past him, she murmured, “I won’t melt. Please don’t hurt your knee on my account.
He cupped her elbow and gave her a boost as she made the step up onto the running board. The casual strength he lifted her with took her breath away. She’d forgotten just how strong big, athletic men could be.
He closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side. He climbed in with a sharp suck of breath she pretended to ignore. He turned around in the gravel barnyard and pointed the truck toward town.
The wipers thumped steadily, and the lake on their left was the color of steel.
"Thanks for coming along with me," she finally said.
"My pleasure."
"Have you gotten any sleep in the past twenty-four hours?" she asked.
"A bit."
"So, that's a no?"
"That's a nap yesterday afternoon after I got home from the bakery and before I went back at dark."
“How bad is what you and the sheriff found on the surveillance video?”
He was quiet for a beat. Then, "The footage isn't bad in the sense of . . .” He broke off. “It's just . . .” He broke off again. “Wheeler will walk you through it."
"Tessa said the same thing."
"Tessa knows you’re a gentle soul and didn’t want you to be frightened."
"And you're being . . ."
"Practical."
"I was going to say overprotective."
He made a quiet sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "I've been called worse."
“Just tell me the bakery’s okay.”
“It’s fine. Nobody went inside, and no damage was done outside.”
The rain eased and then intensified again.
They passed a pasture where a great blue heron waded with slow, stately grace through a broad puddle.
Although Reno only glanced over at the majestic bird, he watched it with his whole attention for that moment.
Liam used to do the same thing, but his observations took the form of threat assessments.
Reno studied things as if he wanted to analyze them until he understood everything about them.
She wondered if that was what made her keep looking at him.
He was the first person she’d met since Liam that she wanted to understand.
So far she wasn’t doing that great a job of it.
She knew he was decent, and kind, and thoughtful.
And definitely honorable. But she knew practically nothing else about him.
One thing she did know, though. She wanted to learn more about him.
The Cobbler Cove Sheriff's Department occupied a one-story brick building with less personality than a clod of dirt. Inside it smelled like old carpet and bad coffee and the faint chemical sweetness of whatever they cleaned the bathrooms with.
At the front desk, a woman named Velma Grayhill who had been the dispatcher since before Grace was born, looked up from a crossword puzzle and said, "He's expecting you, Grace. Hey, Reno. I’ll buzz you two through to the back."
"Howdy, Velma," Reno replied.
"How's the leg?" Velma asked.
"Still attached."
She grinned and buzzed them through.
Wheeler was at his desk in a small office off the squad room. His brown sheriff’s jacket was draped over the back of his chair and his tan shirt’s sleeves were rolled up to the elbows. He closed his laptop and stood up when they walked in.
"Grace. Thanks for stopping by. Have a seat." He gestured at two chairs side-by-side in front of his desk. Reno held one for Grace then sank gingerly into the second one, giving his left thigh just above his knee a rub.
She murmured a hello as he picked up his coffee cup and a stack of papers in front of them and set them aside.
"I'll keep this short," Wheeler said. "I want to walk you through what we saw on your security camera and talk about what to do next."
"All right."
"Couple of things up front. One, you did the right thing getting that camera in fast. Two, nobody got inside your shop. Three, what's on this footage is unsettling and you're going to have feelings about it. Take whatever time you need. The footage isn't going anywhere."
She nodded. Her hands were already cold.