Chapter 5
FIVE
CORD
The minute we rolled back into the bay, I stripped out of my turnout coat and let it drop onto the bench with a heavy thump. Sweat stuck my shirt to my back even though the call had been a nothingburger. Just a rogue batch of burned experimental cookies at Pie Hard tripping the alarm.
Again.
Donkey pulled off his gloves. “I swear, Lola Taggert sets those alarms on purpose just to flirt with the crew.”
Moose snorted. “You say that like it’s not working.”
“She offered me a pie,” Twitch added, bouncing in place as usual. “Bourbon pecan. I think it was a bribe.”
“It’s always a bribe,” Peach said, rolling her eyes as she unfastened her helmet. “The question is what for.”
“Attention.” I kicked my boots off with a grin. “Lola’s basically Huckleberry Creek’s answer to Cupid in an apron.”
“She’s got that matchmaking glint in her eye,” Donkey added as we headed toward the kitchen. “Saw her granddaughter there too. Poor thing looked like she wanted to crawl into the dough mixer and disappear. ”
“Allie?” Moose asked. “She works front counter sometimes, right?”
“Yup,” Donkey said. “Sweet girl. Fast on the register. Good at hiding.”
“Can you blame her?” I reached for the coffeepot. “If Lola were my grandmother, I’d have an escape route mapped and rehearsed.”
They all laughed, the kind that echoed off the tile and carried through the bones of the building. This rhythm felt good. After a full shift of adrenaline, or a fake-out like today, this was the part that let us breathe.
Still, as I poured myself a mug of joe and leaned against the counter, my brain drifted somewhere else. To someone else.
Lucy Sullivan.
I didn’t know much about her—not really—but the auction wasn’t letting go of me as easily as it should’ve.
Twitch didn’t even wait for mugs to be poured before jumping in to the hot topic of the moment. “Fifteen hundred dollars.” He dumped three packets of sugar into his cup like it owed him interest. “That’s gotta be a department record.”
It was, but that wasn’t the reason everybody was talking about Rhett MacAvoy this morning. No, it was all about who had bid fifteen hundred dollars on him.
“For one date?” Donkey dropped onto the worn recliner with a groan. “Hell, for that much money, Pepper could’ve bought him a used truck and still had enough left over for dinner.”
I eyed him. “Where are you buying used vehicles?”
“Do you think Tater knew she was gonna bid?” Peach glanced toward the duty board as if it might have answers. “He looked like someone hit him with a two-by-four.”
“I mean, wouldn’t you if your ex bid that kind of money on you?” Meatball asked .
Moose leaned his big frame against the doorway. “Think they’re getting back together?”
“I hope not,” Twitch muttered, then caught himself. “I mean—I hope yes. I’m just saying that’s a lot of money to drop on an ex.”
“She didn’t look thrilled about it,” Meatball said. “More like someone dared her.”
Peach smirked. “Or blackmailed her with pie.”
“She was wearing that green dress,” Donkey added. “You remember the green dress.”
“Oh, I remember the green dress,” I said before I could stop myself.
Five heads turned in my direction.
I coughed into my coffee and stared down into the mug like it might save me from having eyes in my head to notice that Tater’s ex-wife was still a curvy bombshell. “She looked nice. That’s all.”
Peach arched a brow, unconvinced, but mercifully didn’t press.
The conversation spiraled back into what-ifs and bets on whether Rhett would chicken out or show up with flowers.
We hadn’t seen much of him at the station since he got back from deployment with his Reserve unit.
He’d gotten injured in a firefight and was still doing PT.
I let them talk around me, the voices fading to background static while my brain replayed a different moment.
A quiet smile. A hesitant handshake. A flicker of something I couldn’t name when our eyes met.
Lucy.
Not flashy. Not dramatic. But something had clicked, even if I didn’t understand why yet. I’d felt it. And that was enough to keep her at the front of my mind while the rest of the room buzzed about someone else.
I took another sip of coffee, letting their Pepper theories run wild until the timing felt right. “Guess that makes me the opening act nobody remembers.”
Twitch snorted into his cereal. “Please. You went for a thousand bucks. That’s not an opening act, that’s headline-adjacent.”
“By someone’s grandmother,” Moose added. “Which is impressive in its own right.”
“She was bidding with purpose,” Donkey said. “Like a woman with a plan.”
Peach pointed at me with her coffee mug. “And you looked real nervous when she won. Like she was gonna have you regrout her bathroom shirtless.”
“She didn’t buy me for herself.” I kept my voice even. “She bought me for her granddaughter.”
“Ooh.” Twitch perked up. “That’s a twist. What’s her name?”
“Lucy Sullivan.” For some reason, the name tasted like something I shouldn’t say out loud—but once I had, I couldn’t take it back. “Anyone know her?”
A pause. Just long enough for the silence to feel pointed.
Moose shook his head. “Nope.”
Peach squinted like she was mentally flipping through the town roster. “Sullivan doesn’t ring any bells.”
“Which is weird,” Donkey said. “In a town this size, most folks can’t sneeze without someone updating the group chat.”
“Yeah.” I tried to sound casual, even as reluctant curiosity sparked in my brain. “How does someone manage to keep a low profile around here?”
“Maybe she’s got secrets,” Meatball said with mock drama. “Or maybe she’s just smarter than the rest of us.”
Twitch leaned back in his chair. “You planning a background check, Hollywood?”
“Nah,” I said, keeping my tone easy. “I just figured if she came with a grandma guarantee, I should at least know what I signed up for.”
Moose leaned around the fridge door. “You sort out the details of the date?”
“Not yet.”
Peach looked up from her clipboard. “Why not?”
“I’m working on it.” That was what I was telling myself as I continued to put off texting her to make the arrangements.
Twitch blinked. “You need a strategy now? I thought your whole brand was effortless charm.”
“I usually have something to go on,” I said. “This one’s a blank slate.”
Donkey whistled. “She really is off the grid. No one even knows what she does.”
“Maybe she’s in witness protection,” Meatball offered. “Or part of a secret pie mafia. Lola would have connections.”
That got a chuckle from the room.
“Look,” I said, “I’ll text her. I just want the first date to not suck.”
Peach raised a brow. “The first date? Since when do you ever think about a second with anyone, let alone with someone who bought a date with you?”
I shrugged and took a sip of coffee. “Not what I meant. I just want to make a good impression.”
The ribbing moved on, but I could feel them all filing that away.
Not because I was smitten. Just because I wasn’t brushing it off. And that alone made it something they’d remember.
While the others cracked jokes and batted ideas around like a volleyball, Diego Rivera stayed off to the side, kneeling next to the rig with a hose fitting in his lap and a wrench in one hand.
He hadn’t said a word since we got back.
Just worked in that steady, meditative way of his that had earned him the nickname Paladin.
As if the conversation wasn’t happening.
Like he didn’t have opinions, or maybe just didn’t feel the need to say them out loud.
But then, without even glancing up, he said, “Sometimes the ones who don’t say much are the ones worth hearing.”
The room went still for a breath and a half.
Then Meatball clapped a hand over his heart. “Damn, Rivera. That got me right in the feels.”
Twitch raised both arms. “That was like… movie trailer wisdom. Someone write that down.”
Peach chuckled, and Donkey muttered something about embroidering it on a throw pillow.
The moment broke.
But I stayed quiet.
Because that one line—that soft, offhand truth—lodged itself deep.
And I didn’t know if he was talking about Lucy. Or me.