Chapter 3
JUSTIN
Ashrill siren jolted him straight up in bed. Justin’s heart got the wakeup memo and pounded harder than a war drum. One second he drifted in a dreamless peace, the next he scanned the dark for the unknown emergency.
The blaring ringtone for his PR manager came from the nightstand beside the clock that read four thirty-two a.m.
Justin dove for the phone and tapped blindly at the screen until the call connected. “What?”
“Good morning to you too,” Nick said in greeting.
Justin pushed his short hair back and swung his legs off the side of the bed. “Sorry. You yanked me out of sleep. What’s wrong?”
“Well, your friend, Garrett, is the worst friend ever. You need to fire him, by the way.”
Justin stood and crossed the darkness, flipping on the light and squinting against its blinding intensity. “What did he do?”
“Did you tell him you’re trying to keep a low profile? Did you mention that your PR team needs to approve all photos and videos before they’re released?”
“Um,” Justin stammered, rubbing the heel of his hand over his heavy eyes. “Not in those exact words.”
“So I should thank you too for this early morning? You know, it would have been nice to sleep in on my wedding anniversary.”
Right. The sun wouldn’t be up for a few hours, and he was getting a call from Nick with more attitude than a moody teenager. “Sorry about that. Happy anniversary. Now, do you want to explain?”
“Garrett Johnson posted a video of you on social media last night. I don’t know of anyone who has gone viral from eating a donut, but you’ve managed to do just that.”
Justin stopped pacing, continuing to blink away the sleep he wanted to regain. “Come again?”
“You’re viral and somehow attractive to the entire female population while eating dessert. Don’t ask me how this worked, but it did. This is exactly what you wanted to avoid, so you’re not going to be happy.”
Justin covered his eyes with a hand. Of all the things he could have guessed, this wasn’t it. “He did what?”
“Focus, man! You got over a million views from stuffing your face with the cliche cop stereotype.”
Good grief. Justin had severed his civil relationship with four a.m. months ago, and shaking off the fog of sleep was taking too long. “Send it to me.”
Justin’s phone dinged, and he pulled it away from his face. Opening the message from Nick, he scanned the post—one linked to Justin’s social media account that his PR team managed.
One point seven million views. The post was time-stamped twelve hours before. Justin read the words, glanced at the video, and read the words again. “This guy needs a date to cuddle this Christmas!” Justin shouted. So much for waking up slowly. His heart was about to race right out of his chest.
“It’s pretty clever. I’ll give him that,” Nick said, less outraged than Justin was experiencing.
“Can you make it go away?” he asked. “It’s still new. You can take it down, right?”
Nick made a tsk noise behind his teeth. “I’m afraid this one has morphed. It has over fifty thousand shares.”
Justin sucked in a quick breath and choked. Bending at the waist, he coughed past the attack on his throat. “How many?”
“Fifty thousand. Oh, look. It has three hundred thousand more views now than it had an hour ago when I woke up to the Google alert.”
Justin sat back down on the bed and focused on calming his breathing. Caroline would know he was in town. Well, she’d know soon. She was probably still sleeping.
This wasn’t the way he wanted her to find out. He’d been trying to work up the guts to approach her since he came home. Now, she would think he was looking for a Christmas fling.
Garrett was going to get an earful. Justin hadn’t exactly filled him in on his past here and the desire for anonymity. That part was on him.
But looking for a date to cuddle this Christmas? It had Garrett written all over it.
“There’s no way you can stop it?” Justin asked.
“I can, but it would be messy.”
“What is it you’re not telling me?”
“Well, I guarantee your visibility will skyrocket after this. I could get you a donut commercial deal.”
Justin groaned. “Be serious, please.”
Nick knew how to spin publicity into whatever leverage he needed. He was the reason Justin could disappear from the athletic world and still make more passive income in a year than most people made in their entire lives.
“I’m kidding. What about a charity fundraiser?”
Justin dropped the hand from his eyes. “What does that have to do with donuts and dates?”
“Win a date with Justin Mckinnon. A sweepstakes. Those are still popular, but not quite as powerful as they were in the early nineties.”
Justin shook his head, rattling his brain inside his skull. “You want to auction me off for a date?”
“Not an auction. People make a donation to a charity of your choice to enter, and one lucky entry wins an evening of your time. A Christmas date in your picturesque hometown of Redemption Ridge.”
“No, no. I’m not—”
“Before you say no, think about it. You could bring in a ton of donations. What about a food bank or a safe house? We’ve partnered with those before.”
Because they were the two causes that hit close to home for Justin. Growing up with an abusive dad left plenty of invisible scars.
“I can’t. I—” Justin flopped back on his bed. “Nick, have I ever mentioned that I’m in love, and I’m pretty sure she hates me?”
“Well, there’s a bit of news,” Nick said.
Justin punched his fist down into the mattress. “If I ever want a shot with her again—”
“I can’t use your pretty face to lure women into donating to charity anymore.
Got it. I’ll do what I can with this, but what about this girl?
She must be local. Oh, Justin, my man. This is why you crawled back to your home town.
” Nick barked a laugh. Not really the support Justin needed at the moment.
“If you have any useful advice, I’m all ears.
” Justin ended the call and tossed his phone onto the bed.
What was he going to do about Caroline? Garret’s stupid post put a ticking time bomb on his plan.
He’d thought he had time to prepare how to beg for her forgiveness and win her back. Now, he’d lost the element of surprise.
Who was he kidding? He’d been in town for months and hadn’t figured out what to say. He wasn’t going to get some kind of epiphany before the day was over.
“Thanks again, guys. I hate to have wasted your time,” Piper Lockhart said as she wrung her hands.
Justin finished scribbling the note to follow up about security footage with the business across the street from the thrift store, Second Chances. “Being cautious is never a waste of time. It’s good to have a report on file in case you find something missing later or this happens again.”
“Yeah. It helps that you’re so close to the busy part of downtown. Not much goes on around here that we wouldn’t be able to see on security footage,” Garrett added.
Piper smiled for the first time since Justin and Garrett arrived at the thrift store to check on a triggered alarm. “Thanks. I’m so glad it was nothing.”
Justin copied the report number and tore the small sheet out of his pocket notebook. “Here’s the information about the report. You can pick it up at the department tomorrow morning. Here’s my card too.”
“Is there anything else we can do for you?” Garrett asked.
“I appreciate your help. Graham is going to work with me tomorrow morning.”
Garrett gave Piper a nod and shook her hand. “Call us if you need anything.”
“I hope I don’t have to call you,” Piper said, clearly more relaxed than earlier when she’d been unsure if someone had broken into Second Chances.
Justin and Garrett stepped out the front door into the darkness and made their way to the cruiser. The shift was almost over, and Justin’s shoulders were tense from the topic they needed to address.
Garrett slid into the driver’s seat and huffed. “Are you ever going to talk to me?”
Justin pulled out his tablet and started working on the report. “I don’t have anything nice to say yet.”
“Come on,” Garrett groaned. “I said I was sorry. Let me buy you a donut.”
“Not a chance. I’m never eating in front of you again.”
“Come to Dino’s with me and Cindy tonight. There’s a band playing.”
“I appreciate all the invites to hang out with you, but being the third wheel isn’t as fun as you think it is.”
“I get it, but I’m just trying to make it up to you.” Garrett rubbed the back of his neck. “How was I supposed to know you were hiding out in plain sight and brooding over a long-lost love?”
Justin shot a glare at his partner. His friend status was up for debate. Maybe he’d start a sweepstakes for that role instead. “I told you I didn’t need any dates this Christmas.”
“But you do want one,” Garrett said.
“No, I definitely don’t.”
“I mean you want a date with someone. One someone,” Garrett said, trying to draw special meaning out of a few words.
Justin shook his head. “Do you even hear yourself? You make no sense.”
“You want a date with Caroline! You should have just told me.” Garrett gasped. “That’s why you never want to go to The Cakery. You don’t want to face your one true love.”
“My what?”
“The one that got away. Whoa. This all makes sense. Everybody in town knows about the beef between your dad and the Taylors. You and Caroline have this starcrossed lovers thing going on. Congrats, Romeo!”
Caroline had never blamed him for the sins of his father, and he still believed she’d prayed him out of the dark pit he’d grown up in. She couldn’t have known that those prayers would eventually rip them apart.
The streets on the downtown square were lit in the glow of the Christmas lights. Every shop and light pole was covered in twinkling white.
Half an hour later, they walked along the sidewalks of downtown, splitting up at the corner by the courthouse to patrol as the straggling tourists made their way back to their vehicles after the shops closed.
Wearing the uniform usually meant people avoided eye contact, which made it the only time Justin could walk around without being recognized.
The instinct to cower in front of people who might know him hadn’t subsided.
It wasn’t his public career that bothered him. It was his family. Chuck McKinnon left a mark on people’s lives, and it was never a good one.
A small group of women poured out of a shop. One woman hiked a toddler up on her hip as she tried and failed to soothe his cries.
“You’re not getting candy. It’s past your bedtime.” She turned to the other women. “Come on. I have to get this one home.”
One of the other women looked at Justin and gasped. Immediately, he saw the look of recognition in her eyes. The way she froze. The way her shoulders raised in excitement. He knew that look from obsessive fans.
“You’re Justin McKinnon! I heard you were in town. I saw the video too.” Her gaze slid down his frame and back up, lifting her smile with it. “You’re looking for a Christmas date.”
“Valerie!”
The blonde with long, straight hair grabbed onto her friend’s arm. “Is that Justin?”
Oh no. It was a terrible sign when strangers used only his first name. Still, he knew how to handle people who approached him.
“You’re Justin McKinnon, the baseball player,” one of the women stated. She was considerably younger than the others but had to be at least eighteen.
“I am.” What else was he supposed to say when someone he didn’t know identified him?
The woman at the back pushed past her friends to the front of the group. “I’ll be your date!”
“Thanks, but I don’t need a date. If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work.”
The blonde woman grabbed Justin’s arm, standing so close to him that he took a step back. “Please. I promise you’ll have the best time on our date.”
Too close. Way too close. “I’m sorry, but I’m really not looking.”
Boy, was he going to be in hot water with these women when they found out he already had someone in mind. He couldn’t find it in himself to care when his blood pressure pounded higher and higher as the women closed in.
“No, I’ll be your date!” another exclaimed.
The few people remaining on the sidewalks turned to see what the shouting was about. The pointing started immediately.
Mayday. Mayday.
“I have to go—”
The woman’s starry eyes said she most certainly would be following him. Shoot. The only way out was to either find a way to get away from them or issue a legal warning for harassment.
Justin turned, pulling from the blonde’s iron grip with a strong jerk. There had to be a place to hide—a store to dip into and disappear.
The bright-pink storefront of The Cakery practically flashed itself at him. The handwritten A-frame sign out front read, “Come in! There’s a cupcake calling your name.”
There most certainly was. This was either a very bad idea, or God was sending Justin a sign. He’d been looking for a chance to talk to Caroline, and maybe this was his moment to fix what he broke twelve years ago.
If anyone would help him right now, it was Caroline. She would understand, considering how they met.