Chapter Five
“You think you can help me.”
The sheriff’s baritone sure was something, even repeating her own words right back to her. Blake pushed off the truck and nodded, resolute. She held up the second reason she had come to find the man before explaining.
“There’s also this,” she said. “Your shirt washed, dried, and ironed with care. You wouldn’t even know it’s been through the wringer.”
The button-up had gone directly into the washer when Blake had gotten home from the sheriff’s department.
She had never been the best at remembering the laundry in a timely manner, but when it came to this particular denim shirt, she had been unusually attentive.
It had, after all, helped cover her as much as its owner had.
It only seemed right to be just as courteous.
The sheriff eyed the shirt with a raised brow. She thought he was going to refuse the gesture for a second, but then he grabbed it and held it against his side with the one arm and kept his coffee in his other. The man was a Ralph Lauren ad come to life as far as Blake was concerned.
“You didn’t have to do all that,” he said, tipping his chin a little to get a better angle on her gaze. “But thanks.”
Blake waved the comment off.
“I might have been a little chaotic recently, but I’m not without manners. Plus, if I hadn’t done it, Lola wouldn’t have let me hear the end of it. Lola being my mom. Aka the lady who will have my hide if I don’t have all my social p’s and q’s together.”
Sheriff Weaver snorted.
Blake paused in what she had intended to say next.
The sheriff looked right near caught.
His humored expression smoothed.
She wasn’t letting him go.
“What was that for?” she asked.
He didn’t hesitate.
“What was what for?”
Blake crossed her arms over her chest. She gave him a mock snort, then pointed to herself.
“You snorted at me just now. I want to know why.” She tilted her head to the side and feigned politeness.
“Don’t tell me you’ve got something against people washing your clothes at home.
What was I supposed to do? Dry-clean it?
” Blake glanced down at the shirt that was pinned against him.
“No offense, but it’s not that nice of a shirt. ”
This time there was no snort, but she could have sworn a smile was trying to tug up at the edges of his lips. It failed.
“You said you washed my shirt because of good manners. Then you said you only did it because of your mother. You only were nice because of the consequence of not being so. I just think it’s funny how you contradicted yourself so fast.”
Blake opened her mouth.
Then she shut it.
Her face was growing hot. Her words would come out boiling next if she didn’t calm down.
So she decided to acknowledge instead of defend herself.
“Hey, not all of us can be so domestic,” she said.
“Just because I had a consequence that forced my hand doesn’t mean I also didn’t have good intentions.
It’s like baking a cake for someone’s birthday.
Normally most people don’t bake cakes at random for you, but if they miss giving you one on your birthday that’s kind of a bummer.
I did it because those are the unwritten rules, but I also genuinely wanted to be helpful after everything that happened.
So follow the same rules and say thank you and let’s move on. ”
The sheriff wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t frowning either.
Blake took that as acceptance. His nod helped prove it further.
“I suppose you’re right about that. Thank you.”
Blake felt like she had given the man some humble pie.
No sooner had she felt some satisfaction did she have to eat a slice herself.
The sheriff had the audacity to start walking around her toward his truck door.
“That’s it?” she asked, doing a little hop, skip, and shuffle to follow. “I didn’t tell you what I could help you with yet.”
She stopped between him and the driver’s-side door, sliding in before he could even reach the handle. His eyebrow rose again at the move. Blake watched it with a surge of annoyance. His tone when he spoke next didn’t help.
“I didn’t ask for anything from you. So don’t worry yourself over me.”
His eyes dropped to the door handle next to her.
She took a deep breath and moved out of the way.
She could fight him, get huffier and turn into a Southern woman who just so happened to be a former sheriff, but instead, Blake decided to play it as cool as she could.
She had dealt with strong-willed people all her life.
Just because this one was a sheriff didn’t mean a thing.
She watched him open his door, deposit the shirt on the passenger’s seat, and place his coffee in the cup holder, all like he didn’t have an audience.
When he settled into his seat and went to close the door, Blake cleared her throat and threw bait in the water.
“I can give you Cassandra West.”
Blake was ready to add context, but something changed. The man’s entire body tensed. His brows went up. His eyes found and then swallowed hers. She didn’t need to give him anything more.
He was already hooked.
“What do you mean, you can ‘give me Cassandra West’?” he asked.
Blake took a small step forward and lowered her voice.
“When Price was driving me home yesterday, he mentioned you had been having a hard time getting her to talk to you. Since she seems to be skirting you, I’m assuming it’s not for a case.
At least not one where your badge would work, or else you would have already had her talking.
” Blake patted her chest. “I can get you a casual conversation with her.”
“You’re friends with Cassandra West?”
Blake didn’t like his tone. Hers came out a little huffier, regardless of trying to remain completely civil.
“We go way back. She’ll talk if I’m there. Of that, I’m sure.”
“If you’re there,” he deadpanned.
“If I’m there,” she repeated.
Blake took another small step forward. She made a show of turning her wrist over to look at her watch.
“And, as it so happens, my presence can be helpful right about now.” Blake gave the man a big old grin. “What do you say, Sheriff? Do you want my help or not?”
A part of Blake expected the man to grumble or try to dissuade the notion that he needed help. Instead, he surprised her.
He nodded.
“Your car or mine?”
Blake mentally hiccupped. Her face started to heat.
Both states made her mentally scold herself.
“Follow me in yours, or else the whole town will be talking about us riding together,” she said, regaining her composure. “Meeting up is fine, showing up together will get everyone’s mouths flapping.”
He nodded again.
“After you,” he said, motioning out to the parking lot.
And that was that.
Blake had hooked the sheriff and would be repaying her debt to him. All while the kids were in daycare and Lola was out being social.
It felt good.
It felt—
“Miss Bennet?”
Blake’s body turned back on reflex.
“Yeah?”
The sheriff wasn’t smiling, but she heard something different in his tone when he spoke.
“Call me Liam.”
THERE WERE TWO cars parked outside of the Twenty-Two Coffee Shop.
Liam let Blake take the last open parking spot, and he slid his truck into the drug store’s lot across the street.
By the time he was crossing over Main on foot, Blake was standing on the sidewalk and staring up at the café’s sign.
Her hair was loose. It looked nice against the light-colored blouse she was wearing.
Her expression, however, was flitting between a scowl and a smirk.
When she saw him, she nodded up to the sign.
“We might have all gotten older, but some things really haven’t changed a bit.”
Liam waited for an explanation. Blake didn’t give one.
“Make sure you order something frilly-sounding,” she followed up instead. “You don’t want to offend Corrie.”
“Why? She doesn’t own this place.”
Blake snorted.
“No, but Cassandra does, and if you make Corrie happy, Cassandra will follow. Same with the opposite end of the experience. Make one twin angry, you get the other one angry too.” That scowl-smirk combo smoothed into an easy-to-define feeling.
She gave him a raised brow. “Don’t tell me you’ve been in Seven Roads for two years, and this is the first you’re hearing of the twins.
The Daniels family is a part of town lore 101. ”
Blake didn’t give him space to respond.
He was finding she was a point-A-to-point-B kind of woman. She didn’t stray from her target. At least, not long enough for him to get a few more words in.
Liam wasn’t sure if he disliked that quality though. The South had a habit of churning out people who spent more time talking about nothing than not. At least with Blake, she seemed to edit out the time-wasting part.
The little bell over the front door dinged as she led the way inside of the shop.
Liam had been in the café several times but had never really lingered.
It was a small space with only a handful of tables and chairs and a bar that took up more than half of the tight area.
Having a quiet cup of coffee to himself had never been an option in the shop.
Their to-go service had been his best plan.
Now he settled into a chair next to one of the larger plate glass windows that looked out at the sidewalk that wrapped around the edge of the corner lot.
The old pocked road that led from Main to one of the older established neighborhoods was in desperate need of repair.
According to Mayor Tufton, that was an almost impossible task given their current town funds.
Mayor Tufton and his little sports car never drove down Main unless it was campaign time.
The mayor had a habit of keeping his head down outside of town repair too. The moment he had heard that Liam was still looking into Missy’s death had been the moment he had decided to have a lot of opinions on why they shouldn’t have a lot of opinions on the matter.