3. Luke
THREE
LUKE
A Subaru Forester the deep blue color of Glimmerstone Lake with Washington plates sat empty on the left side of my shared driveway.
A pile of luggage was stationed on the small covered porch—suitcases, a backpack, a bright yellow cup with a straw, a wicker basket with a hanging polka-dotted sock caught under the lid, and a massive dog bed plopped on top of it all. How big is this dog anyway?
I caught a sigh against the backs of my teeth and rolled my shoulders.
The porch steps and swing were empty. No signs of the woman who’d blown up the message feature on the app. No signs of the obedience school dropout.
Well . . . shit.
I followed the cobblestone path around the side of the duplex to check the backyard, but it was deserted, aside from a gray squirrel perched on the corner of my fence.
He faced away, tail swishing, no doubt preparing to jump.
He’d been trying to best Mrs. Granger’s squirrel-proof bird feeder since I installed it for her a couple of weeks ago.
Before returning to the driveway, I watched as the furry critter launched himself and slid immediately down the pole. The little guy had determination, I’d give him that.
With the neighborhood quiet aside from a kid on a bike a block away, I finally pulled my phone from my uniform pocket and scrolled through the unending stream of messages on the app I’d been ignoring.
Fuck, just what I needed: a chatty guest.
Guest 986: The code doesn’t work.
Guest 986: Can you verify the code?
Guest 986: The one I have is 1577
Guest 986: I’ve tried it three times.
Guest 986: If I get it wrong a fourth time, it says I’ll be locked out.
Guest 986: Welp. I’m locked out.
Guest 986: Sorry!
Guest 986: Are you around?
Guest 986: I think you need to reset the code.
Guest 986: Hello?
Guest 986: Are you ignoring me because of my dog?
Guest 986: I’ve read your pet policy ten times. Ellie meets the criteria.
Guest 986: I’ve already paid your hefty deposit to bring her.
Guest 986: And anyway, I thought you agreed to meet her.
Guest 986: So why aren’t you here to meet her?
Guest 986: Okay, I’ll level with you. I have to pee.
Guest 986: Can you please hurry?
Guest 986: It’s DEFCON level 1.
Guest 986: I’m really not trying to break in, but things are getting desperate.
Guest 986: Did I mention it’s DEFCON level 1?
That was it. The stream of messages ended there.
Shit. Did she break in?
I might not be able to arrest a crow for breaking and entering, but Miss Mayhem with a capital M? That was looking like a different matter entirely.
Feeling a bit smug, I took the steps two at a time.
If this menace of a woman broke into my rental, canceling her reservation would be letting her off lightly.
If she broke the guest rules, she’d have to take it up with the vacation rental company when I booted her and refused to refund her.
And from past experience, I knew it was a battle she wouldn’t win.
But any hopes that I might be able to send the irritating woman on her way before sundown faded as I checked the doors and peered through the windows. All of them were secured, not a trace of anyone inside. The pile of luggage on the front porch made more sense now.
Where did she go?
I returned to the driveway, prepared to give her a call. But my gaze snagged on a mass of white fabric piled over the headrests in the back seat of her car. It reminded me of a ballerina costume Kira wore one year for Halloween, except hers was pink.
Tulle.
White tulle.
My stomach twisted into a tight knot at a memory I’d suppressed.
An empty dressing room, an engagement ring on the vanity counter with a note, and a wedding dress hanging against the back of the door, one strap hung lower on the hanger than the other, as though the second thoughts overcame her before she fully removed it from its satin hanger.
“Did he really call the cops on me?” a woman’s voice called from the middle of the street behind me, shattering the memory and yanking me back to the present.
My gaze lifted to a blonde in tight jeans and an oversized coral flannel shirt tied at her waist. Loose, lazy honey waves of hair danced in the breeze, catching the sunlight as she and a black dog with copper accents and a white strip of fur down its chest approached.
“Officer, I didn’t break in if that’s why you’re here. So you can tell my host to call off the SWAT team. And while you’re at it, tell him to respond to the twenty messages I sent. I’m locked out, but I’m paid in full. I have every right to be here.”
Piercing blue eyes, the same shade as the clear sky, locked on me as she came to a stop in the middle of the driveway. The dog leaned against her leg, looking up at her. A lump formed in my throat, and I was temporarily stunned into silence. Miss Mayhem was nothing like I imagined.
I’d expected . . . What exactly did I expect?
Not a young woman—late twenties, early thirties—dressed as though she could represent our little mountain town on a welcome poster, with curves in all the right places, and stunning blue eyes whose sparkle could cause even the sanest man to walk into oncoming traffic without a second thought.
The Karen I’d envisioned was more Wicked Witch of the West and less . . . a total fucking knockout.
Fuck, man. Keep it professional.
I folded my arms across my chest, burying the fingers that itched to reach for her beneath my biceps. I blamed the impulse on the wedding dress she was clearly hiding in her car. One that triggered a memory I’d buried deep. This wasn’t Raquel. This was . . . Guest 986.
Her name was on the reservation somewhere, but for the life of me, I couldn’t recall what it was.
“Do you need to see my reservation?” she asked when I still hadn’t responded. “I paid in full. Maybe you can give Ellie your blessing so he’ll get off my back about her. Does she look destructive to you?”
The dog locked eyes with me, and I instantly felt stupid for ever picking an argument.
“No, I don’t think—” I tripped over my words, forced to clear my throat and try again.
Before new words successfully formed, her gaze flicked to the back seat where the edges of what I’d bet my badge was a wedding dress peeked out from the back. Her expression shifted, a flash of some emotion I couldn’t pin flared in her eyes. Panic? Anger? Both?
I couldn’t picture a future bride stowing such a precious garment so carelessly.
Fuck, do I have a runaway bride on my hands?
“You do not have permission to search my vehicle,” she snapped, following my lead and folding her arms over her chest as she stepped to block my view. Her narrowed gaze might have been sexy if it weren’t so murderous.
Fucking focus, Luke.
“I’m here to reset the code since you locked yourself out. Unless you’ve changed your mind about the reservation?”
“Wait. You’re Luke?” Her startled expression gave me a fleeting moment of malicious satisfaction. She really hadn’t seen that one coming.
She glanced across the street, where Walter Smalley was shuffling down the sidewalk, no doubt headed to the weekly Legion gathering—one the older vets kept inviting me to attend. But something always came up.
Walter waved, and I sent a wave back.
“I didn’t break in,” she repeated. “And I’m Maggie, by the way.”
As fun as this charade was, I was fucking dead on my feet. I had a mile of paperwork waiting for me inside before I could entertain crawling into bed, so I tried a different approach.
“Luke Mason.” I nodded toward my attached unit. “I live next door.”
“Oh.” Her gaze slowly followed my nod. “For the record, I didn’t try to break in either.”
“You weren’t here when I pulled in,” I pointed out, biting back a yawn.
“Because you took nine years to get here, and you didn’t reply to a single message. Ellie and I ran across the street. Walter was kind enough to let us in.”
The dog’s tail swished once against the pavement as she looked up at her mom then at the front porch, as though bored with the whole situation and ready to get inside already.
“Walter?”
Fuck, my new guest was already on a first-name basis with my neighbors. Maybe I should’ve pawned the break-in call off on Johnson after all. It was his turn to deal with Mrs. Wilcox anyway.
“He’s just the sweetest old man,” she said, her gaze following Walter as he turned the corner down the block and disappeared around the corner house. “He saved me from what could’ve been a very serious situation.”
“I had a call,” I explained, clearing my throat, feeling suddenly guilty. “I am on duty.”
“I can see that,” Maggie said, her gaze raking down my body, snagging on my gun belt, and no doubt at the handcuffs I kept above my right hip.
It didn’t matter that she was looking at me with disdain. A brief, unsolicited image of Maggie reaching for those cuffs, a seductive gleam in her eyes, made my throat suddenly dry. Fuck, it hadn’t been that long since . . .
Yes, it has.
I looked down at the dog again, noting that the leash clenched in Maggie’s hand was not attached to Ellie’s collar, and felt instant relief at the opportunity to redirect my thoughts.
“Why isn’t she wearing a leash?”
“She’s a very well-behaved dog,” Maggie countered, evading my question as she stroked Ellie’s head with gentle fingers. “As I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“If you’re walking her within city limits, she needs to be leashed. No exceptions.”
“Got it, Officer.”
“If she chews anything—”
“She won’t,” Maggie shot back firmly. “As I’ve told you no less than ten times.”
“I hope you’re right.”
I should be nicer. I’d be stuck with the pair for a month. But I was still a little salty about the non-chewer certificate comment from earlier that suggested she didn’t take my concerns seriously. I kept the comment on the tip of my tongue as I took the steps to her unit two at a time.
As I reset the code, it occurred to me that I might have included an old code in the welcome instructions.
I’d intended to double-check the message before it auto-sent last night, but there was a call about a drunk driver, and by the time I got home, the sun was up again.
I didn’t even make it to my bed before I dropped like a lead weight onto the couch for the two whole hours of sleep I was lucky to get in.
“I just messaged you the new code,” I said, stepping back as Maggie and her pup approached. “Go ahead and try it.”
Wordlessly, Maggie entered the code, and the click of the lock disengaging echoed.
“Thank you, Officer.” When I hesitated, she added, “I can take it from here.”
I nearly corrected her, told her to call me Luke.
But where the fuck would that get me? In a whole mess of trouble I didn’t need where a woman was concerned, that was where.
The second I backed out of the driveway, I’d make a point of avoiding my guest for the duration of her stay.
The less we interacted, the better for us both.
Yet, my boots seemed cemented to the porch, as though waiting for . . . more.
“Is there something else?” she asked, twisting the knob.
I scrubbed a hand over my head, watching Ellie trot inside to inspect her new digs, tail swishing lazily. I felt like an ass for making such a fuss about her. I could already tell she was a good girl. But hell if I was going to admit I was wrong about that.
“There’s an active squirrel in the backyard,” I finally said.
She lifted a brow, half bent to grab a suitcase. “As opposed to an inactive squirrel?”
I couldn’t do anything but stare, suddenly very aware that if I dropped my gaze a quarter of an inch I’d be staring down the dip of her tight shirt beneath her flannel.
Maggie shook her head, probably assuming I didn’t get the joke, and threaded a hand through a suitcase handle. She glanced back at me as she said, “She doesn’t care about squirrels.”
Before I could question this, my phone pinged, the sound reserved for my dispatcher.
“Popular guy,” Maggie said, her tone flat but an eyebrow still raised.
There was a sparkle in those baby blues that screamed mischief.
I doubled down on my silent resolve to keep my distance.
Just as soon as I got my fucking boots off her porch.
I had enough on my messy plate without inviting trouble on top of the heap.
“I am on duty,” I pointed out.
“So you’ve mentioned.”
“Right.”
“Don’t you have a call?” Maggie nodded at the phone in my hand.
Shit. I wasn’t moving. “Make sure you keep a leash on your dog.”
The sparkle vanished from her expression, and Maggie’s lips pressed into a straight line. “Ten-four, Officer.”
With those curt words, she shut the door in my face.