28. Luke
TWENTY-EIGHT
LUKE
“Whose dog is that?” Kira asked, eyebrows understandably drawn in confusion as I stepped into Brenda’s Book Nook, leash in hand.
Ellie pitched quite the fit when I first tried to clip the leash to her collar back at the Legion Hall, but after I promised to get her another yogurt-dipped bone from Mountain Creamery, her resistance miraculously waned.
As though she were a toddler who understood the bribery.
“This is Ellie.”
“Did you . . . adopt a dog?” my sister guessed, leaning over the counter to get a better look at the pup, her eyes lighting up. “I knew this time off would be good for you, but I didn’t expect you to get a dog!”
“I didn’t adopt a dog.” I set a carrier of drinks on the counter. “Ellie belongs to—”
“Wait. This is Maggie’s dog.” She retrieved a homemade dog biscuit from the canister decorated with colorful dog bones, moving around the counter to give the pup a treat. Kira looked up at me after Ellie accepted the offering. “Why do you have Maggie’s dog?”
The only reason my sister even knew who Maggie was, was because of family dinner last weekend when Connor and Opal ratted me out in front of everyone.
Not that it was exactly a secret that I nearly ran into Glimmerstone Lake fully clothed to save my new tenant from drowning in shallow water.
This town didn’t do secrets, and everyone was getting a kick out of that story.
But my brother and niece painted such a colorful picture of my botched and unnecessary rescue attempt that Kira announced she was putting it in her next book.
I ignored her question about Ellie, mostly because my lovestruck sister was likely to jump to conclusions.
She wouldn’t be wrong.
“Hey Luke, great to see you,” I said mockingly. “Thanks for the iced pumpkin latte. You’re the best brother ever.”
I pulled one of three drinks free from the carrier and held it out to her, hoping to distract her with coffee. I had a fifty-fifty shot it’d work.
“You forget who you’re competing with. Connor lives to please people, so it’s not even a fair competition,” Kira teased, happily accepting the iced beverage and taking a long sip. “Damn, this is good. Almost better than sex. But nothing quite beats—”
“Don’t say it,” I pleaded, holding out a hand.
“I don’t need to think about my sister having sex with my best friend.
” I was happy for them, truly. But for how fresh this relationship was, I was still adjusting to the new reality.
“Where is Beckett? And Husker?” I scanned the store, but the only traces of the blond husky were the sprinklings of white fur against the dark hardwood floors.
“They’re out for a walk while the weather’s still good. It’s supposed to rain all weekend. Beckett will come help with the float when they get back. Oh hey, I don’t know if you heard, but family dinner’s canceled this week.”
“Canceled? Why?”
“Opal’s birthday trip.”
“I thought she just had a birthday last month?”
“She did.” Kira looked at me funny. “This is part of her present. You chipped in. They’re all heading to Denver, remember? You were at the party, right?”
“Yes.”
But clearly, I’d skipped out before the special birthday trip announcement.
My normal justification sat lodged in my throat, because after seeing the mayor’s log filled with the many examples of my unnecessary intervention during scheduled time off, it was a helluva lot harder to distinguish which calls were true emergencies and which were distractions.
Because that’s what I’d clearly been doing—finding every excuse possible to distract myself, and calling it my duty.
I hadn’t heard a peep from a single officer on my team in the past week, which only cemented that conclusion more. They managed just fine without me. I didn’t know how to feel about that.
“Did you hear anything I just said?” Kira asked, eyebrows furrowing.
“Sorry, I didn’t.”
Kira reached a hand to my forehead, and I shoved it away.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking if you’re okay. Because I think you just said the word sorry and actually meant it.”
“That’s a crime now?” I frowned at her.
“When you add that to the very much appreciated but unsolicited iced coffee, the smile you keep letting slip, and Ellie, it’s certainly cause for concern. Are you and Maggie . . . together?”
“No,” I said immediately, despite the internal devilish voice whispering but you could be.
“But you like her.” Kira looked at Ellie. “Clearly.”
“She’s my neighbor. Temporary, I might add. We’re just friends.” Because that’s what we decided last night, right? Never mind that I had two palms full of tits five minutes before that decision was made.
“If you say so,” Kira said, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.
“There’s been a line five vets deep since we got to the Legion Hall this morning.
She’s been helping them get signed up for VA healthcare and stuff.
I took a break from working on the float because Phil and Bernie are arguing about the damn tractor again and offered to take Ellie out to stretch her legs. That’s all.”
Ellie sat up, pawing at my thigh.
“What is she doing?” Kira asked.
When I glanced down, Ellie sank her teeth into her leash and let out a low, playful growl. One I’d learned meant she was annoyed. I let out a sigh.
“Fine,” I told her, bending down to unclip her leash. “But only until we leave. You have to wear it when we go back outside.”
“What was that?” Kira asked when Ellie trotted off toward a water bowl.
“She was thirsty,” I said nonchalantly, noting there weren’t any customers in the bookstore because scanning the environment, as I was so trained to do, was safer than my sister’s question.
I frowned, not sure what to make of the empty store.
It wasn’t quite lunchtime yet, but it was Friday.
Since my sister had decided to take ownership of the failing business a couple of months ago, the place was almost always busy.
But that might have more to do with Kira revealing the author identity she’d kept secret from the world than anything else.
“She’s familiar with you, Luke.” Kira said it as though it were an accusation, refusing to let it go.
“Of course she is. She’s staying next door.
We share a deck.” I left out the part where Ellie kept showing up in my house, bringing me socks.
Or that I spent the evening watching Star Wars with the pup in my lap for half the movie.
“And, in case you forgot, the mayor forced me to take leave. So, I’ve been home a lot more than I normally would be. ”
“Right.”
“It’s a quiet day in here,” I said, returning my focus to the safer topic. I scanned the store once more for signs of a customer who might’ve been hiding or in the restroom, but saw no one.
The place looked so much different than it had at the beginning of the summer, before Kira came back to town and gave it new life.
New bookshelves, clever displays, and a brightness it hadn’t had since Mom passed.
It currently looked like fall had thrown up inside with an excess of decorative pumpkins, fake autumn leaves, and orange twinkling lights running along the top of the shelves.
Battery-operated candles flickered in a few places, and the store smelled of fresh-baked apple pie. Mom would’ve loved that.
I was still in awe of the woman my sister had become, and how much she grew into her own this past summer after ditching the ass wipe she’d had for an ex. Mom would be proud. I was proud of her, too, and almost said so. But I couldn’t quite get the words to form.
Old habits died hard, I supposed.
“Oh, the crowd’s coming,” Kira said after draining half her iced coffee.
“By this time next week, it’ll be standing room only in this place.
I’m enjoying the breather before Golden Days while I have it.
I’ve been signing books in preparation.” She pointed to a round table beside the counter, filled with her vampire romances.
“The books look good, though?”
“Look around. They look great.”
“I meant the finances.”
“Oh,” she said, giggling. “I’m not worried about the bank locking the doors if that’s what you’re asking. We had such a successful grand opening a few weeks back that the bills are covered for the rest of the year. I promise, Mom’s bookstore’s in good hands, Luke.”
“I didn’t mean—”
Bells jingled overhead, and a woman with light purple hair pulled into a high ponytail, flip-flops, and a very round belly walked into the store as though on a mission.
“Two questions,” she said to us. “One, do you have a bathroom? This baby’s been pushing on my bladder for the last ten miles, and I’m at DEFCON level one.”
“In the back.” Kira pointed.
“Two,” she called back to us as she quickly waddled through the store. “Have you seen a woman with long blonde wavy hair, about five–six, with a dog—” She stopped mid-sentence. “Ellie?”
Ellie ran up to the woman, tail wagging enthusiastically as though they were long-lost friends. “I really, really have to pee. Then I have a follow-up question for you two.” She hurried to the back, Ellie on her tail.
“Who is that?”
“I think that’s Maggie’s sister,” I said, watching the pup follow her into the restroom.
I racked my brain, trying to remember if Maggie told me whether her sister was visiting.
I pulled out my phone, scrolling through the reservation details and messages on the app.
The DEFCON level one comment from her check-in day caught my attention, and I chuckled silently.
They were sisters, all right. But there was nothing anywhere about a second guest arriving at any point during her stay.
I was in the middle of typing out a text to Maggie when I heard the woman say, “Wait. You’re Officer McGrumpy.”
“Oh, my God,” Kira said, laughing obnoxiously.
“What?”