Could her luck get any worse? She’d finally found a place she felt safe, tucked away, untraceable, and she’d stumbled into a place where the sexiest sheriff who ever wore a badge happened to live and work.
Of course her first instinct was to pack up and hit the road now she knew that James Chance was the sheriff of Hidden Falls and the brother of her new boss, but she’d already accepted the job, given up her tiny studio apartment above a deli, where she helped out sometimes to reduce her rent, quit her minimum wage bakery job, packed her bags and driven here in her battered old Ford.
Iris had never suggested any kind of a criminal check and Kim was pretty sure she hadn’t done one. Instead, she’d asked Kim to come back for a second interview later the same evening when she’d met both Geoff, Iris’s husband, and Dosana, her only other full-time employee, who ran a second Sunflower bakery in a nearby town.
The not-quite question hung in the air and Kim knew that, as friendly as Iris was, she expected an explanation for her strange behavior in front of the town sheriff. She took the tray back into the kitchen to give herself a moment and when she returned she offered one truth, while hiding another. “Please don’t tell James this, but when I met him, I kind of fell for him. It was at a wedding where I was a bridesmaid and you know how weddings always make you act a little crazy? I guess that’s why I was embarrassed to see him again.”
Iris nodded. “I may be his sister, but I can see that James is super hot.” The line of worry that had formed on Iris’s brow didn’t completely disappear, however. Kim understood her feelings. Iris had been honest with her newest employee that it had been very hard to find someone who had both bakery experience and a willingness to relocate to Hidden Falls. Maybe now she was beginning to think that her luck had been too good to be true. Kim couldn’t blame her.
She escaped as soon as she could from that worried gaze and went out front to bus tables. Two women with babies and jogging strollers were preparing to leave. One woman held a crying infant in one arm and was attempting to put her jacket on with the other while her friend was already halfway to the door with her own stroller. Kim dropped her cleaning rag on the table and in her quiet voice said, “What a beautiful baby. Could I hold her for a second?”
The young mother looked insanely grateful as she nodded and Kim reached for the tiny, squalling, red-faced baby. She held the little squirming body against her shoulder, rocking her own body and whispering soothing nonsense. The baby quieted almost immediately and the mom heaved a sigh of relief as she put her jacket on and rapidly packed up the baby paraphernalia that littered the table and tucked it away in the baby stroller. She gazed at Kim in amazement. “You are really good with babies.”
Kim smiled, handing back the now-quiet child. “I like babies. I think they can sense it. Have a great day.”
The women left and she went back to bussing tables. She walked past an older gentleman who was working a crossword puzzle. When he reached for his coffee he absently elbowed his pencil onto the floor. She barely broke stride, bending to pick up the pencil and replacing it at his side.
She and Iris worked together efficiently, though she was aware that her new boss was still wondering about her extreme reaction to seeing James again. Speaking of extreme reactions, Kim couldn’t stop picturing the night of the wedding. Her and James…
When things grew quiet, Iris said, “I think I’m going to head out for an hour or so and try to get some rest. Are you okay for a while?”
Kim nodded.
“Call me if it gets busy or you need anything.”
“I will.” After Iris left, she went into the back for her purse and got her cell phone. There was a phone call she needed to make.
After several rings, a familiar voice answered. “Hello?”
She stood with her body partly in the kitchen and partly out front, so she could keep an eye on the tables and said softly, “Hey, Mom, it’s me.”
“Kimberly. How are you, baby?” She smiled at the word. She hadn’t been a baby for a long time. In fact, since she was about six years old and there were too many other babies. In the background she could hear one of them wailing even now.
“I’m fine. How are you?”
Her mom sighed. “Bitty’s teething and little Kenny’s got croup.” Her mom lowered her voice. “I’m so tired. All the time.”
She bit her lip, picturing the old kitchen where her mom spent most of her time. It was dilapidated and messy, and even though she knew she could never fix what was wrong, she still felt the urge to try. Then a new voice bellowed in the background. “Who’s that on the phone?”
“It’s Kimberly, Honey.”
He didn't take the phone, just bellowed louder. “Margie’s got her hands full, we could sure use your help around the place.”
She closed her eyes against a wash of weakness. He’d gone straight to the one thing he knew might bring her back. “Do you really need me, Mom?”
There was a pause and she imagined her father had gone out again, then her mom said, “No. I don’t want you back here. You got out and I wish to hell I could. If you can get settled then maybe when your brothers and sisters get older you can help them. It’s all that keeps me going, some days.”
“Okay.” She was so relieved. She never wanted to go back. Never. “Mom, I’ve got a new job.” Briefly, she told her mother about the bakery.
“That’s great, Kim.”
“Look, I could send you a little money if you need it.”
Her mom laughed, and even her laugh sounded tired. “Money’s the one thing we aren’t short of.”
She sighed. “Until Daddy ends up in jail.”
Her mom’s tone sharpened in an instant. “You know our family rule. Loyalty at all costs. Don’t you even think about turning your dad over to the cops. Think what would happen to the rest of us. The little ones would get taken away and put in foster care.” Her mom’s voice rose in panic. “Please.”
She closed her eyes against the rush of helpless frustration. “I would never do that. I promise. No cops.”
Which meant that James Chance was the one man she could never have, no matter how much she wanted him. Keeping family secrets could sure be tough on a girl.
She turned to glance one more time at the café before returning her cell phone to her purse and only then noticed an older woman standing beside the cash register. She’d been just outside of Kim’s peripheral vision.
How much had she heard?
“There’s a woman to see you.” Connie’s bored voice over the intercom caused James to jerk like he’d been jump-started. He was on his feet so fast he had to take a breath to slow himself down. Ever since he’d seen Kimberly that morning, he’d been unable to get her out of his mind. He stood, schooling his face to impassive, reminding himself that he couldn’t kiss the woman senseless when she first walked in no matter how much he wanted to.
“Thanks. Send her in.” But when Connie ushered the woman in to see him, his interest drained. It wasn’t Kimberly standing in front of him, her long hair like golden light, her nervous eyes darting to his and away again. It was Edna May Tittlebury.
Edna May was a stalwart citizen of Hidden Falls and the biggest old busybody in Oregon as far as James could tell. He didn’t sit back down, hoping a standing conversation would mean a shorter one. “Edna May,” he said, trying not to sound disappointed. “What can I do for you?”
Her eyes were as beady and bright as a crow’s and the way she pecked at news and gossip kind of reminded him of a nuisance bird, too. “I don’t like to bring trouble,” she said, when as far as he could tell she liked nothing more, “but I overheard something in the coffee shop I think I should report. As a good citizen.”
He grabbed a notepad, as he did whenever she came in to complain about everything from kids on skateboards to the smell of marijuana in the woods near the high school. The woman could work part-time as a drug hound so acute was her sense of smell.
“Uh-ha,” he said, clicking open his ballpoint pen.
“It’s about that new girl in the bakery. The blonde one.”
Immediately, his interest grew sharp but he kept a bland expression on his face. “What about her?”
“Iris is too trusting, that’s what. What do we even know about this girl? She blows in like a tumbleweed and next thing, Iris goes out and leaves her in charge of the bakery. Why, she could clean out the till and be gone in minutes.”
And why was any of that Edna May’s business, he wondered silently. Aloud, he said, “Do you know something about Iris’s new hire that you’d like to share?”
She pursed her lips and leaned in, looking more like a buzzard, he decided, than a crow. “I overheard that girl on the phone. She had her back to the café and was keeping her voice low, but I heard every word. I have excellent hearing.” A real bonus in a backbiting gossip.
“What did you hear?” In spite of himself, his interest sharpened. Where Kimberly was concerned there were too many questions.
“She said, ‘Okay, I promise. No cops.’ That is word for word what I heard. I even wrote it down the second I got out of there so I wouldn’t forget. She held up a journal type notebook with pansies painted on the front, and flipped it open to where she’d penned the words in neat handwriting. “Why would a girl be whispering about no cops if she doesn’t have anything to hide? And when she turned around and saw me standing there, I swear she blushed and looked guilty as sin.”
He nodded. Part of small town policing was making people feel heard, as well as safe. He figured for all the times he acted like the useless information people passed on to him was important, there’d be one time that somebody actually had something vital to share. So far it hadn’t happened. “There could be a lot of explanations behind those words,” he said soothingly. “I hope you won’t make Hidden Falls an unfriendly place for Iris’s new baker. Iris really needs the help with the twins coming.”
She looked as though he’d smacked her beak. “I would never stoop to gossip.” And in fall leaves would never turn color. “But I want Iris and her new family to be safe.”
“I understand that, Edna May, and I’m going to look into what you’ve told me, in strictest confidence, of course. I want my sister to be safe just as much as you do.” Then he smiled and moved toward the door, sweeping her forward with every step.
She seemed reluctant to go. She had that pansy-fronted notebook open as though she were going to share more from her journal of bitching. Then inspiration struck. What Edna May needed was a project. Something positive she could do in the community instead of making trouble. He said, “I’m so glad you stopped by. I was going to ask for your help in something.”
“Policing?” She sounded far too eager. Like she thought he might offer her a deputy position, God forbid.
“No. I need some volunteers on the Fourth of July Committee.” And why the sheriff of the town had to organize a Fourth of July event evaded him, but his predecessor had done it and the sheriff before that so it was pretty much written in the town bylaws that he had to run the biggest party in the Hidden Falls social calendar.
She looked crestfallen. “But I already volunteer with the church and the historical society.”
“I know, and we all appreciate it, but I need some committee members that I can trust, who have experience in this town. I’m not naming names, Edna May, but there are a few volunteers who want to bring in new ideas. Who maybe think our celebration isn’t exciting enough.”
He might as well have flipped a switch, so fast did her face twist in outrage. “That’s absolutely ridiculous. We’ve run the Fourth of July celebration exactly the same way every year since I was a little girl.” Probably since the dinosaurs were baby lizards. “Doing things the same way is the whole point of tradition.”
“I couldn’t agree more. But there are always people who want to change things.”
She nodded, firmly. Opened her notebook to a fresh page. “When’s the next meeting? I’ll be there.”
“I really appreciate it. We meet in the library, next door. Connie has the details.” And then he opened his office door and walked out front, so Edna May had no choice but to follow. “Connie, great news. Edna May has agreed to serve on the Fourth of July committee. Can you fill her in on the details?”
Connie looked at him like he might have lost his mind. Probably, by the time he was halfway through the next committee meeting, he’d agree with her. But the good thing about Edna May was that she had a lot of time, a lot of energy, and she did know how things had been done around here long before he was born.
He returned to his office and sat. He’d distracted Edna May but the conversation she’d overheard worried him. Why was Kim having whispered phone calls that specifically mentioned ‘no cops’?
“Everybody lies,” his partner, Vince, had been fond of saying. “You have to figure out what they’re lying about.”
Vince was dead now, shot by a notorious drug dealer in a bust gone wrong. James had killed the man who’d taken down his partner and friend, but that wouldn’t bring back the guy who’d loved old horror movies and refused to believe that sushi was an edible food. As Vince had lay dying in the rain, while James listened to the ambulance siren getting closer, telling his friend to hang on even as they’d both known it would be too late, Vince had said to him, “Sometimes, life sucks.” As final words went, maybe they weren’t the most profound, but they’d been as true as any sentiment.
Sometimes life really did suck. James had gone on with his job, but he couldn’t sleep, was twitchy and angry. “Survivor’s guilt,” the department psych had diagnosed him. “It’s the part of PTSD that can be toughest to overcome.”
He’d felt burned out, used up. He hated going to work, hated walking past Vince’s locker, which stayed empty, partly out of respect and partly because nobody else wanted it. Like it might harbor bad luck. After a year of feeling like he was going to burst out of his skin, working obsessive hours, sleeping with bad dreams or not at all, he’d realized he needed a change or he’d end up dead too.
The sheriff’s position in Hidden Falls had come up and he’d thought, why not? He was much younger and far better qualified than any other candidate, plus he knew the town and the area since he’d grown up there. In Hidden Falls he’d been able to function closer to normal, and he’d started to sleep again. To believe in the basic goodness of people.
And then Kimberly had come along.
He wasn’t going to lie to himself. She’d rocked his world just as he’d begun to feel grounded again. And it was a world he’d quite liked steady. Even. Predictable.
The intercom went again. “There’s a woman to see you,” Connie announced.
Fool me once. “The same one?”
“No. A different one.”
“Okay. Send her in.” He was glad Kim had come to him. It meant, among other things, that she wanted to see him again. At least he hoped so. Maybe she’d come to tell him whatever it was Edna May had overheard her whispering about. He sat up straighter in his chair and tried to look like a man who was busy doing an important job, not a dude with a crush.
The door opened, and once more his hopes were dashed. “Loreen!” And of all the people he did not want to see, her name topped the list. “What can I do for you?” Then, as she smiled suggestively, he rose to his feet. “No, don’t shut the door. It’s fine open.”
“Suit yourself.” Loreen was about eight years older than he was and a good-looking woman. She was wearing a short jean skirt that showed off long, tanned legs, a white sleeveless shirt that displayed her impressive cleavage, and little silver sandals. Her hair was a smooth curtain of brown with subtle stripes of gold and copper that he bet cost a fortune and wasn’t offered by The Village Coiffure here in Hidden Falls.
In fact, she was as out of place in Hidden Falls as a Vegas showgirl in a nunnery. According to his mother, who got the story from her yoga group where Loreen was a member, Loreen had been working as a low level admin in a Seattle investment firm when she met Joe Ludlow. Joe was a flashy and successful advisor who swept Loreen off her feet and soon they were married. He’d left the investment firm to start his own company and that’s when things started to go south. He may have been a good salesman but he was a terrible businessman. By the time they’d moved to Hidden Falls, where real estate prices were a fraction of those in Seattle, he had few clients left. Soon, he packed up and left Loreen for one of those clients, a software developer who moved Joe back to Seattle and into her penthouse overlooking Lake Union.
In the ensuing bitter divorce, Loreen got the house in Hidden Falls and enough alimony to ensure she didn’t have to work, but, presumably not enough to allow her to leave this small town. James pitied her, though he thought she should find a better way to spend her time than stalking him.
He wasn’t rich or particularly ambitious, not Loreen’s type at all, but he suspected that she needed to snare him, at least temporarily, to massage her wounded ego. But he wasn’t an ego masseur and he wished there were more single men in the area for her to focus on.
As she sank gracefully into the visitor’s chair in front of his desk and crossed her legs, he noticed that her toenails were painted dark pink and that a silver toe ring glinted. “I think I have a Peeping Tom,” she said, shifting so that her skirt rode up even higher.
He jerked his gaze up to her face, annoyed that her obvious wiles were working even a tiny bit. “A Peeping Tom?” He went through a quick spin of the troublemakers in the area and couldn’t imagine who, in this small town, might be the culprit. He grabbed a notebook. “Have you seen him?”
“No, but I’ve heard him. At night. It’s really scaring me.” She dropped her chin and glanced up at him through her lashes. “When I’m taking off my clothes, getting ready to slip into bed naked, he makes these noises outside my window. I was thinking maybe you could come over tonight and do a stakeout.”
Oh, he didn’t think so.
“Have you actually seen this guy?”
“Not exactly, but I saw a shadow. I’m sure it was a pervert running away from my house.”
“When was this?”
“Last night.”
He recalled that it had been windy the previous evening. He suspected she’d seen nothing but swaying tree branches and the rustling she’d heard was likely a trash can knocked over by the wind, or a prowling animal. However, he took his job seriously even if some of his constituents had nothing better to do than waste his time.
“I’ll send a deputy to do a drive-by tonight and tomorrow. In the meantime, keep your curtains and blinds shut.”
She pouted prettily. “Won’t you come by yourself?”
She’d been pulling stunts like this for weeks and he was running out of patience. “No.”
“But I get so lonely at night.” Suddenly the mask fell and he saw the sadness in her. He couldn’t help the reluctant sympathy he felt. “I’ll put my best man on it.” He had one deputy, a cheerful, chubby guy who’d never make it on a real force. What she needed was something useful to do. A project. Not even believing he was about to do what he was about to do, he said, “I’m glad you came in today. I want your help with something.”
She brightened and flicked her hair behind her ear. “You do?”
“Yeah. I’m heading the committee for the Fourth of July celebration. Frankly, it’s the same old, same old every year. I was wondering if you’d consider being on it? We need some new blood, some new ideas.”
She didn’t look thrilled at his suggestion. “What would I have to do?”
“Come to the meetings and offer suggestions. Hopefully you’ll take an active role on the big day.”
“And you chair these meetings?”
He hoped he wasn’t doing a very stupid thing. “I do.”
She looked doubtful, but shrugged. “It’s not like I have anything else to do. I started working part-time for the cable TV station, but that’s not very busy. Sure. I guess.”
He rose and said, “That’s the spirit. Connie will give you the details.” Then he strode around his desk, way around, giving Loreen as much berth as he’d give a rabid skunk, and strode out to the front, once more giving Connie the good news. Connie wasn’t one for drama, but her eyes widened and then she said, “Sure. One more for the Fourth of July Committee.”