KISSING FRANKIE BETTENCOURT was supposed to get her out of his system.
It did not work.
Instead of wondering what it would be like to hold her in his arms, he knew. Now Roman was plagued with thoughts of making it happen again. And again. And not at the most appropriate times.
But where he appeared to be having problems working around their moonlight escapade, Frankie, it seemed, did not. If he hadn’t been a part of that kiss, he might have thought he’d dreamed it given how easily she appeared to have put it out of her head.
They’d had their share of calls in recent days, but luckily, nothing serious. A couple of fender benders, an accidental fall and a preteen who had waded too far out into the surf.
On the brighter side, Shirley and her daughter, Amelia, would be back in their house in another week or so. BethAnn Bottomley had rallied the troops and was working with the insurance company to promptly pay to repair the fire and water damage to the kitchen. Kendall was doing most of the construction, and Lori Bradley had corralled all the kids at the community center to hold a fund-raiser movie night to help the family cover extra costs.
While he remained on call for emergencies, Roman was enjoying his weekends off, especially yesterday’s fishing excursion on Monty’s new catamaran. Roman hadn’t realized how much he’d missed the male camaraderie he’d avoided at his previous jobs and, after spending a good eight hours with Monty, Luke, Jason Corwin, Xander Costas and Fletcher Bradley, the last of his unease over moving to a new state, a new town, evaporated.
It didn’t hurt that he’d come back with three good-size halibut, which he’d cleaned, gutted and stored in the deep freezer at the station.
Bright and early Sunday morning, he found himself standing in front of the youth center at the edge of town, a white paper bag filled with doughnuts in one hand, a tray holding two coffees in the other.
“Cold morning, there, Chief. You want to come inside?” Jake Gordon, the former sheriff and current operator of the youth center, hobbled down the road, wooden cane in hand to aid the decades-old injury that had changed more than just his life.
“I was hoping to.” Roman stepped back to admire the rebuilt exterior of what he’d heard had at one time been the town’s old meeting hall. Neglected and boarded up for years, it was Jake and Sheriff Luke Saxon who had taken on refurbishing and expanding the building to give the increasing number of kids in town a place to hang out, preferably productively. Word was they were looking for a new location, something significantly larger to accommodate the programming and hours they had planned. In the meantime, it was decked to the nines with thick pine garlands and frosted pinecones topped with tiny red bows.
Jake, shorter than Roman by at least a foot, shot a friendly smile at him as he unlocked the double doors. “Sorry I’m late. Finalizing wedding plans over breakfast.”
“I heard you’re getting married on New Year’s.” Roman followed him inside and set down the coffee and doughnuts while Jake flicked on the lights. The hardwood floors gleamed. The space was well organized. The Christmas tree in the corner displayed various wishes from kids in Butterfly Harbor and neighboring towns, some of which ranged from a collection of comic books to a new jacket.
Wishes, his father had often told him, went hand in hand with the season and had, for most of Roman’s life, played a major role in their celebrations. Every year growing up, his father and he had sat down before Thanksgiving dinner and written down various wishes they hoped would come true in the coming weeks. Some of those wishes, written on paper ornaments, had ended up on the tree later that night. Others he tucked under his pillow or stored in the drawer by his bed. Knowing firsthand the power of someone acknowledging your wishes and doing their best to make them come true, Roman plucked half a dozen from the youth center’s tree and tucked them into his pocket.
Sturdy compact tables crisscrossed the room, some with computers, others with art supplies. A video-gaming center was set up in the far corner, and in the back sat an industrial kitchen Roman had heard was stocked with healthy and some not-so-healthy snacks and treats. “Congratulations on the upcoming nuptials.”
“Starting the new year right,” Jake confirmed. “Still can’t quite believe Selina agreed to take me on. We’ve known each other going on twenty years, but that spark didn’t hit until recently. Strangest thing to ever happen in my life.”
Just the mention of that spark had an image of Frankie blasting through his head even as a pang of envy hit Roman in the chest. He’d met his share of people in Butterfly Harbor, most of them around his age, and most of them were happily besotted in wedded bliss, defying most town’s divorce and disillusionment rates by miles. Not that he wanted what Jake had, but he’d certainly been rethinking some of his life choices. He needed to stop these thoughts before he spoke to his mother again. Even through the phone she could pick up on them easily.
“What brings you by, Chief?” Jake walked over to the small wooden teacher’s desk by the front door. He set his cane on the hook on the wall, clicked his computer on and sat back in the spring-loaded wooden chair.
“A couple of things. Doughnut?” Roman offered the bag.
“Chrysalis Bakery?” Jake’s eyes went wide as dinner plates. “My weakness.” He reached in and pulled out a chocolate old-fashioned. “And my favorite. Who squealed?”
“I might have asked your daughter. After she talked me into taking three leftover pies off her hands for the department.” Frankie was correct. The one disappointment so far had been the lack of necessity to cook. Everywhere he turned, someone was giving them food!
“Be grateful you weren’t here when Holly was pregnant with the twins.” Jake accepted the coffee and toasted him with it. “I think there was a pie in every fridge in town by the time those little ones arrived. I believe I’ve finally eaten my lifetime quota.”
Roman grinned. There were worse things to suffer during a loved one’s pregnancy. Or so he was told. “I understand you were sheriff when Frankie’s dad was chief.”
Jake nodded. “Sure was. Tybalt and I went through school together. Preschool all the way to senior year. Horrible what happened to him. Real loss to the town, I’ll tell you. Real loss to all of us.”
“A wildfire, wasn’t it?” Roman hadn’t asked Frankie. It hadn’t felt right, not when he’d seen a hint of grief wash across her face whenever she talked about her father.
“Yeah. We were called in as backup. Wildfire just south of Napa. Not sure how much experience you have with high winds where you’ve worked, but around here, they’ve been killer. Literally. Wasn’t anyone’s fault. Tybalt was just caught at the wrong time in the wrong place. Killed him and two firefighters out of San Francisco. Just gone.” Jake snapped his fingers.
“Frankie was sixteen then?”
“Sounds right. She’s just like her dad, in case you were wondering. Tenacious, dedicated. She had to wait a few years, but she stepped right into his shoes. Makes every call personal, treats everyone with the care you’d want your family to have.” Jake’s gaze flickered with uncertainty. “I can’t imagine you coming in has been easy for her.”
“No.” Roman shook his head, sipped his coffee. “It hasn’t been. And I completely understand why. She never talks about her mom.”
Jake frowned, and in a snap, his face tensed. “I’m not the right person to come to for gossip.”
“Not looking for gossip. Just information.” Because there was still a lot about Frankie he didn’t know or understand. “Frankie told me about her run-in with the law when she was fifteen.”
Jake snort-laughed. “For a while everyone in town thought she’d turn activist rather than follow in Tybalt’s footsteps. Girl always has her heart in the right place, though, and she wasn’t wrong about old Mr. Walters. That old codger was as mean as they came, and the poor animals were suffering for it. Only person to ever do anything about it was Frankie, and it broke her heart when she couldn’t keep old Lucifer—that was the cat’s name. Roxie was allergic.”
“Roxie?”
“Frankie and Monty’s mother.” A bit of the humor faded from Jake’s face. “Wasn’t exactly the maternal sort, but she got one look at Tybalt in that fireman’s uniform of his and she had her sights set. Of course, she thought he was going places, but he only had eyes for Butterfly Harbor. She stuck it out until Frankie and Monty graduated from high school, but their bond had been with Tybalt, not her. Last I heard she was working in Vegas as a blackjack dealer.”
“Frankie doesn’t see her?” Not surprising given Frankie’s reaction the other day when he’d asked about her surviving parent.
“I doubt Frankie gives Roxie a thought. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like it’s bad blood or anger. It’s just...” Jake shrugged. “Ambivalence.”
That might be one of the saddest things Roman had ever heard. As frustrated as his mother made him, especially when it came to his lack of long-term relationships, he couldn’t imagine her not being part of his life. She and his dad had been partners in every way, right down to raising him, and he was all the better for it.
“Why do you want to know about her?” Jake asked.
“Roxie? No reason, really. I just thought it strange no one mentions her given how much I’ve heard about Tybalt. It’s actually him I wanted to talk about. Seeing as you guys grew up together, I’m hoping I’ve come to the right person.”
“Okay.” Jake was back to looking skeptical.
“I checked out that little house across the street from the station. Frankie seemed—” Roman searched for the right word “—upset.”
“Only because nothing ever came of that place,” Jake said. “Tybalt had plans. Big plans for all that area, but he did not go about getting it in the traditional way. Some would argue he flat out beat the Hamiltons at their own game. He negotiated with the property owner and got into a bidding war with the city. The mayor at the time, that would have been Gil’s grandfather, didn’t take kindly to the idea. Legacy mayorship,” Jake added, filling in another of those town blanks for Roman.
“Any idea what Tybalt planned to do with the land and house?”
“Frankie doesn’t know?”
“She knew about the house, of course, said he’d wanted to make it a place for the chief. I didn’t push on the rest.” Roman dug out a doughnut, considered it for a moment. “I get the feeling her dad’s a bit of a touchy subject.” Just talking about him on the beach the other night had brought her to tears.
“Then readjust your barometer,” Jake suggested. “She’ll tell you anything you need to know about Tybalt. But she might not know about his plans for the house. I remember Tybalt talked about turning the area into a training and education center. I haven’t been a volunteer with the department for a long time, but back when I was sheriff, we had a pretty well-staffed department. Didn’t need more than two or three volunteers.”
“Now we have half a dozen.”
“Gil’s father gutted the budget. One of his parting gifts before he drove the town into near bankruptcy, then up and died.” Bitterness coated Jake’s words. “Gil’s pretty much been trying to rebuild everything his father and grandfather broke. Not that he’s going about it in the right way. Must be a family trait.”
“Not a fan?”
Jake grimaced and drank his coffee. “You’d be hard-pressed to find many people in town who are. It’s not that what he does is bad. A lot of his ideas have been a boon for the town. And while I might still be a bit resentful that he pushed me out as sheriff, if he hadn’t, Holly wouldn’t have met and married Luke, something I wasn’t sure would ever happen again after her first marriage. Even better, I wouldn’t have two new grandbabies to fawn over.”
“Silver lining?”
“Best one possible.” Jake toasted him with his coffee. “That butterfly sanctuary we’ve got going up will be a huge tourist draw, but again, Gil alienated a lot of people with the manner in which he went about things. Do you have any idea how hard it is to tick off Calliope Jones Costas?”
Given what Roman had seen of her, he’d have thought it next to impossible.
“Gil just goes about things in the wrong way,” Jake went on. “Someone always ends up getting hurt either personally or professionally. Me? I’ve always thought Gil could do with a good dose of reality. Someone needs to pop his bubble.”
They definitely agreed on that. “If he’s so disliked, how was he reelected?”
“He ran unopposed.” Jake winced and stretched out his leg. “And, honestly, no one else wanted the job. Not when they’d have to deal with the fallout of what he’s wrought. I can’t even imagine having to clean up his messes.”
“So there’s no truth to the rumor that you’re going to run against him in a recall election?”
Jake guffawed. “Nope. I’ve done my time in the trenches. Politics is a younger person’s game, at least here in Butterfly Harbor. I get my fill listening to and advising Luke, not that he complains much. But even my son-in-law has his limits.”
The front door banged open, and a young woman stumbled inside, her arms filled. “Hey, Jake. I’ve got the salads for tonight’s movie. Oh, hi.” Big blue eyes peeked over the top of the grocery bags. Roman caught sight of a thick black braid curving over one shoulder of her white chef’s uniform. “You’re the new fire chief.” She angled a smile at him. “Alethea Costas. My brother mentioned meeting you. Nice to put a face to the name.”
“And you.” Roman nodded, tried to push aside Jake’s last warning, then plucked the bags out of her arms. “Kitchen?”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Yeah, thanks. I’ve got more in the car outside.”
After divesting himself of the first load, he went to help her unpack the rest. “What is all this?”
“Leftovers from the food truck. We’re hosting that movie tonight to help raise money for Shirley’s new kitchen appliances. Her insurance is only covering about half.” She hefted one of the bags. “Going to make a big batch of spaghetti and then offer side salads and hot chocolate floats for dessert.”
“So it’s not just for the kids.”
“No way. Admission is ten bucks each or twenty for a family of four or more. If it goes well, we’ll make it a monthly event to raise money for a new van for youth center field trips. Hey, Jake.” Alethea nodded at him as they headed back inside. “Give him one of our flyers, would you?” She disappeared into the kitchen.
“Alethea was driving the van when it broke down,” Jake explained, doing as he was instructed and handing over a flyer. “She decided we need a new one. She’s probably right. The thing’s more than twenty years old and was donated to us.”
Roman glanced at the flyer, then scanned their calendar of events. “Do they teach machinery and mechanics at the high school?”
“Used to.” Jake arched a brow when Roman looked back at him.
“Right. Budget cuts. I can cover you on that if you want to add it to the schedule. Never too early to learn about cars, since most are going to drive one at some point.”
“How long for each class?” Jake was already scribbling.
“A couple of hours?” Roman was spitballing at this point. He’d jot down some ideas when he got back to the station.
“Ages?”
“Probably older than seven.” He thought of Phoebe MacBride, who could handle herself in the class. “Girls and boys. Everyone should know the basics,” Roman said.
“Especially with Cal Mopton talking about retiring and closing his repair shop.” Jake reached for the doughnut bag and peered inside. “If he does that, people will have to drive a good half hour for a tune-up or repair.”
“Right now that’s just talk.” Alethea joined them. “But it couldn’t hurt to know the basics. And I’ll be your first student. You going to teach how to do oil changes? Like on commercial vehicles?”
“Food trucks and vans, for example?” Roman suggested and earned a grin. “Yeah, sure. I can do that.”
“Great. I’ll get the flyers made up for after the first of the year,” Alethea said. “Schedule’s going to be super crowded between now and New Year’s.”
“Yes,” Roman said, thinking of Jake’s upcoming wedding. “I imagine it is.”
Once the doughnuts and coffee were gone, Roman took his leave and sent himself an email regarding the various classes he’d volunteered to conduct. He’d always enjoyed the community outreach part of the job, but he also knew it looked great on a résumé. Everything he could add to his experience level was just one more boost to his profile, a profile he hoped someone at the federal fire investigative task force would notice once he applied for a new position.
Something he really needed to do if he was going to keep his momentum going.
He took his now-familiar route around the edge of town, enjoying the cool air coming in off the ocean on one side, the line of stores and businesses on the other. It was still relatively early, but the diner was packed. Not that he needed breakfast after the tasty offerings from the bakery, but he could do with another cup of coffee. He was about to pull open the door to the diner when his phone rang. “Salazar. Go.”
“Is that any way to speak to your mother?”
Roman tripped over a crack in the sidewalk. He knew he was going to pay for having avoided her calls in the last week. “Hey, Mom. How’s the Baltic?”
“It was freezing. Which is why I’m now home. Something you’d know if you returned my calls or listened to your messages.”
He had no answer for that. Mainly because she was right.
“Your aunt Ida was craving my mulled wine, and the idea of spending another Christmas on a boat didn’t hold the appeal it once did, so home we went.”
The very idea of his mother’s mulled wine brought a smile to his face. It had been years since his mother had made it—the last Christmas his father had been alive. That she was even thinking about putting on a pot meant she’d turned that final corner on her grief. And maybe, just maybe, he had, too. “If you’re calling to find out if I’m coming home for the holidays—”
“I wouldn’t ask you to do that,” she chided him. “You just started this job. That wouldn’t be fair to want you to come home and visit your widowed, lonely mother, whose only son, whose only child, has moved all the way across the country.” She hesitated. “Would it?”
“No,” he laughed. “It wouldn’t.” While he had no doubt his mother was still missing his father, and him, if there was one thing Esmeralda Salazar was not, it was lonely. “I’ll see what I can do after the first of the year, but it’s a small department. There’s only me and Frankie full-time. If I were to take off, it would mean pulling volunteers away from their families and other jobs, and I don’t think you’d want me to do that.”
“Of course not. What about this Frankie? Does he have a family?”
“Frankie’s got a brother in town. And lots of friends.”
“I’m sure you have lots of friends now, too. You’re so much like your father, Roman. You never met a stranger. Speaking of your father, I’ve been going through the last of his things.”
Ah. That explained the multiple calls. And the guilt crawling around inside him.
“I found his humidor. You know that thing he kept moving around the house trying to hide it from me?”
“I remember.” Roman also remembered it was where his father had hidden most of his mother’s birthday, anniversary and Christmas gifts. Antonio Salazar was well aware of his wife’s aversion to cigars, but he also knew she could suss out a surprise with the bat of an eyelash. The box she detested had made for the perfect hiding place.
“I want to send it to you. Along with some other things. Do I have your address?”
“I don’t really have an address yet, Mom.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The station house has a nice room, and I really haven’t had time to look for a place yet. I will. Eventually.”
“Well, where do I send this stuff in the meantime?”
“I’ll text you an address.”
“See that you do. I don’t want to lose my momentum cleaning all this stuff out. Before Christmas, do you hear me?”
“I hear you and I’ll get it to you. ’Bye. Love you.”
“I love you, too, son. Stay safe.”
An address. Roman slipped his phone away. Leave it to his mother and her questions to remind him he had, whether he’d intended to or not, become part of this community. House or not, home or not, he detoured from the diner and headed to the hardware store to get himself a PO box.
“WHAT ON EARTH are those?” Frankie, fresh off cleaning out the station house fridge, was finally able to address the growing elephant in the office. Countless file boxes—some covered in dust older than she was—sat stacked against the wall, obscuring the metal file cabinet and covering the chief’s—Roman’s—desk.
“Archived files.” Roman appeared as if she’d conjured him, arms loaded with even more boxes. He set them down with a thunk, shook his head and ran a hand over his sweaty face. “And who knows what else.”
Frankie had to look away. Somehow, since their kiss, he’d managed to get even more handsome. Or maybe she was seeing him through different eyes. Dreamy eyes. Frankie caught herself. There she went again!
“Didn’t realize when I got started there would be this many. Do you know some of these boxes go back to the ’60s? That basement is a gold mine of history.”
“Ah, the good old days when the station house was estrogen-free and ran on testosterone and adrenaline.” Frankie chewed the inside of her cheek. He’d been increasingly contemplative the last few days, something she was trying not to attribute to their kiss the other night. Roman hadn’t brought up the topic at all, and she certainly wasn’t going to. Still, while she appreciated the silence, she couldn’t quite set aside the feeling he was keeping something from her. Did these files have something to do with his odd behavior? “Why the interest?”
Roman shrugged. “Thought maybe it was about time we digitized old files. Not everything, but there might be items of interest we should keep at hand.”
“Well.” Frankie brightened. “Thank goodness we have a probie now to help you with all that. Seems like a perfect task for a Monday morning, right, Jasper?”
“Uh-huh.” Jasper looked a bit green at the prospect. “Sounds great.”
Roman laughed. “Don’t worry. We’ll make it painless. Besides, we can make better use of that basement space where these were stashed.”
Frankie started to respond, but her eyes caught the familiar writing on the side of one of the boxes. Her heart panged.
“Frankie?”
“Sorry.” She blinked at Roman’s concerned tone. “That’s my dad’s writing. Do you mind?” She walked toward the desk.
“Not at all.” He stepped back as she flipped the lid free. “Hey, Monty. What brings you by?”
Frankie glanced up as her brother stepped next to Jasper. “What office supply store exploded in here?” Monty asked.
“Just doing a clean out. Look. Dad’s old files.” Frankie ran her fingers gently over a box. “He was so organized. You’d think he’d been in the military.”
“He did wield that label maker of his like a sidearm.” Monty’s smile seemed as sad as Frankie’s felt. After all this time, she still missed their dad so much she ached. She plucked out a file marked “personal.”
“Oh, wow. Monty, remember this?” She held up a picture from Halloween. “What were we? Five? Six?”
“What a shock, Frankie’s dressed as a firefighter,” Monty told Roman as he came over and took the folder. “Every year. Same costume, like some weird hazing ritual she’d made up for herself. This was my Darth Vader phase.” His chest puffed out a bit. “I spent weeks getting that box to light up and flicker. Also spent that summer’s lawn-mowing money on that authentic Vader helmet. I bet I still have it somewhere.”
“That your dad?” Roman asked.
“Yeah.” Frankie tilted her head. She and Monty had his eyes. The same smiling, kind eyes. Every year they’d take a picture in the same place, in front of the fire station, a tradition she missed to this day. She could remember standing there, in her oversize costume because she’d demanded the real thing, inhaling the scent of late-autumn rain and the mint candies her father kept in his pocket. “He always dressed in his uniform on Halloween. Said he had the best job in the world—no need to pretend he wanted to be something else.” She took the file back, slid it into the box.
“No, take it.” Roman caught her hand before she could withdraw. “They belong with you.”
“Dibs!” Monty snatched the Vader photo and clutched it to his chest.
“I want a copy,” Frankie demanded and offered a quick smile of appreciation at Roman. That he’d gone to this trouble and unearthed a treasure for her kicked away those final fragments of resentment. “Thanks.”
The speaker blared. Monty jumped, earning a roll of eyes from Frankie. All these years and it scared the stuffing out of him.
“Seven eighty-nine Flyaway Lane. See Electra Potter on-site.”
Frankie sighed.
“I know that code.” Roman snapped his fingers and darted off. He’d written them all down, alphabetized and memorized them. “But you’ve got to be kidding me. The Cocoon Club again?”
“Clyde and Harold must have finally gotten the Christmas lights out.” Frankie grabbed the SUV keys and her jacket. “I wonder what this year’s argument is about.”
“Let me go,” Roman told her before she could climb into the car.
“You sure?” Frankie didn’t look convinced. “Roman, it’s stringing Christmas lights. With old men who bicker more than two-year-olds.”
“You’ve been telling me I need to get more in touch with the community. Let me go.” He slipped the keys out of her hand. “Besides, maybe I can talk to them about not using the emergency call system to request help. We can figure out an alternative. If they disagree, I’d rather they be ticked off with me than with you.”
The offer—and reasoning—surprised her. She had to admit, she’d been dreading this annual call, while part of her had been worried it hadn’t occurred yet. Doubt niggled along the edges of agreeing with him. If he could survive Christmas-light day with the Cocoon Club, he could make it through anything. “Okay.” She stepped back and watched as he climbed into the SUV. “Why don’t you take Jasper with you?”
“Yeah?” Jasper appeared at her side as if by magic.
“Yeah.” Roman gestured for him to get in. “If we get a real call, I’ll know and meet you there,” he told Frankie as he started the engine.
“Yes, sir.” Darn it, she thought as she turned back to her brother. She should have told Jasper to take pictures.