CHAPTER TWO

Austin Cooper was in the middle of a vehicle check that the chief had asked him to run when the phone at the front desk rang.

Despite having grown up in Credence, Austin was the newest and youngest member of the town’s police department. He’d been back home for six months now, after five years in the city, and he fucking loved it. Even though everyone still treated him like he was wet behind the ears. He might be the youngest cop here, but at twenty-five, he was no kid.

Austin was vaguely aware of the continued ringing of the phone as he copied down more information from the monitor.

“Answer the goddamn phone, Cooper,” Arlo grouched through the open door of his office.

The chief was in a bad mood. Full moons always put Arlo Pike in a bad mood and his spidey senses on high alert, owing to the uptick in idiotic deeds around town. A full moon affecting people’s behavior might not be sound scientific fact, but Austin had witnessed it too often to doubt it.

One day, no matter how long it took, Austin was going to become chief. He liked small-town life and community policing, and he loved the people of Credence despite their quirks, which drove him up the wall half the time but ensured there was never a dull moment.

In the meantime, however, it was his job to answer the goddamn phone.

Austin picked it up, still jotting down information from the screen as he said, “Good morning, Credence Police Department. Officer Cooper speaking.”

“Yes…good morning, young man. I’d like to make an anonymous report, please.”

Austin grinned as Eadie Hutchens’s firm, no-nonsense tone came down the line. Even if he hadn’t recognized her voice, he’d know it was her. She was the only person who regularly reported everything from a car she didn’t recognize to strange lights in the sky.

Always anonymously.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Everything okay?”

“Well, I don’t rightly know. I just thought you should know that there’s a…suspicious woman loitering outside Annie’s diner.”

Biting his lip not to laugh, Austin nodded seriously. “Suspicious, you say?”

Just last week, Eadie had called—anonymously, of course—requesting a welfare check on the woman who had moved in above Déjà Brew. There had been intense speculation about the newcomer who had drawn the blinds on arrival, and nobody had seen hide nor hair of her since. Some said she was disfigured, others said she was in the Witness Protection Program, and there’d even been speculation she was some kind of witch.

Eadie had been worried that the poor woman had actually passed away and was currently being eaten by her cats. Because apparently all women living by themselves and hiding away were “crazy cat ladies.” A quick check with Jenny Carter had confirmed that the woman was, in fact, alive. Jenny said she’d been hearing regular movement overhead, and the mysterious woman had arrived with no cats.

“Well,” Eadie continued, “she’s definitely a stranger. And I’m pretty sure she’s in her”—Eadie’s voice lowered to a whisper—“pajamas.”

Austin blinked. That wasn’t exactly an offense. “When you say loitering, what exactly do you mean?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean?” Eadie demanded. “She’s standing outside Annie’s, eating two ice-cream cones. At once. In fifty degrees.”

He stifled a smile at Eadie’s scandalized tone. “Okay?”

“She’s not just eating them, Officer…she’s savoring them. Making a total spectacle of herself. It’s practically…pornographic.”

A stranger—a woman, at that—eating ice cream in a pornographic manner? Austin stood. Never could it be said that he let down a Credence citizen of good standing in her hour of need. “Okay, ma’am, I’ll go and check it out now.”

“Thank you, young man. You can never be too careful about public safety.”

“No, ma’am,” Austin agreed with a smile. Who knew the kind of public disorder this could incite? One day pornographic ice cream consumption, the next mass street orgies.

Yep…never a dull moment.

…

Austin pulled up outside Annie’s to find a woman, just as Eadie had indicated, with an ice-cream cone in each hand, licking from one to the other in the most hedonistic display of ice-cream consumption he’d ever witnessed. Her square face was turned to the sun, her eyes shut as she licked with the kind of long, slow licks that made him hear bow chicka bow wow music in his head—and in other parts of his anatomy.

So this was the woman who’d been holed up in the apartment above Déjà Brew. Given he knew everybody in town except her, it couldn’t be anyone else.

Ice cream was smeared on her lips as she got down to the cones, and he watched her devour them in great, crunchy mouthfuls, sighing as she fed the tip of the last one into her mouth before licking her fingers.

Austin actually went a little dizzy.

It was probably wrong to be salivating—not ice-cream related—and staring, right?

Say something, dumbass. Don’t just sit there and watch her…fellate two ice-cream cones in public.

But he was momentarily struck speechless by her level of enjoyment, despite the wild hair, the baggy sweats, the stained T-shirt, and the…bunny slippers?

Maybe Eadie had been right about the scandalous pajama thing.

Austin jumped into action, getting out of his vehicle and stepping up onto the sidewalk. “Morning, ma’am,” he said, touching the brim of his hat.

Her fingers slid from her mouth as she gradually lowered her head, until she was looking straight at him, pinning him with startling green eyes that reminded him of fancy glass and even fancier opals. A flare of annoyance ignited a rich vein of sparks in her eyes and puckered the space between her brows.

It was not the look he’d been expecting.

From the way she’d demolished her ice cream, he’d expected a slumberous kind of ecstasy. The sort he enjoyed seeing on a woman’s face, especially if he’d put it there. Not a frown and a glare. And then, as her gaze traveled over his uniform, her eyes widened slightly. “Is there a problem, Officer?”

Her tone was somewhere between irritated and wary, but there was also a directness to it that told him, while the uniform had surprised her, she wasn’t intimidated by it. Her pointy chin jutted defensively.

He cut to the chase. “Everything okay, ma’am?”

Sexy eating of ice cream aside, maybe this woman with the wild hair and the bunny slippers had deeper issues. Maybe she’d fallen and hit her head and was wandering around in an altered neurological state due to pressure or bleeding on her brain?

She blinked, her frown of annoyance turning to one of genuine puzzlement. “Why wouldn’t I be okay? I was eating ice cream.”

“Two, to be precise.”

“I couldn’t decide on a flavor.” There was a definite note of duh in her voice. “Also”—she held up the brown paper bag that had been stashed under her arm—“I have pie.”

Austin hadn’t noticed the bag until now, although he knew Annie’s brown paper bags quite well. The diner had been here since before he was born. “Are you hurt? Or…lost?”

She dropped her arm back to her side. “No.”

So she always left her place looking like she’d been pulled through a hedge backward? “Do you know you’re wearing…pajamas?”

Another frown. “These aren’t my pajamas. Well…”

She gave a half shrug as she looked down at her clothes, then back up at him, pursing her lips, which drew attention to her lusciously full mouth. Austin—God help him—would bet his last penny that mouth tasted deliciously sweet right now.

“I guess, technically, I did wear them to bed last night,” she said. “But that’s only because I couldn’t be bothered getting out of them and it was too cold to sleep naked.”

Okay… “And the”—he glanced down at the two bunny heads with floppy ears on her feet—“slippers?”

This time she shoved her hand onto her hip. “Is wearing slippers outside illegal in your quaint little corner of Eastern Colorado?”

Amused, despite her inference that they were some backwater town, Austin shook his head. “No.”

She dropped her hand. “It’s cold.”

It had been said like it was a perfectly reasonable explanation for wearing bunny slippers out in public. “Yes,” he affirmed. “It’s cold.” But surely she had boots? Wear-outside-in-public boots? “What’s your name?”

She stiffened, and her eyebrow kicked up. “I don’t have to tell you my name.”

“Well actually, ma’am, you do. Under town ordinance five eight three, section one, all persons must furnish ID if requested by an officer of the law.” Austin knew few town ordinances by heart, but that one was his bread and butter. Policing 101.

“Oh, right, you’re a rules guy. Of course.” She folded her arms. “Just like Charlie goddamn Hammersmith.”

Austin sighed. “All right, I’ll bite. Who is this Charlie Hammersmith?”

“My asshole ex-boss.”

“Okay.” He wasn’t sure that made it any clearer but whatevs.

“I’m not telling you my name.” She glared at him mutinously. “I’m claiming my constitutional right to silence.”

Oh…Jesus. Give me patience. “You’re not under arrest, ma’am.”

“So arrest me.” She held out her wrists. “Cuff me.”

In a different set of circumstances, Austin would have taken the greatest of pleasure in cuffing Credence’s mystery woman, but that wasn’t what she’d meant. “I’m not arresting you.”

“Why not?” she demanded.

“Because there isn’t a town ordinance against being a pain in the ass.” He’d have committed that one to memory for sure. “Nor is it an arrestable offense.”

Unfortunately.

“Fine.” She dropped her arms and stuck out her chin. “What about jaywalking?” She brushed past him, stepping onto the road near the hood of his vehicle. “Is that against the law?”

Austin sighed and turned to face her. “Yes. Town ordinance four six seven, section two A.” He was just making this shit up now, but she didn’t have to know that.

“All right, then.” And she walked into the middle of the road.

“Ma’am…what are you doing?” Given there wasn’t a car to be seen anywhere up or down the street, Austin wasn’t particularly worried about her being run down.

“I’m jaywalking. Arrest me.”

“Ma’am.”

She held out her hands again. “Take me to the pokey.”

Austin couldn’t help himself—he threw back his head and laughed. The pokey? She’d been watching too much television. “Ma’am, most people I know try to avoid going to the pokey at all costs. What’s your story?”

“I’m a rule breaker,” she said, frowning at first, as if she wasn’t sure about the label, then nodding as if deciding she was okay with it. “That’s right. I’m a rule breaker now.”

Now?

She walked back to him, mounting the curb and stepping into his space—just a little—then she poked him in the chest. “And I’m going to be your worst nightmare, buddy.”

Ordinarily, a member of the public getting up in his face—even here in Credence, where he knew everyone—would ring all kinds of alarm bells. He’d been trained to always be alert and to keep members of the public out of his personal space, but this woman didn’t feel like a threat.

In fact, he felt absurdly like laughing his ass off.

“Officer Cooper,” he supplied instead, pointing to the badge on his chest.

She nodded and said, “Officer”—poke—“Cooper.” Poke.

Up this close, he could see those remarkable green eyes and those luscious lips and also the fine lines around her eyes. She was a bit older than him, he realized, before another realization hit—could he smell…beer?

He eased back from her a little. “Ma’am, are you drunk?”

“What?” She glared at him crankily. “No.” And then her expression changed again. “Oh, wait…I did have a beer for breakfast. But I’m not drunk.”

“You had beer for breakfast?” Now there were some life goals.

She nodded, suddenly all combative again. “Yeah. And you know why? Because I’m a rule breaker.” And then he watched her face as it changed again. “Wait…” She narrowed her eyes a little. “Public drunkenness is against the law, right?”

Austin nodded and plucked some random numbers from his head. “Town ordinance one eight two dash nine.”

“In that case, I am drunk. I am very drunk, Ossifer. I refused to give you my name, I jaywalked, and I’m drunk in public.”

As if to emphasize her point, she burped—loudly.

Good lord, with her impressive belching ability, flyaway hair, lived-in clothes, questionable footwear, and her beer for breakfast, she was a frat boy wet dream. Austin had never been part of a fraternity, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t just a little bit turned on.

“I’m a rule breaker,” she continued. “It’s your duty to arrest me.” She thrust her hands out to him again.

Austin sighed. He’d never met anyone—man or woman—who wanted to be tossed in a cell so badly. Who was he to disappoint? “All right, then.” He gestured at his car. “Get in.”

She frowned and didn’t move. “Don’t you need to cuff me?”

“If you want me to cuff you, we can talk about doing that late one night after maybe some dinner and dancing, but I only ever cuff someone who’s dangerous or a flight risk.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “What makes you think I’m not either of those things?”

“Superior policing skills.”

She rolled her eyes and said, “I could take you.”

Austin suppressed a smile, admiring her bravado. “You’re welcome to try, ma’am.”

She eyed him up and down for a moment, like she was seriously contemplating it, before coming to the inevitable realization. “Fine,” she huffed. “No cuffs. But forget the dinner and dancing; this was your one and only chance.”

He grinned as she yanked the car door open. He never could resist a challenge.