his dark hair was dusted with snow. “I had ninety minutes on that thing,” he said, pointing a long finger at the meter. “I haven’t been in the library that long.”
“The meters don’t lie.” She blew on her fingers, warming them a little before stuffing them back inside her glove. She wanted to tell him that if it was up to her, the meters wouldn’t even exist on that street. They hadn’t been updated in the past generation and the town had an old repair guy on standby just to keep them in operation. But she also didn’t want her sergeant coming out again and seeing her flagrantly disregarding his instructions, either.
“Looks like you had a productive visit.” She gestured at the stack of books he was carrying. The book he’d pushed into her hands when she’d shown up at his door wasn’t far from her mind, though she’d paid no attention whatsoever to it at the time. “You must be a big reader.”
He showed her one cover. “Plumbing for Dummies. Not exactly pleasure reading.”
“Ah.” She couldn’t help a surprised laugh, as she shifted from one frozen stump to the other. “I actually need a copy of that one myself. My sisters and I own an old Victorian that we’re restoring.”
“Because you don’t have enough to do, slinging drinks and doling out parking tickets?” He moved past her and tugged the ticket free. “How much is this gonna cost me?”
She started to point at the street sign nearby that warned of the fine for parking violations, only to realize that the surface of it was obscured by icy snow. “Fifty bucks. If you don’t pay it by the date indicated on the ticket, the fine doubles. And it gets worse from there.” Considering the state of his ranch house and the state of the vehicle, she hoped he got the message. Even if it was outrageously high, paying the parking fine on time was the simplest way to avoid owing even more money.
“Nice payback, Officer.” The truck door screeched when he yanked it open and he tossed the ticket and his stack of books inside on the bench seat that was covered with a worn woven blanket. Maybe to keep his admittedly fine tushy warm or, if he was like Ali with her truck, to hide the rips and stains in the upholstery.
“Payback! For what?”
“Not cooperating as much as you wanted.” He climbed into the truck and yanked the door closed with another protesting screech of metal.
She rapped her gloved knuckles on the window.
He looked as annoyed as she felt, but he rolled down the window a few inches. His aqua eyes skated over her face. “Now what?”
“If I wanted payback,” she said evenly, “I would also write you up for the broken taillight and the expired tags on this heap of rust. Instead, I’ll just offer a friendly warning to get them taken care of as soon as possible.”
“Or?”
“Or the next patrolman who gets stuck on traffic duty might not be so easygoing about it and you’ll end up owing even more money that it doesn’t look much like you can afford.” She stepped back from the truck and smiled tightly. “Drive safe, now. I don’t know what sort of conditions you were used to before coming to Wyoming, but the roads are treacherous in this kind of weather.”
His lips thinned. He rolled up his window and cranked the engine. It started after a few tries, belching a cloud of black smoke from the tailpipe.
Ali winced and tucked her nose back into the protection of her knit scarf and watched him drive away.
“You should have let Cooper skate on the expired parking meter.”
Ali set the mineral water and lime and the order of onion rings on the table in front of her sister Greer. If Magic Jax wasn’t so busy, she’d have set herself down, too, in the seat opposite her. “I had to choose between citing Grant Cooper or getting skewered by my sergeant again. If Gowler has an actual reason to write me up, it’ll be the first nail in my coffin with the department. And he only needs three nails.”
“He’s not going to fire the only female officer he’s got,” Greer countered. “Particularly if she’s not guilty of anything more serious than letting a new resident off a minor infraction with a warning. Everyone else with the department does it from time to time. Why not you?”
“Everyone else doesn’t make the mistake of dating his precious son, Madame Prosecutor. I am not taking any chances.”
Greer gave her a look. “I’m a defense lawyer.”
“Don’t remind me.” Greer was the oldest of the three triplets and worked with the public defender’s office. Maddie was the middle triplet. The ultimate do-gooder, she was a social worker with family services. Because of her role there, the family court judge had agreed to let her be the temporary caregiver for Layla.
Ali gestured at the stack of files sitting on the table next to her sister’s elbow. The public defender’s office workload was so huge that they also had a rotating crew of private attorneys who took cases pro bono. “Always trying to get the people I arrest off with just a slap on the wrist.”
“You do your job and I’ll do mine. That’s how it works. Gowler aside, you could have at least bargained a little with Cooper over the ticket. You catch more flies with honey, you know.”
Ali didn’t dare slip her toes out of her high-heeled shoes so she could wiggle some blood back into them. If she did, she feared she would never get her feet back into the shoes. And she really didn’t want to hear Greer’s advice at the moment. “You want anything else to go with those onion rings?”
“I shouldn’t even be eating these.” Greer plucked a ring from the basket. Magic Jax didn’t provide a full menu, but they did offer the usual types of bar food. “But I’m starving. Came straight here from the office.”
“If you change your mind, let me know.” She grabbed her tray and headed back to the bar, picking up empty glasses along the way. It was even busier than it had been the night before. Part of that was because it was Friday night. A larger part, she figured, was because Jax himself was actually mixing drinks behind the bar. For as long as she’d been picking up shifts at Magic Jax, she could only recall a handful of times when he’d actually played bartender.
Every time he did, though, word seemed to spread and the ladies came in droves.
It wasn’t surprising. Jaxon Swift was rich. He didn’t take any part in the running of the family oil business like Linc did, but he was still part of Swift Oil. He was also as handsome as a blond devil and loved women just as much as they loved him. In short, nothing much had changed since he and Ali had been in high school together.
And now, thanks to Maddie marrying his brother, Linc, they were theoretically one big happy family.
She went behind the bar to rinse the empties and stack them in the dishwasher tray. “Busy night. I didn’t expect it to be, considering the snow today,” Ali said to her boss.
Jax took the lid off the blender and filled three hurricane glasses with the virulent pink daiquiris that the giggling college girls at table four had ordered. “Busy is the way I like it.” He set the glasses on a tray, leaving Ali to top them with the requisite whipped cream and
