top left-hand corner of the phone spin, and spin and spin while it tried to grab hold of a satellite signal for long enough to pull up some results.
“Oh, Copper Ridge, you’ve bested me before, you aren’t allowed to do it again.” She kept her eyes on the phone and then growled at it, setting it on the passenger seat while she leaned over and pulled a stack of papers out of the glove box. She had to have a number for her insurance on hand at least.
Somewhere. It had to be somewhere.
A loud rap on the glass behind her shot a shock wave through her and she whipped around, releasing her hold on the stack of papers, sending them flying through the car, where they settled in both the front and backseats.
She looked around at the mess, then at the knocker. On the other side of the glass was a man in a tan uniform, a gold star on his chest, sunglasses over his eyes. What she could see of him was...well, hot. Which was the last thing she expected, because she’d been living in San Diego for a few years, the land of the beautiful, and rarely, if ever, was she so overcome by a man’s face that all she could think was “hot.” But maybe that had to do with the recent startle. She was just a little dazed, that was all.
He pointed downward, an authoritative gesture that took her a minute to attach meaning to, mainly because something was pulling at the back of her brain. A memory that was attempting to come to the forefront.
She blinked and tried to get herself together, tried to get herself back into the present. She pushed the button on the door and the window slid down, removing the barrier between herself and Officer Hottie.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m out of gas. But I have roadside assistance so...I mean, I’m okay. Except I don’t have very good cell service. So I was looking for... Well, anyway, did you stop for a reason?”
“To check on you,” he said, the expression on his face strange. He looked like he had a memory tugging on his brain, too, and that made her own memory pull even harder.
“Yes...because...distressed motorist.” She looked around at all of the scattered papers. “Right. But I’m not really distressed. I’m fine.”
Wow, but he really was hot. Chiseled jaw, short dark hair. He created a response, low and deep in her body, that felt familiar in a very disquieting way.
He bent down in front of the window and she caught the name on his badge.
E. Garrett.
Oh, no. No no no no. There were not enough swearwords in the English language to express all of the bad in this situation. She was stranded on the side of the road, and she’d just encountered one of the chief demons from her past. In a uniform. The welcome committee from hell. Not that she’d imagined she’d be able to avoid him forever, considering her B and B was situated on his family’s ranch, but she’d imagined she might avoid him for at least ten minutes after hitting the city limits.
She was not in the mood to deal with him. She was revising his nickname. Not Officer Hottie. Officer Stick-Up-the-Ass. That’s who he was.
Not only that, he was a reminder of a whole host of things she would rather just forget.
And then his expression changed, and she knew he was catching up.
“Sadie Miller,” he said.
“Well, damn.” She smiled at him as best she could, but her palms were starting to sweat. Authority figures did that to her in general, and authority figures who had once fingerprinted her were an even bigger issue. “You do have a good memory.”
“You never forget the first woman you put in handcuffs,” he said, his voice low and firm, giving zero impression of a double entendre, and yet, it hit her that way.
Hit her and ricocheted around to parts inside of her that had gone ignored for a long time.
She cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders, trying to look arch and serious, and everything she’d spent the past ten years turning her life into.
Eli Garrett wasn’t allowed to make her feel like a scroungy teenage girl, because she was not a scroungy teenage girl anymore. Similarly, he was not allowed to make her feel hot and bothered like he’d done back then, either, because...well, because she wasn’t the same person she’d been then.
“Indeed,” she said.
“What brings you back into town?”
He didn’t know? She looked at him, studied him. He didn’t know. Well, that was just peachy. Connor Garrett had neglected to tell his brother that he’d offered her the lease on the house. She had a feeling that was going to go down with Eli like a live leech in his breakfast cereal.
“Am I, um...am I being detained?” she asked, fidgeting in her seat.
“No,” he said.
“Then am I free to go?”
“Where? You’re out of gas.”
Point to Officer Garrett. “Yes. I am. Maybe...maybe you could help me with that?”
His lips, which were far more interesting than they should be, didn’t smile, didn’t lessen their tension. They simply remained in a flat line. Uncompromising. Unfriendly. Like the man himself. “Just a second.” He turned and walked back toward his squad car and she started picking up the papers she’d strewn all over the car.
Her heart was beating so hard she thought she might have a medical event. What were the odds that he was the first person she saw when she came back to Copper Ridge? It was a bad omen. A very bad omen.
Of course, her first thought, still, was that he was hot. She’d thought that at seventeen. But then, to a rebellious kid with an affinity for underage drinking, a man who was part of the sheriff’s department was sort of the ultimate fascination. The ultimate no-go. So of course, even when she’d resented his presence, she’d gotten a little kick out of checking him out.
She let out a long breath. She’d sort of hoped that he’d gone on to law enforcement in another town. Or that maybe he’d given up wearing a uniform altogether and discovered a passion for pottery...maybe in the south of France.
But no. Eli Garrett had done what most people from Copper Ridge seemed to do. He’d found his place in the little community and stayed in his carved-out niche.
You should judge. Since you’re back and all.
Yes, she was back.
At this point in the game, Copper Ridge had seemed as good a place as any to give her demons the big middle finger.
And hey, she was facing one of them a little bit early. But, considering he had a gun strapped to his lean hips, she thought maybe giving him the finger wasn’t the best idea.
“I put a call in for you,” he said from over her shoulder.
“Gah!” She startled. “Could you not sneak up on me like that?”
“Do I make you nervous?”
“No. Why would you make me nervous?”
“Criminals
