I was off saving the country from a terrorist group about to illegally access cell-phone data all over the world.
Neither man actually said it.
“Doc. Good to see you, too.”
“Everything okay? No anger...problems?”
The good doctor had obviously heard Tanner’s discussion about Duquette.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little frustrated when my job gets harder because of criminals getting released early.”
“Maybe we can talk about that sometime.”
Tanner resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll let you guys get to your discussion.”
Ryan smiled. “Tanner, thanks again for your work on the stand. Stellar, as always. Next time bring a cowboy hat in case we need an extra push with the lady jurors.”
Tanner shook hands with both men before saying his goodbyes.
Because there was someone else he knew for a fact found him attractive in a cowboy hat. Someone who barely came up to his chin and had waves of thick brown hair running down her back. Someone to whom it never occurred to wear makeup, but it didn’t matter because her natural beauty could give a cover model a run for their money any day of the week.
One look into her green eyes would have him forgetting about psychiatrists, witness stands and even the ghostly itch of a noose stretched around his neck.
He watched Tanner Dempsey leave the courthouse just like he’d watched him all day. He’d silently observed, no one discovering what he was really doing. What he was really planning.
Had Dempsey realized he was watching? Of course not. Because Tanner Dempsey was so full of himself he couldn’t possibly conceive that someone might watch him with contempt or scorn or disdain.
The handsome cop with the charming smile couldn’t possibly devise that someone didn’t fall under the spell of his charisma.
The man felt bile churning in his stomach as he saw how friendly other people were with Dempsey. It was impossible to understand how everyone surrounding the cop in the courthouse wasn’t sickened by his arrogance. How he obviously thought himself better than everyone.
And then people shook his hand, smiling and friendly. Fooled. They couldn’t see the truth right in front of them—that Dempsey was fooling them all.
It had taken every ounce of restraint the man had to not stand up in the courtroom and scream out that Dempsey was a fraud.
Dempsey thought the rules did not apply to him. Thought he could just do whatever he wanted. That everyone he arrested and testified against was no better than a bug beneath his shoe.
But soon they would all learn the truth about Tanner Dempsey’s conceit. He would get what was coming to him.
It was time for the lawman to fall from grace. And the man would make sure that happened.
“Order up, Bree!”
Bree Daniels smiled at Gayle Little sitting at the table in front of her. “So then what did Mr. Little do?”
Mrs. Little frowned. “Dan just yelled for you. Don’t you need to go get the food?”
Bree smiled gently at the older woman. Mrs. Little came in a few times a week since her husband of sixty years had passed away recently. Bree knew Dan would much rather Bree stay out here and talk to Mrs. Little—to listen to her tell a story Bree had already heard—than to rush back and get the food.
“Don’t you worry about Dan. He’ll take the food out himself if I don’t get back there in time.”
There would’ve been a point not long ago that Bree wouldn’t have realized that staying and talking to Mrs. Little was more important than getting the food from the kitchen. She wouldn’t have realized there wasn’t a single customer in the Sunrise Diner who wouldn’t gladly eat a lukewarm meal if it meant seeing Mrs. Little—a woman most of them had known all their lives—forget her sadness for a spell.
It had only been over the last few weeks of living here in Risk Peak that Bree had begun to understand the nuances of interacting with people. It wasn’t something that came easily for her.
She was probably the only genius-level hacker in the world working at a mom-and-pop diner in the middle of nowhere, without a computer in sight. Most people would say it was a waste of her talent, but Bree didn’t care. If she never saw another computer, that would be just fine with her.
Computers, and her talent with them, had gotten her tortured as a child, gotten her mother killed and had nearly cost her her life a few months ago. So working as a waitress was just fine with her.
“And then he surprised me by getting down on one knee right then and there and asking me to marry him. On our third date,” Mrs. Little said, a dreamy look in her eyes.
Bree’s smile was genuine, feeling no urge to tell the older woman she’d heard the story before. It was so sweet and romantic.
At least she no longer sat tensely through every conversation worried that however she responded would be wrong or inappropriate.
While Bree didn’t miss working with computers, she had to admit she found them much more simple than people. Coding held no subtext—it was straightforward, inputs and outputs, and for Bree as basic and simple as breathing.
Relationships and people, on the other hand? They were the opposite: full of unspoken rules and expectations and subtext.
Simple things other people took for granted, like talking and joking and, heaven forbid, flirting, were causes of darn near panic attacks in Bree. Part of it was from growing up without any friends and a mother terrified they’d be taken back into captivity at any moment. The other part of it was just how Bree’s brain worked.
Like a computer.
Mrs. Little patted Bree’s hand as she finished her story, and Bree turned back toward the kitchen. Sure enough, someone had already taken the food out to the table where it belonged.
For just a moment she tensed, second-guessing herself and whether she’d made the wrong decision by talking to Mrs. Little rather than concentrating on the job she was being paid to do. But both Dan and Cheryl smiled at her when she turned back toward the kitchen, so Bree decided not to worry about it.
She had bigger things to worry about. Tanner was on his way to come get her. Said he had a surprise for her this evening.
Bree did not do well with surprises.
She knew he’d been in Denver today providing testimony in court. The fact that she couldn’t call him and ask him for more details about this evening
