“Our schedule next week is insane,” she said. “It’s fine. This is how things are.”
“Ten-forty then,” Deirdre said. “I really will be quick.”
“Sounds good, dear. See you then.” Norma hung up, and Deirdre did too. Her heart felt like someone had raked it up and down on a washboard, wrung it out, and hung it up to dry. But in Hawaii, the humidity kept everything from truly drying, and now her most vital organ was starting to mold.
She hadn’t texted Wyatt, and he’d only messaged one other time to let her know that they’d had a break in the vehicle-meets-building case. She’d wanted to celebrate with him, but honestly, it was easier to eat ice cream and barricade herself behind locked doors.
Sighing, she didn’t notice right away when Meg entered her office. “What was that?” her best friend demanded.
“What?” Deirdre started organizing papers that were already neat.
“You broke up with the Chief?”
Deirdre gave a long, over-exaggerated sigh this time. “Yes, all right? And it took you a week to find out.”
“Oh, I knew,” Meg said, collapsing into the chair where Deirdre’s clients usually sat. She picked up a mint from the bowl Deirdre kept on the front of her desk. “I was just waiting for you to say something.”
“Nothing to say,” Deirdre said.
“It wasn’t over Emma, was it?”
Deirdre gave up trying to work. She tucked her hair behind her ear and leaned back in her chair. Meg was a good friend. She’d started at nearly the same time as Deirdre, and they’d worked together a lot to figure out the ropes at Your Tidal Forever. She had hair that sat between brown and auburn, and she was much more adventurous in the men she dated than Deirdre.
“I don’t know,” Deirdre said.
“How can you not know?”
“It was really because of his family,” Deirdre said slowly, trying to figure out how to articulate how she felt. She hadn’t been able to, which was why she’d never messaged Wyatt back.
“His family? They’re that bad?”
“No,” Deirdre said. “They’re that good.”
Sudden understanding entered Meg’s expression, and Deirdre didn’t need to say more. “Honey,” she said. “You can’t compare.”
“Actually, I can,” she said. “And it was almost insufferable being with them. I’m not like them at all, and there’s no way I’d ever fit.” She got up and headed for the cupboard behind the door, where she stored her purse. “They reminded me of just how badly I want a family like theirs. And how royally I’ve screwed up. I don’t need that in my life every time someone has a birthday.”
She headed for the door, and Meg scrambled to her feet. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes,” she said. “I get here before everyone else every single day. I can leave thirty minutes early.”
“Wait, what are you doing this weekend?” Meg all but ran in front of her, her eyes a bit wild now.
“Why? What’s going on?”
Meg’s vulnerability wasn’t hard to see, and Deirdre couldn’t believe she’d missed it. Just another failure to add to her list. She’d been so caught up in her own turmoil, she hadn’t even seen Meg’s.
“Why don’t you and Father John come over for dinner tonight?” Deirdre suggested. “I’ll make sushi, and we can swap Thanksgiving horror stories.”
Meg’s whole face lit up, and she said, “I’ll be there at six.”
Chapter Nineteen
Wyatt growled at anything and anyone that moved the week after Thanksgiving. He couldn’t help it. Even helping McKenna Lotus file a protective order against her boyfriend and getting a hearing date set for that, as well as pursuing criminal charges for the man driving his car into the building where McKenna worked, had not lifted his mood as much as he’d hoped.
Deirdre had gone completely silent. Wyatt had originally thought he’d fight for her. Text her until she answered him. Stop by her place just to check on her.
But as he reviewed McKenna’s order with her, he realized such things—unwanted contact. Repeated texts. Showing up at her house—could be considered stalking. Not that he believed Deirdre would ever file a protective order against him.
But he didn’t want to pressure her to talk to him if she didn’t want to. The problem was, Wyatt had started to fall in love with her, and he missed her as much as he’d missed Christine when she’d died.
He was simply not fit to live alone, and by the time he got home on Friday night, he only wanted to leave again.
He’d been standing at Norma’s desk when Deirdre had called, and he knew she’d be coming to the station on Monday morning. He just wasn’t sure what he was going to do about it.
Tigger barked, and Wyatt said, “Yeah, bud. I’m coming.” He opened the back door for the dog, who raced outside, his claws clicking against the deck. Wyatt stood at the door and looked up into the sky. Even December in Getaway Bay was beautiful, though the temperatures had cooled a little bit and there was talk of a gale hitting the island in ten days or so. The weathermen didn’t like to talk too much about the weather until a few days out, as things changed in the ocean pretty quickly.
Wyatt didn’t want to be home by himself. As Tigger took care of his business, he filled the dog’s bowl and got down a leash from a cupboard in the kitchen. Tigger came back in, and Wyatt said, “Eat up, boy. We’re going to go to the beach.”
He’d find an empty room in some hotel and stay there for the night. Can’t do that with Tigger, he told himself as the dog trotted over to his food bowl. He’d wanted to run away after Christine’s death too, and he sort of had. He’d taken a long vacation, returning to the station three weeks later to dozens of flower arrangements, cards, notes, and words of encouragement.
Christine would’ve kept them all, so Wyatt had too. It had meant a lot to him that so many people had loved his wife, and he used to pull the cards and notes out to read them whenever he had a day where he missed Christine so much he could barely breathe.
But this break-up with Deirdre just had Norma shooting anxious glances toward his office and everyone in the department talking behind his back. He hated the sense of tension in the air at work, and he knew he was the cause of it.
He changed his clothes while Tigger ate, and then they left the house together. Wyatt’s stomach complained for dinner, and he took the dog through the neighborhood as he considered taking the next week off.
Yes, December was a busy time. Lots of calls for shoplifting, and he usually needed three extra pairs of cops just for traffic control, both vehicular and pedestrian, around the shopping centers.
Wyatt walked on the path the led out of the neighborhood where he lived and into a more commercial part of the island. Certainly not downtown, but a few businesses lingered along this road, and tonight, in the sprawling park that backed up against his neighborhood, several food trucks had gathered.
The police officer in him had him scanning the crowd for danger, for anyone suspicious, for quick exits. Determining he was safe, he turned his attention to his evening meal choices.
He decided on spam rolls and vegetable tempura from one truck, and Nutella cheesecake bites from another, taking his food and his dog to a picnic table out of the way. No one else sat there, but Wyatt could feel people looking at him. He was used to it, but tonight, he felt judged.
Tigger lay obediently at his feet, and he rewarded the dog with bits of spam and a couple of tempura carrots. He ate quickly and stood up, ready to be out of the spotlight. Why he’d thought coming out in public was a good idea, he wasn’t sure.
“Let’s go, boy,” he said, leading the dog away from the crowd.
“Chief?” someone said, and he automatically turned toward them.
“Yes?” He appraised the young woman there, marking her as probably fifteen or sixteen years old. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” She smiled and pointed toward the tables. “My mom saw you eating alone and suggested you come eat with us.�
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He followed her finger to where a middle-aged woman sat at a table by herself. Horror struck Wyatt right behind the lungs. “Oh,” he said, almost wishing for a robbery to take place right there in the park or for a natural disaster to hit the island.
No matter what, he couldn’t go sit with that woman and her daughter.
He could get his own dates, and he hadn’t come to the park to do that anyway.
“I’m finished now,” he said, smiling at her in what he hoped was the kindest way possible. “I need to get home and check on my neighbor.” Not entirely a lie, and Wyatt could easily swing by Pru’s to see how she was doing. In fact, he would.
“Oh, okay,” the girl said. “If you want her number, I’ll give it to you.” She wore the brightest look of hope on her face, and Wyatt didn’t know how to say no.
“Oh, uh—” He cut off when his phone rang. “Excuse me.” He didn’t even look at the screen. He turned away from the teen and answered the call with, “This is Chief Gardner.”
“Hey, man,” Scott said. “Listen, I need some help with my lawn mower, and—”
“Yes,” Wyatt said in a clipped tone. “It’s fine, I can come. Yeah, don’t even worry about it. These things happen.” He looked at the teen and waved to her as he walked away. “I’ll be right down.”
“What is going on?” Scott asked.
Wyatt didn’t dare answer until he’d put more distance between him and the teenager who’d tried to set him up with her mother.
“Are you using me to get out of something?” Scott asked.
“Yep,” Wyatt said.
His brother laughed, adding, “I can’t wait to hear about this. And I really do need help with my lawn mower.”
Wyatt thought he was safe to speak now. “Okay, but I have to get home first. I’m out walking Tigger.”
“Bring that new wrench set I got you for your birthday.”
Wyatt laughed, realizing too late that this couldn’t possibly be a tragic work emergency if he was chortling up a storm. Thankfully, a quick glance over his shoulder showed that the girl had gone back to her mother, and he was at least fifty yards away from them.
“Wrench set,” he confirmed. “Got it.”
“And I can’t wait to hear what Deirdre had to say about the family,” Scott said.
“I’m not talking about Deirdre,” Wyatt said, leaving the park.
“Uh oh,” Scott said. “Why not?”
“I’m just not. So I’ll help you with your lawn mower, but I’m not discussing anything to do with my life, my job, or her.”
That was that, and Scott knew it. He didn’t even try to push Wyatt, for which he was grateful. They agreed to see each other soon, and Wyatt continued toward his house. Pru sat in her rocking chair on her front porch, and he called, “Want to go for a ride?”
She got up as quickly as an eighty-five-year-old woman with two hip surgeries in her past could. “Boy, do I ever.”
Wyatt managed to smile as Tigger got in the back of the Jeep and he went to help Pru so she wouldn’t be going in for surgery number three. He got her settled in the passenger seat, and ran inside to grab his keys.
If he’d have known she’d ask, “Whatever happened with Deirdre?” the moment he got behind the wheel, he wouldn’t have invited her.
He looked at the older woman and saw his mother in her pale blue eyes. She hadn’t asked him anything about Deirdre since Thanksgiving, and he wouldn’t have told her the truth anyway.
But with Pru, he could. “You know what? She broke up with me, and I’m pretty devastated about it.”
“Oh, my,” Pru said. She looked sorry for only a moment, and then she shook the emotion away. “You know, I made tea three mornings ago, and I read the leaves for you. She was in them.”
Wyatt smiled. He should’ve known Pru would bring up something psychic about how he and Deirdre were meant for each other. Heck, Deirdre had only come to his house maybe once or twice over the couple of months they’d been dating, and he’d never introduced her to Pru. But Pru had known about her anyway.
“She’ll come back,” Pru said, her voice strong. “The tea leaves never lie.”
“They don’t?” Wyatt shouldn’t encourage her, but maybe if he kept her talking, he wouldn’t have to.
“Nope,” she said. “You know Terrance had to come crawling back to me, right? And he did. And boy, I made that man apologize.” She chuckled, her voice catching in her throat. “Oh, how I loved him.”
Wyatt could hear it in her voice, and he looked out the window on his side of the Jeep, watching the trees go past as he drove toward his brother’s house.
“I think I’m in love with Deirdre,” Wyatt said, almost to himself.
“She’ll definitely come back,” Pru said. “Love has a way of calling to a person, carefully inviting them to be in that circle where they’re loved.”
“Does it?” Wyatt asked, and this time, he truly wanted to know. Maybe he was a fool to hope Pru could be right. But he’d loved Christine with everything in him, and there was absolutely no way for love to call her back to him.
Pru continued to talk, always telling a story about her late husband. Wyatt thought he’d heard them all, but he apparently hadn’t as she talked about a time when Terrance had worked on the coffee plantations on the island. He hadn’t known that, and he was glad for the company as he drove.
When he pulled into his brother’s driveway, he got a welcoming committee, and he cursed himself for saying anything about Deirdre.
“Just real quick,” Amelia said. “Did she like the family or not like us?”
“It’s got nothing to do with that,” Wyatt said.
“I just liked her so much.” Amelia actually looked worried. “And you two seemed just perfect for each other.”
“Amy,” Scott said. “I said he didn’t want to talk about it.”
“And what? We’re just going to let him slip back into his shell? That’s no way for him to live.” She looked at Wyatt, her eyes blazing now. He’d always gotten along with his brother’s wife, and in fact, Amelia had been the biggest comfort in the days and weeks following Christine’s death, as Wyatt tried to figure out how to console Jenn and himself.
“Sorry, but it’s not,” she said. “You were different at Thanksgiving, Wyatt. So happy. And I know it was because of her.”
“So what if it was?” he asked.
“She’ll come back,” Pru said.
“Drop this, Amy,” Scott warned.
The four of them looked around at each other, all eyes finally coming back to Wyatt. He was so tired of people looking at him, trying to size him up, yearning to figure out how he felt.
“Maybe call her,” Amelia suggested.
“I texted.”
“But maybe you should call,” she insisted, to which Pru added, “Calling is always better than texting.”
“I’ll take the wrench set.” Scott relieved Wyatt of the wrenches and turned toward the open garage.
Wyatt held up both hands to the two women still in front of him. “Ladies, believe it or not, I can handle my love life.” With that, he walked away from them, pure humiliation flowing through him.
Not only that, but now he was a liar too, because he had no idea what he was doing. He wanted to get back together with Deirdre, but he wasn’t going to call her. She knew his number too, and she was the one who’d said she needed to take a step back.
Chapter Twenty
Deirdre entered the police station on Monday morning before ten-thirty, and she knew instantly that Wyatt wasn’t in the building. How she knew, she didn’t know. But she knew.
Her muscles relaxed, and she hadn’t even realized how tense she’d been. Her fingers unclenched as she went through the metal detector after laying her files on the security belt. The hustle and bustle of the place should’ve calmed her, but all it did was heighten her awareness.
Norma sat at her desk, and Wyatt’s door was closed, the office beyond it dark. His se
cretary caught her looking, and she said, “He’s not in today. He took the whole week off.”
Deirdre swung her attention back to Norma. “He did? Will he be at the party?”
“I told him if he wasn’t, I’d skin him alive,” Norma said, and Deirdre believed her. She wouldn’t want to be on this woman’s bad side. She may look like the sweet grandmotherly type, what with her graying hair and wrinkles around her eyes, but she was still sharp as a tack and not to be trifled with.
“Okay,” Deirdre said, sitting in front of her desk. “I promised to be fast. I just want to go over everything one final time and update you as to where we are.” She opened the folder and saw the order for the food. “Everything is set for the chicken sandwiches and the crab cakes,” she said. “I talked to Claudia at Mussel’s, and she confirmed a four-thirty set up time.”
She paused so Norma could ask a question or make a comment, but she just nodded.
“We’ll have the profiteroles, as well as an array of drinks,” she said. “Hot and cold. Nuts About Dough has confirmed the setup of the doughnut wall at three-thirty. I guess it takes about an hour. I’ll be here by two to get the place decorated, and I believe you said you wanted a real tree. Tell me more about that.”
“Well, just look at that thing.” Norma gestured to the sad-looking Christmas tree near the door. “Half of the lights are burnt out.”
“So you don’t necessarily mean a real pine tree. A living one. You just want it to be more festive.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Well, I think it’ll be festive,” Deirdre said, turning a page. “I got the final mockups for the décor from Bruce this morning, and this is what he’ll be doing.” She showed Norma the full-color printout, which included where the food would be, the additional Christmas tree, a sack of gifts that Norma herself would be providing, and a station to get setup to receive texts from Santa.
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