“Get your mind off that.”
Raf didn’t look away from the woman. “How do you do it?” he asked in an absent tone. “Get your mind off a particular someone, I mean. You’ve had six years and one fiancée and neither worked.”
“Courtney was a mistake. You all knew it.”
“But so perky,” Raf said, focus still on his brother’s date. “We thought for a while she’d manage to perky you out of that grave you’d dug for yourself.”
He’d thought so too, before realizing that a woman shouldn’t come into a marriage needing a shovel. Mad rubbed a hand over his face then took another look at his beer buddy. Who continued looking at the unknown woman.
“You’re still staring,” he cautioned Raf.
The other man pushed back his chair. “I’m going to introduce myself. It would be the polite thing, right?”
Mad shook his head, giving up on talking sense into him. Such a Romeo. “I’m going home.”
Raf was already walking away, but gave a wave behind his back. “Catch you later.”
On the street, Mad took a casual look around. Then his belly clenched. Harper Hill was striding into Harry’s.
Still not gone. Some sixth sense had told him she remained in town, but this proved it.
The door to the coffee place shut behind her, but he was drawn there anyway. To the scene of the crime.
The scene of the crime of making a scene.
It galled him. Even his broken engagement hadn’t caused so much talk about town. The past twenty-four hours he’d heard from more people than he wanted to count who wondered exactly what he’d done to send Harper Hill running from Harry’s, tears pouring down her face.
During an alarmed phone call, Sophie assured him that Harper had not been crying.
But there was no denying she’d been running.
And scaring her off with a kiss didn’t leave a good taste in his mouth.
An apology needed to be offered and accepted. He’d been worrying that he wouldn’t ever sleep again because she’d escaped town without seeing him again, but here she was.
Now all he had to do was force his—likely unpleasant—presence on her and get her to forgive him.
It felt like shit having to say sorry for a kiss that he could still feel on his lips, in his dick, and all the way down to the soles of his feet. But she’d always been the one…
The One.
God.
He wanted to apologize to himself for thinking of Harper like that.
His self didn’t feel forgiving.
Locking his jaw, he strode across the street and threw open the door to Harry’s. The bell jangled, the customers glanced over. Then they looked to Harper, who stood at the register, chatting with the brunette barista.
The other customers looked back at him.
Yeah, since she returned, this town had grown oh so smaller.
Harper seemed to notice the attention, because she stiffened, then took a slow look over her shoulder.
A bare shoulder. He’d been so focused on his sorry, that he hadn’t taken in her outfit right away. A dress. His Harper was wearing a strappy, flirty, flippy-skirted sundress. Sure, her long legs were covered by clingy leggings, but the garment revealed her shoulders and her collarbone and—now that she was turning to face him—some half-naked cleavage.
Goodbye, breath. Goodbye, brain power. Hello, horny Mad.
He allowed himself a moment of ogle, then forced his feet to move again. She watched him approach, her to-go cup clutched in both hands.
“Feel free to throw that if second-degree burns would make you feel better,” he joked.
She didn’t crack a smile.
Keeping his gaze locked on hers, he drew closer and lowered his voice. “Hey, Harp.” One hand reached out, but he let it drop. “I…”
Shit.
He looked down, back up again. “I was intending to say I’m sorry I kissed you, but God, Harp, I can’t ever be sorry I kissed you.”
One of her eyebrows lifted. “You said it was a mistake.”
And that word had been the hot coals in his bed last night. “Because it was going to set the tongues of Sawyer Beach to wagging.” Lie. Or half lie, which was why it went over halfway decently.
She took a sidelong look first one way, then the other. “I see that. Not fun.”
“Don’t worry. It will die a swift death as soon as we stop meeting like this.” He glanced down at the canvas tote slung over her shoulder and nodded at her huge cup of coffee. “We’re going to stop meeting like this, right? It looks like you’re taking off tonight?”
“Well…” She grimaced.
He did too, but on the inside, because until she left him again he had a big problem.
Left him again.
Yeah. He had a big problem.
Rubbing a hand over his hair, he tried to think his way out of this.
“I might need some help,” Harper whispered.
His gaze swerved to hers. “What?” She’d never needed him for anything—she’d proved that by walking away six years ago.
“Did you ever have a bad feeling about something?” she asked.
“What’s going on, Harp?”
“Harp. Harp and Mad. Remember when we were Harp and Mad?”
“I—”
“No one has ever called me Harp since leaving here, you know?” She stared down at her coffee. “Harper’s not a name that’s easily shortened. Or maybe it’s because a ‘harp’ is an actual thing. But of course, mad is an actual emotion, and lots of people call you Mad, right? The poker guys call you Mad. Your sister. Your mom, I remember. But nobody calls me Harp but you.”
If she had tap shoes on, they’d be clicking and clacking on Harry’s floor.
“Quit dancing around the subject, sweetheart.”
Her head jerked up, her eyes met his. Had no one called her ‘sweetheart’ since leaving town either? His hand reached for her again.
She sidestepped it, and gestured toward the tables. “Do you have a minute to sit?”
With a nod, he followed her to the corner of the room. He held out a chair for her and she folded onto it without looking at him.
He took his own seat. “I’m listening.”
Her tongue stole out to moisten her bottom lip. “Mad, can we keep this between us?”
“You have to share the ‘this’ first.”
She nodded. “Okay. You’re a cop. What do you know about crime in and around Sawyer Beach?”
He sat back in his chair. “It’s the usual stuff. Since you’ve been gone, we’ve gotten bigger, so some bigger crimes. But generally things are fairly quiet.”
“But you still have detecting to do, right?”
“At the moment, I’m on a two-week vacation because I just wrapped up a big case. A guy tried to hire an assassin to kill his wife.”
Her eyes rounded. “My God!”
“He was pretty stupid about it. The person he tried soliciting to make the hit was a cop.”
Harper let that sink in for a moment, then she reached out to grab his arm. “You played the hit man?”
“All wired up, with audio and visual.”
Her fingers squeezed. “That was dangerous for you.”
“Not so much.” He put his hand over hers and then patted it lightly. “If he was truly dangerous, he wouldn’t have been shopping around for someone to do his dirty work.”
She shivered, but pulled her hand off his arm. “Even in little Sawyer Beach!”
“But the number of cases of cousin-marrying is down,” he said dryly.
Her lips pursed in disapproval.
He forced himself not to lean forward and kiss them. Clearing his throat, he returned to the matter at hand. “What aren’t we talking about?”
After a moment, she sighed and gave him the rundown. “Word is running like wildfire around the farms near us that tools are going missing, crops, maybe even laundry hanging on the line.”
His eyebrows shot up. “
Really? Laundry hanging on the line?”
She nodded. “According to my mom. One of her friends was sun-bleaching some vintage blouses and they disappeared.”
Mad wished he had another beer. “No one’s called the authorities?”
She just looked at him.
“Okay, right.” He rubbed his hand over his head. “I forget your grandfather’s distrust of the authorities.”
“And many of the others in the area hold the same view. Old hippies? Grandpop also has his pride, you know. He’s wanted to handle this himself.”
“How did you get involved then?”
“They tried to keep it from me…but Mom finally spilled a couple of weeks ago. And I didn’t know what to make of it. At first I thought I’d come here, check in to reassure myself, and be back on the road in just hours.” She looked down, then up again. “But Grandpop’s not getting any younger.”
Mad took her hand now, because he knew how much she loved the older man. Her fingers felt light in his. Warm.
“So now I’m getting this…feeling that there could be a real problem. The Cochrans think some avocados have been stolen.”
The Cochrans owned acreage adjacent to Sunnybird Farm. “Agri-crime is a real thing,” Mad told her. “I’m involved with more urban issues, but the county has a unit focused on the loss of nuts, fruits, even fertilizer and pesticides. There are criminal syndicates that—”
“Like the mob? I can’t believe the Mafia wants a linen shirtwaist circa 1912.”
“Maybe not.” Mad smiled.
“Well, I’m going to get to the bottom of this,” she said, her mouth setting in a mulish line.
Now uneasy, he stared at her. “You mean you, personally? I was going to recommend I place a call to the sheriff’s department tomorrow. Or we can go there together in the morning. I know someone—”
“No.” She was shaking her head. “I’m going to get on this tonight. Grandpop thought something might happen with our trees and I won’t let it.”
“Harp.” He pinched the bridge of his nose.
“You want me out of town, right?”
Well, there was a question with two sides to it. “Uh…” He cleared his throat. “What do you think you’re going to exactly do tonight?”
“A stakeout,” she said. “That’s the word, isn’t it?”
“Stakeout?”
“I’m going to spend the night with the avocado trees, ready to catch anyone red—well, green-handed, I guess.”
He hauled in a breath. His instant decision felt inevitable. “Well…”
“Well what?”
The moment’s stall didn’t send in any second thoughts to rescue him. “You mean we’re going to spend the night with the avocado trees.”
There might have been delight in her gaze. Or perhaps it was dread. “We are?”
Yeah. It seemed the only solution to getting his life back in balance. He needed to solve Harper’s problem.
Without Harper becoming a problem—well, a greater problem, that is—for him.
Chapter Five
With Mad riding shotgun, Harper parked Grandpop’s old truck on a narrow dirt road that bisected the avocado grove from the parcel dedicated to orange trees. Headlights turned off, she cranked her window down a couple of inches, then glanced over at Mad, who now sprawled on his side of the bench seat, his back to the passenger door.
Meaning he was staring straight at her.
Even in the moonlit dark, the regard made her nervous.
“My mom is working hard to convince herself that nothing’s amiss,” she said quickly, filling the silence that yawned around them. “Even though it was she who tipped me off in the first place.”
“I hear a but.”
“You wouldn’t be here without the but.”
He laughed. “Truer words. You have a fine butt.”
“You can’t see my…posterior,” she said, annoyed. “I’m wearing a dress.”
“Yeah. About that…” He shifted, and the air in the cab shifted too.
His scent reached her, clean and sharp, and she clapped her hand over her nose and mouth. Her “About what?” came out muffled.
“Huh?”
She drew her hand away. “What about the dress?” Then tried to pose casually with her palm covering the lower half of her face again. Just like the scent of cinnamon made her remember Christmas, breathing in Mad made her remember being in love with him.
Being so happy.
She had to stop thinking about then. And them.
“I’ve never seen you wear a dress before,” he said now, “even with leggings underneath it.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed you knew so much about female garments. Leggings?”
“Sister, mom,” he said. “Women friends. I listen.”
“Fiancée too, as I recall.” Did that come out snarky?
“Do we need to do more air-clearing?”
It had come out snarky.
“Your engagement is none of my concern.” Time for a subject change. “Hungry?”
He didn’t comment as she reached behind the seat to haul her canvas tote into her lap. Inside, she found the packages of Oreos and Nilla Wafers.
“Your bag is full of cookies? So you aren’t packed and ready to go.”
“I’m getting there. I cleaned my closet this evening,” she said. “That’s where I found the dress, if you must know. My mom insists I get rid of all my stuff before I head out this time.”
What was a little white lie? Reaching across the space, she passed over a handful of Oreos.
“So what’s in Nevada?” he asked.
Nothing. Nobody.
She bit into a cookie and chewed to avoid answering. Then she swallowed and put her nose to the window crack to breathe in fresh, un-Mad scented air. “I didn’t tell you about my visit to the Cochrans.”
“Who claim they’ve been visited by avocado robbers.”
“Right. I was skeptical too, because they told me it was only a couple of bins’ worth, but Mr. Cochran, he’s the owner—”
“I know Jerome Cochran.”
“He’s very sure that they were stolen, though like Grandpop, he doesn’t want to take this to the authorities, because—”
“I know Jerome Cochran.”
“It goes back to—”
“1972, an arrest for growing weed. I’ve heard it all before.”
“He wasn’t growing weed, he assures me. He may have had a couple of doobies—his word—in his glove box, but he didn’t grow weed.” She cleared her throat. “Then.”
“I don’t think he has a current cultivation license…” Mad shook his head. “Never mind.”
“Right. So he said his crop thieves came well after midnight.”
The watch on Mad’s wrist flashed on, briefly illuminating his face as he checked the hour.
So damn handsome.
“That means we have quite a bit of time to kill,” he said.
“Right.” She tried not to think that didn’t sound like a threat.
“So what’s in Nevada?” Mad asked again.
“Las Vegas, actually,” she said, and waved her hand. “Bright lights, big city.”
“Ah.” He shifted on his seat. “Teaching English?”
She hesitated. “Pouring drinks, actually.”
“Ah,” he said again.
His neutral tone put her hackles up anyway. “It’s a skill worth having. The tips are good. You meet a lot of people.”
He put his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t criticize. I wouldn’t.”
“Anyway, I’m just, uh, pausing. Before what comes next.” She waited for him to ask what exactly that was, which would be awkward, since she had no idea.
“So.” Mad cleared his throat. “You meet a lot of people, bartending?”
“Hm? Yeah.”
“You date, then. Or have someone special in the big city under the bright lights?”
In the last eighteen months, she’d had exactly three un
derwhelming dates. “I’m pretty busy and I work odd hours.”
“Right.”
“I guess you’re busy as well, what with thwarting murders.” She shook her head. “I still can’t believe it.”
“We put in a lot of hours on that one. But I manage to get some surfing in too. Shane Rodriguez and I, along with another couple of pals, have gone on some great trips to Mexico, Thailand, and Costa Rica.”
She blinked. “I’ve been to Costa Rica. I never expected you to go so far afield for waves.”
“We get more out of traveling than new swells, but yeah.” His tone turned wry. “I’ve managed to apply for a passport and everything. Took the piece of straw out of my mouth for the photo.”
“I didn’t…well…”
“My sister and I toured Western Europe for three weeks on bikes. I went to Ireland to rub shoulders with the 50,000 citizens who share my surname.”
“There are 50,000 Kellys there?” she asked, just to say something, because it gobsmacked her to think of Mad seeking the perfect wave in Central America or drinking Guinness at a pub in Dublin.
Maybe they’d have crossed paths on one of her teaching assignments or on her own between-teaching travels. Maybe he could have found where she was living and dropped by for a visit. Had he considered it?
She would have fallen over in shock. Not once had she thought of Mad wandering the world, instead imagining him securely rooted right here in California, like one of Grandpop’s avocado trees. She glanced out the window, taking in their dark shapes.
“They didn’t lock the gates of Sawyer Beach once you left, Harper,” he said. “We go, we come home.”
We come home.
“Of course I know that,” she said, trying to take the testiness out of her tone. But she might be guilty of thinking that everything and everybody remained unchanged and stayed where they were after she packed her bags that very first time.
Now Grandpop was growing older.
Mad had indulged a wanderlust she hadn’t known about.
“Still,” Harper said, thinking aloud. “Sawyer Beach seems much the same to me.”
“Are you saying that like it’s a bad thing?” he asked.
“I…no.”
“Because there have been changes. We have more economic diversity, with the wineries and the tech start-ups, to name two. Diversity equals stability.”
SLOW PLAY (7-Stud Club Book 4) Page 6
