by Liz Isaacson
The next evening, he paced on the back patio, trying to keep himself from going over to the police station. “She won’t be there anyway,” he told himself. A cold front had blown in that morning, and he really just wanted to go to bed.
But Dawn hadn’t called, and McDermott’s last thread of hope was almost frayed.
It’s ten minutes, he told himself. Five there just to see if her car was outside. Five back if it wasn’t. He could certainly spare ten minutes, couldn’t he?
For Dawn, he could spare almost anything, so he went inside, grabbed his leather jacket, and said to Nana Reba, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She nodded without looking up from her knitting. Even when he’d questioned her about the phone call yesterday, she’d been very tight lipped and had refused to say anything. There was something afoot, and the state trooper in him would figure it out eventually.
He turned from Main to Park, only a couple more blocks separating him from the police station. If she wasn’t there, he didn’t know what he’d do. Probably go stake out her place until she showed up and he could talk to her.
As Oxbow Park eased past on his right, he became aware that something was different about the police station. All the lights were off inside, and that never happened. The building sat shrouded in darkness, and he thought sure the power had gone out. But the fire department next door was lit from inside, and all the streetlamps in the parking lot seemed to be working fine too.
He reached for his radio and said, “Hey, so I’m heading into my office to grab a few files, and all the lights are out. James, are you there?”
Only silence came back. He didn’t have his weapon with him, and he reasoned that he probably didn’t need one. This was a simple electrical failure.
Still, he parked so his headlights shone on the front doors, and he approached the entrance slowly. His phone rang, making him nearly jump out of his skin. He fumbled the device, especially when he saw Dawn’s name on the screen.
“Hey,” he breathed, still trying to see inside the dark station.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“At the police station.”
A beat passed and then she said, “Stalking me again, I see.”
“You haven’t been here for days,” he said.
“Then why are you there?”
“A fool’s hope,” he said. “I was just tryin’ to decide if camping outside the bookstore would be considered inappropriate.”
“Are you coming in?”
McDermott paused, her words taking their sweet time to click around inside his head. “You’re inside?”
She didn’t answer, and when he checked his phone, he found that the call had been disconnected. With his heart throbbing with hope now—and fine, still a little bit of trepidation—he entered the police station.
The lights blazed to life and James stood from behind the dispatch desk. “Surprise,” he boomed, his gaze flying to McDermott’s office door—which was closed. He walked toward McDermott. “She said I could have a long lunch break, so I’m gonna take that now.” He clapped McDermott on the shoulder and grinned as he passed.
His door opened and Dawn stood there in all her glory. Those blue eyes. That honeyed hair in those loose waves. Every cell in his body wanted to touch her, and he barely got his brain in control before he flew across the room and kissed her.
“You sent James on a long lunch?” McDermott paused a healthy ten feet from her.
“He said the chief wouldn’t mind.” She waved him toward her, a timid smile on her lips. “Come on in.”
He followed her into his office, and she closed the door before pressing her back into it. “First, thank you for all the cookies. I’m sure I’m ten pounds heavier because of you.”
He nodded and spotted a box on his desk. “What’s this?”
“My mother and I spent the afternoon making that for you. I believe you said chocolate was your favorite dessert.” She inched closer to him. So close he caught the scent of her perfume, the soft, powdery smell he’d missed so intensely.
He lifted the lid on the cake box and sucked in a breath. The chocolate cake in the box looked like a professional pastry chef had labored over it for hours. The frosting had been perfectly peaked, with a silver ball at the top of each spike.
“This is beautiful,” he said. “But it’s not my birthday.”
“It’s mine,” she said, causing his eyes to fly to hers. His heart wailed in his chest. He couldn’t miss her birthday, and he didn’t have anything to give her.
Her hand touched his, and he was so startled that he yanked his back.
“Okay, I’ve freaked you out,” she said. “Just one more thing I’m not good at.”
“What aren’t you good at?”
“I’m trying to make up with you,” she said. “Get you back. I’m terribly lonely without you, and I don’t want you to be one of my mistakes.”
He had no idea what she was talking about, and his face must’ve sent that message. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. When she looked at him again, her eyes swam with tears, with hope, with determination.
“I’m sorry, McDermott. I love you, and all I want for my birthday is to have one more kiss with you.”
He blinked, sure he must be dreaming. Had she said she loved him? His ears rang, and the word love bounced around inside his eardrums.
“I think we can have more than one,” he whispered. “I mean, if you love me and all.”
She ran her fingers up his arms, and he cupped her face in his hands. “Happy birthday,” he said just before touching his lips to hers. It might as well have been his birthday, because all of his wishes came true in that single kiss.
Chapter Fourteen
Dawn memorized the feel of McDermott’s hands on her face. The taste of his mouth like the coffee he drank after dinner. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered against his lips.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice husky. He kissed her cheek, the soft skin by her ear. “Honestly, Dawn. When I watched you walk out of this office, I knew you’d be back.” He pulled away and looked at her. “We’re meant to be, you and I.”
“Oh, you think so?” She smiled at him, so very happy to see him grinning back.
“You’re my treasure,” he said, his love and adoration for her evident in his tone, his eyes. “I love you.”
She kissed him again, knowing she’d have a lot more explaining to do. Sure enough, he backed off soon after that and wanted to eat the cake and get some answers.
“What made you decide you were ready?” he asked.
“I’m still not ready,” she said. “But I don’t think I need to be. God doesn’t wait for people to be perfect to put them where He needs them. My mom didn’t make this cake perfectly the first time she tried. Wren can’t get her baby to sleep at night.” She shrugged, hoping all the weird pieces she’d just said would make sense to him.
“If I wait until I’m sure I’m ready, I’ll never—I mean—that’s not what living is. Living is messy. Living is making mistakes and trying to fix them the next time. You know?” She watched him, and while he seemed a bit confused, he nodded.
“This cake is fantastic. So however many times she had to practice, it was worth it.”
Dawn giggled as he took another huge bite. “I’m twenty-eight today,” she said. “And all I could think about was you. I came to the station a couple of days ago to tell you, but you weren’t here.”
He stalled in his cake consumption. “Is that why Nana Reba called me and told me I needed to come to the station?”
Dawn nodded, forking off a more delicate bite of cake. “I still got you here.”
He looked straight at her, straight into her soul. “Dawn, I would go anywhere to be with you.”
She ducked her head, her curls falling between them. Heat rose to her face, and she said, “It was Wren having her baby that freaked me out and made me break up with you. And it was Wren making mistakes as she mot
hered her baby that made me realize I’d rather make mistakes with you than not have you at all.”
“I thought you just said you didn’t want me to be one of your mistakes.”
“Right. I’ve made some mistakes in my life, and they’re what make me, well, me. But I didn’t want losing you to be one of my mistakes.” She hoped she was making sense.
He grinned and dragged his fork through the frosting on top of his cake. With a mischievous glint in his eye, his hand darted out and dabbed the frosting on her nose. “Oops. My mistake.”
He laughed, abandoning his cake to kiss the sweet from her face, working his way to her lips. “I hope we make a lot of mistakes together, sweetheart.”
“Me too, McDermott. Me too.”
Memorial Day, nine months later:
“It’s windy,” Wren said as she fiddled with the fine buttons on the back of Dawn’s wedding dress. “Your updo is going to be a down-do in only a few minutes.”
“It’s okay,” she said. Brennan’s wedding had been moved inside the fire station at the very last minute. Wren had warned Dawn away from May, claiming the weather was still too unpredictable. But she and McDermott wanted to get married on a meaningful day. He wanted to make a sad day happy, and she wanted to get married when it wasn’t a hundred degrees outside.
Memorial Day was the perfect day, and if the wind wasn’t howling up at the horse farm, everything would go off without a hitch.
“Is it going to rain?” her mom asked.
“Not a cloud in the sky,” Wren said. “It’s just windy up here. Landon says it gets like this in the spring.” She speared Dawn with a look that said I told you summer would’ve been better.
Dawn ignored her and tucked a loose curl into her updo. “Spray that piece again, Berlin.”
Her sister complied, and Dawn’s stomach flipped over when she reminded herself that she was getting married today. She would be a mom in about an hour. Her whole life would change, and instead of being upset or nervous about it, she felt…ready.
Ready to embrace whatever life threw at her. Ready to do the best she could with Taya. Ready to lean on McDermott if things got hard, and support him when he needed it.
Her sister sprayed her hair and said, “You’re beautiful, Dawn.”
The sisters hugged, and Berlin said, “I wish I was coming to Cozumel with you. Are you sure you don’t need a nanny?”
“Nana Reba is coming,” Dawn said, laughing. “She’s so worked up about McDermott and Taya moving out, even though we’ll literally be three houses down the street.” She shook her head, though she loved Nana Reba and was glad McDermott had found a house so close to his grandmother. He needed to be able to look after her, and he didn’t want to disrupt everything in Taya’s life.
They’d worked out a schedule of sorts. Once school started again in the fall, McDermott would take Taya to school. Dawn would pick her up twice a week, and Nana Reba would still get her the other three times. This summer, Dawn and Taya would have hours and hours of time together, as McDermott was gone during the day, and Dawn didn’t have to work until almost Taya’s bedtime.
Nerves bullied their way through her. She had no idea what to do with a seven-year-old all day long.
But she’d figure it out. That had become her new mantra, and she wasn’t going to let her fear of the unknown dictate her decisions. Not anymore.
“It’s time,” Wren said, letting the blinds fall back into place. “Are you ready?”
Dawn took a deep breath and faced her family. “You know what? I think I am ready.”
She hugged her mom, and everyone exited the cabin that had been donated to her for the bride’s room, leaving her to go last. Her father stood on the porch, all decked out in his black tux and starched, white shirt.
“Sweetheart.” He smiled at her and placed a careful kiss on her cheek. “Let’s go.”
The wind tried to steal her veil, and Dawn kept a tight hold on her father’s arm with one hand while she held her veil on with the other.
She sent up a quick prayer that the wind would die down, just for a few minutes, and kept moving toward the huge tents that had been set up on the north end of the drive. A huge grassy field spread before them, with the homestead on her right and the stream she and McDermott had ridden out to once way out on her left.
The wedding party started down the aisle, and the crowd stood. She caught a glimpse of McDermott down at the far end of the tent, splendid and handsome in his dress uniform. She’d wanted everything to be police-themed, and he hadn’t put up a fight. At one point, he’d said she could do whatever she wanted, because for him, the prize was in gaining the wife, not putting on the wedding.
But he’d been married before. She hadn’t. And as Dawn met with her mother and brainstormed with Wren, she realized she wanted a nice wedding, complete with a half white, half police blue wedding cake. And she’d gotten just that.
His daughter stepped down the aisle just like they’d practiced, an old police officer hat in her hands. Nana Reba had sewn a pillow to fit inside, and the ring was nestled there.
McDermott bent down and kissed his daughter on the forehead before taking the ring and straightening, looking for her. The bridesmaids moved, and then there was nothing between her and McDermott except the sixty-foot aisle.
Dawn managed to make it to him without tripping, noting that the wind had indeed died down to a tolerable level.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he said, taking her bouquet and passing it to Berlin to hold.
Too nervous to speak, Dawn could only smile. Pastor Peters gazed at her with such love, and a keen sense of peace and comfort flowed through her.
“Look at us gathered together for another wonderful wedding!” he announced to the crowd. Everyone sat down, and he began speaking. “As humans, we’re not perfect. We can strive to do a little better each day, but we’ll inevitably fall short. But it is in our failures that we can learn the most.”
He continued on, and Dawn basked in the warmth of his words.
“Now, I think it’s time to get these two married. Don’t you think?”
McDermott nodded and several people in the crowd laughed. Pastor Peters read the vows, and Dawn was able to push out “Yes,” when it was her turn to pledge herself to McDermott as his companion and wife.
“By the powers vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride, McDermott.”
He leaned down, and she tipped up on her toes. “You’re the best mistake I’ve ever made,” she whispered just before kissing her husband.
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Sneak Peek! A Date for the Detective Chapter One
“Come on, BB, hurry it up.” Kyler Fuller held the door to the cabin open with his foot, his hands stuffed full of grocery sacks. His muscles strained against the plastic bags as the horizon boiled with dark gray clouds, as thunder boomed and crashed and threatened to make the sky fall.
The eight-year-old Welsh corgi somehow got his stumpy legs up to the front porch and through the door before the rain started falling. Kyler ducked in after him, glad he’d made it to the cabin before the weather.
He’d come up last night and stacked wood in the mudroom after McDermott—his best friend and now one of his sister’s husbands—had alerted him to the forecast.
Kyler busied himself with putting the groceries away, missing the way his long hair used to sway with the simplest of tasks. Bu
t he had been able to get more dates since cleaning up his appearance. Now he shaved every day, and kept his hair clipped as if he were about to enlist in the armed forces.
He worked out enough mowing lawns and moving pavers that he didn’t worry about adding running to his regimen. He’d tried getting out to the summer picnics this year, the speed dating event at the church, and hanging out with his friends and brothers at the karaoke bar on the weekends.
Sure, he’d gotten some attention. But not from anyone he cared to continue a relationship with.
“BB,” he scolded as the dog started licking the cabinet. “Knock it off.” He chuckled as the corgi seemed to give him a smile and then went right back to the cabinet, where something must’ve been spilled in the past.
His phone rang, but he ignored the call from his oldest brother, instead tapping out an I made it before the rain in response to Milton. Since another of his brothers, Brennan, had moved to California, Milt had become Kyler’s wingman.
But Kyler had had enough for a while. He’d come to the family cabin up in the hills above Brush Creek, where he planned to stay for the next few days. The fishing, hiking, and relaxing would’ve been better if the weather was more cooperative, but June in this part of Utah was unpredictable at best.
And “Hail,” Kyler said with wonder, at worst.
The sound of the hard hail on the roof and windows upset BB, who whimpered. Kyler scooped him up and held the brown and white dog to his chest. “All right, Bread and Butter. You’re fine.” He chuckled as the dog shook in his arms. He set the little dog on the counter and pulled out a pound of ground beef.
That got BB to hold still, and as the symphony of hail continued to beat down on the house, he seasoned the meat with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. With the grill pan heating on the stove, harder pounding sounded from the front door.
