by Tanya Agler
“Carlos is definitely cute.” Betty confirmed Fabiana’s statement.
Brooke couldn’t decide if she wanted the ground to open up for a minute to swallow her whole or if she liked the attention. Were they adopting her into their fold? That might not be so bad.
“But my Mason is cuter.” Betty finished her sentence. “And also available.”
That sinkhole would be a blessing in disguise. “Is everyone done with their masterpieces? During the week of Thanksgiving, The Whitley Community Center is going to have an open house to celebrate Heartsgiving. I’d love to display your artwork. It’s all for a good cause. We’re starting a new food bank at the center and delivering Thanksgiving meals to five families who need the help.”
“I love it.” Hyacinth clapped and slipped out of her purple apron. “Put Sweet Shelby’s Tea Room down for five pies. Weather permitting, I hope part of your open house will be outside. My dogs, Artemis and Athena, so enjoy a good rousing visit with people.”
Aunt Mitzi stepped forward. “Everyone should also look good. Count me in for five vouchers for free haircuts for the whole family.” Aunt Mitzi jutted her chin downward. She strode to the cooler, grabbed the bottle of orange juice and unscrewed the cap. “This is a good beginning for the Mimosas. To being creative. May our endeavors inspire each other and all budding artists. You’re women I’m proud to call my friends.”
Brooke took a long look at the newly established Mimosas, who gathered around the table, accepting goblets from Aunt Mitzi. Even in this short time, Brooke could tell each was a formidable woman, capable of speaking her mind and holding her own. That was what Brooke strived to be someday. The long-ago whispers of those hometown denizens behind her back had left an indelible mark. She’ll never amount to anything, just like her mother.
She gathered the paintbrushes and started cleaning them with soap and water.
“Hey, Brooke, come get your goblet for the toast,” Aunt Mitzi called out across the room.
With a smile, she placed the brushes on a paper towel. Then she wiped her hands dry, walked over and accepted her drink.
“To the Mimosas.” Aunt Mitzi held hers aloft as though raising the finest crystal. “To friendships that are as unique and individual as we are.”
As soon as Brooke sipped her first taste of the light yet tart mimosa, her cell phone rang. Stepping aside to the hallway, she found it wasn’t Colin but Jonathan. He apologized for running a few minutes behind.
“That’s perfect. See you then.” She slipped the phone into the pocket of her smock and rejoined the group.
“Ooh.” Fabiana placed her goblet on the table and scooted over. “Was that Mysterious Cute Guy? I might just start saying MCG for short.”
“It was probably her son, Colin.” Aunt Mitzi raised an eyebrow before her face softened. “You know what, though? Brooke will tell us everything when she’s ready. Maybe it was Colin, maybe it was MCG. I’ll back off.” Her face expanded into a grin as wide as the canvases. “For now.”
* * *
JONATHAN ASSESSED THE exterior security features of the community center. Tomorrow, he’d present Brooke with a report of improvements for the outside and see how it compared with hers.
While the lighting was adequate, there should be a visible sign once a security company started monitoring the facility along with a few strategically placed video cameras. Tonight, though, was all about installing the interior surveillance equipment in the lobby. Brooke had consented to this newest measure once he’d outlined his conversation with the sheriff. An extra monitoring system trained on the outside of the men’s locker room would hopefully identify any possible suspects.
As of ten thirty, there was only one other car in the lot. Even with Hollydale being a relatively safe area, he worried about an employee in the center this late at night without the new measures in place.
Or was it that the employee was Brooke?
Whistling a favorite tune, he popped the trunk of his squad car and retrieved the video surveillance equipment he’d brought for tonight’s installation. He stopped and thought about the last time he whistled. How long had it been? A month or two? It couldn’t have been years, could it?
Did this have something to do with Brooke? While he was attracted to her—and who wouldn’t be, with her sense of compassion and go-getter attitude—he had a job to do. Her striking appearance captivated him in a way he wouldn’t have thought possible. He grabbed the box of equipment, laid it on the asphalt and slammed the trunk.
Regardless of his attraction to Brooke, he still had to try to make a difference. Sitting back and losing control of a situation went against his nature, and he sensed that wasn’t Brooke’s personality either. Catching himself before he whistled again, he carried the box toward the building. It was one thing to be funny and charming in the walls of his home. It was another to act like anything less than a member of the force in the pursuit of his duty.
Conceited much, Jonathan? He laughed at how he assumed Brooke found him witty and likeable. Not to mention that he came off like a promotional brochure for the police academy.
A click sounded, and light flooded the area. His eyes adjusted to the brightness, and he spotted the motion-detection source. That was one positive he’d stress in his report. The electronic doors slid apart, and he entered with the box.
“Is anyone else here?” he asked as he approached her.
“No. You said not to tell anyone, so I encouraged Betty to leave with the other Mimosas.” Brooke slid her gaze from side to side and frowned. “Why are you whispering?”
“I wasn’t whis...” He placed the box on the reception table. “I guess I was. You should make sure you leave the building with another person this late at night.”
“I’m confused. I thought I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone else about this new development. Besides, like I’ve told you before, Joe Ruddick, a feisty seventy-years-young, is usually the one who locks up every night. Is there a massive crime wave in Hollydale? I’d prefer to hear about it from you. Or is someone targeting the center?” She popped her hands on her hips, her normal blazer replaced by a ruffled cranberry blouse that brought out the highlights in her dark chestnut hair pulled up in a twist.
He glanced closely at her arms. “Is that paint?”
She looked down, then folded her arms so the splatters weren’t as obvious. “Maybe.”
“Were you painting walls or a canvas? Are you an artist?”
Brooke’s different facets made her that much more intriguing. When this case was behind them, he hoped he’d be able to exchange his uniform for street clothes and ask her out.
Problem was, unlike what he’d intimated at the pumpkin farm, he was never just Officer Maxwell and never just Jonathan. He was always rolled into one mess of a man.
“I taught an art class tonight. My aunt found a need in the community, and I filled it. There was a good turnout.” Her eyes glowed in the dim interior. “Getting them out of here since you said this was urgent was another story. Why the secrecy and why the delay? I thought you were coming back early this morning. I’ve kept an eye on the locker room and so far no one has gone inside.”
He removed the bag, which he’d carefully designed to have the appearance of the first one, along with similar heft and the same fake ID on top. “I interviewed Mr. Floyd, and then other police matters took precedence, but the sheriff and I came up with a plan that relies on that promise you made me. As of now, the perpetrator of this scheme doesn’t seem to be any the wiser and still believes his cache is secure. It’s safe to assume he doesn’t know anyone’s onto him.” That was too true for Jonathan’s liking. A couple of weeks into the investigation and Jonathan was no closer to discovering the criminal’s identity than when he’d responded to Eric’s accident. “There’s an element of risk I hadn’t considered when I swore you to secrecy. He might be upset when he finds out we�
�re onto him.”
“So, you’re saying the center’s guests could be in danger?”
Jonathan laid out the equipment needed for the installation on Betty’s desk. “Truthfully, I don’t think so. His profile hasn’t indicated any signs of being a threat to others.”
“I see. You want to trap him in the process of returning for his cache. But why did you bring the evidence back with you?”
“This only looks similar from the side and the top. When he comes for it, he’ll grab it or he’ll examine it more closely while in the locker room and give himself away.” Jonathan walked toward the men’s locker room, bag in hand.
Brooke sidestepped him and blocked his path. “If there’s a chance he could go haywire when he discovers that’s not the same bag, I can’t let you proceed with your plan. I won’t put anyone at risk in this facility.”
Jonathan didn’t want her to figure out she was the one he was worried about. They hadn’t known each other long, and the underlying pull he felt for her was unmistakable, but everything seemed to be going against them, and he hadn’t even returned to Mo’s Gas and Bait Stop yet.
For several seconds, they stood off in a heated exchange of gazes. He wanted to crack a joke or kiss her, but he settled for the truth instead. “Your safety matters.” He was whispering as he couldn’t trust his regular voice. “If he’s aggressive, the one he’ll most likely take it out on is the person who found the bag.”
“He’ll think Joe or Al found it and called you. It’s the men’s locker room, remember? I don’t want either of them in danger.”
He melted at her concern for her employees. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves. There’s no sign he’s a physical threat. The sheriff wouldn’t have authorized this if he believed there was an increased chance of risk to people. By the way, thank you for getting the signed authorization to install the cameras back to me so quickly.” He set the cache inside the locker and replaced the thin metal plate. She led him back to the lobby, where he checked the equipment. “I’ll personally review the footage each night.”
“Betty can...”
“You can’t tell her. If he’s local, he might be attuned to the gossip and change his tactics. I have to uncover whether this guy’s from the area or is elsewhere and simply using this as a base of operations.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t go back on my promise.”
“The installation will take a while, and I’ll need access to the electrical box.”
She sank into the nearest chair. Her skin went ashen and, for the first time, he noticed a line of cute freckles on her nose. “If I go along with this and someone’s hurt, that’s on me. But if I don’t go along with this, it could take you longer to find out who’s behind this, and someone might get hurt.”
That summed it up, and he fell into the chair next to her. “I can’t promise you we’ll catch him, but I’ll personally promise you I’ll give everything to this case.”
She reached over for his hand and squeezed it, her warmth flowing through him. “I don’t like either of those alternatives. I have a responsibility to keep every child and adult that crosses that threshold safe.”
Child. His heart crashed against his rib cage. Two of the children signed up for Brooke’s Heartsgiving program were none other than the people he loved the most. He took a few calming breaths. Assumptions wouldn’t get him anywhere. Only cold hard facts would.
“Jumping to conclusions about how far he might go to protect what’s been a good thing doesn’t help anyone.” The police officer in him agreed with this statement. The father in him? He couldn’t separate the two as they were one and the same. “Police work is based on hard evidence. The stories I could tell could take hours, so I’ll get this installed instead.”
“Interesting stories?” In an instant, her enthusiasm rekindled that small flicker of hope that his emotions were waking up after five years of slumber.
Oh, he’d been laughing on the outside, but something inside him was hibernating, and this brunette with her positive energy, radiant and cool at the same time, sparked that flame.
“Some would keep you up all night.” He’d seen the gritty side, the moments that would forever leave a scar on his soul.
“When I have a hard day, I go home and make myself a cup of something relaxing, either decaf coffee or herbal tea. Then I eat dinner with Colin and find a favorite movie or TV show that makes me laugh or turn on some soothing jazz music. Something positive to remind me there is always hope and that tomorrow may be a little easier.”
She’d just described his perfect evening, what had kept him sane in the past five years. He glanced at her face, her eyes glistening. How he’d found her standoffish and unapproachable that first day, he didn’t know. A rare detective instinct misfire.
She touched something that made him want to care about someone again. And he couldn’t miss Brooke’s tendency to see the good in people. The pumpkin patch proved she brought people together.
As much as he wanted to think that anyone could have provided that wake-up call rather than the woman beside him, he couldn’t. There was something mysterious and alluring about her that pulled him toward her.
This wasn’t the time or the place to share his feelings, however. “I need one of your ladders.”
She accompanied him to the maintenance room, and he selected a stepladder. She locked the door behind him, and she must have seen the way he stared at the knob. “Before you ask, I personally have started checking them all at night. Joe looked at me rather funny the day I checked every lock twice.”
“It sounds like you keep Joe busy.”
“He’s been my go-to guy for all things mechanical, that’s for sure. What’s more, he and Betty crack me up with their repartee. Can you imagine being married for fifty years?”
He’d done just that the day he married Anne.
He toted the stepladder to the lobby and stopped to make a note of what she’d said. “It seems security was relatively lax under your predecessor.”
“That’s one of the reasons Mr. Hinshaw is no longer here.” Ray wasn’t at home either, when Jonathan had stopped by to interview him about his tenure at the center. Brooke motioned toward the bank of chairs. “Will you be okay for a minute if I call Colin? Even though he’ll be sixteen next month, I want to make sure he’s not getting in Aunt Mitzi’s hair too much. Daisy, too.”
“Daisy? Do you have another child lurking around I haven’t met yet?”
She laughed and shook her head. “Daisy thinks of herself that way, but she’s my labradoodle.”
“Go ahead and call. I’ll know more by the time you’re done.” He climbed the ladder and checked the equipment. The wiring was ancient, and he didn’t feel up to the task. When she returned, he delivered the bad news. “The center’s wiring is different from what I’ve seen in the past. I wasn’t able to finish the installation, but I’ll have someone come out and complete this tomorrow night, if that works for you.”
She swiped at her cell phone. “I did have something with Colin, but he rescheduled that. He’s studying for a test with Riley. I talked to her parents, and they’re keeping an eye on them.”
He gathered his tools and placed them back in the box. “How are you coping with a son old enough to date? I might ban Izzy from dating until she’s thirty.”
“Some days are easier than others. He knows he can talk to me about anything, and I trust him.” She reached for the stepladder before he stopped her by picking it up first.
“I’ll carry this. Not because you’re not capable, but because I want to.” He smiled and ushered her forward. “So, communication is the key with teenagers?”
She chuckled. “Food helps. He’s usually open to talking more on a full stomach.”
She inserted her key into the lock and flicked on the light. He lowered the stepladder onto its hook.
“Thanks for the advice.” He stopped short of groaning. That was the best line he had? He’d been out of circulation too long.
“I’m glad I could be of assistance.” Modulated and precise, her comeback couldn’t be classified as romantic banter by any stretch of the imagination. She’d extended a branch all right. A friendship one.
Accepting that would be hard, but he valued Brooke. “You and Colin seem close. That’s nice to see.”
“He’s been great despite all the moves and uncertainty in his life. This is the sixth place he’s lived since he started school. Sometimes I wonder if I’m too sensitive about Colin, but that goes more to flashbacks of when I was a scared teenager, pregnant and alone. I lived in a small town, even smaller than Hollydale, and some people were...” Her face seemed tighter, almost pinched as if she was reliving bad memories.
“Were what?”
“Not as nice as you. Some people were rude, mean or judgmental. After Colin was born, I found a job in the next town. We moved, and a few women believed in me and gave me a chance.” She waited until he passed back into the hallway before she extinguished the light and locked the door behind her.
“You were alone? Did your parents throw you out?”
“My father was never in the picture, same as Colin’s. Enough about me, though.” She twisted her hands and thinned her lips. Apparently, she didn’t want to pursue this line of questioning. “What about you? Can you talk about Anne? That was your wife’s name, right?”
Even with the low lighting of the corridor, he could tell her face was flushed. Pleased at her remembering that important detail about his life, he tried to put her at ease. “She died five years ago.”
He waited for that familiar tug that accompanied him telling someone he was a widower, but none came.
“I’m sorry.” A simple statement, and her softness was reassuring and genuine.
