Joy and Tiers

by Mary Crawford

  Contents

  Joy and Tiers

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: Tyler

  Chapter 2: Heather

  Chapter 3: Tyler

  Chapter 4: Heather

  Chapter 1: Tyler

  Chapter 6: Heather

  Chapter 7: Tyler

  Chapter 8: Heather

  Chapter 9: Tyler

  Chapter 10: Heather

  Chapter 11: Tyler

  Chapter 12: Heather

  Chapter 13: Tyler

  Chapter 14: Heather

  Chapter 15: Tyler

  Chapter 16: Heather

  Chapter 17: Tyler

  Chapter 18: Heather

  Chapter 19: Tyler

  Chapter 20: Heather

  Chapter 21: Tyler

  Chapter 22: Heather

  Epilogue: Tyler

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  A Final Note

  Previews

  Preview of So the Heart Can Dance (A Hidden Beauty Novel #2)

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: Tara

  Chapter 2: Aidan

  Chapter 3: Tara

  Chapter 4: Aidan

  Preview of Identity of the Heart (A Hidden Heart Novel #1)

  Chapter 1: Rogue

  Chapter 2: Ivy

  Chapter 3: Tristan

  Preview of Love Naturally (A Hidden Beauty Novel #4)

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: Madison

  Chapter 2: Trevor

  Table of Contents

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems – except in the case of brief quotations in articles or reviews – without permission in writing from its publisher, Mary Crawford and Diversity Ink.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. I’m not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Published August 5, 2015 by Diversity Ink

  ISBN-13: 978-0692477465

  ISBN-10: 0692477462

  ASIN: B010FDWXPG

  To all of the men and women that serve: There simply aren’t enough words in any language to say enough thanks for what you do.

  To the families that hold their whole world together while they’re away, you give the term heroic a whole new meaning.

  It’s hard enough to try to work in this shoebox-sized food truck while slamming my head on the ceiling every ten seconds, but right now I’ve got an overly helpful witness dogging my steps like a bloodhound. “Gidget, dammit. You have to let me do my job here. Do you go out of your way to annoy everybody or is it just me?” I glare at her, trying to get her to back away from the broken glass. True to form, she’s entirely fearless and crazy bossy. It’s always more difficult to be out on calls for people you know, especially when they are pretty little spitfires who make your blood boil—and not necessarily in totally negative ways.

  “Hold your horses, Cowboy!” Heather argues. “Those may seem like a bunch worthless junk strewn all over the counter to you. It took me a week to make all those flowers by hand for a wedding this weekend. I’d like to save as many of them as possible before you go in there with those overgrown tennis rackets that you call hands and smash everything to smithereens.”

  “Do you mind if I go ahead and take some pictures here? The evidence team is tied up doing a huge drug bust,” I ask, as I pull my camera out of my gear bag.

  “Fine, knock yourself out. Not that it’s going to do a whole lot of good. We did all this last time, and all it did was make my insurance rates go up. The punks messed up my truck and got away scot-free. This sucks rotten moose-balls,” Heather laments.

  I smile at her colorful use of language. “Hey now, Gidget, are you casting aspersions on the county’s finest?” I ask, tossing the question over my shoulder to keep the mood light.

  “Well, Lord knows someone has to. Otherwise that head of yours would get so huge that your ratty ole’ cowboy hat wouldn’t even fit on it.”

  Heather grabs a broom and a garbage bag from a small cubbyhole behind the driver’s seat. She’s about to start sweeping up the glass when a glint of metal catches my eye.

  “Stop!” I reflexively bellow.

  Heather freezes mid-stride, her face set in a thunderous frown. She raises her eyebrow at me as if she’s daring me to continue. Under any other circumstances, this little power game would have been fun to explore, but this is no game. It’s now a matter of life and death. The time for fun and games is over.

  “I think you forgot to say Simon Says,” Heather responds sardonically.

  “Heather, I wish this was a game, but it has just entered the world of deadly serious. So, I’m going to need you to play the most serious game of Simon Says you’ve ever played. Can you do that?”

  A myriad of emotions crosses her face. Fear, shock, anger, and curiosity flit across in rapid secession. I have to suppress a grin of my own when I consider how terrible she would be at poker. Scratch that—she wouldn’t need skills to clean up at poker, she could just bat those beautiful baby blue eyes and show off her pin-up figure and men would be falling at her feet.

  “I have a hunch that I should be concerned that you actually bothered to use my real name.”

  “Well, it is true that I have to talk to you about serious things, but I can call you Gidget if you’d prefer.”

  Heather blushes as she stammers, “Heather works just fine, thank you.”

  “Heather, I told you to stop because I found two bullet casings on the floor next to where you work,” I explain. This part of my job is never pleasant. I hate shattering someone’s formerly safe, orderly, sane world, by turning it upside down and telling them their world has become a living nightmare.

  Heather’s eyes are wide. “Next to me?” she asks, “What could they possibly want from me?”

  Oh, Hell. I don’t want to answer that question. Unfortunately, I fail to mask my expression quickly enough, and she reads the answer in my eyes.

  She sways a little in her impossibly high heels as her face blanches to a frighteningly light shade of white.

  Instinctively, I reach out to steady her, placing my hands around her waist. “Easy, I’ve got you. I’ll keep you safe,” I murmur to try to soothe her trembling body as she wheezes to catch her breath in my arms.

  Apparently, something I said must have rubbed her the wrong way again because she draws herself up to her full height and spins in my arms. “Really, Superman? I suppose you’ve got some special kryptonite in there that helps you dodge bullets? Because the last time I checked, bullets are bad for your health too. So, how do you intend to dodge bullets and come out unscathed when the rest of us can’t?” Heather demands, glaring up at me. “What makes you so special?”

  The question takes me by surprise. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot over the past two years. In fact, it pretty much torments me. I just didn’t expect to hear it from her. “I guess when it comes down to it, nothing. Nothing but a goddamn lucky streak makes me special,” I practically spit the words out because they have such a bitter taste.

  Heather looks a little shocked at the venom in my voice. “Whoa, Cowboy, it sounds like there’s a story there, and I might even want to hear it someday. However, don’t we have bigger fish to fry here?” she comments as she points to the shell casings she has now spotted on the floor. I notice her voice is a little shaky.

  She’s right; we do have bigger fish to fry than ghosts from my past. I kick myself for my lapse in concentration. I never used to lose focus this easily. I need to get her out of here because I don’t even
know if the shooter is still at large.

  “Heather, why don’t you come sit in my squad car? It’s warmer in there, and it provides a little more protection. We don’t know when these bullets were fired or who fired them. It could just be some kids doing target practice, or it could be something much more serious. Either way, I’d feel better if you were out of the line of fire.”

  “Do you think there’ll be more shots fired? What am I going to do? I have a wedding cake to do!”

  I’m trying not to make light of her predicament, but in the grand scheme of things, it seems pretty inconsequential. “Can’t they find somebody else to make their cake?” I ask what I think is a relatively reasonable question.

  “Who do you think I am? McDonald’s? I am an artist!” Heather yells, her eyes sparkling with rage. “People come to me for my skills with food. You can’t get what I make just anywhere. Obviously, you’ve never been married; otherwise you’d know that you have to book this stuff months and months in advance. People design their cakes with their cake artists. People like me spend days, weeks and sometimes months making flowers and other decorations for cakes; it’s not something you just slap together in the drive through.” Heather points to a schedule on the wall, which shows that she is indeed booked out for at least the next year.

  “I guess, I never really thought about it—” I start to explain.

  “Exactly!” Heather interrupts. “Geez, Tyler, way to respect my career and all that. I could understand remarks like that if you’d never eaten my food. But since you have, I’m going to take it as the complete dis that you meant it to be,” she says, sarcasm dripping from every syllable.

  Sometimes I’m slower than a rodeo clown who has been kicked in the head far too many times. I know Gidget’s a really good cook. Her passion for cooking is one of the first things I noticed about her. I didn’t mean any disrespect, but sometimes my brain doesn’t work quite as fast as my mouth. I’m not sure how to explain all my mental stumbles to her without getting into my whole life story, which she doesn’t need to know in the next five minutes. Crap. How do I get myself into these fixes?

  “I’m sorry, Gidget, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I’m trying to be helpful and take some of the pressure off of you because I know all of this is stressful. I thought maybe all of you bakeries trade jobs if you have emergencies or something.”

  “It may work that way for the big guys, but doesn’t work that way for me. Food trucks may be the up-and-coming thing, but people still don’t see them as truly respectable places to get quality food—especially high-end things like wedding cakes. I have to fight to get every customer. Even if it weren't a despicable business practice to dump a bride at the last minute, I couldn’t afford to lose her as a customer. I need each one, and I need the word-of-mouth every satisfied customer brings.”

  I look around the cramped food truck as I ask, “Do you bake wedding cakes in here?”

  Heather smirks as she replies, “Now, that would be quite the talent, wouldn’t it? No. I rent a commercial kitchen when I need to bake a large cake. But I do most of my sugar work in the truck. Can you please do your best to protect as many of these leaves and petals as you can? I’d rather you didn’t get fingerprint dust all over them. It took me days to get them finished, and I’m not sure I’ll have time for new ones to dry.”

  “Heather, I won’t make any promises. I can’t compromise the scene to save your flowers. I won’t destroy anything I don’t have to. However, now that we found bullet casings, I will have to bring the full forensic evidence team in to go over your truck. I have a forensic background because I’ve worked as an MP, but you want more than just my basic background on this, trust me. We want to catch this guy.”

  “Okay, I get that. But, can’t I at least stay and watch? If I did, I would be able to tell you if you’re about to destroy something really important. I don’t think you understand the deadline I’m on here. It’s not like my client can just postpone her whole wedding because I’m running a little late on her cake. I’ll be as quiet as a church mouse.”

  I have to let out a breath of exasperation. Generally speaking, I’m a pretty laid back guy. Six years in the military and two years as a reserve officer with the Sheriff’s office has taught me to roll with the punches. But, for reasons that I haven’t quite figured out, Gidget always finds a way to get under my skin like a burr under a horse’s saddle. She’s a beautiful little spitfire who has no idea the effect she has on me. She’s got enough sass in her to fill two people, but she also has the kindest heart I’ve ever seen. We had one of the most clichéd meetings ever since she is the best friend of my best friend’s wife. Regrettably, she seems far less impressed with me than I am with her. I’m working on that. But my progress has been painfully slow. Most days, it seems she can’t stand to be in the same zip code as me. This little fiasco certainly isn’t going to help matters.

  Unfortunately, I’m not here to be her friend. I have a job to do. So I have to literally and figuratively put my Sheriff’s hat on. “I’m sorry, Miss LaBianca. I’m going to have to evacuate you from the premises for your safety. Additionally, we have to sweep this location for evidence. All efforts will be taken to disturb as little of your personal effects as possible,” I state in my best detached police-academy-trained voice.

  Much to my surprise, Heather reels back as if I’ve physically slapped her. All the animation in her face suddenly disappears, and an eerie formalness settles over her as she primly replies, “Yes sir, Officer Colton. Just let me grab my purse and car keys, or are those considered evidence as well?”

  “I don’t know. Were they in your food truck at the time the vandalism occurred?” I ask, pulling my notepad out to write down her statement.

  “No, I had those with me. I just went to the craft store to get some more floral wire. When I came back, the truck was like this. I don’t even know who knew I had the truck in the area. I just parked here to help out because Mindy has a few days off from school. Yet, this is the second time it’s been vandalized when I parked it here. Maybe somebody doesn’t want me to work in this area,” she responds with a defeated sigh. It breaks my heart to see her this way.

  If you were to look up the word optimist in the dictionary, Heather’s picture would be prominently plastered there. She is a glass half full kind of gal. Wait, I take that back. She’s a great cheerleader for everyone else. When it comes to promoting her strengths, she’s far more critical. I’ve tried to toss her a few compliments over the last few months, and she’s either rejected them outright or deflected them with a joke that she’s usually made herself the butt of.

  “Well, if you brought them in, then they aren’t considered part of the crime scene. Can you show me where you walked and what you touched before you noticed something was amiss?”

  “Oh for Pete’s sake, Ty! I’m not an idiot,” she says as she rolls her eyes and blows a curl out of her eye. It’s the first time I haven’t seen her dressed to the nines. She’s wearing a retro bowling shirt that has ‘Earl’ emblazoned on the breast pocket and she’s wearing a pair of well-worn Levis with a patch made from a bandanna on the butt. Her hair is tied back with a matching one. It all works except her high heels. Those, I don’t understand at all. Why do women do that to themselves? Sure, they’re sexy sometimes but does an arts and craft session on a Sunday morning call for risking a sprained ankle?

  Heather catches me scoping out her choice in footwear. “What? Jeff’s demon dog, Lucky, ate my tennis shoes. It’s not like I had a whole lot of choice this morning,” she explains.

  I chuckle as I reply, “I feel your pain. When I house sat for Jeff and Kiera, Lucky got my favorite pair of boots. I think the real reason he flunked out of bomb detection school doesn’t have anything to do with his alleged hearing issues. I think it’s his appetite for contraband.”

  Heather flashes me a small smile as she agrees, “I think they just fudged his service record so he’d get adopted right away. He’s like a s
erial shoe killer. Speaking of killers,” she segues gently into the next topic, “like I told you, I am not an idiot. I watch enough Forensic Files and The First 48 to know I’m not supposed to touch anything. The second I noticed something was awry, I went out to my car and called 911. Voilà, here you are interrogating me like I’m some criminal.”

  Wearily, I scrub my hand over my face. “Look, Gidget, I mean, Ms. LaBianca, this isn’t personal. For us to catch this person, I have to do things by the book, even if it means inconveniencing you. I know you’re not an idiot, I never meant to suggest you were. Still, I have to document what happened, for the file. Little things like whether or not your purse was present can make a big difference in how the scene is processed. If you were sitting in your truck when shots were fired at it, we would be having a whole different conversation. I’m simply trying to protect you,” I clarify, trying not to let my frustration show.

  Heather meets me toe to toe and verbally pushes back, “Maybe I can take care of myself, and I don’t need you to protect me!”

  “All evidence to the contrary, Darlin’. Now, are you going to do what I asked you to do—like half an hour ago—and go sit in my squad car, or do I have to arrest you?” I ask, with a little tilt of my hat.

  Once again, Heather’s spine straightens out as if a rod is being placed through it, and her speech becomes clipped and frosty as she asks, “Fine, no need to be pushy. But would it be okay with you if I take some supplies from the cupboards?”

  I ponder her suggestion for a moment and then shrug as I reply, “I don’t see why not. Let me make a log of what you’re going to take just to be sure.”

  Heather rolls her eyes at me again as she comments under her breath, “How nice of you to give me access to things I already own. There's your crime-fighting dollars at work, America.”

  “Hey now!” I protest. “That was a low blow. I don’t tell you how to do your job, please don’t tell me how to do mine.”

  “Well, Cowboy, it just so happens, I don’t like big strong men telling me what to do, and I don’t like being treated like I’m an idiot,” Heather argues.