CHAPTER 23
“This isn’t a jail cell,” I said, looking into the room. I’d just arrived at the police station after being put in Mike’s car and driven there. Granted, he’d let me sit in the front seat and had decided against handcuffs and flashing lights, but still. I’d never been in a police car before. I’d never been in this kind of trouble before. But trouble seemed to be my new middle name.
“We turned our holding cell into a storeroom a few years ago; we needed a place to store town records and, believe it or not, we hardly have any criminals here.” He looked at me meaningfully.
I tutted. “You’re not really going to put me in there, are you? I’m not even a real criminal! This has just been a really huge misunderstanding that—”
“Becca.” He cut me off. He looked serious now and, for a moment, my heart jumped into my throat.
Oh God, maybe Iwasactually in trouble.Maybe I could go to jail. But then I thought about my agent’s face, and my publisher’s face, andhisface, and all my readers’ expectant faces, and I realized that jail was way less scary than facing them.
“You trespassed, Becca. You broke into a secure estate, and this wasn’t the first time, either. Yesterday, I caught you trying to climb over the fence, and you lied to me about it. So why don’t you tell me what you’rereallydoing here in Willow Bay?” He leaned against the wall, waiting for me to speak. He’d crossed his arms and they bulged and strained against the material of his police uniform. I tried not to stare at those ridiculously muscular arms. It was both sexy and amusing, all at the same time; this man was a total cliché—an uber-hot policeman in uniform. Up until this moment, I’d mainly thought such creatures were a myth, an invention created by the minds of romance writers the world over, but he was very much real. Real and hard and big and—God, he smelled nice. Just as he had the night before, when he’d walked me backward, towards my bed, and pushed me down on it.
“You didn’t really seem to care what I was doing here, last night, when you came back to my room,” I said snappily.
“I was off duty,” he replied.
“And now you’re on duty?” I looked him up and down.
“Yes,” he said, matching my snappy tone. “Well?” he asked again. “What are you really doing here?”
“I told you—I’m a writer. I am doing research for my new book.”
“Yeah, to see whether you can climb over a fence or not.” He didn’t sound convinced.
“Mmmhmm.” I nodded.
He shook his head at me. “Becca, you’re putting me in a seriously difficult position, here. I’m law enforcement in this town, andyoubroke the law.”
“Where did you go when I was inside the shop?” I asked. “You know I was standing in the parking lot with a box of condoms in my hand? Did you just decide you didn’t want to . . .you know?” I felt embarrassed and vulnerable asking the question, but I had to.
“What? NO! I wanted to. Trust me, I really, really wanted to, but . . .” He paused and looked at me as if he was going to carry on speaking, but he didn’t.
“But what?” I asked, my throat drying up and tightening.
“You probably won’t believe me, but an emergency came up,” he said.
“Really?”
He was right. I didn’t believe him.
“I got a call and had to rush to help someone. I tried to let you know, but there was no time to spare. It was urgent.”
“I thought you weren’t on duty last night?” I looked at him smugly.
“Well, yes, technically . . . but if there’s an emergency, then I can’t just say, ‘Sorry, I’m off duty.’ It’s my responsibility to help.”
“Help who?” I asked, folding my arms.
“Mrs. Van der Merwe. She stays in the old-age home, and every now and then she escapes and runs away. I get called to find her.”
“Really? And at the exact moment that I was in the shop, buying condoms, you got an emergency call to find her? Seems rather convenient to me.”
“I did,” he said, pushing himself off the wall. He walked into the jail-cell-cum-storeroom and I followed him in.
“I see. And you didn’t think to pop in and tell me this, like a decent human being?” I asked.
“There wasn’t time. I was worried about her. She has Alzheimer’s. Someone saw her standing on the highway; I was concerned she would be run over.”
