“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little frustrated when my job gets harder because of criminals getting released early.”
“Maybe we can talk about that sometime.”
Tanner resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll let you guys get to your discussion.”
Ryan smiled. “Tanner, thanks again for your work on the stand. Stellar, as always. Next time bring a cowboy hat in case we need an extra push with the lady jurors.”
Tanner shook hands with both men before saying his goodbyes.
Because there was someone else he knew for a fact found him attractive in a cowboy hat. Someone who barely came up to his chin and had waves of thick brown hair running down her back. Someone to whom it never occurred to wear makeup, but it didn’t matter because her natural beauty could give a cover model a run for their money any day of the week.
One look into her green eyes would have him forgetting about psychiatrists, witness stands and even the ghostly itch of a noose stretched around his neck.
CHAPTER TWO
He watched Tanner Dempsey leave the courthouse just like he’d watched him all day. He’d silently observed, no one discovering what he was really doing. What he was really planning.
Had Dempsey realized he was watching? Of course not. Because Tanner Dempsey was so full of himself he couldn’t possibly conceive that someone might watch him with contempt or scorn or disdain.
The handsome cop with the charming smile couldn’t possibly devise that someone didn’t fall under the spell of his charisma.
The man felt bile churning in his stomach as he saw how friendly other people were with Dempsey. It was impossible to understand how everyone surrounding the cop in the courthouse wasn’t sickened by his arrogance. How he obviously thought himself better than everyone.
And then people shook his hand, smiling and friendly. Fooled. They couldn’t see the truth right in front of them—that Dempsey was fooling them all.
It had taken every ounce of restraint the man had to not stand up in the courtroom and scream out that Dempsey was a fraud.
Dempsey thought the rules did not apply to him. Thought he could just do whatever he wanted. Thateveryone he arrested and testified against was no better than a bug beneath his shoe.
But soon they would all learn the truth about Tanner Dempsey’s conceit. He would get what was coming to him.
It was time for the lawman to fall from grace. And the man would make sure that happened.
CHAPTER THREE
“Order up, Bree!”
Bree Daniels smiled at Gayle Little sitting at the table in front of her. “So then what did Mr. Little do?”
Mrs. Little frowned. “Dan just yelled for you. Don’t you need to go get the food?”
Bree smiled gently at the older woman. Mrs. Little came in a few times a week since her husband of sixty years had passed away recently. Bree knew Dan would much rather Bree stay out here and talk to Mrs. Little—to listen to her tell a story Bree had already heard—than to rush back and get the food.
“Don’t you worry about Dan. He’ll take the food out himself if I don’t get back there in time.”
There would’ve been a point not long ago that Bree wouldn’t have realized that staying and talking to Mrs. Little was more important than getting the food from the kitchen. She wouldn’t have realized there wasn’t a single customer in the Sunrise Diner who wouldn’t gladly eat a lukewarm meal if it meant seeing Mrs. Little—a woman most of them had known all their lives—forget her sadness for a spell.
It had only been over the last few weeks of living here in Risk Peak that Bree had begun to understandthe nuances of interacting with people. It wasn’t something that came easily for her.
She was probably the only genius-level hacker in the world working at a mom-and-pop diner in the middle of nowhere, without a computer in sight. Most people would say it was a waste of her talent, but Bree didn’t care. If she never saw another computer, that would be just fine with her.
Computers, and her talent with them, had gotten her tortured as a child, gotten her mother killed and had nearly cost her her life a few months ago. So working as a waitress was just fine with her.
“And then he surprised me by getting down on one knee right then and there and asking me to marry him. On our third date,” Mrs. Little said, a dreamy look in her eyes.
Bree’s smile was genuine, feeling no urge to tell the older woman she’d heard the story before. It was so sweet and romantic.
At least she no longer sat tensely through every conversation worried that however she responded would be wrong or inappropriate.
