Page 16 of Arrested By the Deputy

"It was mortifying, is what it was." He pulls me closer, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. "I used to sit two tables over in the library just so I could watch you without you noticing. Never had the guts to actually talk to you. Figured a girl like you wouldn't want anything to do with somebody like me."

"A girl like me wanted exactly that, for the record. Wasted a whole lot of years being too scared to say so."

"Guess we're both idiots, then."

"Guess we are." I settle back against him, listening to the steady thump of his heart, feeling more certain about this, about us, about whatever's coming next, than I've felt about anything in longer than I can remember. "For what it's worth, Cal Sutton, I don't regret a single bit of how we got here. Even the part where you arrested me."

"Still can't believe that's our origin story."

"Best one this town's ever had, according to Spotted in Whispering Pines."

He laughs, the sound rumbling up through his chest under my ear, and I close my eyes, thinking that whatever the future holds, I want every bit of it to look exactly like this.

CHAPTER 10

CAL

Three months into this thing with Hazel, and I've never been happier in my entire life. We've fallen into a rhythm that doesn’t feel like a new relationship, but like something we’ve been doing our entire lives. People always told me that when you’d find the one you would just know, and I do. Everything with her is fucking easy. Dinner most nights at her place or mine, Biscuit splitting his loyalty evenly between us, lazy mornings on her days off, the occasional lunch at the bakery that still, somehow, ends up mentioned in Spotted in Whispering Pines, though nobody seems bothered by it anymore. If anything, half the group's taken to rooting for us outright, which still catches me off guard some days. It’s a nice surprise when we see candid pictures of ourselves. You can really see the love when we’re caught in the moment.

I'm coming up on the end of an uneventful overnight shift, when dispatch crackles through.

"Unit 4, we've got a report of a break-in at Earl's Grocery. Possible person inside, there was a flashlight spotted through the back window."

I nearly choke on my coffee.

"Copy that, dispatch. Responding." I flip the lights on and pull out, already knowing, somehow, in my gut, exactly what I'm about to find. There's no way. There's absolutely no way she'd actually do this again.

I pull up outside Earl's a few minutes later, same dark storefront, same hand-painted sign in need of touching up, same quiet street holding its breath the way it did that first night almost a few months ago. I get out, hand resting on my belt out of habit, and head around toward the back door, half expecting to find an actual burglar this time and feeling like an idiot for hoping otherwise.

The back door is cracked open. I push it the rest of the way, flashlight up, and there she is.

My Hazel, standing in the middle of Earl's stockroom in her pajama pants and an old T-shirt, a stick of butter in one hand and the most unrepentant grin on her face I have ever seen in my life.

"Whispering Pines Sheriff's Office," I say, fighting back a laugh. "Open the door. Oh wait, it's already open."

"Evening, Officer." She holds the butter up like she's presenting evidence. "Caught me red-handed."

"Babe, are you seriously breaking into Earl's grocery store? Again?"

"In my defense, Earl knows I'm doing this. Full permission. We've got a system." She's fighting back laughter now too, and it's only then I notice Tiffany crouched a few feet away, phone up, filming the whole thing with the kind of glee usually reserved for major holidays.

"Tiffany, are you seriously filming this."

"For posterity," Tiffany says, entirely unrepentant. "This is going straight in the group. History's repeating itself, Cal, somebody's gotta document it."

"Oh my God." I drag a hand down my face, though I can't stop the smile pulling at my mouth. "You two planned this."

"We absolutely planned this," Hazel confirms, setting the butter down on a nearby shelf and crossing her arms, still grinning at me. "Wanted to see if you'd actually cuff me again."

"I am not arresting you for the same crime twice, not when I’m going to get crucified for it."

"Shame,” she gives me a smart ass grin. “Kind of miss the handcuffs."

"Hazel,” I say by warning.

"What? Just saying." She shrugs, all faux-innocence, and takes a step closer, close enough that I catch the smell of vanilla that always seems to follow her, even at close to two in the morning in the middle of a grocery store stockroom. "Figured this was fitting, though. Full circle moment. This is where it all started, after all."

"This is where you committed a felony, is what this is."