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“Beau—” Landon stood as I turned but didn’t bother to stop. He wanted to play dirty. That was fine. He could run his campaign however he wanted to. I had a Sheriff’s Office to run.
I stalked across the room toward my office when my suddenly timid secretary scooted over to me, grabbing my arm. “Sheriff, this might be a bad time—”
“What?” I spun on her, unfortunately taking my anger out on her in one word. She shrunk back, her eyes flicking to my office.
“I didn’t know, but she came in and said you’d want to see her to discuss … your campaign plans?”
My mood sobered immediately as I turned to look over my shoulder and saw Rose sitting there, holding a brown box on her lap, watching everything I was doing.
“Sorry, Naomi … It’s fine. I do want to see her.” I smiled to try and repair any of the damage before turning and heading into my office. Sheepishly, I made my way around to my desk and slipped into it. “I wish you hadn’t seen any of that.”
“I’m guessing that’s your best friend? The display kinda gave it away too.” Although she wasn’t rubbing in my bad behavior, I still felt awful for acting as I had. “I brought you these.” She held out the brown box and smiled.
“Thanks, what is it?” I set it down and began to open it.
“I decided you were good yesterday by not pushing about the date thing.” I looked at her in surprise.
“Was I supposed to?”
“No,” she laughed, rubbing her neck, “but some guys do. They can get pretty aggressive when you reject them.”
“Those are obviously boys and not a real man,” I mumbled to myself, but the statement was loud enough for her to hear when she snorted in agreement. Flipping the lid open, I found myself staring at a swirl of buns.
“They’re Chelsea buns, my grandma used to make them, and she taught me her recipe.”
“They smell delicious. Too bad I had my coffee in the car.” I pulled one out.
“Actually, I thought ahead.” She nodded to the two coffee cups on the desk I hadn’t noticed.
“Oh, great,” I said thankfully, pulling a cup toward me. “Does it matter?”
“No, I drink it black.”
I looked up in surprise. All the women in my life loaded their drinks with sugar and milk. I hadn’t met one who liked it simple—like me.
“Me too,” I smiled as I lifted the cup to my mouth and took a grateful sip. Looking over the rim at her, I wondered where she’d been all my life. I wished like hell she didn’t have such a complicated past keeping her from opening up, but I wasn’t so immature that I would press the issue.
Maybe, with time, she could learn to open her heart again, and when she did… I’d be waiting.
6
Rose
Coming herethis morning was stupid. I’d told myself that several times on the car ride here after dropping Silas off at the home daycare I’d found. But Beau felt like the flame, and I was the moth. I needed to be near him, and despite the trouble of him being a sheriff and me being … well, in my situation. Something about the fact that he was the sheriff made me feel safe.
Safer than I had been in a while. I even had half a mind to tell him what had happened, if only to get his help. But I talked myself out of that too. He would be obligated to do his job and tell me to go back to my ex and let the courts figure it out.
Which wasn’t going to happen.
I didn’t fight as hard as I did to get here, only to throw it all away over a beautiful man with blue eyes.
Picking up my coffee, I took another sip of it and cleared my tight throat. “So, I figured you’d probably want to start on the campaign as soon as possible since they’ve dived right in with their smearing.”
“Yeah,” he grimaced and looked past me through to the main floor where his best friend was. His eyes flicked back to mine. “That’s probably a good idea.”
“Well, I have to get to work soon, but I thought maybe you could come over tonight after Silas’ bedtime to discuss plans?”
His eyebrow lifted slightly, and the Chelsea bun halfway to his mouth froze in place. After a beat that we both knew was too long, he nodded. I should have picked something less suggestive. I didn’t want to give him the wrong idea. Weweregoing to work and not end up in bed together.
