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Gavin turned his way, a brow cocking over piercing blue eyes. “She’s fine. Why would you want to know?”
“I like Brynn. She’s a nice lady,” he replied.
Gavin pulled out a chair and set his own coffee on the table. “She’s been busy doing press surrounding the incident where she saved your ass. It’s been hard on her because she’s also prepping for a role. She’s sat down with every reporter who wanted an interview. It’s been exhausting for her.”
The thought made his heart constrict. He hoped her mom and sister were taking care of her, but he worried they might push her to take advantage of the attention. Who was hugging her and making sure she got some rest? “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“She’s doing it for you, you know.” Gavin had been in the station house all weekend, following Armie around. He generally came off as intelligent and amiable. He smiled a lot. Now his eyes were lasers piercing through Major. “She’s insisted on taking care of anyone who might want to talk to you. She even talked to Entertain America. The interview should run tonight.”
“How much longer does she have to do this?” Major asked, heartsick at the thought of Brynn putting herself out there for him.
Gavin shrugged. “I think she’s through the worst of it, and earlier today I saw that there was a TikTok of Angelina Jolie’s cat playing the piano, so they’ll lose interest very quickly. We should be able to spend the next week the way we’d planned. With the exception of having to deal with Diane. She’ll want to have a say in every minute of Brynn’s schedule and we were hoping to mostly just hang out. That could have been avoided, and I blame you. If you hadn’t gotten stuck in the mud, Diane would still be in LA. You need to find a new place to work out. Might I offer Miss Tilly’s gym?”
“Tilly Highwater has a gym?” Armie asked.
Roxie chuckled. “Her granddaughter bought her a set of free weights for Christmas, and now she’s offering memberships to her gym. It’s in her garage. She also has an old TV and VCR in there and runs 1980s Jane Fonda videos. But you should know Gene is planning on protesting her over Jane Fonda’s Vietnam War stance.”
“I don’t think that’s legal,” Armie said with a frown. “Doesn’t she need a permit?”
“Her rates are very reasonable.” Gavin pulled out his notepad and a pen. “And she claims she can help me work on my traps. I’m not sure if she’s talking about my shoulders or if she’s worried about the level of what she called critters out at the B and B. Apparently I need to be on the lookout for possums.”
Well, at least Gavin seemed to be getting a full dose of Papillon fun. Sometimes Major thought half his job was making sure no one got killed by kookiness. “I’ll check into it, boss.”
There was another brisk knock and Landon stood at the door. “Hey, we’ve got a delivery I could use some help with.”
Roxie stood up. “That should be the office supplies. I’ll help unload.”
Armie followed her. “I will, too. We’ll get this meeting started in twenty, Gavin.” Armie gestured around the room. “This is what small-town sheriffs do. A little bit of everything. I’m sure the chief of LAPD doesn’t unload his own office supplies.”
Whoa. He was about to be left alone with Gavin, and that didn’t seem like a great idea. The man had avoided him for the most part. “Hey, the sheriff shouldn’t have to do that. I’ll help them.”
Armie shook his head. “Nah, I want to make sure the state paperwork we requested came in. You sit and talk to our guest. Tell him about that time you had to convince a resident there weren’t big cats hanging around in the trees. She didn’t believe him because he hadn’t been in Louisiana long enough to know whether or not we have lions.”
Damn. The door closed behind them, and he was left with the man who seemed to be a dad to the woman he’d recently broken up with.
Could he call it that if they’d never really been together? It felt like it. He felt her loss far more than the woman he’d dated for months two years before.
“So someone thought there were lions in Louisiana?” Gavin asked, a brow raised.
“It was tigers, actually. It’s a long story.”
Gavin gestured around the empty room. “We seem to have time.”
If only he’d been quicker to offer help. He was off his game because he’d spent much of the previous night at the assisted living home helping with his father and going over the new security system with the staff. “She’d watched Tiger King and then there were rumors about a rougarou. That’s a—”
