AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“The new computer system will also store your time sheets and be tied into a new surveillance system I’m getting installed. We’ll also go on rotation when it comes to days off. If that door is unlocked, I want someone here.”
“Understood.” Fletch sipped again, and it was then Luke realized his deputy’s facial expressions had nothing to do with Luke’s changes and Jake’s retirement.
Luke snapped his fingers. “Forgot something outside. Be right back.” Cash woofed from his office door. “You’d think we were married,” Luke grumbled. “Fletch, Ozzy, make friends with Cash. He doesn’t like being left alone.”
He returned from the car a few minutes later and set the boxed-up high-end coffee machine on the counter. Both Ozzy and Fletch blinked at it as if an angel had been dropped to earth. “I was told it was the best on the market and could survive the workout it’s going to get. We all pitch in for the supplies, though, agreed?”
Fletch and Ozzy nodded and walked in slow motion toward the box.
“Great. Let me get this day started on the right foot and...” Luke headed to the rickety wooden table that housed a coffee machine that looked as if it had been around for as long as the former sheriff. Leaning down, Luke pulled the plug out of the wall and hefted the machine into his arms. He heard the front door open and close, and looked over his shoulder as Holly entered the police station with a basket hooked over her arm. “Morning,” he called, trying to remember a prettier sight than fresh-faced, bright-eyed Holly Campbell first thing on a Monday. But that was as far as he got with his greeting as her face flashed from friendly to fierce.
“Hey, Holly,” Ozzy said. “Did you see what Luke bought us? Check out this— Ow! What was that for?” He rubbed his arm where Fletch smacked him.
“I brought you all muffins.” She set down the basket, eyes pinned on the coffeemaker in his arms. “To wish you luck.” Something she obviously regretted now, given the fire sparking in her eyes. She opened her mouth as if about to go on, but shook her head, spun around and walked out of the station.
Luke swore as he hefted the machine on to the counter. He shouldn’t care; he shouldn’t let her get to him, but that wasn’t just anger he’d seen on her face. There had been pain. Pain he’d caused. “Holly, wait!”
* * *
DID SHE KNOW how to start her Monday mornings off with a bang or what?
“Simon, let’s go!” Holly held out her hand to Simon as he dashed out of the trees where he’d been throwing rocks into the surf. She hurried away from the police station. She should have known offering a muffin truce was a bad idea. She should have stuck to her guns and kept her distance, but the more she thought about her father’s request that she accept things and move forward, she’d wavered. She’d packed up a fresh batch of blueberry-orange muffins and headed off as if she was skipping her way to grandmother’s house.
And ended up in the wolf’s den.
“Holly, wait!”
Simon looked up at her, his round face tilted into the morning sun, the red and blue explosions of color on his shirt blinding as he clutched his weathered notebook against his chest. “Mom?” He glanced at Luke, a frown of apocalyptic proportion on his face.
Belly in knots, Holly crossed her arms and turned to face Luke, the sight of him in uniform making her heart skip a beat. The badge on his chest glimmered, the sun picking up flecks of blue in his jet-black hair. Thick, soft-looking black hair... Oh, no. It was all she could do not to shake her head in denial, but there was no stopping the flame of heat working its way up and down her arms, igniting her cheeks.
“You couldn’t wait, could you?” She kicked out a hip as Luke skidded to a stop in front of them. “He hasn’t even been gone a day and you’re removing any sign he was ever here.”
“Holly, it’s a coffeemaker.” The exasperation in Luke’s voice grated on her nerves. “It’s older than you are.”
“You’re throwing away Gert?” Simon moved closer to Holly, glaring up at Luke with so much vehemence Holly wished she’d left him with her father for the day. She didn’t need him being a witness to her emotional upheaval. “You can’t do that!” Simon cried. “It’s Grandpa’s!”
“Gert?” Luke frowned at her. “Your dad named the coffeemaker?”
“I named the coffeemaker.” Holly hated the tears clogging her throat. It was a coffeemaker, for goodness’ sake. Just a stupid coffee— She blinked quickly as her eyes burned. “When I was Simon’s age.” She could still remember the day her father had bought the appliance—shiny, metal and oh-so-new. She’d helped him set it up, and together they’d learned how to use it. Every time she made coffee at the diner she thought of that day—another memory Luke managed to taint.
“I didn’t know.” He tucked his hands into his pockets but continued to meet her gaze directly. “Your dad cleared out everything he wanted to take yesterday. It didn’t occur to me—”
“Why would it?” Holly licked her suddenly dry lips. “It’s not as if you’re here to preserve anything. You’re making yourself at home and moving in as if he never existed. What’s next, painting the walls? Rearranging the furniture? Maybe you want to gut the entire building while you’re at it. Tell me, how much destruction do you plan to do to my family?”
His eyes sparked; his mouth tightened as if he had a response poised behind his lips, but she waited. Part of her wanted him to fight back, to give her the argument she was looking for. Maybe then she’d finally be able to exorcise the bitterness, the anger and the resentment that, despite her best intentions, continued to build inside her.
“I’m sorry this situation hurts you, Holly.” Luke’s voice had switched to cool politeness. “But I’ve got a job to do and I can’t do it if I’m constantly worrying about setting off your righteous indignation. Be angry with me or don’t, but stop the flip-flopping. It’s exhausting. The world is bigger than the sheriff’s station and your father’s stellar career. I can only do what I think is best from here on. You might be okay living in the past, but I’m not. I’ve worked hard to move on from what happened twelve years ago and I don’t want to go back. You know what? I think you were right. Keeping our distance from one another would be best for everyone involved.” The forced civility in his tone raked her already frayed nerves. “Thank you for the muffins.”
A utility van rumbled to a stop on the side of the road. Luke gave the driver a wave and called a greeting before returning his attention to Holly. “Have a good day—” Luke cocked his head to the side “—ma’am.”
Holly’s mouth dropped open. Had he just dismissed her? “Infuriating, irritating—” Holly muttered.
“Mom?”
Holly sucked in a breath. Simon. She dropped a hand on top of his soft hair and brought him in for a quick hug and pat on the back. “Sorry, bud. Just a little angry at the whole situation.”
“He made you cry.”
“No.” Holly shook her head and dropped down to meet him eye-to-defiant-eye. “No, Simon. Gert made me cry. There’s a lot of memories for me and your grandpa in that office. And you, too. They’re hard to let go of.” But she had to. Accept the idea of her past folding up behind her with every step she took... It made her heart hurt.
Simon looked at the door as Luke carried in a new flat computer screen. “Grandpa taught me go fish in his office.”
“Me, too.” She brushed a finger down the side of his face. And gin rummy and later, poker. Now she routinely beat him at all three. “Simon, Sheriff Saxon is right.” She swallowed the truth of it and wished she’d maintained better control, if for no other reason than to spare Simon from witnessing her flash of temper. It seemed as though every time she saw Luke she was thrown into that hospital waiting room, praying her father was going to survive with no one to cling to, no one to blame, except Luke. “None of this is his fault. It’s time for things to change, even if we don’t want them to.” It was one fight she’d obviously lost long before this morning. Butterfly Harbor, along with her father’s job, was rocketing in a new direction. She’d have to jump on board or risk getting vaporized in the after burn.
“I don’t like him,” Simon argued. “He hurt your feelings and took Grandpa’s job. He’s mean and I want him to go away.”
“Simon.” She stroked a hand down the side of his face, hating the frustration and anger she saw on his normally smiling features. “We don’t always get what we want. And as much as I wish this was all Luke’s fault, it’s not. There are other grown-up things going on. And Luke’s not mean.” At this point, she’d grasp any silver lining, however thin, she could. “He’s trying to make the best of a bad situation.” She couldn’t keep living in the past. She wasn’t that scared sixteen-year-old girl anymore. She had to quit thinking—and acting—like one. “Let’s head to the diner, okay? I bet Paige and Charlie are there by now, and you like Charlie, remember?”
