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“Speaking of kitchen sink, you and Luke. There, um, anything going on there?”

Holly’s face went hot. She could only imagine the shade of pink tinting her cheeks as she grabbed the ketchup bottles and turned them over on one another. “We’re getting to be friends. I think.”

Friends was good. Friends was...something she wasn’t sure she’d ever been with Gray. With her husband it had been sparks, then fire then...barely smoldering embers as real life and personal demons took over. Maybe enough time had passed, or maybe it was her honest and unexpected heart-to-heart with Luke that had plucked the final sting of anger away. Now there was only sadness when she thought of Gray. She tried to remember if there had been anything beyond the intoxicating rush of first love and the excitement of romance and fantasy.

She didn’t rely on Gray in the later years, or want to talk to him about anything more than plans for Simon or paying the bills, something he’d started neglecting those last months. Luke was different—he was solid. Determined. And far too distracting for her liking.

And she could talk to him for hours. That was...nice.

“Friends, huh?” Paige smiled. “Sounds like a good place to start.”

“Is that what you had with Charlie’s father?” Holly’s effort to change the subject made her realize how little she knew about Paige and her life before Butterfly Harbor.

Paige’s hand slipped and she dropped the tray of saltshakers. Without hesitating, she tossed a fingerful over her left shoulder and muttered, “For luck.” Then she responded, “Not exactly.”

Holly didn’t push. She recognized the same hesitant tone she’d have used had she voiced her previous thoughts about Gray. It was too soon for those types of confidences, she supposed. But get Abby in the room with them, maybe a couple bottles of wine and a tearjerker of a love story on the TV...and who knew what secrets might be divulged. Something to keep in mind.

“Simon, how did your walk with grandpa and Sheriff Saxon go?” Holly tried again.

“Good.” Finally, an actual spoken word.

“Obviously,” Holly muttered. She didn’t know what worried her more: an overattentive, plotting Simon or a sullen, silent one. Something was bothering her son, and she’d bet it had something to with Charlie’s sudden aversion to the diner. “Where did you guys go the other day?”

“Around.”

“Don’t you wish there was a button to push,” Paige said with a weary shake of her head, “to make them talk even when they don’t want to.”

“We’d make a bloody fortune.”

“Why don’t you take off early tonight, let me close up,” Paige offered.

Holly frowned. She’d never let anyone else close the diner before. Sure, she let Ursula open, but that was different.

“Take Simon home, have a mom-and-son night. Maybe he’ll let his guard down and tell you what’s going on.”

“Then I can call you and fill you in?”

Paige’s too-innocent eye blink reminded Holly of one of those carnival dolls. “Why, what a great idea.”

“You and me.” Holly did the double-finger point at Paige. “Simpatico. Totally.”

“It’s slow.” Paige and Holly scanned the whole two tables of customers. “Want to run me through your system?”

Control freak that she was, the doubt Holly had about trusting anyone else with her diner quickly took a backseat at the prospect of spending some quality time with her son. Now was her chance to stop lamenting not being able to enjoy Simon’s solitary company.

“Yeah, that would be great. I have a checklist—”

“Of course you do.” Paige beamed. “Let me run up and tell Charlie I’ll be later than usual.”

“Simon?” Holly rapped her knuckles on the counter to get her son’s attention. “Paige is going to close the diner for us. How about pizza and a movie tonight?”

“Really?” Simon’s eyes bulged. Guilt nibbled along the edge of Holly’s heart. How could such a simple thing bring such unexpected—and suspicious—joy? “You mean it?”

“I do. It is Friday. Give me until five, okay? Then it’ll be just you and me.”

Whatever light had been lacking in Simon’s eyes exploded. “Yeah, okay. What movie?”

“Whatever you want.” And Holly would probably live to regret it.

“Awesome! Thanks, Mom.”

“Don’t thank me, thank Paige,” Holly said.

“I will.”

After this morning, she hadn’t thought her day could get much better. “Then I will go order the pizza.” A full evening with her son with nothing more to worry about than him overdosing on pepperoni and sausage?

Things were definitely spinning her way.

* * *

“NO OFFENSE,” JAKE said from beside Luke as they sat in pitch-blackness in the station’s outer office. “But this is not my preferred way to spend a Friday evening.”

“Yeah, well.” Luke stretched out his legs, set down his empty soda can and shoved the empty pizza box to the side. “Dining in the dark wasn’t at the top of my to-do list, either.”

“It’s after eight,” Jake said. “Simon’s usually in bed by nine.”

“We gave him enough telling him we’d be looking at the security footage in the morning. If he doesn’t take the bait—” Luke shrugged, then realized Jake couldn’t see him “—I’ll admit I was wrong and hope making him a junior deputy is enough to get me off his radar.”

“You’ll forgive me if I hope he doesn’t show.”

“I want to be wrong, Jake. But that kid is going to try to cover his tracks. It’s what I would have done in his place.” They’d left one desk lamp on in the outer office, but Luke could hear the dull hum of the sleeping computers.

“If Simon’s this devious and capable at eight, I shudder to think what puberty’s going to bring for my daughter.” Jake’s resigned tone had Luke smiling. “Makes me wish there was someone for her to rely on.”

Luke embraced the darkness as a way to avoid responding. Jake had been dropping hints like this all day, and while Luke appreciated and was even humbled that Jake thought him worthy of Holly’s romantic attention, Luke wasn’t going to let it go to his head. Or his heart. Holly had already done that.

The best thing Luke could ever do for Holly—and her son—was to remain available as someone for either of them to count on, but as far as anything serious or permanent? Or romantic?

That was something Luke had given up hopes of years ago. Family, home, people to care about—people to care about him? It wasn’t in the cards for him. Not with the baggage he carried. Not with the risks he brought. Surely even Jake at his most optimistic had to see that.

Men like Luke didn’t get happily-ever-after. They got empty homes, empty bottles and empty reminders they were—and always would be—on their own.

He’d done enough damage to Holly’s family. The least he could do was help scare her son straight.

“It’s kind of nice,” Luke said to Jake. “Being Simon’s enemy number one. Feels like an odd badge of honor.”

“Keep thinking that. But you might be losing your status soon. Wonder who he’ll move on to next.”

Luke didn’t have to wonder. “Kyle Winters. He thinks he’s a bully.”

“Simon doesn’t like bullies,” Jake agreed. “Another reason to track that kid down and set things straight. He doesn’t need to add Simon the avenger to his list of problems.”

At least they were looking for some humor in the Kyle Winters situation. The kid had vanished. No one Luke had talked to in the past few days had seen him. But maybe looking for him wasn’t the solution. Maybe they needed to wait until Kyle came to them.

“Is that thing even working?” Jake leaned closer as Luke tapped on his tablet.

Ozzy had done a miraculous job of getting the new surveillance cameras up and running, feeding live footage into a website Luke or any of his deputies could pull up on any electronic device. Heck, Luke had even found an app for it for his phone.

He tapped open the page on his tablet and saw the shadowy, backlit image of Luke’s office reflected at them. They’d placed one of the spherical cameras over the door, but Luke could control the angle of the lens by using the remote toggle on the screen. It was currently aimed at Luke’s desk and computer.

The silence stretched, and Luke popped open another soda.

“You hear that?” Jake whispered.

Luke listened to the rustling outside. “Could be an animal,” he said. But the low grunt he heard, followed by a thud and scraping along the wall, wasn’t any animal he could think of.

Outside it went silent again.

“Maybe he changed his mind,” Jake whispered.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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