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Tristan would be here in ten minutes, and she made a quick tour of her one-bedroom apartment. She tended to not put things away until her once-a-week cleaning frenzy on her day off. Although she didn’t want him in her home and wouldn’t invite him inside, Tristan had a way of getting her to do things she didn’t want to. Like riding in a car with him. Or spending a night with him. Well, in all fairness, she had wanted to do that at the time.
If he wasn’t the police chief, say he was a Realtor or farmer, anything but what he was, she would have been happy to see him again. Okay, excited. But dating a man in law enforcement...a big no. Not going to happen. Been there, done that, and it had been the biggest mistake of her life. She liked to think she learned from her mistakes, so Tristan was off-limits.
When Danny Peterson had started paying attention to her, he’d seemed almost perfect. Kind, funny, and easy on the eyes. They were both in law enforcement, her a chief deputy sheriff and him a police officer. They’d had so much in common, understood each other’s dedication to the job, could sympathize when one of them had a difficult day.
Danny had been all smoke and mirrors, though. He’d asked her to marry him, and as soon as his engagement ring was on her finger, he’d shown his true colors—manipulative, controlling, selfish. When she’d ended their relationship, he’d started rumors about her, and she’d felt she had no choice but to resign from her job as chief deputy sheriff.
She’d learned her lesson. No law enforcement boyfriends. Not now. Not ever. Not even a certain police chief who woke up the butterflies in her stomach.
“This is it?” she said when Tristan stopped his car at the abandoned mill. She’d passed the place hundreds of times in the past year, never once thinking it was more than what it looked like, a mill that hadn’t been operational for many years. Vines grew up the side of the stone walls, the waterwheel was rotted, half the wood missing, and she had her doubts about how safe the roof was.
“Yep. Started out as a grist mill sometime in the nineteen twenties.”
“And then it morphed into a UFO museum?”
He laughed. “For a while, a pretty successful one. Everyone wanted to hear the story about the girl who was abducted by an alien and had his baby.”
“What all was in it?”
“From what I remember, a lot of junk. Fake outer space stuff, rocks supposedly from other planets, those kinds of things.”
“You actually saw it when it was open?”
“When I was a kid. My aunt took me and my brothers.” He glanced at her. “Ready to go in?”
She eyed the building. It looked creepy. “Is it safe?”
“The roof worried me, so I came out this afternoon and took a look at it. It’s going to need to be replaced if Miss Mabel does actually reopen the place, but it’s safe enough for now.”
“How do we get in?”
“With these.” He dangled a set of keys from his fingers.
“Okay. Show me some space rock.”
“Awesome.” He reached to the back seat and grabbed a canvas tote bag. He pulled out two heavy-duty flashlights, gave her one, then handed her a ball cap. “It’ll keep the spiderwebs out of your hair.”
“There’s spiders?” She shuddered.
“Bound to be with how long it’s been closed up.” He stuck a cap on his head. “Ready?”
She was having second thoughts about this, but if she backed out, he’d probably never let her hear the end of it. “Let’s do this.”
“Hold this while I get the door open.” He handed her his flashlight, and she shined it on the lock.
The door creaked like something right out of a horror movie when he pushed it open. He walked ahead of her, and she impulsively reached up and lightly brushed her fingers over the back of his neck.
“Shit,” he yelled as he swatted at his neck while doing a pitiful imitation of a jig.
Laughter burst out of her. Suddenly, there was a bright light shining in her eyes, and she squinted.
“That was you?”
She nodded.
His eyes narrowed. “You’re going to pay for that, Sheriff. I don’t know how or when, but it will happen.”
“Oooh, I’m shaking in my boots.”
