It only took one kiss...

Willa Holmes has one rule: don’t fall in love! Love brings ties and ties bring pain, and she’s had enough of that. That’s why the pastry chef fled to Thunder Ridge in the first place—to live privately and bake anonymously. But then she makes a big mistake: she kisses the local sheriff. The tall, dark, incredibly sexy sheriff...

No high-speed chase. That’s Derek Neel’s dating rule...till Willa. But the cowboy sheriff’s hot pursuit hits a roadblock when he takes in an at-risk boy and Willa bucks like a frightened filly. Why is she so scared of the very things he wants most—love, family, forever? Derek isn’t sure, but he knows this: not even Willa can escape the loving arms of the law!

WILLA’S FAMOUS S’MORES

A long time ago back in LA, I made this with my— well, let’s just say with some people I shared my life with. They’re gone now, but I’ve always held tight to the special memories of making this recipe with them. I’m in Thunder Ridge now, a town full of caring people... and a sheriff who keeps challenging my heart. I’m not sure I’m ready to love again, but I am ready to share these homemade treats with you.

PS: I’m letting you in on my closely guarded secret!

Ingredients:

4 graham crackers

2 marshmallows

2 chocolate squares

2 metal skewers

metal grill basket

1. Lightly warm the graham crackers and chocolate by placing them in a metal grill basket high over the flame. The secret is making the crackers soft. Like love, it’s all about not getting broken!

2. Skewer the marshmallow and hold it far enough away that the flame is just teasing it. Be careful not to burn it.

3. Stack a graham cracker, chocolate square and marshmallow, and top with another cracker.

This recipe makes two, so share them with someone you love. Tell them Willa sent you.

—Willa

* * *

The Men of Thunder Ridge:

Once you meet the men of this Oregon town,

you may never want to leave!

Kiss Me, Sheriff!

Wendy Warren

www.millsandboon.co.uk

WENDY WARREN loves to write about ordinary people who find extraordinary love. Laughter, family and close-knit communities figure prominently, too. Her books have won two Romance Writers of America RITA® Awards and have been nominated for numerous others. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with human and nonhuman critters who don’t read nearly as much as she’d like, but they sure do make her laugh and feel loved.

This book is dedicated to LaCorius Jenkins, who is smart and kind, courageous and true, and a bunch of other wonderful things. You inspire me.

“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.”

—Mahatma Gandhi

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Recipe

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

For the folks who cared to rise early enough, 6:30 a.m. was as fine a time as any on Warm Springs Road in Thunder Ridge, Oregon. The twinkle lights that glowed steadily through the night were still on. The Valentine’s Day Decorating Committee met companionably at The Pickle Jar Deli for an early breakfast and a lively debate about whether to hang cupids or giant red hearts from the corner street lamps. And, next door to the deli, Willa Holmes opened the doors to Something Sweet, the bakery she’d been managing for the past two months. Her morning regulars typically arrived shortly after she flipped the “Done for the Day” sign to the side that announced, “Yep, Open.”

Now, at precisely 6:32 a.m., Willa was at work behind the counter.

“Can I tempt you with a fresh Danish this morning, Mrs. Wittenberg?” She smiled at the tiny woman whose white curls bobbed just above the top of the glass pastry case. “They’re still warm from the oven.”

Baking since 3:00 a.m., Willa appreciated the early start time of her new job. The wee hours of the morning used to be for sleep or, back when she was first married, for lovemaking, but now she found late night and early morning to be the most difficult parts of her day. There was too much quiet time to think. And to remember.

Having breads to proof, cookies to shape and food costs to calculate provided relief from the thoughts that kept her awake at night. Her only coworker in the morning was Norman Bluehorse, who was either fortyish or sixtyish—it was seriously hard to tell—and who worked with earbuds in place and spoke only when he needed to ask or to answer a direct question. A few years ago that might not have suited Willa, but these days she appreciated Norman’s unspoken you-mind-your-business-and-I’ll-mind-mine policy.

Short on sleep due to the early morning and a restless night, she tried not to yawn. Mrs. Wittenberg peered closely at her.

“Sweetheart,” the older woman said, “I hope you don’t mind my asking, but is your red hair natural? I’m thinking about having a makeover. I used to have beautiful long hair, too. It fell out during The Change. Did you bake anything new this morning?”

Actually I think of my hair as light auburn...yes, it’s natural... Your hair is lovely as it is...the pomegranate-orange bread is new. Willa only had time to think her responses before Mrs. W moved on to a new question or comment. This was their ritual six mornings a week. Mrs. W chattered brightly, examined every potential selection in the pastry case, then chose the very same thing she’d chosen the day before and the day before that—two lemon cloud Danishes and one large molasses snap to go.

“I added a touch of ginger to the lemon clouds today,” Willa told the older woman, whose pursed lips were carefully lined and filled with a creamy rose shade even at this hour of the morning. “I think you’ll like them.”

Mrs. Wittenberg wagged her prettily coiffed head. “I don’t know, dear. I think possibly I should choose something different this morning. It’s a very special day.”

“Oh?” Before Willa could ask why, the door opened to admit her second customer of the morning. A zing of pure adrenaline shot through her veins with such force, she actually felt weak. While Mrs. W tapped her upper lip, trying to make a selection, Willa’s attention turned to the six-foot-two-inch sheriff of Thunder Ridge.

She hadn’t interacted in any meaningful way with Derek Neel for the past couple of months, except to greet him and fill his order in the morning. She’d seen him around town, too, of course—he was fairly hard to miss, patrolling Thunder Ridge’s wood-planked sidewalks on foot, or making the rounds of the broad streets in his squad car. He didn’t just work in town, he lived here. Two weeks ago, she’d bumped into him in the cereal aisle of Hank’s Thunderbird Market on a Monday night at 9:00 p.m. Impossible to ignore each other when you were shoulder to shoulder, contemplating breakfast. He’d smiled easily, asked if she thought “instant triple berry oatmeal” sounded good and then tossed the box into his cart after she’d replied that, sure, it was worth a try (which had been a total lie, because instant oatmeal was an abomination of the real thing and never a good idea). While he’d strolled off, she had remained rooted to her spot in the aisle like the proverbial deer in headlights, her thoughts rushed and confused, her emotions in turmoil.

Fact: she and the handsome sheriff had almost...almost...gotten to know each other in the biblical sense on one crazy, ill-advised night two-and-a-half months ago. It had been one of those evenings when sitting with her own thoughts had seemed painful, practically impossible. She’d been filling in for a sick waitress at The Pickle Jar, next door, and when a couple of the other servers mentioned they were heading to the White Lightning Tavern for a beer and a burger, she’d invited herself along.

Derek had been there, dining with Izzy Lambert Thayer, who co-owned both The Pickle Jar, where Willa had worked as a server when she’d first arrived in town, and the bakery Something Sweet. Izzy’s new husband, Nate, had arrived at one point, and when he and Izzy got up to dance to The Louisiana Lovers, a visiting country western band, Derek had approached Willa’s table and asked her if she would mind dancing with someone likely to two-step all over her toes. His eyes had sparkled, his lips had curved in good-humored self-deprecation, his open palm had hovered, steady as a rock, in front of her. He had made it so easy for her to say yes. So easy to laugh as they’d danced (and he hadn’t stepped on her toes once). Easy to walk out the door with him later that evening, and easy—shockingly easy—to forget everything but the feeling of strong arms wrapped around her back as he’d kissed her.

Now, as Derek stepped into line behind Mrs. Wittenberg, he filled the small bakery with his bigger-than-life presence, neat and handsome in a crisply ironed beige uniform, his thick black hair still damp from a shower. Charcoal eyes met hers.

Just to prove she didn’t have a cool or sophisticated bone in her entire body, heat instantly filled Willa’s face.

Ducking her head, she refocused on the woman in front of her. “So what’s the special occasion, Mrs. Wittenberg?”

Blue eyes, pink cheeks, and the tiniest, straightest teeth Willa had ever seen, beamed with pleasure. “Mr. Wittenberg and I are celebrating our fiftieth anniversary today.”

“Oh. Oh...” Wow. A stab of pure, unadulterated envy caught Willa off-guard. “That’s—”

Amazing. A gift. A reminder that life does not deal equally with everyone.

“Wonderful. That’s really, really wonderful. Are you celebrating with a party?”

“No, dear. Our children wanted to, but Mr. Wittenberg and I have decided on a quiet time at home. Just the two of us. We’re going to take an early walk along the river. We got engaged there. This morning, we’re going to visit the very same spot. There’s a little rock shaped like a chair. I sat on it while Mr. Wittenberg got down on one knee and proposed.”

It was impossible not to be swept along on the tide of Mrs. W’s pleasure and anticipation.

“Are you going to reenact the proposal?” Willa grinned as Mrs. W nodded vigorously.

“That’s the plan.” She giggled like a little girl. “Afterward, we’ll walk back home, have a leisurely breakfast... And then I’m going to take that man into the bedroom and seduce him.”

Willa’s smile froze on her face. Her gaze shot to the sheriff. He was watching her. One eyebrow, as midnight black as his hair, arched in devilish humor.

“Do you have something sexy I could serve?” Mrs. Wittenberg continued. “The Food Network says breakfast can be a potent aphrodisiac.”

The mischief in the sheriff’s expression flared to a broad grin. A very sexy broad grin.

Alrighty. Willa looked at the pastries she’d baked with fresh appreciation. Up until now, the most interesting question she’d fielded was, Do you make gluten-free strudel?

“A sexy breakfast, hmm?” she said. “I have a chocolate chip babka Mr. Wittenberg might enjoy.” She pointed to a tall, dome-shaped breakfast bread filled to bursting with chopped chocolate and cinnamon sugar.

Mrs. Wittenberg eyed the coffee cake. “It looks good.” Her penciled brows knit together. “I don’t know if it’s sexy enough, though.” Turning, she enlisted the aid of Thunder Ridge’s finest. “Sheriff Neel, do you think a chocolate chip babka is sexy?”

Appearing to give the elderly woman’s question his serious consideration, he drawled, “I don’t watch too many cooking shows, Mrs. W, but I like to think I’m a fair judge of desirable. If the Food Network thinks you need an aphrodisiac, they’re underestimating your charms.” Because he towered above her by more than a foot, he had to bend down quite a bit to whisper loudly in her ear, “You’re already irresistible. Just think of the coffee cake as an appetizer.”

Turning back to Willa with a smile that seemed bigger than her face, Mrs. Wittenberg crowed, “I’ll take the babka! Can you put a bow on the box?”

“Of course.” Willa’s glance lighted on Sheriff Neel. He winked. Once again, heat filled her face. Like I’m a teenager, she thought disgustedly, giving herself a mental shake as she went about the business of wrapping the coffee cake.

Apparently Sheriff Neel was perfectly relaxed and comfortable continuing to have casual encounters with her after their episode of very heavy petting. It was, after all, the twenty-first century. Plus, there was no shortage of women in town who spoke frankly about their interest in bringing Thunder Ridge’s sheriff home for a night—or forever. What happened between him and Willa at the end of summer had probably happened to him a bunch of times.

Well, all except the part where Willa had pushed him away, exclaiming, “I can’t do this!” and then ran away as if the devil were on her heels. That had probably been a new experience for him.

“Here you are.” Handing Mrs. Wittenberg a white box with red lettering and a glittery gold bow, she said, “I added a couple of molasses snaps. For later.”

“Oh, thank you so much, dear. I’ll let you know how it goes!” Showing her deep dimples, Mrs. Wittenberg hugged the box to her as she exited the store.

Which left Willa alone with her next customer.

It was too quiet, too still in the bakery. Willa made a mental note to ask her boss if she could play some music during the day. Even the large fan that pulled heat out of the kitchen sounded like nothing more than a faint hum.

Derek didn’t seem bothered by the stillness. He was pretty still himself, watching her, waiting patiently. He had sought her out the day after their near miss, looking concerned rather than angry. He’d asked her why she’d run away, of course, and hadn’t been satisfied with her insistence that she’d simply been having a bad night, had thought a little socializing might do her some good, but hadn’t meant to let things go that far.

He’d frowned, staring at her, waiting for a fuller explanation, and she’d felt so guilty, because he was a good guy. When she’d waitressed at The Pickle Jar, she’d seen him nearly every day. Her employer, Izzy Thayer, was his best friend, and he’d come in regularly to have a cup of coffee, do some minor repairs or keep a very wary eye on the progress of Izzy’s relationship with Nate Thayer before Nate and Izzy married. Derek just seemed like a natural protector, and that was nice. Very nice. But Willa had learned there were some things from which no human power could protect you.

So she’d stuck to her guns, claiming that what had happened between them was a mistake and wouldn’t happen again. “I’m very, very sorry for the...” She’d stumbled, not knowing what to say. “For leading you to believe I was...” Ugh. “I mean, if I led you on in any way.” She was so not cut out for dating.

With the sexy, easy smile that was his trademark, he’d stood on the front porch of her rented cottage and shrugged away her apology. “No harm done. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“Me? I am.” She’d nodded vigorously, as if being emphatic would turn her lie into the truth. She hadn’t been “okay” in two years. But that had nothing to do with him.

Now, this morning, he transferred his gaze from her to the pastry case. “Got anything to tempt me?”

The words didn’t sound utterly innocent, but his tone did, so she took them at face value. Reaching into the case, she withdrew a large flaky golden rectangle.

“Our signature cheese Danish,” she said.

He squinted at the glazed pastry. “Where’s the cheese?”

“Inside. It’s filled with a blend of ricotta, cream cheese and honey. And a touch of orange zest and cinnamon.”

“A Danish with hidden charms.” He nodded. “Okay, I’ll try it. And a large black coffee.” Withdrawing his wallet, he pulled out a few bills. “I’m going to need the caffeine to stay extra alert now that I know Mrs. W’s plans.” He looked at Willa with a straight face, but roguish eyes so darkly brown they appeared black. “Mr. Wittenberg is ten years older than his wife, you know. If that babka really is an aphrodisiac, he may not survive the morning. I hope I don’t have to bring you in for aiding and abetting an aggravated manslaughter.”

The comment made Willa smile, and she remembered that he’d made her smile quite a lot, actually, that night in the tavern. “It isn’t my recipe,” she countered, “so I don’t think I should be held responsible.” She shrugged. “On the other hand, forewarned is forearmed, so thanks. I’ll go home at lunch and pack a duffle bag in case I have to run from the law.” She turned, the curve of his lips an enjoyable image to hold on to as she got him a large coffee to go and slid the Danish into a bag.

Derek paid her, the expression in his eyes that mesmerizing combo of sincere and humorous. “I hope you won’t run from the law. I’m here to help.” He gave her a quick nod. “Morning.”

She watched him go, sharing a few words with an older gentleman who walked in as he walked out.

“Good morning, Mr. Stroud,” Willa greeted the new arrival as he approached the counter. “Toasted bialy and cream cheese?” She named the savory round roll he had every morning. Soon, Jerry Ellison, who owned First Strike Realty up the block, arrived and sat with Charlie Stroud at one of the six small tables in the bakery. Business picked up the closer they got to 7:00 a.m., and Willa stayed busy throughout the morning.

“I’m here to help.”

A couple of hours after Derek left, his parting words continued to play through her mind. She’d heard those words, or a variation of them, before.

“Don’t try to do this on your own.”

“You’ve been through so much. Let us help.”

Didn’t people know that their help was sometimes the cruelest of gifts? What they really wanted was to help her “move on,” to “let go,” to be happy again the way she used to be. To forget. And she couldn’t let that happen.

“I don’t want help. I don’t need help,” she muttered to herself as she slid a fresh tray of oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies into the oven. Kim Appel, a mother of young children who worked from nine to three or seven at the bakery, depending on whether her husband was available to pick the kids up from school, was now behind the counter while Willa toiled in the kitchen. That gave Willa plenty of time alone to obsess.

Her mind raced, her heart pumped too hard, her stomach churned. What was the matter with her?

“You’re tired and you need some sleep, that’s what.” Wiping her perspiring palms on her apron, she gathered up bowls and utensils to stack them in the dishwasher. Maybe she should go home for a couple of hours. Kim could handle it; she was a capable worker. Willa could come back after a nap and close up shop.

Yeah, except whom was she kidding? She wasn’t going to sleep. She was going to hear Derek’s words over and over, see his sincere face, imagine his strong arms.

“I’m here to help.”

For nearly a year now she’d caught him watching her and had sensed all along that he was interested. Interested in a way that, in a vulnerable moment, could make her skin tingle and her veins flood with heat.

He’d been unfailingly polite, courteous, gentle—never pushy—almost as if he sensed he would have to move softly if he hoped to get anywhere with her at all. And that agonizing yearning to lose herself in his arms, to forget for a night, for an hour...that yearning would sometimes overtake her like it had in the tavern. Her heart would race, and she would imagine surrendering to his arms and to his smile, to the unbridled laughter of lovers.

She would sometimes dream of really moving on.

Willa set the timer on the oven so she wouldn’t burn the cookies while she cleaned the marble countertop. She hadn’t moved to Thunder Ridge, eight hundred miles from family, friends and a brilliant career as a chef and culinary arts instructor so that she could forget everything. No. She’d moved so that she could live the way she wanted to—quietly, privately. She’d moved so she could hang on to the one thing that still held her broken heart together: her memories.

So far, she saw no reason to change.

* * *

When Derek walked through the door to the sheriff’s office at seven-twenty, the sun was still trying to make its first appearance of the morning. The lights inside the large boxy room, however, were burning and emitted a warm, welcoming glow completely at odds with the rubber band that whizzed past his head with such force it could surely be classified a lethal weapon. Rearing back, Derek tightened his hold on the coffee cup, popping open the plastic lid and sloshing hot coffee over his hand and onto the linoleum floor.

“Russell,” he growled.

“Sorry!”

Derek’s deputy, Russell Annen, whipped his feet off the wide desk in front of him and stood. “I was aiming for Bat Masterson.” He jerked his thumb at a poster of Old West sheriffs on the wall opposite him as he ran to fetch paper towels and sop up the spill.

“I hope you aim a gun better than you shoot rubber bands.” Derek had almost had his eye put out on several occasions by Russell’s wayward shots. “Slow night?”

“Yup.” Russell bent to clean the mess. “Slow morning, too.”

“You might as well take off then.”

“I have another forty-five minutes.”

“That’s okay. You can get an early start.” Heading for his desk, Derek noted the remains of Russell’s breakfast littering the blotter: a liter bottle of soda and an open, half-eaten box of chocolate-covered donut holes. “Get a blood panel, would ya, Russell?” he suggested. “Check your sugar and cholesterol levels.”

His deputy grinned. “Hey, I have to get my fix somewhere. LeeAnn watched some video about diet and heart disease, and now all she makes when I come over is vegetables and beans.”

“Smart woman. You should marry her.”

“I hate beans. Before that video, we used to look for the best burger-and-brew pubs. Now when we go to Portland, she wants to find vegan restaurants. Do I look like I’m meant to be vegan?”

Derek eyed his six-foot-tall, two-hundred-pound deputy. “You do not.”

Russell began to wander toward their work area instead of toward the door, and Derek felt his shoulders tense. Seating himself behind the big oak desk, he pretended to become engrossed in his computer screen. Every morning after seeing Willa at the bakery, he required a few minutes alone to debrief himself. Willa took up residence in his thoughts more than anyone or, lately, anything else. It took some effort to refocus, and he liked to do that in private. His love life—or current lack of one—was his business, no one else’s.

On that note, he said pointedly before Russell could sit down, “Enjoy your time off.”

“I was planning to.” Russell sighed heavily. “Before.”

Do not, I repeat, do not take the bait. But Russell looked like a giant puppy whose favorite chew toy was stolen. Give me patience. “Okay.” Derek crossed his forearms on the desk. “Before what?”

Closing the distance between himself and the desk, Russell dropped into the chair opposite Derek’s. “See, it’s this way. I made reservations for dinner up at Summit Lodge. Tonight. Their special is prime rib.” He practically moaned the end of the sentence. “Eleven o’clock last night, LeeAnn tells me her cousin is in town today through the end of the week.”

“So?”

“So, LeeAnn is refusing to go anywhere unless Penelope has something to do, too. And, someone to do it with.”

“Can’t she find something to do on her own?”

Russell slapped his palm on the desktop. “Dude, right? That’s what I said. But Penelope and LeeAnn are females, see? They don’t think like us.”

Derek waited for more. “Okay. And?”

“So the only way I can go out with LeeAnn this week is if we double date.”

It took a couple of seconds—only a couple—to understand. “No.” Laughing humorlessly, Derek shook his head. “No way.”

“It would just be for a couple of dates.”

Picking up what was left of the coffee he’d brought over from the bakery, Derek leaned back so that his chair tilted on two legs. “No.”

“Three dates, tops.”

The front chair legs landed on the floor again with a thud. “Maybe you don’t know this about me, Russell. I don’t go on blind dates. Ever.” He took a sip of coffee. “Good luck. I’m sure you’ll find someone.”

“LeeAnn thinks you and Penelope—”

“Someone else.”

Blowing his breath out in frustration, Russell stood. “Fine.” He turned and took several steps toward the door. Derek began to relax, but obviously everything was not fine, because Russell turned back. “It’s not that you turn down blind dates. You don’t date at all.”

Narrowing his eyes, Derek warned, “Russell—”

“Not since that night at The White Lightning when you left with the woman who works at the bakery—”

“—you should go now.”

“I saw how you looked when you left with her. Everyone saw it. LeeAnn gave me holy hell for a week after that, wanting to know why I didn’t look at her that way.”

Derek was on his feet before he realized it. He didn’t even remember putting down his coffee. Laugh it off, he advised himself, but he didn’t feel very humorous. Covering his eyes, he took a deep breath and dragged his hand over his face. “What is your point?”

“I expected you to tell me you went to Vegas that night and got married by Elvis. But ever since then, you act like a monk. You wouldn’t talk about what happened with her, but it obviously didn’t work out, so why not go out with someone else? Why not Penelope? LeeAnn says she’s fun, and she’s not even vegan. I asked.”

Derek looked down at the desk. His feelings for Willa baffled even him; the last thing he wanted to do this morning was attempt to explain them to somebody else. “I’m going to make a pot of coffee now, while you get going.” He glanced up again. “If you don’t, I may decide to take a few days off and put you on extra shifts.”

The phone rang before either of them could say anything more, and Derek snatched it up. He listened for a bit, said, “Don’t do anything. I’ll be there in ten minutes,” and hung up. “Jerry Ellison’s potbellied pig knocked down Ron Raybold’s fence again,” he told Russell, “and Ron is threatening to shoot it and have a luau. I’m heading out.”

Resignedly following his boss to the door, Russell asked, “Jerry is single, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“When you talk to him, ask if he wants to go out with Penelope.”

While Russell headed to his car, Derek put the “On a call... Back later” sign on the front door and went to forestall a neighborhood feud. Being the sheriff of Thunder Ridge was nine parts relationship mediation and one part active police duties. Truth was, most of the time he wouldn’t have it any other way. He might not have been born here, but he’d found a home for the first time in this place where, rogue pot-bellied pigs aside, people cared about each other’s business mostly because they cared about each other.

His life was good, and he hadn’t thought much was missing until Willa Holmes had moved to town.

While Derek drove to Ron’s place, he thought about the woman who had made him break one of his cardinal rules: no high-speed chases where women were concerned. If a woman didn’t want to be caught, MOVE ON.

Like any lesson that made a lasting impression, he’d learned that one the hard way. Maybe it was the curse of having raised himself until he was nineteen, but for a while he’d pursued unavailable women. An attempt, he supposed, to prove to himself that he could make someone stay. He’d sworn off that kind of bull a long time ago.

Until Willa.

When he was near her, his heart revved like a car with the accelerator pressed to the floor. She’d turned away after what had to be some of the best kissing he’d ever experienced. No, the best. And he knew she’d felt it, too, because when he let himself think about it, he could still feel her fingers clinging tightly to his shoulders...then moving like smoke up the back of his neck...threading through his hair... The longer they’d kissed, the more her body had melted into his, and the more his had felt as if it were about to burst into flame.

Just when he’d been certain he was experiencing the best moment of his life, Willa had cut and run. No real explanation given. Ever since then, he’d been on a high-speed chase all right, one with no end in sight.

But something in those mesmerizing eyes of hers, eyes with all the storminess and all the sunshine of a spring day in Oregon, told him to keep chasing. That she needed him to catch up even if she didn’t know it yet.

Was he nuts? Behaving exactly as he’d sworn he wouldn’t? Yeah. And he figured there were only two logical outcomes. Either he was someday going to become the luckiest man on earth, or he would realize he’d been the jackass of the century. He only hoped he could handle the fallout if the latter turned out to be the truth.

Chapter Two

“You sure you want to stay and close by yourself?” Kim looked at her manager with worried brown eyes yet not a line or a pucker on her silken brow, which reminded Willa how young her assistant was.

“I’m sure,” she said. “Go home to your kiddos. The sun’s actually out. If you hurry, you might have an hour left to get them outside before the stir-crazies set in.”

“You’re right.” Kim laughed. “Three and six are probably the worst ages when you have to stay inside because of the weather and dark nights. They fight like crazy.”

“Go on then.” Willa shooed her employee toward the door. “Put on their mittens and let ’em duke it out at the park. Play structures are a mother’s best friend.”

As Kim left, Willa returned to work. She hadn’t gone home after all, though she had taken a long lunch and had driven to Long River to go for a walk with other lunch-timers taking advantage of the unseasonably sunny winter day. Now, at 4:00 p.m., she was tired, but the more exhausted she was, the better her chances of sleeping tonight.

She began the process of wrapping up the leftover goodies in the pastry case so she could take them next door to the deli. Izzy would sell what she could tonight at half price, and tomorrow Willa would take the rest to Thunder Ridge Long-term Care for the staff and residents to enjoy.

The after-school crowd had already come in and cleaned her out of the most popular cookie selections, but there were still apricot rugelach, buttery shortbread and chocolate chip mandelbrot. The folks who would come in before closing would be interested mostly in bread, rolls and cakes for the evening meal, so she started packaging the cookies first. As Willa worked she flicked on the radio, opting for an oldies station, and didn’t see her next customer come in until he was standing directly in front of the counter.

“Oh!” Using her upper arm to brush a stray hair from her eyes, she smiled. “Hello. You’re here at a good time. All the cookies, bagels and rolls are two for the price of one.”

The boy—ten or eleven, she guessed—pressed his lips together in a sort of smile and nodded. He wore a dark blue coat, pilling on the body and sleeves, and a knit hat that had also seen better days. His skin was a beautiful caramel color, his eyes as dark as onyx. He looked shy, and she couldn’t recall seeing him before, either in the bakery or the deli.

“Do you like chocolate?” she asked.

He nodded, and she handed him a brownie. “Try that. On the house. Then you can look around and see if you want another one of those or something else.”

He stared at her without moving. She nodded encouragingly. “Go ahead, take it. It’s good. I like to think of it as a cross between a truffle and a brownie. Maybe I should call it a bruffle. Or trownie.” He didn’t smile.

“Free?” His only word to her was soft, a little suspicious.

“Yep. Bakeries give out samples all the time.” Gingerly, he accepted the treat. “I’ll be over there—” Willa pointed to the counter behind her “—working. If you decide to get something else, just holler. We have hot cocoa and cider, too, on the house in the evening.” Beverages weren’t really on the house, but what the heck? She’d drop a dollar fifty into the till. Sensing that her observation was making the boy nervous, she turned her back, slipping more cookies into the plastic bags she would deliver next door.

Something Sweet’s grand opening had been in September, and Izzy had already orchestrated Dough for Dollars and other promotions with the local schools, plus there had been a back-to-school special the first two weeks the bakery had been operational. Now, every afternoon they had several kids from the local K-8 and high school stopping by for snacks, but she’d never seen this kiddo before. She’d have remembered him. His shy, almost distrusting demeanor stood in stark contrast to a face that was exotically beautiful.

Everyone, children included, had a story. What was his? As her curiosity grew, Willa shook her head. His story wasn’t her business; she was just here to provide sticky sweets that temporarily soothed the soul and gave people a reason to brush their teeth. That’s what she’d wanted when she had first come to Thunder Ridge—a simple job with work she could leave at the “office.”

Several minutes had gone by when Willa realized she hadn’t heard a sound from her young customer. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw him hovering near a large plastic canister she kept on the low counter near the cash register. There was a slit cut into the top of the lid and a big picture glued to the front and covered with tape to protect the photo. “Help Gia.” Gia was fifteen and had lived at the Thunder Ridge Long-Term Care facility for the past ten months, after an auto accident that had taken her mother’s life and left her father with ever-mounting medical bills and lost workdays. Thankfully, the canister was stuffed with bills and coins. Every Friday, Willa deposited the contents into a bank account set up for Gia and her family.

The boy had eaten his brownie and was frowning at the jar. He looked anxious, conflicted. Was he thinking about donating his money instead of buying something?

A sweet, sharp pang squeezed Willa’s chest. Wow. People his age rarely gave the jar more than a passing glance. She understood that. It was so much easier to pretend bad things didn’t happen to average kids. But maybe this boy was one of the unusually empathetic ones. She was going to give this cool kid a box of cookies and a hot chocolate if he dropped even a penny in that canister.

When he looked up and caught her watching him, she smiled. He appeared startled. Completely self-conscious. You know what? She was going to give him a box of cookies and a hot cocoa just for thinking about—

“Hey!”

Like a lightning strike, his hands were around the canister, pulling it beneath his coat. He turned and ran for the door with such speed, Willa was still standing in shock when the door harp pinged behind him.

For a second, she merely stared. Then outrage, pure and robust, rose inside her like a geyser. Gia’s family needed that money. They needed the support it represented. They needed to know they were not forgotten, that Gia was not forgotten as she lay in a hospital bed in a long-term care facility.

Veins filling with adrenaline, Willa abandoned her post at the bakery, running full throttle after the boy. Twilight had turned to dusk, and the sunny day had given way to clouds that inhibited her visibility, but she caught sight of him up ahead.

To avoid running into a family, the kid dodged right, which forced him to skirt around a bench and slowed him down.

“Stop! You stop right now!” Willa hollered. Pedestrians turned to stare. Briefly, the boy looked back at her, too, his eyes wide. Then he jumped over a dog tied up to a street lamp and kept running.

Sophie Turner, who owned A Step in Time New and Vintage Shoes, was outside sweeping her front entrance when Willa raced by. “Willa?” the young woman exclaimed. “What’s wrong?”

“He took my canister,” she panted. “I’ve got to get him.”

“He took...what? Do you need help?” Sophie called after her.

“No!” She cupped her hands around her mouth. “I’m warning you, you little twerp!” Really, she had been so wrong about this kid. “Stop. Right. Now!”

“Who are we chasing?”

Willa glanced to her right to see Derek Neel, out of uniform, jogging beside her. For a second, she was discombobulated. She’d seen him in street clothes before, of course, but tonight off duty Sheriff Neel seemed taller, more rugged and somehow relaxed even as he ran with her.

“He stole my donation jar,” she said, panting.

“Who?”

“That kid!” Pointing, she accused, “That tricky little—Wait a minute, where’d he go?” Her eyes searched the darkening streets, but all she could see were a few scattered citizens of Thunder Ridge watching their sheriff and Willa run down the block together. “Darn it!” She stumbled to a stop, her breath heavy, her skin at once hot from exertion and cold from the thirty-five-degree evening. Suddenly, not even adrenaline could make her forget how tired she was, and how frustrated. “You made me lose him,” she said, putting her hands on her thighs and bending over to catch her breath. “He’s got all the money we’ve been collecting for a week. Do you know what that represented?”

“I’m not even sure what you’re talking about.” Derek’s characteristic unruffled demeanor was intended to defuse the situation, but it had the opposite effect on Willa when he asked, “Who do you think took your jar?”

“I don’t think he took it. I know he did.” Her sudden fury at the kid was out of proportion, but she didn’t care. “I was standing right there.”

“Okay. And you say he looked like a kid.”

“He didn’t look like a kid. He is a kid.” She started walking again, searching up and down the side streets, exasperated. “A kid with someone else’s donation money.”

“Okay, look, why don’t you come on back to my office. You can give me a description, tell me what happened and how much money you think he’s got.”

“No.” The word emerged too sharp, so she added, “Thank you. I’m going to find him.”

Derek reached for her arm. “It’s getting dark. He could have ducked into his house by now.”

“Then I’ll go door to door.” Turning on Ponderosa Avenue toward the residential area, she strode up the block, searching. When she felt tears at the corners of her eyes, she swiped them away and kept walking. Derek stayed by her side, keeping pace until they had gone two blocks. Then he reached for her arm again, refusing to let go when she tried to pull away.

Because she was over-the-top, clearly, and probably irrational and maybe even a little scary, he looked at her in concern. “What is this really about?” His eyes searched hers as if he was trying to read what she wouldn’t tell him.

She felt grief and fury rise inside her like dirty flood water. I thought I was past this. I thought I’d cut this part of me out. A couple of years ago, blinding anger had sprouted inside her as if it were a new organ. She’d worked hard to excise it, but tonight she felt as if she could scream—loudly and long enough to punch a hole in the night sky.

It had nothing to do with Derek. He was simply the hapless boulder standing in the path of her raging river. Willa’s mind was on Gia—unable to speak clearly since the accident, barely able to walk and only fifteen. And her father, her poor father, probably felt responsible and utterly helpless.

Traumatic brain injuries were cruel. She’d wanted so much to show him his family was remembered every day.

“Never mind.” She turned toward Warm Springs Road. She would get a new jar tomorrow, refill it herself and take it to the care facility. That, of course, was the reasonable solution. The boy was not her business. She shouldn’t have interacted with him so much to begin with.

It took a moment to realize Derek was still holding her arm.

“I have to go. I left the store unattended.” Which was a pretty stupid thing to do and an even dumber thing to admit to the owner’s best friend. Great. Crazy Woman Loses Job would probably be the headline on the next Thunder Ridge Gazette.

“Okay, let’s go.”

“What? No. You were probably headed somewhere, and I’m fine. Really. I was over-the-top. Sorry.” How many times could you apologize to someone for erratic behavior? “It was a long day. I’m fine now.” She forced a smile. “Not crazy.”

He didn’t bother to answer. Didn’t let go of her arm, either. With his jaw set in capable sheriff mode, he accompanied her back toward Warm Springs Road, Thunder Ridge’s main street.

For future reference, Willa thought, never tell someone you’re not crazy. It makes you sound crazy.

When they passed A Step In Time on their way back to the bakery, Sophie, who was young and pretty and single, ran to the door and smiled when she saw Derek. “Hi! Did you help Willa find her thief?”

“No, no need.” Willa tried to sound philosophical. “He was just a kid. I lost perspective there for a few minutes. It’s over and done now.”

Beneath the street lamps that had switched on and the glow from the exterior light at Sophie’s store, it was easy to see her brows pucker beneath a mop of caramel-brown curls. “I don’t have kids, but if I did, I’d want to make sure they were held responsible for stealing. That boy’s parents should hear about it.” She divided her glance between Derek and Willa. “I hope you guys follow through.”

“We will.” Derek responded firmly. “Good night.”

On they walked until they reached Something Sweet. Standing before the glass door, with the shop aglow inside, Willa hoped she would find the cash register exactly as she’d left it and figured she probably would. Crime was a relatively rare occurrence in Thunder Ridge. Before she opened the door, she said, “Everything looks fine.” What were the odds she could persuade him not to come in? She needed some time alone to collect herself. “Thanks for walking back with me. I appreciate your help. I have some work to do and then I have to close, and I’ve taken enough of your time, so—”

“You’re going to need to give a statement and a description of the suspect.”

“No. I overreacted. Frankly, I’m embarrassed. Can we just forget it?”

Derek frowned. Disapprovingly. “This is about the boy now. I need to talk to his parents.”

“Sure. Of course. It’s pretty clear you aren’t on duty right now, though.” Her gaze traveled over his off duty attire—well-fitting black jeans and a zipped-up gray hoodie—and she wondered if he was meeting someone. A man that handsome, after all... Changing her train of thought, she offered, “So maybe I can swing by the station later tonight and talk to whoever’s on call.”

Derek reached around her for the door. He held it open and waited.

Quickly assessing the outcome of making an even bigger deal about this than she already had, Willa brushed past him. She didn’t bother to walk behind the counter or into the kitchen. He wasn’t going to leave, so she turned to face him in the middle of the bakery. Beneath the hoodie, she spied the top of a black turtleneck sweater that was exactly the shade of the thick waves that fell across his forehead. Yep, he definitely looked like a man with better things to do than solve the puzzle of her lunatic behavior.

“It seems I keep owing you apologies.”

Raising one shoulder in a brief shrug, he said, “Nah. I’m not big on apologies. An explanation about what happened out there would be nice, though.”

God knew she owed him one, but it would entail too many personal revelations, so she shrugged, too, hoping irony would diffuse the situation. “I’m not big on explanations.”

“That’s a problem then,” he said. Hooking his thumbs in his back pockets, he narrowed his gaze. “How do you feel about baos?”

“About what?”

“Baos. They’re Chinese dumplings filled with meat. Sometimes beans.”

“I know what they are.” She’d once taught a class on Asian fusion cuisine.

“Good. How about eating some with me?” he invited. “Have you ever been to The Twin Dragon in Zig Zag? Best baos this side of Shanghai.”

“Have you been to Shanghai?”

“Only in my dreams.”

“Well, maybe someday you’ll really go,” she murmured. She had been to China. It had been a wonderful trip.

“I’ve been waiting for the right time,” Derek said.

Her head rose at that. “You shouldn’t. If you want to travel, you should just do it. Don’t wait.”

He gazed at her curiously, and she realized she’d sounded emphatic. “I’ll take that under advisement,” he said. He gestured toward the street beyond the window. “It’s a big world out there. I’d like to see it with someone. That enhances the view, don’t you think?”

“Yes.” Uncomfortably aware that she hadn’t responded to his dinner invitation, she clasped her hands in front of her. “I’d really rather not pursue finding that boy,” she said, glancing everywhere but at Derek. “I think he was just...impulsive. I don’t think he’s a criminal.”

“He’ll be impulsive again.”

“Still—”

“I’m not going to send him to juvenile hall. I want to talk to him and to his family. See if they’re aware of what he’s up to. Assuming he’s never done something like this before, I’d like to make sure he doesn’t do it again.”

Reasonable. Derek was being very reasonable. She couldn’t argue without explaining her reluctance. “All right. After I close up here, I’ll go over to your office to file a report and then head home.”

The arch of his brow, the flare of awareness in his eyes and the near-imperceptible quirk at the corners of his masculine lips told her he got the message. No baos; just business. And no explanations, either.

“My deputy, Russell, is on duty all night. I’ll text and let him know he should expect you.”

She wanted to assure him that her rejection of his dinner invitation was not personal, but he was already on his way to the door. His broad, relaxed shoulders gave no indication that his feelings were wounded. Pausing with his hand on the door handle, he turned to consider her. “Maybe I should have been a detective. I like puzzles. Here’s one I’m working on—beautiful woman—young, intelligent, capable of running her own business—moves to a small town in Oregon where she didn’t know anybody and doesn’t seem to want to. She takes a job working as a waitress in a deli. What would her motivation be?”

“For taking a job as a waitress? That’s a rather elitist attitude.”

“You have to consider the question in context,” he said pleasantly enough. “The woman is clearly overqualified.”

“Maybe she thought waitressing would turn out to be an upwardly mobile position.”

“Could be.” He nodded. “I doubt she would have assumed that at the start, though. There was no evidence that it would be.”

“Well, it’s hardly a mystery. Plenty of people move to Oregon because they want less stress and a pretty place to live. As for not socializing constantly, some people are naturally introverts.”

“Maybe.” Derek considered her for a long time. “Then again, maybe she’s afraid.”

“Of what?” Willa shook her head. “Never mind.” She wagged her finger, trying to keep the moment light. “This is annoying, Sheriff. You’re talking about me in the third person.”

“I apologize. I had to repeat Language Arts in high school. Let me try it again. When I look at you, Willa, I see someone who wants to reach out, but won’t. Or can’t. I see something behind your eyes. Something you want to say or do, but wouldn’t dare. And I can’t help but wonder what it is. And why it’s so hard.” He opened the door, admitting a blast of cold air, and gave her one last look. “I’m not the enemy.”

With that, Derek headed out onto the streets that were his to serve and protect.

Willa remained alone in the shop, shivering even after the door closed. The image of his searching dark eyes lasted long after he had disappeared.

Chapter Three

“You need to leave my employee alone, let her concentrate on her work, and go find a woman who actually wants you, because right now you are barking up the wrong tree.” Izzy took a bite out of her pastrami and coleslaw on rye then spoke with her mouth full. “Gosh, I hope that didn’t sound harsh.”

“Gosh, it did.” Derek unwrapped the deli sandwich Izzy had brought him. Once a week when the weather was decent, and often when it wasn’t, he and Izzy met in Doc Howard Memorial Park. She supplied lunch from the deli, he supplied the appetite, and they sat by the river, talked and ate. Today he wasn’t in the mood for food. “Is there mustard on this?”

“Of course.”

“What about mayo?”

“Derek, please—” she sounded offended “—you’ve been eating the same sandwich for—what?—ten years? I know how you like it, and I respect your condiment selections.” She poked at her own mammoth concoction, adding, “Even though I think they’re misguided.”

Brisket on challah had been his go-to sandwich since he’d had his first meal at The Pickle Jar. He liked it with mayo, spicy mustard, and—Izzy’s main objection—ketchup.

“Since I can see that you are not ready to stop obsessing about the manager of my bakery, let’s return to our regularly scheduled programming.” Extending her legs and crossing her ankles, Izzy flexed her feet inside fuzzy faux fur–lined boots. “Recap. Willa turned you down for baos, which is too bad, but at least you asked, which is progress over last year when you were so afraid to be rejected you barely spoke to her.”

“I was not afraid to be rejected. What the—” Sitting up straight, he glared at his best friend. “I didn’t want to pressure her or put us both in an uncomfortable situation.”

“Ooh. Good thinking, Dr. Phil.”

“I didn’t want to come off like a stalker. Okay?”

“Mmm. And now?”

“Now it’s different. At the tavern, I saw that she is interested.”

Lowering her sandwich, Izzy gazed at him, her sparkling eyes turning serious and more sensitive. “Derek, was she interested in you? Or was she interested in, you know, a man in general?” Obviously trying not to hurt him or to see him hurt himself, she rushed on. “Willa has been alone here for over a year. She doesn’t really socialize with anyone at work. Maybe she’s lonely and it was just...time.” Placing a hand on his arm, she said, “I wouldn’t hurt you for all the world, you know that. I know how much you have to give, and I want to see you happy. You said you weren’t going to date unavailable women, anymore. Remember? You said you were going to be sane about your relationships. Unlike me.” She grinned.

She can afford to grin about it, Derek thought, gratitude for his friend’s happiness softening his mood somewhat. On Izzy’s left ring finger were an engagement ring, the wedding band Nate Thayer knew he should have given her fourteen years earlier and an eternity band to signify Nate’s commitment never to leave her again.

To say Derek had disliked Izzy’s now-husband when he’d first met the man...well, that was an understatement. Nate Thayer had hurt Izzy once, before Izzy and Derek had met. After hearing the story and being Izzy’s best friend for all these years, Derek had given Nate as hard a time as he could when the other man had shown up again, suddenly, last year. But Nate had turned out to be a good guy—hard to intimidate, too—and Izzy was nuts about him. Eventually, despite the trust issues born from his own past, Derek had given the pair his blessing, and they seemed to be doing fine. Great, in fact.

So, yeah, Izzy could afford to smile about it all now.

“That night in the tavern,” he said slowly, looking at the river, “I sensed from Willa what I’ve been feeling all along. Some of what I’ve been feeling,” he amended, figuring honestly that Willa wasn’t as invested as he. “It was more than physical.”

Izzy shook her head. “Even after a year of working together, I hardly know anything about her, beyond the fact that she has a strong work ethic and is completely reliable.” She reached for a dill pickle. “You know, if I got a dollar every time someone asked me to set you up with them—or with their daughter or their cousin or their cousin’s daughter’s cousin—over the years, I could retire. So why this woman, this time? I mean, yes, she’s lovely and I know you’ve had the hots for her, but, really, why Willa?”

The stretch of Long River where they sat flowed quietly, with little fanfare, but it was beautiful, mysterious and multifaceted as any white water Derek had ever seen. It reminded him of Willa. Her silvery eyes were soft, keenly observant, kind, sad—it all depended on the hour and the day. He could study her endlessly and still not see everything he knew there was to see.

“When we were in the tavern, I told her a joke. A really silly one.”

“One of Henry’s?”

“Yeah.” Izzy’s former boss, Henry Bernstein, used to offer his customers “A joke and a pickle for only a nickel.” Derek had heard plenty of them (and had eaten a lot of pickles) over the years. “Willa liked it. She laughed. Really laughed. For the first time, her smile was in her eyes, too, and I could see...” He held up a hand as Izzy gaped at him. “Don’t say anything. No wisecracks.” He waited until Izzy nodded before he continued. “I could see what the future might be with her. And, yeah, there was something kind of desperate about the way she was behaving, but for a moment there, I think she was wondering what a future might be like, too.” Izzy was looking at him seriously, as seriously as she ever had. He took a deep breath. “My gut’s been telling me for a long time that this is different. This is special. So even when I took her home, I knew we weren’t going to do anything more than kiss.”

Izzy’s brows rose to new heights. Stretching his own legs out toward the water, Derek shrugged. “I might have taken some upper body privileges. But that’s it. When we—” He stopped. Too much information. But as he stared at the river, he let his mind float and thought, I want Willa for more than a night.

“You don’t know much about her. Nobody does. There isn’t a lot of information to be found apparently. A lot of people have Googled her,” Izzy confided.

“What?”

“Yeah. Come on, you haven’t?”

“No.” Not that he hadn’t been tempted, but... “No. Someday she’ll tell me what I need to know.”

“Okay, well we mere mortals are curious right now. And you know what we found out?”

“No. And don’t—”

“Almost nothing. There isn’t much information to be found. Isn’t that weird in this day and age? No Facebook, no Instagram—”

“I don’t have that stuff, either—”

“—and while I support her desire to stay off social media, you have to admit that it’s weird not to be able to find her somewhere online. These days, you can get a history of addresses for people who’ve lived under rocks—”

“That’s an invasion of privacy. That kind of information should only be available for legal purposes.”

“—and there are, apparently, over nine hundred Willa Holmeses, but none of them jump out as our Willa Holmes.”

Derek told himself there was nothing unusual about someone living under the radar of the internet.

“Some folks are saying she’s running away from a bad relationship,” Izzy continued. “Marcy Anneting thinks Willa is in the Witness Protection Program, but Marcy belongs to a mystery book club. And Jett Schulman says you can tell by her manner that she was born into a life of luxury and is just here temporarily to see how the other half lives.”

“When did you become the town crier, Izzy?”

He saw the sting of his words as her eyes flickered, but she didn’t back down. “Since my best friend started to fall for a woman I don’t think will ever love him back.” Unmindful of the sandwich she was squeezing tightly in her hand, Izzy exhaled noisily. “I don’t think she can love you back. I don’t know what the truth is. Maybe she was a mafia wife or her high school sweetheart died tragically and she can’t get over it, or she’s just a very normal, exceptionally private woman who is emotionally closed off. Whatever it is, she’s not the woman I want for you. Derek, everyone thinks of you as having it all together, and you do. Now. But I’ve known you since you since you were the original rebel without a cause. We come from the same place, you and I.”

“That was a long time ago. When I left my uncle’s house, I didn’t even know what I was running from.”

“I think you were trying to run to something. Just like me. You’ve been searching for a loving family that was all yours ever since I met you. I don’t want you to be hurt again.”

“And you think one small, shy woman can do that?” He smiled, hoping to tease Izzy out of her concern, but she refused to be distracted.

“I think she could, yes. I want to protect you, because I love you. Like you tried to protect me when Nate came back.”

“Yeah, and I was wrong,” he pointed out. “Everything turned out all right. Better than all right.”

She stared at him a long time then slowly wrapped the remainder of her now squished sandwich and put it in the insulated lunchbox she’d brought with her. “Okay.”

“Izz, I love you. But I’ve got to go with my gut on this.”

She wouldn’t look at him. “Yeah. Well, I hired her, you know? I brought her into our lives, so I guess I feel responsible.”

He chucked her on the chin. “Okay, you can be the best man at our wedding.” When she swiped at a tear, he realized how serious she was and felt a pinch of surprise. But he’d already considered all the possibilities. He knew where he was headed, and he wasn’t changing direction. “Izz, I know this may turn out to be nothing. I do. I accept that. I’ll deal with it.”

She sniffled. “You want to get married. You want a family.”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “I’ve borrowed yours long enough.”

She pulled back. “Derek! Don’t even say that.”

He smiled. “Hey, you and Eli are stuck with me.” For the past ten years, he’d spent nearly every holiday, every birthday and plenty of days off with Izzy and her son, who was now fifteen and getting to know his father for the first time. Eli didn’t need “Uncle Derek” constantly in the way. “I’m ready to branch out, that’s all. Widen the circle a bit.”

“Okay, I get it, but you are family, and my being with Nate doesn’t change that.” Izzy spoke emphatically, even though she’d said it all before.

She still couldn’t accept that the past Thanksgiving and Christmas had been different. On this first holiday as a family, Nate would have preferred to keep his wife and his son all to himself. It had been obvious, no matter how Nate had attempted to mask the feeling. Derek would have felt the same.

He rose. “I should get back to the station. Russell thinks he has the flu, so I’m on duty the rest of the day and night. I’ll take the sandwich with me.”

“Yeah, I need to get going, too. We ordered Pickle Jar hoodies for Thunder Ridge Community Church’s Souper Bowl. I have to pick them up. I got you a hoodie, by the way. You’re still going to serve soup with us, right?”

“Right. But if the hoodie has a giant dancing kosher dill on the front, I’m not wearing it.” Izzy busied herself with reassembling the lunchbox. Her silence confirmed that the design was the same as on the T-shirts they’d worn for the Hood-to-Coast Relay last summer. He shook his head. “What is it with you and pickle promos? First it was the giant foam costume and now shirts with vegetables.”

“The name of the deli is The Pickle Jar. Obviously, we need to promote. Besides, in case you haven’t heard, pickles are hip. Don’t be surprised if they turn out to be the staple snack food of the twenty-first century.” When Derek started to laugh, she socked him in the arm. “I’m serious. And the shirts are terrific. The pickles aren’t dancing this time. They have a cartoon face with a pickle mustache and the caption Got Pickles? Isn’t that great?”

He looked at her in disbelief. “I’m not wearing that.”

“Yes, you are.” Izzy reached for her backpack then looked beyond Derek and frowned. “What are those kids doing?”

Derek turned. Beneath a madrone tree about a hundred yards away, two boys, one a teen and the other a bit younger, appeared to be engaged in some sort of transaction with money changing hands. It was a school day; neither of them should have been in the park to begin with.

Keeping his gaze on the duo, Derek uttered, “See you later, Izz,” and started walking. About halfway over, he saw the smaller boy glance at him. Their eyes met. In one hand, the boy held a wad of bills he was about to pass to the teenager. As soon as he registered that the man walking toward him was an officer, his expression filled with trepidation. Before Derek could call out a word, both kids were off and running.

Adrenaline flooded Derek’s system. Making a split-second decision, he took off after the younger boy, his feet pounding the grass, sure this was going to be anything but another ordinary afternoon in Thunder Ridge.

* * *

Can U come back to bakery? Sorry to ask, but it’s important. Thx. Izzy.

Ordinarily her boss’s text would not have frustrated her, but Willa hadn’t slept at all the night before. She’d come home after her confrontation with Derek Neel and had done the worst thing she could do before trying to sleep, the very thing she had promised herself she would stop doing, in fact. She had watched a series of DVDs, each one labeled simply with her last name and the year the video had been shot. She kept them stored separately from the remainder of her modest DVD collection, and she never shared them with anybody else. They were hers and hers alone.

She’d finally fallen asleep around midnight, after plowing through half a box of tissues and taking two aspirin for the headache that followed her crying jag. The alarm had gone off at 2:30 a.m. and, after pressing the snooze button as many times as the clock allowed, she’d dragged herself into the shower and over to the bakery to begin work at three-thirty. It had taken an entire pot of coffee to push her along until noon today, which was when she’d cried uncle and headed home again.

Before Izzy’s text, Willa had done one load of laundry, eaten two sticks of string cheese and a banana and, at 2:30—p.m. this time—she was wondering if she’d completely throw herself off by taking a nap. And then her phone had pinged. She often went back to work without any prompting from her boss, but this afternoon she thought she might fall over just thinking about returning to the bakery.

Sure. Be there in a few, she texted back. At least she’d be closer to her regular bedtime when she came home again. Maybe tonight would be merciful, and she would fall asleep easily and stay asleep until morning.

She’d already changed out of her flour-dusted jeans and into a pair of soft plaid lounging pants, a gray thermal top and her thickest socks. Piled into a half ponytail/half bun, her hair was no longer work-ready, but she really, really, really did not have the energy to get herself dressed and coiffed again. So for the first time since she’d gotten her job in Thunder Ridge, she stuffed her feet into boots, grabbed her coat and headed to work looking, she figured, like a soccer mom with a hangover.

Willa shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat and ducked her head against the chilly wind that had kicked up. As she neared Warm Springs Road, the main street through Thunder Ridge, she raised her head to nod at the locals who greeted her. It was easier to remain private, she had discovered, if she smiled and seemed happy.

She arrived at Something Sweet hoping to be done in record time with whatever business Izzy wanted to discuss. Noting quickly that the store seemed to be doing a brisk late business, Willa opened the glass door and scanned the room for her boss.

“Willa!” Izzy called. She was seated at the table nearest the kitchen. All four chairs were taken.

Rats. Instantly, Willa felt dizzy with fatigue. Multiple-person meetings often meant sitting through a sales pitch about some brilliant new mixer or a better brand of bread flour. Willa honestly didn’t know if she could remain upright for that today. And then she focused long enough to recognize someone else at the table.

Derek. Sitting with his back ramrod straight, hands resting on his thighs, he was looking, not at her for once, but at the people seated opposite him. One was a dark-haired man in his twenties and one was a boy.

“Thanks for coming.” Izzy got up and motioned Willa to the seat she’d just left.

Derek took a moment to nod at her, but kept his attention mostly on the young man and the boy seated with them at the table. The young man was scowling and turned his glare on Willa as she sat. The boy refused to glance her way at all.

“Sheriff Neel asked me to call you,” Izzy explained, standing beside the table, “since you were the one who saw the donation jar being stolen.”

“Thanks for coming in.” Derek nodded at her. “Gilberto—” he gestured to the boy “—admits to taking the donation jar. Unfortunately, the money has already changed hands. Gilberto was using it to purchase a bike. When I ran after him, the teen selling the bike took off in another direction. So far, Gilberto doesn’t want to give me the name of the other boy.”

“You better give it.” The younger man leaned across the table, his dark eyes flashing dangerously. “You want to go down for some jerk who left you to face a cop on your own? You’re bringing disrespect to your family, Gilberto. You better pick who you’re going to be loyal to, and pick fast.”

Willa saw Derek’s chest rise on a deep inhalation.

The boy cringed. You’re bringing disrespect to your family. So the boy and the man were related. It seemed obvious now. They both had latte-colored skin, black hair, dark eyes and similar features. The resemblance stopped there, however. Gilberto had a shy, nervous demeanor; by contrast, his relative wore resentment and belligerence like a second skin.

“I’m telling you, Gilberto, if you bring any more trouble home, I’m going to—” Cutting himself off, he thumped his balled fist against the table.

Derek’s entire body tensed.

Like a puppy trying to evade his master’s anger, Gilberto kept his eyes averted. He blinked several times rapidly. Willa recognized that expression: a child trying desperately not to cry in public. A child in pain.

“Excuse me,” she said to the man, “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Roddy.”

“Roddy. And are you Gilberto’s...father?”

“Hell, no! That would make me, like, fifteen when he was born. I been more careful than that.” He pointed between Gilberto and himself. “We’re blood, so anything anybody’s got to say goes through me. If he stole from you, I deal with it.”

“If he stole, the law will deal with it, Mr. Lopez,” Derek interjected, his voice calm, but every muscle in his body rigid. “What is your relationship exactly?”

“He’s my cousin. I can take care of him.”

Derek nodded slowly. “I appreciate your taking responsibility and asking Gilberto to do the same, but the law is involved now. We’ll be keeping our eye on the situation. The whole situation.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Just what I said. Our interest in Gilberto will continue.”

Derek was giving the man a clear message that abuse would not be tolerated. But Mr. Lopez was a bully, and Willa knew Derek wouldn’t be able to intervene in their daily lives. More sadness washed through her. Not your business. Stick to your own business. She looked at Gilberto. “He didn’t steal from me. He looks a lot like the boy who was in here yesterday, but...it’s not him.”

Gilberto’s surprise was palpable. Derek looked at her. “He nodded when I asked if he took the donation jar.”

“He’s not the one.”

Derek turned back to the boy. “Why did you nod?” he asked.

Evading everyone’s gaze, Gilberto shrugged.

It was clear the men were about to cross-examine him. “Maybe he was afraid,” she offered, “and thought things would be easier if he told you what you wanted to hear.”

“Is that what happened?” Derek questioned.

Gilberto shrugged again.

Roddy smacked his hands on his thighs and slid low in his seat, tossing back his head. “Aw! Are you crazy? You lied to get into trouble. Cops love stupid suspects like you.” He looked at Derek. “No offense, man.”

Derek stared long enough to make Roddy sit up in his seat. “None taken.” Then he turned his attention back to Gilberto. The next obvious question was Where did you get the money you were exchanging for the bike? but Derek didn’t ask it. After a moment, he rose. “Make sure you’re in school when you’re supposed to be. I’ll be checking with your teacher and the principal. Don’t make me come look for you.”

Gilberto nodded. He looked miserable still, but relieved and more than a little surprised. Was it over?

Willa supposed she was excused from the meeting and pushed back her chair.

“Walk me to the door, Ms. Holmes.” In an official tone, Derek commanded rather than asked for her compliance.

Izzy appeared bemused by the entire exchange and simply shook her head. “I’m heading back to the deli. I’m sorry for the confusion, Mr. Lopez. Please feel free to order something on the house.” Walking around them all, Izzy was the first out the door, followed swiftly by Roddy, who pushed Gilberto along in front of him, saying they’d take a rain check on the free snacks.

Now that her burst of adrenaline was spent, Willa felt exhausted all over again and proceeded heavily to the exit. Every movement felt like a Herculean effort. Raising his arm over her, Derek held the door while she passed through. Willa burrowed into her jacket, as she stepped onto a rain-sprinkled sidewalk. By tacit agreement, they walked several paces past the bakery then stopped.

“Thanks for going to the station last night to give the description of the boy who stole the money.” Not bothered by the cold or the rain, Derek towered above her, six foot plus of straight-backed sheriff. “And for coming back to the bakery this afternoon. I thought it might be easier for everyone if we handled it away from my office. You know, still official, but less intimidating. I anticipated that would make it easier to figure out where we would go from here to help Gilberto.”

Willa felt Derek studying her, but she kept her tired gaze on the street, watching the occasional car roll past.

“What I didn’t figure on,” he continued, “was walking away with mud on my face. I didn’t figure on you.”

She glanced up to see the first hint of anger she’d ever noticed him directing toward her.

Resting both hands on his gun belt, he shook his head. “I’m a good judge of people. In my line of work, you have to be. But this time, I blew it. I never, ever judged you to be a liar.”

Chapter Four

“A liar?”

Fire-engine red filled Willa’s body, flared in her face. She wouldn’t be surprised if the color poured in jets of steam from her ears. He was calling her a liar?

Okay, she had lied. But the reason ought to be obvious.

Her fists were stuffed into the pockets of her thin coat. Pulling one hand out, she jabbed a finger toward the end of the street and stormed off, rounding the corner, not stopping until she reached the alley. “How dare you?” Her voice shook. “I told you I didn’t want to get involved in this, but you had to keep pushing. If you could take no for an answer, there wouldn’t be a problem.”

The implication of her words hit them both at the same time. He hadn’t accepted her “no” regarding Gilberto, and he hadn’t accepted her “no” regarding the two of them.

Derek’s face grew stormier. “The problem was already here. If you think anything else, you’re being naïve.”

Was he talking about Gilberto now or her? Willa pointed toward the bakery. “That man—Roddy,” she said. “He was going to make that poor kid’s life a nightmare.”

“That ‘poor kid’ is going to make his own life a nightmare if he meets his needs by stealing. Roddy talks big, but he has a record, too. Petty crime is a family affair.”

“I’m sure there are ways to help Gilberto that don’t involve the law, exactly. His school—”

“‘The law’ is a set of boundaries designed to establish and maintain order. That’s exactly what Gilberto needs and exactly what he’s not going to get if bleeding hearts make excuses for him.”

“Bleeding hearts! I can’t believe you said that.” Willa shook her head as if to dislodge his words from her brain. “Life does not respect rules and regulations. Life just happens, and it doesn’t ask your permission before it gets messy, although that might be hard for you to accept, Sheriff. I’ve seen the way you run around town, trying to convince people we’re all characters in a nineteen fifties TV sitcom.”

“What are you talking about?” The words emerged muffled as Derek’s jaw and lips barely moved.

“I’m talking about your town meetings and visits to the chamber of commerce and all the other places you go to tell people that as long as they do the right thing, they’ll stay safe and happy and the world will be a better place, now let’s all go have donuts. The end.”

“I’m sorry you dislike the message that playing by the rules does make the world safer and better. I’ve found it to be true.”

“Lucky you.”

Derek’s entire manner was different from anything she had seen before. His body looked stiff enough to break, and Willa sensed she should stop talking, just let it go, but he was so sure of himself, so smug about the world and how it worked, and she couldn’t stay quiet. Especially since he’d called her a bleeding heart. “If you think Gilberto is going to have a better life because I rat him out to his bully of a cousin, then you’re the one who’s naïve, not me.”

There were no lights in the alley, save for porch lights above the back doors of the businesses along Warm Springs Road, but Willa could see Derek’s expression—closed and distant—and knew he could see hers.

In the chilly night, her breath came in small, visible puffs. She didn’t feel cold, though. Her face and hands felt hot enough to fry eggs.

It wasn’t like her to confront and criticize. She wished he’d say something back. Something stubborn and intractable, so she could walk away thinking, See, I knew it. He’s just another lucky-so-far chump who thinks he’s in charge of his fate. Boy, is he in for a shock someday.

Derek’s granite features changed not one whit as he tipped his head. “Thank you for coming tonight, Ms. Holmes. It’s dark out. Do you need a ride to your house, or are you alright?”

Willa’s emotions slammed to a roadrunner-like halt. He was the sheriff again, just the sheriff. A lump filled her throat, making it hard to swallow. “I’m fine.”

“Good night.” With another professionally polite nod, he turned. Willa watched him walk to the end of the alley and round the corner without a backward glance.

* * *

Usually, Willa awoke a good half hour before her alarm. Taking a shower before bed, all she had to do prior to heading to work was brush her teeth, comb her hair, pull on jeans, a Something Sweet T-shirt and her work clogs and head out the door. Once again, she’d barely slept at all, however, after the scene with Derek, and on this dark winter morning, she drank black tea and watched the digital clock until it read 2:45 a.m.

Instantly speed-dialing Daisy Dunnigan, Willa waited for the grumpy, caffeine-deprived “I can’t believe it’s morning already” that was her best friend’s characteristic greeting. A renowned New York chef, Daisy owned and operated two unpretentious but fabulous restaurants—Goodness in Soho and More Goodness in Jackson Heights—and was one of the judges on a top-rated cable cooking show. Basically, she was a star, but Willa had known her since they’d attended culinary arts school together, and they were, above all, each other’s support system.

This morning, Daisy answered on the fourth ring. “Damn, what time is it?” She sounded sleepier than usual.

“Five forty-five in your neck of the woods,” Willa informed. “Didn’t your alarm go off?”

“It must have been about to.” There was a rustling of sheets. “What’s up, tootsie? How’s life in Mayberry R.F.D.?”

A smile rose to Willa’s face, and she was grateful already that she’d phoned. Padding to her kitchen, she pulled several carrot-raisin muffins out of a plastic container, drizzled them with water and popped them into the microwave so they would steam.

“I pissed off the sheriff,” she said baldly, placing a challah bread she’d brought home from the bakery into a picnic basket.

“Sheriff McYummy?” Visiting Thunder Ridge for a weekend the previous spring, Daisy had noticed Derek immediately. “Is he still stalking you?”

“He doesn’t stalk me.”

“With his eyes, he does. I would love to be stalked by eyes the color of a Mississippi mud pie. So how’d you piss him off?”

Ignoring the comment about Derek’s eyes (which, yes, were almost impossibly dark and chocolaty and, well, deep) Willa said as casually as she could, “We had a disagreement about how to handle a petty theft at the bakery. A child took a few bucks. Sheriff Neel wanted to do something about it, and I didn’t. Should have been the end of the story, but we got into a... I don’t know, I said some things I shouldn’t have, I suppose. Now I feel guilty. I mean, the whole thing—it’s no big deal, right? You can’t please everyone.” She shoved a can of cat food and a small plastic bowl into the basket. “You’re so good at saying what you think and damn the torpedoes. That’s how I want to be.” She forced a laugh. “That’s how I am going to be! I’m so glad you picked up the phone. I always feel better after we talk.”

The silence on the other end was deafening. There weren’t even sounds of coffee preparation. Finally, Daisy commented with uncommon gentleness. “You’re starting to feel again.”

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