over. Forty times five would be two hundred dollars.”
“That’s a bit much.”
He lifted his brow again and she wished he wouldn’t do that. Each time he did she was captivated by the beauty of his eyes. “You think so?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t. You broke the law.”
“It wasn’t intentional.”
“If you say so. Here’s your driver’s license back.” Again their fingers brushed and Vashti felt that tingling sensation.
“I take it you’re headed to Catalina Cove,” he said, pushing his hat back from his face to reveal even more of his features.
“Yes, why do you ask?” she asked, noticing that besides being handsome, the man was broad-shouldered and fit.
“No reason. Just make sure you drive within the speed limits while you’re there. Looks like this little toy you’re driving might get you in trouble.”
She looked at her ticket before looking back up at him. “Looks like it already has.”
His mouth formed a smile and she felt a fluttering in her stomach at the sensual curve of his mouth. No man should have the ability to have such an effect on a woman...especially when he’d just made her two hundred dollars poorer.
“Do you have family in town or are you just here to enjoy all Catalina Cove has to offer?” he asked her.
No need to tell him why she was there. It really wasn’t any of his business. “I’m here to enjoy all Catalina Cove has to offer.”
He nodded. “Well then, enjoy your stay. Good day.”
Watching in her side-view mirror as he walked back to his patrol car, she also thought he looked good from the waist down and appreciated the way his slacks fit a pair of masculine thighs and long legs. And his backside was pretty darn nice, too. It was only after he’d gotten in his vehicle did she allow herself to breathe again. As far as she was concerned, he’d provided her with the best view she’d seen since arriving back in Louisiana.
Starting her car, she pulled back onto the highway.
* * *
SAWYER WATCHED UNTIL the little red Corvette was no longer in sight. What the hell had happened when their hands had accidentally touched? Hell, even now he could feel a burning sensation. It had taken all the control he could muster to maintain his professionalism and give her that ticket. He had not been that attracted to a woman since Johanna.
According to her driver’s license her name was Vashti Alcindor and she lived in New York City. Since she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring he assumed she was single. The car was a rental and he wondered what had brought her to the cove. He’d tried asking her in a roundabout way, but she hadn’t told him anything. That was okay. Everybody had the right to keep their business to themselves. He of all people understood the need for seclusion and privacy at times. Well, unfortunately because of her inability to drive within the speed limits, this trip just became two hundred dollars costlier for her.
“You there, Sheriff?”
Trudy’s voice intruded through the car’s intercom. “Yes, I’m here.”
“I put that Miller file on your desk.”
“Thanks, and I’m on my way back to the office.”
“Okay.”
He started the ignition in the patrol car, and as he pulled onto the highway he couldn’t help wondering if his path would be crossing with Ms. Vashti Alcindor’s again.
* * *
A FEELING SHE hadn’t anticipated washed over Vashti when she entered the city limits of Catalina Cove. It wasn’t the resentment she’d expected but a sudden sense of coming home. Of belonging. How was that possible when she’d left here fourteen years ago without looking back, thinking this town would never be her home again? She could only assume because there was a time she thought she had belonged. After all, she’d been born here, in that house on Higgins Lane. It had been the only home she knew...except for those months her parents had sent her away to Arkansas to have her baby. She had felt all alone then, housed with other girls in the same predicament and whose families were determined to take control of their lives.
She had refused to let her parents take control of hers. She’d made plans. She would keep her baby, quit school, attend classes at night for her GED. In her mind, that was better than nothing, and her aunt had said she would watch the baby at night while she was at school.
Returning to Catalina Cove without her baby had been hard. Get over it because things happen for a reason. Consider losing the baby a blessing. It would have ruined your life. Her mother’s words had cut to the core. There had been no compassion and no regret with either of her parents.
Vashti had finished her last year of school and had been accepted to NYU to start during the summer semester instead of waiting for the fall. She had caught a plane to New York a week after high school graduation. Other than Aunt Shelby and Bryce there hadn’t been anyone left in the cove that she truly cared about...at least not anymore.
Well, there had been K-Gee but he’d left town two years before she had, the night he’d graduated from high school in fact. And besides Bryce’s parents, there had been Ms. Gertie. Gertrude Landers was a midwife who’d probably delivered every baby that had been born in the cove over the past fifty years. Ms. Gertie had always been a loving soul and one of the kindest people Vashti knew while growing up in Catalina Cove. She’d always had a kind word to say about everybody and had been one of her aunt’s dearest friends. And like her aunt, she’d stuck by her when Vashti had gotten pregnant. To this day Vashti thought of Ms. Gertie as the grandmother she never had.
It had been Vashti’s desire for Ms. Gertie to deliver her baby since she’d taken care of her during the first months of her pregnancy instead of the doctor in town. But when Vashti began showing, her parents decided to send her away to have her baby. Those months had been the loneliest of her life.
Bringing her thoughts back to the present, Vashti drove through the historic part of the city and was reminded how the town got its origin. It was required history in the Catalina Cove school system.
Vashti knew that the parcel of land the cove sat on had been a gift to the notorious pirate Jean LaFitte, from the newly formed United States of America for his role in helping the thirteen colonies fight for their independence from the British during the American Revolution. There were some who actually believed he wasn’t buried at sea in the Gulf of Honduras like history claimed but was buried somewhere in the waters surrounding Catalina Cove.
For years because of LaFitte, the cove had been a shipping town. It still was, which was evident by the number of fishing vessels she could see lining the piers as she drove through the shipping district. The Moulden River was full of trout, whiting, shrimp and oysters. Tourists would come from miles around to sample the town’s seafood, especially the oysters. The cove’s lighthouse-turned-restaurant was the place to dine and you had to make reservations weeks in advance to get a table.
She came to a stop at a red light at the intersection of Adrienne and Sophie, the streets reputedly named for two of LaFitte’s mistresses. The entire downtown area was a close replicate of New Orleans’s French Quarter, a deliberate move on LaFitte’s part. The cove was where the pirate would return to when he and his team of smugglers needed some down time with their women. And if the naming of the streets was to be believed, he’d had several of them, she thought, making a turn on Margaux Lane.
Her thoughts shifted from Jean LaFitte to the man who had pulled her over earlier. That was something that had definitely changed in the cove. It appeared police officers were no longer middle-aged, potbellied men who looked like they’d eaten one blueberry muffin too many. The man who’d given her a ticket was so fit one would suspect he spent a lot of his time at the gym. He was definitely pleasing on the eyes. She hadn’t felt this much interest in a