He ran her name through his head. It was so strange coming back to town. So many people knew who he was thanks to the Oak Hollow Country Club or school. He’d been told all the rumors skittering around when he’d been hired, his name on everyone’s lips. Some speculated he was a bad cop who’d been ousted from his job in Austin and was coming home with his tail tucked between his legs. Others said he was leaving behind a scorned woman whose husband had threatened to kill him. If only his life had been half as interesting.
Now he was running across people, wondering, when they knew immediately who he was, if he’d forgotten some long-lost connection to them. Most he found knew of him, but didn’t actually know him. Joan Barkley didn’t ring any mental bells so he stated his business. “I was hoping you could walk me through what happened after your break-in.”
Joan hugged her arms around herself. She replayed the story as it had been in the report.
“How did they get in?”
Joan shrugged. “Don’t know. We were never quite sure. Nothing looked disturbed. They ran out the back door, though. A scarf was hung up on it when the police got here.”
“This door?” Jax moved over to the large metal door.
“Yes.”
He squatted and examined the door. There wasn’t a hole in it like at the other locations.
“Well, yes, but no.”
He swiveled to look up at Joan. “Beg pardon?”
“We had to replace that door. A delivery truck backed into it a couple of months ago. The kid was talking on his phone.” She waved her hand. “He took out the door and the A/C unit. I lost a week of business. It was too hot without the A/C.”
Jax stood and nodded. The door could have had a similar hole at the time of the robbery. They’d never know for sure. “Have you had any other trouble since then? Any other robberies?”
“No. Why all the questions now? The officers who took my statements back in September got all the information.”
Jax didn’t want to panic the business owners. Definitely an emerging pattern, though he didn’t have enough info yet. So he said, “I’m just going over some of the unsolved crimes.” That was true enough, even though there weren’t all that many crimes in Oak Hollow that went unsolved. Nestled far north of Fort Worth, it wasn’t like they had a lot of carryover crime from the “big city.”
The blonde morphed before his eyes. Gone was the worried store owner, in her place was a smiling, flirty female. She shifted her stance, stuck out her hip. “That’s very kind of you, Chief. To be so conscientious.”
He nodded slowly. “It’s my job.”
“Oh sure.” She lifted one thin eyebrow. “How have you adjusted to town? I’ve heard you’ve been eating all alone every night. That’s no fun.” She took a few steps toward Jax.
“It’s okay.” He backed up and suddenly the small stockroom seemed to shrink by half as she cornered him. In high school, he would have loved flirtation like this. He’d have soaked it up. Hell, when he’d first come back to town, he might have been flattered, and responsive to a degree, but his mind zipped to Marissa. He wasn’t the least bit interested in Joan Barkley.
“Aw, now, that can’t be true.” She tilted her head and battered her eyelashes. “You know, if you’re free Friday night, I’d be more than happy to have dinner with you, help you get reacquainted with Oak Hollow.”
“That’s awful kind of you, ma’am.” He backed up another step and his back bumped a stack of boxes next to the wall. The only way to get out of there was to push past Joan. He wasn’t quite that desperate…yet. “But I have a pretty busy schedule with my new job and all.”
“They obviously let you out to eat. No point in doing it all by your lonesome.”
He nodded. “Something to consider.” He took a step closer to her. “Tell you what. Let me check what’s going on and I’ll get back to you.”
The shy smile he’d seen when he’d first walked into her store was nowhere near the thousand-watt gleam he got in response to that noncommittal answer.
Joan stepped aside. “I look forward to hearing from you. Welcome home, Chief.”
Back out on the street, Jax only glanced back at the store once. The way the ladies had giggled when he left, there would be new gossip going around town about him before he could even get back to his vehicle. He shook his head. “Welcome home.”
Chapter Four
For the rest of the week, Marissa went through her regular routine. No one had broken in again as far as she could tell—she’d rigged up a theft detector every night like flour on the floor and spoons precariously balanced on crates by the door. Everything was as-is when she returned to work in the morning. It didn’t, however, make her worry any less for Hill. She hadn’t seen him again. She’d even considered going up to the high school to follow him and see where he went. Cherry had talked her out of it.
She hadn’t seen Jax, either. She’d expected him to come in and try the new cupcake she’d been telling him about. Or even just to see her. They had hit it off, hadn’t they? Or was he just being polite at the restaurant the other night? He was a busy man. Had an entire town to protect. The last thing he needed to preoccupy himself with was some girl he’d gone to school with years and years ago.
The end of the week—the last Friday of March—Lexi came back in with her friends. Marissa hadn’t seen her since she’d asked about Hill. Lexi gave a sly wave behind one of the other girl’s backs, then acted as if she’d never spoken to Marissa by completely ignoring her.
Marissa sighed. There were days she longed for a family, wanted so badly to be a mom, but she often worried she wasn’t cut out to parent. Her mother hadn’t been. And unfortunately, unlike her siblings, she favored her runaway mother with her almost khaki eyes and brown hair so much it was scary. She’d catch her father staring at her every now and again with a wistful expression. Marissa had always wondered if that was why she was the serious, responsible one in the family. She had a deep-seated need to make up for the flighty woman who bore them all.
Both her brothers were married with kids, though. They made a family and made it work. How hard could it be? At least that was what she asked herself until the kids from the school would come by and she was glad she didn’t have to deal with the mess of raging hormones. Every now and again she’d babysit for Duff. He and his wife didn’t go out much, but when they did, they liked to leave their two-year-old, Meg, with family. Usually it was with their dad. They’d never leave her with Marlie, who was so absorbed in her new business she rarely had time for herself much less family. More often than not, Marlie was so busy with new clients she was frazzled and half-crazy—not a good combo to go with a precocious two-year-old.
Marissa shook herself and went back to going over the orders she had to get ready for the weekend. She had three birthday parties and a baby shower all to get ready by Sunday morning for pick up.
She’d just finished the paperwork and closed a folder when a shadow fell over her. Lexi stood with her bright pink backpack looped over her shoulders and small soda in her hand.
“Yes?”
“You didn’t turn Hill in.” Lexi tilted her head sideways. “Why?”
Marissa linked her fingers together and arched an eyebrow. “Turn him in for?”
“He told me you caught him here one night.” She shifted from one foot to the other. “Then when you found out his name, you didn’t bust him. You could have gone up to the school and told them, but you didn’t.”
Marissa sat staring at the girl. She didn’t know what to say.
Lexi glanced back over