“Archer and Jeffrey send their love.”
His only response was a twitch in his jaw. He must have already figured out she’d located him with his fathers’ help. It wasn’t as if he and she still had any friends in common. With another man, she might have pleaded for him to not be angry with Archer and Jeffrey, but Daniel’s relationship with them was such that he would never blame them for giving him up to her.
No, he would save his blame for her.
“There’s a diner across the street from the courthouse. Could we go there for a cup of coffee?”
He glanced over his shoulder, but she couldn’t tell what he was looking at: his desk, the clock on the wall back there or the big dark-haired detective whose desk was nearest his. Asking for permission to go or an excuse not to?
After a moment, he said an ungracious, “All right,” and started to come around the counter. Halfway he turned back, went to his desk, pulled a pair of running shoes with socks stuffed inside from a drawer and tugged them both on. Running shoes with a suit. She would definitely have to tell Jeffrey about that.
Finally he met her in the lobby, shrugging into his raincoat, while she picked up her umbrella. She waited until she was outside, beneath that little overhang, to shake the water away and then open it. Without speaking, she offered to share it with him. Without speaking, he moved far enough away to make his answer clear.
She supposed the space between the police station and the courthouse qualified as a town square. A gazebo stood in pride of place, a grassy area around it, and a parking lot on the east side. She’d never heard of Cedar Creek until Archer had told her the name, and she hadn’t seen nearly enough, but it seemed a sweet town, with an old, well-preserved downtown, lots of stone and brick, a lovely mix of commercial and residential spreading about a mile along First Street.
Natasha couldn’t think of anything she wanted to say that he might want to hear, so she grabbed the anxious, antsy Tasha in her brain around the throat and kept her quiet. Soon enough, she would have to talk, and she wouldn’t get a sympathetic reception, and it was going to be hard enough without Tasha running her mouth.
Her legs were wet when they reached Judge Judie’s Diner. The woman who owned the hotel down the street had referred her there for lunch, and the coffee had been unusually good.
She and Daniel reached for the door at the same time. He backed off before their hands touched. She’d forgotten he liked doing little courtesies like that. She pulled the door open, closed her umbrella and set it in a galvanized bucket for that purpose just inside.
“Sit wherever you like, hon.” The waitress gave Daniel a warmer smile. “Good afternoon, Detective Harper.”
She chose the last booth along the wall and started to slide onto the back bench. Daniel shucked his coat, draped it over a chair at the next table and shooed her to the opposite side, so he faced the waitress, though she doubted that was his sole intent. These days she was more comfortable sitting where she could see the door and who came through it. According to popular legend, so were most police officers.
The flirty waitress came. Natasha ordered coffee. Daniel asked for pop and a piece of pecan pie. When the woman was back behind the counter, he folded his hands together in his lap and said, “Well?”
Something sad settled in her stomach. She’d thought he might give her a break. Five years had passed. He’d moved on, moved up. He’d had other relationships. He’d probably even fallen in love again. She’d thought, for old times’ sake, he might bury the hatchet, and not in her.
“How are you?” she asked hopefully.
Irritation flared in his dark eyes. “You want chitchat? I’m fine. I like Cedar Creek. I like my job. I like it so much that I suggested my fathers consider moving here when they retire. How are you? Why are you here? Just making rounds of the people-I’ve-screwed-over club? Are you going in order? Kyle, Eric, then me? Did I miss anyone?”
Heat warmed her face. The fact that it was well deserved didn’t make it any less embarrassing. And he did miss one. It was Kyle, Eric, Daniel and Zach. Opera had its Four Tenors, her mother teased, while Natasha had her Four Fiancés. Her older sister referred to Daniel as Runaway Bride, Third Edition.
The waitress returned, giving them curious looks as she set down drinks and a dish of pie that looked incredible. “Can I get you anything else, Daniel?”
He turned his attention to the waitress, and a sort of smile twitched into place. “No, thank you, Taryn.” The smile disappeared as soon as she walked away. He took a bite of pie and washed it down before scowling at Natasha. “Look, I have a body found in a burned-out car, an attempted murder where the victim’s still touch-and-go and a woman to interview in the morning whose husband just broke her jaw for the second time in two years, plus her arm and her shoulder and her eye socket and might have done enough damage to leave her blind, to say nothing about the rest of the cases piled on my desk, and it’s the second Thursday of the month. First responders’ league at the bowling alley, and the chief gets annoyed when his detectives don’t show up. Just say what you want to say, Natasha, then do your disappearing act again. Preferably for good this time.”
This had been a stupid idea. There were a dozen different better ways to do what she needed, ways that didn’t involve laying eyes on Daniel or having to feel his bitterness and know she was wholly responsible for it. She dug ten dollars from her purse, laid it on the table and slid to her feet. “I’m sorry. I’ll find another way.”
He didn’t try to stop her. He didn’t even watch her walk all the way to the door; she felt the instant his attention shifted elsewhere. When she stepped outside and turned to the right, toward her hotel down the block, she glanced back at the last possible second and saw Taryn sliding into the seat she’d vacated.
Though she had no right to care, somewhere deep inside, it hurt.
By the time Daniel returned to the station, the shift change was over and Cheryl had gone home. Thank God for small miracles. He was surprised she hadn’t hung around to ask questions about Natasha—important ones like, Where did she get that cute dress? and OMG, don’t you love those shoes? A person would think, working in a police station, Cheryl understood the concept of You have the right to remain silent, but it didn’t register with her.
He’d slid into his chair and started shutting down his laptop when Morwenna popped out of the dispatcher’s shack and zeroed in on him. She was a few years younger than him, had come to Oklahoma from a small village in Cornwall long enough ago that her British accent was hit or miss, and she had a rather unique fashion sense. She was the least annoying person in the office besides Ben and the chief, and she and Daniel had actually considered going out on a few occasions before deciding neither appealed to the other in the right way.
She nudged one of his shoes before perching on the edge of his desk. “That’s some fashion statement you’re making, Detective.”
“Don’t tell my dad. He’d be mortified.” When Natasha had seen his running shoes, she’d looked like telling Jeffrey was exactly what she had in mind. Of course, Jeffrey’s mortification would be feigned. It was the reaction people expected from a man in his business.
“Eh, my mum’s mortified all the time by my clothes. She says I’m trying to embarrass her into an early grave.”
“Yeah, didn’t I see your mum out on her twelve-mile run this morning in the rain? She didn’t look like she might drop dead anytime soon.”
“Not unless it’s from exhaustion. She says she can’t skip her training just because of the weather. She’s got an ultramarathon coming up next month.”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“Something extreme and excessive.” Morwenna stretched out one leg, flexing her muscles inside the pink tights, and sighed. “Do you know what’s it like when your mum has a better body than you do?”
Daniel