Page 6 of Wrong Number, Right Grumpy Sheriff

Griff

The second time I get a call, I know who it is before I even answer. For starters, this is only the second time my phone has rung since it was assigned to me.

It’s Thursday afternoon, and ringing on my direct cell again. My thumb’s already tapping the green circle, because as much as I want to deny it, I’ve spent the last few days trying not to think about a particular curvy brunette and failing spectacularly at it.

So the minute my phone rings, my body has a visceral reaction, knowing it’s her.

Which I am going to nip in the proverbial bud before it becomes even a hint of a problem. I do not get involved. I solve problems. I keep people safe. But I do not get close.

Which does not explain where I am at this specific moment. Namely, way too close to her part of town.

“Meadows,” I say.

Static. Then, faint and strangled: “—oh come ON, you absolute snitch⁠—”

Crash detected, says the robot lady, serene as ever. Address is as follows.

I don’t even need the address. I make a quick U-turn and fly down Farm Road 12 to reach her.

It takes me less than five minutes to pull down her driveway.

She’s on the porch this time, and she’s lost a fight with a piece of furniture.

It’s a big armoire, oak by the look of it, tipped at a bad angle across the top two steps with Hope wedged underneath one corner, both arms shaking, holding a hundred and fifty pounds of dead weight off her own foot by what appears to be spite alone.

“Don’t,” she grits out when I cut the engine. “Don’t you say anything. I had a system.”

“Your system’s on your foot.”

“My system is load-bearing, thank you⁠—”

I’m up the steps before she finishes the sentence. I get a hand under the top corner and lift, and the whole thing that was crushing her comes up like it’s made of packing foam, and she makes a small noise of relief.

“Where’s it going?”

She blinks at me. There’s another smear of blue paint again, different cheek this time. And a smudge of something on her jaw. She’s currently glaring at my forearm like it personally insulted her.

“Um. The—the front room. By the window. I saw it at the thrift place in town, and it was only forty dollars. Sadly, it seems I have zero upper body strength and apparently no survival instinct. And a tattle-tell of a watch.”

I carry the armoire inside. She scrambles ahead of me clearing a path, narrating the whole way—careful, the floorboard there sticks up, I keep meaning to fix it, watch the—okay you didn’t need to watch the anything, you’re just carrying it like a lamp, cool, great—and I set it on the wall next to the window. It lands square and level, and she looks at it, then at me, with an expression I’m going to be thinking about at two in the morning.

Her fists go to her ample hips. “You aren’t even breathing hard,” she says, almost accusing.

I look away from her as if assessing the rest of the room, but mostly I’m just trying my damnedest not to smile at her. I don’t think I’ve ever thought a woman was cute. Puppies? Yes, because I’m not completely dead inside. Even some cats. But never has that adjective popped into my head in regard to a woman.

“It’s not that heavy.”

“It’s not that heavy, he says. I’ll have you know I’ve been fighting that damned thing since noon.” She pushes hair off her face and adds a fresh streak of grime doing it. “Pretty sure it took me nearly two hours just to get it out of my truck bed.”

“You should have asked a friend for help,” I find myself saying.

“Sure. I’ll call my bestie over to do it. She’s like eight months pregnant, but I’m sure she could help.”

“You just have the one friend?” Why am I still talking to her? I’ve got her furniture in place. I should already be in my truck leaving.

“Rude,” she says, but there’s no heat in her voice. “I have more than one friend.” She stares up at me. “Pretty sure the watch thought I was in a car wreck. I was in a furniture wreck. There should be a setting.”

“There should be a lot of settings on that thing.” I look at her wrist. Then I make myself look back at the room, which is worse, because the room is her. Half-unpacked boxes and color everywhere. The wall across from the window is partially painted. The blue that she has a tendency to wear on her face.