Page 8 of Better Late Than Never

“Right. And willin’,” I added reluctantly.

Paisley looked around warily, stepping closer to me as her eyes scanned the pack of wolves surrounding us. “What the heck is goin’ on right now? Why are they...”

“Practically salivatin’?”

She snorted, and despite the riot of emotions coursing through me, some part of me—some deeply buried, misguided part of me—found it downright adorable. “I was gonna say they look way too eager, but yeah. That, too.”

“We’ve got a dispatcher who really wants to retire.”

“Oh, Adam Wilson, don’t beat around the bush,” Mrs. Randall scolded me. “Peggy Ann can barely see the screen in front of her anymore, and you know it.”

“She’s havin’ trouble hearin’ callers, too,” Mr. Randall chimed in. “One time I tried to call in a grease fire, and she thought I said aflattire. She yelled at me for callin’ 911 instead of takin’ care of it myself.”

“Why hasn’t she retired, then? Does she love it that much?” Paisley asked.

“She’s stubborn, that’s why,” Gilly supplied.

“Because we’ve had the job posted for years, and no one else has applied for it. Peggy Ann’s a saint, and she knows she can’t leave us with one less dispatcher when we only have a few to begin with.”

“I mean... it’s Charlotte Oaks. How many calls could you possibly get?”

Plenty.

This wasn’t a big city, but just like everywhere else, we had our fair share of emergencies as well as nonsense calls. Missing garden gnomes, recipe theft, escaped livestock…. Shoot, even our vehicle disturbance calls could be anything from tractors racing down main street to lifted-truck-driving teenagers doing midnight donuts in the high school parking lot.

Either way, I needed to get out of that diner before someone point-blank asked me to help Paisley get the job. “All right, well, speaking of the call volume in this town, I need to be on my way. Do you wanna trespass this woman or press charges of any other kind, Gilly?”

“Uh, no. I don’t want her to have a single blemish on her record. She’s a great gal.”

“Yeah, and when you see Hope, can you tell her it actually wasn’t Paisley I was talkin’ about earlier when I made that vandalism report?” My neighbor, Judith, called out. “She doesn’t mean any harm. She’s… very dedicated to this town.”

Hands on my hips, I turned to Paisley. “Vandalism?”

She only shrugged.

“Adam, I bet she knows the town like the back of her hand on account of how many local businesses she’s been visitin’ lately. Ya know, with her helpful suggestions and all that,” Rae advised.

Burt, the mailman, held up a hand. “She does. She tried to convince me to change my mail route to make it more... what’s that word again, Miss Paisley?”

Her cheeks colored. “Expedient.”

“Right. That. She even had color-coded maps.”

I gaped at her. “Wow, you must bereallybored.”

“Hush.”

“So, what’s it gonna be, Officer Wilson? You gonna let Peggy Ann off the hook and hire Paisley?”

Against my better judgment, I blew out a breath. “Y’all know I’m not in charge of hirin’ at the department, but I’ll get her the info so she can apply, and she’ll need to pass the background check and do a psych interview. Which,” I shot Paisley a smirk, “might not be all that easy for our girl here.”

She swatted me in the vest, then yanked her hand away with a grimace.

What had she expected? Even if the vest’s pockets weren’t loaded with my flashlight, taser, and several other hard objects, the dang thing was built to stop a bullet.

“That was a love tap, Officer. She wasn’t assaultin’ you. We all saw it.”

I held up a hand, but then the door burst open, and the city’s HR lady, Gwen, flew in. She was out of breath and dripping with sweat as she hustled over to us, and I felt Paisley stand taller as Gwen sized her up.

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