Page 31 of Four Steps to the Perfect Fake Date

“I’m not doing this,” she said, reaching for the door handle, “and I’m not going to the vow renewal. Find someone else. All I want is to do my job and have a nice, quiet life. I’m not going on fake dates with acting sheriffs. That’s not who I am. I’m sitting in my office and sorting through financial records, and that’s it.”

She had one foot on the pavement when Calvin said, “Liar.”

Daphne stood just outside the car, holding the passenger door open. “Excuse me?”

“You did this when we were kids too. Pretended to be some quiet mouse of a girl who just wanted to stick her nose in books. That’s not who you are.”

“Oh, now you know who I am?”

“I know you want more than to just sit at a computer looking at old records.”

“And how could you possibly know that?”

“Because of the way your eyes lit up when you were talking to Barela! Because you love giving as good as you get.”

“I do not.”

“You do with me.”

Her chest heaved with every inhale as she glowered from just outside the car. “I want a quiet, stable, safe life. I thought I had it, and I lost it. I’m not going to jump off the deep end just because you think you know me better than I know myself.”

“Maybe you should, Davis. Maybe you should try jumping.”

“Maybe you should mind your own business.” She slammed the passenger door and didn’t look back as she headed inside.

Calvin’s heart thumped. She drove him up the fucking wall. How could she pretend that all she wanted was a quiet life? How could she intentionally make herself so much smaller than she was?

She thought she could just fling vitriol at him and stomp away, but she was wrong. Calvin had been through a lot in his life. He’d endured his father’s death and his mother’s neglect. He’d made it through the chaos and anger of his teen years, the alcohol and the fury and the self-destruction. He’d cleaned himself up. He’d made something of himself. He’d learned that being honest with himself was the only thing that mattered in the end, the only thing that could keep him sane.

He’d had to be honest with himself that he couldn’t touch alcohol after abusing it as a teen. Honest that his mother had hurt him. Honest that he was confused about his place on Fernley, his place in his family, but he was willing to try to figure it out, if only for his little sister’s sake.

So he might as well be honest about something that was right in front of his face.

He wanted Daphne Davis. Wanted her to stop fighting herself. Wanted her to stop hiding herself away because she was afraid to face what was inside her.

And he wanted her for himself. In his arms. In his bed.

The truck’s door slammed behind him, and he followed her inside.

Chapter 12

Daphne had just slid onto the stool she’d vacated earlier, then waved to the bartender for another drink. Three seconds later, someone sat down to her left.

She didn’t even have to glance over to know who it was. “Go away.”

“No,” Flint replied.

“You’ll make the gossip worse.”

“Good. Maybe you’ll agree to be my date.”

“Look at you two lovebirds!” Grandma Mabel crooned as she came over, slinging one arm around Flint’s shoulders and one around Daphne’s.

“The sheriff is harassing me,” Daphne corrected her.

Her grandmother just laughed. “Glad to see someone’s finally able to get Daphne out of her shell.”

“My shell is wonderful,” she protested. “It’s safe. I like it. I don’t need to get out of it.”

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