Page 25 of Break My Fall

A vein throbbed in Gray’s temple. “It would be when he’s on duty.”

“Nope. Still not then.”

“How do you figure that?”

“I figure that because, unlike poor Jeremiah out there, I’m not one of your employees.” She was verging into “you’re not the boss of me” territory, and she didn’t want to go there. “I’m allowed to flirt, or not flirt, with anyone I want. You’re too good of a boss to penalize an officer for something that’s out of their control.”

She managed to get the earring out of her ear, but it was still tangled in her hair. She looked around the office. “Did I not put a mirror in here? I need to fix that.” She tried to see her hair and the earring in it but couldn’t twist around enough to find it.

“Let me.” Gray was there. Right in front of her. His hands were in her hair before she had a chance to argue. And then she had no oxygen to manage it. “There’s a small mirror by the coat tree.” His voice was low and soft.

She managed to suck in some air, but it was embarrassingly loud. “I can—”

“No. You can’t. You’ve really managed to make a mess of this, and there’s no way I can let you cut your hair. You love your hair.”

She did, although she had no idea how Gray knew that. She’d had shorter hair when she was younger. And then she’d cut it after a breakup, which had been stupid because one of the big rulesof breakups was not to make any major hair decisions without talking to your best friends first. But she’d been short on friends at the time. And she’d thought a pixie cut would make her happy.

She’d cried for an extra week, and everyone thought it was because of the guy when it was really because of her hair.

His fingers brushed against her jawline. “We can’t be defeated by an earring.”

“No.” Her voice was a whisper.

“As for your earlier comments, you’re right. I was rude to Dawkins. It wasn’t intentional. I was just trying to get you inside and safe.”

He pulled the earring free and handed it to her. “And you have always demonstrated that you are a much better person than I am. Which is why I shouldn’t have been surprised when you made the choice to be kind even when I wasn’t. It’s good for me to be reminded that kindness from you isn’t the same thing as flirting. Please accept my apology for jumping to conclusions.”

Meredith couldn’t figure out what was happening. He wasn’t mad anymore. But even though he was being calm and gentle, she couldn’t shake the sensation that he was further away from her than he’d ever been before.

Gray took a seat behind his desk. He needed the desk between them. No. He needed miles between them. Maybe a few states. A country?

If he moved to the Caribbean, he could find a job as a dive instructor and forget that he’d ever known a girl with gorgeous hair, a smile that could stop the world—or maybe just his world—and who he could never, ever have.

Right now what he needed was for Meredith to go home. Buthe’d invited her here. He’d ordered pizza. Better to get this over with.

He pulled a legal pad from his desk and then put his laptop in front of him. “Okay. Let’s see how much we can cover before the pizza arrives.”

Meredith blinked a few times, then put the hoop earring back in her ear. “Okay. What do you want to know? And full disclosure, I’m bound by HIPAA regulations. I can’t talk about my patients.”

“I understand that. I don’t want you to discuss anything dental or medical. Although I would like to know more about the reports you gave to Kirby and the social worker.”

Meredith reached into her bag. “I thought you might say that. I made copies.” She handed him a stack of forms. “My guess is that these documents don’t exist in Neeson County. They’ve probably been destroyed. Or lost. Kirby made it a point to mention to me, twice, that they ‘aren’t as fancy’ as we are down here in Gossamer Falls.”

“He’s using their paper system as a way to hide things?”

“I can’t prove it. I can’t prove anything. I’m a dentist, not an investigator. But if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...”

Gray scanned through the documents and then set them on his desk. “Are these your only copies?”

“No.” She rushed to add, “Not that I don’t trust you. I do. But if this building burned down, I wouldn’t be shocked. Especially now that Steven Pierce has been moved.”

Steven Pierce had been moved for his own safety. Ideally, few people would have known about his presence in their jail. But with the way his mother was squawking to the press at every opportunity, there’d been no way to keep it under wraps.

“True. Although if he’d stayed here, that might have made us an even bigger target. I suspect his criminal overlords are none too happy with dear Stevie right now.”

“I can tell you for a fact that Steven never went by anything other than Steven. That whole ‘dear Stevie’ thing of his mother’s is an act.” Meredith hopped out of her chair and went to the mini fridge in the corner of his office. She opened it, extracted a bottle of water, and looked at him. “Do you mind?”

“Help yourself.” He tried not to think about how much he liked how comfortable she was in his space.

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