Page 8 of Stormswept Colorado

So much for avoiding my least favorite Silver Ridge resident.

From the moment we’d met last year, Teller Landry had made it clear he didn’t like me.

“So you’re who all that fuss is about?” he’d asked, his tone dripping with disdain. As if I’d wanted those reporters to mob Ashford and Emma’s building. As if I hadn’t been desperate for a break from the constant attention. The chief had wanted to make sure I knew he wasn’t impressed with me.

I’d gotten pissed at him right back. “I didn’t ask for anyone to make a fuss over me. But isn’t it your job to keep these reporters from harassing your citizens?”

Since then, Landry had barely been civil whenever we crossed paths. He hated when I visited Silver Ridge.

But I wasn’t so impressed with that man either. Even if he was a close friend of the O’Neal family and enough of a presence in Maisie’s life to warrant an uncle title.

In truth, he made me nervous. It wasn’t just the fact that he was a military man, like my father had been, because Ashford and Callum had been in the Army too. Same with Dane. It wasn’t those intense-looking battle scars on the chief’s face, either.

Nope, it was the constant scowl he wore around me.

My temper wanted to leap to the surface. I’d never done a thing to that man except exist. But if Bryan noticed I was upset, he might jump out of the SUV and charge to my rescue. A clash between my bodyguard and the local police wasnothigh on my list for this weekend.

Maisie wasn’t looking at me. So I lifted my hand. Extended my middle finger. And scratched my head with it, keeping that finger way up high so Chief Landry couldn’t miss it.

There.

Now Teller knew exactly what I thought of him too.

THREE

Teller

“You okay, Chief?”Finn Mackie, one of our dispatchers, said as I walked into the station. “You look…well, even less happy than usual.”

“I’m fine,” I grunted, heading for my office. Then I stopped and turned. “I usually look unhappy?”

Finn’s eyes darted to Officer Seth Duncan, who was on the front desk this shift. Seth shook his head lightly, lips pressed together like he was holding in a laugh.

“Is that a trick question, sir?” Finn asked.

“Never mind,” I muttered. But I had to wonder if the very sight of me was that off-putting to everyone, or just to visiting celebrities.

Ayla Maxwell had just flipped me off. When all I’d been doing was driving down the street.

I’d smiled when I spotted Maisie. I had no clue what my face had been doing when I noticed Ayla. She was almost unrecognizable in the hat and sunglasses. But there was no hiding that platinum hair. Or her slender waist and curvy hips, which her coat didn’t diminish at all.

There was something delicate about Ayla whenever I saw her in person. She was smaller, more fragile than I would’ve expected.I’d actually been worried, seeing her and Maisie out there by themselves.

Until I’d seen the SUV with dark-tinted windows driving behind her.Good. She’d brought security.

But make no mistake, that woman was a spitfire. Pure diva. Ready to throw attitude my way at the slightest provocation, or none at all.

Damn.

In the past, my officers and I had bent over backwards to accommodate her. Like increasing patrols in the area around Ashford’s home whenever she was in town. And this was the thanks I got?

So much for trying to fix that first impression. She hadn’t even given me a chance.

Maybe Ayla was a lost cause where I was concerned.

I settled behind my desk and started on some paperwork. But I didn’t make much progress before my younger sister Piper was barging into my office, her skin flushed and her eyes wide.

“Teller, I swear I am going to kill him.”

---