Page 15 of Warrant
“We were supposed to meet yesterday,” she told me. When I lifted a brow, she grinned. “Harlow’s getting us all together for lunch.”
“Ah,” I said. “Yeah, she’s…”
“Persistent,” Melody said with a laugh. “But she’s wonderful.”
“She really is. Everyone has been so welcoming,” I said. I hesitated and Melody’s eyes sharpened on me. The woman was cunning. It was easy enough to read in her features.
“You’re here for the Rice case.”
“Yeah.” Then I winced. “No. Not to sway you in any way,” I added.
Her lips tilted up at that.
“I just wanted to introduce myself before we met in court,” I said with a shrug. “Haven’t been here long enough to meet many people.”
“I was just going through your reports,” she said, motioning down at the folder in front of her. “Very thorough.”
“Thanks.” Feeling stupid, I searched for what to say. Most of what I wanted to say needed to wait for the hearing in…forty-five minutes…so other than letting her see my face there was no reason for me to be here.
“The town appreciates the way you’re handling this,” she added.
I looked up at her in disbelief. “Seems no one thought Denison would have done justice in this case.”
She let out a less than delicate snort. “I shudder to think what would’ve happened if he’d still been here.”
It killed me that they’d had such a shitbag sheriff for so long. The town deserved someone who gave them his, or her, best.
“I’ll get out of your hair,” I told her, realizing I was just wasting her prep time. “Again, I just wanted to meet you before we met up later in court.”
“Okay. I don’t know when we’ll be doing that lunch, but Harlow isn’t about to let that go,” she warned with a smile.
I grinned at her. “Looking forward to it.” And strangely, I was starting to.
Leaving the courthouse, I paused when I saw Warrant standing at the bottom of the stairs. He thrust a coffee cup in my direction. He didn’t have one for himself. “What are you doing here?”
“Just riding by. Saw you coming out.”
I blinked at that. “You were riding by with a coffee.” I took a sip of it. It was my favorite drink. “You drink peppermint mochas?” It was my one girly thing I really allowed myself. Well, that and lacy thongs. Not that I wore those to work. They rode up your ass far too much when you were arresting bad guys—ask me how I know. But off work? Yup. Lace thongs and frilly bras. Sometimes a woman just needed something to make her feel pretty.
I wasn’t about to admit that to Warrant. And there was no way in hell I was letting him find that out. My God, the trouble that would cause in my life. Nope. Not happening. Hopefully…
The way he was grinning at me though, had something deep inside telling me I was a liar. He was going to find out my girly secrets. I just hoped I could keep myself from jumping the handsome biker in a time frame that was less than hoeish.
But he’d brought me coffee. So, I wasn’t really sure if that was going to be possible. “Wait, did you ride your bike here, with a hot coffee?”
“Who me? That would be reckless. What time is court anyway?”
I glanced at my watch, fully aware that he’d ignored all of my questions. “Thirty minutes.”
“You heading somewhere?”
Opening my mouth, I considered where I could go. I couldn’t risk getting pulled into something and missing the bail hearing. “No.”
“Let’s go for a walk,” he suggested.
My brows rose. “A…walk.”
“You look like you need to blow off some steam.”
