Page 45 of Protected By the Grumpy Single Dad
She exhales so hard her towel does a risky dip. I aim my gaze at the doorframe like it owes me money. “I—wow. Okay. Um. Can you arrest them?”
“Tempting,” I say. “But outside my jurisdiction. I put in a call to animal control. They’ll relocate them to the Sanders Street Trash-Panda Syndicate.”
From next door, Rhonda’s voice floats through her screen window at full stage whisper: “Helen, ask him to sign my Neighborhood Watch clipboard! And to tell Gary to bring the orange cones back!”
“Will do, Ms. Tillman,” I call, because this is not my first Rhonda rodeo.
Helen clutches the towel tighter. “I’m sorry, Sheriff. I really thought it was Jared. He said he’d come back and make me pay.”
“You did the right thing,” I say. “Call when something feels wrong. Even if it’s… cute wrong.” I hand her a card. “If Jared actually shows, this is the number. Also—keep the shed closed, lock your doors, and don’t leave pet food outside. That’s basically a raccoon rave invitation.”
She nods, mortified and relieved in equal parts. “Should I, like… file a restraining order against the raccoons?”
I keep a straight face. “We can try, but they’re notorious for ignoring paperwork.”
From the neighbor’s yard: “Ask him if he wants banana bread! It’s low-sugar!”
“Another time, Ms. Tillman!”
I step off the porch, radio crackling to life again. “Unit Twelve, status?”
“Ten-seventy-eight resolved,” I say, heading back to the cruiser. “Suspects released on their own recognizance. Advise citizens to secure snacks.”
“Copy, Sheriff,” Dispatch says, and I can hear Gary and Dave laughing in the background. “We’ll mark it as… community outreach.”
I slide into the driver’s seat, the ache in my ribs reminding me I am not, in fact, invincible. I glance at the diner listed as the next patrol pass on my route.
Raccoons, I can handle.
Jasmine? Jury’s out.
I pull away from the curb and point the cruiser back toward Brime Street. The scones on the seat slide in their bag at the turn, and I steady them with one hand.
Brick first, I remind myself. Then paperwork. Then I figure out what “more than you know” actually meant before I see Jasmine again.
Because I’m going to see her again. And probably sooner than is good for either of us.
Chapter fourteen
Jasmine
Once every six months, the town organizes a Saturday Pool Day—except everyone knows it’s really Lake Day. We all haul coolers and chairs down to the sandy crescent of Golden Heights Lake, claim a spot by the swim buoys, and pretend we don’t know everyone else’s business. I’m not the biggest fan, but it’s nice to be out where the cottonwoods throw a little shade and the water looks like a sheet of hammered silver.
Riley and I have a standing claim near a shallow cove—a patch we’ve “marked” over the years with a sun-faded umbrella and a mat with a ketchup stain neither of us will own up to. She left a couple hours before me because she’s in charge of half the sign-ups and the “no glass near the waterline” reminders. Vice principals are good at rules, apparently. As my sandals sink into the warm sand, neighbors call out.
“Hey, Jasmine!”
“How’s Scotty’s holding up?”
“You bringing the good lemon bars later?”
“I suppose you’re parking with Riley again?”
I smile, nod, wave, keep moving. When I reach our spot, the umbrella is already planted, our mat spread, a cooler sweating in the shade.
But no Riley.
I scan the lakeshore. Families are staking their umbrellas, teens are daring each other to swim out to the far buoys, and a jet ski tears a hard turn out in the main channel, tossing chop toward the cove. Then—
