Page 4 of All You Want
“Hey, wait for me,” Evan calls out and chases me down in front of my car, a vintage Datsun 280ZX Turbo.
He barely has time to jump into the two-seater before I floor the accelerator and dare Todd to chase me down.
Three
~ Todd ~
I let my gaze linger after Tami’s departure.
Every town has a princess, and Tami King is a fitting one for Colson’s Corner. The town might be named after my great-great-grandfather, but it was hers, Henry King, or Hank, as he liked to be called, who greased the wheels to turn a collection of canvas tents and mud trails into a settlement with shops, permanent houses, a church steeple, and a traditional town square.
Hank was one of the latecomers. He missed the “golden year,” when placer gold washed down the rivers and creeks, easy for the pickings. Instead of dredging the same riverbeds and streams that other miners had picked over, he explored caves and tunnels inside the hills. People called him a fool, because the gold embedded inside the quartz veins was harder to extract—but his efforts were rewarded when he carried out a fifty-pound nugget of gold from a location he never revealed.
Knowing when to cash in the chips is the mark of a wise man, and old King Henry, as my forefathers used to call him, wasted no time in declaring himself king of the mountain. He parlayed that gold into the area’s first bank and laid the cornerstone to the settling of Colson’s Corner by men who moved in with their wives and children, started businesses, and formed a community.
One that eventually shut down the saloons and bordellos by the time Prohibition rolled around.
“You going to chase her down?” Shane shoots a smirk at me, referring to Tami’s penchant for exceeding the speed limit. The man is my subordinate, but he’s always acting as if he has something on me.
“Not today.” I take the exit paperwork on Evan Graves from him. “Spooky Fest’s coming up too soon, and we need to hire additional security for the added traffic. Have you gone over those resumes?”
“You’re avoiding the hot mama in the room.” He makes a whiffing noise. “Or rather the hot mama who whooshed out of here. Come on, Chief, it’s obvious she has the hots for me.”
For him? I suppose he could come to that conclusion since Tami’s always stopping by. But seriously, Tami flirts with everyone. She’s friendly and congenial and our town’s biggest booster.
Except she causes me more trouble than good. More traffic means more crime and danger. We haven’t even solved the arsons that hit us this past year, and she’s now inviting the unvetted world to Spooky Fest for Halloween. Just what we need—a horde of tourists and celebrities—bombarding the town with traffic, medical emergencies, and property crimes—both as perps and victims.
“Chief?” Shane repeats. “Shall I chase her down?”
I also hate the way he calls me “chief,” or at least the tone he takes bordering on insubordination.
He’s not from around here. Drifted in from San Francisco where public defecation and drug use are tolerated over the right of citizens to exercise free speech and bear arms.
“Get your feet off the desk, Officer Donnelly,” I counter. “If you want to give Miss King a speeding ticket, be my guest.”
“Sure. All you ever do is let her off with a warning,” Shane says. “She’ll never learn until you find her wrapped around a tree.”
He pushes his cowboy hat over his stringy longish hair and strides out of the station.
I shudder at the image of Tami’s red-hot vintage sports car without airbags. Maybe I should lay down the law with Miss Pretty Powder Puff soon.
Although laying down is better enjoyed outside of the law, and boy, does Tami have a lot of sweet curves to lay on. She’s a real woman—soft and pretty with ribbons on top. I’ve known her most of my life, and she’s always clean and feminine, with sky-blue eyes and straight blond hair. Her clothes are tidy and stylish, and her shoes polished to a shine. She’s not one of those women who gets her hands dirty, and her makeup is tasteful and neat.
Unlike my sister, Linx, who’s a tomboy and ran wild in the woods, doing a stint as a firefighter before becoming a dog rescuer, Tami works desk jobs. She’s a real estate agent and volunteers with several charities, works with the city council, and heads the Chamber of Commerce.
She’s smart, accomplished, polished, and way above my pay grade. She went to college at age sixteen, and I was sure she wasn’t coming back. She could have been a big city lawyer or a professor or a business executive on Wall Street if she stayed away.
But I reckon she loves her parents more, and since she’s an only child, she returned to Colson’s Corner to do the accounting for her mom’s bed and breakfast and help her father at the bank, all the while trying to bring her big city tastes into our neck of the woods and pushing us onto the information superhighway—with the cell towers replacing the pay phones first, and now, her proposal of turning our peaceful little hamlet into some kind of Gold Rush tourist trap, complete with outlet malls, theme parks, and a reenacted “downtown” centered around her latest project, a haunted hotel.
Over my big, live body.
Before I start fantasizing about her riding said big, live body, I’m interrupted by Molly Sutter, our dispatcher, screeching to a stop in front of the station. Her front wheels crawl halfway up the parking bumper, and her front end barely misses the porch. I fought tooth and nail against putting those in, because they don’t keep the historical look, but with Molly around, I’m glad Tami forced the city council to install them. It’s too bad they removed the hitching posts no one uses. To me, they added charm and were a convenient place to lean up against to shoot the breeze—without a stalk of hay in my mouth—I’m not that country.
“Hiya, Sheriff,” Molly says, sauntering through the door. “Got my check?”
She already missed most of the workday, but she has the nerve to come by for her paycheck.
“You’re late,” I say in a harsh voice. “And please don’t tell me there’s traffic.”
