Page 2 of All You Want
Besides, I’ll take any excuse to rub shoulders, elbows, and other body parts (I wish) with the solidly hunky grizzly bear lawman, even if it’s to irritate him. Say, doesn’t irritation require friction or chemistry?
Tee hee.
Slow footsteps creak over the gray, worn-out wooden floor. It’s Shane Donnelly, the town’s new deputy who opens the door. He’s a tall, lanky city guy who last patrolled the stinky streets of San Francisco.
“Come in, ma’am,” Shane says, taking the pot from me.
“Why are you calling me ma’am?” I let my heavy kente-cloth purse of many colors slide off my shoulder onto the floor. It’s filled with apples for Todd. “Where is he?”
“In the jail cell interrogating a suspect.”
“Oh! You guys caught a bad guy? Who?” I clap my hands together. Not casting shade on the cops, especially the hunky Todd Colson, but despite the mayhem of arsons and kidnappings we’ve had this past summer, no one was caught. Absolutely no one. How can that be?
I mean, it’s not like my town’s name is Keystone, is it? We taxpayers should expect some policing around these parts. Of course, things are better now that Todd’s taken over than back in the days of Sheriff Bill Weaver. That man was as crooked as a big city crime family, and his reign of terror drove businesses into the ground or out of the area.
Shane takes the lid off the crock pot. The mouthwatering aroma steams from the pot, and he licks his thin lips. He has that ferrety look in his eyes, a sharp, pointy snout, I mean, nose, and a grin that swings between sexy and sly.
A couple of my girlfriends think he’s hot, if they like a lean, mean machine—sleek muscles, and that smoothly metallic pool boy look.
But give me a heavy-duty, hairy-chested mountain man—Ram truck tough with a heart of gold. Todd’s the only reason I returned from Malibu University in Southern California and parked my butt back in my hometown.
But I digress, because plasticky Shane is serving himself a bowlful of my beef without asking or thanking me. That grills my guts. The beef is for my soon-to-be boyfriend who’s also his boss.
I march up to him and stare into his squinty eyes. “I asked you a question. Who?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but it’s police business,” he says, slurping on a delectable chunk of my tender, range-fed beef.
“I don’t see why we need a deputy when you never catch a single crook.” I hear the clink of the clinker and brush by him to the row of two cells.
“Hey, you’re not supposed to—” His complaint is cut off by Todd’s deep drawl. Cue wild west lost hills soundtrack with twangy guitar riffs and the galloping beat of gunslingers at forty paces.
“Miss King, where’s the fire?” Todd Colson, the lawman of my heart, crowds me back from the cinder block hallway. He’s six-feet-three inches of backwoods alpha male, broad-shouldered hunk with brooding brows over coffee-brown eyes, a rugged sturdy man with a heart as brave and steady as the lawmen of the old west.
The fire’s in my panties, but I’m not that direct of a flirt, so I say, “Brought you boys my famous O King Corral Barbecue beef. I’ve got fresh baked bread in the car, a healthy iceberg and blue cheese salad, and Candy Crisp apples picked fresh from my orchards.”
“Appreciate it, Miss King, as always.” His gaze shifts toward my bulging purse on the floor. He picks it up and puts it on the office chair. The apples roll out and bounce all over the floor, and he bumps his head on his desk picking them up.
The poor dear is always bashful around me. I know I’m a lot to take in, and my best friend, Linx Colson, who’s his sister says he’s shy only to me because he’s had a crush on me his entire life, even though he doesn’t show it.
I’m going to have to try harder to let him know I don’t bite, at least not in the wrong places, hee, hee. So, I flutter my eyelashes, the ones I lengthened with super-duper deluxe mascara and purr, “Why, Todd, I came to invite you to the grand opening of Hallowed Haunts. It’s going to be the biggest, grandest party and the linchpin of Spooky Fest. Guaranteed to put Colson’s Corner on the map of prime Halloween vacation spots.”
He drops the apples on the desk and props his hands on his hips, taking that macho policeman stance of control. “How are the renovations going?”
“They’re coming along great.” I whip my hair over my shoulder and jut my chest out at him. “Everything’s on track once my animatronics guy shows up. We are going to have a hundred haunts. It’ll be a big hit. Guaranteed.”
“I’m more worried about the huge traffic jam,” he mumbles deep in his throat. “How many guests are you expecting?”
“Why, glad you asked.” I curve around him, circling his fine ass like a predatory ostrich with my skirts fluttering. “All my sorority sisters, their dates, the entire Hart family, celebrities and rock stars and even a budding state senator.”
“In that case, I need you to fill out an event permit.” He marches by me to his single steel desk and pulls open a drawer full of messy paperwork.
“Have some of this barbeque beef, Chief.” Shane talks with his mouth full. “I can do the paperwork with Miss King.”
“That’s why I hired you.” Todd throws a form at Shane and ambles to the crock pot. “Miss King, thanks.”
“I have a name, Tami.” I shake the ladle at him. “No O King Corral beef unless you call me Tami.”
I get the cold shoulder, somewhat, but it’s been months and he still hasn’t gotten over the grudge—the one where I bought rounds and rounds of drinks at the Sixty Miners Saloon until the entire city council granted me a liquor license over his objections.
