Page 31 of Haystacks and Hoaxes

“If that’s what you and your brother want, ma’am,” he answered politely. His expression returned to its usual mask.

“Please don’t call me that,” she sighed, waving her hands at her face. “I’m miserable enough up here in this suffocating vest. I’m Mila, and I’m not usually this cranky. I promise.”

Though his lips didn’t move, he smiled at her with his eyes. “Believe me, ma’am?—”

“Mila,” she snapped.

“Believe me, Mila,” he repeated. “Working with you and Rock feels like an early Christmas gift compared to how some clients treat me.”

“Great. Now, I feel awful.” She shot a shamefaced look at Rock. “I’ll make it up to you as soon as I’m allowed to remove this personality-altering vest.”

Rock snorted out a laugh. “You win. Take it off.”

“Thank you!” She wasted no time shrugging out of it, which wasn’t an easy task beneath the confines of her seatbelt. She sailed it dramatically into the seat beside Hawk. “Hi!” She held a hand over the seat toward him, with her fingers squeezed into a fist. “I’m Mila. Big fan of cockleburs, especially the ones keeping me alive.”

He gravely fist-bumped her. “I’m Hawk. Cocklebur is a nickname my tribe gave me, since I pull security for our chief during my off-duty hours. It’s a joke that stuck.”

“It stuck, huh?” she chortled. “Just like a cocklebur. Cute.” Her voice trailed into silence as she gazed wide-eyed at Gage’s farmhouse, the rolling fields on both sides of it, and the cozy little guest house behind it where Ella Lawton had been staying since her arrival to town. Gage had proposed to her a few months ago, but they hadn’t set a wedding date yet. Rock hoped it wasn’t because of his boyhood pact with his brother for them to get married on the same day. Though his brother had crossed his heart over his end of the bargain, they’d been too young at the time to understand the adult implications of such a promise.

“It’s so beautiful.” Mila’s voice was so wistful that it twisted Rock’s heart.

“You can take the girl out of the city, but not the city out of the girl, eh?”

“I used to think that,” she returned. “It feels like a lifetime ago. My twenty-fifth birthday will mark a full decade of living in Heart Lake.”

“Your birthday is next month, isn’t it?” Though he pretended like he wasn’t sure, he’d read it on her job application.

“January sixteen.” She gave him an amused look. “As if you and Cocklebur don’t already have my bio sheet memorized.”

“Guilty as charged.” She was probably right about Hawk, too.

“You didn’t miss much at today’s crime scene,” she declared with a smile. “It felt like a full-blown interrogation.”

“You didn’t miss much, either.” Her performance at her first crime scene had exceeded his expectations. “Nice work on those tire tracks. A lot of people wouldn’t have visualized a commercial street sweeper after seeing a few brush marks in the dirt.”

She looked like she was trying not to laugh. “I’ve watched a lot of crime shows.”

So had he. “What’s your favorite?”

“All of them,” she confessed with another merry chuckle.

Visions of a movie date with her danced in his head —complete with bowls of popcorn and a crackling fire in the hearth. He could practically feel her head resting against his shoulder and the brush of her silky hair against his cheek.

“Are you going to slow down or plow right through thefront porch?” Her fingers curled spasmodically against his upper arm.

He immediately feathered his brakes and skidded to an abrupt, Johnny-styled halt on the circle drive. “Sorry about that. My mind was back on the case,” he lied, liking the way she’d instinctively reached for him.

As badly as he wanted to cover her hand with his, he remembered Hawk’s watchful presence in the nick of time.

The way she blushed and snatched her hand back made him wish he had, though.

Chapter 6: Matter of Trust

Five days before Christmas

Though Mila rolled out of bed the next morning at daybreak, Decker was perched on a stool at the breakfast bar when she entered the kitchen.

“Wow! Do you ever sleep?” She trudged past him to stand in front of his enormous silver coffeemaker. The knobs and buttons on it looked more complicated than her life was at the moment. She blinked at them, wondering if the odds were in her favor of coaxing a cup of coffee out of such a complex contraption.

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