Page 3 of Deputy Brand Gets Her Man
“Not by accident, I bet.” She finished and set the shaver down. “Thanks, Gringo. That could’ve been my face.”
“De nada.”
“But don’t let it happen again.”
He looked confused as he cleaned the wound with alcohol wipes and dabbed on ointment, leaning over the counter closer to the mirror, his head tipped up to focus on his chin. Then he applied the butterflies like it wasn’t his first time and covered them with a bigger adhesive strip.
“There.” He sat back.
“Yeah, not quite.” She nodded at the mirror. He looked again.
He had uneven stubble everywhere except his chin.
“I see what you mean,” he said, and then he reached for the razor, leaned over the sink, and resumed shaving.
When he finished, he turned to face her, running a hand down his cheek and grinning. When a dimple appeared, she could’ve sworn she heard the sound of a bullet ricocheting off stone inside her head.
Ohmygod that jawline, and that cleft in his poor, wounded chin.
“That feels good,” he said, smoothing his cheek. “Glad you made me do that.”
“Yeah, well…” She looked around for something to use to defend herself against the onslaught of whatever this was. She was a little bit light-headed, a little bit giddy, and a whole lot turned on—had been, right along, but she knew better.
She wanted to be sheriff of Quinn County one day. She couldn’t be playing around with an ex-con who was the sole heir to a dead crime boss’s ill-gotten wealth.
Up to now, she’d been keeping her distance from Jeremiah Thorne. But she’d felt something ever since she’d hit him with her pickup. And whatever it was, it had just taken a turn for the worse.
Looking around the small room as if for rescue, she spotted the tall skinny closet where the towels were stacked, opened it, and took the broom and dustpan from their hooks. She handed them to Jeremiah. “You’d best clean up all this hair or Lily’ll have our hides for bar rags.”
Then she left him there. But that face—sans beard—and its knowing expression were burned into her mind. That slight smile, and the twinkle of mischief in eyes so blue they sizzled…
She never should have made him shave.
Jeremiah watched Willow Brand walk out of the bathroom. She even looked good in her uniform pants, the least flattering pants ever invented.
If he’d known how much she would like him shaved, he’d have been bare-faced this whole time. She was something, Willow Brand. Her mother was full Comanche, her father, half. Her skin was dark, like her eyes and her hair.
It was good that she liked him. He could use that. He needed her help, and it would be best if giving it was her idea.
He cleaned up the mess of his whiskers on the floor and in the sink and left the place looking as good as he’d found it. When he headed down to pay his tab, Willow was already gone.
He frowned because there was a kid sitting on a barstool. He had dark curly hair and looked to be ten or so.
Jeremiah sidled up to the bar between the kid’s stool and the one beside it, and signaled Cat. She held up a finger.
“I didn’t know I had to wave,” the kid said.
He had a spray of freckles across his nose. “Oh, yeah,” Jeremiah said. “Otherwise she might never spot you. You must be new here.”
“I never came in before. But at school everyone says the tacos are the best.”
“They are, I can vouch for that.”
“I made some money doing odd jobs after school. So I thought I’d surprise Grandma by bringing home tacos for all of us.” He looked toward Cat, then back at Jeremiah.
“I bet that’ll make your grandma very happy. You’re a good kid.”
“It’s to thank her. She’s letting me get a puppy!”
