Page 6 of Deputy Brand Gets Her Man
This was a really bad idea.
“So, what’ll it be? Your place or mine?” he asked, with a wink that said he was kidding, and a glint in his eyes that said not really.
“Mine,” Willow said. “And for food and conversation only, you understand?”
“Scout’s honor,” he said, but he did the salute so wrong she knew he’d never been a scout.
“You can’t bring your car. Folks’ll talk.”
“Whatever you say, Deputy.”
Jeremiah couldn’t believe his luck. He’d fantasized about things like this. He did not dare believe that fate was finally throwing him a bone, but it sure seemed like things were going his way.
Willow had him follow her to a spot where folks pulled off to go fishing. He parked there, then rode the rest of the way to Sky Dancer Ranch with her. It was within walking distance, he noted.
When he first got into her SUV, she was stiff and nervous. He figured it was natural. She was a woman behind that badge, and she was alone at night with an ex-con. He tried to think of a way to ease her mind and couldn’t come up with any. Then they were on her family’s place and he didn’t have to think. Words came naturally.
“This ranch is incredible.” Even in the dark, the rolling meadows and white fences stood against the horizon. He’d seen it by day only once or twice, and only in passing. He’d never come all the way down the driveway into its heart. The house was modest but modern, with plenty of big windows and porches.
She took the driveway’s left fork, though, away from the main house, out past a copse of scraggly loblolly pines, to a small white cottage with a picket fence all the way around it. There were flower boxes full of gold and orange, and a tangled flowerbed in front that looked like it needed weeding. A row of sunflowers, their yellow heads drooping, stood guard along the white fence in front, and stepping stones led to the front door.
“Here we are,” she said.
“It’s like something out of the Shire.”
“You’re a Lord of the Rings fan?”
He shrugged one shoulder, averted his eyes. “I’ve seen it.” Multiple times.
“Huh.”
He didn’t like the sound of that, so he nodded at the pretty cottage’s weed patch border, the only unkempt spot in sight. “What’s up with that? You need a hand clearing it out?”
“No! That’s my herb garden. I’m lettin’ some of ‘em go to seed. They need to thicken up.”
“Herb garden.”
She nodded and led the way across her grassless lawn to the raised bed in front of the house. “There’s rosemary, nearest the door for the scent.” She ran her hand across the small shrub’s needled branches, then held her palm up. “Smell.”
He leaned close and sniffed and the scent lit up pleasure centers in his brain. Being that close to her lit up more, though.
“And there’s white sage, beside it. Desert thyme, basil, oregano, parsley… The chili pepper patch is around back.”
“You must do a lot of cooking.”
“Some.”
They moved across a small porch with bundles of herbs hanging upside down, then through her front door.
“No grand tour needed,” she said, flipping on lights as she walked inside. “Living room and eat-in kitchen here. Bedroom and bathroom over there. And if you don’t mind, I need to change.”
“Take your time,” he said. “You want me to heat up the lasagna?”
She looked back at him just a beat too long, like she was deciding whether she wanted him rummaging around in her kitchen. “That’d be great, thanks. It’s in the?—”
“I’ll figure it out.”
She vanished into a room in back. He took off his shoes and headed into her kitchen, flipped on the lights. It was golden yellow with white cabinets and woodwork, and there were plants in every window, some hanging, others resting on the sills. The fridge was a simple white model, no extras. The lasagna was easy to recognize. “Aunt” Chelsea’s plasticware was familiar to him.
