Page 61 of Deputy Brand Gets Her Man
“That was way too easy,” Drew said to Jeremiah, her tone teasing. “Do you always do what you’re asked?”
“Spoken like a gal with another ask in mind,” he replied.
Drew nodded. “We need more firewood, and our pile is decimated.”
“We’ve had a lot of bonfires this year,” her brother agreed.
“You want me to find firewood?” Jeremiah asked.
Drew blinked. “All you big, strong males, actually. So we damsels don’t freeze.”
Willow rolled her eyes. Drew was the most progressive of the bunch, so the guys should’ve all been suspicious at her playing the helpless female card, but the only ones who looked at her oddly were Maria and Lily.
Groaning, the guys all got up, though, Jeremiah included.
Drew cried, “Wait, Gringo, one more pic!”
He picked up his phone, snapped another shot, put it back in the cup holder on his chair, and fell into step with the guys. Drew lunged and yanked his phone out of the cup holder before the men were even out of sight.
“Jeez, Drew, all they have to do is look back!” Willow whisper-shouted, but Drew shot back to her chair before anyone did, tapping the phone the whole way.
“It didn’t lock yet. Come on, what are we looking for?”
Maria and Lily were frowning at them.
Willow gave in to curiosity. “The seventeenth between one and two a.m.”
“Lookin’, lookin’, lookin’…”
“What are you up to?” Maria asked. “Put that back!”
“No calls,” Drew said. “There aren’t any, incoming or outgoing.”
“He must’ve deleted it.”
“Tell us what’s going on,” Lily said as she and Maria came closer.
Drew ignored them both. “Maybe it wasn’t a phone call you heard.”
“Well, what the heck else could it?—”
“Got it! Voice memo, right here.” She turned the phone toward Willow.
Willow bit her lip. Maria and Lily were standing there, too. Maria shook her head left and right.
Willow looked at the phone and said, “Play it.”
Chapter Eleven
Drew handed her the phone. “You play it.”
“You’re crossin’ a line, Will,” Maria said.
“I know.” She looked at the highlighted recording in a list of them that was apparently several pages long. Rather than listening to what she’d already heard, she picked the one from the day when they’d first kissed and tapped Play.
Jeremiah’s voice came, deep and soft. “Everything’s goin’ better than I could’ve hoped. How can I fail to find it when I have the help of a deputy who looks at me the way she does? I think Willow Brand’ll do just about anything I ask.”
Willow felt like she’d been gut-punched, and her breath gusted out of her as if she had.
