Page 16 of Bachelor Cop Finally Caught? (Hot off the Press! 2)

He glanced at her numbers and then again at the display. Selecting one of the repair kits hanging there, he handed it to her. “This is the one you need.”

“Great. Thanks.”

He hesitated for a moment, then cleared his throat. “I’ve got some spare time this afternoon. Why don’t I come over and give you a hand with this?”

Lindsey was perfectly capable of making the repairs herself, and she opened her mouth to tell him so. So it almost surprised her when she heard herself say, instead, “That would be great. Thanks.”

He nodded, his expression unrevealing. “Are you going straight home from here?”

“Actually, I planned to pick up a few grocery items on the way.”

“I’ve got a couple more errands to run, and I need to stop by my place for my toolbox. I’ll meet you at your house in about an hour and a half, if that works for you.”

“Yes, that will be fine,” she said, studiously casual, pretending this was no different from the dozens of other times he’d dropped by her house. That, of course, had been before she’d decided to stop hiding her feelings and make a real effort to get Dan’s full attention.

Just forty-five minutes later, after a quick dash through the grocery store, she stood in front of a mirror in her house, atypically obsessing about her appearance. She had donned a baby-blue spring sweater, some jeans and boots to run her errands that morning. Not grubby, she decided, but not exactly seductive, either. Of course, she would really look ridiculous if she put on something slinky to fix the plumbing.

She brushed her hair and touched up her makeup—very subtly, of course, thanks to Connie Peterson’s expert tutelage. She debated between swingy silver earrings and big gold hoops, finally deciding on the silver. And then, deciding they looked too calculated, she took them off.

“Would you chill out?” she demanded of the harried-looking reflection in the mirror. “You’re acting like an idiot.”

Dan was only coming to fix her faucet, she reminded herself again. A very big-brotherly thing to do—certainly no indication that his interest in her had changed. It was unlikely that anything significant would happen between them this afternoon. So there was no need to get all bent out of shape about his impending arrival.

Maybe she should change her sweater, she thought, turning sideways in front of the mirror.

And then she covered her eyes and groaned. Maybe she should just sell the house and move away before he got there—thereby preventing another occasion for her to do something really foolish.

Toolbox in hand, Dan was just about to leave his trailer and head over to Lindsey’s house when someone knocked on his front door. He groaned at the thought that it could be a summons back to work. Lindsey would probably insist on knowing all the details if he called to cancel, and if she decided there was a news story involved, she’d want to be right in the middle of it.

Maybe it was just a door-to-door evangelist or something, he thought hopefully.

Instead, he found a pretty dark-haired teenager on his front step. “Polly?” he asked his sixteen-year-old niece in surprise. “Is something wrong?”

Her bottom lip bore evidence that she’d been chewing on it as she waited for him to answer the door, and there was a somber look in her brown eyes that were so like his sister’s. “I’m not sure, Uncle Dan. I found something that I think maybe you should see.”

He glanced at the tattered notebook in her hand, then behind her. “Did you come alone?”

She nodded. “Mom let me use her car to do some shopping. I didn’t tell her I was coming here, because I was afraid she’d get worried.”

Dan didn’t like the sound of that at all. He was very fond of his only niece and more than a bit overprotective when it came to his family. “Come in, Polly. Tell me what’s going on.”

He briefly considered calling Lindsey, but decided to wait until he heard what Polly had to say. This might not take long. Could be his niece just had some gossip to share with him about a school prank or something. She told him occasionally when she’d heard a rumor of a planned fight or vandalism or other juvenile mischief of that nature.

Closing the door behind her,

he asked, “Would you like a cola or something?”

“No, thanks. I’m supposed to meet Jenny at the shopping center pretty soon. I just thought I better show you this first.”

Because she still looked a bit nervous—which wasn’t characteristic of his outgoing, gregarious niece—he kept his voice gentle. “Show me what, honey?”

She held out the notebook she’d carried in with her. Tattered, bent and ragged, it looked as though it had been put through some hard use. “I found this on the schoolgrounds after school yesterday afternoon. It was behind a bush, almost hidden. I think someone might have dropped it there during that big fight at lunch.”

Dan nodded. He’d heard about the melee at the school yesterday. In fact, he’d had to send an officer over to help break it up. Such things were becoming more common even in little Edstown, he thought with a sigh of regret. “If you want the book returned to the owner, why didn’t you just turn it in to the school office Monday? I’m sure it could have waited until then.”

Her expression troubled, she shook her head, making her dark hair sway around her face. “I was going to do that. There isn’t a name in it or anything, so I decided I’d just hand it in at the office in case anyone asked for it. Then, this morning, I saw it sitting on the desk in my room, and I thought I’d look through it and see if there was any clue to the owner—you know, in case he needed it before Monday?”

“And was there a clue?”

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