Barbecue and Bad News (8 page)

“Scott. You can call me Scott.”

Or not
, she thought.

Who did that sheriff think he was, getting all indignant with her first thing in the morning? Man, and she thought she was cranky without coffee. She’d definitely get to the grocery store and pick up a few things this afternoon, including coffee, because starting each morning with a run-in with the sheriff could be a real mood spoiler.

Too bad too, because he seemed more handsome every time she saw him. “Looks can be deceiving,” she mumbled. He had her so fired up that she headed straight back to the apartment to crank out that article while her mind was still buzzing with ideas. The market could wait.

What’s that quote? Don’t fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. Something like that. Yeah, Sheriff Scott Calvin might want to get a little plaque of that one for his desk.

She ran up the stairs and didn’t even bother locking the apartment door behind her. She pressed the Power button on her laptop, then spread out her breakfast next to it. She sat in the chair in front of the desk, but she was too darn short to sit and type for long. She got up and grabbed a pillow from the couch and tried again. Perfect.

Closing her eyes, she rolled her shoulders and then set her hands to the keyboard, counted to three, and began to type. It was her process. It felt good to be typing her own story. Not a response to some whack-job reader who wanted advice. She chomped on the toast and slugged back coffee between lines. Fueling the fire.

She typed and typed without even so much as a pause. A smile pulled at her lips as she transferred her recollection of the ticket yesterday and the run-in this morning onto the page. It had been a long time since she’d been able to sit down and write a real story—not an over-the-top answer to some amazingly out-there question, but an article from scratch. She was back in the zone . . . and it felt good.

She opened her eyes and leaned back in the chair. From here she could see most of the merchants up and down Main Street. No parking meters here. Strictly first come, first served. The sheriff had probably stopped in at the diner after marking tires as a way of enforcing those forty-five-minute maximum parking time signs along the curbs. Seems like that would be just his style.

She probably should have mentioned that she was going to be covering the police blotter for the
County
Gazette
when she saw Scott at the diner, but under the circumstances there just hadn’t seemed to be a good way to mention it. Especially after she’d stuck her foot in her mouth about that darn duck. Boy, was he touchy.

Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to know, and she’d be gone before they even crossed each other’s paths again.

She pulled her feet into the chair and stared out the window. Main Street was quiet this morning. Maybe it was always quiet. It was so different from the view from her downtown condo in DC. It was never quiet there. Even when there was no traffic, there seemed to be a hum of energy in the air. Maybe it was nerves being pulled and the sizzle of the stress that came with the lifestyle in the city. She tapped her pen on the side of the desk, eager for a little noise in the space. As if on cue, music came through the wall of the other apartment. Good old classic rock.

She hadn’t even thought to ask Connor about her neighbor. She’d seen the sign on the door that he was a private investigator. Her mind had jumped to the stereotype of a stodgy guy, like the ones in the old movies who somehow always seemed to have a cute, ditzy blonde working for them. Like that would ever happen in real life. Maybe he was an old fart, but he had good taste in music, and that was all she needed to hit her stride.

The sound of her nails tapping against the keyboard had a way of lulling her right back to work. By the time the third song finished, she had pretty much the whole story typed out. The facts, anyway. Now to turn it into something entertaining.

She plucked the laptop from its charger, went over to the couch, and reread the story.

This won’t work at all.

She’d spent way too much time describing the handsome sheriff and not nearly enough on the fact that she had been going just seven miles over the speed limit. How had that happened? That was not what she was going for.

She turned on Track Changes and began electronically redlining the story. Only what she had left when she finished editing was pretty much a pile of red lines, like a tiger had slashed through the whole blessed thing.

The Guns N’ Roses song “Welcome to the Jungle” started thrumming through the walls, and her neighbor must have kicked up the volume, because the thump-thump-thumping nearly vibrated the pine floors, which was fine by her. In fact, if she’d picked the song for her playlist personally, she couldn’t have paired her story to a song more perfectly.

Her stomach growled. Maybe it was a good thing she had plans for lunch, because that toast wasn’t doing it this morning.

But first things first. She put her fingers back on the keyboard and got down to business. A few facts from the police blotter, a couple of sly pokes at the sheriff for good measure, and she was done.

Rereading it start to finish made her chuckle, and
she
already knew what had happened. Yeah, this would catch an eye or two.

“Writers don’t get mad, they get even.”

So she couldn’t kill him off in a novel, but she sure did just fry his butt in that article . . . even if he’d never know it.

Payback. Karma. Call it what you like, but that cranky sheriff just got his dose.

One down, just a few to go. She clapped her hands, relieved to have already cranked out the first piece of her commitment. One quick e-mail to Evelyn asking if she minded Savannah helping out with the police blotter down at the local paper while she was here, with the article attached . . . and off it went.

“That felt good.” She shut down her computer and tucked it into the drawer of the desk. A quick brush to her hair, a dab of mascara, and she was ready enough for a community cookout.

She locked the door behind her as she headed downstairs while her neighbor continued to rock on, probably totally unaware that she’d even moved in.

Maybe he’d be around when she got back. Her creative mind was kicking into gear, and suddenly that stodgy image of an out-of-shape PI was replaced by something more in line with a movie star with muscles, oh, and really nice lips. Maybe she’d start on that novel after all. That last thought had all the makings of a good hero.

Evelyn was right. She’d been all work and no play for way too long, and maybe, just maybe, there was a small-town love story here.

Then the cigarette-smelling, pudgy PI came in focus in her mind again. Yeah. That would be her luck. She grabbed her car keys and the directions to the artisan center, taking the stairs two at a time to the beat of the music.

Savannah loved her little blue Mini Cooper. She’d treated herself to the new wheels last year. It was so easy to park in the city, and it was fun to drive, but even she had to laugh at how tiny it looked sitting next to the big GMC pickup parked next to it behind the apartment. The monster of a 4x4 made her car look like a toy. The truck must belong to the PI, although the fire-engine red was anything but understated. But then neither were his music choices.

She popped the trunk on her car and pulled out a box wrapped in glossy white-and-silver paper. She’d wrapped up a couple of bottles of wine as a gift for the wedding festivities this weekend, so rather than let them go to waste, she figured she’d take one of them to thank Connor and Carolanne for inviting her to the cookout. Good wine would’ve gone to waste on her ex anyway. He was strictly a Miller Lite kind of guy, unless he’d changed, and that wasn’t likely.

She ripped away the glossy paper, then retied the white tulle into a presentable bow around one of the bottles. Comfortable with the casual transformation, she placed the bottle in the passenger seat and then set the directions in her lap for the short drive to the artisan center. Why they hadn’t just given her a street address that she could type into her GPS was beyond her, but the directions looked easy enough to follow.

There wasn’t much traffic on Route 58, so it took less than ten minutes to get there. The artisan center was well marked and the building hard to miss with its bright-blue roof. She pulled her car into an open parking space on the side of the building where Connor had said they’d meet her. Connor had mentioned that he and Carolanne lived in the new neighborhood that backed up to the center, Bridle Path Estates. It looked like it was all Connor had described it as—homey, understated, and charming. Only a few houses dotted the landscape, although several plots were flagged off and ready for breaking ground on construction. Even so, the lots were large. A few acres at least. Neighborly with enough space for privacy. The best of both worlds.

She got out of her car to wait. Rainbow-colored tents lined the lawn near a pond. Lots of people were already milling around. A corn hole tournament was in full swing at one end, and some kids played good old-fashioned Frisbee near the pond. It looked like it could be fun, and the weather was perfect for it.

Connor pulled his car into the spot right next to her. “Hey there,” he said as he got out. “Have you been here long?”

“No. I just got here.”

A stunning redhead got out of the passenger seat. “It’s so nice to meet you, Savannah. Connor told me that you’re staying upstairs for a few days. Any trouble getting here?”

“None at all.” Savannah handed her the bottle of wine. “Wasn’t sure if this would be appropriate or not, but I wanted to at least thank you for inviting me.”

“That was so nice of you.” She twisted the bottle and read the label. “Made right here in Virginia. I can’t wait to try it. That was so thoughtful of you.” She put it in the backseat of the car. “You’ll have to stop by and enjoy that with us while you’re here. We live just across the way. You can see our place from here.” She pointed across the pond.

“Lovely home.”

“Thanks,” Carolanne said. “Well, let’s head on down. I promised Jill I’d help her if things were crazy this morning, but it looks like everything is running smoothly.”

Savannah fell in step next to Connor and Carolanne, down the slope toward the activities.

Carolanne raised her arm in the air and waved to a couple across the way. “There’s Jill and Garrett. They’re great, you’ll love them. Jill runs the Artisan Center.”

“Great. It’ll be nice to meet her,” said Savannah. “This is all quite an accomplishment.”

“Jill dreamed of building this center for as long as I can remember. We grew up here together. She lived with her grandmother after her parents died.”

Savannah swallowed hard. She knew exactly how it felt to lose your parents. “The location is perfect,” she said, trying to sound light.

“All of this land used to belong to her grandmother. When she died she left it to Jill and Garrett. Only they weren’t together at the time. Long story short, Pearl Clemmons did a little matchmaking from beyond the grave and we all are living happily ever after.”

“Pearl sounds like a gem.”

“You got that right. She was the heart of this town. Jill is following in her footsteps. She’s really done great things with this place in a short time. She and Garrett are the best team.”

Carolanne and Jill hugged once they reached each other, and the guys disappeared almost as quickly to hunt down food from the assortment in the tents around them.

“We’ll meet you back at the bar tent,” Garrett said.

Savannah smiled, feeling a bit like an outsider . . . not that feeling like an outsider was so unusual for her. But then that was by her own choice. Once she’d left Belles Corner she’d found it hard to open up, and since she didn’t go out often, on dates or with groups, when she did, she often felt this way. She didn’t like it, but she could fake it like nobody’s business.

“I can’t wait to check out the artisan center, Jill. I’m Savannah. Nice to meet you.”

“Thank you. I hope you find something you can’t resist in there. You’re new to the area?” Jill’s grin was wide and her words bounced with excitement at just the mention of the place.

“Just passing through.”

“How long are you visiting for?” Jill asked.

“Just a week or so. I’m getting a much-needed rest before I start a new job.”

“You picked the right place for it. How did you and Carolanne meet?”

Savannah and Carolanne both laughed. “Well, actually . . . we met for the first time just a few minutes ago,” Carolanne said.

“True.” Savannah nodded. “I rented Connor’s old apartment for a week and he invited me.”

“Do you have family in the area?”

“No.”

“Then what made you pick Adams Grove?” Carolanne gestured to the other girls to head toward the bar tent.

“A ticket.” They looked confused by her evasive answer. “Where I’m from we get ten over. Doesn’t everybody?”

“A speeding ticket. Oh, gosh. Not around here. Even the locals can’t get away with that,” Carolanne said, but both she and Jill were shaking their heads.

“Well, I guess I should thank my lucky stars then, because he let me off with a warning.”

Carolanne and Jill responded in chorus. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, but I think he only did it because he felt bad for me. I was supposed to be headed to my ex-husband’s wedding, almost got that speeding ticket, was almost out of gas, and my tire was almost flat . . .”

“Oh, man. I feel bad for you too, and I wasn’t even there. So you decided to almost stick around?” Jill said.

“Kind of like that.” Savanna nodded.

Carolanne asked, “Who stopped you?”

“The sheriff,” Savannah said.
Scott
, she thought.
“Call me Scott” . . . or not
. “Although I didn’t realize he was the sheriff at the time.”

“Scott Calvin?” Jill sounded unconvinced.

“Yeah. You know him?” Stupid question. Everyone probably knew everyone around here.

“We grew up with Scott,” Carolanne said.

Jill waved a warning finger toward Savannah. “Careful, he met his last girlfriend on the side of the road. You could be next.”