Kristina Knight - Rebel In A Small Town

“I’m Cheryl—”

“This is Cheryl,” Mara said at the same time Cheryl stuck out her hand. “Cheryl is my n—” She hadn’t told James about his baby on the phone or in the middle of him almost arresting her, and she definitely couldn’t tell him about the child on the sidewalk after visiting a bar. “My friend,” she said, insisting to the quiet voice inside that it wasn’t a lie. Cheryl was her friend, in addition to being her nanny.

“I’m just in town for the night,” Cheryl added helpfully, “and Mara was showing me around a bit.”

Tension crackled between Mara and James. Even in the darkening evening, she could see his eyebrows draw together and his lips form that thin line they’d had at the grocery store the day before. Which was silly. It wasn’t as if Mara was not allowed to have a friend, or she and her friend had been doing anything illegal. Even if they had been, James wasn’t in uniform, which probably meant he was off duty.

“Another security expert for the grocery store?” he asked.

“No, I’m a na—”

“Cheryl works for a school in Tulsa,” Mara said. “She decided to hook up with me before she gets roped into her sister’s wedding plans.”

Cheryl raised an eyebrow at Mara’s explanation. Then understanding dawned in her expression. She turned her attention to the man before them, probably comparing his features to the baby waiting at the B and B. After a moment she nodded like she understood everything.

“I’m going to finish my walk while you two—” she pointed her finger between them “—get reacquainted.”

Mara wanted to call her back, but that was silly. She could exchange a few pleasantries with James in the twilight, with the last rays of sunlight shooting golden flecks into his brown hair. She swallowed.

“So, I guess CarlaAnn is outing me as a kleptomaniac around town,” she began, keeping her voice light.

James watched Cheryl walking down the street for a moment, and the interest in his gaze hit Mara hard in the belly. He couldn’t be interested in Cheryl. That would just be too... What did Mara care who he was interested in? She’d spent the past two years getting over James Calhoun. She didn’t want to get under him again.

“I guess going back into the store to reassure her Mike did hire you, or at least your company, and that you weren’t an actual shoplifter didn’t do the trick.”

“Did you really think the truth would stop CarlaAnn’s rumor mill? But, thanks. You didn’t have to do that.” His gaze remained trained on Cheryl. Annoyed, Mara snapped her fingers. “Hello, I’m over here.”

“What?” He turned to Mara as if realizing she was still standing before him. Just the confidence booster her vanity needed. “Sorry, I just... Is she...” He pointed to Cheryl, who was halfway down the block already. “Are you and she...”

“Friends? Yes, I believe I introduced her as my friend.”

“So that’s it.” The words sounded almost excited, and Mara couldn’t figure out why.

“That’s what?”

“You’re friends. That’s it.” James shook his head. “This is weird. Should I apologize?”

The conversation seemed to be going around in a circle that Mara couldn’t see.

“Aplogize for what?”

“You’re friends. And I kept coming around—”

“Yes, we’re friends. I don’t know what is it about that fact. And why should my having a friend mean you shouldn’t have come around?” This circle talk was making her dizzy. Maybe she hadn’t been ready for Merle’s apple shandy.

“Not that you have a friend. That you have a friend,” he said, emphasizing the word. “I always wondered what made you walk away like that. Now I know. It wasn’t me.”

Mara’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. Not a friend. A friend. James thought she was, what, bisexual, and that made her walking out on him okay? “I don’t know what you think you understand, but you are completely and totally off base—”

“It’s okay to be a lesbian—”

“I’m not a lesbian.”

“Okay, a bisexual—”

“If that look means you think you might be joining in a little three-way action now that I’m back in town, think again, Deputy Doofus. I’m not bisexual and I’m not a lesbian. I am a straight, CIS-gendered female who likes men.”

James blinked. “But she’s... And you’re... You said she was here to hook up with you.”

“I didn’t mean hook up hook up. God, why do men assume women can be friends with one another only if they’re also hooking up?”

“It was a natural assumption from the way you introduced her.”

“Are you sure you passed that police academy test? Your deductive reasoning could use a little work.”

“Yes, I’m sure I passed it, and my deductive reasoning isn’t flawed. You insinuated—”

“—that she was my friend. She’s also my employee, and no, that doesn’t mean I pay her for sex.” Mara intentionally lowered her voice even though there were no other people on the sidewalk. “There is no sex between Cheryl and me. I thought you’d already gotten the memo that my preferences lean toward men.”

“I didn’t know friends randomly meet up with other friends in strange towns where one or the other of them is working.”

“Then you obviously don’t have very good friends.” Mara crossed her arms over her chest. “Or you live in a town with a single stoplight, and so do all your friends.”

“Touché.” James put his hands in his pockets. “You look good.”

“So now that I’m not an attached lesbian-slash-bisexual, you’re going straight into hook-up mode?”

James grinned. “It was a statement of fact,” he said, “not an invitation for either of us to go jumping into whatever lake we were swimming in up until two years ago.”

Two years ago. Zeke. Fatherhood. Arguing with James about her sexuality was another no-no in the parenthood talk they needed to have. “Yeah, well, that was a pretty deep lake.”

“I was thinking it was kind of shallow,” he said, reaching to curl a lock of her hair around his finger. “We kept things light and simple, and you walked away.”

She could feel his heat even across the distance between them. Wanted to feel the soft pads of his fingers against the skin of her cheek. Wanted to drink in that sandalwood smell that was James Calhoun. “I...thought you wanted simple.”

“What the hell did I know about what I wanted? Other than more time with you,” he said, and his brown eyes seemed to darken. Mara closed her eyes. She could lean forward just a little bit, could stand on tiptoe and her lips would meet his. She would have him, one more time, in her orbit. God, she wanted that.

She snapped her eyes open. That was not how this was going to happen. She was not hooking up with James one night only to tell him he was a father the next. She couldn’t do that, not to him. Not to Zeke. She was better than this, stronger than the kind of person who let herself get wound up in a man and forgot about all the responsibilities in her life.

Like the baby in her room at the B and B.

“Cheryl is my nanny,” she said, blurting the words out as she took a deliberate step away from James. His eyes widened and she immediately wished the words back.

“You have a nanny?” He cocked his head to the side, confusion evident from the slight drop in his jaw.

“Technically, my son has a nanny. I employ a child care provider who also happens to be a friend.”

“You have a son?” James pulled away from her, both physically and emotionally. She watched it happen in a smooth motion that started when his hand dropped from her hair and ended when his eyebrows beetled in that cold cop expression she’d seen the day before. The same cop expression his father used in any number of school assemblies and during “conversations” with her outside the principal’s office in high school. James was just as good at that condescending look as his father, but coming from Jonathan Calhoun, the look had never hurt like this. Like a bomb had exploded in her belly.