Melinda Curtis - Support Your Local Sheriff

“Milk. And just this once we’ll go with the sheriff’s order.” She gave Nate a stern look and then mainlined the coffee.

“I know the difference between an apple fritter and an empanada,” Nate grumbled.

“The key to happiness is to establish expectations.” Arturo moved to a stack of wooden high chairs. “Both in dining and in relationships.” He carried one to the table, and then left them.

“Pay no attention to the talking fortune cookie.” Nate deposited Duke in the high chair like a pro. At Julie’s questioning glance, he gave her the tight half smile. “My sister has a twenty-month-old little girl and I’m one of the few people trusted to babysit Camille.”

Deep down, something inside Julie gave a plaintive cry of foul. She wanted Nate to be all thumbs with Duke, to generate disinterest and temper tantrums. Nothing was going right in Harmony Valley.

Arturo returned with the sippy cup, placing it in front of Duke. “Milk.”

“Milk.” Duke dropped bacon bits on the table and reached for the cup, only to stop midgrab and stare at his hands, flexing his fingers. “I dirty.”

Before Julie could set her coffee down, Nate was wiping her nephew’s hands with a napkin.

“Okay, I get it,” Julie groused. “You have experience with little kids.” Drat and darn. “Why didn’t you tell me last night?”

Nate met her gaze squarely. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d been shot?”

She sat back, resisting the urge to touch her shoulder. He must have called someone from the force. “Why would I? We don’t work together. We’re not partners, friends or in-laws.”

He ignored her boundary setting. In fact, he steamrolled over her defenses. “You look like hell. I thought you were dying of cancer.”

Julie clung to her coffee cup and held her tongue.

“You’re not taking time off to grieve. You’re taking time off to heal and awaiting an internal investigation into the shooting.” Something passed over Nate’s face, a bleakness so fleeting, she couldn’t catch its meaning. “I heard it was your first.”

Her first kill, he meant.

Sweat traced the band of her bra. Only because the fleece of her hoodie was too thick and the heater above her too warm. Her toes were still cold.

“Don’t talk about it as if I was hunting deer.” Julie stared into her mug while Duke slurped his milk and black birds twittered and the morning fog dissipated and life went on happily for other people.

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