Tara Randel - Orange Blossom Brides

Blanche shrugged. “Doesn’t matter who did the asking. It’s town tradition to volunteer and we all know what happens when you buck tradition.”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t get any business. Trust me on this.”

“Like I have time for ridiculous stuff like escorting fake brides down the country club aisle,” he grumbled. “I’m going to be working that night.”

Blanche ignored him. “Think of Jake Riley and the animals at the shelter. How would he feel if you refused?”

He stared at her. “He’s a dog. He doesn’t care.”

“Honey, there’s just some things that are implied and this is one of them.”

Shaking his head, he raised an eyebrow at the petite, bossy secretary. “This is crazy.”

“This is Cypress Pointe.”

No matter what he decided, this had all the signs of a disaster in the making.

Blanche crossed her arms over her chest. “Sorry, Max. You’ll have to go.”

The finality in her words made him cringe. She wasn’t sorry. Not in the least.

“Okay, but I don’t have to tell her right away.”

Blanche shook her head in resignation at her boss’s stubbornness.

Refusing to talk about it any longer, he handed her his mug in defeat. “More coffee?”

“Sure thing, boss.”

He returned to his office and sank into the chair, closing his eyes to once again picture Miss Barclay with her cool smile and cooler eyes. Dressed in something that reminded him of the shade of summertime. A summer that had changed his life.

He couldn’t back down. Not so quickly. He may still have trust issues with the woman—okay, major trust issues—but dressing up as a groom? He shuddered.

He glanced at the wall clock and jumped up when he saw the time. Grabbing the tools of the trade he needed to go undercover, he sprinted through the office. “Gotta take care of that surveillance case.”

Blanche held up his mug. “What about your coffee?”

“Hang on to it until later.” He stopped and stared her down. “And please don’t volunteer me for anything before I get back.”

Blanche chuckled. “Sure. And you keep your mind on the job and off a particular pretty woman.”

Easier said than done. Max hurried down the stairs and stepped into the late-morning sun.

* * ** * *

ONE MORE MOVE, BART. Then you’re mine.

Max folded the newspaper he’d been pretending to read, placing it on the bench beside him, his eyes never once leaving his quarry. Muscles tense, he waited patiently. Bad Bart, the town pickpocket, was about to mess up. Max could feel it in his bones. And when he did, Max would catch it all on tape.

“C’mon. Just do it,” Max muttered under his breath while he waited for Bart to relieve his unsuspecting victim of his belongings.

If anyone had told Max that small-town life held as much drama as the big city of Atlanta where he had worked as a detective, he wouldn’t have believed them. He’d been involved in undercover stakeouts in the most dangerous sections of the city, where he didn’t dare take his hand off his firearm for safety’s sake. He’d dealt with demanding bosses, low-life criminals and every type of perp who claimed he didn’t do it. He’d taken it all in stride, until two cases, coming on the tail of each other, made him rethink his career.

He’d been called to assist a multiple homicide. A mother and her two sons. Victims of domestic abuse. Max hated family violence. Long estranged from his mother, he couldn’t help but think he could have ended up like one of those boys had fate not intervened.

Max had been on hand for many of the calls to the apartment. He’d always hoped the mother would leave the guy, for the boys’ sakes as well as her own. He’d encouraged the brothers to help their mother leave and had struck up a tentative friendship with them. From time to time, he stopped by the park near their building to watch them play baseball.

The mother finally decided to leave her boyfriend after he’d managed to mess her up pretty badly, and not just her that time. Once the guy went after one of her boys, she’d wanted out. Thinking he’d be gone all day at work, she’d gathered the boys and their few belongings. She’d made it as far as the car when her boyfriend came home unexpectedly. He went into a rage and shot them all, including himself.

The next case had hit even closer to home. A teen with an already growing record had stolen from his neighborhood convenience store and been caught on tape. Max and his partner went to the teen’s apartment, only to find him arguing with his mother. She told Max to take the kid away. She was done worrying about him. Hadn’t Max heard those same words, only from his own mother? Too many times to count.

They’d taken the kid to the station and booked him. As he always did, Max talked to the teenager, hoping he could get the kid to see the error of his ways. He never knew if he reached any of the young people he spoke to, but he hoped they would listen. Max visited the boy a few times, thinking he’d made some headway. Then, shortly after, Max learned that while in lockup the boy had been killed in a gang attack.

Max’s story had played out differently after he came home from juvenile detention. His mother had packed up and gone, leaving Max homeless. If not for his grandmother, who knew where he might be today? In jail? Or worse, like the teen he’d tried to help?

Max had wondered what he could have done differently to help the boys in both instances. Logically, he knew he couldn’t have done more. Still, the memories had haunted him enough that he knew he had to leave the city. That’s when he’d begun thinking about starting his own security business.

Life in Cypress Pointe promised to be calm, serene, even. Getting the security business up and running would take time, but he was eager to get going. Until Bad Bart.

Cliché? You bet. Bad Bart Bradbury had named himself and the nickname stuck. Pickpocket Bart was more appropriate.

He was a thorn in the side of the Cypress Pointe Merchants Association, Max’s current client. They wanted this scourge of society off the streets. When Max heard this description, he wondered what kind of menace terrorized the streets and why on earth his grandmother hadn’t warned him about the criminal element. Then he’d gotten his first glimpse of Bart. A scourge? Far from it. Slippery? Oh, yeah. But Max hadn’t met a criminal he couldn’t capture and bring to justice.

Determined to close the case file today, Max sported his new spy-cam sunglasses. A perk in his line of work. He loved playing with high-tech gadgets. When Bart proved to be a worthy adversary, Max had purchased the surveillance kit. With the camera mounted on his belt, he resembled another tourist jamming to an MP3 player when he was actually recording Bart’s movements. When Bart slipped up—and he would—the proof would be given to the association, his job done and a check sent to him in the mail.

Max regarded his subject, shaking his head. A nice enough kid, Bart worked as a busboy on the breakfast shift in a downtown restaurant. Five-eight, shaggy hair, maybe all of nineteen. Somewhere along the way he’d grown tired of his ho-hum life and decided picking pockets made him the center of attention in an invisible life. He didn’t keep the money or the items he pilfered—a wallet here, a cell phone there. Max knew the items “anonymously” appeared on the counter at the police station before anyone could nab Bart. He just wanted people to acknowledge him.

Maybe he needed a girlfriend.

Or an hour with Max’s grandmother. Laverne would fuss over him, urge him to stop his pickpocket ways and turn his life around. She’d given Max a talking to on more occasions than he cared to remember, and when he’d thought he’d burned his last bridge with her, he’d finally listened.