Michelle Major - Coming Home To Crimson

“Emily.”

“Either way, grab a cup of coffee, then come back and I’ll give you a do-over on this conversation.” She lifted a brow. “I learned that trick from my job at the front desk of the elementary school. Some kids need help learning how to appropriately greet people. I guess you didn’t get that lesson or you’ve forgotten.” She flashed a wide smile. “I’m here to help.”

Cole felt his mouth drop open and quickly closed it again. What was it about this day and sassy blondes? But Emily Crenshaw was a force to be reckoned with and currently sat in the computer chair normally occupied by Jase’s sweet-tempered secretary, Molly.

Cole was developing a new appreciation for sweet-tempered.

He grabbed a mug from the cart positioned along the far wall and poured himself a steaming cup of coffee. “Good morning, Emily,” he said as he took a drink. “You’re filling in for Molly today?”

“Just for the morning.” Emily pushed away from the computer and smiled. “She had to take her mom to a doctor’s appointment, and Davey is in a Lego camp this week. It’s always a challenge to keep a first-grade boy occupied during the summer.”

“I can imagine,” he said even as he thought of how he and his brother, Shep, had run wild through the various army bases around the world where his dad had been stationed back in the day.

“Thank you for the pleasantries,” Emily told him. “Jase had a meeting with the city finance director, so I doubt his phone is on. They’re on the first floor, so he should be back soon.”

“I’ll wait.”

“What’s going on, Cole?” Emily’s big eyes narrowed. She looked a little bit like Sienna, now that he thought about it. Blond hair, blue eyes, beautiful with that certain shine that time spent in a big city gave to women. Sienna was a couple inches taller, her face more heart-shaped with delicate features.

Emily was a Crimson native who’d moved away, then back with her young son early last year. She was different from Sienna in one major way—Emily radiated happiness. It had been hard earned, he knew, and was glad that she and Jase had worked out their issues.

She stood, and he was reminded of another significant difference between the two women. Emily was seven months pregnant, which made her seem somehow more intimidating than usual. Give Cole a bar fight to break up or even an underground drug bust rather than be stared down by a heavily pregnant woman.

He shrugged and gave her his don’t-mess-with-me law enforcement face. “I need to talk to him. Sheriff’s office business.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, resting them on her round belly. “Do I look stupid?”

So much for intimidation. “Um...no.”

“It seems like somebody’s in trouble with my better half.”

Cole turned, profoundly grateful to see Jase Crenshaw standing in the door to the outer office, one side of his mouth curved as he looked between Cole and Emily.

“The sheriff wants to talk to you,” Emily told her husband.

“Okay,” Jase answered and walked forward, leaning over the receptionist desk to kiss her, while gently placing a hand on her baby bump.

Cole quickly turned and refilled his coffee mug, uncomfortable with the easy show of affection.

“But he’s acting suspicious.” Emily frowned at Cole. “Something’s up and I want to know what it is.”

“It’s nothing,” Cole insisted and flicked a help-me glance to Jase.

“You might as well say it.” Jase shrugged. “If she doesn’t find out now, I’ll have to tell her later.”

“What if it’s confidential?”

Emily sniffed. “I’m his wife . He tells me everything.”

Jase nodded. “It’s true. I’m not an expert on marriage, but I do understand that honesty is a pretty important foundation.”

Anger spiked in Cole’s chest, familiar to him as his face in the mirror. Not at Jase or Emily but at memories of his own father’s lies and deceptions—the ones that had torn apart his family.

He blew out a breath, forcing his emotions under control. “I clocked a woman driving twenty miles over the speed limit coming into Crimson this morning.”

“An out-of-towner, I assume?” Jase asked.

Emily scrunched up her nose. “What does that have to do—?”

“Her name was Sienna Pierce,” Cole interrupted.

Emily immediately placed a hand on Jase’s arm, almost the same way Sienna had done with Cole in the car earlier. He’d overreacted to the gesture but couldn’t seem to stop himself from freaking out any time he was forced to talk about his family.

It was one of the reasons he’d first applied as a sheriff’s deputy in Crimson five years ago. No one knew him here and it was easy to keep his conversations about his past vague—just the way he liked it.

“You gave my sister a speeding ticket?” Jase asked, his tone almost unnaturally calm.

“Not exactly,” Cole answered. He’d planned to share with Jase the details of his morning run-in with Sienna but now the words wouldn’t come. As reserved as she pretended to be, he knew Sienna had been humiliated by her cheating ex-boyfriend. He doubted that was information she’d appreciate being used as her calling card in Crimson. “More like a warning.”

Emily raised a brow at Cole as her hand tightened on Jase’s arm. “Is that what this is?”

“I thought you’d want to know she was here,” Cole told his friend. “I got the impression she hadn’t called first.”

“Hardly,” Jase said with a small laugh. “I haven’t talked to Sienna since the night my mom drove away with her.”

“Because she refused to see you when you visited your mom last Christmas.” Emily came around the desk and laced her fingers through Jase’s. “She made it clear she wanted nothing to do with you.”

“I wonder what changed,” Jase murmured, almost under his breath.

Her whole world from the looks of it, Cole wanted to answer. It’s what he should have shared. But instead he only shrugged. “I don’t know her plans but thought you’d want to know, and your dad...”

Jase groaned. “This is going to rock his world.”

“She has no business showing up out of the blue.” Emily reminded Cole of an Amazon warrior getting ready for battle or a grizzly mama standing between a pack of coyotes and one of her cubs. “If she upsets Declan—”

“I’ll take care of it.” Jase wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Don’t get riled up, Em.”

Emily only rolled her eyes. “I love you, Jase Crenshaw, but you know me better than that. Telling me not to get riled up is like telling a retriever not to fetch the ball.”

Cole laughed, then tried to cover it with a cough when Emily gave him one of her looks. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “But you compared yourself to a dog.”

“No more free coffee for you,” she said, but her lips twitched as she said it.

“Thank you, Cole,” Jase said. “I appreciate the heads-up.”

“You bet. I’ve got to check in at the station. Call if you need anything.”

He placed his mug on the cart and walked out of the office, rubbing a hand over his jaw as he stepped into the warm June sunshine. Several people waved and Cole forced himself to smile and greet them in return, even though the sick pit in his stomach was growing wider by the second.

He didn’t owe Sienna Pierce a thing. So why did he feel like she was the one who needed protecting in Crimson? Jase had Emily and his dad and the whole town in his corner. From what he could tell, Sienna had no one.

Cole could relate, and the strange connection he’d felt to her this morning had somehow taken root inside him and refused to let go.

Ten kinds of trouble, he’d told her, but wondered if he’d underestimated even that.