voice trailed off slowly. Then: “What’s…oh, Ellie, for goodness sake. Is this why you walked to work this morning?”
With her reading glasses perched on her nose, Gail skimmed over the letter from the MVB, then looked over the top of her frames at Ellie, who sighed and somehow managed to not roll her eyes. So much for privacy.
“Yeah, it’s fine, it’s just—”
“How did this happen? All these points…”
“Apparently I have a bit of a lead foot. It’s nothing, I’ll get it taken care of.”
“Can’t your gentleman friend do something about it?”
“My gentleman friend?”
“The one who brought you home.” Gail raised her left eyebrow slightly. “Sergeant Hale.”
“Nice try, Mom. He’s a constable, not a sergeant, and he’s not my ‘gentleman friend.’ ” Ellie banged the wok down on the counter and turned to grab the oil. “After everything I’ve lived through with cops, do you really think I’d be stupid enough to get involved with one, especially the one who—”
Gail wasn’t listening because she was too busy rereading Ellie’s mail. “It says here he’s a licensed instructor. That’s good.”
“Not the word I would’ve chosen,” Ellie grumbled. Then her face brightened. “Hey—can you drive a stick shift?”
“Me? Lord, no. Your father tried to teach me when we were first married, but after stalling it at the end of our street half a dozen times, I pulled the emergency brake and walked straight back to the house. Why?”
“Never mind.” Damn; there went the hope that Gail could drive Ellie into the city for her safe driver’s course. She’d found a session starting next week, but it was in Vancouver, a forty-five-minute drive away, and the bus didn’t run often enough between there and Newport Ridge to make it workable.
How was it even possible that there was only one accredited instructor in this town—especially when he could only do it part-time?
With the chicken browning, Ellie tossed around ideas of how she could get into the city every night for two weeks. Maybe she could hit up Jayne, Regan, and Maya on different days so it wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience for them. But that still seemed like more than she could reasonably ask.
The doorbell rang just as she dumped the vegetables into the wok.
“I’ll get it.” Gail had the door open before Ellie could toss the pan the first time. “Well. Will you look at that—you speak of the sun, and you feel its rays. Are you here for supper?”
“No, ma’am.” At the sound of his voice, Ellie almost dumped everything on the floor. “Wondering if I could please speak to Ellie for a second.”
“Of course! Come on in, she’s just in the kitchen.” Without waiting for him to answer, Gail headed straight back to the stove, a twisted little grin on her face. “Constable Hale’s here.”
“I heard, thank you.” Ellie started to turn, then had to pause for a second as Jayne’s voice suddenly echoed in her ears. You can’t deny he looks damn good in that uniform.
Stop it!
With a quick glare at her mom, who continued to grin, Ellie passed her the spatula and made her way to the living room, where Brett stood, thankfully not in uniform, though still looking damn good in his plain old Levi’s and green T-shirt.
“Hi.” He cleared his throat over the croaked sound and started again. “Uh, hi.”
“No uniform, so I’m guessing that means you’re not here to execute a warrant…”
Whoa—was that a…nope, not a smile. Sure looked like the start of one there for a second, but it must have been a muscle twitch.
“Tim called just as I was getting off shift, so I’ve got your bike. Want me to put it around back?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask why. Why hadn’t Tim just called her, and why was the cop being nice to her? She’d never given him reason to be, and while this wasn’t the first time she’d felt guilty about that, she’d usually been able to brush that guilt away by simply remembering that he was, in fact, a cop.
And cops pissed her off.
This time that annoying guilt refused to be swept away so easily.
With a quick mental shake, she tipped her chin toward the door. “Thanks—I’ll come out and get it.”
“Get it after,” Gail called. “Dinner’s going to be ready in about two seconds.”
Ka-thunk. Oh no. Ka-thunk. She wouldn’t. Ka-thunk. She did.
By the way Brett’s eyes widened, he realized what was coming before the third plate hit the table. Gail shushed his protest before he managed