mouth to identify himself, her gaze shifted past him and she gasped. Zach turned to see the peach-colored bag with blue ribbons blow off the rock and sail away into nothing. Had I not happened along, that could have been her body, not just the bag. “Guess I can add littering in there, too.”
“Grams!” She shoved down off the table and took two steps toward the ledge before Zach caught hold of her arm and held her back.
The woman whirled on him, a touch of panic added to the anger in her eyes. “It’s gone. She’s gone.”
She’s gone? Zach recalled his first sight of the woman. She’d been inching her way along the ledge, her arm outstretched toward that bag. “What was in the bag?”
“Not what. Who. I wasn’t going to jump, you idiot,” she claimed, her molasses tone scathing. “I was spreading my grandmother’s ashes and lost hold of the bag.”
Not a jumper. Just a fool. “Did you have a permit for that?”
She folded her arms and scowled. “Who are you?”
Zach didn’t wear his uniform while fishing on his day off, but he always carried a weapon and his badge. He pulled the shield from his back pocket and flipped the worn leather folder open. “Sheriff Zach Turner. May I see some identification, ma’am?”
She momentarily closed her eyes and her lips formed a silent oath. At her reaction, Zach stifled a grin.
When finally she looked at him, she did so through narrowed eyes. “It’s not illegal to spread human ashes in Colorado. You can hire a pilot and plane to do it. I couldn’t afford that, so I did this instead.”
“We have a local ordinance against that, ma’am. Your driver’s license, please?”
She held his stare for a long moment. He could almost see the wheels turning in her mind until suddenly tears welled in her big brown eyes. “It was all I had of her … the bag … I wanted to keep it. A keepsake. Oh, Grams.”
Her obvious sadness stirred every chivalrous atom in his DNA to life, and when the tears overflowed, a ridiculous offer to climb down the sheer cliff and retrieve her bag hovered on his tongue. Zach wore the thrill-seeker label proudly and carried climbing gear in his truck at all times, but descending the sheer rock face from Lover’s Leap wasn’t done on a whim. He wasn’t a man ordinarily manipulated by tears, and he didn’t like the idea that it was happening now. His voice gruff, he began, “Listen, lady—”
“Savannah. My name is Savannah.”
Ah. He put the clues together. “Savannah Sophia Moore. You’re the new girl in town. The soap maker.”
A wary look entered her eyes.
“My friends mentioned you,” he explained. “You’re the talk of Eternity Springs.”
“I am?”
“New resident and business owner. It’s great for the tax base.”
Now that he wasn’t busy saving her from suicide or drowning in her eyes, he understood why Nic and the others had been quick to mention her to him. The woman was gorgeous.
Long, thick lashes framed those spectacular brown eyes. Her hair was a just-out-of-bed sexy blond tousle, and her cheekbones were high and her lips full. Then there was that Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue build. Seriously gorgeous, seriously hot. A true Georgia peach any man would like to pick.
Once again she cast a sorrowful gaze toward the point. “Sarah Murphy told me about this place. I’ve hardly encountered any red tape as I’ve settled into Eternity Springs, so it never occurred to me that I’d need a permit for today’s private matter.” Wiping away the tears, she added, “My grandmother raised me after my mother died. We were very close. Losing her has broken my heart. I’m afraid I didn’t think things through properly.”
Now Zach felt like a heel. “Don’t worry about the permit. Just promise me you won’t disregard warning signs or climb over guardrails or do anything else reckless, and we’ll call it a wash.”
“Thank you. And you don’t have to worry about me, Sheriff. I have absolutely no intention of doing anything to cause you further concern.”
He was distracted from the vehement note in her voice by the power of the smile that accompanied the thank-you. It was sunshine giving birth to a rainbow in the aftermath of a violent storm. The beauty of it, of her, took his breath away.
He stared at her, suddenly tongue-tied. All his usual masculine confidence and swagger disappeared beneath a flood of bashfulness. He felt like a high school freshman trying to talk to the