group focuses more on neighbors looking out for one another, and reporting on situations that might result in someone getting hurt, you have my approval.”
“Absolutely. I asked, and Birdie Ellis has already volunteered to be on the committee and to donate any printing we might need.”
Birdie Ellis. One of the biggest gossips in town, with a penchant toward dictatorship. She was always volunteering for one church or community-focused group so she could boss people around and generally assert her will. But if she was offering free printing from the company she and her husband ran, why not? I moved around Spencer. “You’re in charge of this, Spencer. I don’t need to be consulted unless necessary. And . . . keep up the good work,” I said, patting him on the shoulder and rushing out of the room, glad he had something to occupy him so he wasn’t tagging along behind me on runs we both didn’t need to be involved in. Namely, this one.
“Good luck!” Deb called with the amount of joyful enthusiasm she usually reserved for cat-in-tree rescue runs. I shot her a smile as the front door swung closed behind me.
As I drove, I allowed my mind to travel back to the kiss of the night before, remembering how, even in her anger, or maybe especially in her anger, she’d been so incredibly beautiful my heart had nearly stopped. Her cheeks had been flushed, those untamed curls bouncing around her face. I’d been both mesmerized and guilt-stricken.
I’d been an ass. It came easily to me.
And I’d been an ass because I’d been jealous. Jealous that she was there for Gage. There to try to impress Gage, to get him to notice her. Of course, I couldn’t tell her that. I didn’t even completely understand it myself.
We shouldn’t.
I tapped at the steering wheel, considering the knowledge that she was also clearly interested in Gage. Jealousy wasn’t exactly a novelty in my repertoire of emotions. Truth be told, maybe I’d spent much of my life being jealous. But this had felt different . . . I didn’t know how it had felt different, but it had.
Was I being petty? I didn’t want to be petty when it came to Haven. I wanted to be better than that.
Why?
I wasn’t sure.
But that kiss. The kiss had shaken me. I was still shaken.
I was a thirty-two-year-old man who was far from a virgin and . . . God, I’d had no idea a kiss could be like that. If we’d been anywhere other than Gage’s patio during a party where anyone might have seen us, I’d have tried to take it further. Undress her. Feel her extremely soft skin against mine. Taste her everywhere. Why? Because I was turned on, and even though maybe Haven wasn’t the sort of woman I normally went for, she’d ticked every box in that dress.
I adjusted myself in my seat, a flush of hot arousal at the thought of getting Haven naked and beneath me making me feel in control again.
This, this feeling I could identify and understand, even if I’d thought twice about acting on it once my blood had cooled and we’d arrived back at the B&B the night before.
I still felt shaky on why I was on a plant rescue mission, other than that I owed her. Again, I’d been an ass. I’d set her up. I’d upset her. In a way that’d made me want to simultaneously comfort and distract her from whatever was happening in that head of hers. She’d been spiraling.
In any case, I’d been the cause of her distress, and I wanted to make it up to her.
Marc Hobbs and his wife, Lynn, had a cottage right on the lake near the one Bree had rented when she first visited Pelion. I knocked on their front door and removed my hat when Lynn opened it. “Oh, Chief Hale, come in. I saw the flyer at the grocery store this morning and texted Marc to call the office right away. I didn’t realize they belonged to someone else when I picked them up.” She eyed me nervously.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Mrs. Hobbs. It was just a misunderstanding. But the plants were important to the citizen who, er, was forced to abandon them due to circumstances beyond her control, and the police department takes the concerns of all its citizens seriously and steps in where we’re able and time allows.”