Travis

“Did I hear that right?” Deb Bryant, the Pelion Police Department dispatcher asked. “You put out an APB on a number of house plants that went missing from the side of the road?”

“Yup,” I said. “They were stolen.”

“From the side of the road. Where someone left them.”

“Yes.”

“And flyers were hung in town? About the . . . stolen plants. Left on the side of the road.”

I leaned on the counter. “Perhaps this person didn’t know that they belonged to someone else. I’m not looking to convict, only to recover the property.”

“Travis Hale. Sometimes you concern me.” She smiled affectionately. “And surprise me.” I’d take that as a compliment. I smiled back.

“This is for a woman, I presume?”

I grinned. “How’d you know?”

“I didn’t know. That’s where the surprise comes in. This is very unlike you.” She paused. “I like it.”

“She’s just a friend.” I laughed, pushing off the counter and walking back to my office.

Spencer walked in a few minutes later. “You won’t believe the information I’ve found on Easton Torres from California.”

I set the phone messages I’d been going through back down on my desk, removed my reading glasses, and looked up at him. “Warrants?”

“No. But—”

“A call just came in about the missing plants!” Deb said, bursting into my office.

“Really?” I stood. “Who called?”

“Marc Hobbs out on Lark Lane.”

“Travis, before you leave, I had an important question!” Spencer said urgently.

“What is it?”

“Well, conducting this research got me thinking . . .”

Uh-oh. Spencer doing any sort of in-depth “thinking” never seemed to bode well for . . . pretty much, anyone. He was an excellent rule follower, but I wished he’d leave the “thinking” to others more suited for cerebral pursuits.

“You know, about our community and all the decent, upstanding people who live here in Pelion.”

“Uh-huh.” I made a gesture of impatience that he should speed this up. I had plants to rescue.

“And I thought, what if we formed a community relations group that might help inform our office about infractions?”

Infractions? That sounded a little bit like asking the public to snitch on their neighbors over minor offenses that the police department didn’t need to be involved with. But Pelion citizens weren’t like that. We’d only grown closer over the years, and especially since the . . . drama that had ensued eight years ago. People looked out for each other, more than anything. Good had come from the shock of events involving the Hale family. But Spencer was standing there, looking so eager, and hell, maybe it would be a good thing for the community and those who wanted to get more involved. “Listen, Spencer, if this community relations 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.”

Spencer looked mildly shocked. “Really? Great! Thanks, bo—Travis.”

“Think small budget, though.”

“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.”

“It just melts my heart the way the Pelion Police Department looks out for its citizens, in matters both big and small. I tell Marc all the time, I say, Marc, we are lucky to be part of this lovely community. The wonders your brother has made happen since . . . well . . . since—”

“I agree,” I said softly, knowing the color creeping up her neck had to do with the fact that she’d been about to bring up my mother and how much better the town ran now that Victoria Hale and her selfish motives had moved three towns away.

“I do have some bad news though,” she said, hesitantly. “You see, I had good intentions but apparently, I just don’t have much of a green thumb. Those plants might have done better if I’d just left them on the side of the road and let the small amount of rain we’ve had do its thing.”

She led me to the screened-in porch off the back of the house. Five dehydrated, miserable-looking plants sat near the window, staring longingly out at the water beyond.

Ten minutes later, the plants stuffed in my backseat, a trail of leaves leading from the Hobbs’s front door to my cruiser, I waved out my window, peeling off down the street. “Stay with me, guys,” I told the plants.

I picked up my cell phone and called Haven’s number.

“Chief Hale,” she said sweetly.

“Are you home?”

Home. Had I really started thinking of The Yellow Trellis Inn as home?

“Uh, yes. Why?”

“Meet me out front,” I demanded. “And bring . . .” My mind searched for the right apparatus or product or tool that might help these sorry suckers. “Bring the hose!” I shouted.