Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
“You’re being dramatic,” my friend Natalie Bauer, the local florist, assured me. “He’s a beautiful, enchanting man.”
He was absolutely not that.
The first time I met him in person, I was crossing our two-lane road and heard the brrp-brrp of the siren behind me, which, because I was focused on not dropping anything from the farmers’ market, had nearly scared me to death.
“You need to use the crosswalk,” he informed me as his SUV glided next to me. The car had the words Osprey Police on the side in the most garish shade of blue I’d ever seen. The last chief had a cruiser, but the vehicles had been upgraded for Chief MacBain. “You could get hit if you’re jaywalking. Next time you’re getting a ticket.”
What?
We had one traffic light in our entire town. Everybody jaywalked. No one used the crosswalk. Ever. Why was I being singled out?
The next time we met, I was walking along the shoulder of the road, and he stopped his SUV right in front of me, got out, and told me, “You should be walking on the other side of the road, against traffic, not with it. That’s how people get kidnapped and murdered.”
What?
“Use your head.”
Use my head?
Another time I was closing the library, having stayed to make sure everything got put back in its rightful place, and I was coming down the steps when there he was, lights flashing, illuminating the dark parking lot. There were lights on the street but nothing in the lot. But this was Osprey, not Manhattan.
“It’s dark out here,” he said like this was news. “You should have a flashlight and a taser in case there’s trouble.”
Trouble? At the library?
“You don’t know who could be lurking.”
Lurking? In Osprey?
Did I think it was right for young men or women to be out alone at night in the dark? No, of course not. But there were things he didn’t know about me. I was hardly helpless.
Next, he stopped me at the grocery store as I was getting a new grease pencil. I smiled at him before he said, “You know you need to pay for that.”
I looked at him, confused.
He reached out and gently pulled the writing instrument from behind my ear where I’d tucked it. “This is called shoplifting.”
What?
He could not be serious, and I was about to say something horrible, really give him a piece of my mind.
“Oh no,” Benny Haskins, the store owner, told the chief from where he was behind the front counter. “Xan brought a basket of strawberries for my wife in exchange. He’s fine.”
I smiled up at the chief. “You see, I’m not a criminal.”
He just scowled at me and left.
“What did you do to Chief MacBain?” Benny asked me.
I had no idea.
Whenever I saw him, he was frowning, never smiled, and I was always doing something wrong he needed to point out.
The last time I parked my bike downtown, I got in trouble for no lock and no bicycle license. I had to go to the city hall to get one, and Avril Thompson had me behind the counter helping her look for the form, since she could not remember the last time someone got one.
The man was ridiculous, and why I was his special project, I had no idea.
“I would love to be his special anything,” Jennifer Dougherty was saying as we walked together to the piano store she owned and where she gave lessons. She was fabulous. She looked and dressed like a 1940s movie star, all glamour and big hats, cat-eye sunglasses, A-line dresses, and very high heels. “You’re lucky.”
“I don’t want to be lucky,” I told her just as we were about to cross the street and the chief pulled up in front of the crosswalk, leaned out his window, and warned me not to jaywalk. “I’m not going to!” I snarled at him.
“See that you don’t.” Then he was on his way, not even noticing when he ran a red light.
“He could have caused an accident,” I groused to my friend.
“His eyes are so dark,” she said with a really annoying sigh. “And the arms on that man,” she nearly purred. “Really, I could do with him watching over me.”
I didn’t need watching over, and I definitely didn’t need a snarly shadow stopping to remind me that while riding a bike, hand signals were required in traffic. What traffic?
It was maddening.
That morning, when he got out of the passenger seat of the SUV, I noted he had the same expression as always when he saw me—a grimace. Now I was certain he was unhappy to be at my home, and likely also not thrilled to be out in the cold, damp early morning November air.
“Morning, Xan,” Deputy Peter Rooney called over with a wave.
“Pete,” I returned the greeting, smiling. Pete had been my friend since third grade, when he and his family had moved here. “Would you like some tea?”