Kiss Me, Sheriff!. Wendy Warren

set the timer on the oven so she wouldn’t burn the cookies while she cleaned the marble countertop. She hadn’t moved to Thunder Ridge, eight hundred miles from family, friends and a brilliant career as a chef and culinary arts instructor so that she could forget everything. No. She’d moved so that she could live the way she wanted to—quietly, privately. She’d moved so she could hang on to the one thing that still held her broken heart together: her memories.

      So far, she saw no reason to change.

      * * *

      When Derek walked through the door to the sheriff’s office at seven-twenty, the sun was still trying to make its first appearance of the morning. The lights inside the large boxy room, however, were burning and emitted a warm, welcoming glow completely at odds with the rubber band that whizzed past his head with such force it could surely be classified a lethal weapon. Rearing back, Derek tightened his hold on the coffee cup, popping open the plastic lid and sloshing hot coffee over his hand and onto the linoleum floor.

      “Russell,” he growled.

      “Sorry!”

      Derek’s deputy, Russell Annen, whipped his feet off the wide desk in front of him and stood. “I was aiming for Bat Masterson.” He jerked his thumb at a poster of Old West sheriffs on the wall opposite him as he ran to fetch paper towels and sop up the spill.

      “I hope you aim a gun better than you shoot rubber bands.” Derek had almost had his eye put out on several occasions by Russell’s wayward shots. “Slow night?”

      “Yup.” Russell bent to clean the mess. “Slow morning, too.”

      “You might as well take off then.”

      “I have another forty-five minutes.”

      “That’s okay. You can get an early start.” Heading for his desk, Derek noted the remains of Russell’s breakfast littering the blotter: a liter bottle of soda and an open, half-eaten box of chocolate-covered donut holes. “Get a blood panel, would ya, Russell?” he suggested. “Check your sugar and cholesterol levels.”

      His deputy grinned. “Hey, I have to get my fix somewhere. LeeAnn watched some video about diet and heart disease, and now all she makes when I come over is vegetables and beans.”

      “Smart woman. You should marry her.”

      “I hate beans. Before that video, we used to look for the best burger-and-brew pubs. Now when we go to Portland, she wants to find vegan restaurants. Do I look like I’m meant to be vegan?”

      Derek eyed his six-foot-tall, two-hundred-pound deputy. “You do not.”

      Russell began to wander toward their work area instead of toward the door, and Derek felt his shoulders tense. Seating himself behind the big oak desk, he pretended to become engrossed in his computer screen. Every morning after seeing Willa at the bakery, he required a few minutes alone to debrief himself. Willa took up residence in his thoughts more than anyone or, lately, anything else. It took some effort to refocus, and he liked to do that in private. His love life—or current lack of one—was his business, no one else’s.

      On that note, he said pointedly before Russell could sit down, “Enjoy your time off.”

      “I was planning to.” Russell sighed heavily. “Before.”

      Do not, I repeat, do not take the bait. But Russell looked like a giant puppy whose favorite chew toy was stolen. Give me patience. “Okay.” Derek crossed his forearms on the desk. “Before what?”

      Closing the distance between himself and the desk, Russell dropped into the chair opposite Derek’s. “See, it’s this way. I made reservations for dinner up at Summit Lodge. Tonight. Their special is prime rib.” He practically moaned the end of the sentence. “Eleven o’clock last night, LeeAnn tells me her cousin is in town today through the end of the week.”

      “So?”

      “So, LeeAnn is refusing to go anywhere unless Penelope has something to do, too. And, someone to do it with.”

      “Can’t she find something to do on her own?”

      Russell slapped his palm on the desktop. “Dude, right? That’s what I said. But Penelope and LeeAnn are females, see? They don’t think like us.”

      Derek waited for more. “Okay. And?”

      “So the only way I can go out with LeeAnn this week is if we double date.”

      It took a couple of seconds—only a couple—to understand. “No.” Laughing humorlessly, Derek shook his head. “No way.”

      “It would just be for a couple of dates.”

      Picking up what was left of the coffee he’d brought over from the bakery, Derek leaned back so that his chair tilted on two legs. “No.”

      “Three dates, tops.”

      The front chair legs landed on the floor again with a thud. “Maybe you don’t know this about me, Russell. I don’t go on blind dates. Ever.” He took a sip of coffee. “Good luck. I’m sure you’ll find someone.”

      “LeeAnn thinks you and Penelope—”

      “Someone else.”

      Blowing his breath out in frustration, Russell stood. “Fine.” He turned and took several steps toward the door. Derek began to relax, but obviously everything was not fine, because Russell turned back. “It’s not that you turn down blind dates. You don’t date at all.”

      Narrowing his eyes, Derek warned, “Russell—”

      “Not since that night at The White Lightning when you left with the woman who works at the bakery—”

      “—you should go now.”

      “I saw how you looked when you left with her. Everyone saw it. LeeAnn gave me holy hell for a week after that, wanting to know why I didn’t look at her that way.”

      Derek was on his feet before he realized it. He didn’t even remember putting down his coffee. Laugh it off, he advised himself, but he didn’t feel very humorous. Covering his eyes, he took a deep breath and dragged his hand over his face. “What is your point?”

      “I expected you to tell me you went to Vegas that night and got married by Elvis. But ever since then, you act like a monk. You wouldn’t talk about what happened with her, but it obviously didn’t work out, so why not go out with someone else? Why not Penelope? LeeAnn says she’s fun, and she’s not even vegan. I asked.”

      Derek looked down at the desk. His feelings for Willa baffled even him; the last thing he wanted to do this morning was attempt to explain them to somebody else. “I’m going to make a pot of coffee now, while you get going.” He glanced up again. “If you don’t, I may decide to take a few days off and put you on extra shifts.”

      The phone rang before either of them could say anything more, and Derek snatched it up. He listened for a bit, said, “Don’t do anything. I’ll be there in ten minutes,” and hung up. “Jerry Ellison’s potbellied pig knocked down Ron Raybold’s fence again,” he told Russell, “and Ron is threatening to shoot it and have a luau. I’m heading out.”

      Resignedly following his boss to the door, Russell asked, “Jerry is single, isn’t he?”

      “Yeah.”

      “When you talk to him, ask if he wants to go out with Penelope.”

      While Russell headed to his car, Derek put the “On a call... Back later” sign on the front door and went to forestall a neighborhood feud. Being the sheriff of Thunder Ridge was nine parts relationship mediation and one part active police duties. Truth was, most of the time he wouldn’t have it any other way. He might not have been born here, but he’d found a home for the first time in this place where, rogue pot-bellied pigs aside, people cared about each other’s business mostly because they cared about each other.

      His