“Oh, so not. Realist on my best days.”
“This must be a great day.”
“It started out pretty good so far. Naked. With a beautiful woman.”
“Only one of us was naked.”
“Statement stands.” The intense look he gave me was going to make me blush, so I reached down and patted Spud’s head one more time. He nosed at my hand and opened his mouth in a big doggy smile.
“I should head out now.” I glanced back up. Ryder was still smiling, like he knew what that smile did to me. “Bye, Ryder.”
“Bye, Laney. Don’t forget the donuts.”
“I’m not going to forget the donuts.” I already had, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
Chapter 4
I STOPPED by the Puffin Muffin Bakery on the south end of town. Hogan wasn’t manning the counter, which meant he was somewhere in the back working the ovens in a cloud of flour and heat and rock and roll.
The girl handling the breakfast rush was young, chipper, and the daughter of the high school principal.
I ordered a dozen donuts, a couple popovers, and a loaf of rosemary sourdough. My mouth watered as I inhaled the sweet, buttery smells of the shop, and my stomach grumbled.
When had I last eaten? Dinner? Lunch? Vending machine?
I made a mental note to catch at least one solid meal a day. The rally would keep me running, but that was no excuse not to eat.
I devoured an apple fritter and a cinnamon cruller on the way to the station and was in a much better mood. If I could land a hot cup of coffee, I’d count this day as a win.
Dawn crept over the Coastal Range, the heavy wing shadow of the hills pulling slowly away from the ocean and shoreline like a curtain revealing the stage.
The station was still in shadow, a one-story building on the south side of Easy River, tucked back off the main road and surrounded on two sides by an empty lot that had gone to forest.
Three cars were in the parking lot, one of them Jean’s truck, but Myra’s cruiser wasn’t among them. I wondered if she was getting photos of the crime scene, or more likely, still trying to get Dan Perkin to cool down.
I strolled through the front door and dropped the two boxes of pastries on Jean’s desk, right between her Snape bobblehead doll and Dr. Orpheus figurine.
“Donuts,” I announced. “Stop telling everyone in town I don’t feed you.”
Jean was the youngest of the Reed girls, and arguably the most cheerful.
While my hair was brown, and Myra kept her hair black, Jean’s hair was whatever color she wanted that morning. Current preference? Purple and blue with a streak of red in the front, all of it braided down behind both ears. She’d somehow inherited our grandmother’s blonde hair naturally—which, according to her, made it perfect for dying—and her blue eyes were deep and dark, like Mom’s.
“Holy crap! You finally brought me donuts!”
“Among other things.”
Jean stood and opened the box lids, grinning. “Aw…you remembered the maple cayenne sea-salt bars. You’re my hero.”
“Oh?” I stopped by the table with the coffee pot and poured a cup of overcooked coffee. “I heard Hogan was your hero.”
I watched her out of the corner of my eye.
She was stuffing the maple cayenne abomination in her mouth and paused, her thin body still as she stared at me.
The only thing that could freeze my sister like that was the truth.
Wow. So she did like him.
