Chapter One
There he was, right on time.
Maxie flinched when the sheriff’s car pulled up in front of her flower shop.It wasn’t that she was alarmed.She’d known he was coming.She’d been futzing around for the last fifteen minutes or so, waiting for him, yet her heart still beat faster.Keeping her chin tilted downward, she focused on the arrangement she was making, but the task only required a tiny portion of her brain.All her real attention was directed outside on the street.
On him.
She watched as he rose from the cruiser—tall, buff and blond.He raked a hand through his hair as the morning breeze tousled it, and her sigh hummed in the air.Sheriff Zac Ford.
Yum.
For the past two weeks, he’d stopped every morning to get coffee at the shop next door.Two weeks and two days…not that she was counting.He never parked in the space in front of Java Mama’s, always in front of hers…not that she was complaining.
Not at all.
Out of habit, she fluffed blooms and plucked at stems.It wasn’t so much that he was good-looking.Hewas, and he definitely knew how to wear that uniform.More than anything, though, she liked the way hemoved.It was like a physical symphony, all those tight muscles bunching and releasing in harmony.
As if sensing her, the sheriff’s gaze swung to her storefront window.
The baby’s breath she was using as filler slipped from her fingers.She reached for it and nearly knocked over the entire vase of flowers.By the time she’d righted everything, she glanced up to see him moving on.
With what looked like a smile on his face.
Heart beating double-time, she glanced around the shop.He couldn’t see in here, could he?Not with all the plants and the nooks and shadows.She was behind her work counter.He couldn’t know that she’d been spying on him.He couldn’t, because then…
Well, then she’d just have to die.
She jammed the baby’s breath into a hole in the arrangement and then took it out again when she realized the fragile flowers were crushed.Her chest tight, she risked another peek out the window.A potted philodendron blocked her view.She moved to see past it and let out a breath of relief—or maybe it was disappointment.Whatever she’d thought she’d seen, he was turning into the coffee shop without a second glance back.
She dipped her chin.“You’ve got it bad, girl.”
She couldn’t help her curiosity.Indigo Falls was a small town.Everybody knew when a stranger arrived, and this one had been welcomed with open arms.Sheriff Ford had taken office after a special election in the spring.He’d moved from Chicago, and although there were still questions about why he’d want to come here, to a little resort town on the Cobalt River, the vote hadn’t even been close.As a former big city vice detective, he was experienced, tough, andlook at him.He’d swept the female vote.
Maxie nibbled on her lower lip.She’d voted for him because he was qualified, certainly more so than Martin Shimwell, the town librarian’s son.She’d voted with her head and her conscience.It was only now that other parts of her body were overruling common sense.
As if on cue, the heat in her belly slid lower, and her face warmed.
She had a crush on Zac Ford, plain and simple.A huge, insides-tingling, breath-shortening crush.
And therein lay the problem.
She briskly tidied up the discarded baby’s breath.It didn’t matter if she liked him or if he might have smiled back, because to her a crush was just that—overwhelming, weighty,debilitating.
Frustration built up inside her.She wished that flirting came to her as easily as flower arranging.She wished a lot of things did.There were so many things she wanted to do, so many things she wanted to try, yet as her grandmother had liked to say, Maxie was “a timid sort”.
God, she hated that label.
She hated even worse that it fit.
Whipping out a red ribbon, she looped it around the neck of the vase and knotted it.She didn’t know when the timidity had started.It had always been that way.Even as a child, she’d been hesitant to do the things she’d desperately wanted to do.She struggled to put fresh baby’s breath into the flower arrangement, but a memory lodged in her brain and refused to go away.
“Stupid puddle,” she muttered.
She’d been young, maybe three or four, and on a trip to the zoo with her family.She even had a video of the day.On the tape, her younger version’s eyes had grown big and excited upon seeing a puddle that had been left from a rainstorm the previous night.It had been perfect for splashing, so big and round and deep.She’d run towards the standing water, arms waving and dark hair streaming, right until she’d gotten to the edge.Right until.Watching it years later, she could practically feel the invisible hand that had reached out and snatched her back.Toes tickling the edge of the water, little Maxie had looked over her shoulder, directly into the camera.Her big brown eyes had been searching, almost pleading.Her gaze had darted around from one zoo visitor to the next.
But why?What had she been looking for?Permission?Encouragement?
Even now, she didn’t know.
