“They’re for my mother,” she finally said. It had been two days since that phone call with her mother asking her to stay away from Jonah. And they’d been good days.
“Yeah, yeah. They’ll be ready in ten. Want one of those cinnamon rolls you love so much while you wait?”
Yes, dammit, she did. But then she’d ruin her appetite for the pancakes. “No, thanks.”
He lifted a brow, his lips still curved. “Suit yourself.”
Man, he was annoying. An annoying jerk with the best pancakes she’d ever tasted.
She turned to glance around the shop. David Collins sat in one corner, Anika and Mark at a center table. Anika was leaning in, a flirty smile on her face, while Mark just grinned at her. Then there was a table with the sheriff and a couple of his deputies.
She walked over to Ward.
Their town sheriff glanced up at her and leaned back. “Polly. Something I can help you with?”
“Has there been any progress on the Teagan Kimm case?”
“Now, darlin’, you know I can’t go and give information on an active case.”
Probably because therewasno information. “Can you at least tell me if you’ve linked her disappearance to the others? So many women have been killed that this has to be?—”
“Polly.” Ward’s voice hardened, and she didn’t miss his deputies glancing away awkwardly. “Leave it to the professionals. Okay?”
Her jaw clenched. Just because Ward was a “professional” didn’t mean he was the best person for the job.
She’d just reached the counter again when the door opened and Martha Dawson walked in.
God almighty, this was not her morning. She’d assumed they’d left town.
“Hi, Martha,” she said, when the woman reached her. “I thought you’d be back in Houston by now.”
“I went to see you at Bloom, but they told me you were here.”
She needed to vet her staff more. “I already told you, I’m not taking the check, so what do you want?”
Her lips pursed. “I want you to know exactly what you’ve done before I leave.”
“What I’ve done?”
“You began dating a man who was engaged and spoken for.”
Heads turned at the volume of Martha’s voice. Anika and Mark. Ward’s table. Even Basil seemed to pause in lifting plates from a booth.
“That’s not true,” Polly replied, when what she really wanted to do was slap that arrogant look off the woman’s face.
“It is. You’re quite the little homewrecker. And in taking him, you’ve also taken his future. A future that held so much more than whatever he has here. You’ll have to live with that.”
“I’m not going to waste my breath telling you what he’s gained by making this decision, because if you don’t understand by now, you never will.”
“What I understand is that he’s made some pretty poor choices in his life, but allowing you to break up his engagement is by far the worst.”
Jesus. She was delusional. She actually believed that if Polly wasn’t in the picture, he’d just hop on back to Houston and marry the woman they’d chosen for him.
“You didn’t come here to defend your son, so don’t pretend this is all for him. You came because you can’t stand that he’s actually choosing how to live his life for himself. You can’t stand that you can’t control him.” Polly paused. “And you really hate that the only version of him that is ruined is the one you could manage.”
Martha gasped.
“I am very happy with every decision I have made, Martha. And I wish you nothing but the best.” As long as that best was far,farfrom here.
