Yet she counted the minutes every day until he would be back and she could see him again.
He was here for at least one meal every day.Today it was lunch.At first she’d tried letting Judy or one of the other waitresses take his table, but he’d shut that down immediately.Now everyone knew he only wanted her.
His words, not hers.
And they did funny things to her insides.
He had another police officer with him today—not Ronnie Kitchens, the deputy who sometimes came in with Tanner.This guy was younger, a little chubby, wearing his brown sheriff’s uniform like he wasn’t quite comfortable with the fit.
Probably because the guy looked like he couldn’t be but half a day out of police officer school, or whatever it was called.
Bree grabbed a couple of glasses of water and brought them out to Tanner’s table.
“Hi.”She set the glasses down and looked everywhere but at Tanner’s face.She knew darn well what he looked like.Those brown eyes had been starring front and center in her dreams for the last two weeks.
“Hey.How’s your day going?Twins sleep all right last night?”
She felt his fingers against her hand where it was still wrapped around his glass of water.“Yeah.Even Christian slept five hours in one stretch.”
She slipped her hand away from his and stuck both of them in the back pockets of her jeans, still staring down at the glasses.
Her withdrawal didn’t seem to faze Tanner at all.“Five hours.That’s a record for that little guy, isn’t it?”
Now she looked him in the face, drawn in immediately by those deep brown eyes like she’d known she would be.
The moment stretched out between them.
“Hey there,” he whispered, smiling, just like he had every day when she finally broke down and met his eyes.He was always patient, never frustrated that she found it hard to interact with him.
“You have twins?Holy cow!”Baby-face cop’s booming question broke the moment.She looked away from Tanner and over at him.“I couldn’t imagine having one baby, much less two.I’m Scott Watson.Nice to meet you.”
She shook his outstretched hand as he grinned at her.
“I’m Bree.”
“Scott is on an intercounty task force.He’s been traveling around to different departments, helping to regulate social media, reports, general communication with the public.He’ll be here a week or so.”
“I volunteered.”Scott grinned.“Gives me a chance to meet people from all over Colorado.See towns and counties I might not get regular interaction with otherwise.”
“No offense,” Bree said, “but you almost don’t seem old enough to be traveling around by yourself.”
Scott chuckled, and the sound was so contagious Bree had to smile, too.“I know!I get that all the time.I wanted to do undercover work, but I was told they didn’t get much call for chubby middle school kids undercover.”He patted his smooth, round cheeks.
“I’ll admit, I was a little irritated when I got the email about your arrival yesterday,” Tanner said.
“Yesterday?”Scott’s smile turned into a scowl.“You should’ve received the memo from the task force at least a month ago.”
“Ends up I did, almost five weeks ago.Somehow it ended up in my junk mail.”
“I’m still sorry.This sort of miscommunication is one of the things I’m trying to help eliminate.And I promise I won’t be in your way.Just stuff me in an office under the stairs.Of course, if you have any action going on, I’d love to be a part of that, too.”
Tanner just smiled.“We’ll see.”
Bree took their orders—Scott’s choice of the pancake stack was not going to help his chubby middle school kid persona—when Tanner grabbed her hand again.
“I see who’s back.”He gestured toward the creepy, thin guy’s table with his head.“You have any problems with him?”
She shook her head.“No.Nothing concrete, as usual.”
