She pointed the muzzle toward the sky and took her finger off the trigger.
“Sneaking up behind people will get you shot.” She made no apology to the stranger, though she knew her reaction was overkill. Her heart rate was shooting over the top, her eyes hyperaware of the darkness beyond the parking lot.
Calm the hell down! she yelled at herself.
He took a step back, hands still high. “Way too much work.” He stopped staring at the gun to look her up and down. “Too bad.” Then he turned and walked away.
For a full minute, she leaned against her Jeep and pulled her shit together.
She returned her gun to her shoulder harness and opened the Jeep door.
Then she heard clapping.
“Well done.”
The shadow of a man stood on the other side of the street, leaning against a tree.
Three steps out of the light given off by R&B’s lot and Jo’s focus matched the face with the voice.
“You’re mighty close to breaking your parole, Ziggy.”
“A hundred yards.” He nodded toward the bar. “I’m guessing I’m at least two.”
She stepped close enough to see his eyes, maybe catch alcohol on his breath. Anything to pull him in on a charge that would take him back to jail.
“You always threaten civilians with those guns of yours, JoAnne?”
“It’s Sheriff to you, Mr. Brown.”
He leered a slow slide down her body and back up. “You don’t look like a cop tonight.”
Jo shook off the feeling of walking into a spiderweb the size of a house, filled with a new hatch of eight-legged creepers.
“I’m always a cop, Mr. Brown. Now how about you tell me what you’re doing out, in the dark, at ten o’clock at night?”
He shifted his frame off the tree and stretched his arms over his head. “Rained most the day. I needed to get my exercise in. I’m not much welcome in town. Can’t help it if R&B’s is on the road.”
She didn’t buy it. “You’re out for a walk?”
“Free country. And I’m a free man.”
“You’re on a leash.”
The smile on his face faded.
“You like to tie ’em up, do ya, Sheriff?”
The conversation made her want to heave. If it weren’t for the fact that she had her gun within reach, she would have ended the conversation before it began.
Noise from inside the bar drifted out as a group exited the building.
“I’m watching you, Ziggy.”
He lifted his defiant chin. “You do that.”
She wanted to shoot him just on principle. Instead, she took the few steps to her Jeep, got in, and then blinded him with her headlights.
Ziggy put his hands in his pockets.
Jo put a hand on her gun.
Then he turned and made his way back toward home.
She passed him on the road ten minutes later.
It started to rain.
Ziggy had sat across the street from R&B’s waiting for his contact. He needed a ticket out of this one-cop town. Needed a place where he could walk into a liquor store and buy a fucking beer. To do that, he needed money. The pennies Sheryl brought home were nothing, barely enough to eat off of.
When he noticed little JoAnne Ward’s Jeep in the drive, he tucked back in the shadows and waited.
His contact pulled into the parking lot, flashed his lights . . . and when Ziggy didn’t come out, he drove away.
He’d been pissed, but once he saw the sheriff walk from the bar, a man in tow, the voyeur in him came out.
Watching her pull a gun and hearing the waver in her voice when she told the guy off showered Ziggy with information.
The woman carried her gun, even in civilian clothes. Not sure why he hadn’t seen that coming. The other thing he realized was that he had her running scared. Lord knew he loved the power of a woman shaking. The thought of doing more than scaring little Miss Ward had crossed his mind more than once. Taking what she was good for would result in him having to kill her. There would be no turning back from that.
He was told, on the inside, that once a man killed someone, beating the shit out of others didn’t make sense.
Still, when she’d blown off Casanova, Ziggy just had to fuck with her.
He knew his rights and knew there wasn’t much she could do but shake a fist at him. And if she did cuff him, all the better. He wouldn’t resist . . . no way. He’d make her know just how willing he was to spread his legs to have her pat him down.
He watched her sitting in her Jeep before turning his way back to the trailer.
Only when it started to rain did Ziggy cuss out the night.
Mel stepped into the kitchen of the bed-and-breakfast, shaking the rain from her jacket. “Is it ever going to let up?”
Zoe juggled several pans full of crepes, eggs, and breakfast sausage.
“You’ve been back for over a year. You would think you’d be used to it by now.”
Mel hung her jacket on the hook by the back door. “Living in California all that time thinned my blood.”
“I didn’t have that problem in Texas. Rains there all the time.”
“That smells amazing.” Mel removed an apron from the walk-in pantry and wrapped it around her waist.
The weekend routine was starting to find its pace. The inn was close to capacity on weekends, with bookings spilling into the week.
Miss Gina hired two of the high school girls to come in and help with the housekeeping while the guests were in the dining room, enjoying breakfast.