“And now?”
“Now? If the offer is still open, I’d like to go to the Ball with you.”
He lowered his mouth to hers, capturing a tentative kiss.
Startled, she drew back, still within the circle of his arm around her waist.
“I’m sorry. Did I frighten you?” he breathed.
“No, I…” She bit her lip. What did she say? She had only the one experience with Joe. Hay’s kiss was different, exciting, and scary.
Wonderfully scary, indeed.
“Dusty, I had no intention of falling in love with you.”
“Silly, we’ve only known each other a couple of days.”
“I feel like I’ve known you all my life. Or maybe you are the one I’ve been searching for since the beginning of time.”
“I… I’ve never met anyone like you before.” She bit her lip in indecision.
“Do you believe in love at first sight?”
“I believe in lust at first sight that can grow into love.” At least that’s what she’d always told herself when she outgrew the teen romance books she devoured when she was sixteen. She’d repeated the mantra with each failed date arranged by her family when the total lack of passion, or even interest guaranteed there would be no second date.
“Then believe in this.” He captured her mouth again with his, enticing her into a response with gentle flicks of his tongue.
Dusty became malleable clay under his brilliant ministrations. She experienced new flares from belly to head that left her dizzy. Simmers of longing from his mobile mouth on hers glowed deep within her. Her arms crept around his neck, and she rose on tiptoe to bring them closer together.
Her knees turned to pudding. She clung to him even as she pulled her mouth free long enough to breathe.
“Relax, my darling. Trust me,” he whispered. “I’ll never hurt you.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” He kissed her again.
Her world exploded into myriad bright colors rivaling the last rays of the sun shooting above the ridge and sparkling across the river.
Chase scrubbed his eyes free of grit and looked up from his concentrated, fine-print reading. The little digital display on the bottom right of his computer screen read ten fifty two PM. God, he’d been searching and tracing link to link for the whole day and half the night.
But he’d found what he needed. There it was, in black and white, the incorporation papers for Pixel, Industries, Ltd. Signed by none other than Phelma Jo Nelson herself as CEO and sole stockholder. The date beside her signature was less than a week old.
The job order for the independent logger was dated three days later.
“Someone’s in a hurry,” he muttered. “Looks to me like she’s timed it deliberately to interfere with the Masque Ball.”
He stretched his back and arms, grateful for the release and cracking after so many hours hunched over his desk.
He saved the screen and printed out a copy. Then he stood and popped the kinks out of his knees.
“I need a walk. Or better yet an hour in the gym.” He felt flabby and weak. “The price of getting promoted to sergeant. Too much paperwork and not enough exercise.”
He walked a few steps, checked on the printer. It spat out the third of fifteen pages. He paced once around the desk, then out the door to the main corridor of the station. All the doors were closed. The gentle hum of powered-down technology greeted him. Nothing else. Not even the murmur of voices.
His route took him out to the lobby and past the dispatch desk.
“Don’t you ever go home, Mabel?” he asked as he came abreast of her.
She shrugged and shook her tightly permed gray hair that had hints of blue and pink streaked through it.
Sort of like Thistle’s black hair had deep purple highlights.
Then he remembered the pink bug flitting around Mabel’s front yard that paused and talked to first Thistle and then Haywood. Or rather Thistle and Haywood conversed with the bug. Chase hadn’t heard any replies. Maybe he’d watched from too far away.
Maybe he’d imagined the entire episode.
He didn’t think so.
“All the officers and my relief watch are out on patrol. Had three fistfights outside the liquor store and two inside the Old Mill Bar. I’m needed here to help process the paperwork,” she said.
“How many in lockup?” Chase asked, feeling guilty. He should have been out on the streets enforcing calm when the unrelenting heat stretched nerves taut and frayed tempers.
“Only the three who were too drunk to walk home.” She chuckled. “Del Payton hosed down the others to cool them off and sober them up.”
“So why don’t you go home now that the excitement is over?”
“What’s to go home for?” Mabel asked. She sounded a bit sleepy, her words almost slurred.
“You need to go home and tend to your army of Pixies who spy around town for you.” He threw back the line she’d given him about her source of gossip.
That hit home. Mabel reared back in her chair startled. Her mouth gaped. “How’d you know?”
She must be tired not to have a fast comeback cloaked in endearments.
“You told me.”
“But no one believes. Not anymore.”
“I didn’t used to. But I saw some things that have no other explanation. And I believe.” He did. Strangely he did.
A huge weight seemed to lift from his shoulders, leaving him light and free and full of renewed energy.
“Bless you, boy. I’m glad. So, when I die, you can have the house and the yard and the Pixies. Someone needs to take care of them. Don’t trust the Parks Department since the hullabaloo over The Ten Acre Wood.” Her words came slower and sort of blended into each other.
“You’re never going to die, Mabel. I don’t think this town can run on its own without you.” He scanned her for signs of illness. Skin a little pale but not gray, no blue tinge on her lips or fingernails, so her heart still beat strongly. Her curls were crisp and freshly washed. Maybe she was just a little tired.
“You’d be surprised.” Mabel yawned hugely. “I’m going to switch everything over to the county dispatch now. They’ll ring me at home, as well as the chief, if anything important goes down between now and the morning crew.”
“Want me to drive you home, Mabel?” Chase didn’t like the way she gave in to the idea of going home so easily.
“That would be lovely, sweetheart. Mind if I play with the radio on the drive? I’ve got this annoyingly vague tune running through my head, and I’m trying to figure out what it is.” She hummed a phrase. Dum dee dee do, dum dum. It was the same tune he had been hearing. Now it ran through his head louder and more persistent than ever. Something about honey sweeter than wine? No, that was something else. Similar, not the same. Spring flowers and May wine. That was it.
“It sounds sort of like the tune you get from one of those musical jewelry boxes; you know, the kind with the twirling ballerina,” Mabel mused, still slurring her words a bit.
That thought almost stabbed Chase in the heart.
Dusty’s music box, the one he’d broken so long ago. The doctors had made her give up the ballet lessons she loved. She’d had to miss her first solo in the dance recital, never got to wear the silly little pink tutu and tiara. She played the music box over and over and over until it near drove him crazy.
And he broke it.
Dick said she still had the box.
That tune, something with delicate chimes? Dum dee dee do dum dum,” he hummed the phrase again. “I can almost hear tiny voices singing in the distance…”
Maybe Dusty had never quite forgiven him for the broken music box. Maybe that was why she was dating Haywood Wheatland. She couldn’t see Chase as anything but the bully who’d broken her favorite treasure.
“Let me grab some papers out of my office. Then I’ll drive you home,” he said, urging Mabel to close down her desk. He had an idea and wanted to get started immediately.