Molly had never been to such a glamorous party in her life.
She was sitting on a soft black leather chair within yards of the beach, listening to the rhythmic pulse of the waves while a gentle tropical breeze stroked her cheek, and champagne—not the cheap stuff she was used to drinking, but the kind in the green bottle with the orange label—flowed like water into her glass every time she drained it. There were open bars scattered all around the island serving anything you could think of, from martinis with blue-cheese stuffed olives to salt-rimmed margaritas.
Then there were the piles—piles—of fresh stone crab claw. This was a delicacy that Molly had rarely tasted in her past life, partly because stone crab claws were only available in season, October through May, and partly because they were so costly to ship to Colorado. Even in Little Bridge, where the crabs were plentiful (they were caught in traps right off the beach and then released again), the claws could cost up to forty dollars a pound. On a librarian’s salary, this put them out of Molly’s budget.
But at the Red Cross Ball the claws were free (well, discounting the cost of her three-hundred-and-fifty-dollar ticket that Mrs. Tifton had paid for), and already broken up for her, and came accompanied by the most delicious honey-mustard sauce Molly had ever tasted. She’d already eaten six large ones and was on her seventh when she looked up and saw a group of party guests headed toward the far side of the beach, the women barefoot, their high heels abandoned, champagne flutes held delicately in their manicured fingers, the men wearing determined expressions and clutching beers.
“What’s going on?” Molly asked, wiping her mouth and hands on a napkin in the hopes that no one would notice her gluttony.
“Oh, God.” Meschelle had eaten a fair amount of crab, as well. The broken shells lay all over her plate. “The games have begun.”
“Every year the ball holds a game of skill to raise money for local charities, as well,” Phyllis Robinette explained, “so that we can share the love, so to speak.”
As Phyllis spoke, Molly noticed a tall man in military uniform moving swiftly across the room and toward the beach. It took a second for her to realize that the man was Sheriff John Hartwell, and that he wasn’t in military uniform but dress uniform.
Her heart skipped a beat. Her heart actually skipped a beat, because he looked so good. She was used to seeing him in the beige uniform he wore daily, in which he didn’t look bad—he was an attractive man, tall and broad-shouldered, with a strong jaw and of course those disconcertingly blue eyes.
But there was something about seeing him in his dress uniform—dark gray trousers with a perfectly tailored black long-sleeved jacket, beneath which he wore a white shirt and black tie—that made her suddenly aware that he wasn’t only attractive—he was extremely attractive. He looked as good as the crab she’d just eaten, succulent and sweet but with a sharp tang, the kind that made you keep eating even after you knew you’d had way too much, because you wanted more and more.
Good Lord, what was wrong with her? It must be all that champagne.
He didn’t notice her, because he was so intent on getting to the games on the beach.
That’s when Molly knew that she, too, had to get over there. Not to join the games. Molly had always been miserable at games. No, Molly needed to keep an eye on the sheriff in his dress uniform. She simply didn’t have any other choice.
“Excuse me,” she said, quickly abandoning her napkin and chair. “I’ll be right back.”
Then she hurried as quickly as she could after the sheriff, slipping off her heels so they wouldn’t sink into the sand, and bringing her champagne flute along—it was still more than half-full, after all, and it would be a shame to abandon such good champagne.
Lit by tiki torches—though there was still plenty of light in the lavender sky—were several raised wooden platforms sitting well away from the reach of the waves. Cut into each platform was a small hole. Beside the boards were piles of what appeared to be little beanbags. The sheriff was standing near these with a group of men who were smoking cigars.
Molly wasn’t sure what game this was, but she didn’t particularly care, either. Her gaze was glued to John Hartwell, who apparently planned to play . . . at least if the fact that he was peeling off his well-fitting jacket was any indication.
Molly’s knees suddenly felt weak. She looked around for somewhere to sit, but as they were out on the beach, there was nowhere to sit except on the ground, and she didn’t want to get sand in Joanne’s beautiful sequined dress (which had been too loose on Joanne and was subsequently a little too tight on Molly, especially now that she’d had so many crab claws).
“May I?” asked a voice to her right, and Molly turned to see Patrick—also known as Lady Patricia, the drag queen who volunteered at the library to read at Story Time—offering to lay his tuxedo jacket down upon the sand for her to sit on.
“Oh, I couldn’t!” Molly was mortified.
“Please do.” Patrick took a seat on the sand beside the folded jacket. “I was broiling in that thing, anyway. And I’d hate for you to ruin that lovely frock.”
“Well . . .” Molly looked down at the tempting folded jacket. In front of her, the sheriff was loosening his tie and undoing the first few buttons of his shirt. It was a white button-down short-sleeved shirt. She could see how closely the darkly tanned curves of his biceps filled those short sleeves.
Molly sat with a thump, spilling a little of her champagne.
Patrick glanced at her with amusement. “See something over there—or should I say someone—that interests you?”
“Not at all,” Molly replied, more firmly than she meant to. She took a restorative sip of her champagne and then asked, hoping to change the subject, “What game is it exactly that they’re about to play?”
Patrick had been taking a sip of the martini he’d brought along with him, which he now nearly spat out in surprise. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of cornhole.”
“Of course I have.” Had she? It was hard for her to remember anything when John Hartwell was standing just a few yards away, looking so tall and attractive in the waning light of the sun. “It’s, uh . . .”
“I can see that you’ve led a very sheltered life, tucked away behind all those books, Molly Montgomery.”
Molly didn’t feel like correcting him. People always thought this about librarians—that they were introverts who only wanted to stay indoors and read. Of course, this was true of some of them.
But Molly had always had a very active social life. Even when she’d been studying for her degrees, then working, she’d still made time for fun. That’s how she’d met her ex, Eric, a dark-eyed radiologist with whom she’d been teamed up at a local brewery’s trivia night, and with whom she’d always trounced the competition. He’d known everything about sports and science, and she’d known everything about pop culture and literature. All their friends had been sure they were made for each other.
It was only after they’d gotten engaged and begun discussing their future that she’d realized a talent for trivia was the only thing they had in common.
“Of course, this is charity cornhole,” Patrick was saying, “not regular cornhole. The object of this particular version of the game is to toss as many beanbags as you can into the hole. Whoever gets the kitty wins the pot, which our generous donor—in this case, the Little Bridge State Bank—then matches. The winner traditionally then donates their winnings back to the Red Cross, or some other charity of their choice. But on one or two occasions”—he sent a dark look in the direction of the men to whom the sheriff was talking—“players have been known to keep it.”
Shocked, Molly raised her eyebrows. “Really? Someone’s kept money meant to be donated for charity? Who would do such a thing?”
“Well, you didn’t hear it from me, but our city planner.” He pointed at one of the men to whom the sheriff was speaking, and Molly realized she recognized him because of the frequency with which his name and photo appeared in The Gazette’s “Cheers and Jeers” section—Randy Jamison, who was well known for delaying or even denying building permits for no good reason, including many the new library had needed. For this he often received “jeers.”
“Hmmm,” she said. “That doesn’t sound very sporting.”
“No, but there isn’t much we can do about it, except get in there and beat him. And I’ve never had much of a pitching arm—have you?”
“Oh, God, no.”
“I didn’t think so. No offense. I feel like this sort of thing is best left to the athletes, like our good sheriff there. Did you know he was all-state in baseball when he was in high school?”
Molly shook her head, though she wasn’t surprised, given how strong and sinewy his arms looked. She wondered idly what arms like that would feel like around her. . . .
She had definitely had too much champagne.
“Oh, yes,” Patrick went on. “Right here in Little Bridge. From what I understand, he would have gone to the pros if he hadn’t gotten his high school sweetheart pregnant and chosen instead to marry her, stay here on the island, help raise his daughter, and become a police officer. He was a good one, too, until he got a criminal justice degree at the local community college and eventually applied for and made detective up in Miami.”
Molly dug her free hand into the sand and found a pretty seashell with which she pretended to be fascinated. “Why did he move back?”
“The sheriff? Oh, well, the island needed him, after what happened with the last sheriff. And I think he missed it here and wanted a change. He was working homicide in Miami, which I can’t imagine would be very pleasant.”
She sipped her champagne, silently agreeing. She’d seen a few news broadcasts from Miami. Some of the murders there had been horrifyingly violent, even from a crime junkie viewpoint. “But his wife . . . ?”
“Oh, his wife—now ex-wife—has quite a flourishing home-design business up there. So when he came back to Little Bridge to take the sheriff’s position, she stayed up north. I heard the split was perfectly amicable—no hard feelings.”
Molly considered this delicately put answer while pretending not to watch the sheriff’s every move. He was stuffing a wad of bills into the kitty, a large crystal vase being passed around by one of the Red Cross volunteers, whom Molly recognized as the nurse Daniella—she’d done multiple blood drives at the library. Bubbly and outgoing, Nurse Dani had also been appointed the game referee, if the shiny silver whistle around her neck was any indication. It complemented the short silver cocktail dress she wore.
Abruptly, Molly turned and handed Patrick two twenty-dollar bills she’d drawn from her clutch. “Here.”
He looked down at the bills with puzzled surprise. “Don’t tell me you’re going to play?”
“Oh, no. But I want to contribute. Would you mind slipping those into the kitty for me, please? They can be from both of us. I’m much too comfortable here on the sand to get up.”
He gave her a knowing look as he rose to his feet. “Oh, of course. That’s why you don’t want to get up. You’re too comfortable. Not that you’re too shy to speak to a certain someone.”
“I’m simply enjoying this lovely moment on the beach,” she said, and after delicately placing her champagne glass on the sand, drew her cell phone from her clutch to snap a photo of the sun as it sank behind a mangrove in the distance—and also to hide her face and the fact that she was blushing.
While Patrick smirked and strode through the sand toward Nurse Dani with Molly’s offering, she willed herself not to look in his direction, in case he exchanged words with the sheriff and the latter ended up glancing her way. She told herself she was still recovering from all the champagne and crab claws and that it was wiser for her not to speak to handsome men in uniform.
Instead, she concentrated on how nearly all of the guests from inside the dining room had come out onto the beach to observe the game alongside her, most with drinks in their hand. Quite a few more people had lined up to play, many of whom Molly knew, not necessarily from their library usage but from around town. There was the pink-haired waitress, Bree, and her boyfriend, Drew, whom Molly often saw at the Mermaid Café when she popped in to grab a quick lunch. Several of Mrs. Tifton’s guests—Robbie and her fiancé, Ryan—were also in line to play, as was Patrick’s husband, Bill, and even Meschelle. The competition was starting to look a bit fierce.
Which Molly told herself was good. So long as Randy Jamison didn’t win and keep all the money to himself. That’s all that mattered.
That’s what Molly thought, anyway, until the game finally started. Then, as she watched the sheriff play and saw just how truly good he was—how gentlemanly and sportsmanlike, giving others friendly advice on their throws that could help them beat him—she realized how badly she was rooting for him, and him alone, to win, especially as player after player except the sheriff and the insufferable Mr. Jamison failed to propel their beanbag even remotely close to the nearest hole. Most throws landed in the sand. Those players were immediately disqualified by Nurse Dani, who turned out to be quite the tyrannical referee. (Not that anyone seemed to mind. It was a good-natured game, with quite a lot of joking and laughter.)
As the sky turned from pale lavender to dark blue, and they actually needed the light from the tiki flames to see by, the sheriff’s and the city planner’s beanbags were the only ones seeming to go into the holes.
By this time Molly was on her feet, having hurried closer so that she could watch what appeared to be an old-fashioned—and epic—showdown. She didn’t want the sheriff to see her watching, of course—not because she was shy, but because it would be embarrassing if he caught her staring at him.
So she hung behind Patrick as he narrated the game like a sports announcer to anyone who would listen, which turned out to be basically everyone.
“The score is now seventeen to fifteen in favor of Sheriff Hartwell. The game is close, but I believe the sheriff’s killer cornhole technique will, in the end, make him victorious.”
Molly didn’t know about that, but she did know that the sheriff’s dress pants fit him in just such a way that when he leaned forward to make a toss, her pulse stuttered. She’d also finished her champagne and developed a very powerful thirst. She wanted to go inside and order another drink—perhaps a water, to cool off—but she also didn’t want to tear herself away from the game in case she missed something, like a crucial shot or the sheriff bending over to lift something.
What on earth was wrong with her tonight?
Just then Randy Jamison’s fourth bag of the round swept clean past his hole and skidded into the sand. A cry went up, the loudest of which was Molly’s own. Everyone turned to look at her except, fortunately, the sheriff. He was so wrapped up in his game that no one else appeared to exist to him. This was true sportsmanship.
“Why,” Molly clutched Patrick’s arm and asked, “isn’t there an Olympic category for cornhole? If there was, the sheriff would definitely win the gold!”
Patrick looked down at her with an odd expression on his face, possibly because she’d caused him to slosh a little of his martini into the sand. “My dear girl,” he said, “I’m sure you’re right. You should—”
But then the sheriff’s final toss sailed cleanly into the hole, and Molly screamed loudly enough that Patrick wasn’t the only one who spilled his drink in alarm.
She didn’t care, though. She jumped up and down in the sand, thrilled that John had beaten the dreadful city planner.
“Oh my God,” murmured Meschelle, who’d ended up standing beside her. “Someone’s taking their cornhole a little personally, aren’t they?”
But Molly couldn’t help it, especially when Nurse Dani presented the sheriff with the crystal vase stuffed with bills and announced, “We’ve collected over four thousand dollars from the generous people here tonight, which the Little Bridge State Bank has graciously agreed to match, dollar for dollar.”
This was greeted with hoots and cheers, the loudest of which came, again, from Molly. Dani had to raise her voice to be heard over the applause.
“That makes over eight thousand dollars, which I’m now handing off to our new cornhole champion, Sheriff John Hartwell, to either keep or donate to the charity of his choice.”
Nurse Dani passed the vase to the sheriff, who accepted it with a lopsided smile of sheepish embarrassment, made all the more adorable—in Molly’s opinion, anyway—by the fact that his shirt had become untucked in places by the vigor of the game, and his already too-short hair was sexily mussed.
“Uh,” the sheriff began. “Thanks, Dani. I—”
“Keep!” shouted some of the more inebriated men in the crowd. “Keep it!”
“Shut up,” roared Nurse Dani, in the same voice that Molly imagined she used on drunks in her ER, of which there were many, Little Bridge being known as a party town. “Let him talk.”
“I’d just like to say thanks to everyone for coming out again this year to support this important cause.” The sheriff’s voice was gruff, as if he were unused to speaking much, which was ridiculous as Molly knew for a fact that he used his voice quite a lot, especially when he was disagreeing with her about something. “I’m sure many of you remember all the help the Red Cross gave those of us who were in need last year when we were hit by Hurricane Marilyn, and they continue to do vital work not just in the United States but all around the world. They save lives, and they absolutely need the money we’ve all donated here tonight.”
Oh, Molly thought, a warm feeling growing in her heart. He’s going to donate the money to the Red Cross. That is very sweet.
“And of course there’s a nonprofit very close to my heart, our own city jail petting zoo, where we could certainly use the money,” John went on. “But there’s an individual here in our community who needs our financial help even more, someone who is just getting started in life. I’d like to donate this money you’ve all so generously donated to Little Bridge’s newest resident, Baby Aphrodite.”
Molly was so shocked by this that her mouth fell open wordlessly. Then her knees gave out completely, and she sank down onto the powder-soft sand.
It was only then that the sheriff’s gaze finally met hers.
