The sky was streaked in waves of pink and amber, the sun cresting over the lake and scattering it with diamond shards.
Gorgeous. Peaceful.
I was a city girl, born and raised in East LA, and yet, in some peculiar way, it felt as if my heart had always known this place.
I wouldn’t think too hard about it because that felt dangerous. But I would enjoy it while it lasted.
It’s the water. Water calms every human soul.
Perhaps, but interestingly enough, I’d lived within a few miles of the ocean and, though staring out at the Pacific had brought a measure of peace, it’d never felt like this.
Heavenly.
The crystal-clear water, the soft sound of gently lapping waves, the fragrant pines, air so fresh you could drink it, and all that quiet. It spoke to my spirit in the same way caring for living things did.
I turned away from the window on a smile, lifting the watering can and giving the plant nearest the door a drink. “Good morning,” I greeted, moving to the next, and the next.
“Good morning.”
I whirled around on an intake of breath to see Travis leaning in the doorway that led from the kitchen to the sitting room at the front of the house. “God, you scared me.”
He pushed off the wall, walking toward me. He was wearing workout clothes, damp with sweat. “You’re up early.”
“Yes,” I said hesitantly, suddenly self-conscious. I was wearing my sleep shorts and a tank top, not exactly risqué, but not something I would have worn had I known anyone would be up this early. Even Betty didn’t rise until seven to get breakfast started. His gaze only flickered over me though before he looked away. I relaxed. Travis Hale was used to seeing girls in thongs and bikinis so skimpy they were barely a notch above nudity at the club. My current outfit was downright puritan in comparison. “I’m an early riser.”
“Me too,” he said, lifting the hem of his shirt and wiping it over his forehead. I got an eyeful of tanned, defined abdominals. I turned, adding a generous amount of water to the next plant. “I don’t meet many female early birds,” he said on a smile. “Most women enjoy their beauty sleep.”
I looked at him sideways. “Well, obviously, I’m full up on that,” I said, tucking one of my ridiculous curls behind my ear. It sprang forward in disobedience.
A meow sounded behind us, and Clawdia the cat came limping forward, her gait slow and staggered.
“You’re off today?” he asked, glancing away from the off-balance creature, lowering his voice as he followed me from the front room to the hallway, open to the floor overhead where the rest of the occupants of The Yellow Trellis Inn still slept.
“Yes. You?” I asked, plucking a leaf, running my hand over another, taking joy in the health of the plants that had looked wan and lifeless when I’d rescued them from outside the local grocery store where they’d been left to sit in the brutal summer heat. These particular types did best in partial sun.
Or in this case, the light streaming in through the hallway window.
“No, I’m working,” he said, sounding almost . . . disappointed? Did he not like his job? He seemed to do it with such gusto. A meow sounded again, the cat staggering in.
Travis’s brow dipped as he looked at the cat wobbling precariously over to where we stood. “Oh for Pete’s sake,” he muttered, scooping the animal up and holding it with one muscled arm. I pressed my lips together to hide my smile.
“What’s on the itinerary?” he asked, following as I moved from the hallway to the kitchen, walking over to the bay window where Betty had been generous enough to allow me to place various herbs and flowers.
“Well, I’m going down to the shore to soak up a little sun, and then I’m making a trip into town to see what’s been moved to the discount aisle at the nursery.” I turned suddenly and Travis’s eyes jolted up as though he’d been staring at something . . . below my eyes, and I’d surprised him. “Do you know that the nursery in Pelion is the only one for miles around?”
“It should make your rescue job easier,” he said with a wry smile. The cat butted at his chest and he raised his other hand, petting her head, and then her jaw when she tilted it upward.
“Ha. Well, true.” I went back to my watering. I’d never performed my morning ritual with someone in tow, but I found I liked it. Chatting idly while I went about my plant duties. It was . . . peaceful. Who would have guessed? “I spent last summer in a town in South Carolina that had four nurseries. I had my job cut out for me,” I said.
He laughed softly. “So you’ve been rescuing plants and making smoothies across the land.”
I shot him a smile. The cat was purring loudly in his arms as he scratched her jaw distractedly, carting her along with us as we walked through the lower floor of the house. “No to the smoothie part. I’ve done a little of everything as far as paid positions.” I grabbed the spray bottle hooked on the waistband of my shorts and misted a fiddle leaf that didn’t need more than that and moved on. “Here in your lovely town, I just happened to hit upon the perfect job that utilizes all my talents.”
“Lucky us.” He grinned, leaning against the wall. A smile tugged again as I watched this muscled, athletic-looking lawman in sweat-laden workout gear, holding a three-legged cat gently as it very obviously basked in his affection. “Did you like it? South Carolina?”
I thought back to South Carolina, pictured the massive oak trees draped in moss, and the flawless emerald-green lawn of the golf course where I’d worked at the gift shop. “Yes. It’s beautiful.” I didn’t mention the part where we had left early in July after a big, burly man wielding a baseball bat had shown up at our door at three a.m., because Easton had done things—Easton’s description—with his wife in their pool and been caught on the backdoor Ring video doorbell.
I pushed that particular memory of South Carolina aside. This pattern of his had to stop. Not only was it immoral—and weren’t there enough single women out there?—it became dangerous. This time it had been the chief of police’s flipping girlfriend. Who next?
I didn’t even want to know.
“How many places have you stopped?” Travis asked, scratching behind Clawdia’s ear as her eyes all but rolled back in her head.
I turned, walking to the next room, his soft footsteps behind me. “For more than a day or two? Seven. Arizona, Texas, Alabama, South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and of course, Maine.”
“So if you’re staying on the same course along the coast, you’re pretty much at the end of the line. What will you do after this?”
“Head back, I suppose.” A tiny ball of fear bounced through me. “Maybe take a longer, more winding route.” Out the window, the sun crested higher. Upstairs, I heard the water begin to run in one of the bathrooms.
He watched me for a minute as if considering something. I turned, plucking some dry foliage, using my spray bottle to mist the top leaves, adding some water to the soil, and crooning a few words here and there.
“What’s been your favorite stop so far?”
I eyed him. “Haven’t you ever traveled, Travis Hale?”
He shrugged. “Not really. A few spring break trips. But I can’t recall too much of what happened on those. Every once in a while, I have a vague flash of a wet T-shirt contest and a long line of Cuervo shots, but that’s about it.” He’d hesitated in his petting as he’d spoken, and Clawdia headbutted him again until he resumed his scratching.
I shook my head, but laughed, as much at his comment as the forward feline female with an obvious crush. “Before this, I hadn’t traveled much either.” At all, as a matter of fact. “I’ve liked something about each place, because it’s all been new, but if I had to pick one? Here, honestly.” I set my watering can down and turned toward him.
He looked mildly surprised, but pleased. Clawdia arched her back, delighting in his fingers raking over her spine. Something tightened inside me as I watched his large, tanned hand trail idly over the animal’s fur. “That’s a nice endorsement,” he said, his voice filled with sincerity. I took in his expression. He had surprised me. I’d had such a different impression of him when we’d first met. But Travis Hale had layers to him. He was a good listener. He had the ability to laugh at himself and take some good-natured needling, which meant he had at least a modicum of humility. He was a small-town cop who obviously took great pride in his hometown, but it was also clearly important to him to be part of the “in” crowd. He was about as masculine as they came, and yet he was currently carting a disabled cat around, because watching her struggle from room to room behind us had compelled him to assist her. Yes, definitely layers. Wonder of all wonders. Not that I had the time to peel them back, but I could appreciate a person who ended up being more than their first impression. I usually pegged people immediately and I was rarely wrong. It had meant my very survival once upon a time.
For a few moments we simply looked at each other, the sunlight streaming in, and the house just coming alive upstairs, the purr of the delighted cat vibrating softly between us. I closed my eyes and relished the quiet for what it was. Solitude. Well, with my new friend. My onion man.
“What are you thinking?” he asked quietly.
My eyes opened as I tilted my head. Travis could have shunned me for what Easton did. He could have made me suffer for it too, others had certainly considered me guilty by association after Easton wronged them. But Chief Travis Hale wasn’t doing that. It said something about him. And I was grateful. “I was thinking that I’m glad we’re friends.”
He smiled. “Me too.”
