CHAPTER FOUR
Donovan wanted a beer. And a curvy redhead to accompany him into a steaming hot shower. Only one of those things was going to happen tonight. Leaving the October afternoon behind him, he pushed open the station’s front door and breathed in the familiar scent. Stale coffee and new carpet.
His mother wouldn’t recognize the place, he thought, pouring himself a cup of hours-old coffee. The new coat of paint squeezed out of the budget had toned down the lavender walls—a color that some jokester a few decades ago decided would be soothing to prisoners. Not that Blue Moon ever really dealt with prisoners.
Hazel Cardona had put in her time as Blue Moon’s sheriff and never batted an eye at the feminine color that had clashed horrifically with the mossy green and yellow carpeting. Now the walls were a nice, plain beige and looked just fine with the slightly darker beige carpet. Donovan considered it a victory that the issue hadn’t been put up to a vote at a town meeting. His shoes would be cruising over some rainbow shag right now had the town had their say.
“There you are,” said his right-hand woman, Minnie Murkle, as she bustled out of the file room. “You’ve been MIA all day. Did you have lunch?” she asked sternly.
He’d been running since the fire that morning, and part of him was grateful for the action so he couldn’t keep thinking about Eva and her nearly naked appearances today. Great. Now he was thinking about it again. Minnie pulled triple duty as non-emergency dispatch, records clerk, and desk jockey. He dreaded the day she announced her retirement. But since she was sixty, he figured he could tempt her into a few more years.
“One crisis after another. I haven’t seen a day like this in… ever,” he admitted, avoiding the lunch question. Of course he’d forgotten. In the midst of the fire, the cleanup, the two fender benders between lookie-loos, and scaring the hell out of Eva Merill, food had slipped his mind.
“Something’s got this town stirred up,” Minnie agreed, leading the way into his office where she dumped a stack of files on his desk. “I sent Colby out on two calls today.”
Colby was one of Donovan’s two part-time deputies. Blue Moon had neither the budget nor the need for three full-time officers, which worked out fine for them all. Colby picked up the slack on Donovan’s days off and spent the rest of his time helping out around Pierce Acres.
If Donovan ever could offer Colby full-time employment, his friend Carter Pierce would hunt him down.
Donovan’s other deputy, Layla, had a few years on Colby and an edge that connoisseurs of her pretty, sunny exterior didn’t notice until it was too late. Between the three of them, law and order was generally upheld in the sleepy little town.
Minnie walked him through his messages and gave him a running commentary on a few pieces of town gossip. “Saw that new Merill girl ended up naked in town square,” Minnie commented.
“Her name is Eva, and she wasn’t naked. And it was two blocks back from the square,” Donovan corrected with the pertinent facts.
Minnie grinned. There was nothing the woman loved more than gossip. It was one of the main reasons the job fit her so well. “Poor girl looked a little chilly. Preliminary report from the fire chief is in that stack,” she said, pointing to a pile of folders. “And tomorrow you have a meeting with Beckett and Elvira Eustace to nail down the details for the Halloween Carnival.”
Donovan glanced at his watch. “Why don’t you go on home, Minnie? I have a feeling we’re looking at a busy week. Might as well take a break when you can.”
“Sure thing, boss. Don’t stay here all night,” she said, pointing a finger at him. She paused in the doorway. “Say, you don’t think we’re looking at another planetary crossing, do you?”
Donovan sank down in his chair and rubbed the back of his neck. “Planetary whating?”
“Don’t you remember back in the ’80s? There was some kind of astrological thing that only happens once every thirty years or so? It had everyone acting like it was full moon at an all-you-can-drink asshole reunion.”
Something tickled at the back of Donovan’s memory. Something he didn’t like.
In any other geographical location on the face of this earth, he’d put zero stock in an entire town being affected by some planet spinning through some section of space. But in Blue Moon, anything was possible. “I don’t know, Minnie. I’ll have to give my mom a call. See if she recalls.”
Minnie, a lapsed Catholic, made the sign of the cross and knocked on Donovan’s desk. “Oh, she’ll recall. Let’s hope this isn’t a repeat.”
Minnie packed it in, leaving Donovan with his first peace and quiet of the day. He sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. The image of Eva popped crystal clear into his mind.
It was bad enough that he’d thought of her fully clothed about fifty times a day since she moved to Blue Moon—doubling the number of times she crossed his mind since first seeing her at his friend Beckett’s wedding. Now that he’d seen her nearly naked twice? He wasn’t going to be able to use his brain for anything but fantasizing.
He loved his job. His town. And he took his job serving the citizens of Blue Moon seriously. But Donovan wasn’t used to serving under constant distraction. He’d seen beautiful women before. Seen them and forgotten them just as quickly. There was something about Evangelina that drew him in and hooked him.
He could have just drawn that pink lacy strap down one of her milky white shoulders and—
The bell on the station’s front door broke him from his fantasy. Abashed, he realized he was going to need a minute before greeting any visitors so he could get rid of the evidence of his train of thought. Donovan was on his second deep breath, mentally reciting baseball stats when Carter Pierce wandered into the office, his son Jonathan on his hip and a box from Peace of Pizza in his free hand.
“Thought we might tempt you with early man dinner,” Carter said, letting Jonathan slide to the floor.
The toddler waved at Donovan and scampered over to the file cabinet drawer that held among other things, a stuffed police teddy bear that the kid had made at Build a Bear and a bunch of plastic tools. While Jonathan giggled to himself trying to make the bear hold a bright yellow chisel, Carter slid the pizza onto Donovan’s desk and planted himself in one of the visitor’s chairs.
“Got beer?”
“The owner of a brewery asks me for beer.” Donovan shook his head at the irony. He reached into the mini fridge behind him and fished out a beer, a water, and one juice box.
“You’ve got this honorary uncle thing down,” Carter said, tearing off two paper towels and using them to plate slices of pepperoni pizza.
“When you end up with forty-seven nieces and nephews over the span of a year, you adapt quickly.”
“What can I say?” He shrugged. “All the Pierces jumped on the marriage and kid train. When are you joining us?”
Eyes narrowed, Donovan took a bite of pizza. “You join the Beautification Committee?”
Carter snickered and combed a hand through his dark beard. “No, but I did see the pics of Eva today. You looked like the Big Bad Wolf ready to swallow Little Red whole.”
“Did not,” Donovan argued.
“Too. John, you want pizza, or do you want to wait?” Carter asked, turning his attention to his son who was making drill noises and pretending to stab holes into the wall of file cabinets.
“I wait,” Jonathan announced without taking his attention away from his work.
“Hard worker that one. Where are your ladies today?” Donovan asked, hoping to steer the conversation away from Eva and the things he looked like he wanted to do to her.
“Summer and Meadow are doing a Facebook Live thing for the magazine with Gia and her girls. Something on parenting girls to be awesome instead of nice.”
“Good topic,” Donovan said, reaching for a second slice.
“Back to the original topic. Why haven’t you made a move on Little Red yet?”
Carter was not one to be deterred or distracted and Donovan should have known better, having known the man his entire life. He didn’t bother pretending he wasn’t interested. The entire town saw him mooning over her like a teenager at Phoebe and Franklin’s wedding earlier that year. “It’s a big transition moving to Blue Moon. I wanted to give her some space so she could settle in.”
Carter chomped on a piece of crust. “Commendable bullshit. What’s the real reason?”
Donovan ran a hand absently over the back of his neck. “Ah, hell.”
“Boooolshif,” Jonathan said in a sing-song voice.
Carter grimaced. “I’ll fix that later. Talk.”
“She scares the hell out of me,” Donovan said, giving his confession in a rush. “I saw her and from that moment on I was hooked. I don’t know if I’m ready for those kinds of feelings. I’m not an intense kind of guy, and yet one look at her and something punched me in the gut, and I still haven’t caught my breath.”
Carter combed a hand through his beard. “Are we talking love at first sight here?”
Donovan shook his head. “Man, I don’t know what it is. It was just like ‘there you are.’ Like I was waiting for her or something.”
“And that makes you avoid her at all costs?”
Donovan shrugged, wiping his hands on his pants. “Like I said, she scares the shit out of me. If I ask her out, I feel like that puts me directly on the marriage-kid train.”
“Shif!” Jonathan said cheerfully as he began to hammer the carpet into place, the police bear tucked under his arm.
“Look, one punch in the gut isn’t going to force you down the aisle,” Carter argued. “Get to know her. Otherwise you’re just oozing all this sexual tension and eventually the B.C. will take aim.”
Donovan shook his head. “Uh-uh. I told them if they ever make a move in my direction, I’m arresting them all for assaulting an officer.”
“They’ve gotten a lot sneakier in their ways. You won’t even see it coming,” Carter predicted. “It’s better to jump in of your own free will and see what happens.”
Jonathan appeared at Donovan’s chair, his little arms waving in the universal signal for up.
Donovan picked him up and settled him on his lap.
“Peeza, peez!” Jonathan said, clapping his hands together.
“See? The kid knows what he wants, and he goes out and gets it,” Carter said ripping a few bite-sized pieces off a slice and putting them in front of Jonathan. “So, go find out if Eva’s what you want.”