“Artificial sweetener, if you have it.”
“I don’t.”
Brynne smiled again. “Of course you don’t.”
He frowned, pretending to be offended, as he set the mugs on the table. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” Brynne said pointedly, drawing out that last word a little, “that you’re a man living alone, and you take your coffee black. And, most likely, when you entertain, the kitchen isn’t the focal point of the evening.”
Eli sat down again, cupped his hands around his coffee, gave a ragged chuckle. “That’s a flattering take on the situation,” he said, “but the only woman who spends any time around here is my sister. Sara comes out to cook ‘a decent meal’ a couple of times a month, and brings the kids with her.”
Brynne was oddly relieved to hear that, though she knew Eli wasn’t claiming to be celibate. He was too good-looking and too unabashedly masculine for that.
“I’m not involved with anybody right now,” he went on, surprising Brynne more than a little with the frankness of that statement. “Not romantically, anyhow.” A pause. “What about you?”
Brynne looked down at her coffee, considering her reply. “I’m in the recovery phase,” she said.
“You’ve been back in the Creek for a while now,” Eli pointed out. “Six, eight months?”
She blinked back sudden, unexpected and totally unwanted tears. “There’s no time limit,” she said, somewhat defensively.
He reached across the table then, laid one strong hand over hers, lightly. His palm and fingers were warm, and calloused.
That last part surprised Brynne a little, since, dangerous though it might be at times, Eli’s job didn’t involve manual labor.
She turned his hand over in hers, examined it. Ran the pad of her thumb gently over a callus.
Eli supplied an answer without being asked. Was the man psychic, or just incredibly perceptive for a member of the opposite gender?
“I work with horses when I can. Over at Cord’s place.”
It wasn’t a surprising thing to learn, especially not in rural Montana, where horses were part of the lifestyle, but Brynne found it interesting. She loved horses herself, though, growing up in town, she hadn’t been around them much and, truth to tell, they made her a bit nervous.
“I didn’t see a barn or a corral when we came in,” she said, in a questioning tone.
“My job doesn’t really allow for a setup of my own,” Eli replied, sounding sad.
“Maybe you’ll take up some other kind of work, or retire or something,” Brynne speculated, but she was uncertain and it showed.
“I’ll always be a cop, Brynne,” he said, with a certain finality. “It’s always possible that I’ll lose an election at some point in the future, but if that happened, I’d end up working with one of the state agencies.”
“You wouldn’t even consider doing anything else?” She was over the line, pressing the issue this way, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.
He sighed. “Like what?” he asked mildly. “This is Painted Pony Creek, not Boston. Opportunities are limited.”
Brynne lowered her eyes briefly. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “The way you earn your living is none of my business.”
“It’s okay, Brynne,” he told her. “There are things I’d like to ask you, after all.”
She stroked Festus’s furry head as she reflected on that statement. Presently, she said, “I think I can guess what you’d like to know.”
He chuckled, sat back in his chair and folded his arms. He was wearing a worn flannel shirt over a T-shirt, and even through his clothing, his leanly muscular chest and shoulders were clearly defined. “I’m sure you can,” he answered.
And then he waited.
“Go ahead,” Brynne said, after a few moments.
“What do you have against cops? Too many traffic violations? Police brutality?”
Brynne smiled, in spite of herself. “Neither of those things,” she answered. “As I’m sure you know, the Creek being the small, tightknit community that it is, about the man I lived with in Boston.”
“Bad breakup?”
“The worst.”
A brief silence fell.
Eli broke it. “Carly told me a few things,” he said. “Nothing too personal.”
“He was a cop, and he cheated. Big-time.”
“So you concluded that all cops cheat? That’s a little drastic, don’t you think?”
“It’s not that. Clay was nearly shot once. His partner was shot, and she nearly died.”
“It’s a dangerous job, Brynne,” Eli allowed. “Nobody’s denying that. But anybody can get into an accident, or be the victim of a crime. And anybody can cheat.” He paused, grinned again. “Why just last winter, old Mrs. Drummond down at the library tripped over a toy in the storybook section and broke a hip. Dangerous work, being a librarian. I’m pretty sure she was faithful to her husband, though. She and Henry were married for almost seventy years.”
Brynne made a face. “I saw Mrs. Drummond just last week. She came in with her Bible study group, and she was certainly spry for someone who’d broken a hip.”
“My point exactly,” Eli said, though it was anything but exact, since getting shot in the course of a convenience store robbery was in no way the same as falling and breaking a hip. “Life is deadly. In fact, none of us are getting out of here alive, so we might as well take our chances and be as happy as we can be.”
This time, he did have a point, but she didn’t have to acknowledge that.
Brynne looked down at her wrist, realized she hadn’t put on her watch that morning. “I need to get back to the restaurant,” she said.
“Right,” Eli confirmed, rising from his chair.
He took their empty mugs to the sink, rinsed them out, set them on the drainboard.
Festus, sensing his master’s imminent departure, left Brynne to stand near the back door. He whimpered pitifully.
Eli shook his head, but the love he felt for his dog was touchingly visible in his voice and in his manner.
“Mind if Festus comes along for the ride?” he asked.
Brynne smiled and shook her head. She was already starting to love that dog herself, which was crazy. “Not at all,” she answered.
Eli’s truck was parked in the garage, and he backed it out while Brynne and Festus waited in the yard. The snow came up to the dog’s chest, but it didn’t slow him down; when Eli got out and opened the rear door, Festus bounded over and jumped into the back seat.