I considered that. “Well, it depends on the circumstances I suppose. It just sounds so . . . melodramatic. But if it’s vengeance you seek, I have faith you’ll achieve it.”
His fingers stopped drumming. “Do you? Why?”
“Because as someone who works for the Pelion Police Department, you certainly yield considerable power . . . have weapons of mass destruction at your disposal, friends willing to assist you in making others disappear. Your enemy doesn’t stand a chance.”
He grinned that brilliant grin again. And again, it didn’t affect me whatsoever. This man was gorgeous, yes, but he was obviously petty, prone to rudeness, definitely on a power trip, and God help the person who had wronged him, whoever that was. “I’m the chief of police, not a mob boss.” He paused. “But you obviously recognize importance when you see it. You’re very observant.” The corners of his eyes crinkled very subtly, and I resisted a laugh.
“I have to be. It’s part of the job description—knowing just what combination of grass and birdseed will benefit my clients the most.”
“Sounds tricky.”
“It can be. Some cases are harder than others.”
“I bet. In that case, I would like to order one of your blended concoctions. Surprise me.” He held his hand out. “We met on unfortunate terms the first time. I’m Travis Hale.”
Travis. I wondered if he was the Travis the two women at my bar had just gossiped about. What had they said? He’d broken up with—and likely cheated on—his girlfriend and that, shamed and heartbroken, she’d hurried off to Florida to . . . tan?
I wondered at the combination of fact and fiction that might be contained in their casual remarks. He wasn’t one of those smarmy, cringe-invoking flirts I’d seen here more than once. Although he was clearly self-assured. He was more difficult to peg than most, I’d give him that. Eventually, though, one side or the other would assert dominance. Time would tell. Although I only had a finite amount of that, so perhaps I’d never know.
Whatever.
I wiped my hand on my apron and gripped his. “Haven. From California. As you know. And I think I have just the thing for you, Chief Travis.” I walked over to my blender and began adding ingredients. “Protein powder with collagen for those . . . bones you’re so fond of.” I was rewarded with his soft chuckle from behind me. I added some fruit and almond milk and then I used my scissors to snip one of the plants. “Wheatgrass for stealth so that your enemy may never see you coming. Spirulina to give fortitude for when the fight grows difficult, and carrot juice for clear vision so that you might see when this revenge you speak of is no longer worth your while.”
I pushed blend, poured the smoothie into a glass, stuck a straw in it, and turned and placed it on the counter in front of Travis. I was rewarded with an amused smile. But his expression dropped when he eyed the—admittedly—murky-green smoothie. “Looks can be deceiving,” I reassured. “Try it.”
He screwed up his face as he lowered his lips to the straw, squinting one eye as if bracing for the possibility that he might be about to sample sewer runoff. He sucked in the barest amount, his eyebrows shooting up, and his lips tipping. He took a bigger swallow. “That’s good.”
“You feel stronger already, don’t you?”
He raised a brow. “Strangely enough, I do.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Travis
“Travis Hale, you didn’t eat half of your breakfast. Is something wrong with Norm’s cooking all of a sudden? And what about that?” She pointed at the blueberry muffin sitting next to my plate, sugary-cinnamon crumbs covering the top. “Bree brought those over just this morning. They couldn’t be any fresher.”
I took a swig of coffee and then rubbed at my stomach. “It’s not the food. I think I might be coming down with something, that’s all.”
Maggie frowned, leaning over the diner counter where I sat at my regular seat and putting the back of her hand to my forehead. “You don’t feel feverish. Maybe you should go home. When was the last time you took a sick day?” She nodded at my new recruit, sitting next to me, shoveling Norm’s O’Brien potatoes into his mouth as if this might be the last meal he’d ever eat. “Spencer can handle things for one day, right, Spencer?”
Spencer nodded, but before he could speak and show us a mouthful of chewed food, I intervened. “No. I’m fine. Just something that needs to run its course.” The truth was, my stomach felt fine, but my appetite was still affected by the sour mood I’d been in since I’d walked in on my girlfriend in bed with another man.
The picture was burned across my retinas and there was a strange pinching feeling in my gut that wouldn’t recede.
Maggie studied me for a moment and despite being a grown man with a gun strapped to his hip, I almost squirmed under her perusal. “I heard you and Phoebe broke up.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
Maggie waved her hand. “Around.”
Around. Sometimes I hated living in a small town.
I took another sip of the now-cold coffee, nodding casually. “Things just ran their course.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Huh,” she said. “Just like that?”
I shrugged. “Relationships fail all the time, Mags. Just because you and Norm have been together since the ice age, doesn’t mean everything lasts as long.”
Maggie glanced back at Norm scraping grease off the griddle, the bald spot on the top of his head gleaming in the fluorescent lights, his large gut hanging over his belt. “It’s true you’re no Norm,” she said, turning back to me, and giving me a teasing wink. “But you do have your good points. You know I’m here if you need someone to talk to, right?”
“I do, Maggie. Thank you.” Maggie had always seen the good in me, even when I didn’t deserve it, and had tried her best to take up where my own mother left off. I felt a tightening in my throat and swallowed around it, tapping Spencer on his arm. “We should get going.”
“Yes, boss.”
“You don’t have to call me boss, Spencer. Travis is just fine.” Spencer bobbed his head. He was a good guy, just young and a little too eager to please, socially . . . challenged, and he could be so damned literal sometimes. But . . . he was the grandson of a couple in town, the Connicks, who owned a number of cottages on the lake, people I’d known all my life. I remembered Spencer as a kid, holding a toy police car in his hands and watching the now-retired chief stroll by in his uniform with a look of awestruck wonder on his face. When he’d applied to be an officer and I’d called and told him he was hired, I’d known I was granting a long-held dream. And it was obvious that Spencer had transferred the hero worship he’d held for the retired chief to me.
Spencer downed the last of his coffee, and I put some money on the counter, said a goodbye to Norm, and smiled at Maggie. “Be safe,” she called as the bell sounded over the door and we stepped out into the warm June day.
We turned into the lot where the cruiser was parked, almost colliding with someone. “Oh shit. Sorry, man. I wasn’t looking—”