Трейси Вульф – Deserving of Luke (страница 3)

After parking his cruiser in the first available spot, Logan stepped into the street. He took a deep breath, held it in his lungs as long as he could before letting it out. In that breath was everything he loved about Prospect—sunshine, salt water and an abundance of greenery.

A glance at his watch told him he had plenty of time before he was supposed to meet his date at Prospector’s, the local sixties diner, so he decided to take the long way around. There might not be much crime in Prospect, but that didn’t mean he didn’t take his job as sheriff seriously. These people depended on him and he wasn’t going to let them down.

Today was a perfect time to weave his way through the tree-lined streets and check on the local businesses. It was a little early in the season for tourists to be descending, so he could enjoy this duty that would soon become a chore. He would still patrol the streets once they were packed with people in shorts and sundresses, haggling for antiques and beach shells, but the camaraderie he experienced now would be swallowed by strangers’ demands.

Completely content with his lot in life, Logan took his time strolling the heavily shaded streets. The sun was shining, a nice breeze wound its way between the buildings and, in the background, the ocean crashed soothingly onto the sand. Yes, it really was a beautiful day.

As he made his way down Sycamore to Main, he whistled a little tune, something happy he remembered from his childhood. Perhaps he’d stop by the clinic to see if Jake was on call tonight. If he wasn’t, maybe his old friend would be up for a few hands of poker. Logan was feeling lucky, and since the bastard had scalped him in their regular first Thursday of the month game, he owed him a chance to recoup his losses.

He’d barely stepped onto Main Street before realizing the streets—and the people walking down them—were abuzz about something. Of course, it didn’t take much to get the residents up in arms.

He wondered if Mr. Walker’s Rottweiler had escaped again, plowing into God-only-knew whom. Or if the Harbinger brothers had gotten into another fight in the middle of Town Square. The last time it had happened they’d nearly killed themselves and he’d been stuck hauling both of them to jail. Before all was said and done he’d ended up with a black eye and his own assault case against the two of them. He’d let the charges drop on the understanding that they kept their differences non-violent in the future. But if they’d been fighting again—

“Morning, Sheriff.” Marge Hutchinson’s brusque voice pulled him from his reverie.

“Morning, Mrs. Hutchinson.” He smiled at the boutique owner who had been slipping him a piece of red licorice behind his mother’s back since he was three years old. “How are you this morning?”

“I’m doing just fine. Gearing up for the tourist rush.”

“Glad to hear it. They should be here before you know it.”

“Another week or two at the most. Bob’s talked me into carrying some fancy soaps and perfumes. You should stop by and check them out,” she said with a wink. “Maybe pick up something for your new girl.”

He laughed. “Maybe I’ll do that.” Today’s lunch was only his second date with Joni—the first had been a cup of coffee a few days ago—but already the town had the two of them paired up. It didn’t annoy him the way it did some. Instead, it amused him. Where else but Prospect would his love life be a public service project?

“Good. I’ll set some of the gardenia products aside. They’ll smell real good on Joni. And you’ll be needing them after she finds out—” She looked away, her crimson painted lips pressed tightly together.

His radar went on red alert. “After she finds out what, Mrs. Hutchinson?”

“I suppose I should just tell you. It’s better than you hearing it from one of those old busybodies down the street.”

He barely bit back a smile. She was one of the busiest bodies in town. Despite her feigned reluctance, she was probably rejoicing in the fact that she’d beaten Ruth Oberly to the punch.

“Well, I was in the grocery store earlier today and you’ll never guess who’s back in town.”

She glanced at him, as if waiting for him to guess despite her words, but he didn’t have a clue. He rarely kept track of the tourists who came and went, even the ones who returned year after year.

Leaning forward, as if she had a particularly juicy secret to impart, Mrs. Hutchinson took her time drawing out the suspense. “I might not have even noticed her, except for the fact that she’d lost her son. Lost her son, can you believe it? On her first day back in town.”

He felt a premonition that he wasn’t going to like whatever came out of her mouth next. “Did they find the boy?” he demanded. “The sheriff’s department hasn’t been notified—”

“Oh, yes, they found him after only a couple of minutes, hiding in the back with the comic books. But not before she made a total spectacle of herself running around screaming for him.” She sniffed. “He didn’t answer. Not that I blame him, I guess. If I had her for a mother, I’d probably be hiding, too. It probably looked like a good place to stay lost, as not many people make it back there.”

Patience wearing thin after her salacious account—it wasn’t like Mrs. Hutchinson to be so malicious and it made him uncomfortable to be a part of it, even if in a peripheral way—Logan asked, “So who is it? Who’s back in town?”

She grinned. “Paige Matthews. And from the amount of food she picked up at the grocery store, she’s planning on staying a while.”

Her words sent him reeling, the way she’d intended them to. She kept talking, telling him more—he was sure—about Paige’s ill-fated trip to the market, but he didn’t hear her. Couldn’t hear her over the buzzing in his ears and the shock that was ricocheting through him.

Paige Matthews was back in town.

Paige was back.

In town.

Paige Matthews was back in town.

The words looped in his mind as he tried to figure out what they meant when strung together in that order.

Trying to get them to make sense.

And more than anything, trying to decide how he felt about them.

Fumbling an excuse he knew didn’t make much sense, he headed up the street in a kind of daze. He knew Mrs. Hutchinson—and plenty of other people—were watching him, but in those first few moments, he couldn’t bring himself to care. Couldn’t bring himself to fake his way through this bombshell.

It had been so long since he’d heard anything about Paige, so long since he’d even allowed himself to think her name.

He didn’t get far before someone else stopped him to report the same news. Again and again, people stepped forward to tell him about Paige, each one adding a new little detail about her—and her son—until he felt as though he’d run the gauntlet.

Had he seen what kind of car she was driving? one person asked.

A ninety-thousand-dollar BMW, someone else imparted. Of course, she’d gotten it illegally. Hadn’t they always known she was going to turn out to be a drug dealer’s girlfriend? He’d tried to put that rumor to rest by mentioning the latest movie she’d been involved with, but he’d known his protests had fallen on deaf ears when the same person asked if he thought Paige was on the run from her drug-dealing boyfriend.

Did he know why she was back?

Logan’s simple morning walk through town had turned into a nightmare. And for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why he cared.

Yes, he and Paige had been an item a million years ago. And, yeah, she’d screwed him over totally and completely. But that didn’t mean he wished her ill, didn’t mean he wanted any of the things the towns-people were speculating about to be true. Any more than it meant he wanted to see her.

Sure, he might be curious about what she’d been up to. And why she had chosen now—when he’d been in Prospect a little over eighteen months and was finally getting comfortable with his new life—to come back to town. But it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like he would be asking her any of those questions any time soon.

If they met up, when they met up—this was Prospect after all, and there were only so many places to frequent—he would be polite, courteous. Treat her the way he did any of the other people under his protection. Because that’s what she was to him—all she would ever be to him. Maybe she’d meant something to him in the past, but that was a long time ago. The present and future were a whole different story.

He was the first to admit he’d made a lot of mistakes in his life. But from the time he was a kid, he’d made a point of not making the same mistake twice.

And Paige had been more than a youthful mistake. She’d been a goddamned natural disaster that had ripped apart the very fabric of his life. And it had taken him too long to get over her to ever let her back in again.

Pasting a wide—and hopefully not glazed—smile on his lips, Logan continued toward the diner in as straight a line as he could manage. He didn’t know much about Paige anymore, but he knew he was going to lose it if he had to hear one more ridiculous rumor about her. Or her son.

Then Ruth Oberly stepped into his path and asked if he’d had a chance to see Paige Matthews’s son yet. When he’d told her he hadn’t, she’d looked at him blandly and said that she thought the boy looked just like his father.