Nothing to make up, Sheriff. Duty calls.
Hank grinned as he opened the message but that smile quickly faded as he stared at the text. Nothing to make up? What the fuck? He thought they were hitting it off. Fuck, he knew they were, felt it and knew she felt it too. Great conversations, easy banter, not to mention knowing glances and deep looks. Jesus. Maybe he should have moved faster with her. Showed her what she really meant to him. Was she not interested? Hank had a hard time swallowing that thought. He didn’t have time to occupy his thoughts with breaking down what the hell went wrong, he had to help out Huntsville find their arsonist. His eyes on the burned down barn in the distance, his thoughts everywhere but in the present, the vibration in his hand had him almost dropping his cell.
“Yo,” Hank said as a greeting.
Mike knew Hank wasn’t in the mood for any delay so he greeted him with, “Sal and Elmer said they saw the pick-up on the same day you had the altercation with Bruno Knobbs.”
“Bruno Knobbs,” Hank repeated on a breath. The name didn’t sound familiar. “Continue.”
“Lives in Charleston, works odd jobs, doesn’t hold down any credentials anywhere. Address has him living with his parents but something tells me that’s not correct.”
Hank didn’t want to divulge too much information so he asked with no emotion in his voice. “Any wife, girlfriend?”
“Nothing as of yet but I’ll keep digging, Boss.” Silence followed before Mike broke it. “Anything you wanna tell me?”
Hank took a deep breath. He knew he needed to give Mike the information to go on, knew it was stupid to keep it from him because it was only a matter of time before he found out. “This guy said he was Phoebe’s ex.”
Mike gave a hum before he said, “Gotcha.” Hank heard the distinct clicking of a keyboard before Mike spoke again, “I’ll give you a call if I find anything else.”
Hank thanked him and ended the call but kept the screen lit up as he brought up the string of text messages between him and Arissa. He stared blankly at the phone, his mind clouded with all that had gone down in the past few days.
“Hank, you ready?” Sheriff Muller of Huntsville PD asked, pulling Hank from his thoughts. Hank looked down to the opened screen and read the message for the fifth time, he then shut it down and went to work. “I’m ready,” he told his buddy with a forced smile on his face.
* * *
Arissa hadn’t watched a night of sappy movies, instead she found herself pondering Catherine Weathers and what she had hoped to accomplish with their chat at the garden center. Hank hadn’t returned her text; not that she expected him to. She’d all but blown him off, but had she not talked to Catherine she wouldn’t have been dismissive. Was that the woman’s end game? To keep her away from Hank. She had warned Arissa off Hank. There was no other way to interpret their conversation. Why would the woman do that? Considering her son, how she raised him, Arissa could only assume her intentions were kind. Keeping Arissa from a broken heart, that was certainly thoughtful. What bothered her, though, was she really believed Hank was as into her as she was him, so his mother warning her off was going to hurt the very person she seemed to be trying to protect. It didn’t make any damn sense.
And she wanted Hank. All those feelings you get when you’re just starting to get to know someone—the butterflies, the spark, the anticipation, the heat and the want—it was heady and she was enjoying the ride with Hank, wanted to continue that ride, didn’t want to just have a friendship with him, like the one he seemed to have with everyone else in town. She would if that’s all she could have of him, and she might even be able to manage just being his friend, as long as she didn’t think about his taste, his kiss, the way he looked at her like he was really seeing her. A smile touched her lips because he looked at her like she looked at him, but according to Catherine, Phoebe was the love of his life, so where the hell was she?
When she was with Hank, she didn’t question what was building between them. But Catherine had gone out of her way to plant the seed of doubt in Arissa. Why?
There was a way for Arissa to get an answer to that, women as interested in talking about Hank as she was. Was it wrong to pry them for information? Not anymore wrong than them digging for dirt. Arissa moved to her front door, hesitated for only a second before she pulled it open. Jogging across the street, her neighbor had to have been looking because the door opened before she could knock.
“I’m in.”
Maureen’s smile was blinding. “Seven at Moe’s.”
“I’ll see you there,” Arissa said, and started back to her house but looked over her shoulder and added, “Thanks for the invite.”
Maureen laughed. “Hold the thank you until after the grilling.”
Arissa waved, holding the smile until she turned back to her house. She wasn’t the only one who’d be getting grilled.
A few hours later, Arissa glanced at the clock, then checked herself in the mirror before she grabbed her purse, and locked up her house. Climbing into her car, and starting it up, she was greeted to the soulful sound of Janis Joplin singing about “Bobby McGee”. Cranking it up, she pulled down her driveway and started up the street, tapping to the song on her steering wheel. It was summer. People were out in mass. Clusters of kids doing nothing more than walking and hanging out, others
