Harper hung up the call and leaned back in her chair. Then she nearly jumped out of it in fear.
“Are you Ms. Madison?” The man with a deep voice standing close to her desk asked.
Harper glanced at the door to the dispatch room that was always locked. “How did you get in here?”
“Someone said that you'd been waiting for me.” The man turned around and pointed to the police chief’s door. “He let me in. Sorry, I’m late.”
Harper glanced over at the chief’s closed office door.
“Oh, he did, did he? You nearly give you a heart attack.”
The man glanced around as if questioning whether she was actually talking to him.
“I was supposed to meet Harper Madison here to get the key to a cabin I’m renting,” he said. “Right?”
“Yes. I thought you were coming in around noon.” She reached down and opened her bottom drawer where she kept her purse. After rifling through it for a few seconds, she found the key to the cabin that she kept in an envelope with instructions from her grandmother on the various things renters needed to know while staying at the cabin.
Her grandmother had owned the cabin for as long as Harper could remember. There were memories, good and bad. Harper and her sister no longer visited the cabin, and neither did her grandmother now that her grandfather passed away, but her grandmother couldn’t let go.
“I hope I didn't cause you any trouble,” he said apologetically as she handed him the envelope with the keys.
“No trouble. I was here all day.” She hadn't eaten a decent lunch, unless you considered a banana while she sat at her desk waiting for him to be decent. But she wasn't going to let him know that. There was no reason to make him feel bad. She forced a smile that was oddly easy.
She looked up at him. Scientist, huh? Nash Webber didn't fit the image of the nerdy scientist she'd had in her mind all day either. He wasn’t Hollywood. Wasn’t scientist. He was just strikingly buff in all the right places that made her take notice.
She knew better than to ogle over the man, especially here at work. But the man was incredibly handsome in a rugged sort of way. She'd seen many men come and go through the police station doors for various reasons. Most of them she paid little attention to. It was almost embarrassing how taken she was with the nerdy scientist who wasn’t nerdy at all.
“So you're going to rent the cabin for the whole summer?” Harper asked, already knowing the answer. Her grandmother told her. He wasn't just a scientist, he was a survivalist of some sort, too, her grandmother had said, and the cabin would serve as a base camp for the work he was doing deep into the mountain range. It explained why the man looked like a Greek god in form. If he planned on doing a lot of hiking and climbing, he’d need to be fit.
“The plan right now is to stay the summer. Maybe a little beyond that if the project changes.”
Harper continued to stare at him until she had to shake her head.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Fine. Whatever arrangements you made with my grandmother is fine. I don't use the cabin myself. Not anymore. But we do occasionally get renters. Later in the season, you might find hikers wandering up there. When that happens, the police department or rangers will use the road leading up to the cabin to search if someone goes missing. It happens about once or twice a season.”
“Good to know. I'll be working. But if there is a problem, let me know.”
“Sure.” And then she felt like an idiot. Small talk wasn't exactly something that made her tongue-tied. She had no problem talking to people. But this man…
“There's no cell-service up there. I’m sure my grandmother told you that, right? You’ll have to come down the mountain a ways to place any calls.”
“That won't be a problem. I have a radio in my truck.”
She made a face that made him smile. Oh, yeah, what a smile!
“That can be a little spotty up on the mountain as well. The positioning of the cabin makes it difficult. But again, coming down the mountain a bit will give you a signal. As long as you have one in the truck, there shouldn't be a problem in case you have an emergency. I've already told the chief you’ll be up there, so they’ll check on you occasionally,” she said.
“You told them? Why? I’ll be fine up there,” he asked with a frown.
“Because…” She shrugged with his question. “That's what I do.”
A slow smile played on his lips. “Right. Good to know.”
He turned to walk away and then stopped and turned back. “It was good to meet you, Harper Madison.”
“Same here.”
She watched him walk out the door. The whole way. She couldn’t remember the last time she did something stupid like that. She was not going to make a habit of it now even if the man was insanely handsome.
* * *
Harper was stuck on a dispatch call with someone when her shift ended. Someone had witnessed another accident off one of the winding roads in town. Lookout Ridge was never a good spot for tourists who didn't know how dangerous slippery roads could be. Just like the accident earlier, this accident involved someone from out of state who lived down South.
It was second nature for most everyone who lived in snow country to drive on snow and icy roads, not that Sweet didn't have its share of accidents from the locals. But it seemed to be an epidemic today with people from out of town since a massive spring snowstorm, something that normally happened at the higher elevations in the spring, was forecasted
