Second Chances (Nugget Romance 3) (10 page)

She quickly sifted through the stack, throwing the junk mail into the recycle bin, and despite the folly of it, kept the Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdale’s catalogs. She just wanted to look at the pictures and sniff the perfume ads. That’s all. At the bottom of the pile was a large square envelope that didn’t feel like a bill. She pulled it out, scanned the front, and smiled. The return address read: The Ninth Circle of Hell, San Francisco, CA.

Inside, was a “missing you” card signed with little messages from each remaining member of the staff. Even Jerry had written: “Legs, give ’em hell.”

She’d pulled up stakes so fast that there hadn’t been time for a party, or even drinks. And while Doofus One and Doofus Two were marching her out of the building there definitely hadn’t been time for Costco cake—a newsroom tradition when someone left, because the
Call
spared no expense.

She felt her eyes well up and wiped them with the back of her hand. God, she missed it. The long days. Her snarky colleagues. The cluttered newsroom that always smelled like ass. It had been her life.

Well, she had her start-up now, and according to her P&L, the business was headed for profit in the next month or two. Given that she was the sole employee and had zero overhead, she didn’t see how this could be such an impressive feat. But according to all the business books she’d read, it was huge. Like seriously epic. So yay for her, she silently celebrated, while blowing her nose in an old Starbucks napkin she’d found at the bottom of her purse.

In the meantime, her checking account continued to dwindle and the bills piled up, she thought as she weighed the stack of mail in her hand. It really would help not to have such a sizable car payment. With that in mind, she got back in her car and drove to Main Street, where she hoped to find Griffin at the Gas and Go.

He was there all right, along with Darla’s dad and a few old men she didn’t know, but figured they must be the legendary Nugget Mafia she’d heard so much about. They’d set up lawn chairs around a space heater inside one of the garage bays, drinking coffee and watching Griffin and Rico install smog-check equipment.

“I don’t think you’re doing it right,” one of the men said, and Harlee saw Griffin’s jaw clench.

Griffin caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye, grinned, and waved. “Hey, Harlee. You come to check out the place? It doesn’t look like much now. But soon it’ll be awesome.”

He seemed way more enthusiastic about the gas station than he was about Sierra Heights. Supposedly, he was a wiz mechanic, so she guessed it made sense that this was where his passion would lie.

“I wanted to see the place, but also talk to you about trading in my car, if you’re still interested in helping me do that.”

“Absolutely.” He winked at her and came over. “You have the Mini with you?”

She pointed to the street, where she’d parked in front of the station. “Colin doesn’t think it’s a good snow car.” Nor could she afford it, but she didn’t need to tell him that.

“Actually, they’re front-wheel drive and with studded tires they do okay. But he’s right that you could probably do better with something more durable.”

The old guys had come out and were walking around her car. One of them shouted for her to pop the hood. She looked at Griffin.

“Just ignore them.” He turned to the men. “There’s nothing wrong with Harlee’s car. She’s thinking about getting something more heavy-duty.”

They nodded their heads in approval and went back inside the garage to warm themselves at the space heater. Griffin scrubbed his hand over his face. “They are such a pain in my ass.” But Harlee noticed that he said it with affection.

“You think I should trade it in?” she asked.

“You’ll get crap for it at a dealership. Let me try to sell it for you, and in the meantime I’ll look around for something with all-wheel drive. How much you want to spend?”

She chewed on her bottom lip. “Honestly,” she said, “not a lot. Like maybe three thousand dollars.” She still had to pay what she owed on the Mini, but a used car would save her money in the long run.

“It’s doable,” he said. “It’ll probably be a beater. But up here, that’s all you need.”

“Do you, uh, take a commission?” she asked, wondering if she’d be better off doing it herself. Selling it probably wouldn’t be difficult. But she’d need a mechanic to check out the new car.

“Hell no.” He looked up when an old SUV pulled in. Harlee recognized Lina behind the wheel and she didn’t look too thrilled to see her and Griffin together. “I’m just helping you out, Harlee. That way you’ll feel honor bound to have me service your vehicles in the future.”

Lina didn’t get out of the truck and Griffin told Harlee to hang on a second. He walked over and talked to Lina through the driver-side window. From the looks of it, their conversation wasn’t going too well. Harlee pretended not to be trying to eavesdrop, though she couldn’t hear much anyway. She did see Griffin try to kiss Lina, who jerked away, rolled up her window, and drove off.

Uh-oh.

When Griffin came back, Harlee said, “I hope I didn’t make any problems for you.”

“Nope,” he said, looking miserable. “Lina is having problems keeping to a deal we made. It has nothing to do with you.”

Luckily, the old guys were immersed in an argument over the exact size of a steelhead Dink had caught over the summer, and hadn’t witnessed Griffin and Lina’s quarrel.

“I’m sorry you’re having issues,” Harlee said. “She seems like a really nice girl.” Just way too young. While bowling, Lina had told Harlee and Darla that she’d just started her first semester at USF and was up visiting for the weekend. Her brother was the police chief and she lived with him and Maddy when she wasn’t going to school.

“I need to get home,” Harlee told Griffin, who had gone sort of vacant, obviously upset over his disagreement with Lina.

“All right. I’ll put some feelers out on selling your car and finding you another one. By next week I should have something to report.”

“Thanks, Griff. I really appreciate this.”

“No worries,” he said, and returned to the garage to rejoin Rico on connecting the smog apparatus.

Harlee considered swinging by the barbershop to see Darla, but she decided that it would be prudent to get home before the weather turned bad. Just in the last hour, she’d felt the temperature drop and could feel snow coming. Hopefully this time the power wouldn’t go. But Harlee had prepared by stocking up on flashlights, batteries, and candles at the Nugget Market.

Maybe she’d check on Colin to see if he needed any of her extras. Just being a good neighbor.

D
arla’s cell phone was missing and her entire life with it. Every one of her contacts and pictures, not to mention important text messages, was on that phone.

“This can’t be happening,” she muttered, checking and rechecking the counter, hoping that maybe it had accidentally been pushed to the side of the barbershop and was now blending into the woodwork.

One minute it had been sitting next to the cash register and the next minute gone. Poof. Like it had vanished into thin air.

The more she searched, the more she realized that the only logical explanation was that someone had stolen it while Darla had gone to the back of the barbershop to retrieve her latest shipment of hair products. She’d spent the entire day stocking new shelves with shampoos, conditioners, and styling gels so the display would be the first thing people saw when they entered the shop.

She must’ve been too preoccupied to hear the bell chime over the door or to notice a person coming in. Apparently even Nugget wasn’t safe from thieves, who by now were probably calling Finland on her tab. She grabbed Owen’s old wall phone with the curly cord and called the Nugget Police Department.

After the third ring, Connie, the 911 dispatcher, answered. “Nugget PD. Is this an emergency?”

“Yes, it’s an emergency,” Darla said. “Someone stole my cell phone.”

“Hey, Darla,” Connie chirped into the phone. “I’ve been meaning to come over for a haircut, but haven’t had the chance. I was thinking some layers might be nice.”

As much as she wanted a customer, she wanted her phone back more. “Great. Come over anytime. Now, about my phone . . .”

“Where and when was it stolen?” Connie wanted to know.

“At the barbershop. As far as the time, maybe in the last few hours?”

“Okay. I’ll send someone over.” Connie hung up.

And Darla paced, consoling herself that at least the phone could only be activated by punching in her four-digit security code. Otherwise the thief would’ve had access to all her personal information, including her dad’s home address.

Wyatt came in the door a short time later, dusting snowflakes from his police jacket. It was warm in the barbershop, so he took the jacket off and hung it on the coat rack. For the first time Darla noticed how broad his shoulders had gotten. Even his arms had become ropey with muscle and he’d gained a couple of inches in height. Or maybe he was just holding himself taller these days. Either way, his once rangy frame had filled out since the time they’d been engaged. Engaged. What a joke.

Why couldn’t Connie have sent Jake, the older officer who looked like Clint Eastwood? Or even the chief?

“Connie says you had a burglary,” Wyatt said, walking to the back of the room, opening and closing closet doors, peeking into the bathroom.

Clearly, he thought whoever stole her phone was still here, hiding out. Right. Like who would be stupid enough to do that?

“Not a burglary,” she said. “Someone stole my phone. Just walked in and grabbed it off the counter. Right here,” she pointed. “Next to the cash register. Maybe you should dust for prints.”

“Did you get a look at the person?” He came over to the cash register, gave it a quick perusal and pulled out a notebook.

“No.”

“Did you actually see anyone take it?”

“No. As if someone would snatch it right in front of me.” She may as well have said, “Are you new?”

“Why’s your hair purple?” His upper lip inched up into a half grin. She noticed that he had a five-o’clock shadow and his eyes were still as mossy green as ever.

“Because I like it purple,” she said, a little heavy on the attitude even to her own ears.

He came closer and sniffed. “It smells good. Like apricots.”

“Are you going to find my phone or stand around snorting my hair?” She backed up a good three, four inches. Hadn’t the man ever heard of personal space?

“Did you leave the barbershop at any time today?”

She blew out a breath and thought about it for a few seconds. Sometimes she ran out to get a fountain drink or fries from the Bun Boy. “Nope. Not today. I was here the whole time.”

“So the person who took your phone was a ghost?” He scraped the top of his lip with his bottom teeth, trying not to laugh.

“You don’t need to be sarcastic, Wyatt. This is very traumatic for me. My whole life is on that phone.”

“Didn’t you back up all your data on the cloud?”

“Well, of course I did.” Didn’t her phone do it for her automatically? Uh-oh. No way in hell was she asking him.

“Why don’t you walk me through your day?” he said, flipping his notebook open.

“Um . . .” She nodded at her display. “I spent most of the time stocking these shelves.”

He whistled through his teeth, gazing at the rows of bottles and jars, picking up a few to read the labels. “So you’re in the shampoo business now?”

“All salons sell product. Good profit margin.”

“But this is a barbershop,” he said.

“We’re in a transitional phase.” Except no one in this town seemed to accept that Owen planned to retire and she was his replacement. His only replacement. “Wyatt, do you think you could focus on the crime?”

He let his eyes roam down the top of her fitted wrap dress all the way to the toes of her boots. “You look good, Darla. I’m not really into the purple hair, but you grew up real pretty. You always were, but now—”

“You don’t get to say that to me, Wyatt. You lost those privileges when you walked away nine years ago and left me with nothing but a Dear John letter. Just stick to my phone, please.”

He at least had the decency to look contrite. “Go ahead and walk me through your day.”

“Okay,” she said, leading him to the back door, where her shipment had been delivered on a wooden pallet. “I was here a good amount of the time, unpacking and inventorying products.”

The room was longer than it was wide, with Owen’s chair and a waiting area at the front, two shampoo bowls that Darla had added in the middle, and a small desk, storage space, and the bathroom toward the back.

She bent over the pallet to show him how easy it would’ve been for someone to sneak in unseen. But Wyatt seemed more interested in her ass than he did in surveying the crime scene.

She stood up and huffed, “You’re just humoring me, aren’t you? You think by now my thief is long gone, don’t you?”

He flashed a sardonic smile, fished his cell out of his pocket, and asked for her number. A few seconds later, “Sexy and I know It” played from the bathroom. He pushed open the door, followed the ringtone until he found her phone jammed under the latest edition of
Hair’s How
, and handed it to her, eyebrows up.

“You must’ve forgotten coming in here with your phone for a little reading time,” he said.

God, she wished the floor would swallow her up. And when the hell had Wyatt Lambert become so self-assured? Back in the day, he’d been a quiet, unassuming young man, not such a . . . know-it-all.

“I guess you think this is hilarious?” she said, refusing to look at him.

“No. I’m glad I got your phone back . . . and that we don’t have a burglar on the loose.”

“Whatever.” She moved to the front of the barbershop like she had a million things to do and couldn’t waste any more time with him.

“Darla?” He said it low, deep in his throat, making her knees go weak.

“What?” She kept her back to him because it was easier than having to look at the man he’d become. The man she didn’t know anymore.

“Have dinner with me.”

“I can’t, Wyatt.” Before moving here, she’d convinced herself that she’d written him off. That he no longer meant anything to her because what he’d done was unforgivable. But she was weak. Without distance, he’d wind up crushing her all over again.

“Okay.” Wyatt let out a sigh, sounding resigned. “I’ll go now.”

She resisted saying, “You’re good at that.”

 

“It’s a good truck,” Colin said, slapping the driver’s door.

“You sure? You don’t think I made a mistake, right?”

Harlee had asked him for a second opinion on the old Nissan Pathfinder. It was a 2000 with a lot of mileage, but tough enough to handle Nugget’s rough winters.

“Griff said it’s in really good condition.” Her breath froze in the cold.

Griffin this, Griffin that. Colin was really sick of hearing about Griffin. But he had to admit that Griffin had done well by Harlee, getting her a good price for her Mini Cooper and finding her an appropriate set of wheels.

“You have enough to pay off the Mini and the Nissan?” he asked, standing close enough to smell her perfume. Something flowery that drove him crazy.

“Can we go inside? It’s freezing out here,” she said.

He opened the door for Harlee and motioned for her to go first. “Do you like the way it drives?”

She immediately moved to the front room to stand next to the fire. Max lifted his head from his dog bed, licked her boots, and went back to sleep. “I’ve only driven it from Griffin’s garage to your house. It’s bigger than what I’m used to, but I’ll adapt.”

He was impressed that she’d given in on the Mini Cooper, although it chafed him that Griffin had been the impetus. Honest truth, he was jealous as hell. The guy was richer than gold, had serious moves, and didn’t piss his pants at the thought of going inside an effing bowling alley.

And the best one of all: Griffin didn’t have a parole officer.

Colin had heard from Maddy that her sister-in-law, Lina, and Griffin had a thing going. But Lina was just eighteen and Griffin had to be in his late twenties. The age difference was kind of skeevy, if you asked Colin. He wondered if the relationship ended when Lina went off to college, and now Griffin was putting the make on Harlee. Even though Colin had no right to be bothered by it, he was. A lot.

“Hey, Col, you want to go over tomorrow?” Harlee called from the fire.

“What’s there to go over? A guy’s going to stick needles in me.”

“You’re not nervous, right?”

No, he wasn’t nervous. Small spaces and large groups of people terrified him. But needles, knives, guns? Not so much. “I’m fine with it, Harlee. You hungry?”

“I could eat.” She wandered over to the kitchen, where Colin scanned the pantry. “Chili or soup?”

She took the cans out of his hands and placed them back inside the cupboard. “What do you have that’s quasi fresh? I’ll cook.”

Forty minutes later she served them up plates of pasta, a tossed green salad, and searched the fridge for something to drink. “Have you always stayed away from liquor?”

By now he knew when Harlee was fishing. “I’m not a recovering alcoholic, if that’s what you’re asking. My mother was a hardcore drunk. Her husband, Fiona’s father, was a hardcore drunk. Watching them get hammered every night sort of killed my desire for booze.”

That and the worst night of his life.

“Do you still talk to your mom?”

“She died five years ago.” He’d been notified by the warden and allowed to attend her funeral in shackles with a couple of escorts from the state.

“I’m so sorry, Colin. Was it from the drinking?”

“Nope. I mean who’s to say for sure, but she had breast cancer.”

“That must’ve been awful,” Harlee said.

“We weren’t that close.” That was the understatement of the year. In all those years the woman hadn’t come to visit him once. “But when my stepfather sold her house, he gave me the proceeds.” He suspected Fiona had pushed him into it. Not that Sam had been a bad guy, just an unreliable alcoholic.

“Is that how you paid for this?” Harlee stared up at the skyscraper ceilings, then out the big glass doors to sweeping views of the Sierra mountain range.

“Yep. My mom’s house was pretty modest—a cottage, really. But it was in the Hollywood Hills. It’s a desirable neighborhood.”

“You didn’t live there?”

“Not for a long time,” he said, wrapping strands of spaghetti around his fork. “This is good, Harlee. Where’d you learn to cook?”

“My friends and I took a cooking class. It’s kind of a thing in San Francisco. Everyone tries to outdo everyone else in the kitchen. You’re really great if you can make meals with ingredients no one has ever heard of. And you have to know the farmer who grew it all, or people will run you out of town.”

He laughed. “You miss it, don’t you?”

“Uh, not San Francisco so much.” She let out a breath. “I just really miss my job.”

“What about your business?” That investigative stuff she did scared the crap out of him. It would take her approximately ten minutes to find out about him with the right search terms.

“I like it,” she said. “But it’s not the same as seeing your byline on the front page, above the fold. I’m looking, but there’s not a whole lot out there. Especially at large-circulation papers.”

“Does it have to be a big paper?” Dumb question. Harlee was a go-getter. Ambitious.

“If I want to pay my bills. Newspapers pay lousy to begin with. Starbucks probably pays better than a small-circ paper.”

She took equal bites of her pasta and salad. Colin loved to watch her eat. She did it with the same enthusiasm she had for everything.

“Where did you live before you came to Nugget?” she asked.

“San Diego.”

“I love San Diego. Were you in the military?”

“Nope.” He picked up his empty plate and put it in the dishwasher. “Carpentry.”

“Did you live near the beach?”

“Uh, closer to Mexico,” he said. Donovan was actually on the border. “Tell me more about this appointment tomorrow.”

“I think first he’s going to diagnose you to figure out the root cause of the phobias and what points he should stick the needles in. The whole purpose is to stimulate a reaction in parts of your brain and release endorphins and strengthen the nervous system. It worked for my friend who was trying to get pregnant.”