A Dad For Charlie

“I don’t want to be a bother,” Mrs. Hastings repeated after a long hesitation.

“If it were a bother, I wouldn’t offer.” Paige added it to her schedule, avoiding Fletch’s curious look.

“I do like Ursula’s club sandwich,” came Mrs. Hastings’s reply.

“Who doesn’t?” Fletch said as he closed up, tested and locked the back door. “One down, two to go. Hold that tea for me, will you? I’ll just do the shed and then the front door.”

“Sure, yeah, okay.” Paige watched him trudge through the overgrown grass and weeds on his way to the rusted-out storage shed in the backyard as she pulled out a third dainty flower-painted teacup and arranged it on the tray beside the other two. “Deputy Fletcher does tea. Who knew?”

* * *

“I APPRECIATE YOU not bringing up Jasper or the break-ins while we were in there,” Fletch said a little over an hour later as he and Paige walked down Mrs. Hastings’s front steps. “She’s already worked up enough reading about them in the paper.”

“A lot of people are.” Paige retrieved her bike and walked beside him. “I hear plenty of them talking about it at the diner. I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind about Jasper.”

“Contrary to what you might think, and the fact we did find evidence of his presence at one of the houses, I haven’t declared him guilty, Paige. But I would like to find him and talk to him.” Fletcher glanced at her. “Don’t suppose you have any idea where he might be.”

“No.” She visibly swallowed and flinched. “Why would I know?”

Why would she, indeed? But it was clear she was hiding something. “I’m going to take another walk through the houses, check over the notes again. See if there might be something else we missed the first time.”

“Well, that’s something, I suppose. You made Mrs. Hastings happy, staying for tea.”

“I try to make everyone happy.” Fletch hid his disappointment at not being given more credit for taking her suggestion and looking for answers beyond Jasper. “You really were good with her. Put her at ease, got her numbers stable.” With her blood sugar level, they’d gotten their charge settled in her room, an afternoon talk show on the TV, her latest crocheting project across her lap and a fresh-brewed pot of tea on the table beside her. “Am I wrong in thinking there’s more to your story than an old neighbor with similar issues?”

“If I tell you will you let me help you with Jasper?”

He chuckled. “No.”

Paige glared at him, and when he glanced down, he saw her knuckles whiten around the handles of her bike. “Huh. Well, you’re honest at least.” She swung a leg over the bar, but Fletch darted out in front, grabbed hold of the bike and kept her in place. She arched a challenging brow at him. “Mind telling me what all this new determination about the case is about? Why can’t it wait until Luke gets back?”

“Because it can’t.” Fletch clenched his jaw. He should just tell her the truth, that he needed to get his case closed if Luke was going to keep his job, but that would just open up a whole other avenue of questions...and probably send Paige down the warpath to City Hall.

Not even Mayor Gil Hamilton deserved to be on Paige Cooper’s hit list.

“How about you tell me how you first started having tea with Mrs. Hastings?” If he couldn’t get her to open up the direct way, he was happy to take the long way around.

Paige planted her backside on the seat, her feet on the ground, and looked at him. Before she turned to gaze at the house across from Mrs. Hastings. “She caught me daydreaming in the yard over there.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you left much time for daydreaming. What do you dream about, exactly?”

“A lot of things. But mainly this house.” Paige climbed off and tugged the bike from his grasp. She walked over to the sidewalk where a faded For Sale sign peeked out of a substantial growth of wildflowers blanketing the front yard of the bright yellow Tudor-style cottage. A weathered white trellis stretched up one side of the exterior and cascaded over with explosive red geranium blooms determined to see the end of summer in full glory.

“The day Charlie and I arrived, we took a walk up this way,” Paige told him. “We were staying at the Chrysalis Motel at the time.”

“I remember.” Not the nicest motel in the area; but not the worst. “You made quite the impression helping Holly the way you did in the diner.” There wasn’t a lot Fletch didn’t know about Paige’s time in town since she and Charlie had arrived. But before? That was another story.

“Charlie fell in love with this house from the get-go.” Paige tucked an imaginary loose strand of hair behind her ear and glanced up then down the street accented by an occasional parked car. “Once Holly hired me I started coming here on my lunch break. I’d just sit in the yard and listen to the silence.”

“And the occasional seagull.” Fletch glanced up as a pair of the feathered creatures squawked and circled overhead.

Paige smiled and followed his gaze. “I love that sound. Everything’s so peaceful here. Like a sanctuary.”

It wasn’t often Fletch saw Paige in calm mode. She was always buzzing around town, doing something somewhere, never stopping long enough to take a substantial breath. But here? In front of this particular house she seemed to relax. And breathe. “So Butterfly Cottage caught your attention, did it?”

“Hmm.” She pushed through the wooden gate and stood among the flora and fauna, looking as at home as a fairy in her garden. “That’s what Mrs. Hastings called it, as well. I take it the name comes from the window over the front door?”

“It does indeed.” Fletch had always loved the stained glass depicting a pair of brilliant monarch butterflies settling onto their eucalyptus branch. Almost as much as he liked the hand-carved door beneath it. His cell phone vibrated on his hip. He reached down, checked the message. Great. Another reported break-in. This time Everett White had called in to say his toolshed had been the target. Fletch mentally readjusted the next few hours of his day. “It’s one of my favorite houses, too, actually,” he admitted. “Is that what brings you back here? The window?”

“No. The For Sale sign.” The second she said it he heard the regret, saw the way she bit her lip and looked away from him, closing her eyes against the sun. “I just like to know it’s still available.”

So much for him thinking Butterfly Harbor was a pit stop for her and Charlie. “You thinking of buying?”

“No.” Her admission had the hope inflating inside him bursting like a bubble. “That would mean staying here permanently, and I’m not sure that’s in the cards for us.”

Paige confirming his suspicion only increased his disappointment. “But if you were to stay, this is the one you’d want.”

“Yes.” That she said it with a frown made him wonder if she’d thought about staying more than she was letting on.

“Because Charlie loves it?”

Ah, the frown vanished, replaced with that familiar heart-clenching smile of hers. “Because Charlie loves it. Speaking of Charlie, she said Luke gave her permission to walk Cash. I hope that’s okay with you. I don’t want her getting in the way of your...investigation.”

“Charlie is welcome at the station anytime,” Fletch told her. “If her mom doesn’t mind.”

“Even if I did I couldn’t stop her. She’s very fond of you, Deputy.” And didn’t Paige look positively thrilled at that idea.

“Fletch. And I’m pretty fond of her, too.”

“We aren’t staying,” Paige said, and he could tell by her expression she hadn’t meant to. “There will come a time we have to move on. So, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t let her get too attached to...Cash.”

Fletcher didn’t miss a beat. “Consider... Cash...forewarned. Unless he can convince you otherwise. If it helps, I don’t think you have a lot to worry about with this place being sold. The original owner’s family has a say over who buys it. They want the right tenant, someone who will appreciate it as is. They won’t sell it to just anyone.”

“Why would anyone want to change it?” The wonder in her voice brought another smile to his face. “She’s perfect.”

“Yes, she is.” But Fletch wasn’t looking at the house. He was looking at her.

And closely enough to see the rise of pink in her cheeks before she locked down her face in that detached expression of hers that seemed specifically reserved for him. She returned to her bike, climbed on and looked at him over her shoulder. “I’m on my way to Nina and Willa’s to look in on them. Is there anything you’d like me to ask them in particular?”

“Nice try.” He recognized her baiting technique and refused to bite. “But give them my best. I know where to find them. And you, if I have any questions.”

“I still think you’re looking for something that isn’t there.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Fletch could almost see the wall going up between them.