The Cop, the Puppy and Me

He certainly wasn’t giving anything away, but he wasn’t walking away, either, so Sarah prattled on, trying to engage him. “This is my grandmother’s house. She left it to me when she died. Along with her jam business. Jelly Jeans and Jammies. You might have heard of it. It’s very popular around town.”

Sarah was not sure she had engaged him. His expression was impossible to read. She had felt encouraged that he showed a slight interest in her. Now, she was suspicious. Sullivan was one of those men who found out things about people, all the while revealing nothing of himself.

“Look, Miss McDougall—”

She noticed he did not use her first name, and knew, despite that brief show of interest, he was keeping his distance from her in every way he could.

“—not that any of this has anything to do with me, but nothing feels or looks the same to an adult as it does to a child.”

How had he managed, in a single line, to make her feel hopelessly naive, as if she was chasing something that didn’t exist?

What if he was right?

Damn him. That’s what these brimming-with-confidence-and-cynicism men did. Made everyone doubt themselves. Their hopes and dreams.

Well, she wasn’t giving her hopes and dreams into the care of another man. Michael Talbot had already taught her that lesson, thank you very much.

When she’d first heard the rumor about Mike, her fiancé and editor in chief of Today’s Baby, and a flirty little freelancer named Trina, Sarah had refused to believe it. But then she had seen them together in a café, something too cozy about the way they were leaning into each other to confirm what she wanted to believe, that Mike and Trina’s relationship was strictly business.

Her dreams of a nice little house, filled with babies of her own, had been dashed in a flash.

No accusation, just, I saw you and Trina today.

The look of shame that had crossed Mike’s face had said it all, without him saying a single word.

Now, Sarah had a replacement dream, so much safer. A town to revitalize.

“Yes, it does have something to do with you!”

“I don’t see how.”

“Because I’ve been put in charge of Summer Fest. I’ve been given one chance to bring it back, to prove how good it is for this town,” she explained.

“Good luck with that.”

“I’ve got no budget for promotion. But I bet your phone has been ringing off the hook since the clip of the rescue was shown on the national evening news.” She read the answer in his face. “TheA.M. Show, Good Night, America, The Way We See It, Morning Chat with Barb—they’re all calling you, aren’t they?”

His arms had now folded across the immenseness of his chest, and he was rocking back on his heels, watching her with narrowed eyes.

“They’re begging you for a follow-up,” she guessed. She wasn’t the only one who had been able to see that this man and that dog would make good television.

“You’ll be happy to know I’m not answering their calls, either,” he said dryly.

“I am not happy to know that! If you could just say yes to a few interviews and mention the town and Summer Fest. If you could just say how wonderful Kettle Bend is and invite everybody to come for July 1. You could tell them that you’re going to be the grand marshal of the parade!”

It had all come out in a blurt.

“The grand marshal of the parade,” he repeated, stunned.

She probably should have left that part until later. But then she realized, shocked, he had not repeated his out-and-out no.

He seemed to realize it, too. “No,” he said flatly.

She rushed on as if he hadn’t spoken. “I don’t have a hope of reaching millions of people with no publicity budget. But, Oli—Mr.—Officer Sullivan—you do. You could single-handedly bring Summer Fest back to Kettle Bend!”

“No,” he said again, no hesitation this time.

“There is more to being a cop in a small town than arresting poor old Henrietta Delafield for stealing lipsticks from the Kettle Mug and Drug.”

“Mug and Drug,” he repeated dryly, “that sounds like my old beat in Detroit.”

Despite the stoniness of his expression, Sarah allowed herself to feel the smallest stirring of hope. He had a sense of humor! And, he had finally revealed something about himself. He was starting to care for his new town, despite that hard-bitten exterior.

She beamed at him.

He backed away from her.

“Let me think about it,” he said with such patent insincerity she could have wept.

Sarah saw it for what it was, an escape mechanism. He was slipping away from her. She had been so sure, all this time, when she’d hounded him with message after message, that when he actually heard her brilliant idea, when he knew how good it would be for the town, he would want to do it.

“There’s no time to think,” she said. “You’re the hot topic now.” She hesitated. “Officer Sullivan, I’m begging you.”

“I don’t like being impulsive.” His tone made it evident he scorned being the hot topic and was unmoved by begging.

“But you jumped in the river after that dog. Does it get more impulsive than that?”

“A momentary lapse,” he said brusquely. “I said I’ll think about it.”

“That means no,” she said, desolately.

“Okay, then, no.”

There was something about the set of his shoulders, the line around his mouth, the look in his eyes that he had made up his mind absolutely. He wasn’t ever going to think about it, and he wasn’t ever going to change his mind. She could talk until she was blue in the face, leave four thousand more messages on his voice mail, go to his boss again.

But his mind was made up. Like the wall in his eyes, it would be easier to climb Everest than to change it.

“Excuse me,” she said tautly. She bent and picked up her rhubarb, as if it could provide some kind of shield against him, and then shoved by him. She headed for the back door of her house before she did the unthinkable.

You did not cry in front of a man as hard-hearted as that one.

Something in his face, as she glanced back, made her feel as if her disappointment was transparent to him. She was all done being vulnerable. Had she begged? She hoped she hadn’t begged!

“You should try the Jelly Jeans and Jammies Crabbies Jelly,” she shot over her shoulder at him. “It’s made out of crab apples. My grandmother swore it was a cure for crankiness.”

She opened her back screen door and let it slam behind her. The back door led into a small vestibule and then her kitchen.

She was greeted by the sharp tang of the batch of rhubarb jam she had made yesterday. Every counter and every surface in the entire kitchen was covered with the rhubarb she needed to make more jam today.