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The officers’ unhappy looks collided in midair.
“Sure, Chief.” Trip plucked at his collar. “Not a problem.”
He vanished through the doorway but Steve paused for a moment. “Emma Barlow lives in the last house on Stony Ridge Road. It’s a dead end off the west side of the lake—”
A hand closed around Steve’s arm and yanked him out of sight.
Jake shook his head.
Definitely one for the list.
Emma Barlow sat at the kitchen table, palms curled around a cup of tea that had cooled off more than an hour ago.
Ordinarily, she could set her clock by the arrival of an officer from the Mirror Lake Police Department. Nine o’clock sharp, as if the stop at her house was the first order of business for the day.
Or something to get over with as quickly as possible.
Sometimes Emma wondered if the officers dreaded August fifteenth as much as she did.
After six years, she knew exactly what to do. As if every moment, every movement, were choreographed.
Emma would open the door and find one of the officers, most likely Phil Koenigs, standing on the porch with a bouquet of red roses. Always roses.
They didn’t speak. Emma preferred it that way. She accepted the flowers more easily than she would have awkward condolences. Or even worse, a pious reminder that God loved her and she should accept Brian’s death as His will.
Emma had often wondered why no one else saw the contradiction there. If God really loved her, would He have left her a widow at the age of twenty-four? Wouldn’t He have somehow intervened to save Brian?
Those were the kinds of questions that ran through Emma’s mind during the sleepless nights following the funeral, but she’d learned not to voice them out loud. It hadn’t taken her long to discover that most people, no matter how sympathetic or well-meaning, seemed to give grief a wide berth. As if they were afraid if they got too close, it would touch—or stain—their own lives somehow.
No one liked to be reminded how fragile life could be. Especially another police officer, who looked at her and saw Brian instead. A life cut short.
Maybe that explained why the officers remained poised on the top step, waiting for her to take the flowers. She would then nod politely. Step back into the house. Close the door. Listen for the car to drive away. The roses would be transported to the cemetery and carefully arranged, one by one, in the bronze vase on Brian’s grave.
What she really wanted to do was throw them away.
If it weren’t for Jeremy, she probably would. Although her ten-year-old son had very few memories of his father, he took both pride and comfort in knowing that an entire community did.
Jeremy had lost enough; Emma wasn’t about to take that away from him.
Unlike her, Brian had been born and raised in Mirror Lake. He’d left after graduation, only to return two years later with a degree in Police Science and a gold wedding band on his left hand, a perfect match with the one now tucked away in her jewelry box.
The snap of a car door closing sucked the air from Emma’s lungs. Lost in thought, she hadn’t heard a car pull up the driveway. Through the panel of lace curtains on the window, Emma caught a glimpse of a light bar on top of the vehicle.
Rising to her feet, she tried to subdue the memories that pushed their way to the surface. Memories of the night she’d fallen asleep on the sofa, waiting for Brian to come home. But instead of her husband, a visibly shaken Phil Koenigs had shown up at the door…
You can do this, Em. Open the door. Take the roses. Nod politely. Close the door.
Her fingers closed around the knob. And her heart stumbled.
It wasn’t Phil who stood there, a bouquet of long-stemmed roses pinched in the bend of his arm.
It was a stranger, empty-handed.
“Emma Barlow?”
A stranger who knew her name.
Emma managed a jerky nod. “Y-yes.” Her voice sounded as rusty as the screen door she hadn’t found time to replace.
“I’m Jake Sutton.” He extended his hand. “The new police chief.”
Before she knew what was happening, Emma felt the warm press of his fingers as they folded around hers.
She’d heard a rumor about Chief Jansen’s upcoming retirement but hadn’t realized he’d been replaced yet. Replaced by a man in his midthirties, whose chiseled features and tousled dark hair gave him an edgy look. A faint web of scars etched the blade of his jaw, as pale and delicate as frost on a window. If it weren’t for the white dress shirt and badge, he would have looked more like someone who walked the edge of the law, not a man who dedicated his life enforcing it.
Emma pulled her hand away, no longer sure what she should say. Or do.
Jake Sutton had just changed the rules.
Chapter Two
Jake felt Emma Barlow’s hand flutter inside his like a butterfly trapped in a jar. Before she yanked it away.
His first thought when the door opened was that he’d gone to the wrong address. The woman standing on the other side was young. Younger than he expected.
Too young to be a widow.
Fast on the heels of that thought came a second. In an instant, Jake knew why the officers let the short straw decide who delivered the flowers. It wasn’t the painful reminder of losing a friend and colleague they didn’t want to face.
It was Emma Barlow.
He recognized the anger embedded in her grief; flash-frozen like shards of glass in the smoke-blue eyes staring up at him.
She didn’t want flowers. Or sympathy.
She wanted him to leave.
It was a shame that Jake rarely did what people wanted—or expected—him to do.
“Do you mind if I come in?”
Instead of answering, Emma Barlow made a strangled sound.
Was that a yes or a no?
Jake took a step forward. She took a step back…and bumped into the person who’d materialized behind her. A boy about ten or eleven years old, with sandy blond hair a shade or two lighter than hers. Eyes an identical shade of blue.
Jake released a slow breath.
No one at the department had mentioned a child.
Steve had said that Brian Barlow had died six years ago. If this was his son, and the boy had to be, given the striking physical resemblance to Emma, he must have lost his father before he started school.
Something twisted in Jake’s gut when Emma put a protective hand on the boy’s shoulder. He’d gotten used to the suspicious looks cast his way while he worked undercover, hair scraped back in an unkempt ponytail and a gold stud in one earlobe. He’d gotten rid of both after leaving the force, but Emma Barlow’s wary expression still unsettled him. Made him feel like the bad guy.
“Jeremy, this is…Chief Sutton.” Emma’s husky voice stumbled over the words. “Chief Sutton—my son. Jeremy.”
Jake extended his hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
The boy hung back, his gaze uncertain. “Where are the flowers?”
The question broadsided Jake. If Emma’s son had expected him to show up with a dozen roses, he obviously hadn’t followed standard protocol.
Okay, God, I thought I was following your orders.
Jake’s silent prayer went up with a huff of frustration. Not at God, but at himself. The trouble was, he’d been a cop longer than he’d been a follower of Jesus, so he wasn’t always sure he was getting the faith stuff right.
Over the past six months, he’d tried to tune in to what some referred to as “a still, small voice” or a “gentle inner nudge.”
His younger brother, Andy, without mentioning names, of course, claimed that if “someone” had a thick skull, God sometimes had to shout to get their attention. And if that “someone” also possessed a thick skin, the “gentle nudge” might feel more like an elbow to the ribs.
Jake had felt that elbow when he’d reached out to steady the vase on the seat beside him at a stop sign on his way to Emma’s. He studied the flowers, as if he’d just been given a piece of evidence, but found nothing unusual about a dozen roses mixed with lacy ferns and a few tufts of those little white flowers he couldn’t remember the name of. The standard arrangement a woman received for Valentine’s Day or an anniversary. To remind her she was loved…
Another jab.
Jake had closed his eyes.
Did a bouquet of red roses honor her husband’s memory? Or was the sight of them one more reminder of everything Emma Barlow had lost?
Jake had turned the squad car around and headed for the florist shop.
Once inside, he’d bypassed the cooler filled with pink and blue carnations, ready and waiting to celebrate the next newborn baby, and dodged a display of vases filled with single-stemmed roses, the grab-and-go kind, best offered with an apology.
His foot had snagged the corner of a wooden pallet, almost pitching him headfirst into the sturdy little tree in the corner.
The clerk explained it had been part of a late-summer shipment that hadn’t sold because most people planted trees in the spring. A mistake.
Jake had seen it as divine intervention.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
“I brought something else this time.”
Jeremy ducked his head and Jake waited, hoping the boy’s natural curiosity would trump his fear.
Jeremy scraped the toe of his tennis shoe against the porch, sloughing off a blister of loose paint. His voice barely broke above a whisper but Jake heard him.
“What is it?”
Emma resisted the urge to echo the question.
“Come on. I’ll show you.” Jake Sutton stepped off the porch and strode toward the squad car. Without asking for her permission, Jeremy bounded after him.
Leaving Emma no choice but to follow.
The police chief opened the back door of the vehicle and pulled out a bucket. Emma blinked.
He had brought something else.
A spindly coat rack of a tree with leaves that looked more like pieces of damp crepe paper glued to the drooping branches.
“What’s that?” Jeremy’s nose wrinkled as he sidled closer.
“This…” Jake anchored the container against one narrow hip and bumped the door shut. “Is an apple tree.”
Jeremy gave it a doubtful look. “I think it’s dead.”
“It’ll be good as new once it’s planted. All it needs is some water and sunlight.” Jake tilted his head. “I was going to offer to dig the hole, but you look strong enough to do it.”
He sounded so certain that Jeremy’s chin rose. “S-sure.”
Before Emma could protest, Jake transferred the bucket to her son’s arms. Jeremy’s shoulders sagged under the weight, but to her astonishment his eyes glowed with pride when he turned to look at her.
“Should I find a place to plant it, Mom?”
Emma nodded, not trusting her voice. Although they lived in the country, her son shunned the rough-and-tumble antics that most boys his age enthusiastically embraced. Emma knew she was partially responsible for that. After Brian’s death, she’d had no choice but to take Jeremy to work with her at the library, where he’d been forced to find quiet things to occupy his time.
By the time he was old enough to pursue some of his own interests, Jeremy had seemed more content to observe things rather than experience them. Emma had been secretly relieved when it looked as if he hadn’t inherited his father’s love of a challenge. Brian’s desire to push the limits had burned like a flame inside him. One that marriage and becoming a father had only tempered, never fully quenched.
Jeremy flashed a shy smile in the man’s direction before trudging away, arms wrapped as tight as insulation around the bucket.
Emma couldn’t get her feet to move. Or her vocal cords.
She didn’t know what to do with an apple tree. Jake Sutton should have brought roses. Never mind that she didn’t like roses… It was what he was supposed to do. And he should be driving away now…not watching her with golden-brown eyes, as calm and measuring as a timber wolf’s.
Those eyes locked with hers and Emma had the uneasy feeling he could read her thoughts. “Do you have a shovel handy?”
Afraid of where the question might lead—possibly to Jake Sutton staying longer?—Emma didn’t respond.
Unfortunately, Jeremy did. “There’s one in the shed,” he called over his shoulder, his mood a whole lot more cheerful than hers.
“Good. You find a spot for the tree while your mother and I round one up.”
Didn’t she have a say in this?
Emma’s hands clenched at her side. “That’s not necessary, Chief…Sutton.” Her mind was still having a difficult time adjusting to the change. Not only in the name but the man himself. “You must be busy. Jeremy and I don’t want to keep you from your work.”
“It’s Jake. And don’t worry about me getting into trouble.” A glint of humor appeared in his eyes. “I’m the boss.”
