LITMIR.BIZ

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of those things would matter to the townspeople, just as those things didn’t truly assuage his conscience. He could only hope that someday the man he’d become would matter more than the boy he’d been. Maybe that was how Mara felt, too.

      “We’ll take care of this, everyone.” He motioned to the crowd to continue shopping, then turned to Mara. “Why don’t you and I go into the office area and talk this through?”

      Mara checked her watch again. “Can we make it quick? I, um, have an important, uh, conference call in fifteen minutes.”

      “Don’t you need my statement, too, Deputy Calhoun? Or is this a purely cursory investigation?”

      James thought he heard a silent too on the end of CarlaAnn’s last question, as well, and remembered his mother confronting his father after CarlaAnn accused him of conducting a “cursory investigation” into Simone’s disappearance with the biker. James took Mara’s arm and pushed past CarlaAnn.

      “Hey,” Mara said in protest, but he ignored her until the door to the back office closed behind them. “I’m not a criminal. And I have another appointment.”

      “No, you’re a mischief maker. And important conference call or not, I’m going to investigate why you’re setting off alarm bells at my grocery store.”

      “I thought it still belonged to the Mallard family, or have the Calhouns gone into groceries as well as law enforcement?”

      “You know what I meant. This is my town, and the people here are my friends, my family. The businesses they run, I protect.”

      “They were mine once, too.”

      “Until the day you ran out on everything.”

      Mara jerked her arm from his grasp. “You, of all people, know why I left.”

      James clenched his jaw. Yeah, he knew. Only it hadn’t been her leaving ten years ago that he’d been talking about. She didn’t need to know that, though. He opened the door to the room that held the security equipment and motioned her inside. “Want to show me your reasonable explanation for stealing five dollars in snacks when I know for a fact that you don’t eat generic cookies and are lactose intolerant?”

      “I can’t.” Mara looked uncomfortable. “But if you would let me get to my—”

      “You’d better, or CarlaAnn out there is going to do her damnedest to make sure this misdemeanor offense not only lands on the crime blotter of the Slippery Rock Gazette but also sounds like a felony.” God, but she was cute when she was upset. Her face took on a pretty pink hue, and she wrung her hands together nervously. Mara was almost never nervous, so seeing her this out of balance was nice. Especially since she was so good at putting him off balance.

      Mara motioned to the equipment on the counter. “The system doesn’t catch where I was in the store, and it misses a lot of the parking lot.” She pulled an ID badge from her bag, the move pulling her top taut over her breasts. James’s mouth went dry. Stupid reaction. He’d been hung up on Mara Tyler for most of his life, but he was not going to let himself get hung up on her again. He was a responsible adult with a responsible job, and she’d walked out on him two years ago without so much as a goodbye. He was over her.

      “I work for Cannon Security.” She named a firm he had heard about during his training in Jefferson City a few years before. “Mike hired us to do a security overhaul, and I was here to conduct a cursory check before telling him what needed to be done. No one told me he was on vacation. I have emails on my computer at the B and B.”

      “You work for a security company?” That was new. He had always figured Mara had gone into hacking or some other not-quite-legal profession. Although they’d had an on-again, off-again relationship, they never talked about anything important. She’d seen his badge, and knew he had always wanted to become the sheriff, but they had never talked about her plans. Or dreams. Hell, he couldn’t really call what they’d had a relationship. It was more like a five-year series of booty calls when she was near Slippery Rock or when he went to law-enforcement conferences in the cities where she worked. “I didn’t realize you were one of the good guys now.”

      “Well, I don’t wear a cape, but I do have a lot of really cool techy toys that come in handy from time to time.”

      Great, now he was picturing her in tights and a cape, and in his imagination her body looked so much better than any of the good guys from the comic books. Not that she was one of the good guys. Er, girls. Women. Whatever. He refocused as she continued talking.

      “I do camera and detector installs, but I also write specific programs for some of our clients.” She sat at the counter and ran through the tapes from the ancient camera system.

      The images were grainy and fuzzy, but he could tell they focused on the check stand and the front of the store. He moved closer, putting his hand over hers. Warmth from the touch spread up his arm, but Mara didn’t seem to notice. He shook himself. He was not going down this road, not again. Mara only ever saw him as a friend or a booty call, and even if that changed, his job didn’t. Her reputation wouldn’t. Getting tangled up with her again would be...irresponsible. James hadn’t been irresponsible, at least not inside the Slippery Rock city limits, since graduation night.

      “This was to be a custom job because Mallard’s is the only store on this particular block. He has specific needs.”

      So did James, not that his needs had anything to do with the images on the screens before them. Those needs had everything to do with the heat that seemed to seep into his skin from hers. He stepped back. “Like more cameras and a new door.”

      “Yes, as well as computerized entry codes and new systems for opening and closing the registers. The store has lost a lot of revenue from shoplifters, but Mike also mentioned something about registers not adding up. It’s a big job.”

      “And they picked you to run it.” He was impressed. Mara Tyler was not only a good guy but also a good-at-her-job good guy.

      “Actually, I volunteered.” She stood. “I needed to make sure my family was okay after the tornado, and...” She paused. “It seemed like a good time to come home for more than a day at a time.” She twisted her mouth to the side as if she might say more.

      James waited a long moment, but she didn’t continue. “I thought you hated Slippery Rock.”

      “Sometimes the things you hate the most as a kid are the things you miss the most as an adult.” There was something in her voice that made him look at her more closely. This wasn’t personal—that couldn’t be it. But there was something different about Mara. Something had changed over the past two years, and that change was interesting.

      Not that he would act on interesting. Still, it might be nice to have her around for a while, if for no other reason than to give uptight old CarlaAnn a hard time.

      “Are you ready to face the music with CarlaAnn?” He checked his watch. “By my count, you have ten more minutes before the big conference call.”

      Mara shrugged. “I kind of figured her antipathy toward me would have lessened.”

      “You’ve forgotten how small towns work, haven’t you?”

      Together they returned to the check stand, where CarlaAnn was scanning a woman’s groceries while the teenager bagged them. Once the woman had paid, James motioned CarlaAnn to the side.

      “Meet the new security consultant for Mallard’s Grocery.”

      “Well, doesn’t that just figure?” CarlaAnn said, annoyance in her voice. “Mike didn’t say anything about security changes.”

      “I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it when he gets back.”

      Mara moved to the check stand and took the cookies and milk from her bag. “To show there are no hard feelings, I’ll pay for these. It really was part of the initial security check.”

      Reluctantly CarlaAnn scanned the items and slid

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