One of them spotted Jake and sank his elbow into his friend’s side.
“Hey…” The boy’s voice snapped off when he saw Jake walking purposefully toward them.
The circle parted immediately, giving Jake a clear view of the unlucky kid who had been trapped inside. Jeremy Barlow.
The boy looked more worried than hurt, but Jake’s protective instincts—instincts he hadn’t known that he possessed until now—kicked into high gear.
“What’s going on?” He turned his attention to the largest boy in the group.
“Nothing. We’re just goofing around.” As if to prove his point, he gave Jeremy a friendly cuff on the shoulder.
Jeremy winced but remained silent. Jake stepped between them, forcing the others to fall back. “Doesn’t Charlie have a rule that the youngest kids get to go to the front of the line?”
“Yeah, but it’s stupid,” one of the boys muttered. “It should be whoever gets here first.”
“If that’s the case, then from what I saw Jeremy would still be ahead of you.” Jake folded his arms. “Right?”
The oldest boy looked as if he were going to argue the point when Charlie’s voice, as crackly as the speakers, broke through the hum of chatter around them.
“Okay, that’s it! There are kids waiting for me at the next stop.” The elderly man closed up the back of the truck and jumped inside, deaf to the chorus of protests that rose from the boys who had been harassing Jeremy.
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “You can go. But at the next stop, I’m going to assume you’ll go to the end of the line and there won’t be any more ‘goofing around.’”
Mumbling their agreement, the boys made a beeline for the pile of bicycles on the sidewalk in front of the café.
The rest of the children began to disperse. Jeremy’s pensive gaze followed the truck as it chugged away.
“Are you going to catch up with him at the park?” Jake asked, knowing it was the second stop on Charlie’s route.
He shook his head. “Mom doesn’t want me to go farther than the café.”
Jake frowned. When he was Jeremy’s age, he and his best friend had practically worn the rubber off their bicycle tires on summer afternoons like this. His mother had seemed to accept the nomadic lifestyle of adolescent boys. Her only rule was that Jake eat breakfast before he left the house in the morning and be back in time for supper. And what happened during the hours in between he didn’t need to account for.
Given the way Emma had hovered close to Jeremy the first time they’d met, Jake had a hunch she wasn’t as lenient.
“Mom is still at the library. I should go back.” Jeremy squared his thin shoulders.
Jake couldn’t help but be moved by the boy’s valiant attempt to hide his disappointment. “Do you want a ride?” he heard himself say.
The blue eyes widened. “In the police car?”
“That’s what I’m driving.” Jake couldn’t help but smile at his reaction. “Hop in.”
Jeremy didn’t have to be told twice. He was sitting in the passenger seat with his seat belt buckled before Jake opened the driver’s side door.
“My dad drove a car like this, didn’t he?”
The innocent question took Jake off guard. Did Jeremy remember his father? “I’m sure it was similar,” he said carefully. “But it probably didn’t have a laptop like this one.”
“It’s important to keep up with changes in technology,” Jeremy said seriously as he leaned forward to study the radar gun mounted to the dash.
“That’s right.” Jake’s lips twitched as he turned the car around. “How is the apple tree doing?”
“I think it’s going to live. And it’s better than flowers, even if we didn’t have anything to take to the cemetery.”
Jake’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. He hadn’t considered that the bouquet the police department gave Emma would end up on Brian’s grave.
Further proof that he’d made a mistake.
“There’s Mom.” Jeremy pointed out the window.
Emma stood on the sidewalk in front of the library, her willowy figure accentuated by the white blouse and knee-length denim skirt she wore. Her gaze was riveted on the squad car.
The expression on her face warned Jake that he’d just made another mistake.
The sight of a squad car cruising down the street caused Emma’s hands to clench at her sides. It was silly, she knew, to have such a strong reaction to a vehicle.
She steeled herself, waiting for it to go past. Instead, the car glided to a stop in front of the library.
The sight of a familiar face in the window squeezed the air from her lungs.
What happened?
The words stuck in Emma’s throat as she watched Jake Sutton’s lean frame unfold from the vehicle. He prowled around to the passenger side and opened the door.
“Chief Sutton gave me a ride in the squad car, Mom.” Jeremy was smiling as he jumped out. “It’s pretty sweet.”
“But…” Emma struggled to find her voice. “What about the ice cream? Didn’t you catch up to Charlie in time?”
The smile faded. “Yeah.”
Emma sensed there was more to the story and her heart sank. “Was someone bothering you again?”
“You know Brad and his friends. They just like to show off,” Jeremy mumbled.
She glanced at Jake and found him regarding her with that measuring look. The one that made her want to run for cover.
“Everything is fine,” he said. “Jeremy mentioned you were at the library, so I offered to give him a ride back.”
“And he let me turn on the lights.” Jeremy’s smile returned.
Emma caught her breath as a memory surfaced, momentarily breaking through the grief that had formed like a crust of ice over her heart.
On Brian’s official first day with the Mirror Lake police department, he had stopped home and handed her a camera, shamelessly turning his lunch break into a twenty-minute photo session. His attempt to strike a serious pose had made Emma laugh—which had sparked Brian’s laughter in return.
Every one of those moments had been captured in heartbreaking detail except for one difference.
That carefree young woman was someone Emma no longer recognized. Someone who no longer existed.
Watching Emma’s eyes darken, Jake realized he’d done more than cross a line. He’d inadvertently stirred up something in her past. It was possible that in order to cope, Emma had found it easier to tend her grief instead of her memories.
“Mom?” Jeremy tugged on her arm. “It’s got a really great computer, too. They can look up all kind of things. I’m not in it, though, so we looked up you instead.”
Jake winced as Emma snapped back to the present and turned on him.
“Me?”
Jake smiled, hoping she would realize that running her name through the system had been a harmless illustration to satisfy Jeremy’s curiosity, not an invasion of her privacy. “Date of birth March fifteenth. And you have a very clean driving record.”
Emma took a step back. “Jeremy, it’s time to go. I have to lock up now.”
The