“The policeman’s father is working here?”
Piper made a face. “Weird, huh?”
Lucia set her gaze hard. “I have little trust for those who butt in to another’s business.”
“And yet you help so many, Lucia.” Piper shrugged, grabbed coffee and buttered a steaming pancake. Then she took a sifter of powdered sugar, generously applied it to the pancake, rolled the whole thing into a cylinder and raised it to her mouth to bite. “You’re always first in line to help with church functions or folks down on their luck.”
“We are not down on anything that hard work and a heart for God won’t fix.” Lucia flipped the sizzling cakes with more zest and authority than could ever be needed. “We are independent. Industrious. Hardwork—”
“Whoa.” Piper paused the pancake roll without a bite, and the scent of it, sugary-fruitiness waiting to be consumed, made her wish she could ignore Lucia’s angst.
She couldn’t. “Luce, he’s not exactly breaching our defenses. He’s running milk lines to udders. And Berto’s got things under control. Right?”
Lucia’s frown said it wasn’t right, but then her expression became subdued.
Piper turned.
Zach stood in the doorway much as he had two nights before, only this time thick concern worried his brow. “Have you guys seen my father? I had to run some errands at first light. He’s not home and he’s not the take-a-walk type. I wondered if he might have headed over here?”
“He did. We have him sequestered in the milking parlor, where he seems right at home, and you’re just in time for food.” Piper eyed the cooling rolled pancake in her hand and decided it was thoroughly gauche to eat a pancake like that in front of a great-looking guy, even if she had declared him off-limits. Swallowing a sigh, she started to put the pancake down as Zach stepped through the door.
“You roll your pancakes, too?”
“Too?”
He nodded, dipped a smile toward Lucia and slanted a questing gaze toward the plate. “May I?”
“Of course.”
He repeated Piper’s butter and sugar maneuvers, then rolled the cake tightly and took a bite. “Ah, Lucia. Es muy delicioso.”
Zach rolled his pancakes. Just as she did. That had to mean something, right?
Sure, her internal command center noted. It means he’s hungry. Leave it alone. “Your father knows dairy cattle. Milking procedures. Why is that?”
Zach met her look directly. “I told you. I was a farm boy. Worked with my father for years.”
“And this farm was...?”
“Central New York. About two hours east.”
“And now—”
“Sold. Nearly two years ago.”
She’d have to be blind or foolish to miss the note of regret in the lawman’s eye, a resignation in his tone. Knowing the intricacy of maintaining a profitable farm, she had no trouble understanding how difficult that must have been for Marty. “I’m sorry. These are hard times.”
Zach’s gaze agreed, but he pasted a smile on his face as footsteps approached the back door. Piper took his cue and dropped the conversation. “Hey. You guys made record time. Marty, you’re showing me up.”
Berto kicked his boots off, came in and headed for the kitchen sink. He indicated Marty as if they were long-lost best friends. “Me, too. I had to move quickly to pretend to keep up.”
His words put a smile on Marty’s face, a genuine look of pleasure.
“Amazing pancakes.” Zach made the pronouncement as he helped himself to another one. He paused, eyeing Piper’s hand and the uneaten cake. “You haven’t eaten yours.”
“I will.”
“It’s cold.” He swiped hers with an athlete’s dexterity and handed her the hot, buttered cake roll he’d just made. “Eat this one while it’s hot, because I don’t make sacrifices casually.”
She took a bite of the rolled-up pastry and agreed with him on one thing: the tubed cakes were fine cold, but they were melt-in-your-mouth delicious while warm.
But she didn’t buy that he didn’t make sacrifices casually. His job, his presence, the slightly careful attention he paid his father?
She was willing to bet Zach Harrison made casual sacrifices every single day, but was too darn nice to know it.
* * *
Piper moved farther into the town hall conference room that evening, but kept toward the rear purposely. Getting out quick at meeting’s end meant getting home early, always a plus.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” a new but familiar voice offered softly, far too close to her right ear to ignore. “We could have come down together.”
Goose bumps prickled Piper’s arms, and she didn’t have to turn to know who was standing behind her at the crowded bicentennial planning meeting. After meeting him three days ago, Zach’s voice had already found its way past her defenses. Not good. Not good at all.
“I walked down.” She didn’t turn so he moved closer, off to her right, his arm snug against hers in the crowded conditions. A good fire marshal would demand that thirty people, minimum, should leave because the room was grossly over limit, but the fire marshal was on the board and knew how to pick his battles in their small town. “My great-great-grandparents were some of the original settlers.”
“Generational farm.”
“Yes.” She turned to face him more fully and recognized the bad move in record time. Away from him, it was easy to dismiss his breadth and solidity. That strong, stalwart commanding presence. In the abstract, she could write off his warmth, the humor in those bright blue eyes, the air of protection he carried intrinsically.
Up close now?
Not a chance.
He smiled down at her, and something in the ease of that grin called to her, but she’d been there, done that and wasn’t about to repeat the mistake, especially in front of over one hundred townies as the meeting was called to order.
Twenty minutes in, Piper was glad she’d left Lucia home with the girls. Lucia’s patience thinned with protocol, and by the time they’d waded through last month’s minutes and changes and voted on those changes, she was ready to head for the hills herself.
“Why don’t they send the minutes out as an email, ask for adjustments, make those adjustments, then start the meeting with acceptance of the amended minutes?” Zach whispered the question into her right ear, having no idea what the tickle of breath did to her pulse.
“I dare you to make that suggestion.”
He swept the aging crowd a look, then shrugged acceptance. “Gotcha.”
“Uh-oh.”
“What?” He leaned closer again. Piper pointed front and center where an aging woman with a really bad dye job stood, jabbing a finger toward the bicentennial board appointees.
“Violet Yardley, our resident revivalist. She’s rich, owns land that straddles both counties and wants things her way.”
“South shore, not far from Clearwater, adjacent to the vacant campgrounds.”
“That’s one of her properties. Yes. I take it you’ve patrolled down there?”
“Troopers, sheriffs and the occasional Clearwater cop have been called on-site, even though it’s off the Clearwater jurisdiction. Empty cottages and spaced-out kids from the city make a bad combo. She wants to