Riverbend Road. RaeAnne Thayne

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СКАЧАТЬ And I’ve got an ETA of about seven minutes now.”

      The obvious delight left her squirming and wishing she had deflected his invitation again.

      Fish or cut line, her father would have said.

      “Make it five, if you can. My great-aunt’s favorite honeysuckle bush is in peril here.”

      “On it.”

      She ended the phone call just as Jenny groaned. “Oh. Not the butterfly bush too! Shoo. Go on, move!”

      While she was on the phone, the cow had moved around the shrubs nearer her calf and was nibbling on the large showy blossoms on the other side of the driveway.

      Wyn thought about waiting for the game warden to handle the situation but Jenny was counting on her. She couldn’t let a couple of moose get the better of her. Wondering idly if a Kevlar vest would protect her in the event she was charged, she climbed out of her patrol vehicle and edged around to the front bumper. “Come on. Move along. That’s it.”

      She opted to move toward the calf, figuring the cow would follow her baby. Mindful to keep the vehicle between her and the bigger animal, she waved her arms like she was directing traffic in a big-city intersection. “Go. Get out of here.”

      Something in her firm tone or maybe her rapid-fire movements finally must have convinced the calf she wasn’t messing around this time. He paused for just a second then lurched through a break in the shrubs to the other side, leaving just enough room for Great-Aunt Jenny to squeeze past and head for her garage to unload her groceries.

      “Thank you, Wynnie. You’re the best,” her aunt called. “Come by one of these Sundays for dinner. I’ll make my fried chicken and biscuits and my Better-Than-Sex cake.”

      Her mouth watered and her stomach rumbled, reminding her quite forcefully that she hadn’t eaten anything since her shift started that morning.

      Her great-aunt’s Sunday dinners were pure decadence. Wyn could almost feel her arteries clog in anticipation.

      “I’ll check my schedule.”

      “Thanks again.”

      Jenny drove her flashy little convertible into the garage and quickly closed the door behind her.

      Of all things, the sudden action of the door seemed to startle the big cow moose where all other efforts—including a honking horn and Wyn’s yelling and arm-peddling—had failed. The moose shied away from the activity, heading in Wyn’s direction.

      Crap.

      Heart pounding, she managed to jump into her vehicle and yank the door closed behind her seconds before the moose charged past her toward the calf.

      The two big animals picked their way across the lawn and settled in to nibble Jenny’s pretty red-twig dogwoods.

      Crisis managed—or at least her part in it—she turned around and drove back to the street just as a pickup pulling a trailer with the Idaho Fish and Game logo came into view over the hill.

      She pushed the button to roll down her window and Moose did the same. Beside him sat a game warden she didn’t know. Moose beamed at her and she squirmed, wishing she had shut him down again instead of giving him unrealistic expectations.

      “It’s a cow and her calf,” she said, forcing her tone into a brisk, businesslike one and addressing both men in the vehicle. “They’re now on the south side of the house.”

      “Thanks for running recon for us,” Moose said.

      “Yeah. Pretty sure we managed to save the Ben & Jerry’s, so I guess my work here is done.”

      The warden grinned at her and she waved and pulled onto the road, leaving her window down for the sweet-smelling June breezes to float in.

      She couldn’t really blame a couple of moose for wandering into town for a bit of lunch. This was a beautiful time around Lake Haven, when the wildflowers were starting to bloom and the grasses were long and lush.

      She loved Haven Point with all her heart but she found it pretty sad that the near-moose encounter was the most exciting thing that had happened to her on the job in days.

      Her cell phone rang just as she turned from Clover Hill Road to Lakeside Drive. She knew by the ringtone just who was on the other end and her breathing hitched a little, like always. Those stone-cold embers she had been wondering about when it came to Moose Porter suddenly flared to thick, crackling life.

      Yeah. She knew at least one reason why she didn’t go out much.

      She pushed the phone button on her vehicle’s hands-free unit. “Hey, Chief.”

      “Hear you had a little excitement this afternoon and almost tangled with a couple of moose.”

      She heard the amusement in the voice of her boss—and friend—and tried not to picture Cade Emmett stretched out behind his desk, big and rangy and gorgeous, with that surprisingly sweet smile that broke hearts all over Lake Haven County.

      “News travels.”

      “Your great-aunt Jenny just called to inform me you risked your life to save her Cherry Garcia and to tell me all about how you deserve a special commendation.”

      “If she really thought that, why didn’t she at least give me a pint for my trouble?” she grumbled.

      The police chief laughed, that rich, full laugh that made her fingers and toes tingle like she’d just run full tilt down Clover Hill Road with her arms outspread.

      Curse the man.

      “You’ll have to take that up with her next time you see her. Meantime, we just got a call about possible trespassers at that old wreck of a barn on Darwin Twitchell’s horse property on Conifer Drive, just before the turnoff for Riverbend. Would you mind checking it out before you head back for the shift change?”

      “Who called it in?”

      “Darwin. Apparently somebody tripped an alarm he set up after he got hit by our friendly local graffiti artist a few weeks back.”

      Leave it to the ornery old buzzard to set a trap for unsuspecting trespassers. Knowing Darwin and his contrariness, he probably installed infrared sweepers and body heat sensors, even though the ramshackle barn held absolutely nothing of value.

      “The way my luck is going today, it’s probably a relative to the two moose I just made friends with.”

      “It could be a skunk, for all I know. But Darwin made me swear I’d send an officer to check it out. Since the graffiti case is yours, I figured you’d want first dibs, just in case you have the chance to catch them red-handed. Literally.”

      “Gosh, thanks.”

      He chuckled again and the warmth of it seemed to ease through the car even through the hollow, tinny Bluetooth speakers.

      “Keep me posted.”

      “Ten-four.”

      She СКАЧАТЬ