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She nodded dutifully, taking the badge from him.
“What do you say?” I asked her, not wanting to get on this guy’s bad side my first day in town.
“Thank you,” Emily said.
He grinned back at her. “You’re welcome.”
He stood back up and smiled at my mother-in-law. “Nancy. Nice to see you. Didn’t know you were watching your grandkids nowadays.”
She smiled back at him. “Just started today,” she said with a smile that belied her upset at the divorce. “What brings you to our neck of the woods?”
Knox tilted his head toward me, and I internally cringed. Nancy would not like the sound of me speeding. But he told her, “Ran into Larkin here, and she said the kids might enjoy seeing police lights.”
A sense of relief swept through me. Nancy might have been supportive of the kids, but I was on thin ice.
“What’s your name?” he asked, giving Jackson a little wave.
“Jackson,” Nancy and I answered at the same time.
He grinned at my son, who was eyeing him curiously.
Emily said, “Can I ride in the car?”
“Oh, honey,” I said, “I’m sure Officer Madigan has important things to do.”Like pulling over other moms on their way to pick up their kids.
“Nope.” He popped the p. “If your mom tells me where to go, you can ride with me.”
Emily jumped up and down in front of me. “Can I, Mommy? Please?”
I hesitated, but Nancy said, “He’s a local hero, Larkin.”
I had to hold back a roll of my eyes. But because Emily looked so happy and hopeful, I couldn’t say no.
“Fine,” I said. “But we need to put your car seat in his car first.”
Nancy took Jackson to the shade of the front porch and sat in her rocking chair while I went to get the car seats. Jackson giggled happily as he held on to his grandma’s hands, pushing himself up to stand in her lap. He still had yet to walk, but at least he was using his legs.
With those two occupied and Emily asking Knox all sorts of questions, I took Emily’s car seat from Nancy’s Oldsmobile first, carrying it to the cop car, hoping this was the first and last time my daughter would be riding in the back of one. When I reached the car, where Knox was showing her all the equipment inside, I said, “Can you unlock the back door so I can put this in?”
“No need,” Knox said, turning away from the car and giving me a smile. His teeth were perfectly straight and white like he was secretly a model instead of a small-town police officer.
But even his charm couldn’t distract me from car safety. “Yes, there is a need. She’s safest in a harness, and I will not have her riding without one, even with a ‘local hero.’”
He tipped his chin down so I could see his eyes narrow playfully behind his glasses, like he was amused by me instead of annoyed like I was with him. “I took a training on installing car seats. I can put this one in. Trust me, I wouldn’t risk a hair on your daughter’s head.”
The fiercely protective way he said it caught me off guard. I was used to Seth being annoyed that Emily wasn’t at least in a booster seat.
I handed the seat to him, watching as he properly anchored it into the vehicle. I had to admit, he’d done it perfectly.
When he noticed me watching, he explained, “I have some nieces who like to ride along from time to time, so I became a certified car seat safety technician.”
Damn my ovaries for getting too excited.
It was just all this talk about rebounds with my sister. After all the garbage I’d seen on the dating app already, the thought of a man who was interested in caring for children and actually knew how seemed like a fairy tale.
“Why don’t you get buckled in, Emily?” Knox said, oblivious to my inner dialogue. “We’ll wait for your mama to get the little guy loaded up before we go.”
Emily got situated in her car seat and started talking his ear off. “That’s my baby brother, Jackson. He’s a year old. He doesn’t talk yet. Mostly eats and sleeps. He does crawl now...”