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Luckily, I had an in with a certain sheriff, so I got to park behind the station. I skipped around to the front sidewalk, excited like a teenager for my date, and when I pulled open the glass door and walked into the reception area, a whole cluster of faces turned my way.

Abey’s partner, Frank, and his two foster kids, Murph and Nic, were there. Murph helped me out at the center sometimes because he’d spent a lot of time there when he was homeless, after his mom abandoned him. We did movie nights for the center kids, and he was in charge of the popcorn. He reached out to high-five me.

Nic smiled, then sat at her dad’s desk to draw on a piece of paper with a pencil. She was a lot more shy than Murph. I assumed Frank’s wife, the town librarian and Abey’s best friend, Sam, was in the locker room with Abey. I didn’t see them anywhere.

Sheriff Michaels walked in from the back hallway, and when he saw me, he nodded, his face shaded by his brown hat. “She’s almost ready.”

I let loose all the anxiety in my chest in one long breath. “’Kay,” I breathed. “Thanks.”

Shelley, the station’s receptionist, sat at her tall desk, smacking a piece of gum in her mouth and twirling a lock of her hair around her finger. She kept looking at me, and I couldn’t understand her expression. She looked almost angry, but every time her eyes traveled down the hallway toward where Abey most likely was, she couldn’t help smiling. The people who worked at the station were like a little family, so maybe Shelley felt protective of Abey, but I was still glad she had the opinionated woman in her life.

The new female deputy was preparing to leave, probably to patrol the dance and festival on foot. Standing behind the desk that used to belong to Abey, she patted her vest, making sure she had all the tools she needed: handcuffs, pepper spray, a small handheld flashlight. She turned the knob on her shoulder radio and then set out.

When she passed me on her way to the door, she said, “Hi. I’m Roxanne. You look real nice.”

“Thanks. Nice to meet you. Abey’s told me all about you.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Treat her well, y’hear?”

“I will,” I said, and she tossed me a smile and a nod and left.

And then I heard a door at the end of the hallway open and close. Quiet whispers preceded them before Abey’s mom and Sam walked out to the waiting room. Sam was grinning hard, and Abey’s mom held a sweater in one hand while she argued with Sam. She kept lifting the sweater, but Sam wasn’t paying attention. She was watching my face.

It wasn’t that big of a room, and suddenly, I felt cramped and stuffed in there like a sardine.

Merv looked seriously uncomfortable. I would’ve laughed at how she kept lifting the sweater, trying to make Sam look at it, if I hadn’t known how hard this probably was for her, but that was the only thought I could spare for her, because then Abey appeared.

Holy shit.

Like an ethereal blond goddess, Abey seemed to materialize in front of my eyes. She stepped into the room, and everything else, all the people I’d just felt so crowded by, faded into nothingness.

Abey was all I could see.

My surprise had to be apparent as my jaw dropped open. And Merv’s insistence on Abey wearing a sweater finally made sense.

Abey had worn a dress! It was a sleeveless, red and black buffalo plaid body-con with a square-cut neckline. It fell to her calves, but it hugged her gorgeous curves like a dream. I could see every dip, swell, and hollow.

Her bare, toned arms were sexy as hell, her hips flared out below her waist enough to make me lick my lips, and her ass in that scrap of fabric was sure to bring grown men and women to their knees.

But she was with me.

Her hair had been braided into an intricate and sexy plait, but curly tendrils framed her face. The end of the braid cascaded over her breasts, which filled out the top of the dress. And I mean, it was full. I couldn’t look at them though. Drool didn’t go with my outfit.

I stared hard into Abey’s eyes, watching the deep blue color and the way light flickered and lit up behind them when she saw me. She smiled, knowing full well she’d shocked me into speechlessness, and I stumbled back a step, knocking the backs of my knees into the chair behind me. I fell into it and just sat there.

I had no words, no thoughts, except that I wanted my hands on her. My hands, my lips, my tongue, my fingers. I wanted to jump her and have her carry me away.

I wanted to rip my heart out of my chest and hand it to her. She owned it anyway.

I stood, and she stopped in front of me. She whispered, “Well, ain’t you gonna say anything?”

CHAPTER THIRTY

ABEY

“Mama did my hair,” I said, patting the elegant, loose fishtail braid at the back of my neck. I pulled the end, twisting the hair between two fingers, taking out the edge of my nerves on the poor thing. Mama stood behind me, and she reached around and swatted my hand away. She’d kill me if I messed up the braid she’d worked on for almost an hour.

Devo smiled at her. “My mom’s already at the dance,” she said. “She’d love to meet you, if you’d like. Her name is Liluye. She’s wearing a purple dress and sweater. She has long, black hair. You can’t miss her.”