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Not only do I sound nervous, I’m talking too fast. All of it makes me want to hit stop and start all over again. Being flustered in front of Chad is not how I want to come across.

He nods, semi-accepting my answer. “I have to work tonight.”

He looks down at his shoes. He’s so tall, and his shoulders are so broad. I picture myself climbing him like a tree.

“Robbie’s getting ready to retire.” My voice is quiet, thoughtful.

A young, male voice interrupts us. “Hey, Tabitha. How’s it hanging?”

It’s Jimmy Rhodes, and I want to crawl inside the gardenia bushes. Everything is replaced with my humiliation from last year.

I was caught.

Skinny dipping.

In the nine-hundred-year-old Plucky Duck motel pool in my underwear with this child pretending to be a man.

Oh. My. God.

I’m never smoking pot again.

“Keep walking, Kid.” Chad laughs as he says it, but there’s a hint of something more in his tone.

Something like jealousy?

Jimmy’s shoulders slump, but he does as he’s told. As much as I’m burning with humiliation, and as much as I do not want to encourage Jimmy’s teenage crush, I can’t help feeling a little ruffled feathers. Chad is acting awfully possessive.

“Go out with me on Friday.” He turns to me again, and his expression is serious, a little fierce.

It does strange things to my insides.

“No,” I say too fast, and he exhales a laugh.

“So it’s still like that?”

Between humiliation, lust, and church, my emotions are as mixed up as a bowl of spaghetti.

I don’t know what it’s like. I just know bad girls don’t date cops. It’s a recipe for disaster. One of us will end up wanting more than the other is willing or even capable of giving, and it will be painful and awful.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.” My voice is quiet, and I’m being as honest with him as I’ve ever been with anybody.

His grin melts, and a little line forms between his brow as he processes what I’ve just said, like he understands. “Then I guess… I’ll see you around.”

“Not if I see you first.”

I swear my mouth has a mind of its own. It doesn’t matter. That irresistible dimple appears, and I know I haven’t scared him off.

The knowledge of that fact scares me even more.

“Either way, I’ve got my eye on you,” he teases.

“I don’t need a guard dog.”

“Everybody needs somebody watching their back.”

“I’ve got Emberly.”

We take a pause while our eyes travel across the bright green lawn to where my best friend is still talking to Betty Pepper. Only now, Coco is hopping all around her. My goddaughter is an adorable bundle of energy, brunette ringlets, and sunshine, and she’s been on a kangaroo kick for a month. It makes me smile, and when I glance up, I notice Deputy Tucker has a grin on his lips as well.