Page 9 of Detective for the Debutante (SAFE Haven Security #3)
LEIGH
MURPHY
Happy Monday.
Lunch?
M y stomach growls as I read through Murphy’s latest attempt to “check up on me.” I grab the half-eaten granola bar on my desk, my teeth sticking against the hard granola and nearly as hard chocolate chips as I key in my response.
Can’t. Sorry
It’s not the first time I’ve turned him down.
In fact, our text history is a hodgepodge of him offering to hang out, to show me Nashville, to meet up for food, and my excuses.
It’s not that I don’t want to see him again—he is easy on the eyes, and the memories of the night we spent talking keep trying to make me forget the embarrassment of his rejection after the smoking hot kiss we shared.
The more time that passes, the harder it is for me to remember to turn him down.
MURPHY
I have an appointment in your neck of the woods.
There’s a great barbecue place near your office.
Rain check. I have a meeting right after lunch I need to help my attorney prep for.
Putting my phone to the side, I try to focus on the flurry of email activity in my inbox on a Monday morning.
Something nobody bothered to tell me when I was looking for internships.
That my last summer as an undergrad, as a non-adult adult, had been my last summer of freedom.
And I didn’t even realize it at the time.
Last summer had been a summer of picking and choosing what all I did.
This first month of my summer as an adult has been all about navigating.
Traversing a quasi-friendship with the sexy-as-sin detective who keeps trying to connect with me despite every attempt I have made to avoid him.
Negotiating Nashville traffic during morning and evening rush hour.
Stacks and stacks and more stacks of paperwork. Long hours and alarm clocks.
Clocks, plural.
Because one thing I have learned about myself already? While I have always considered myself a morning person, that doesn’t mean anything when the alarm goes off before six.
Speaking of early morning, I stifle a yawn and stand, grabbing my coffee mug and making my way to the break room.
I make another cup of coffee for myself and also grab one for the attorney I was assigned to support at the beginning of summer.
Lindsay Carter is the assistant deputy public defender for Nashville and one of the best mentors I could ask for.
Her ability to articulate her passion for the law makes her the best kind of teacher, and I have spent the last few weeks learning all about being a woman who can succeed in a very male-dominated world.
And despite the early mornings, the traffic, and every other negative thing that tries to pop up, this is still the best experience of my life. The best summer I have had in…forever.
“Knock, knock,” I say from her doorway and hold out the mug when she looks up.
Her bright blue eyes are rimmed by stylish frames, her brown hair pulled back in a tidy updo.
“You’re a lifesaver,” she says, reaching for the mug and humming as she takes a sip.
“Your calendar looked pretty full today. Thought you could use it.”
She nods, taking another, longer drink.
“It is. No rest for the weary.”
“Is there anything I should know about the meetings you added me to?”
“Most of them are pretty standard. The only one I’m not sure about is our meeting this afternoon. William got a call from Charlie Vanderweel asking to set up a meeting. He assigned it to me since Kenneth was on vacation until today.”
William as in William Bailey, the Chief Public Defender for Davidson County.
Sucking my lips into my mouth, I keep my comment to myself.
But it seems like Lindsay, as the assistant deputy public defender, does a lot more work than her boss, Deputy Public Defender Kenneth Scott.
Lindsay hasn’t given me any indication whether that comment would be welcome, and I am only an intern who needs a solid recommendation at the end of the summer for my application with Project Justice.
“Okay.” I use the safest response I can.
“I would recommend you take a look at his original case file. It should be in the court legal database.”
“It’s weird though, right? That he would contact our office when he wasn’t represented by us originally?”
She shrugs. “It is. So we’ll just have to wait to see what he has to say this afternoon.”
I nod. “Okay, I’ll take a look and be ready.”
She glances at her watch.
“Don’t forget, we have our staff meeting in fifteen minutes. Do you have the files of the current caseload?”
Lindsay had given me a stack of file folders last week to review in preparation for today’s meeting.
“I do.”
“Great, I’ll see you in just a few in the big conference room.”
She turns back to her laptop, and I head back to my desk and pick up my phone to find another text from Murphy.
MURPHY
Are you avoiding me?
Despite the number of excuses I’ve given him, he’s not outright asked me that question before.
What do I say?
Not exactly ?
But today, I really do have a legitimate reason.
No. Just busy.
I take a quick picture of my half-eaten granola bar and send it to him.
Breakfast and lunch today.
My calendar pings, reminding me of the staff meeting, and I grab the folders, my coffee, and a water bottle and head to the conference room to get ready, relegating Murphy into the background so I can focus on work.
The staff meeting runs long, and my notebook is jam-packed with notes when we finish after three hours.
“Have you had the chance to read the Vanderweel file?” Lindsay asks as we step into the lobby.
I’m balancing my now-empty coffee mug on the stack of files, and my pen I brought with me shifts just enough so that I bobble the entire stack, saving most of the files.
“Oh, no!” Several of the folders and the precariously balanced coffee mug crash to the ground, and we both brace ourselves for the shatter of ceramic against the tile.
Fortunately, it doesn’t break.
I bend down, wobbling on the thin heels I wore with my black pencil skirt and royal-blue top today.
“Phew,” Lindsay says, relaxing next to me. “Here, let me help.”
“Ms. Carter, Chief Bailey needs to see you.” Another intern sticks their head out of the doorway of our office area, and Lindsays straightens with a sigh.
“Like I said, no rest for the weary,” she says.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it.”
Oh, shit.
I recognize that voice.
Embarrassment, desire, and anticipation all flow through my body like a chemistry experiment gone wrong, as if someone was just waiting to open the tap on the emotions I’ve tried to keep sealed shut since that night.
Polished brown shoes come into my field of vision, as does a strong hand accompanied by the peek of ink beneath the wrist of a dress shirt clinging to the muscled arm like a second skin.
I stand stock straight, hoping the warmth in my cheeks doesn’t betray me as I wait for Murphy to finish grabbing the cup and errant file folders before he unfurls from his crouch like a panther rising from the jungle floor.
“Good thing this was empty,” he teases, a half smile tilting his lips.
“I can take it.” I reach for the mug, and the files in my hands shift again.
“Looks like you have your hands full. I can help,” he offers.
The knee-jerk response to decline his offer is on the tip of my tongue, but when my gaze collides with his, the words scatter, the denial dying a quick death in the wake of his overwhelming presence.
I motion to the door on the other side of the lobby and he follows me, flashing his badge at the security guard at the front who acts as our receptionist for entry behind the locked door. I lean my hip where my badge is against the reader on the wall, the door beeps, and Murphy opens it.
“What are you doing here?” I toss the question over my shoulder quietly as he follows me to my work area.
He doesn’t answer until we’re at my cubicle outside Lindsay’s closed office door.
He lifts a plastic bag, and the sweet, smoky smell of barbecue teases my nostrils as he sets my empty mug and the few file folders he had on my desk. My mouth waters and I drop the rest of my files, ignoring the half-empty granola bar wrapper near my keyboard.
“You said you were too busy to go to lunch, but I still had my appointment and this”—he reaches over and grabs the granola bar—“isn’t lunch.”
He tosses it into the trash can with a clang and hands me the bag. The smells wafting from the container are heavenly, and my mouth starts to water.
“I thought I could pick you up something and drop it off so you ate properly. I wasn’t sure what you liked so I ordered the pulled pork, mac and cheese, coleslaw, and cornbread salad. I’d have gotten you a drink too?—”
His sweet gesture is making him hard to ignore. As is his presence in my office. And suddenly I’m forgetting every reason I had come up with why we shouldn’t be friends.
“Don’t worry about it. This is much more than I expected to eat for lunch. I wasn’t kidding about having another granola bar.”
He produces a water bottle from his pocket.
“It’s not cold, but it’s wet,” he says, mischief lighting a fire in his eyes.
Fuck, he’s dangerous with that look. And suddenly the water isn’t the only thing wet.
No, no, no.
Only trying to stop my body’s natural reaction to him, the chemistry sizzling between us, is like trying to stop the earth from spinning.
I wish it didn’t have to be all or nothing. But it’s like my body has a switch where Murphy O’Connell is concerned. Either off where we can’t be friends or on where I have to fight my attraction to him in order to be his friend. But I can keep those feelings to myself.
Friends.
Friends bring each other lunch. We’re being friendly.
“Thank you,” I tell him.
“Anytime. There’s a fork in there too.” He gestures to the bag, and I unpack the Styrofoam containers, the smells growing stronger.
“Where’s yours?” I ask, dropping into my chair and opening all the containers as I start to shovel food in my mouth.