Page 3 of Ronen (Sweet Alps Legacy #1)

Chapter Two

Ronen

“Ohhhh,” Emily’s excited voice came from directly behind me, making me jerk a little. I was too tired for Emily’s nonsense. “Here he comes. Right on the dot. Really, Ro, you should just let the poor man in. It’s freaking cold outside.”

Without even turning to look at the ghost, I continued to check in the books I had pulled from the metal drop off bin this morning when I had come in.

Though my gaze did stray to the view I could just barely see through the glass of the ornately carved doors down to the street.

The ten long concrete steps leading from the doors to street level meant I had to crane my neck to see him, but sure enough, he was there.

Just like he was pretty much every single morning for the past year, since I had issued him his library card. The black Bronco with the big badge emblem on the side of the door, the word Sheriff in the middle of it, was parked directly in front of the library .

“How would you know if it’s cold or not?” The sound of the scanner beeping as I checked in a book made my black heart happy. “You’re dead. You don’t feel the cold.” Wrinkling my nose, I glanced over my shoulder at her. “Do you?”

Emily swung her black tight clad legs against the countertop she was perched on behind me.

“Don’t be silly, of course I can’t. But it’s the middle of January and there’s snow and ice on the ground.

” She tapped one red painted nail against her temple, “You’re not the only smarty pants here. Logic, my dear boy.”

“We’re the same age,” I muttered at her calling me a boy, turning back to my scanning.

Completely ignoring the tall, broad, ridiculously handsome man whose face was now pressed against the glass door, peering in at me.

Great, he was going to breathe and slobber all over my nice clean glass, making me have to clean it.

Again. Honestly, how hard was it for people to keep their hands off the glass?

Apparently, exceptionally hard, if I was to go by the amount of times I had to clean it in a day.

“Well, if you were still alive, I mean.”

Emily giggled, “If I was still alive, I’d be old enough to be your mother.”

“A truly frightening thought.”

Keeping my head downward, I talked out of the side of my mouth, so it wasn’t noticeable that I appeared to be talking to myself. I really didn’t need Mason Caldwell to have a front row seat to me carrying on an entire conversion to what appeared to most people as an empty room.

“Facts,” she agreed. “Oh, let him in, Ronen! Look at that poor man out there. He looks cold. And maybe try to tame that hair of yours. You look like something the cat dragged in this morning.”

“He’s perfectly fine.” Ignoring her comment about my hair, which I may or may not have forgotten to brush as I couldn’t be bothered to care, I stacked the returned books on a cart next to me, ready to shelve.

Tapping my watch, I held it up for her to see, forgetting that he could also see me and probably thought I was being super weird and showing my watch to empty space.

Eh, I’d been thought of as odd on more than one occasion.

When you could see and talk to ghosts, it kind of came with the territory. I was used to it by now. Mostly.

Besides I didn’t give one flying fuck what Sheriff Mason Caldwell thought of me.

Liar , my honey badger huffed.

Hush, you.

“It’s five upon the hour,” I informed her, just in case she had forgotten how to tell time since she had died. “We open at nine. Not eight fifty-five. And my hair is perfectly fine, thank you.”

Had I brushed it this morning? I had barely gotten back to sleep when my alarm had startled me awake. I had stumbled into the kitchen to smack my Keurig into a cup of strong black coffee, carried it bleary eyed into the shower, and…nope, I had definitely not brushed my hair this morning.

“Five minutes is not going to end the world,” Emily huffed, swinging her dark brown tresses, cut in a stylish bob, and fiddling with the white silk scarf tied at her neck.

Her mode of dress always reminded me of Daphne from the old Scooby-Doo cartoons, but since Emily had died in the very early 1970’s, she was very much in style for the times.

“And, would it hurt you to try to tame that mess of bed head into submission?”

“Nine is nine,” I replied primly, still completely ignoring the wide smile on Mason’s face.

He was grinning, his weirdly colored amber eyes, a mixture of light brown and gold, filled with mirth. He undoubtedly knew I was not acknowledging him on purpose. “And leave my hair be. It is what it is. I cannot be bothered to care about my hair.”

Glancing up at Mason Caldwell’s widely grinning face precariously close to my clean glass, I scowled at him, before going back to my scanning.

This was a dance he and I did every single morning. Except on Sundays when the library was closed.

Every morning, he rolled up in his SUV, taking the wide steps that led to the double doors that were older than both of us put together, two at a time.

He would jiggle the lock, just to see if this would be the morning I might have unlocked the doors early.

Then he would press his stupidly handsome, smiling face to the glass, peering in at me.

Sometimes the infernal man would even wave to me, to try to get my attention. He always had a stack of books to return, tucked under his overly muscled arms, waiting to drop them on my counter, then browse for more.

The man had a voracious appetite for books that I could truly appreciate, if it wasn’t for the one flaw that made me want to pull my hair out.

He was constantly losing books.

All. The. Time.

At least one per week.

It was a problem.

I couldn’t abide that kind of behavior, no matter how sexy the man was. It was absolute lunacy and there was no good reason for it.

The man was the sheriff for fuck’s sake.

He was reasonably intelligent, I had to assume.

By the position he held solving crimes–not that Sweet Alps was a hotbed of criminal activity–and by the speed with which he devoured the written word, he had to possess a smattering of brain cells.

He didn’t seem at all absent minded. Far from it, in fact.

But the books.

It was an issue I would never be able to look past.

No matter how well he looked in his too tight jeans, or that damn denim jacket he always wore with the super soft looking white collar.

Sherpa or wool or something. I deduced that jacket had to be lined with something to keep him warm, fleece or flannel.

Regardless, he looked like a rancher when he wore it, and that alone had all my nerve endings zinging.

Add the long, long legs with those thick thighs, the shaggy auburn hair and those weird colored eyes of his…yeah, he was hot, okay? Smoking fucking hot, but nope…my too tired brain was not going down that road.

Someone called Mason’s name from down on the sidewalk, and he jogged back down the steps to greet them. The clip clop his shoes made on the way back to the door had my ears perking up.

“Ohhhh, he’s wearing those boots, Ro!” Emily slapped my arm, then because that apparently wasn’t enough to get my attention, she added some wild clapping. “The ones you like!”

Fuck me.

Without even having to see just what boots she was referring to, I knew Mason was wearing his well-worn cowboy boots this morning, and not his usual hiking boots.

Whhhyyy even?

Who needed honest to Goddess authentic cowboy boots in Sweet Alps anyway? Okay, we were pretty far north in the state, and there were farmers and ranchers outside the city limits. But really, those boots couldn’t be practical for police work .

If he ever shows up in a full-length duster coat, we are climbing him like a tree , my badger informed me.

I chose to ignore him, even though I knew he was one hundred percent correct. Some people had suit porn; I had duster coat porn. And cowboy boot porn. And cowboy hat porn.

Who was I kidding? I had a cowboy kink, there I said it.

Don’t judge me, I liked what I liked. And I liked cowboys.

Seriously, if the man ever showed up in a long duster coat, I would probably forget all about his extremely bad habit of losing my books and beg him to take me against the checkout counter. Or on it. Both? He looked like he could go at least two rounds before he would be spent.

“Ohhh, you’re having naughty thoughts about our good sheriff again, aren’t you?” Emily cackled. “Was it the boots that did it? I bet it was the boots. You do love your cowboys.”

White hot heat flooded my face, even as I staunchly denied her accusation.

“I most certainly am not! And I do not have a thing for cowboys. Don’t you have someone else to bother?”

Mmmm, cowboys, gimme! My badger sing-songed.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I was determined to ignore them both. I just needed to get through this day, go home and hopefully get some sleep.