Head over Heels for the Holidays

Chapter 3

Chapter Three

When they returned to the shared police and firefighter compound, Maya spotted a crew of volunteer firefighters cleaning the ladder truck in the back lot. It sparkled in the sunshine like a neon-yellow play-toy.

“You should get to know these guys,” she told Rune. “They’re all first responders. And I’m sure they’ll want to meet you.”

Already the firefighters were glancing their way. Awesome—more fuel for the rumor mill. The firefighters were notorious gossipers, rivalling the legendary stitch-and-b***h group of crafters.

“Hi Chief,” called Darius as he emerged from behind the engine.

“Hi Chief,” she answered in their traditional greeting.

Honestly, being called “chief” never got old.

“That’s our fire chief.” She lowered her voice for Rune. “Darius Boone. It’d be smart to bring him up to speed on the situation with Cara too. When calls come in, you never know where they’ll get routed.”

“If you think it’s best.”

A guy respecting her advice; another thing that would never get old.

Maya beckoned to Darius, who loped over to them, washrag in hand.

“Darius, this is Rune Larsen. He’s an old friend of mine. Rune, Chief Boone.”

Maya caught the speculation in Darius’ glance as he surveyed Rune. Why was everyone so surprised by Rune’s presence? Just because she’d lived most of her life here in Lost Harbor didn’t mean everyone knew everything about her.

“I’m a former EMT myself,” said Rune as they shook hands.

“Is that how you know Maya?”

“No, Maya and I met when we were kids.”

Darius’ eyebrows lifted. “Huh. Are you from Lost Harbor?”

Maya interrupted this completely irrelevant conversation. “Can we keep on track here? Rune has a situation he needs to discuss with the law enforcement community. What does it matter where we met?”

“Is it a secret?” Darius asked. “Because that’s really going to get tongues wagging around here.”

“It’s not a secret. It’s just irrelevant. Can we stick to the facts? He’s a friend, we met a long time ago, and now he’s here and he’s got a problem.”

“Touchy.” Darius looked like he was trying hard not to laugh. He turned to Rune. “Go ahead, fill me in.”

As Rune recounted the same chain of events he’d told Maya, she watched him covertly, marveling over how much a person could change. If she’d seen him walking down the street, she would have noticed that he was a beautiful hunk of a man. And then she would have kept walking, assuming they had absolutely nothing in common.

And maybe she didn’t know him anymore. Obviously his life had changed a lot since the age of nine. So had hers. Police chief? Hello?

But as she watched him talk to Darius, she kept noticing little things that felt familiar. The shape of his mouth, for one. The way he bent his head at a certain stubborn angle. The scar on his chin had survived the journey to adulthood. So had his friendliness and his sense of humor.

That was what had drawn them together in the first place. That and the fact that they both felt like outsiders.

Jay-Jay—no, Rune—had been one of the kids who hung around the base but didn’t really belong there. His mother worked in the commissary, and they’d lived in a little abandoned beachside shack until it got torn down by the county. And then there was his size—at that time, he was smaller than other kids their age. He liked to wear his hair long, to his shoulders. That had changed, but maybe that was because he was hiding his appearance from Stalker Chad.

Despite his size, he was a scrapper, and he was constantly getting into fights with bullies and other kids who were bigger than him. Sometimes she got dragged into it too, trying to defend him, which always got her in trouble with her dad.

Eventually, Harris had sat them down and laid down the law. “If you get Maya into any more fights, you can’t come around here anymore. Got it?”

“But they keep saying s**t about my mom.”

“You think that’s bad? You should hear what got slung at me all these years. Brush it off, kid. Or no more hanging out with Maya.”

Rune had torn at his hair in that funny way he had, gone for a quick jog around the block—he always had to work off his energy—then come back and plopped back down at their kitchen table. “Okay, Mr. Badger.”

“Okay, son. I’ll be watching.”

“Maya? You with us?” Darius was addressing her. She shook herself back to attention.

“Yeah. What’s up?”

“Rune’s going to volunteer for a few shifts with us. It’s great to have another trained paramedic in town.”

She glanced at the grownup Rune, with his strong build and long, powerful legs. He could have used all those muscles back in his skinny-kid days. With all his excess energy, it made sense that he’d chosen to work as a first responder. In Hawaii, that probably meant a lot of ocean rescues.

“Sounds good. We can always use help.”

Darius snapped his fingers. “Hey, you should bring Rune to the party.”

“What party?”

“Kate’s calling it the ‘Never Want to See Another Peony Party.’ It’s to celebrate the end of the harvest.” He turned to Rune. “My girlfriend has been helping her grandmother at her peony farm. I’ve barely seen her for the past month. I know she’d love to meet any friend of Maya’s.”

Maya could see where this was headed already. All of her friends would be micro-analyzing Rune and trying to figure out what their relationship was. She had to put this to rest before it snowballed out of control.

“I probably won’t be able to make it,” she told Darius. “I’m very busy between the Lost Souls investigation and my dad’s recovery, and some new cases that have come in.”

“Sure, sure, I get it. You’re probably burning the midnight oil trying to locate that missing yak.”

She glared at him while Rune chuckled softly.

“You’re invited whether or not Maya can make it,” Darius told him. “If you’re new in town, it’s a good opportunity to meet some people. Now that the summer’s just about over, people have time for their social lives again. From now until New Year’s, it’s one party after another.”

Maya’s heart sank at that reminder. Everyone else loved the holidays, but for the past five years—ever since her ex dumped her on Christmas Eve—they’d been nothing but depressing.

Rune glanced at Maya and must have read her ambivalence on her face. Without her having to say anything, he picked up on that cue. “I’ll be busy getting settled in. I have to find a place, get my sister enrolled in school, meet the patients I’ll be working with.”

Darius didn’t push it, which Maya appreciated. If Kate had issued the invitation, it would have been a whole different story. She would have approached it like the lawyer she was and interrogated poor Rune into accepting the invite.

“We need to get going,” she told Rune. “My dad’s nap is going to start soon. If there’s one thing he’s always on time for, it’s that nap.”

After a few more words with Darius, she led Rune to her beloved Chevy Silverado crew-cab truck. She’d bought it when she got the police chief job and loved it like a firstborn.

At this rate, it might be the only kind of firstborn she’d have.

Rune stopped to check a message that had come in on his phone. “Cara’s getting bored in the hotel room. I’ll pick her up and meet you at Harris’ house.”

She felt a twinge of disappointment that they wouldn’t be driving together. Being with Rune brought back a time in her life that she’d completely forgotten about. Hawaii had been such an adventure. Going to a place where no one knew her had been wildly freeing. In Lost Harbor, everyone knew the Badgers. In Hawaii, she could be anyone she chose. She’d even told one kid that she was a Haitian princess.

Rune had done everything he could to spread that rumor, figuring it gave him an extra bit of clout.

But this wasn’t Hawaii. This was Alaska, and she was just plain old Maya Badger, filling the unglamorous shoes of a police chief.

“You have the address?” she asked Rune.

“I already looked it up on GPS. I’ll see you there.”

They parted ways and she swung herself into her Chevy. Before she started the truck, she checked her phone, which had been beeping periodically during their walk.

Ten messages from various friends and acquaintances—all asking about Rune and inviting the two of them to some social event or other.

Once he realized what he was in for, he was going to request a transfer.

Or hell, maybe she should. Why was everyone in Lost Harbor so interested in her personal life?

She started up her truck and headed for her father’s house.

Sad to say, she knew why people found her personal life so fascinating. Because she didn’t have much of one as far as they knew. She had a strict policy of not dating anyone she might have to arrest someday. Which meant no one in Lost Harbor, which kind of limited her selection.

Since high school, all of her boyfriends had lived either in Anchorage or somewhere even farther away. Long distance was the only kind of relationship that worked for her. The only time she’d broken that rule was with Jerome Morris, and look how that had ended up. Dumped on Christmas Eve for another Lost Harbor girl. Utter humiliation.

Since then, she’d kept things simple. When she needed some fun, she headed to Anchorage, where she had a long-time “friends with benefits” arrangement with Tyler, a workaholic civil rights lawyer.

Maybe she should schedule another trip pretty soon. She might need a distraction with Rune around, being so unexpectedly hot.

She approached a group of teenagers walking down Main Street, goofing around, passing a joint back and forth.

She should stop and lecture them. Give them the stern glare that might make them think twice about flouting the law against underage smoking. Scare them with the threat of a night in the holding cell.

But she was on her personal time now, so she just slowed down as she passed and gave them all a wave.

The joint went flying onto the sidewalk as the teenagers turned innocent, nervous faces in her direction.

Wow. She hadn’t even frowned at them. Apparently she had the youth in this town very well-trained.

Since she was the police chief, that was good, right? Then why did it feel so irritating? As if for most of the town, she had one mode: stern and authoritative. And only a select few saw her other sides. With Jay-Jay, in Hawaii, she used to run around barefoot and dance around a bonfire and stargaze past her bedtime.

She made a note to text Tyler to see what kind of time he had in the next few weeks.