Page 3 of Sweet Valentine
And not—especiallynot—that Colton Rhodes, Mr. Big Serious Cop from the Big Apple, would sign his name onto a heart-shaped card… subsequently signing his entire day away just to traipse between historic and scenic locations all around the fairweather town that wasallthey had in common. Not that he steps out of the crowd, in his uniform the way he always is, and holds his arm out to Patty, as if she is a princess about to descend the last step of a grand staircase and needs an escort for it.
She doesn’t mean to laugh. It’s an involuntary spurt that leaves her, mostly as air through her nose. Patty can see the tips of Colton’s ears turn red.
“You’re super gentlemanly, man,” Patty is quick to say. She throws up a spontaneous peace sign he doesn’t know what to do with. For some reason, it gets under her skin, the notion that he might twist her laughter into something meanspirited. Too many men, Patty had long since learned, let their pride get in the way of a swell time. Given everything she had tucked away to show up to Sip ‘n Saw today, she wasn’t about to let him make a hard day harder. When her arm hooks through his, it’s with gravitas. He hasn’t said a word. “I dig it,” she assures, taking charge since the man has been rendered mute. “Shall we?” There is a lilt to the words. Theatrics are more her vibe than Dot’s anyway.
Her heart may be bruised, but Patty Sullivan’sje ne sais quoiremains an indefatigable force. All the more so when she suspects they’re going to need it to power them through this hunt.
COLTON
In retrospect, Colton thinks ruefully, he should have known when Betty Lou Hopkins had walked up to his usual table at Loretta’s Diner a few days ago and plopped down in the seat opposite him that something was amiss. It should have set off an alarm bell or two in his head when she hadn’t had any tips to give him, none of the intel she typically served him with plenty of sauce on the side. Maybe, he had to consider, irked, he’d grown desensitized to his own detriment.
It had been too late when he hadn’t thought anything of the vaguely impish glee shone in the young woman’s eyes as she had prompted, apropos of nothing, “So, Sheriff, how come we never see you with a lady on your arm?” Colton had stared at her blankly. Befuddled. Non-reactive. It hadn’t been as if it was the first time one the townsfolk had pried. What wouldn’t fly in the city he’d come of age on the gritty streets of, was the norm in Maplewood. He’d grown accustomed to it.
He’d forked another bite of his pancakes into his mouth, and listened to her go on about how he was getting on in his years. With the salt and pepper streaking at his temples, Colton knew she was right. He felt nothing over it. Besides, he already knew nothing could have dissuaded the post office clerk from gabbing on. Unlike diners back in New York, there was no TV at Loretta’s. This did the same job, in a way.
Yet he should have known better than to be lulled into submission due to the sheer familiarity of it. By the timeknowing betterhad come around, he may as well have been waving a white flag in the air, signaling to racing cars revving to tear away from the starting line. By then, Betty Lou had already corralled over the two elderly twins, Agnes and Mabel Carlton, tojoin her makeshift brigade. Colton had long since stopped taking at the face value of their creaky knees and learned to recognize the menaces they were; the sight of them, and the concerning knowing gleam in their eerily bright eyes, had been what had finally raised his hackles. Too late.
Now, even days later, the sheriff felt swindled. Colton wasn’t sure how he hadn’t remained immune to it. The only way to get them to quit probing, it had felt, was to agree to be a part of some scavenger hunt Betty Lou had insisted the entire town was set to partake in. He could have left, of course, but that common sense hadn’t chimed in at the moment of disaster.
It helped, at least, that this once, the town gossip’s word was good as gold. The entire town jammed itself into Cliff Barnett’s Sip ‘n Saw bar – which he typically lent to the town for impromptu town meetings anyway, and wouldn’t think of denying his other half, Dot Simmons, for the Love Quest.
Colton’s attention zeroed in on the sea of townsfolk. It was his job to look after them, and he had shown up to do it—yet he can’t shake the uncanny feeling that it’sthemwatchinghim. Watching him tactlessly, and intensely, while he stands amidst them, as much of a sore thumb sticking out as ever. He almost misses his name being called. Dazed, Colton has no honorable choice but to step up to the plate for none other than Patty Sullivan herself.
His nostrils flare. There is something fishy at work here. The suspicion doesn’t prickle just because, as a rule of thumb, Colton Rhodes is not a man who puts any stock in the notion of coincidence. He wasn’t a charlatan who dismissed them in favor of devotion to newfangled, woo-woo explanations. He just understands the existence of a bigger picture.
All one had to do was zoom out. He tries…
Until Patty loops her arm through his. Colton had gotten used to the unnerved manner in which townsfolk tended tosimultaneously seek him out and avoid his gaze. Now, theywatch. Like they are waiting, with bated breath. It’s far from the first time he’s seen them all this way. He’s always been an observer; not the main character in their tomfoolery.
He doesn’t have to eye Patty for long to know she’s as, if not more, in the dark as he is.
Colton breaks more than one of his rules when he only half-listens to Dot speaking, albeit it is while she elaborates on the details surrounding a scavenger hunt of all things. He typically prides himself on paying attention in ways most take for granted. Only, right then, Patty holds his focus hostage, standing beside him, growing stiffer and stiffer the longer they stand there.
Colton keeps his distance, not because he wants to, but because he doesn’t know how to bridge the gap. Every now and then, as they walk, he catches himself watching the way Patty’s hair danced in the wind or how her lips curved into a small smile when she thinks he isn’t looking. It’s small moments like these, the ones she never noticed, that make him feel the pull. But he doesn’t let himself act on it—not yet. Instead, he lets the tension simmer, lets it build slowly, like a storm gathering on the horizon, content to wait for the right moment, whenever that might be.
“Everybody, be sure to grab a bag ofSweethearts!” Betty Lou chirps from the bar she’s been parked behind since the unofficial town meeting had kicked into gear. It was where the Love Quest would begin; their starting line of sorts. “Get yourSweethearts,then grab your sweetheart’s hand and go forth!” Colton can’t help but cringe at the words, his body viscerally rejecting the cloying sentiment.
Ironically, it is the sight of Patty’s palm meeting her forehead in an exasperatedthwackthat curbs the secondhand embarrassment.
“You all right?” He nudges Patty’s side gently.
She freezes. He can see, plainly, the effort it takes her to nod her head, and tersely say, “I’ll just go grab our candies, partner. Hang… Hang, uh, tight, huh?” Patty doffs an imaginary cowboy hat in his direction and weaves through the crowd before he can say another word.
Just as well, Colton thinks. He didn’t have anything clever to say back either way.
Chapter Three
PATTY
Whatever cruel twistof irony that’s to blame, Patty isn’t sure. But the first place the pair of them are instructed to go is… right back to the Whispering Willow. Only this time, the clue wasn’t just sitting on the counter. A riddle awaited them, hinting at something hidden within the maze of shelves. “The past holds the key to your future. Find the journey where it all begins,” it read. Colton, ever practical, immediately began scanning the travel section, but Patty knew better. The journey, she realized, was about her, about the path she had walked. She moved toward the memoir section, pulling down a well-worn copy ofEat, Pray, Love. There, nestled between the pages, was their next clue. The only evidence against the dire straits Patty’s formerly iron-clad guts are convinced they’re in, is how content she is to be back in her space. Like sucking in that first deep breath after being underwater too long, her body relinquishes tension it had been harboring with a hard exhale.
To think, for most of her life, she’s been the opposite of a homebody. From as far back as Patty’s memory stretches, shecan recall the unburdened fervency with which she’d leaped into life’s waiting embrace. She’d even had those rebellious, borderline reckless years of adolescence where she’d lumped her identity in with what the town she’d been born to would say about her. She was so far beyond that now.
If she’d thought Colton Rhodes would have cared at all about those nuggets of intimate trivia, maybe she would have said it all out loud with the same heft she exhaled her sigh. As it is, all she says to the town sheriff is: “Do you even have a sweet tooth, Sheriff?” Patty teased, glancing sideways at him. Colton, without missing a beat, shot her a rare, crooked grin. “You can call me Colton, Patty. But no, not much of a sweet tooth.” She raised an eyebrow, lips twitching into a playful smile. “Really? Because I could’ve sworn you were eyeing those heart-shaped cookies earlier. Must’ve been my imagination.” Colton chuckled, shaking his head. “You sure you weren’t imagining me eyeing something else?” Patty’s laugh rang out, warm and bright. “Oh, so the sheriffcanflirt after all.”
No one would believe it based on the events of this week, and especially those of the day, but Patty has a history of being a pretty smooth operator. She’s just off her game. Given the time of the year, she isn’t necessarily surprised by that.
Colton,he offers. She isn’t entirely sure she can just leap to that – or that she evenshouldwhen the way he says it, stood pin-straight like she is his drill sergeant and he’s prepared to drop and give her twenty at her faintest whim, flusters her. A little, the somewhat dormant wild child in Patty squirms with pleasure at the idea. After all, it wasn’t everyone—or just anyone—who got a man so flinty as Colton Rhodes all riled up and affected.
