Page 11 of Arrested By the Deputy

His place is a small house on the edge of town, one of those older bungalows with a wraparound porch that somebody clearly put love into fixing up. His truck is in the driveway and a garden gnome by the front steps that seems entirely out of character for him, and I'm still smiling about that when the front door swings open before I even make it up the walk.

"Hey," Cal says, leaning against the doorframe, barefoot, wearing jeans and a soft-looking henley that makes him lookabout ten years younger than the uniform does. "You found it okay."

"Small town, Cal. Wasn't hard."

"Fair point." He steps back to let me in, and that's when something the size of a small horse comes barreling around the corner of the hallway, nails skittering against the hardwood, tail wagging so hard his whole back end moves with it.

"Oh my God." I crouch down before I can stop myself, and I'm immediately rewarded with a face full of dog, tongue and all. "This is Biscuit?"

"That's Biscuit." Cal's voice carries something warm and a little exasperated. "Biscuit, sit. Sit, buddy. Sit."

Biscuit does not sit. Biscuit continues to love on me with the enthusiasm of a dog who has never met a stranger in his life, and I can't stop laughing as I scratch behind his ears and let him lean his whole weight against my legs.

"He's the worst listener I've ever met," Cal says, though there's nothing but affection in it.

"He's perfect. Look at that face."

"Don't encourage him."

"Too late." I press a kiss to the top of Biscuit's head, and when I glance up, Cal's watching me with an expression I can't quite read, soft and a little stunned, like he wasn't prepared for how this would look, me on his floor with his dog.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing." He clears his throat, offers me a hand to help me up. "C'mon. I got stuff set up out back."

The backyard is small but well-kept, a little patio with string lights already glowing against the dusky sky, and a low table set up with a spread that makes my chef's heart skip. Cured meats, three kinds of cheese, fig jam, crackers, grapes, little bowls of olives and nuts, all of it arranged with more care than I expected from a man who told me he'd cook.

"You made a charcuterie board."

"I looked up a video." He says it like a confession, rubbing the back of his neck. "Took me two tries to make it look halfway decent. First one looked like I dropped groceries on a cutting board."

"It's beautiful, Cal." And it is. I sit down on the wicker loveseat he's got angled toward the little fire pit, and Biscuit immediately flops down at my feet like he's decided I belong to him now too. "You didn't have to go through all this trouble."

"I wanted to." He pours us both a glass of wine from a bottle already open on the table, hands me mine, and settles down beside me, close enough that our knees touch. "Figured we could use a night that wasn't about apologies or the group or any of that. I wanted something that’s just ours."

"Just ours sounds really good," I tell him, and clink my glass against his.

We eat slow, the two of us picking at the board while the sky goes from pink to purple to that deep, star-scattered navy that only shows up out here away from the interstate lights. Biscuit begs shamelessly for scraps, and Cal caves every single time despite grumbling about it, which tells me everything I need to know about who really runs this house.

"So," I say, after a comfortable stretch of quiet, "tell me something about you I don't know."

He considers that for a second, swirling his wine. "I wanted to be a vet when I was a kid. Before everything with my parents got bad. Used to bring home every stray I found, until we couldn't afford to feed them, and then I had to stop."

My chest tightens at that, and the casual way he says it, like it doesn't still hurt him. "Is that why you got Biscuit?"

"Probably." He reaches down and scratches behind the dog's ears without looking, he obviously does it all the time. "Found him at the shelter about to be put down. Nobody wanted himbecause he's got that one ear that doesn't stand up right and he's not exactly what people picture when they think of a good-looking dog. But he looked at me, and I don't know.” He shrugs. “It felt like the least I could do. I asked him if he wanted to come home with me, and he smiled, and I couldn’t say no. He’s been mine ever since."

"That's the sweetest thing I've ever heard."

"Don't tell anybody. Ruins my whole tough-cop reputation."

"Your secret's safe with me." I nudge his shoulder with mine. "My turn?"

"Your turn."

"I almost didn't open the bakery. I had the space rented, the mixer bought, and two weeks before I was supposed to open, I panicked and almost backed out. Told my landlord I'd changed my mind." I trace the rim of my glass, remembering how close I came to walking away from the only dream I've ever really had. "My dad talked me into going through with it. Told me I'd regret it worse if I didn't try than if I tried and failed."

“He’s a smart man.”