Chapter 12

“Have you seen B—Officer Palmer?” I ask Sandra.

There’s no sign of him in the lobby.

“He walked out a few minutes ago,” she replies in a flat tone without even looking up at me.

Palmerite.

I head for the doors. If Beau left me here, so help me…

With a whoosh, the dry, air-conditioned breeze of Seaside Oasis is consumed by the sweltering heat of the outdoors. It’s not as overwhelming as it was when I first got here, but it’s still a sucker punch.

My gaze flits to the cop cart, parked in the same haphazard way we left it when we arrived, the light still flashing on the roof. It’ll probably run out of battery soon.

Where is? —

“Hey!”

I yell out and whirl around, my heart skyrocketing into my throat.

Beau is right in front of me, grinning like he just pulled off the biggest heist in history.

“You—” But words don’t suffice, so I charge him and start pummeling his arm.

He laughs and backs up, leaning away to protect himself. “Hey, hey, hey. You’re assaulting a police officer, ma’am.”

“Part-time police officer,” I say through gritted teeth, not letting up with my punches, even though the solid wall of muscle my fists hit is unassailable.

He grabs my wrists and pulls me flush against him, his eyes sparkling with energy and fun as he looks down at me. “How does full-time in one of my holding cells sound?”

“I was provoked,” I say, wondering when the air will decide to pay a visit to my lungs again. It’s just the after-effects of his scaring me. It has nothing to do with the impulse to yank that beautiful face toward me and kiss the smile off his smart mouth.

“Do you have anyone who can corroborate your story?” His grip on my wrists is firm but not tight. I should yank them away, but I don’t. A Sawyer doesn’t back down from a Palmer. Not even when the Palmer’s aftershave makes her feel like she might swoon like an 18th-century lady.

“Security cameras,” I say.

“On private property. If the owners won’t cooperate, that would require a warrant.”

“Well, the owners are a very sketchy family, so…”

“Really? I’ve heard they’re salt-of-the-earth type.”

Movement catches my eye, and I turn my head as an old woman shuffles toward the doors, her eyes watching us with disapproval.

I pull my hands away, and Beau releases me easily. I wait for the lady to straggle through the doors, shooting her a friendly smile and hoping she’s not friends with Harold.

“Is your brother back yet?” I ask Beau.

He shakes his head and glances at his watch. “Should be in the next fifteen minutes, though, based on his text.”

“He knows about the fire alarm, I assume?”

Beau nods, watching me.

“What about your dad?”

“Not yet.”

I glance behind me through the glass doors. Harold and a few others walk to the chairs in the lobby and take seats .

“Can we talk for a minute?” I ask Beau. “Somewhere else?”

Beau’s brows go up, and his gaze darts behind me, comprehension dawning there. “Sure. Let’s take a walk.”

We follow the sidewalk that wraps around Seaside Oasis. The grounds are beautiful, with red hibiscus, violet orchids, and cheery marigolds lining our path.

“So,” I say, “I’m assuming it’d be too much to ask that we just pretend this fire alarm incident never happened, right?”

“You assume correctly,” Beau says, clearly amused. “I have to fill out paperwork about incidents like this.”

“Which I definitely understand. But as far as Seaside Oasis goes, what are the chances your dad could just…not hear about it?”

“Slim to none. Tristan is running things, but Dad still wants to be kept in the loop, and if I know him, he’ll ask about your grandma at their weekly meeting. You’re worried she’s going to be kicked out?”

I nod.

“Which you don’t want to happen, or she doesn’t want to happen?”

“Neither of us do. For reasons I will never fully understand, she wants to stay on Sunset Harbor until she dies. And, much as she’d like to be fully independent until she keels over, she’s just not. And her mobility will only get worse.”

He stops and turns to face me. “If she wants to stay here so much, why is she doing everything in her power to get kicked out?”

I shrug. “Because Grams is who she is through and through. You can’t mistake her antics for not wanting to be here.”

He nods and takes a seat on the wooden bench nearby. “In the grand scheme of things, pulling a fire alarm is pretty mild.”

I sit down, stealing a glance at him. It’s hard to believe Beau was a cop in Miami before he came back to Sunset Harbor. I haven’t been to Miami since I was a kid, but I know enough about what crime is like in LA to guess his days there looked pretty different from his days here. “What was it like? In Miami?”

His gaze darts to me, then away again. “Intense.”

I toy with asking follow-up questions, but he talks before I can decide on one—and part of me wonders if it’s on purpose.

“So, how did your talk go? Has she cooled down enough to regret her decision?”

“Um…I wouldn’t go quite that far. But I have been authorized to apologize on her behalf.”

“As her official PR spokesperson.”

“Exactly. She’s also authorized me to do everything in my power to make sure she can stay here. So, Officer Palmer. Can you help a poor old lady out?”

He laughs and reaches his arm along the back of the bench, angling himself toward me. “Poor old lady? That’s quite the stretch, Gemma. If this is a demonstration of your PR skills…” He cocks a brow at me.

I scoff and turn toward him, taking the bait. “Okay. How about this? Seaside Oasis needs Virginia Sawyer.”

“Wow. You took a stretch and turned it into full-on contortion. You’ve got my attention, though. In what way does Seaside Oasis need a hooligan like Virginia Sawyer?”

“Did you know that boredom in older adults is associated with both cognitive decline and higher rates of depression?” Thank you, airplane magazine I read when I couldn’t sleep on the red-eye flight here.

Beau’s eyes twinkle. “And you think Virginia Sawyer is the antidote to that?”

“Like it or not, she keeps things interesting for everyone here.”

Beau’s mouth stretches in an appreciative smile as his eyes run over my face. “Not bad, Gemma. Not bad.”

“Thanks,” I say, feeling extremely self-satisfied for someone who just got complimented by a man with no experience at all in PR. “So, what can I do to make sure Grams gets to stay?”

Beau’s smile morphs into a thoughtful frown. His eyes are still on me, though. He’s not convinced yet.

“Unless, of course, you don’t have that sort of pull,” I say, trying a new angle as I put out a finger in case the butterfly fluttering nearby decides to humor me. It doesn’t.

Beau’s mouth quirks. “Are you trying to provoke me?”

“Is it working?”

He laughs. “Yeah. It kind of is. First of all, I do have the pull…”

“And second?”

The way he’s looking at me has me suddenly wary.

“Second,” he says, shifting toward me more until his knee touches mine. “I think I know my price.”

My stomach gets tense. I shouldn’t have given him carte blanche. He’s probably going to ask me to publicly declare myself a Palmerite.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” he continued, “about needing to prove myself to the city council. And I think you’re right.”

I sit back, folding my arms across my chest and smiling smugly. “Of course I am.”

“I’d like you to help me do that—for more than an hour and a half.”

My smile drops.

“I want you to help me with my own little PR campaign. Not anything formal or orchestrated. Just you capturing me doing what I do.”

I shake my head. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not? It was your idea.”

“I don’t have the resources.”

“I’m not asking for billboards and photoshoots, Gemma. Phone pictures and videos will be just fine.” His smile turns mischievous. “Unless, of course, you don’t have the skills t?—”

“Oh, please. I have the skills. I could blow Sunset Harbor City Council’s minds with those skills.”

“But…?”

I shift in my seat, but I leave my knee up against his. “I don’t have the time.”

“You changed your flight, right?”

“Yeah, changed, not cancelled. I’m only here for another nine days.”

He shrugs. “That’s fine. Just do what you can while you can.”

“So, what, you have a quick conversation with your brother and dad, and I spend hours following you around? Doesn’t seem like a fair trade. Besides, the whole reason I pushed back my flight is to give me time to get Grams’s house ready to put on the market.”

“Fair enough,” he says. “Let me sweeten the deal, then. I’ll help you get the house ready. That way, whatever time you’re losing by helping me is made up for.”

I think on all the other furniture I have to move, all the boxes and unsorted stuff left in the attic. It’d sure be nice to have someone to do all the grunt work. Heaven knows Beau’s got the strength for it.

But what would Grams say if she knew about this little arrangement? If she knew a Palmer would be involved in preparing her beloved house for sale?

To be fair, she did say to do whatever it took so she can stay….

Besides, it’s a very temporary arrangement. On the timeline of planet Earth, a week and a half isn’t even a blip. And if it allows Grams to keep her place at Seaside Oasis?

“Fine,” I say, getting to my feet.

Beau gets up and smiles. “Excellent.”

“Does this mean I have to follow you around like a puppy? ”

“I’ve got Xena on that.”

“Until she starts following me around,” I tease.

“Never,” Beau says. “She’s curious about you, but she’s loyal to me.”

“We’ll see,” I say. “Am I on call, then? Should I get a bulletproof vest for middle-of-the-night drug raids?”

“Couldn’t hurt,” he says. “I hear Les Erickson has been hoarding Prilosec, making it hard for everyone else to fill their prescriptions.”

I shake my head disapprovingly. “Pure evil.”

“Are you going to the farmer’s market tomorrow?”

“I don’t know, am I? Is it a hotbed of crime?”

“There’s a pet adoption fair going on. Xena and I will have a booth to educate people about pet registration, vaccination, local laws and ordinances—that sort of thing.”

“Saving the world one bordetella shot at a time.”

“Not all heroes wear capes.”

I can’t help smiling, something I’ve done a lot of while I’ve been with Beau today. “Okay. I’ll come grab some footage of you there. And then…” I prompt.

“I’ll be entirely at your disposal, Miss Sawyer,” he says with a bow as his phone pings. He pulls it out and looks at the screen. “I have just enough time to take you home and come back for a little chat with Tristan.”

We start walking around the building toward the front, but I’ve got a weird sensation in my stomach. It feels like I’m quickly losing sight of the proper Palmer/Sawyer dynamic. And I just agreed to spend a whole lot more time with Beau while I’m in Sunset Harbor.

It’s fine. It’s business. And I can handle business because I’m a businesswoman. A woman of business. A woman who means business.

When we come around the front, Beau heads straight for his cart and pulls the light from the top, turning it off .

“Gotta save those batteries, huh?” I tease.

“Sacred tax dollars, GG.”

“Excuse me?” I step right up to him and look him dead in the eye. “Did you just dare to call me Gigi?”

He doesn’t back down, and there’s a glint of excitement in his eyes that sends my heart fluttering and me wishing I would’ve kept a bit more distance. But now it’s too late. I’m in it to win it.

“No one calls me that,” I say.

He tips his head from side to side. “I mean…”

“Allow me to clarify. No one calls me that but Grams, and I only let that slide because she can take me down if I make a stink about it.”

“And you think I couldn’t?” His eyes flit to my lips for a second so split I’d think I’d imagined it if my lungs weren’t suddenly devoid of air.

“Call me by Grams’s nickname for me, and you’ll see who gets taken down.”

“GG,” he says immediately, calling my bluff without taking his eyes from mine. “But you should know that assaulting an on-duty law enforcement officer is a serious crime…GG.”

This man has a death wish. “You better watch your off-duty back, then, Officer Palmer.”

His brows go up. “ Threatening an on-duty law enforcement officer.”

“Thankfully,” I say, completely ignoring him, “seeing as you’re a part-time cop and my next-door neighbor, there’ll be plenty of opportunities to catch you off-duty.”

“Out of curiosity,” he says, clearly and utterly enjoying himself, “how does Grams spell her nickname for you?”

“First of all, don’t call her Grams . Second, why are you asking weird questions?”

“Is it G-I-G-I? ”

“Yeah, why?” I narrow my eyes at him because I don’t get where he’s going with this.

“You see? This has all been a misunderstanding. My nickname for you is a completely different GG.”

“Oh yeah? ’Cause it sure sounds the same.”

He shrugs those broad shoulders. “You can’t always believe your ears. Mine is just G-G. Simple.”

“Is that right?” I say, folding my arms across my chest.

He gives a distinct nod. “Yep, GG.”

He’s saying it as many times as he can to drive me crazy. And it’s absolutely working.

“And do those Gs stand for something?” I’m determined to push him until he admits he’s being the world’s most annoying cop.

“Gemma Girl,” he says as if it should be obvious.

I stare at him without a ready response, wondering why I just got butterflies. Gemma Girl . It’s a dumb nickname. So, why do I kind of like it?

“Hey,” Tristan calls, jogging up to us, a bit breathless. “Sounds like I chose the wrong time to leave for two hours.”

“Or the right time,” Beau says. “Can you hold on a few minutes? I’m just taking GG ho?—”

“You don’t need to,” I say, recovering my composure. “I’ll walk.”

Beau’s brows go up. “In the middle of the day?”

“Yep,” I say, consigning myself to half an hour of utter misery without a second thought. It’ll be good for me—I could use some time away from Beau. And a few more reminders of how terrible this place is. I’ve been enjoying the air conditioning and the windswept speed of Beau’s golf cart too much. It’s time to trudge through hell. “That way you don’t have to leave and come back.”

“I don’t mind,” Beau says.

“I can wait a fe?— ”

I cut Tristan off. “No, no. You have an important conversation awaiting you. Right, Beau?”

He chuckles. “Right. Fine, then. I’ll come to your place after I finish up here.”

“Actually,” I say, walking backwards to reaffirm my choice to walk home, “I’ve got some work stuff tonight.” And by work stuff, I mean that I need to have a come-to-Jesus talk with myself. Because today, it feels like I’ve been running straight for Satan.