“Holy cow,” I muttered, making my way to the intercom with Sam hot on my trail barking out cautionary warnings. “Yes?”
It was Chaya. “Let me in, asshole.”
I pressed the button to let her in and made sure the front door was unlocked. Within seconds, she was barging in and grabbing me into a giant hug. “What the fuck? Why didn’t you call me?” Once she saw Sam, she huffed out a laugh. “Oh, I see.”
“It was the middle of the night,” I told her. “I was hardly of sound mind.”
She pulled back and studied my face, keeping a light grip on my upper arms. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. “Bruised in spirit but not in body.”
“I was at the diner when I heard. Fair warning, I’m fairly sure half the town is on the road behind me. Everyone wants to know how you’re doing.” She flicked her eyes back over to Sam before adding, “And Mikey and Tiller were there asking about the sheriff’s pension fund. Seems like some shit is going down.”
Just then the sound of the gate buzzer blasted again. I needed to find a way to turn that down or I was going to go gray in my twenties.
I opened the gate and pressed the button that would keep it open if multiple people were coming. Besides, with Chaya and Sam here, I was plenty safe.
“Chaya, have you met Sam Rigby?” I stepped back to introduce the two of them. Chaya flitted her eyelashes at Sam which seemed to make him oddly nervous.
She grinned at him before reaching her hand out. “You were preoccupied when we saw each other at the diner the other day,” she teased. “Nice to meet you. Thank you for looking after my brotato chip.” She reached out and tousled my hair.
I tried explaining to Sam with my eyes that Chaya was an odd duck. He winked at me and reached to shake her hand. “It’s my pleasure. I love brotato chips.”
God, he was so fucking hot. And his voice was sexy enough to make me almost forget the Honeyed Lemon had burned down.
But not quite.
“Did you drive by the shop? How did it look?”
She frowned. “Not good. Except the brick looks solid. The windows are mostly broken. Part of the street is blocked off, and there were official-looking vehicles there. It looked like there might have even been a state fire investigator there.”
“Good,” Sam muttered. “Maybe a state investigator will be objective.”
I glanced at him, knowing he was bound to be upset about the note I’d just shown him. “Agreed.”
He held his coffee mug in one hand but used the other to reach for my hand, threading our fingers together and holding on to me as if we were boyfriends. Chaya’s eyes practically bugged out of her head, and I felt my face heat.
I didn’t want her getting any ideas. It wasn’t a boyfriend thing, just a comfort thing.
Tiller and Mikey’s SUV crunched to a halt outside next to Chaya’s vehicle and Pim’s Volkswagen. Mia and Mindy followed closely behind in their Subaru, and I spotted Nina’s ranch pickup truck behind them. Even though the reason for the meet-up wasn’t a good one, I was secretly a little excited to have everyone here. I felt cared for and supported.
Part of a community.
After stepping through the front door to wave everyone inside, I turned to put on another pot of coffee and see if I had any kind of food I could put out.
As soon as Pim and Bill came in, followed by their teenaged son, Solomon, I saw my worry over food wasn’t necessary. Solo was loaded down with trays of breakfast treats.
“Where do you want these, Mr. Sweet?” he asked. I’d told him to call me Truman a million times, but he refused. Since he worked for me part-time at the shop, he insisted on treating me like a proper boss.
My heart dropped as I realized I wouldn’t need him at the shop for a while, but then I quickly realized I could use his help here on the farm instead, if he wanted it. My face must have shown my roller coaster of emotions, because Sam squeezed my shoulder and asked if I was okay.
“Yeah. Just… adjusting, you know? It’ll be a new normal.”
He leaned in and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “You’re strong as hell. You’re going to rock this.”
I turned to see my kitchen full of friends and neighbors, coffee and pastries, laughter and hugs, and gossip and teasing.
Within seconds, this kitchen had turned from a lonely reminder of the loss of Aunt Berry to a living memorial of the legacy she left and the hopes she’d had for me. By giving me her gift of healing and planting, by giving me the shop and the farm, she’d given me a sense of place, a community.
And now they were here in her kitchen surrounding me with the kind of friendship I’d always longed for but never thought I’d find.
I knew everyone in here because of my shop, because, despite my fear of rejection, I’d worked hard to be a quiet, contributing member of the Aster Valley community. Mia and Mindy owned the yarn shop a few stores down from mine, Bill and Pim owned the diner, and Nina owned a dude ranch on the edge of town. I noticed she’d also brought her friend Carlin, who owned the new tack store in town.
As we drank coffee and ate muffins, several more people arrived. I recognized most of them as fellow business owners in town. When Pim finally took the lead to get everyone’s attention, I guessed what the common denominator was between all of us.
Business owners who weren’t close to the Stanners.
Pim’s usual joking manner was replaced with a serious expression. “Alright, everyone, settle down. It’s come to our attention that some of us are being extorted by the sheriff’s department for financial support that’s completely off the books.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Sam’s jaw tighten. Tiller looked equally pissed off.
“So I think we’d better get to the bottom of this and figure out exactly how we want to go about fixing it,” Pim continued. “Let’s start by making a list of who’s paying this fee, how much we’re paying, and who’s getting the money.”
As we slowly began comparing notes, I realized not every shop was paying this “supplemental” fee for law enforcement. I was shocked, but I could tell Sam wasn’t surprised at all.
“It’s not legal,” Bill said. He was normally the quieter man in their marriage, so when he spoke, people tended to listen. “I did a little digging into the county budget, and I don’t see these payments listed anywhere. I propose we pool our resources and hire an attorney to look into it.”
Pim added, “Someone from out of town. Because if we’re wrong, several of us are going to make serious enemies with the wrong people. Bill and I are already on their shit list for refusing to pay it. We asked for the federal tax identification or charity registration of the pension fund for our records, and they never got back to us. We kind of forgot all about it. But we definitely deal with petty vandalism every few weeks. Not sure we even thought to connect the two.”
Everyone grumbled their frustration and agreed to the idea of an attorney. Tiller offered up his friend Julian, who could come in from Denver again.
I could tell Mia was mad as hell. “We questioned this payment when we first opened the shop. A week later, the shop was broken into and a brand-new delivery of high-end yarn and notions was taken. When we tried filing a report, the sheriff made it clear that businesses who contributed to the fund were put at the top of the priority list.”