Hayes nodded. Better now that you’re here.
Obviously, done with the fatherly lesson he’d come to give, Dad tipped the rim of his cowboy hat at Maisie. “I better be on my way.” To Hayes, he added, “You’ll think about what I said?”
Hayes inclined his head as his answer, instead of flat-out refusing. His life as a cop was in his past. No going back.
Once his father’s SUV was halfway down the driveway, Maisie whistled. “Wow. The tension between you two was near stifling. What’s up?”
Hayes gestured for Maisie to follow him over to the Adirondack chairs on the small stone patio near the flower garden. “He wants me to come work for him.”
She sat next to him, her eyebrows raising over her sparkling baby blues. “I had no idea you were considering being a cop again.”
“I’m not,” he clarified, stretching out his legs, resting a boot on the big rocks around the firepit. “My father thinks I’m wasting myself at the horse farm or determined to kill myself.”
“You won’t hear me disagreeing with him there.”
Hayes’s brows shot up. “You think he’s right?”
She gave a little shrug. “Only someone looking to punish themselves would take the risks you do.”
Most times he liked that Maisie always cut through the bullshit. Whatever came to her mind came out of her mouth. For him, being so tightlipped, he found her openness refreshing. Only he didn’t much like it directed at him. “I’m not punishing myself.”
She gave him a knowing look. “What would you call it, then?”
“Doing the job no one else wants to do,” he managed.
She snorted a laugh. “Yeah, because it’s really dangerous, and seeing that you’re doing it without wearing full body gear like Beckett told you to, I’d say you’re doing it to hurt yourself.”
“You think I’d hurt myself on purpose?”
“Yes.”
He recoiled. “Seriously?”
She gave a firm nod. “Sometimes when we hurt inside and can’t deal with that, we make our outsides hurt instead.” She glanced away and changed the subject. “Do you think you’ll ever go back to the force?”
He still reeled from her earlier statement and barely managed, “No.”
“That was a quick answer.”
He shrugged. “I don’t need to think about it. Being a cop was another life.”
“Did you tell your father that?”
Hayes nodded. “He just happens to disagree with me.”
She watched him a long moment. “Well, I knew you as a cop, and I know you now, and you know what?”
“Do I even want to know?”
Her smile filled the hollowest parts of his chest. “I liked you as a cop. And I like you as a horse trainer, even if I seriously question your sanity. So, I say you just keep doing you. Your dad will simply have to deal.”
Hayes felt the tension slowly melt away. “Want to tell him that?”
“Ha,” she said with a grin. “Don’t dare me. You totally know I would.”
Yeah, she would. Nothing stopped her, even when faced with a situation where she knew she might not come out on top. “I’m afraid of what you’d do if you unleashed on him. My father hasn’t met honest Maisie.”
“He probably wouldn’t like her,” she agreed with a laugh. “You know, you being the son of police chief and all, I’d probably get in a whole lot of trouble.”
He winked. “Don’t worry, I’d bail you out.”
“Good,” she said. “I’m glad to know you wouldn’t let me rot in jail.”
“Never. You’ve got me. Anytime you need me.”
She smiled.
Hayes looked at his boots on the rocks lining the firepit. Even if Maisie knew he missed being a cop, she couldn’t know why he would never go back. He couldn’t stand the heartbreak that would fill her eyes when she found out Laurel hadn’t died because they’d been robbed. He couldn’t hurt Maisie like that, not after she finally seemed happy again. She smiled all the time like she used to. She laughed just as much. But most of all, Hayes needed her. “How’s that finger?” he asked, changing the subject.
She blinked and looked down at her finger, stuck between the metal brace and tape. “It’s a reminder that I really suck at this whole brewery thing.”
“Accidents happen,” he offered. “Nothin’ you can do about that.”
She lifted her stare to him again and gave a cute smile. “Funny you should mention that, because there is actually something I can do about it. And that something involves you.”
“Me? How?”
“Yup, you,” she said with a nod. “Penelope sort of mentioned that you had some time off. So, I’ve got a mega favor to ask, and please don’t say no.” She pressed her palms together as if she were praying, holding them tightly to her chest. “Clara already tried to fire me, but she’s agreed to give me one more shot. I’ve got three beer festivals to do over the next four days, starting tomorrow.”
“All right,” he said. “But how does this involve me?”
She grinned. “Because I need muscles. Big, strong muscles.”
He couldn’t fight his smile and arched an eyebrow at her. “Are you inflating my ego to get me to agree to go to these festivals with you?”
“Is it working?”
He chuckled, shaking his head at her. Yeah, it kind of was. “What exactly would you need me to do?”
“Oh, good,” she said, bouncing in her seat. “Okay, so you’d help set up the booth and take it down at the end of the night.” She waved her broken finger at him. “Let’s be honest here, I struggled setting up before. I’m clumsy on a good day. And now with a broken finger, there’s just no way I can pull this off by myself.” She gave him puppy-dog eyes. “So…what do you say?”
He took in those sweet eyes. That desperation on her face. The way both of those things ruined him. “Does anyone ever say no to you?”
She gave a firm nod. “Yes, Clara does all the time.”
He wasn’t sure how. Hayes couldn’t find the strength to refuse her anything. He sighed. “When do we leave?”
She squealed, jumped up from her chair, and threw her arms around him, bringing her soft curves against him like they belonged there. Heat blasted through him, making him fully aware of every spectacular inch of her body. Her coconut-scented shampoo infused the air, and he restrained his groan at the soft press of her breasts against his chest, of how damn good she felt there.
When she backed away, he noted there was heat in her eyes too. “Come to the brewery tomorrow morning at nine o’clock, we’ll leave from there,” she said.
“All right.” He forced his attention onto her face, instead of letting his gaze sweep over her as he so desperately wanted. “See you tomorrow, then.”
“Bye.” She turned, and he could have sworn she put an extra wiggle to her hips.
The groan he’d been fighting slipped free, and he immediately stood, heading for the house to deal with what she did to him.