Ken, Carlos, and Nate all exchanged glances. “That’s what you think,” Carlos said finally, while Pauline smiled to herself.
***
Misty
The rest of the day passed in a blur.
She should’ve been savoring every moment, because this was what she’d been waiting on for months—the last of Ryan’s gang safe in the town jail, waiting for an airtight case to put him away for a long, long time.
It all kept receding into the background, though, when she thought about what was waiting for her when she got off shift.
Who was waiting for her.
It made sense to be thinking about him so much, she defended herself. He was a big part of the case, after all. He’d saved her and Gene’s lives, and that was bound to leave a big impression. She was processing his statement as part of her job.
And she was meeting him at Oliver’s when her shift was over.
Had he meant to ask her on a date? Can we continue this conversation over dinner was a pretty date-like line, in Misty’s extremely limited experience. So...probably.
He’d just delivered it so naturally. There hadn’t been any of that sleazy expectation she was used to from men. As a female sheriff, she got hit on a lot, usually as a defense mechanism from assholes she was arresting. Ooh, you gonna use those handcuffs on me? That sort of thing. They just wanted to pretend they were still in control of the situation.
Ty hadn’t done any of that. He hadn’t acted like he was threatened by a female sheriff. He hadn’t been smug about rescuing her. He’d made sure she was all right, cheerfully answered her questions, and just...paid attention to her.
And demonstrated that he was worthy of attention himself.
Misty told herself firmly that it was okay to be looking forward to dinner, it was okay to be interested in this man, and it was okay to take things as they came. If it turned out it wasn’t a date at all—if he just wanted to learn more about the arrest he’d involuntarily participated in—that was fine.
But if it was more than that...
Watch out for people trying to get personally involved with you, Misty, her dad’s voice echoed in her head. Law enforcement has to be impartial. Your emotions can’t get a say.
He’s not a local, Misty responded to the memory of her father. So it’s fine.
Yes. It was fine.
She kept telling herself it was fine all day, right up through the end of her shift, while she passed things off to her night deputy, while she drove to Oliver’s, and parked, and went inside.
And then she saw Ty waiting for her at the hostess’ stand, and she realized that fine was absolutely, positively the wrong word to describe what was happening.
Ty stood out from the crowd of people coming to Oliver’s for dinner on a Saturday night. It wasn’t just that he was African-American, unlike most people in northern Montana. It wasn’t even that he was huge, tall and broad and impressively muscular.
It was that her eyes didn’t want to look at anyone else.
When he saw her coming through the door, his face lit up into that impossibly bright smile. Misty almost reached for her sunglasses.
He was too much to take in. Part of her wanted to break and run away.
Although...weirdly, for once, that part wasn’t the deer shifter inside her.
No, the deer was fascinated.
Predators weren’t usually her inner doe’s favorite thing, although Misty had a lifet
ime of dealing with predatory shifter criminals under her belt, and her deer’s instincts had been honed into diamond-sharp observation and lightning-quick reaction.
But still. There was usually some wariness.
Not so with Ty. Her deer leaned eagerly forward.