Then the parade started.
There was never a crowd, usually just one visitor at a time, but the police station door might as well have been a revolving one. Miss Doris came bustling in with several boxes, which Morgan immediately took control of so he could investigate. “Cupcakes,” he announced, and slanted a fierce blue-fire glance at Bo. “Don’t lick the icing,” he growled, pointing a finger at her for emphasis.
What? She stared at him in bewilderment. “I always lick the icing.”
“Don’t.”
Miss Doris giggled, and Bo looked over to see the older woman blushing. She looked back at Morgan, and his expression spelled it out for her. She felt her own face getting warm. “Okay,” she said, forcing out the word because her throat was suddenly tight from the heat wave sweeping up from her toes. She felt like a high schooler—or what she imagined a high schooler would feel like because her own high-school years hadn’t involved any relationships other than friends on her swim team.
Morgan returned to the box. “We also have dog-shaped cookies. Just to be on the safe side, Miss Doris, are these people cookies or—”
“Oh no, they’re for Tricks,” she said before he could try them out himself. “I made up my own dog-safe and healthy recipe for her, you know.”
“I’ll know for sure you love me when you make man-shaped cookies,” he said and winked at her, which left Miss Doris in a blushing, giggling mess.
A little while after Miss Doris left, Patrick brought in a dozen doughnuts, a mixture of chocolate-filled and lemon-filled. “Hey, Chief,” he said, setting the box on her desk. “I figured you could use some sugar therapy. Are those Miss Doris’s cupcakes?”
“They are. Help yourself,” Bo invited. Holy hell, she was going to die of sugar shock, but she felt obligated to try one of everything that had been brought. “Those are for Tricks,” she added, when Patrick began nosing around in the box of dog treats too. They wouldn’t hurt him, but Tricks might hold a grudge if she noticed someone else eating her treats.
Jesse and Kalie came in with a fruit basket; at least that sugar came with some vitamins. Bo began to wonder if the whole town thought she had collapsed from the trauma, then realized she damn near had. If she’d been the one Kyle had tried to kill, she’d have been frightened, but not devastated. Not only that . . . it dawned on her that even though they weren’t saying a word, evidently they all knew Kyle had been aiming at Tricks and not her. Christa, who had been beside Tricks on the float, knew the truth; Bo assumed she’d been interviewed, and she would have told them the truth. It didn’t matter. Kyle was pleading guilty to trying to kill the police chief, and that’s how it was going to stand.
Evan Cummings, the school principal, came by with a flower arrangement from him and his wife, Lisa. He apologized to Bo over and over, as if the whole thing were his fault for talking her into letting Tricks ride on the float. Bo was so grateful he hadn’t brought more food that she almost hugged him; instead she reassured him they were all right, asked if he’d heard from Mrs. Simmons how her husband was—he was fine, had spent the night at the hospital but was released yesterday morning—and tried to press some of the overflow of goodies on him. He took a chocolate-filled doughnut for himself, then escaped.
After Miss Virginia Rose finished her shift at the supermarket she brought a box of chocolates; by this time even Morgan looked as if he’d had his fill of junk food, but Bo enthused over the chocolates anyway. They might not get eaten right away, but they would eventually, for sure. And the more people who came in, to ask how she was and to pet Tricks, the more touched and teary-eyed she became. These people cared about her, about each other, about their town. She wasn’t alone, hadn’t been alone for far longer than it had taken her to realize.
If she hadn’t had such a wall around her in high school, would she have made close friends then? She’d never know, she couldn’t redo the past, but she had to wonder. People were pretty much the same, big city, small town, or rural; they made friends, and they protected their own.
Eventually the procession dwindled and she settled down to work in earnest. Morgan took Tricks out for a walk. As soon as they were alone, Loretta got up and left her cubicle, coming over to give Bo a pat on the arm. “Congratulations,” she said.
Startled, Bo looked up. “What?” she asked in bewilderment.
“Morgan. That’s more man than most women could handle, though if it weren’t for Charlie, I wouldn’t mind giving it a shot,” she mused and went back to her cubicle.
Well, hell. Evidently that was something else the entire town was clued in on. She thought about it for a minute, then shrugged mentally. She wasn’t embarrassed. She hadn’t even thought of telling Morgan to keep their new involvement on the down low, which said something about how drastically things had changed for her.
The days slipped from May into June, easing from late spring toward summer. The wheels of law weren’t in any hurry and Kyle was still in jail, waiting arraignment so he could enter his guilty plea. Bo half-expected Warren Gooding to pay her another visit, but all of the Goodings seemed to be making themselves scarce. Melody wasn’t seen shopping in town, and neither was her mother. The people who worked at the sawmills had no gossip to report, nothing overheard, no threats made. Perhaps Kyle had stepped so far out of bounds this time that his parents knew there was no making this go away; Bo wouldn’t bet the farm on it, but she’d take what she could get.