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Andi got the same reaction from everyone in town anytime it came up. “I worked for the FBI translating, monitoring persons of interest.”
“In Chinese?”
“And Persian, although I read that better than I speak or hear it.” She felt like such an idiot for bringing it up. Possibly because he was looking at her as though she had two heads. “My point is this...in linguistics, you get a real good understanding of what words can do and what they can’t do. No matter that we’re both speaking English, truth means different things to you than it does to me. Because of context.”
Mark studied the ceiling while he thought about her answer. Finally he nodded. “I’ve got it...but to me, that’s semantics.”
Andi laughed. “Actually, that’s called pragmatics and it’s a case of six of one and a half a dozen of the other.”
Mark wrinkled his brow. “Isn’t that what I just said?”
“It’s close. You think facts are truth.”
He shook his head. “Aren’t they?”
“Not always, no. Facts are black-and-white. Truth...it has more depth.”
“Are you actually speaking Mandarin now? Because I’m afraid the conversation has gotten away from me. And that never happens. I’m a writer. I live on words, you know?”
“It’s like...the facts might be that someone broke into the Country Kitchen. You can put in the time and the amount that was stolen. You might even be able to put in the name of the thief and a confession, but that’s not the truth of the story. Or not all of it anyway. You’d be missing the context. I want to know the why. And I can’t help but look for it. That makes me good at my job. I don’t think most reporters spend a lot of time thinking about that context.” Andi shook her head. “Just let me eat my salad in peace, please.”
He reached across the table to squeeze her hand. “I’m not sure I agree, Sheriff, but I think I understand.” He shook his head. “What I don’t get is why in the world you’re still here. If you win this election, you’ve got two more years of the town’s scrutiny to look forward to. Why not head out for greener, more crime-ridden pastures? FBI experience would probably open most any door you wanted around here, wouldn’t it?”
Andi bit her lip as she tried to figure out a way to shunt him out of the Smokehouse. She’d get up herself but not without her cheesecake. “I can’t leave Tall Pines, not yet. My grandmother’s still...she needs me.” Two years ago, when she’d heard about her grandmother’s fall, Andi was frantic to get home. Her career hadn’t meant much then. Gram wouldn’t move to Atlanta, so Andi had to make her way in Tall Pines. Unfortunately, that meant old history, elections and politics.
Mark wadded up his napkin as Sarah returned to take his empty plate. He smiled up at her, then smiled at Andi. “You’re ready for your dessert now.”
Andi had cleared a bald spot in the middle of the forest of her salad. He was right. She was ready for her reward.
Before Andi could give Sarah her usual order, he said, “She’ll have her usual and I’ll have what she’s having.” Sarah smiled and marched back to the kitchen. Mark and Andi both watched her go, then Mark turned back to look at Andi. “I do appreciate your jealousy but I’m not sure you know what you’re talking about. She seems fine to me.”
Andi pointed to the table with a single twentysomething man near the window. “I think she’s got someone else to attract at this point.”
He heaved a troubled sigh. “Well, all right. At least I’ve still got you.” The corner of his mouth tilted up, but he didn’t say another thing about jealousy. “I’m surprised I hadn’t heard about your FBI experience. The first thing some people did when I moved to town is trot over to tell me all about Tall Pines’s most famous citizen.”
Andi was ready to blast out a defense. Her father had quit his job at the radio station, divorced her mother and left town to pursue his dream. He’d landed in Nashville where he hosted a popular country music talk show, and every Christmas he sent her a card with a check. Until she was eighteen, she’d lived with the morbid curiosity and sometimes pity of the people in town who knew he hardly called and never visited his daughter. She didn’t want to talk about her father, either his successes or his monumental failure.
Sometimes she had to face the bitter truth that she could place a big part of her drive to be the best and build a successful law-enforcement career at her father’s feet. She was determined to prove herself better than him, better than anyone who’d pursue their own selfish goals like that, through serving the public and excelling at all she did. But now was not the time to get into that.
Mark held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “But I don’t want to talk about that. It’s nice to know more about you. Why don’t you ask me whatever burning questions you have? You might start to see me for the fine, upstanding citizen I really am. Then maybe we could work together.”
“That’s one idea.” Sarah placed a towering slice of cheesecake complete with strawberry drizzle on the table. After she’d left both plates, Andi added, “Or you could sit there and be quiet so I can enjoy this piece of cheesecake.”
“I don’t get you, Sheriff. People generally like me. Everybody except you. And Jackie, but him I can live with.” Andi didn’t say anything, because that was exactly the problem: people always liked him. He could get away with murder because he was charming. Her father had been the same way. Everything was fun and games until he lost interest, found a better option and moved along, leaving other people to pick up the pieces. And she’d tried to do the very best job she could, but it wasn’t enough here.
He tapped his cheesecake with a fork and shook his head sadly. “You seriously do not get how this date thing goes, do you? We’re supposed to trade our favorite colors, movies, songs and end with a rousing display of our five-year plans.”
Andi tilted her head to the side. “I’m not sure I’m the one with the problem in understanding, Mr. Taylor. I’m pretty sure you could ask ten people and they’d all say a date should start with an invitation. And I’m also pretty sure we can both agree there was absolutely no invitation involved in this little dinner.”
Andi picked up her fork and took her first bite of the sinful satisfaction that was cheesecake at the Smokehouse.
“Ooh, that was a burn. I think you got me.” He watched Andi take her second bite. “If I had asked, what would you have said?”
“No. Of course the answer would be no.” Andi rolled her eyes. “You just want to talk about Jackie’s case.”
“What if I promised the case wouldn’t even come up?” Mark tilted his head to the side.
“My answer would be a louder no.” Andi sighed. “And I don’t believe you. You’ve already proven the story is king.”
He shrugged. “I’m a really good investigative reporter, and my stories are fair. You can trust me. My mother will vouch for me, of course, as a fine young man. What’s the harm in a dinner or two, just to ease relations between the paper and the sheriff’s office?”
Andi shook her head. “I don’t see the need. I won’t give you the inside scoop.”
Both of his eyebrows shot up. “You don’t see the need? For the sheriff’s office to work with the newspaper? For the woman running for reelection to get some positive press? I don’t believe it. You’re smarter than that.”
He had a point. She did her best to fight back the smile that threatened when he rolled his eyes. He forked the last bit of dessert into his mouth before he wiped it with the cloth napkin.
“Maybe you’re right about that, but is having a better working relationship with the sheriff’s office worth following me, invading my space and playing the getting-to-know-you game?” She had no idea where the question came from. Possibly the sugar rush.
Mark blew out a gusty sigh. “Yes, my job would be easier if you could see me as a good guy, one who only wants to serve Tall Pines...with the facts and your truth, if I can wrap my head around it.” He arched an eyebrow to make sure she caught his drift. Andi nodded. “And there’s something about you, Sheriff. I want to help you even when you make me crazy. As a sincere apology and proof of my good intentions, let me help with Jackie’s case.”
He motioned Sarah over and asked for coffee, then rested his elbows on the table. “Or I can keep following you around, jump out when you least expect it and ruin other desserts.”
The steady pressure of his stare got to her. She wanted to enjoy her last bites, and she couldn’t do that with him watching so closely.
He shrugged. “I used to be just like you, Sheriff. Worked harder, longer hours than anybody else because I believed in what I was doing. I wanted to save the world one news story at a time. All that got me was an angry ex-wife who didn’t believe a man could be working all those nights—so there must be another woman—an ulcer and trouble sleeping at night. But I want to help you and I’m very good at asking the right questions. Let’s work together.”
Then he waited. When Sarah returned with the coffee, Andi huffed a put-upon sigh. “Why are you even here in Tall Pines? It’s not exactly a hotbed of news or social life.”
He licked his lips, then smiled. “Okay, since I don’t think you’re going to play the game correctly because you have a decided ornery streak, I’m going to give you the long, convoluted answer.”
And Andi was hooked. That one sentence told her that he understood a whole lot more than she’d given him credit for. And she wanted to know more.
He stirred cream and sugar into his cup and placed the spoon on the saucer. “I love news but more than anything I love newspapers. I worked for my high school paper, my college paper and I studied journalism. I love the words and how they look on the page. I like how newspaper smells and I even enjoy the black smudges ink leaves behind.” With a sigh, he said, “And since you won’t ask me, I’ll tell you that I love them because my father and I would read the paper together every day. When I was little, he’d hold me in his lap and ask for my considered opinion of the headlines, but when I got older, we would talk about sports or current events at the breakfast table. He’s been gone since I was a senior in college, but newspapers remind me of those times.”
So his entire life hadn’t been charmed. It was clear he still missed his dad a lot. Uncomfortable with her discovery, she pushed away the plate that once held a lovely tower of cheesecake and asked, “But why Tall Pines?”
Andi could tell he was pleased. He believed he was reeling her in—and he just might be—but she wasn’t going to let him know.
“Burnout. It’s as simple and complicated as that. My whole life was about the job. I pursued the biggest stories I could, tried to make a name while fighting a kind of crusade. And I was very good, but everything else fell apart. Here, I love what I do again. The Times might be stories of elementary school spelling bees, histories of old farmsteads and the occasional unsolved mystery, but I like the pace. Advertising is easy to sell. There’s not much of a crime beat, thank God. I can breathe, sleep through the night and fish very badly.” He smiled at Andi. “I have a life here, not just a job.”
“Right. So were you looking for small-town papers for sale and stumbled upon the Times?”
“Nah, I actually knew the editor from way back. When he decided to sell, he sent me an email to see if I’d be interested.”
“Wasn’t it hard to pack up and move hours away to a place where you don’t know anybody? I can’t imagine trying to wedge myself into a town like this where everybody knows everybody from way back and most of them are related somehow.”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t hard. I think Jackie’s accusations helped make me a sympathetic figure, and I’ve made a real effort to fit in. If you’d told me five years ago I’d be entering cooking contests and running recipes under my column, I’d have asked what planet you were from.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them and rolled his head on his shoulders. “You aren’t going to ask about my personal life, either. I can tell. I was divorced about six months before I moved to town. She’s remarried to a corporate lawyer who makes very good money and spends every night with her. And I’m here, living the good life.”
Andi snorted and he laughed. She wondered if this might be what a really good date was like. She’d had so few of those that she wasn’t sure.
“Sounds like you might be too unbusy to help.” Andi shrugged. “And I can handle Jackie’s case on my own. Besides, how would it look if I needed your help to solve this case? Ray Evans would have a field day.”
Mark glanced around the shadowy restaurant, and Andi noticed the crowd had gotten a little larger. When she saw Sarah and Amanda with their heads together, whispering in the corner, she realized how this might look to the people in the restaurant.
“There’s an easy enough way to handle that. We’ll pretend. We’ll go out to dinner again and just like that, we’re dating. No one would suspect that I was your secret weapon then.” He reached across the table and picked up her hand. “How am I doing?”
Andi wasn’t sure if she gasped or not. His hand was hot and the tingling in her fingers was back and spreading.
“What, like a working date or something?” She jerked back her hand and straightened in her seat.
Sarah chose that minute to deliver the check. Mark snatched it out of Andi’s numb fingers, took a couple of crisp bills from his wallet and handed it back to Sarah with a smile. “Keep the change.”
She flushed before she flip-flopped back to the kitchen.
When he looked back at her, Andi wiped one sweaty palm over her brow and tried to take calm, even breaths.
For once in his life he did the right thing. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t smirk. He didn’t tap or jiggle or jostle or in any way appear impatient. When Andi managed to look at him, he just looked certain. And that scared her more than anything else.
“I don’t get you. I’ve made your job really difficult. On purpose. And now, all of a sudden, you want to help. Why?”
He shrugged. “Honestly, this is the first chance I’ve had to smooth things over. This is the first time you’ve done anything other than silently murder me with your eyes. Let me help. Think of how much better the story will be if I have all the facts...truth.” He tilted his head.
Andi looked down at her missing watch and pretended to know what time it was. She needed out and she needed him to have his head examined before the next time they met. Business, working together, that was one thing. A date, even a pretend one where they were really working, was something else entirely.
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea, not even a working date. So...I need to go check on Gram.” She patted the table with both hands. “This was... Thanks for buying dinner, Mr. Taylor.” And she wanted to smack her head against the table. Mr. Taylor? That was just stupid at this point.
“Mr. Taylor?” He didn’t add on the “that’s just stupid” comment, but she could read it on his face.
Andi’s shoulders slumped and she couldn’t resist hiding her face in her hands. She finally mumbled, “Yeah, you’re right. I think we’re past that.” She was nothing if not brave. She lowered her hands and said, “Thank you, Mark, for buying my dinner.”
There were the beginnings of a smile on his face as he nodded. “You are very welcome, Sheriff. Please just think about it. Maybe when I ask again, you’ll say yes.”
Andi shrugged and put one hand over her stomach. She was afraid if she didn’t reach a calmer state soon her cheesecake was going to make a return appearance. “Change my mind? I guess maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”
His smile grew as he scooted his chair back. Andi did the same and was hyperaware of him following her out of the Smokehouse. She wanted to fidget with her uniform but managed to fight off the impulse. When they made it back onto the sidewalk, they stopped. The heat had subsided to a heavy blanket instead of a frying sizzle.
Suddenly Andi couldn’t figure out what to do with her hands. She finally settled for crossing her arms over her chest.
Mark pushed his into the front pockets of his jeans. Maybe his hands didn’t know how to act right, either.
He rocked back on his heels. “Sheriff, can you forgive me for that first story? I guess I didn’t understand how things work here. After talking with you...well, maybe I’m starting to see your point.”
With a sharp nod, Andi glanced up and down the street. Jackie was looking out the window of the diner. If she didn’t get out of there pretty soon, he’d be headed her direction to demand some progress. “You made a mistake. I understand that. I’ve made a few. But...that doesn’t make it easy to forget, M-Mark.”
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