Читать книгу Spellbound - Kate Hoffmann, Kate Hoffmann - Страница 5

Kelsey Quinn looked up from the herbs she was grinding with her mortar and pestle. A man stood in the doorway and she stared at him for a long moment, wondering what he wanted. Most of her business was with the women in town. When a man stopped by the shop, it was usually to warn her off doing business with his wife.

“Can I help you?”

He paused for a long moment, an odd expression coming over his face. “Are you Kelsey Quinn?”

Kelsey sighed and went back to her task. “If you have a problem, I understand there’s a new police chief in town. Would you like me to call him?”

The man stepped inside and slowly crossed the room to the counter. As he came closer, Kelsey held her breath. He was a stranger—she knew almost everyone in town and she would have remembered meeting this guy. His thick dark hair framed a handsome face with intense blue eyes and a mouth that curled up at the corners in a charming smile.

“You and I need to talk,” he said.

Kelsey picked up the cordless phone and dialed the number for the police station. “Have a look around. The police are usually really slow. If some bloodthirsty ax murderer happened to show up in Barstow Ferry, I’m sure he’d have plenty of time to kill the entire village before the police showed up.”

“Really? That bad?”

Kelsey nodded, listening for the connection. “Yes, this is Kelsey over at the Thistle and Thorn. Could you send someone over right away? I have another disgruntled spouse.”

She hung up the phone and watched as the man picked through a basket of blackberry tea. “Blackberry leaf tea is good for stomach problems. And it can be used as a poultice for sunburns or other skin irritations. I gather those leaves from wild blackberry bushes up on the ridge above the river. The bushes have been there for over a hundred years.”

A shiver skittered through her as she watched him wander around the shop. He really was a beautifully built man, tall and lean. Her gaze dropped down to his hands and her breath caught in her throat as she imagined those hands touching her face, skimming over her shoulders, spanning her waist. She tried to calm her suddenly racing pulse.

A loud squawk split the silence of the shop, jolting Kelsey out of her fantasy. The stranger pulled a small radio out of his jacket pocket. “Ross here,” he said, depressing a button on the side.

“We have a 10-44 in progress,” the woman’s voice said. Kelsey recognized the police department’s dispatcher, Lenore Wilkens, a retired schoolteacher they’d hired last year.

“A 10-44 would be a possible mental subject, Lenore. I think for this call we should say it’s a 10-70 or maybe a 10-94. You need to memorize the codes if you’re going to work dispatch.”

“Why can’t I just tell you what’s going on?” Lenore asked.

“All right,” he said, shaking his head. “Go ahead.”

“Kelsey Quinn over at the Thistle and Thorn says she’s got a disgruntled spouse who’s giving her problems. I think you ought to get over there right away. And tell her I’ll be in for my gout tea later this afternoon. 10-4. Over and out. Bye-bye.”

He looked up at Kelsey and she winced. “So you’re him,” she said. “The new police chief.”

Will nodded and held out his hand. “Will Ross. Yes, I’m the new police chief here in town.”

She placed her fingers in his and felt a current of desire race through her body like an electric shock.

He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.