Need You for Keeps (Heroes of St. Helena, #1)(71)
Jonah glared but pulled out a deputy’s ball cap that was hanging from the back of his utility belt. “And I have over a dozen sponsors, mostly guys from the department and family members, each pledging a hundred bucks if I wear the hat.”
He shook out the hat, placed it on his head, and frowned. Across the front of the cap, and under the department title of deputy, in the space that was usually blank, was an additional word. It looked a part of the hat, as if it were officially department issued.
“Deputy *cat?” Shay put a hand to her mouth to keep from laughing. “You’d really wear that?”
He quirked a brow.
Of course he would, she thought. Jonah would do just about anything for the people he cared about. At the thought a zing ricocheted through her entire body and that bead of hope that had started a few days ago began to grow and take form.
“I offered him a grand to scratch out the cat part, but he wasn’t game,” Warren said, walking up to the table, his hand resting on his sidearm. “Guess he wasn’t man enough.”
“Oh, I guarantee you that isn’t the case,” Shay said with a knowing smile. Then she turned her attention to Warren. “Jonah could walk down Main Street in nothing but those pink fuzzy cuffs of yours and this town would only see a hero.”
Shay plucked a button from the box on the table, one of the hundreds she’d had made up especially for today, and pinned it on her shirt. It was blue and simply said, BAUDOUIN FOR SHERIFF.
“Jonah doesn’t need frills or cute gimmicks to win. He’s already sheriff. He just doesn’t have the title yet.”
“I like you,” Jonah’s sister, Frankie, said, shoving Warren aside. She was tall, toned, and looked like she could do some serious damage if she chose to. Thankfully, she pulled out two buttons from the box and pinned one on herself, the other on Warren, then smiled, daring him to take it off.
“Whatever,” Warren said, storming off and, Shay noticed with amusement, not tossing the button in the garbage can until he was safely across the street.
“Good to see you too, Deputy Asshat.” Frankie waved good-bye to Warren—with her middle finger—then turned back to Shay. “I want to register my alpacas.”
Fingers between her lips, Frankie let out an ear-bleeding whistle that had Socks up, off Shay’s lap, and hiding in the bottom of her purse before the three alpacas clopped their way across Main Street.
When they arrived they head butted their mama and started humming. Frankie snapped her fingers and, with a sigh that Shay had heard other big brothers give, Jonah produced another application and check.
“He’s paying for my admission. Part of Blanket’s birthday present.” She rubbed the smallest alpaca’s head and delivered a kiss right to his nose. Then she eyed Jonah and smiled, a bit smug. “He’s a good uncle. Always knows just what to pick out for his nephew.”
Shay focused on processing Frankie’s paperwork, because really, the man had just done the sweetest thing ever, and laughing at him over his sister handing him his ass in one look wasn’t nice. She handed Frankie a participant bib for each of her alpacas. Frankie ripped off the sticky paper, slapped the number two on Blanket’s chest, then turned around and said, “Who’s next?”
Once Jonah’s family had cleared out, Shay handed him Kitty Fantastic’s participant bib, number one for the leader of the parade. Their fingers brushed and her breath caught. Her heart . . . well that was doing some pretty serious pounding. Shay found that she couldn’t look away, no matter how hard she tried. She was drawn to him. Mesmerized by the mystery of a man who was so private and serious yet scared of his sister and carried a kitten around in his holster.
“I really want to kiss you right now,” she whispered because people were starting to line up by the masses.
“Trouble,” he said and, even though she couldn’t see through the mirrored lenses, she knew the look he was giving her. Her cheeks heated. “I traded in my gun for a cat named Kitty Fantastic and I am about to walk down the middle of town and pronounce I am a cat lover. We’re going to be doing a whole lot more than kissing tonight.”
Shay could deal with that. Her eyes fell to his cuffs, which hadn’t come into play because Jonah had been more interested in a different position, and she licked her lips.
“Damn straight,” he said, then grinned. And man, when he showed those teeth he was devastatingly handsome. “Oh, and Shay, there is something for you and Socks at Paws and Claws.”
He turned to walk away, to let the next person register, and she grabbed his hand. “Thank you. For everything.”
“Anytime,” was all he said, but somehow it sounded a lot like forever.
Forty minutes and over three hundred entries later, Shay hustled down to the end of Main Street. The turnout was larger than she had expected, and even when she ran out of participant bibs, the people kept coming. Harper stationed two of her best art students at the table to hand-make numbers for the rest so Shay could take her place at the judges’ table.
The walk was about to begin and Estella was still a no-show, which meant Shay needed to be in her seat to judge the contestants. Peggy had volunteered to walk Jabba and Socks—not that they could win the crown, but she still wanted them to participate to get the exposure. That was if Peggy could convince Socks to leave the safety of the spa’s front desk, where the poor thing had taken cover the second Shay had walked into Paws and Claws.