“Have you heard from Marissa lately?” Delaney inquired. She ran water into the sink and added dish soap.
Alana crumpled the napkins in her fist and tossed them in the trash can. She didn’t know the whole history between Adam, Marissa, and Delaney, but keeping Marissa’s location a secret was one thing. Outright lying to Delaney’s face was something else entirely. “I saw her last weekend. She and Adam got married.”
Delaney was too composed, too self-assured to show much reaction. “That’s good,” she said simply. “I wondered when both you and Mrs. Collins were gone. Was it a nice ceremony?”
“It was beautiful,” Alana said. “They got married on the beach. It was a really small ceremony, very informal. Darla made her dress. Adam’s friends and their girlfriends and wives from the Marine Corps were there, and me, and Darla, and Lucas.”
She said his name as casually as she could, as if it were no big deal that she and Lucas spent the weekend together at Marissa and Adam’s wedding. As if she had every right to call him Lucas, not Chief Ridgeway. As if she were a part of the community.
“I thought Adam and Lucas fell out of touch while Adam was in the Marines,” Delaney mused. “Maybe he was there because he was close to Marissa. Still, that’s nice for Chief Ridgeway. He hasn’t taken a vacation the entire time he’s been chief here.”
“No, he hasn’t,” Alana said absently. In hindsight, it was a bit odd that he didn’t do the kinds of things other men in town did, like take a few days for ice fishing, or to go hunting, or simply disappear somewhere warm in the long stretch between Christmas and the crocuses poking up in late March.
Delaney smiled and shook her head. “I’m happy for them. So they don’t plan to come home soon.”
“I don’t know,” Alana replied truthfully. No one needed to know the newlyweds were likely somewhere in the Pacific again by now. “Adam talked about opening a bike shop in San Diego.”
“Ah,” Delaney said.
The kitchen door opened to admit first Duke, then Lucas. Tail wagging, the dog trotted over to Alana and sniffed her jeans, then her fist. Lucas called him with a soft click, then gave a hand signal. Duke curled up by the back door and tucked his nose between his front paws.
“Impressive. I forget he was a working dog,” Alana said.
The coffee had finished brewing. Delaney poured two cups and took them back into the living room.
“What brings you by?” she asked Lucas, trying for the kind of casual conversation that wouldn’t alert anyone to their relationship.
“I thought I’d take off the counters tonight,” he said wryly.
She looked at the food-laden counter. “Maybe later?”
“I have to be up early. We’re doing a burn.”
“A what?”
“After the court case clears, we burn any illegal substances no longer needed as evidence.”
“Really? Where?” she asked.
“The crematorium in Brookings.”
“Oh.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “You didn’t think we took it upwind outside the city limits and held a big bonfire, did you?”
“No,” she said indignantly, then added, “Fine, I did, but not for long.”
She glanced over her shoulder to make sure the conversation in the living room continued without her, then crossed the kitchen to give him a quick kiss. But Delaney’s random comment sparked a heated little flare in her chest.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Were you and Marissa ever dating?”
He cut her a glance, one dark eyebrow slightly lifted. “No. Why?”
Her heart did a funny little thing in her chest. “I’ve heard the gossip. You’ve been divorced for a couple of years. You’re . . .”
“A man?”
Gorgeous. “Delaney asked if I’d heard from Marissa lately, and I couldn’t bring myself to lie to her face. I told her about the wedding and that you were there. She said she didn’t think you and Adam were close enough friends that he’d invite you to the wedding. Then she said maybe you and Marissa . . . had a thing. Mrs. Battle said you weren’t seeing anyone in town. I know you’re good at keeping secrets, even if Marissa wouldn’t have cared.”
There was a funny little silence between them, one she recognized from conversations between her mother and Freddie. “You think Marissa wouldn’t have mentioned if we’d dated? Or hooked up?”
“We mostly talked about Adam.”
“You think I wouldn’t have told you if I’d dated Marissa?”
“You haven’t told me you dated anyone since your divorce.”
“Because I haven’t.”
“You’ve been divorced for almost three years,” she said. “I just didn’t think about it, but in hindsight, of course you’d need . . . anyway, it’s none of my business.”
“A flight attendant who works the Sioux Falls–to-Chicago trip texts when she’s got an overnight.”