She didn't really need the coffee either. But sitting here … waiting … this time of the day was her secret pleasure. Glancing at her watch, she knew that she was in time. Halley opened her computer and pulled up a spreadsheet. It was filled with numbers and abbreviations that only she could understand. They were actually the inoculation dates for her horses, feeding rates, and various other statistics that she tracked daily.
Did she need to be reviewing this information now?
Halley's fingers flew over the keyboard, her eyes taking in all the data and trying to analyze the information for trends. But no, she didn't need to be looking at the numbers to know what was going on with her horses. She knew this data by heart. She tracked it only for historical comparison, but she didn't need to look at it. Not today, at least.
Nope, she wasn't here to work. Not really. The open computer was her prop, her justification for sitting here in the coffee shop each morning. She was actually here this early in the morning to …
"Oh my," she whispered as Mike came running down the street. He was drenched in sweat, his shorts clinging to his legs and, because of the summer heat, he'd already taken off his shirt. "Oh my," she sighed again.
"I agree," Sue said, leaning a hip against Halley's table as both women stared at the masculine beauty that was their town's sheriff. "I always enjoy these mornings," Sue continued.
Halley nodded, unaware of her mouth hanging open. It wasn't often that the day was hot enough for Mike to take his shirt off, but when he did … ! Oh my!
When he reached the end of the street, Mike slowed to a walk, letting his muscles cool off. If there had been a fire, Halley didn't think she'd be able to pull her eyes away from Mike as he stretched his calf muscles against the brick wall of the sheriff's building. She continued to watch as calves, thighs, back, and all sorts of other muscles were stretched. Then he walked inside the building and Halley could finally draw a deep breath.
She looked up, about to say something to Sue, but the waitress had already moved off, helping the other customers. Woah! How long had she been staring?
Looking around, Ms. Ferndale, the town's librarian, winked at Halley. "Nice view this time of the morning, eh?" she commented as she sat at her own table to start writing in her notebook. Everyone in town knew about Ms. Ferndale's notebook, but no one knew what she wrote in those secret pages. It was just one of the mysteries surrounding some of the residents of Jefferson, Montana.
Since Halley had her own secrets, she refused to even wonder about the contents of that notebook, even if others sat around at Ernie's, the local bar, or the diner down the street, contemplating all different possibilities. If the elderly woman had a secret, it was none of her business.
Okay, that was a total lie. Halley was intensely curious, but she wouldn't ask. The woman was about eighty years old, still mowed her own yard, and walked five miles a day. If Ms. Ferndale wanted to write secret things in a notebook for the rest of her life, good for her!
She focused on her own spreadsheet, trying to remember what she needed to do next. She'd shut down her operation for the next few months while rehearsals were ongoing, but she hadn't told her family, or anyone in town, about her hiatus.
With a sigh, she closed her laptop. She wasn't getting anything done. Not after seeing Mike running down the street without a shirt on. That was just a bit too distracting. Stuffing everything into her pack, she tried to sift through the various tasks she'd need to finish today. She might not be selling horses, but she still had to take care of the ones she had in her barn. They were all sweet animals that needed to be fed, loved, and exercised.
"Enjoying the view?"
Halley jerked upright, almost banging her head on the table as guilt heated her cheeks, and took in a freshly showered and clean-shaved Mike sitting across from her.
"What do you mean?" she asked, her fingers trembling as she fiddled with her pen. She didn't bother to try and shove it into her pack. She knew her fingers were fumbling too much and missing the enormous backpack at her feet would be a dead giveaway.
"You were watching me run," he said, leaning forward, his arms spread wide across the top of the table.
Halley shifted in her seat uncomfortably. "I wasn't," she lied. She had been and this was exactly why she wouldn't have anything to do with him; he saw everything. Even when it looked like he wasn't looking, he was looking. The man had eyes all over his head and ninja ears.