“You have a little girl?” he asked innocently, tilting his head, that information already part of his dossier.
Harmony laughed again as she nodded. “Yes, she just turned four, but some days I feel like it’s four going on forty with some of the things that come out of her mouth.”
“Maybe tomorrow then,” he suggested, keeping his deep voice friendly and inviting. “I’d love to pick the mind of a native about the town. I’m thinking of opening a business in the area and wouldn’t mind knowing who the good realtors and so on are in the area,” he offered, telling a half-truth. He did fully intend on starting his own business once he retired from the DEA, although he hadn’t given much thought to where it would be. Paradise was as good a place to start looking as anywhere else at the moment, though. It wasn’t like he was going anywhere until the job was done. And he did enjoy the scenery, he admitted silently as he watched Harmony tuck a strand of her shoulder length ash blonde hair behind her small ear.
“Oh. What business are you in?” she inquired curiously.
“Security,” he fibbed, the untruth rolling smoothly off his tongue. Not a complete lie, but not the truth either. Besides, being an excellent liar was practically a job requirement for an undercover agent, and he was an excellent agent.
“That’s… interesting,” she murmured, a tiny frown line appearing between her eyebrows. She got distracted at that point as raised voices at the front of the bar had drawn their attention.
“I’m telling you, it’s unconstitutional!” Patience McKinnon yelled from behind the bar as she waved what looked like a yellow ticket underneath some poor guy’s nose. “I pay my taxes, and as such, MY money helped pay for those city streets. Nobody should be double-charged like that, Abel Turner!”
“And I’m telling YOU,” the man in a well-fit business suit shouted back at her, “You have no CASE!” He illustrated his bellowed remark by holding his expensive looking leather briefcase above his head and shaking it.
“Oh, crap,” Harmony murmured, her eyes widening on the pair of combatants as Patience loudly threatened to come over the bar. “I promised Honor no bloodshed today. Swore on a Bible and everything,” she almost whimpered, biting her lower lip as Patience’s hands both slammed down on the bar and rattled two unsuspecting diner’s glasses.
“This happen a lot?” Jacob asked with an amused nod toward a furious Patience and the sneering man standing opposite her.
“Oh, once a week or so. Tensions have been escalatin’ between the two for a few months now,” Harmony explained, watching the two enemies as they seemed to pause and size each other up. “Last week, a bar stool, a serving tray and a perfectly innocent blackberry cobbler were casualties of their ongoing war. I better go break them up before somebody loses more than their dessert today.”
Jacob couldn’t help his chuckle as he heard Patience goad the man in front of her with, “Yeah, well, if you weren’t such a lousy lawyer, Abel, you’d find a way to MAKE a case for me!”
“Yeah, I think you better go intercede,” he agreed with Harmony quickly when he saw Patience reach for an empty glass pitcher with a malicious gleam in her eye.
Nodding, Harmony flashed him a quick smile. “I have appointments until 10 tomorrow and work from 11 until 3. If you want, I can get Honor to pick up my little girl, Heaven, from daycare tomorrow and help you tomorrow afternoon.”
“It’s a date.” His grin quickly fell away as her face paled at his statement.
“No, it’s not,” she returned quickly with a stiff shake of her head. “I don’t date.”
“You don’t? Ever?”
“I don’t. Ever.” Her statement was both insistent and emphatic.
Damn, she was serious, he thought to himself as he listened to that grave little voice of hers. It was becoming real clear that the ex-husband he’d read about in her file had done a serious number on her.
“Okay, then,” he said carefully. “Not a date. How about a friendly afternoon snack between two new friends?” he amended calmly, watching as she swallowed hard.
“Okay, that would work,” she relented, almost reluctantly. Then, she tried to smile at him, but it was half-hearted at best. “Sorry. I just didn’t want you to get the wrong idea. It’s not you, Jake. You seem like a nice guy. It’s most definitely me.”
“I sense there’s a story here that you’re not quite ready to share with me,” he surmised astutely, keeping his gaze steady as he met her eyes.