Page 8 of The Worst Possible Plan

Double damn. I might have been drooling.

I casually reached up and wiped the corners of my mouth, disguising it as an itch.

No drool. Progress.

Still, even if I wasn’t drooling, I was definitely staring. The kind of staring that should probably require a permit.

Maybe I was hallucinating his hotness from stress. That felt possible. I’d slept badly and consumed too much coffee. A few hours of standing in the hot sun was enough to bring out the crazy. A hallucination wasn’t completely off the table.

I blinked several times. Then once more for good measure.

Nope. Still there.

Unfortunately, he was now looking directly at me.

“Can I help you with something?” he asked. His voice was deep and velvety. I wanted to bathe in it.

Oh yeah. I was also losing my damn mind.

“Not anymore. Nothing. Forget it. Unforget it. Forget I said forget it.” Damnit. Here I went with the nervous word vomit. It was happening again, the same condition that had once caused me to tell a dentist I loved him after a routine cleaning.

The sheriff watched me.

This was not improving. In fact, I was actively making it worse. If social interactions were an Olympic sport, I was currently competing for last place.

“Good to know,” he said finally, narrowing his eyes as he looked me over.

Oh god. He thought I was insane. Which, to be fair, was currently a reasonable working theory.

His gaze moved slowly from the blocked street to the delivery truck to the volunteers arguing over folding chairs before finally landing on me. Then to the binder I was holding upside down.

Super.

“Who are you?” he asked, finally.

“Sophie.” Why did my voice sound like that? All high pitched. Like I’d inhaled helium on the way over. I cleared my throat. “Sophie Hartwell.”

He cocked a brow. “Another Hartwell.”

It was my time to frown at him. “And what is that supposed to mean?” Okay. Captain Competent was starting to annoy me.

Hotness be damned. I was workin’ here.

For a second, I wondered if Sarah owed the town money. Or if one of my cousins had accidentally started a cult. There were a surprising number of Hartwells in Maplewood Falls. The odds of one of us having done something embarrassing were reasonably high.

His expression didn’t change. “How long have you been event planning?” he asked.

“Three years.” The lie flew out so fast I almost impressed myself.

He lifted a brow. “Really. Three years.”

That wasn’t a question. Just enough skepticism to make me want to fling myself directly into the harbor. Not swim. Just gently launch myself off the dock and let the fish judge me instead.

“And you have everything under control?” he asked, in that cop-like voice, the one that always considered you the suspect unless told otherwise. It somehow made me feel guilty about things I hadn’t even done yet. Like maybe I should confess now and save everyone time.

“Absolutely,” I answered, not breaking eye contact. See? Professional liar right here.

A car horn sounded behind me. The long, frustrated kind usually reserved for rush hour traffic and people who drove twenty under the speed limit.