He’d spent years in New Orleans as a police officer before he’d come home and run for office. There was something special about Papillon. It could soften up the hardest soul. And if she needed someone to translate Cajun crazy to English, he was her guy. “What’s the difference between a nurse and what Lila is? Is there a reason Mabel isn’t taking over if we’re going to lose the doc totally?”

He’d been the sheriff for years now, and the only medical professional in the parish was a three-hundred-year-old doctor with a Scotch problem and his slightly younger but way more feisty nurse.

Noelle sighed and he could practically see her eyes rolling. Sometimes he had to remind himself that he was barely forty and not the ravaged-by-time old man she seemed to think he was. “It means she’s every bit as good as a doctor, but she didn’t go to medical school. It means she’s very likely practiced for at least a decade, and she was a nurse. She knows more about dealing with the people than the doctor does. Definitely more than any male doc.”

Noelle had a problem with the patriarchy. “So she’s smart.”

“Yes, but none of that will matter around here,” Noelle replied. “Is there a particular reason you’re asking?” She sighed over the line again, a long-suffering sound. “Tell me you didn’t pull her over. Do you understand that if you run her off, we won’t have anyone? I’ll have to go all the way into New Orleans to get a damn pap smear.”

He would do almost anything to not have to hear about Noelle’s pap smear. She wielded her feminine physical issues like a mighty sword. “She was going thirty miles over the speed limit.”

“Nice. I’ve been eyeing a new coffeemaker after we replace the microwave.” There was enthusiasm in her voice now. “Forget what I said. My pap is only once a year, but I need coffee every day. Go get her.”

He glanced up and he could see that Lila’s car was packed to the brim. Still, it wasn’t much for a woman who was moving in. Did she have a truck coming? Was Remy planning on helping her move in? “Do you know anything else about her?”

A pause came over the line. “Seriously? You go two years without a single date and you’re attracted to the city girl? I like it. This is going to be a ton of fun.”

She was being crazily optimistic. “So you’re saying you don’t hate the idea of me asking someone out?”

“You do not have to ask me,” she said softly.

But he did. “I don’t want to complicate your life.”