He sighed. “Like what?” he asked mildly. “This is Painted Pony Creek, not Boston. Opportunities are limited.”

Brynne lowered her eyes briefly. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “The way you earn your living is none of my business.”

“It’s okay, Brynne,” he told her. “There are things I’d like to ask you, after all.”

She stroked Festus’s furry head as she reflected on that statement. Presently, she said, “I think I can guess what you’d like to know.”

He chuckled, sat back in his chair and folded his arms. He was wearing a worn flannel shirt over a T-shirt, and even through his clothing, his leanly muscular chest and shoulders were clearly defined. “I’m sure you can,” he answered.

And then he waited.

“Go ahead,” Brynne said, after a few moments.

“What do you have against cops? Too many traffic violations? Police brutality?”

Brynne smiled, in spite of herself. “Neither of those things,” she answered. “As I’m sure you know, the Creek being the small, tightknit community that it is, about the man I lived with in Boston.”

“Bad breakup?”

“The worst.”

A brief silence fell.

Eli broke it. “Carly told me a few things,” he said. “Nothing too personal.”

“He was a cop, and he cheated. Big-time.”

“So you concluded that all cops cheat? That’s a little drastic, don’t you think?”

“It’s not that. Clay was nearly shot once. His partner was shot, and she nearly died.”

“It’s a dangerous job, Brynne,” Eli allowed. “Nobody’s denying that. But anybody can get into an accident, or be the victim of a crime. And anybody can cheat.” He paused, grinned again. “Why just last winter, old Mrs. Drummond down at the library tripped over a toy in the storybook section and broke a hip. Dangerous work, being a librarian. I’m pretty sure she was faithful to her husband, though. She and Henry were married for almost seventy years.”

Brynne made a face. “I saw Mrs. Drummond just last week. She came in with her Bible study group, and she was certainly spry for someone who’d broken a hip.”

“My point exactly,” Eli said, though it was anything but exact, since getting shot in the course of a convenience store robbery was in no way the same as falling and breaking a hip. “Life is deadly. In fact, none of us are getting out of here alive, so we might as well take our chances and be as happy as we can be.”

This time, he did have a point, but she didn’t have to acknowledge that.

Brynne looked down at her wrist, realized she hadn’t put on her watch that morning. “I need to get back to the restaurant,” she said.

“Right,” Eli confirmed, rising from his chair.

He took their empty mugs to the sink, rinsed them out, set them on the drainboard.