“Is that still all you remember?”

She nodded.

“Because you don’t look as if you won the fight. Even if that’s why Dave is here, and I doubt it, it’s clear you merely defended yourself against an attacker. Be calm. Say little. Listen much.” Adam rose, unlocked the screen door and opened it. “Hi, Dave. Come in.”

The officer stepped inside, and his gaze skipped Adam and zeroed in on Elle. “Hello, miss. I’m Deputy Dave MacLean. Most people call me Deputy Dave.”

“I imagine they like the alliteration.” She stood, too. “I’m Elle. Would you like some breakfast?”

Deputy Dave glanced at Adam’s meal: a parfait of Greek yogurt, frozen blueberries and whole-grain cereal.

Elle had fixed herself a less organic breakfast: five strips of bacon, two soft-boiled eggs, a piece of toast (multigrain) and a bowl of fresh ripe red cherries. “I fried plenty of bacon,” she assured him, “and it’s nothing to fix an egg.”

“I’m a sheriff’s deputy. Last time I turned down a meal, some idiot partygoers built a firepit on the Crosswinds Ranch, and I spent the next twenty hours helping evacuate thirty people and two hundred sheep. By the time that was over, I was starving and had been butted by every ram right in the—” Deputy Dave cast his gaze downward with a pained expression. “Please, may I have my eggs scrambled?”

“I remember that fire.” With heavy irony, Adam said, “Good times.” While Elle whipped up a robust meal, Adam set a place. “Toast? Multigrain or sourdough?”

Deputy Dave poured himself a cup of coffee and sat. “I’d rather have sourdough, but my wife has me on a strict diet of whole grain. I eat so much fiber I could pass wicker furniture.”

Elle did a double take, then laughed so hard she bent over at the waist.

“I like her,” Deputy Dave told Adam.

“Because she likes your jokes? Don’t flatter yourself. She likes to laugh.” Adam lowered a slice of multigrain into the toaster, and when it popped up he passed the finished breakfast to Dave.

Before Deputy Dave took the first bite, he said with great gravity, “I am here on official business to check out a complaint from the neighbors.”

“Oh. A complaint from the neighbors.” Adam nodded reassuringly at Elle. “What kind of complaint?”

“Apparently the last couple of nights there’s been a woman screaming like she’s being murdered.”

Adam turned to Elle, gestured toward Deputy Dave and turned back to his breakfast. He had explained to Elle that in a few days he was going to fight on the field of battle. He needed to fuel himself correctly.

Reluctantly, she put her fork down. “I have nightmares. I scream. But I only screamed once last night.”

“Once was enough,” Adam said.

“Once was better than the night before,” she told him.