He laughed. “Of course. You want me to call Deke to pick this guy up?” He kept a one-handed grip on the man as he pulled out his phone.
“Deke?” she said, an eye on T-Bone. He glanced at her, his mouth tight.
“Yeah, the D-Starr is now sheriff.” Topher put the phone to his ear. “Hey, Shasta, this is Topher. Send a car down to the river, just north of the Bowie place, where the river does that little dog leg—yeah, that’s right. We have a”—he looked at Harley, a question in his eyes.
“Citizen’s arrest.”
He made a sound but repeated her words into the phone. “Good. Thanks.” Hung up.
“Shasta?” she asked. “Winter’s kid sister?”
“Works dispatch. And other jobs. Hey, does Winter know you’re back?”
She smiled. “Not yet.”
“I can take care of that.” He winked.
“I’ll bet you can. You two ever—”
“Gonna stop you there.”
Right.
“Otherwise, I get to start asking questions too,” he said.
She put her hands up in front of her. “I’m done.”
Topher grinned. Then his face turned serious. “You heard about the Sorros brothers?”
“Showing up and taking some pop singer hostage? Maybe crashing a plane? Mars on the lam? Yeah, I’m read up on it.”
“That’s the local gist. Wait. Is that why you’re here?”
“We have unfinished business.” She met Topher’s eyes. “Me and Mars, just for clarification.”
Topher nodded. “Right. You staying?”
“Not really.”
His mouth made a tight line, a nod. “Too bad. Town got boring without you.”
She gave him a warm shove and he grinned. Winked.
“You look good, Harley.”
Sweet. “You too.”
Behind them a siren blared.
“That’s totally unnecessary,” she said.
Topher shrugged. “They don’t get to use it very often.” But then he turned to her. “Although my guess is that is about to change.”
“Hardy har, Toph.”
He grinned again.
And maybe it wasn’t quite so terrible to be back. At least, for a half second. As long as she didn’t run into any more thieves, especially the kind that could steal her heart.