Truman nodded. “She’s awesome. I met her when she toured the library. She has tons of ideas for getting more kids into the library, but I can see you don’t want to hear about that right now.”
My eyes had picked out the sound of tires squealing and gravel spraying from around the other side of the house. I held up a finger. “Excuse me for a moment. Sorry to cut you off.”
I jogged around to the front of the house and stopped in my tracks. There, in the middle of the tidy row of local vehicles, was a Paris Blue McLaren 720S Spider with electronic dance music blaring from its speakers and a man in mirrored sunglasses and a backward ball cap sitting in the driver’s seat nodding his head to the beat. In the passenger seat sat a fashionably petite yet scowling man with bleach-blond hair partly covered by a silk scarf.
“Is this it?” the passenger asked with a sniff. “Where’s the vodka, darling? This looks more like a beer-on-tap place, if you catch my meaning.”
Good god, the movie people were early.
As soon as he saw me, the driver lifted his head and snapped his fingers. “Hey, you. You there. Can you park this for me? I’m late, and I kind of need you to help me out here. I’ll look out for you, man, even if you’re not the valet. Feel me?”
He flashed me a million-dollar smile and waited for me to jump to do his bidding.
I stood up taller and crossed my arms in front of my chest, wishing like hell I were in uniform.
“Sorry, no. I don’t feel you.” Although, I had to admit, now that I saw the driver a little more clearly, I wouldn’t mind feeling him, as long as I could do it with my hands on his bare skin. He was on the smaller side but fit as fuck. His eyes were wide-set and flashed with an energy I could barely remember from when I was his age at least fifteen years ago, if not twenty. The kind of energy that would fare quite well in bed. Or out of it if he was the adventurous type.
And if I wasn’t the sheriff of a small town where everyone was all up in everyone else’s business.
“You’ll have to park on the street,” I suggested, lifting an eyebrow.
His mouth opened just a little. I tried not to notice how lush his lips were. I’d put big money on this being the actor everyone had been losing their minds over. In fact, he looked vaguely familiar, but I wasn’t a movie buff, so I wasn’t surprised I didn’t recognize him right off. The other man was a groupie if ever I’d seen one.
And I’d seen plenty.
“You want me to park a half-million-dollar McLaren. On the street.”
I shrugged. “Or you could park it at your hotel in town. And walk back.”
He turned off the engine with the car right there in the middle of the driveway, where it was blocking absolutely every single car already parked in front of the lodge, including mine, and got out. The man was wearing clothes that probably cost the better part of my annual salary, but he was completely barefoot.
“Safety regulations suggest driving barefoot is ill-advised,” I said, cursing myself before the ridiculous warning had finished erupting from my stupid mouth.
The corner of his lip curled up. “Is that right? Who are you, the safety patrol?”
“You could say that.” Why did I sound like such a prick?
He pulled off his mirrored lenses, revealing light blue-green eyes ringed by another line of dark blue. Freckles covered the bridge of his nose which might have explained why he looked so young to me.
The sun still hadn’t set despite the late hour, but it was low and rosy warm, and the long evening beams landed on the man like God himself knew this kid was all that.
Jesus fucking Christ, I was hard for this asshole punk.
“I’m the sheriff,” I finished in a gruff voice before pointing to my SUV which was emblazoned with all of the golden decals explaining who I was in addition to multiple light bars, bull bars, and spotlights, not to mention the laptop mounted on the dash. The SUV that was now blocked by his expensive-ass car and his little piece of man candy. “Now get your fucking car out of the way so I can leave.”
The man sauntered around the car and right up to me with the same annoying smirk on his face. He pulled off the ball cap before running his fingers through longish hair and resettling the cap on the right way around.
It said Hot as Heller.
And that’s when I recognized the little fucker.
Finn Heller. Child star from the long-running family rom-com series, Cast in Clover, and the very definition of an entitled actor.