“Did I hear you knock on the goddamn door, Diana?” Dalton says.
“I’m here for my shift, Sheriff. I don’t knock for that.”
Diana walks in carrying a bag that smells like breakfast sandwiches, and my stomach grumbles. Hearing it, she laughs, walks over, and waggles it in front of me.
“Tell me what you have here, Case.” She nods at the mystery woman. “And I’ll give you my sandwich.”
“Deal.”
She hesitates and slants her gaze Dalton’s way. He plucks the sandwich from her hand and passes it to me.
“You’re actually going to tell me why there’s a stranger in Rockton?” she says.
“Yep.” I unwrap the sandwich and take a big bite, groaning softly as hot sriracha-spiked scrambled egg fills my mouth. “Because you’re my friend, and I trust you.”
She snorts.
“Because you’re the damned nurse, Diana,” he says. “April’s going to need help, and you can’t provide that if you don’t know what happened to a patient.”
“Wait, did you say I’m a nurse? You’re actually admitting—”
“Health-care provider,” he says. “Providing nursing.”
“I’ll take it. Just make sure you finally get around to officially changing my designation on the duty roster.” She turns to me as I lick my fingers. “Did you even chew that sandwich, Case?”
“I skipped dinner last night,” I say. “Before we went to the lake, I was called out on a problem.”
“Shit,” Dalton says. “I forgot all about that.”
“I was counting on a late dinner of cold beer and burnt marshmallows. Instead, I got a mystery woman who doesn’t speak English.”
“Ah,” Diana says, “so that’s why you’re looking for a German speaker. Well, here I am. Nurse, translator, and breakfast delivery all in one.”
“Since when do you speak German?”
Diana and I have known each other for more than half our lives. She’s the reason I came to Rockton … only to discover that she’d tricked me into it. That should have annihilated our friendship, but while we won’t ever be what we were, we can manage a comfortable level of companionship.
“I took a year of German in high school,” she says. “Remember?”
“Oh, right. You had a crush on that German exchange student.”
“Two German exchange students. And it was not an unrequited crush. That summer, they taught me more than my course ever did.”
“We’re still talking about the language, right?”
She waggles her brows suggestively, and I can’t help laughing.
“Fine,” I say. “You can take a shot at translating, but since our patient shows no signs of waking, we don’t need your nursing just yet. If you could grab us some breakfast with your replacement sandwich, I’d appreciate that.”
Her gaze shoots to Dalton, and I want to say, Really, Diana?
“Fine,” I say. “Please get my breakfast. I want two of everything.”
Dalton pushes to his feet. “I’ll do it.”
“Oh, sit down, Eric,” Diana says. “I’ll bring your breakfast. I was just hassling Casey.”
“No, I gotta get to work anyway. Casey doesn’t need me here, and she might need a nurse. You stay. I’ll bring you both a sandwich.”