It Had to Be You by Jill Shalvis

in the darkness, wallowing, weighed down by the things he saw on his job, but she wasn’t like that. She was light.
    And yet she was at the police station right now being questioned.
    Alone.
    He told himself that she was used to shitty circumstances. Hell, it appeared she was used to shitty men too. Her father, the pincher…him. She was used to taking care of herself and others.
    And he had no idea why that got to him. But it did. She did.
    “You still with us, boy?” Mr. Elroy asked. “Now’s not the time to go all silent and cranky on us.”
    Luke hadn’t been called “boy” in a damn long time. And few other than Sara dared to call him on the silent and cranky. “Ali’s just being questioned,” he said.
    “What if she needs bailing out?”
    “She doesn’t.”
    “But if she does?”
    “You could do it,” Luke said.
    “Yes, and we would,” Mr. Wykowski said. “But…” He glanced at Edward, who still said nothing, gave away nothing. At seventy-two, he looked as fit and healthy as Sara and Jack had reported and pretty much the same as always—as if he’d just swallowed a lemon.
    “We don’t have very much,” Mr. Lyons said. “We pooled our available cash together from what was left of our social security for the month, but it’s not much. We had a poker game a few nights back, see, and normally I’d have taken the pot—”
    Mr. Elroy coughed and muttered “bullshit” at the same time.
    Mr. Lyons glared at him. “—But I had a little bad luck.”
    “That’s not what happened,” Mr. Elroy said.
    “Yes, it is,” Mr. Lyons said.
    “No.” Mr. Elroy shook his head. “Eileen Weiselman knew she had a losing hand, so she flashed you her tits to distract you into folding, and you lost. We all lost.”
    “Okay, look,” Luke said, rubbing his temples where he was getting a stress headache. “Ali isn’t a thief. I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding that will get worked out.”
    “But you can’t just let her sit in jail while it does,” Mr. Wykowski said, horrified.
    “She’s not in a jail cell. She’s being questioned. Big difference. And unless she’s charged and arrested—which they won’t do without just cause—she won’t need bailing out.”
    “See,” Mr. Elroy said, “that’s good information. I didn’t know that. It’s why you need to be in charge of this situation.”
    “I’m not in charge,” Luke said. “Of anything.”
    “But she’s down there with hardened criminals,” Mr. Lyons said. “You can’t let her sit there with them.”
    Luke sincerely doubted there were any hardened criminals in Lucky Harbor. The daily police reports read like something right out of Mayberry: an elk walking down Main Street, a drunken and disorderly at two a.m., high school punks running over mailboxes. “This isn’t up to me,” he said. “You know that, right? They’re just following procedure.”
    They all looked deeply disappointed in him. And then Edward spoke for the first time, uttering only two words. “Get it.”
    Mr. Lyons nodded and used his cane to navigate back to the van.
    Edward just stood there looking at Luke.
    Luke ignored them all and thought about Ali. He’d meant what he’d said, she was no thief. She’d probably give a stranger the shirt off her own back. The thought reminded him of what she’d looked like without a shirt in his kitchen, yelling at Marshall’s voice mail.
    Vibrant. Fierce. Sexy.
    But she was also sweet and warm. And vulnerable.
    And she was sitting in the police station. Shit.
    His cell vibrated. He looked at the screen. His commander. With a long, slow inhale, he connected. “Hanover.”
    “Got a death threat this morning.” Commander Craig O’Neil’s voice was gruff and as commanding as his title. “Aimed at all of us. Just wanted you to know.”
    “Great,” Luke said. “I’ll start working my way down my bucket list.”
    “How about instead you just get your ass back here.”
    Not a question but a statement.