As I stood on the porch, watching Emery navigate down the driveway from the garage around the back of the house, I waved, standing in the doorway, dish towel in my hand, Winston sitting like a statue beside me.
Emery stopped the car suddenly, and the back door popped open, and Olivia bolted out, running toward me, legs churning under her, tearing up the ground between us.
I knelt and she flew into my arms, wrapping her arms around my neck, which was hard to do, considering her coat was so thick.
“What’s wrong, Livi?”
“Don’t leave, okay? Stay here and don’t leave.”
I patted her back. “Listen, even if I’m not here when you get home, I’ll be back tonight. We’re gonna have dinner together.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
She nodded against my cheek and then pulled back and smiled at me. I was surprised that when she turned for the car, April was there in front of me.
“Oh, come on,” I griped at her. “You know I’m gonna be here.”
She didn’t appear convinced.
“You think I’d ditch you already? You were a B to me yesterday, but we got over it.”
Her eyes got huge. “You thought I was a B?”
I grunted.
She laughed like that was the best thing she ever heard, before leaning in and kissing my cheek, then pivoting and running back toward the car. Rising, I waved to Emery, who seemed undecided for a moment, just sitting there, waiting, but then smiled, waved, and drove the car the rest of the way out of the driveway.
I watched the car disappear down the street only to be surprised as a patrol car moved from where it had been parked across the street to idling beside the curb.
Ordering Winston inside, I closed the door, took the steps fast, then jogged down the path that led to the front gate. Deputy David Reed was there in his Ursa Sheriff’s Department jacket, coming off as uncomfortable and awkward as I’d ever seen anyone.
“Deputy,” I greeted him, arms crossed as I stood on my side of the gate, not opening it, not inviting him inside.
He walked up to the gate but stopped a few feet away. “Sheriff Thomas suggested I drive over here and have a talk with you.”
Suggested, my ass. His boss had ordered him to come see me for whatever reason. “About?”
“The sheriff received several dozen complaints about how I treated Emery Dodd at yesterday’s soccer game.”
Interesting. “Emery wasn’t one of them who complained,” I told him, bristling, bracing for whatever he had to say.
“No, I know that,” he said, his voice faltering as he glanced away and then back to me. “And just so you know, he received even more calls about you and how you handled yourself. Apparently having you there made everyone feel safe, and that things wouldn’t escalate to a place they normally do with Mr. Barr,” he said solemnly.
“The man is a menace, and he should be banned,” I stated, implacable as I stared at him.
“It’s hard to do that in a small town.”
“I would think it would be the opposite,” I pointed out.
He was quiet a moment, and I was guessing, collecting his thoughts. “So about me and Emery yesterday… that stems from his relationship with Lydia Cahill.”
I stayed quiet instead of saying Oh at the top of my voice or drawing the word out like a child. Already being around kids was making me act less like one in my personal communication. It had been something written down in all evaluations, stated to me in person by whomever was my acting CO at the time, and now, on more than one occasion, by Jared Colter. I had a terrible tendency to either have no filter or make someone feel stupid by stating the obvious. But realizing that, compared to Olivia and April, I was the grown-up, I had my first lesson in shutting up.
He uncrossed his arms and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “You see, I thought that when we both came back here after college, we could pick up where we left off in high school.”
“You dated?”
“We were a couple,” he corrected me, giving me a trace of a smile. “All four years, freshman to senior. I played football, and she was the head cheerleader and prom queen,” he explained and then looked at me like I should have had some comment.
“And you thought, what? That it was fate?”
“Something like that, especially after I went to work for her father.”
His argument for reunification seemed valid. “You work for Cahill Lumber?”
“I do, yes. I’m the logistics manager at the plant.”
“So you’re not a full-time deputy?”
He shook his head. “Oh no. The city of Ursa pays forty-thousand dollars a year for the sheriff and thirty-two for the deputy, which is a huge bump up from the twenty-eight it was three years ago.”