No Quick Fix (Torus Intercession 1)

“So did you happen to tell Emery that you’re going to be the new sheriff?”

“What?” Emery asked, his voice guttural after breaking the kiss to stare up at me. “You’re going to be what?”

I grunted.

His eyes widened. “Brann?”

“This is a funny story.”

He rose slowly, staring at me the whole time. “Tell me now.”

“Well, see, apparently there were some write-in ballots.”

His mouth fell open in disbelief.

“And from what Mal says… I’m gonna be the new sheriff,” I said cheerfully. “Isn’t that great? So you don’t have to support me ’cause I’ll have my own job.” I cleared my throat because he still hadn’t reacted at all. “Yay,” I added, smiling big.

“Sheriff?”

He was louder than I thought he would be.

“Sheriff!”

I had no idea his voice could travel like that. He would have given my old CO a run for his money.

“Have you lost your fuckin’ mind?”

Mal coughed. “You know there are kids in the other—”

“I forbid it!”

“I’m sorry, you what?” I asked him, standing so we were eye to eye.

“You could be killed!”

And it hit me that he had lost Andrea and so of course, he’d be scared of losing me too, so I had to clear that up fast. “I won’t be killed. Think about it a second,” I soothed him. “Take a breath and remember where you are.”

He started to pace in front of me, but as I watched him, I saw his logical mind kick in, and he growled a bit even as he nodded.

“It’s Ursa, Montana,” I reminded him.

He continued with the pacing, but the sharp exhale followed by the furrowed brows let me know he was getting closer and closer to wrapping his brain around the truth. That not only was I going to do a job I suddenly really wanted, but one it turned out I was going to be excellent at as well. But more important than me being sheriff was his visceral reaction to the news.

He couldn’t lose me.

“Hey,” Jules said, grabbing Mal’s hand. “I need to talk to my husband really quick, we’ll be right back.”

It wasn’t subtle, the way she gave us our privacy, but I appreciated it.

Moving fast, I grabbed his bicep and yanked him forward, into me, into my arms, and wrapped him up, one hand in his hair, the other in the middle of his back, pressing him close, holding tight so I could whisper into his ear.

“I love you back,” I said because that was what all his yelling translated to, after all.

He shivered hard, a full-body one, and I could feel how terrified he was.

“Nothing will happen to me.”

“You can’t promise that,” he whispered hoarsely. “I can’t—if you’re going to do this, then I can’t have—”

“No,” I soothed him, tilting his head back, kissing his throat, up to his chin and taking his mouth, kissing him until he was boneless in my arms, his coiled around my neck, holding on like he would drown if he didn’t.

When I lifted my lips from him, his eyes, glazed with blown pupils, told me that he was in a place to hear me.

“Don’t throw me away because you’re scared. I know full well that neither you nor the girls can go through losing me, and I promise that I will be vigilant about my safety. I’m actually pretty well-trained, right? I know how to keep myself safe in more adverse conditions than this.”

He gave me a slight nod.

“I won’t take my life here, with you, for granted, because I was terrified it was never even gonna start.”

His jaw clenched as his eyes filled, and he didn’t say anything because, I was guessing, he couldn’t at the moment.

“But we all take chances every day, and the idea of being the sheriff in this town, where the girls are growing up and you teach school and where our home is—” Suddenly I couldn’t speak either, momentarily overcome with having everything I ever wanted all at once. It was like being hit with a wave you never saw coming, and it was scary for a second before you found yourself spitting up warm salt water on a white sandy beach on the perfect sunny day.

“All right,” he murmured, slipping his hand around the back of my head, easing me down, my lips hovering over his. “I’ll be brave, you’ll be careful, and we’ll do this together.”

I kissed him to seal that promise between us.

“Daddy, why are you kissing Brann?”

Sixteen

We took the girls and Winston home, because the talk was going to be a long one. I was ready for hard questions and tears, time needed for them to adjust to the change, and perhaps anger. They might be so scared of what would happen to them at school, the repercussions there, that they would want Lydia back and not me.

I feared that outcome the most. I was used to being loved now. I didn’t want that to go away. I was terrified it would.