She made herself call her father. It was hard to stay strong, to keep herself from turning into his little girl, but she made it. She told him about Carson, because she knew he’d find out about it anyway, either from his FBI friends or through the media; she wanted him to hear it from her first. She glossed over her own involvement, and didn’t mention the man she’d killed. She’d need to talk to him about that someday, but she couldn’t do it yet. She couldn’t even think about it herself. And she hated the idea of giving him one more thing to worry about.
It was about midmorning when Shannon returned. Alex was with her, and two men Megan didn’t recognize. The receptionist was back on duty, and Shannon approached her calmly. “We’re here to wait for Joe Cody,” Shannon said.
The receptionist glanced over toward Megan, then back toward the new arrivals. “Shanny, I have no idea how long they’re going to keep him for.”
Shannon just nodded. “That’s fine. We’ll wait.” She turned calmly and nodded toward Megan, then took a seat. The others followed suit.
It was less than five minutes before the next group arrived and, after that, it was a steady stream. Each visitor came calmly to the front desk, stated that they were waiting for Joe Cody, and took a seat. The receptionist was making calls to someone in the back room even before the lobby was full, but people just kept coming. Megan recognized a lot of the faces: Tina, still in her waitress uniform; Shirley, looking tired but determined; people Megan had met in the diner, at the barbecue, on the street… It seemed as if most of the town was streaming in to make their declarations.
Megan looked over at Shannon and saw tears welling in the woman’s eyes. “I just called a few people and asked them to get the word out.”
Megan made her way through the crowd, over to the glass doors looking out toward the cement forecourt where the flags waved proudly on their tall poles. The area was almost full. The people were standing peacefully, talking to their neighbors or just staring at the building. There were a few down on the sidewalk, and it looked as if they were recruiting passersby.
The doors to the back room opened and several men in suits came out. Megan hadn’t seen them arrive, and wondered if they’d come in the back way. They were at the reception desk when the door opened again and Don came through. He looked as tired as Megan felt. His expression was unreadable as he glanced at her, then out at the crowd.
“What is this shit?” one of the agents said. He turned to Don. “You need to get these people under control.”
He spoke too loudly. The crowd had heard the words, and it didn’t like them. Don drew the agent in closer, and spoke to him more quietly. Megan had to lean toward them in order to hear, and she did it with no sense of shame. If they were talking about Joe, she wanted to know what they were saying.
The agent was still aggressive. “You’re acting sheriff here. This is your job, looking after crap like this.”
Don shook his head wearily, and Megan almost smiled. Don had seen his partner shot, his mentor confess to corruption and then die in flames, he’d been involved in a shoot-out with murderous thugs. He was not going to be intimidated by a fed with an attitude. “You’re settling in for a long investigation up here, Agent Daly. And these people are your food service personnel, your innkeeper and your mechanic. They’re also your potential witnesses. You’ve started poorly, but it can still be recovered. Let Joe go. He hasn’t said a damn word since yesterday afternoon, and believe me, he can keep that shit up for days. He’s already given you a statement, and his lawyer’s almost certainly working on habeas corpus as we speak. Let him go now, as a gesture of goodwill, and it’ll make your life in this town a hell of a lot easier down the road.”
“We don’t respond to intimidation, Sheriff.”
“Nobody’s trying to intimidate you,” Don said. “None of these people has shown any sign of violence. The land they’re on is the property of the Shadow Valley Sheriff’s Department, and I have no intention of asking them to leave, so they’re not even trespassing.”
“This is how you run things up here? It’s no wonder you’ve got a corruption problem.”
“You’re going to want to be careful with talk like that, Agent Daly.” The false friendliness was gone from Don’s voice. “You get the DEA situation figured out, then you come talk to me about corruption. Otherwise, I don’t think you’re in any position to be giving anybody any lessons.”
The agent muttered something Megan couldn’t hear, and Don responded just as quietly, then nodded and turned to face the crowd. “They think they’re almost done with him,” Don said loudly. “Another few minutes, probably.”
“We’ll wait,” a voice from the crowd said loudly.
Don nodded. “Absolutely.” He smiled, and it somehow made him look even more tired. But he didn’t stop. He moved out into the crowd, greeting people, chatting for only a few moments, then moving on. It reminded Megan of watching the governor work. He possessed the same easy charm and ability to make people feel like he thought they were special. Lord knew it had worked on Megan. She thought about the governor, and how he would have handled himself the day before, and almost laughed. He probably would have been tucked up in a tiny ball in the corner of the kitchen, his hands over his head. Then she remembered her own reaction, and wondered if she’d really been all that much braver. If Joe hadn’t been there, if she hadn’t been able to borrow some of his strength, she really didn’t know how she would have managed. So that made it twice that he’d saved her life. She really hoped that there wouldn’t need to be a third time for quite a while.
The next time the door to the back room opened, Megan turned with the rest of the crowd. There he was. The crowd cheered.
Joe looked bewildered, and Megan had to blink hard to get rid of the tears. She was tired, mostly, but it was so good to see him, and so beautiful to see the community actually supporting him for a change. Sure, they were probably rallying against outside interference as much as for Joe, but at least he was part of it. His eyes swept the crowd and rested on her, and he looked questioning, as if he wasn’t sure whether she still wanted to keep things quiet.
She did not. None of that seemed to matter anymore. He moved toward her at the same time that she moved toward him, and they met in the middle. His arm slid around her shoulder easily, and he kissed the top of her head, and then he leaned down and whispered in her ear, “What the fuck is going on?”
It felt good to laugh, and she pulled away enough so she could look up at him and share a smile. “They weren’t sure you were tough enough to handle the interrogation,” she said. “So they came to rescue you.”
He looked as though he wasn’t sure how much of that to believe. Then Shannon was beside him and she said, “You look like shit. You need to get some sleep. You want the couch at my place, or you have somewhere else in mind?” She smirked as if she already knew the answer, but Joe looked down at Megan questioningly.
“The motel’s close,” Megan said. “And she’s right, you do look like shit.” But Megan hadn’t gotten much more rest than Joe had, and she was suddenly fully energized. “You can have a shower while I go to the diner and pick you up some lunch.
His grip tightened on her hand. “No. I don’t need food. You should stay with me. You can scrub my back.”
“Okay,” she agreed quietly. The crowd parted as they worked their way through it, and Joe accepted the greetings and congratulations with confusion, but without apparent concern. “Okay,” Megan said again, louder this time. Joe looked at her as if questioning her sanity, then smiled.
“Okay,” he agreed, and they broke free of the crowd and headed off together.
Epilogue
“Do you like the one with more orange, or the one with more pink?” Megan asked. Joe was being spectacularly stubborn about offering his opinions on the new decor, and she’d had about enough.
&nb
sp; “I seriously don’t care.” Joe was doing something with a sawhorse and some lumber. Megan wasn’t quite sure what he was working on, and it didn’t really matter. She just liked seeing him working with his hands. An unexpected kink on her part, but one she was absolutely enjoying.
“Your old place was gorgeous, Joe. And you said you did it yourself. Why won’t you help me with this?” She didn’t want to sound like a whiner, but she wanted him to help her, damn it! “I like the way the one with more orange looks against the floor. But then the pinker one looks better against the walls. Maybe we need to change the color of the walls?”
“Okay, if you want.”
“Joe, do you even know what we’re talking about?” She took two long steps across the plywood floor and stood in front of him, hands on her hips. “Why won’t you help me?”
He set down his tape measure. “You said you wanted to do it yourself. You said it was going to be your project. You said, ‘Joe, you do the structural stuff. I’ll take care of the rest.’”
“Okay, well, obviously I was crazy. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t have a good eye. But I want it to be beautiful.” She leaned forward and ran the nail of her index finger down the V of his half-open shirt. “For you,” she whispered in her best sex kitten voice.
Apparently it wasn’t very good, though, because instead of melting, he just grinned. “Let’s talk about it later,” he suggested, and he shifted around from behind the sawhorse, moving in closer, grinning that grin she couldn’t resist.
But damn it, she would resist. “No, let’s talk about it now.” She took a step backward, but couldn’t quite bring herself to take her hand away from his chest. It was easy for him to catch her wrists and pull her in for a hard, demanding kiss. “Or maybe later,” she gasped.
His grin was just short of obnoxious. He’d won, and they both knew it. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t be generous. “Go with the straight blue for the sofa. Use the orangey fabric for the little cushions. They can go on the armchair too. Skip the pinky stuff—it looks crappy with the walls, and if you repaint those, you’re going to have to redo the kitchen too.” He looked down at her, and as her expression changed, his smirk grew.
“You son of a bitch,” Megan said, punching his shoulder. “That’s perfect. I’ve been agonizing over that for three days, and I never even thought about going back to the blue sofa.”
He gave her a quick kiss and pulled her in close to him. “Three days you’ve been thinking about that? I know that can’t be true, because you’ve been busy studying for the Bar all that time.”
“That’s in the bag. I’m not worried about that.” Megan stepped away from him. They both knew she’d be back, but now that their relationship was established, it was fun to tease a little, at least sometimes.
“Uncle Stew is getting impatient, Megan.”
“I have told Uncle Stew several times that I will not be practicing criminal law. He will just have to keep paying suckers from the city. Or maybe he and the boys could stop getting arrested…”
“Yeah, right. I’m sure they’ll do that any day now.” Joe leaned back on the sawhorse, watching Megan with warm eyes.
“Well, with the new sheriff in town....”
“With the new sheriff in town, they’d better keep their heads down. Don was a pain in the ass when he was acting sheriff. I think he’s going to be even worse now that he’s actually elected.”
“It’s not like they even needed an election,” Megan said.
It was true. Don had been the town’s golden boy ever since Carson’s death. He’d somehow managed to make sure everyone knew he had key roles in the investigation of the neo-Nazis, Styler’s arrest…all of it. But he’d never been heard taking any credit for anything, not himself. He hadn’t done too much to keep other people from praising him though. And when he’d been the one to drive Anna back into town once she got out of the hospital, his light had shone even brighter from reflecting off her. He was the town’s hero, and neither Joe nor Megan had a problem with that.
Megan stepped back toward Joe and brought her hand back to its home on his chest. “But he’s not giving you a hard time, right?”
“His mom wants me to quote for a kitchen reno. I’m thinking about offering her a discount if she gives me copies of all his pictures from when he was a kid. He was a really goofy-looking kid, Megan. That’s not something this town should be allowed to forget.”
“You’d be performing a community service. You’re a prince.” Megan stepped back again, this time to look around the room. They were still living in a rental in town, because they only had the outer shell of the cabin built. It was enough for privacy, but not for comfort. And Megan had a reason for not wanting Joe to pay much attention to the only soft place in the room, the oversized sofa they’d picked up at the thrift store. Better he keep his attention on her, and that they find somewhere else to continue their…conversation.
But it was too late. “Son of a bitch,” Joe growled.
A yellow lab lifted his head as if he knew they were talking about him.
“Yes, he is, but I don’t think you should call him that.” Megan stepped between Joe and the sofa. “He looks so cozy there, Joe. And we don’t have a bed for him up here, so there’s nowhere for him to lie.”
“I’m never going to win this one, am I?” Joe asked. He scowled over Megan’s shoulder at the sofa, and his expression gradually softened. “He does look cozy,” he admitted.
The dog didn’t look guilty, exactly, but maybe a little self-conscious. “You’re okay, Tobey,” Megan cooed. “It’s okay.” She wrapped her fingers around the waistband of Joe’s jeans, finding the almost-ticklish spots that always made him squirm. “If he was a puppy, we could train him. But he’s a grown dog, and he was obviously allowed on the furniture at his old home. Is it really worth the nuisance?”
“If his old home was so great, why’d he end up at the shelter? Maybe they kicked him out because he wouldn’t stay off the furniture.” But Joe wasn’t really arguing. He shook his head and said, “He sheds. A lot.”
“We wanted leather furniture anyway. The fur will brush right off.” Megan stood on her tiptoes and kissed Joe on the line of his jaw. “I like snuggling with him, when you’re not around.”
“And when I am around?” They both knew Joe wasn’t really insecure, but he put a playful bit of doubt in his voice.
And Megan was happy to play the game, pulling his head down for a kiss before saying, “When you’re around, I like snuggling with you.”
“Well, that’s okay, then.”
Megan wrapped her arms around him, and eased her weight onto her toes until he took the cue and lifted her, letting her wind her legs around his hips. “I love you, Joe.”
He dropped his lips to her neck, kissing and nipping. “Love you too,” he murmured into her softest skin, and then he ran his stubble over it to make her squirm.
She giggled, he smiled and everything was right in their world.
* * * * *
About the Author
Kate Sherwood started writing at about the same time she got back on a horse after a twenty-year break. She’d like to think that she’s far too young for it to be a midlife crisis, but apparently she was ready for a few changes!
Her writing focuses on characters and relationships, people trying to find out how much of themselves they need to keep, and how much they can afford to give away. She started her writing career with m/m romance, but has since branched out into m/f romance as well. She’s also tempted by women’s fiction, young adult and just about anything else. The writing is the important part; genre is just a detail.
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ISBN: 978-14268-9449-7
Copyright © 2012 by Kate Sherwood
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