Roughhousing.
She patted her brown hair, which was neatly arranged into a bun and held in place with her favorite pins. A light green dress with a matching striped jacket adorned her slim frame and she was wearing a heavy layer of makeup that was probably supposed to somehow make her look younger than her fifty-eight years.
“What did you tell that man?” my mother asked as she reached the bottom of the stairs and checked her reflection in the mirror by the front door.
I knew she wasn’t actually concerned with what excuse I’d given the sheriff for the ruckus or that I’d lied to him about it being a mirror that had fallen on me rather than a window that had gotten broken… she just wanted to make sure I hadn’t thrown Jimmy under the bus.
“I told him the truth – that it was my fault and that I’d apologize to Mr. Pascal for disturbing him.” My mother nodded slightly, and I hated the little bit of warmth that lit up my insides at the gesture.
“That man needs to mind his own business,” she grumbled as she turned to look at Jimmy. “Mr. Wilson at the bank said he’d call you today to set up that interview. He said he’d start you as a teller but that there’s a training program that will let you move up to personal banker and then assistant manager. He says you’d be perfect for the job.”
I managed not to react to my mother’s outlandish statement. Not only was my brother a shitty employee when it came to dealing with customers of any kind, I was pretty sure that Mr. Wilson was one of many employers who didn’t want a guy like Jimmy handling their cash day in and day out. Not to mention, my brother had barely managed to graduate high school. His diploma, like everything in his life, had been handed to him by members of the community who were too afraid to stand up to my family and their clout.
It seemed that Uncle Curtis’s ousting as sheriff a few weeks earlier hadn’t changed much at this point.
I doubted that it would.
Though I was glad the truth about Dallas Kent had come out like it had, even if the resulting fallout of Jimmy getting arrested hadn’t exactly been a good thing for me.
“Ma, I’ve got things to do,” my brother began, but his words dropped off when my mother turned to look at him, her eyes positively glacial.
That wouldn’t go well for me, either.
Despite the fact that Jimmy was clearly my mother’s favorite child, even he wasn’t above the iron grip she had on our family. We were all like little marionette dolls that were there for her amusement. And though I couldn’t make sense of any of it, every single one of us, my stepfather included, didn’t want to risk having our strings cut permanently.
Being someone’s puppet was still better than being alone.
I’d seen proof of that firsthand.
And while my family wasn’t exactly nurturing, they’d closed ranks around me when I’d been younger and I’d given into the devil’s temptations. I couldn’t forget that.
I wouldn’t.
I discreetly removed myself from the discussion and hurried outside to get my car started so it would be warm for my mother by the time we were ready to go. I doublechecked the walkway to make sure there wasn’t a trace of snow or ice on it that could potentially cause my mother to slip and then hurried back inside. My mother and Jimmy had moved closer to the closet so my mother could get her coat and gloves on, so I quickly went to the kitchen to get the dishwasher emptied out. My hands worked independently of my mind as my thoughts drifted to the new sheriff.
I guessed him to be in his late thirties or early forties. He was taller than me by a few inches, but he wasn’t particularly heavyset… not like Maddox Kent or even his brother, Dallas. Sheriff Wells—
Cam.
That was how he’d introduced himself to me and Maddox the day I’d first seen him.
Cam… short for Camden.
I swallowed hard as I remembered the sparks that had stung my palm in the best way when the sheriff – no, Cam, because it was okay to call him that in my mind – had shaken my hand and then softly said my name.
But not as soft as he’d said it today.
And today had been the first time he’d called me Ford since the day we’d met.
I’d been struck nearly speechless on that first day… at first because that was just my natural reaction when confronted with any kind of authority figure, but then something had changed, and I’d stopped seeing the man who’d taken Uncle Curtis’s job. As I’d drunk down the details about him while he’d been speaking to Maddox, the devil had been loud in my ear and I’d welcomed every observation, from the man’s broad chest to his five-o’clock shadow to his neatly styled silver hair to his dark brown eyes that looked like they’d seen just a little too much in life. I’d seen him that same day a mere hour later, but the laid-back man had been gone, and in his place had been the law enforcement officer doing his job.