Chapter 15
Harper
It’s really hard to focus for the next two days.
The knowledge that I can leave any time now is distracting, always there in the back of my mind no matter what else I’m doing.
The information sits heavy in my chest as I work, making my mind wander when I should be focused.
There’s so much to consider now. What comes next?
Where do I go and what will I do? The image of my future used to be at the forefront of my thoughts, but now…
Now the problem is I can’t picture it anymore.
I can’t see myself and Cora in some other town, some other crappy motel, starting over again.
It won’t be like Silver Falls, I know that much.
Wherever we end up won’t have friendly townspeople and handsome, kind Alphas. There won’t be an old cow for Cora to fawn over. It’ll just be the two of us, trying to figure things out on our own.
I scold myself for thinking that way because it was always going to be like that, and wishing otherwise is stupid. Wishing otherwise is what got us in the position we’re in now, and I can’t make the same mistakes again.
But I can’t stop thinking about it, and even though I’m good enough at my job that I can do parts of it on autopilot now, there are some parts that require my attention.
Which is why being spaced out during the lunch rush ends up biting me in the ass.
I go to take a stack of napkins to a table, coming around the bar and the one step between the bar and the rest of the room catches me off guard. My foot comes down wrong and my ankle rolls, sending me sprawling as pain shoots up my leg.
“Fuck!” Napkins rain down around me as I lie on the slightly sticky wood floor. Of course the customers are watching all of this happen, and I can only be grateful that I’m lying behind the bar now, so most of them can’t see me trying to catch my breath.
Everett appears instantly, like he materialized out of thin air somehow. I muscle myself up onto my elbows so I can watch his face as he crouches and touches my ankle with surprisingly gentle hands.
Even the light touch makes me wince with pain, and it’s already starting to swell.
“It’s not broken,” he says softly. “But it is a pretty bad sprain at the very least.”
“It’s fine,” I tell him. “I’ll put some ice on it and then get back to work.”
He gives me a stern look, and I stare him down a bit. “Harper, no. You can’t walk on this. You rolled your fucking ankle.”
“It’s not that bad. Just let me get up and try to put some weight on it—”
“No.” He cuts me off, his voice hard. His quiet authority shuts me up immediately, but it’s the concern blazing in his dark eyes that makes my breath catch. “You’re not going back to work. And you’re not putting weight on it.”
He scoops me up off the floor like I weigh nothing, and I flail a little in surprise before settling in his arms.
“Everett, everybody is watching,” I hiss, cheeks burning. “Do we have to do this in front of the whole fucking bar?”
He looks down at me but doesn’t say anything, just walking for the door, careful not to jostle my ankle more than he has to.
“You’re impossible. You could have just helped me walk.”
He carries me to his truck, settling me in the passenger seat before going around to get behind the wheel.
It’s a silent drive to the clinic, and by the time we get there, my ankle is throbbing with pain.
The swelling looks worse, and when I try to get out of the truck before Everett can carry me again, the pain of it makes me breathless for a second.
So I don’t complain too much when he gives me a look and carries me inside.
“Sheriff Kane!” a pretty young woman says as we enter. “We don’t see you here often, are you—” She takes one look at me in his arms, and I try not to flush with embarrassment.
“She rolled her ankle,” Everett says. “I didn’t feel a break, but I can’t be sure.”
The receptionist nods. “I’ll get the doctor.”
There’s an hour or so of examination and x-rays and the local doctor asking me about what happened. I answer him as best I can, trying not to wince as he pokes and prods at me. Through it all, Everett never leaves my side.
He clearly knows the doctor, but there’s something protective about the way he hovers, never leaving me alone for a second. Whenever I show any sign of pain, he tenses, sharp eyes cutting to the doctor before he relaxes again.
It’s a heady thing, watching this powerful Alpha fuss over a sprained ankle, and my stomach flutters at the closeness. His scent is soothing in its own way, and I have to admit that I’m glad he’s here.
“You’re a good boss, you know,” I tell him when we’re alone, waiting for the doctor to come back and declare me fit to go home. “Most bosses wouldn’t do this for an employee. Probably they’d be more worried about making sure I can’t sue them for an unsafe work environment or something.”
It’s supposed to be half a joke, but Everett’s face never loses any of that seriousness. “You’re not just an employee,” he says in that deep voice.
I have no idea how to respond to that, so I look away from his intense stare. Luckily, the doctor comes back in a minute or so later, giving Everett the all clear to take me home.
“Try to rest it as much as possible,” the doctor says. “No full weight on it for at least a couple of days. If it feels worse or the swelling doesn’t go down with ice and elevation, we can see about transferring you to the hospital in the city.”
“Thank you,” Everett says for me, and the doctor smiles and rushes off to tend to whoever came in after us.
“Can you not carry me out of here like a sack of potatoes?” I ask Everett as we prepare to head out. “I know you’re being helpful, but you can’t carry me around until this is better.”
He gives me a look, but instead of just picking me up again, he helps me walk this time. It’s slow going, with me limping and he supporting most of my weight, but it feels better to get to the truck without being carried.
At the same time, I’m hyper aware of the body beside mine.
Everett is solid and warm, and his scent is everywhere.
I know it’s going to be clinging to me by the time this is over.
I should be railing against him treating me like an invalid and getting so close, but all I can feel is safe with him touching me.
He lifts me into the truck, and I settle in with a sigh.
The drive home is quiet, and it feels weird to just not talk after all that.
“So,” I say, starting up a conversation. “Everyone knows you here, huh?”
“Pretty much,” he replies. “I’ve lived here my whole life.”
“Yeah, but they don’t just know you as Everett Kane, they call you Sheriff and all. How long have you been the sheriff?”
“Six or seven years, I guess,” he says.
I blink at him. He’s ruggedly handsome, but I can tell that he’s at least in his late twenties, so seven years ago he would have been just twenty-one. “You were that young when they made you sheriff?”
He glances at me for a second and then back at the road. “Yeah. It was—there were circumstances.”
This is where I should probably stop prying, but I can’t help but push for more information. “What kind of circumstances?”
His fingers go tight on the wheel for a second, but then he lets out a measured breath, relaxing. “My dad was the sheriff here before me, did you know that?”
“Yeah. Dolly said something about it. She said he was a bastard.”
Everett barks a laugh, but there’s not much humor in it.
“Understatement, but yeah. He ran this place with an iron fist. He used his badge and the fact that he was an Alpha to do whatever he wanted to anyone he wanted and there wasn’t much anyone could do to stop him.
He made examples of people he didn’t like, and that made it hard for anyone to want to do anything to get his attention.
Someone crossed him, he’d have them behind bars for a week.
New people with a look he didn’t like came to town, and he’d make shit so uncomfortable for them that they were practically running for the hills as soon as they could. ”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. So a bunch of people finally got sick of it, and we ran him out of town. Most of his power came from the fact that people were scared of him. Too scared to fight back or speak up. But once people got pissed enough, he couldn’t keep his hold on them anymore.”
“And you helped?”
He nods. “Had to. I couldn’t watch him burn this place to the ground anymore.”
“I don’t blame you,” I say softly. “Must have been hard to watch, knowing that was your dad.”
There’s another ragged breath, but he keeps his gaze straight ahead.
“I know what bad leadership looks like. I know what abuses of power look like. Sometimes I think the town elected me sheriff because they knew how disgusted I was with what my dad had become. They thought I’d be able to keep from going down that path. ”
“They’re right, then,” I tell him. “You’re nothing like what your father seemed to be from what you’ve said.”
“I can’t be,” he says, and there’s a thread of emotion in the way he says it. Not quite desperation, but something fierce all the same. “Turning out like him would be my worst fucking nightmare. I’ll hold myself in check as hard as I can before I let that happen.”
“At least you know it’s wrong. I’m willing to bet your dad never stopped to wonder if what he was doing was fucked up. He never promised himself he wouldn’t be like that. You’re already better than he is.”
Everett looks at me again, but doesn’t say anything else.
I let it drop, and we make it back to the house in comfortable silence.
“I could go back to the bar,” I offer, already knowing it’s going to be shot down.
“No,” he says firmly. “You heard the doctor. You need to stay off your feet.”
“Okay, okay.”
He helps me inside, and Lincoln and Cash immediately come over. “What happened?” Cash asks, face creased with concern.
“I fell at the bar,” I admit. “It was very embarrassing. But it’s just a sprain.”
“We should do something about that step,” Cash is saying as Everett gets me settled on the couch. “Put a hand rail on it or something.”
“It’s fine,” I tell him. “I just wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking. It’s not a big deal.”
“What can I do?” Cash crouches down next to the couch so he’s on eye level with me. “Do you need anything?” Lincoln hovers behind him, quieter, but no less worried, judging from the look in his eyes.
“Could I get some ice? And something to elevate my ankle?”
Both of them are off before I can even say anything else. Lincoln comes back with a stack of pillows, and I grit my teeth and lift my leg so he can help me keep my ankle raised. Cash has ice packs, and he drapes a kitchen towel over my ankle before settling an ice pack on top of it.
The two of them fuss around me, bringing tea and water and snacks, acting more like mother hens than powerful Alphas for the moment.
It takes a good twenty minutes before I can convince them I have everything I need and make them sit back down and stop hovering over me.
“It’s not like you to be distracted at work,” Lincoln says after a bit. “Did something happen?”
Somehow, in the midst of everything, I managed to almost forget what got me here in the first place. I didn’t tell the three of them about the call I got from Paul two days ago, so they haven’t known it’s been on my mind constantly since then.
“My car is ready,” I say, just getting right to it.
That immediately shocks all of them into silence. It’s heavy, charged with unspoken emotions.
“So…” I continue, when it’s clear none of them are going to say anything. “It’s probably time I start thinking about moving out and what my next stop is going to be.”
“No,” Everett says, interrupting.
“What?”
“I mean—you should wait.”
“Why?”
“You’re about to spend almost all of the money you’ve made working here on fixing your car, right? You should save more before you leave. So you have a cushion before traveling with Cora. You never know what could happen.”
“He has a point,” Lincoln says quietly. “It would be better for you to stay here longer than end up stranded in some other town if something happens. And you’ll have more money for better lodging and better food. That’s important.”
“Plus, no other town is going to be as friendly and welcoming as Silver Falls,” Cash chimes in. “If you have to stick around somewhere until you’re ready to make a move, it should be here with people you know, who will look after you and Cora.”
Logically, I know they have a point. What happened with my car wouldn’t have been so devastating if I’d had more of a buffer in my bank account. I wouldn’t have had to subject Cora to shitty motels and gas station hot dogs if I had more money to spend. And she does deserve better than that.
It’s not how I planned this, but really, my plans have sort of gone out the window since I got stranded here. Cash is right that it’s rare for people to be as welcoming and kind as people have been here.
If this happened anywhere else, there’s no telling how it would have ended up.
My heart pounds in my chest, and I can’t really believe it when I open my mouth to agree with them. “You’re right. I should probably wait until I have more money.”
The three of them seem to relax at that, like they were waiting eagerly for my response.
“But I can go back to the motel or get a different place,” I add. “We don’t have to keep taking up space here.”
“Harper,” Cash says, leaning forward. “We told you that you’re welcome to stay as long as you need. We meant that.”
“Are you sure? I mean… it can’t be easy having me and Cora here. I don’t want to be a burden.”
“You’re not,” Lincoln says. “You’re not messy, you clean up after yourselves, and Cora is delightful. You’re the furthest thing from a burden.”
I look to Everett, who lifts an eyebrow at me. “Stop worrying about it,” he says.
I snort because I know he knows that’s one of those easier said than done kind of things, but I sigh, giving in.
“Okay. We’ll stay here.”
It is the practical thing to do. Staying here saves money I would be spending on a motel room, and that’s just more to add to the cushion. It just makes sense.
But there’s a part of me, deep down, that knows logic isn’t the only reason I’m agreeing to this.