3. Brian
THREE
brIAN
Iarrived at the station earlier than I’d intended, but I was restless, and tossing and turning in bed wasn’t getting me anywhere.
Besides, I had a lot of work to do the closer we got to the rodeo.
There was another stack of permits sitting on my desk to review and Amy had sent over the list of planned vendors and where she hoped to place them.
I needed to make sure there wouldn’t be any bottlenecks with traffic, and I needed to meet up with Rex Brady, our fire marshal, so we could sign off on the planned layout together.
It helped that most everything would be outdoors, but there were still concerns about the traffic to and from the high school where the rodeo was being held.
Then there were the personal issues that were weighing on me.
I still couldn’t fully wrap my head around having an older brother again.
While Cal looked like Luke, I was cautiously hopeful that he was nothing like him.
At least the worst parts. Where Luke could be callous and petty when things didn’t go his way, I didn’t see that trait in Cal.
But it’d only been a few days. Things could still go badly, and if that happened, I’d need to protect my mom and Amy from the fallout.
And also, there was Caitlin. Running into her at the bar and then our time in that motel room had been a fantasy come to life. We’d always been good together, but what we shared the other night felt like so much more.
Except, judging from the way she rushed out of there, she didn’t feel the same way.
A car door slammed, snapping me out of my thoughts, and I watched my chief deputy, Sofia Alvarez, and Mack Kilpatrick, another deputy, walk inside the station. Sofia was carrying a pastry box from Carly’s Coffee and Treats, and my mouth watered in anticipation of eating one of her apple fritters.
“Morning, boss,” Mack said.
Sofia brushed past me into the small kitchen and set the pastry box down. I followed her and was already lifting the lid when she reached for a cup. The box was still warm and the sweet scent of cinnamon and sugar along with baked apples quickly filled the room.
“Morning,” I said to the room, lifting a fritter out of the box and setting it on a plate. Turning, I nodded to Sofia. “And thanks for this. I left the house without eating breakfast this morning.”
Sofia poured herself a cup of coffee and took a large sip, slurping it through her teeth to cool it faster. After her third slurp, she refilled the cup and added creamer before finally turning around. She looked exhausted.
“Damn, long night?” She wasn’t on duty last night but that didn’t mean she didn’t get called in. Much like me, my chief deputy was a workaholic.
“Something like that,” she muttered before reaching for a fritter. I watched her nose twitch, and she set it back down.
Ah. Looked like a hangover was the issue.
It wasn’t my job to parent my team about how they spent their off hours, so long as it didn’t impact their ability to work.
I opened the cabinet above the fridge and pulled out the bottle of ibuprofen and set it on the counter next to her without saying a word and returned to my office.
Two hours later, I was falling asleep at my desk and desperate to do anything but this mind-numbing paperwork. Gathering the papers, I tapped them on my desk before shoving everything back in the file.
“Going out,” I announced to the room and got a nod from Mack. Lois was on the phone, and she lifted a finger for me to wait, so I paused while she finished the call.
Lois has worked for the sheriff’s office answering the phones and directing visitors nearly as long as anyone could remember.
She’d been a newlywed when she’d taken the receptionist job and been a dedicated asset to every sheriff and deputy who came through these doors for almost fifty years.
I appreciated everything she did for us.
She also knew damn near everyone in this town, which came in handy on the rare occasion we actually had to solve a crime.
Poplar Springs, Colorado, wasn’t exactly a hotbed of criminal activity unless you counted a mountain lion stealing a chicken or the property damage from loose livestock.
“I’ll be on the radio, if you need anything,” I told Lois.
“How long will you be out?” she asked. I wanted to say “the rest of the day,” but I knew that wasn’t possible.
“Shouldn’t be long.” I lifted the folder I was holding. “Going to drop these in Amy’s office and maybe grab an early lunch.”
It was walking distance to the mayor’s office where my sister-in-law worked.
Amy had taken the job as the mayor’s assistant when she first moved to town after marrying Luke.
She was currently handling both her duties and most of the mayoral ones with the mayor out on sick leave.
It turned out that Mayor Bob Lumley had been ignoring his increasing heart issues until he collapsed at the town carnival a few months back.
Mayor Bob was currently recuperating in a rehab hospital in Aurora, and no one had the heart to talk to him about retiring.
At least, not yet. So, Amy was not only doing both jobs, she’d also been the one to organize the rodeo and she was doing a damn good job at keeping everything on track. I admired her tenacity and dedication.
I nodded to folks as I walked down Main Street.
Laughter erupted outside Bite and Brew, and I could see that the monthly Cattlemen’s Association meeting had let out and the members were standing outside the diner.
Shannon Cafferty was there talking to her fiancé, Declan, one of the town’s vets, and Doug Stanley, who owned Sweet Valley Ranch.
I raised my hand in greeting and kept walking.
Entering the dim interior of the town hall, my boots echoed across the tile floor as I made my way to Amy’s office.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that she wasn’t here.
She’d set up a bunch of promo opportunities to get the word out about the charity rodeo, and I knew that she and Cal were going to be spending a lot of time together attending the different interviews and press events.
Somehow, I’d have to find a minute when she was on her own so that we could really talk.
I wanted to find out how she was doing, spending so much time with the spitting image of the husband she’d lost. Jake and I were still reeling after meeting Cal, I couldn’t imagine what she was thinking.
No one would’ve blamed her if she’d decided to step back from some of her duties.
In the foyer, there was a table housing a 3D model of the proposed plans for the town’s new community center.
The old one had burned down after being struck by lightning, taking out both the elementary school next door and a small park and play area.
Because the fire had been deemed “an act of God,” the insurance company in all its wisdom, had denied some of the insurance coverage.
It was all bullshit.
The town council and mayor’s office had jumped into action, but at first, there’d been a whole lot of talking and not much else.
Finally, thanks to Amy’s tireless efforts, they’d already broken ground on the new elementary school and play area for the kids.
Fundraising efforts had been continuous, but they hadn’t been enough to rebuild the community center.
Hence, the charity rodeo. It was a risky undertaking, but if we managed to pull it off, the funds raised should cover the cost to rebuild and potentially pave the way for annual rodeos, which would be good business for all the local ranchers who raise livestock for sale along with all the other businesses eager to capitalize on the increase in tourism to our part of the state.
“Can I help you, Sheriff?”
I smiled at the young woman and set the file down in front of her and tapped it. “I’ve signed off on everything. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all good at my end.”
She took the file and flipped it open, scanning the Post-its I’d attached to the forms and nodding as she read. “Thank you, I’ll make sure Amy sees this when she gets back.”
“Where is she? I’d been hoping to talk to her and…” The woman was already shaking her head before I finished my sentence.
“I can put you on the calendar but it’ll be awhile before there’s an opening.
It might be easier to catch up with her on your own time.
” She pursed her lips at that. Lydia was Lois’s oldest daughter, and she was a dedicated proponent of work-life balance or whatever the current influencers were calling it today.
She rarely talked about work outside work, preferring to keep it separate.
The idea of it sounded good—both for my stress levels and general BS factor—but in reality, it rarely worked. Like now.
“Good idea.” I tapped the counter again. “Thanks for your time.”
I stepped back out into the sunshine, at a sudden loss as to what to do next.
Truth was, I was feeling restless. Caitlin was on my mind, and I was kicking myself for not getting her number.
Not that it would be a good idea to call her after the way she practically ran from the motel room.
It seemed pretty clear that she regretted us getting together.
I needed a distraction. I was about to radio in that I was taking that early lunch when I heard Lois’s voice crackle on the radio. “Sheriff, you there?”
I answered the call and was striding toward my SUV while she filled me in on the trailer that overturned on the main turnoff from the highway into town.
With all the vehicles coming and going, the road needed to be cleared.
While traffic jams were rare around here, it wouldn’t do for trailers loaded with livestock to get stuck for too long.
I hit the roof lights on my SUV but skipped the siren and pulled out onto Main Street headed for the accident.
It didn’t sound as if there were any injuries, which was good.
I was also grateful for the much-needed distraction.
Directing traffic and getting the vehicles moved would keep my thoughts away from Caitlin and how good it felt being inside her once again.
She was an addiction I couldn’t afford to have, especially if she didn’t feel the same.