Chapter Six
There were a few things Rose realized that maybe she should have earlier in the day. The first was a pretty simple statement.
She was too comfortable with James. They weren’t strangers anymore, but it wasn’t like they were friends.
Seven Roads might have been small, but it wasn’t like they had been social beforehand.
She knew of him, maybe even had shared a small nod or two in passing through the years, but that had been it.
Even after the explosion, their status hadn’t changed much.
James had been there when she had woken up in the hospital, sure, but after their talk he had gone about his way.
Then, days later, he’d given her a sandwich.
Now he was giving her a ride. To her apartment.
A place she rarely invited anyone over to visit.
Was it because of what the sheriff had told her the last time they had spoken in the hospital?
“From what I know of James, he probably won’t boast about it…
but I have to tell you that man went through a lot getting you out of the auto shop,” Liam had told her.
“Or at least what was left of it. I pulled up to the scene with Price, both of us ready to dive in until the fire department showed up, but instead we saw him carry you out of that nightmare like it was nothing.”
Rose hadn’t known that it had been James who got her out. He surely hadn’t said as much during their talk. It made her feel an odd kind of guilt. She had tried to play it off.
“Well, I am pretty small,” she had said. “Compared to him, especially. Carrying me should have been easy.”
Liam hadn’t let that sit a moment before he had humbled the comment.
“Easy or not, he cared a whole lot. I saw y’all when you came out—James was a cage around you.
He wouldn’t even give you up until the EMTs were pulling at him.
” Liam had sighed. It was anger but not at James.
Still, he had some good words left for the man.
“I also saw the inside of the shop. Getting you two out was a dangerous job in itself. He could have left you. He could have left you to get through the fire and the debris on your own. Instead, he managed to get you to safety and stay by your side, no questions asked.”
No questions asked.
That observation was holding true.
Why wasn’t James asking more questions? Could he still be in shock almost a week later? Was he waiting for privacy outside of the hospital instead? Or was he as nonchalant in his everyday life as he had been while sitting on that bomb?
Where did that calm and cool end?
And, was that the reason why Rose felt so comfortable around him in the first place?
It was like James Keller had become walking meditation.
Rose kept using her time with him to accidentally self-reflect.
It was unexpected. And annoying.
She was glad for the distraction of her cell phone ringing. It blared out the theme to Jaws. Rose saw her driver chuckle before she answered the only person that ringer was assigned to when they called.
“Sheriff,” she said once the call connected.
Liam was quick and loud.
“Where are you? Price said you had discharged?”
Rose motioned to the truck around her though he couldn’t see it.
“Yeah, the doc cleared me, so I left a few minutes ago,” she answered. “I’m almost home. Why? What’s up?”
Liam was somewhere noisy, but it seemed like a nice kind of noise. There were kids laughing and dishes clinking. Rose eyed the clock. It was lunch.
“I was hoping to grab you before you left. I want you to come to the department.”
It wasn’t a request.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Despite the nice noise in the background, the sheriff’s words were pure authority.
“Just get over here now.”
* * *
THE MCCOY COUNTY Sheriff’s department was small, like its staff.
If someone wasn’t paying attention they could almost pass it off as a large house nestled near the woods.
An oddly shaped one, but a house all the same.
Rose had once mentioned this comparison to Price when they were on patrol.
He had laughed and told her that she only saw it as a house because her job was her whole life.
Wasn’t it less depressing to think of the place you see the most as your home instead of a small building that once had Marty Fletcher mistake the jail cell cot as a toilet in the basement?
Rose knew she should have felt bad or worried about the comparison, but she just couldn’t bring herself to agree.
She let out a sigh of relief as the building in question came into full view through the windshield. The world changed every day. There was comfort in the fact that the department rarely ever did.
“Are you sure it’s okay for me to come in?”
James parked the truck in the guest spot out front. He wasn’t as at ease as she was, that was for sure. In fact, he was showing more stress than he had when sitting on top of an explosive.
“It’s not like I have a car to drive here myself,” she pointed out. “Plus, you deserve answers as much as me on what happened at the shop. That’s probably why I’m being called in anyways. It’s more cost-effective to just come in together.”
James nodded, absently.
“Sure, I guess.”
Rose gave him a questioning look but didn’t pry. Not everyone was comfortable around law enforcement. That wasn’t a fault to poke at.
At least, that was what Rose thought until James glued himself to her side on the walk up to the front doors and blurted out exactly what he was thinking.
“I know I’m not here to get into trouble or anything, but I have some childhood bad memories with the law and a cow can’t change its spots.” He put an arm around her shoulders and dropped his voice into a whisper. “Can we pretend you need my help to walk and that’s why I’m here?”
Rose looked up at him with an expression she hoped showed nothing but being dumbfounded at that.
He saw the look and rolled his eyes.
“Not everyone has nerves of steel like you, Deputy Little. Let me feel needed so I can feel safe. Plus, I can’t get in trouble here if I’m your plus-one.
So let’s have a nice cooperation.” He started walking forward, his arm like a sling around her.
Pulling her along with him was easy. Partly because of his height, but mostly because Rose allowed it.
Let me feel needed so I can feel safe.
James had said it so casually, in one breath, that someone else might have glossed over it entirely. Yet, Rose knew there were roots to the meaning of the phrase. Roots that went deep into the man’s past.
Because Rose knew what James Keller had gone through as a child. Day two in the hospital and her curiosity about the man had seduced her to the dark side.
She had gossiped with Price, one of the few career locals she trusted to be as accurate as they were discreet.
That was how she’d found out about the time James woke up in the hospital alone.
She wasn’t going to blame him now for being wary. Rose shrugged James’s hand off her shoulder but kept in step with him.
“You can hold my elbow,” she grumbled out. “But the second we’re in front of the sheriff you better be hands-off.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, voice still low. His hand closed around its designated spot. He was gentle, even if his hand was calloused and rough.
Rose only hoped no one inside made a fuss over it. She had been blown up after all. A helping hand didn’t seem too outrageous only a few days after.
There’s that being too comfortable with James Keller thing again, she thought to herself, realizing how absurd it was of her to accept his request.
Yet, Rose didn’t try to pull away either. Not even when James lowered his voice again and rumbled out another question.
“Can you limp a little or something? You know, really sell it?”
Sympathetic or not, comfortable or not, Rose narrowed her eyes at him.
“James Keller, don’t push your luck.”
* * *
JAMES KNEW ABOUT Sheriff Liam Weaver the way he knew about Rose—everyone in Seven Roads had done their due diligence when he had first moved to town. James had gotten most of his details from Mr. Donahue about the newcomer then.
Sheriff Liam Weaver was ex-military, a non-talker and no-nonsense law enforcement officer. He got to the point with precision and weight. Or he had, at least until he met and married his wife, Blake. The gossip about her had been more sensational than that about her husband.
She was a former sheriff, current law enforcement, and wasn’t afraid to let her braids down if needed—Mr. Donahue’s daughter’s words.
Locals often joked about which one of the two won in arguments between the powerhouse hitters.
Almost everyone eventually agreed it was Blake.
She had won Weaver’s heart completely, and together they had a blended family that was as loving as it was exciting.
Still, when it came to his work, it was heavily rumored that when Weaver stepped into the department wearing that look, no one could deny he was made to be sheriff.
James straightened his back a little as the man of the hour walked into the meeting room. He believed the rumors then.
Sheriff Weaver demanded attention without ever needing to steal it.
Rose had indulged him by letting James hold her elbow earlier, but now she was tip-top, sitting up tall in the seat next to him.
Tall, for her at least. James pulled his glance at her up, up and away once the sheriff had settled at the head of the table.
Then both were focused on the man with the shiny badge.
“Glad to see you up and moving in person, Rose, but, again, I wish you’d called one of us first before you left.” The sheriff’s tone was hard but James got the impression there was affection wrapped in it too.
James felt a little tap on the arm closest to her. Rose played off both stern and concerned with a simple shrug.
“Being discharged just timed right with Mr. Keller here’s lunch delivery,” she said. “I was going to call once I was back home.”
The sheriff’s gaze swung to James.
He gave Weaver a small nod.
“That’s nice of you,” he noted.