Chapter 6 #3
For dessert, there were cookies and cakes.
He didn’t have either as he was full too and watched as Hailey ate hers with a cup of hot tea.
Ordering his own, he was amazed that it was just as warm as the seafood had been and only drank a couple of sips of it.
Hailey told him that they needed to have someone come in and teach them the way things were served.
He supposed that she’d know working at the Sheep, but he wasn’t going to mention that tonight.
They were having a good time, and he didn’t want to stress her out any more than he might have.
He was glad that she was able to talk to the agents from the FBI.
Every time she spoke to one of them, she felt better.
They were giving her good information that made her feel like she wasn’t going to prison over what had happened, and he was grateful for that.
Once she was feeling a good deal better, he was going to tell her how he felt about her.
Gleason had fallen in love with Hailey, and he was about as happy as he’d ever been about it.
He only hoped that in time she’d fall in love with him too.
“I’ve been thinking about what has been going on, and I think I could go back to my apartment.” He felt his heart stop beating just a little. “I mean, I don’t want to have to put you out all the time when it doesn’t look like I’m going to be in trouble for what happened out there.”
“You need to stay with me until it’s all finished.
They still might let McGee out, and then you’d have to move back in with me.
” She asked if he really thought that would happen.
“I don’t know. But you can’t tell right now.
If they let him out at all, even for a day to get his life in order, it would be dangerous for you.
No, you should just stay with me until this is all over and his trial is finished. ”
“That could be years.” He nodded and smiled at her. “Why do I have the feeling that you’re not telling me something?”
“I’m only trying to keep you safe. It’s all I ever wanted for you.” She asked him what else was going on. “Nothing, I promise.” He thought if he confessed right now, she’d leave him on principle. “We get along so well that I thought that you could stay forever if you wish. I’d like that.”
“What if you met someone, and I’m still living in your house?” He told her he wasn’t worried about that happening. “Why not? The love of your life could be right around the corner, and you’d be missing out on her because she would see me on your arm and write you off.”
“I’m not worried about that happening.” It was time to confess. “I have already found her, and she’s right here with me.”
Hailey actually looked around and then back at him, asking who it was. When he pointed to her, she sat there for several moments with her mouth open. Had he been closer, he would have closed it for her, but he wasn’t. Waiting for her to say something, he asked her if she was all right.
“Are you saying that you’ve fallen in love with me?
I mean, we barely know one another.” He said that he’d been in love with her since he’d first seen her.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen with my life.
I mean, it’s looking good right now, but we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. ”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll be right there with you until we can be together at the very end of all this.
And I have faith that it’s going to end well for the two of us.
You’ve been talking to the Agents, and they’ve been telling you things that are making you feel like you might get out of this on top of everything.
You didn’t do anything wrong, so they have nothing to hold on you.
” She asked him if he really trusted the system.
“I do. Especially where you’re concerned.
McGee will go to jail, and you and I will live a happy life without him hanging around.
You’ll see. In a few days, they’re going to tell you that you’ve nothing to worry about and that everything is on him.
You said yourself that they’ve not arrested you yet, so that means something, right? ”
“Yes, I suppose. But what if McGee tells them something that I didn’t do?
He is the chief of police, you know.” He told her that he’d been fired on the first day and that Rosie was working with the feds now.
“She’s a wonderful person, and I really like her.
Hopefully, if she’s in charge, they’ll find an ending to all this.
It’s doubtful they’ll find the killers, but they will know what was done out at the Sheep that morning. ”
She told him that she needed to think about things.
He was all right with that. At least she wasn’t telling him no right off the bat.
And he could wait. Now that he’d told her that he loved her, he felt his heart swell up bigger than it had before.
Hailey was his one and true love, and he couldn’t believe it took him this long to tell her.
They finished up their dinner and were talking to the couple next to them when the awards part of the dinner was announced.
“I heard about the Golden Sheep. This dinner party was supposed to be held out there tonight. You wouldn’t believe how much scrambling around they had to do to find this place to hold us all.
” She said that she’d not known that. And she wouldn’t have, not the way things were going on out there before the big deal happened.
The man next to her asked if she knew anything about what was going on.
“I mean, you sound like you might have been out there when things went south.”
“No, I wasn’t out there, but you know how small towns are.
You just never seem to get the truth out of someone until the police are involved.
” He talked about McGee and how he wished he’d never voted the little pisser in.
He told her that it was his grandson who had nearly gotten killed when the police didn’t show up to slow the cars down in front of the school.
“I heard about that, too. I’m so sorry that it happened when it did.
I guess they’ve taken care that the crosswalks are watched daily now. ”
“They have been giving out a few tickets, too, for speeding. I don’t know what happened in those few weeks no one was there, but the people in town sure got used to running the stop signs when they weren’t around.” Hailey had heard that as well.
Nearly every car that went by the crosswalk in front of the school had been ticketed for driving too fast. The speed limit was twenty during school times, and people had been going as much as fifty through the town. It was only thirty-five when there was no school in session, she thought.
The man then asked her what she thought about the Penningtons having money. She said that she’d only just heard about it recently and didn’t have any opinion either way. He told her that he thought that they’d made out well and were being very generous to the town since they’d struck it rich.
“I wouldn’t know anything about that. Gleason and I have only been dating for about a couple of weeks now and haven’t really gotten to know one another.
” He said it was a good story that she should ask him about it sometime.
“I will if he and I get that far in our relationship. I’m only his date for tonight because his brother had to cancel at the last minute. His little girl has been sick.”
“I heard that. It’s good that a man will put his family before work.
I liked him before, but when I heard that, I was amazed that he’d do that.
His being wealthy and all, I thought that he’d have nannies and the like watching over his kids.
Good man that Kinsey.” She said that she liked all the Pennington family.
“You should. They’re good men who were raised by a dirty bastard.
Killed his wife because she told him no, she didn’t want his drunken friends over for the night after she’d spent the day making strawberry jam with the boys.
It even came out at the trial that he was going to chop her up with a chainsaw so that the police wouldn’t be able to find her body.
Stupid man. Those boys of his didn’t waste any time telling on him either. Good for them.”
She’d heard about the chainsaw part. She shivered to think that the boys had been there when they were too young for that sort of thing, when their father killed her. The man told her that the old bastard had died in prison, where he belonged, and they’d had nothing to do with him.