Chapter 3
Nate
“Attack!”
As soon as I give the sharp command, Ollie springs forward, taking down the target without hesitation. He holds the life-size doll tight in his jaws, waiting for my instructions.
“Release,” I say. “Come.” I point to the ground next to me, and the German shepherd drops his suspect and trots over to sit by me. I give him a small treat. “Good boy.”
His tail wags. Ollie loves his job as a police dog. When his working vest is on, he’s in high spirits, his ears pointed forward with anticipation.
“Attack!” I say again.
Ollie executes a perfect bite-and-hold. This time, I join him next to the dummy and place the doll in handcuffs before I let Ollie release him.
My phone buzzes as I kneel on the ground. This suspect isn’t going anywhere except back in the closet, so I leave it on the ground while I pull out my phone. There’s a text. And it’s from her.
Rory
Hey, it’s Rory Kelley. Thinking about coming up to High Lonesome for our ten-year high school reunion. Wondering if you’re planning on going.
She’s put her whole name there, which means she thought I’d have deleted her from my contacts. The thought makes my heart squeeze. We haven’t talked since that day, but I’ve never deleted her from my phone.
And I’ve never stopped thinking about her.
I got the flyer for our reunion a couple days ago. Of course I’m planning to go—after all, I live here, like most of our former classmates, so it’s not a big deal for me to go to something at the high school that’s less than five minutes from my house. And that’s walking, not driving.
I figured Rory wouldn’t go, given how rarely she’s come up to HiLo in the last ten years. I heard through the grapevine that she visited her parents a few times while we were in college, but she managed to avoid me. The thought still stings.
I’m sure the planning committee didn’t think anyone other than the locals would come, which is why the last-minute invite.
It’s also possible that the planning committee is comprised of women who haven’t quite shed their high school bully personality. There are a couple of them who live in town, and even though I do my best to ignore them, I hear plenty about their exploits and nasty attitudes.
Ollie nudges my hand.
“Be cool, Ollie,” I say, staring at the phone while I try to come up with the right response.
Ollie cocks his head, as if to say, you’re the one freaking out about what to write, not me. He has a point.
Running a hand over my face, I focus. This may be the first time Rory and I have corresponded in years, but it’s not like a single text is going to determine the outcome here.
Right?
I type out a text, then erase it, then type another one. For someone who considers himself to be generally a confident, easygoing guy, this is throwing me. I settle on something simple.
Hi, Rory. Yes, I’m planning on going.
Three little dots pop up, then disappear, then pop up again and repeat the cycle. So she’s not sure what to say, either. The thought is oddly comforting.
“Come on, Ollie,” I say.
I slip the cuffs off the dummy and tuck them back onto my belt, then I gather the doll under my arm and head toward the cruiser. I let Ollie into the car and nestle the doll into the trunk before I settle into the front seat and start the engine.
Rory is still typing and erasing, the dots popping up and disappearing when I peer at my phone again.
I look over my shoulder at my K-9 partner. “Wish me luck, Ollie.”
There’s a time to wait for a text response, and a time to be the confident alpha male. Sensing that this is one of those latter times, I hit Call and put the car into Drive.
“Hello?” Rory’s voice fills the car as the Bluetooth speaker connects.
She sounds exactly the same as she did in high school and completely different, somehow. The sound of her voice floods me with emotions.
I clear my throat as I stop at the turn for High Street, the main thoroughfare through town. “Rory. Hi,” I say. “It’s Nate.”
I mentally kick myself. She knows who it is.
We’re not off to a great start, and suddenly I’m second-guessing myself.
Maybe her text was a courtesy. On the plus side, she answered my call.
I’m not sure what I was expecting—she’s the one who reached out first, after all—but the space between us has grown over the past decade.
Maybe we’re two entirely different people now.
I clear my throat again, gathering my thoughts. “It’s good to hear from you. You’re planning to come to the reunion?”
She hesitates. “I, um. Maybe?”
The nerves are apparent in her tone, but the sound of her voice hits me square in the chest. It’s different in subtle ways, but it’s still her, and the sound has me picturing a different time—walking together along the paths through the woods, watching TV in my parents’ living room, holding hands between classes.
“It would be great to see you.” I turn the corner, leaving behind the football field of Lonesome Pine High School where Ollie and I spend our training time, at least when the team isn’t practicing. Where Rory and I kissed beneath the bleachers, once upon a time. “It’s been a while.”
It’s been ten years, two months, and three days, by my count.
“It has been a while,” she says softly.
I wait, but she doesn’t say anything more. I turn into the station parking lot. The drive is barely two minutes from the station to the high school, but who wants to drag a dummy the entire mile? That thing is heavier than it looks.
“So come on up. What’s stopping you?”
I can almost hear her shrug through the phone. “A few things. Dealing with parents. Time off work.”
I figured that the biggest thing keeping her from coming up here was having to see me, but then, she’s the one who reached out to me first.
She’s spent ten years avoiding me since she ripped my heart out. I’m not sure what’s changed that made her decide to text me. Maybe nothing has changed, and this was a knee-jerk response to getting the invite.
But I’m not one to throw away an opportunity.
I put the cruiser into park. “You have a date? The invite said plus-one.”
I’ve never been good at being subtle. No reason to start now.
Rory lets out a little laugh at my blunt question. “No. I, um, don’t.”
“I can be your date.” I’m pushing my luck here. She’s going to hang up on me any minute.
Instead, her voice softens. “Thanks. I’ll consider it.”
My stomach flips at the opening. I try not to read too much into it. Maybe she’s open to the idea of being friends now, and that’s it.
But maybe there’s more to it. At least, I can hope.
“Just let me know. I’m here for you.” I’m here for whatever she needs, but I’m not going to push. “I have to get going, but it was great talking to you, Rory.”
“You, too,” she says. Am I imagining a wistful note in her voice? “Bye, Nate.”
She ends the call.
I turn around in my seat. “You hear that, Ollie? I planted the seed. She’s considering it.”
Ollie doesn’t look impressed. But then, I wouldn’t expect him to get it. He doesn’t have any balls.
“What’s up, Ollie?” Conrad looks over from where he’s tossing a ball up in the air and catching it at his desk. “Good training session?”
“Yeah, I trained him to go after you when you’re slacking off,” I say, heading for the desk in the back corner.
Our workroom is pretty sparse, with four desks that we all share and a lonely bulletin board that only Gladys, our secretary, ever updates. The chief, Braxton, has his own office, but he ends up hanging out with us out here more often than not.
Conrad is the most junior officer with the High Lonesome Police, not that there’s much of an age gap between him at age twenty-four and the chief at thirty-eight. We’re a young squad that’s historically had high turnover, probably because of the weather up here.
Conrad readily admits he took this job because he figured it would be easy.
He’s not wrong, and I’d wager a guess that a lot of folks we’ve had come through the department thought the same thing.
Most of them, though, fail to consider what it’s like to live in a small town that’s cut off from the rest of the world when the passes get covered in snow.
He sits up straight in his chair, looking at Ollie. “Aw, Ollie wouldn’t hurt me. Right, big boy?”
His grin stays fixed in place.
He’s an idiot if he doesn’t think my German shepherd would bite him the second I gave the command. But then, no one’s ever accused Conrad of being too smart for his own good.
Ollie and I have been together since he was practically a puppy. He’s my partner, my best friend, my right-hand man. Or right-hand dog, as it were.
I give his head a scratch as I sit down and point to the floor next to the chair. Ollie obediently lies down.
“So my ten-year high school reunion is coming up,” I say, changing the subject as I pick up a pen.
Conrad looks up. “Yeah? Wow, it seems like high school was forever ago and also five minutes ago. If yours is coming up, it means mine will be in…five years?” He stops tossing the ball, looking thoughtful. “I haven’t been back over to the Western Slope in ages.”
“I know what you mean.” I lean back in the chair and twirl the pen with my fingers. “It sounds like my high school girlfriend is thinking about coming, too. I haven’t seen her since graduation.”
Conrad’s brows lift with interest. “No shit? The one who—”
“Not interested in talking about it, Conrad.” To be fair, I started this conversation, but the point wasn’t to talk about Rory.
Of course Conrad knows the story, or at least most of it.
The entire town does, even the transplants.
That’s the thing about small towns like HiLo.
Nothing is sacred or private. So everyone knows the story of how Rory and I were the town sweethearts, destined for happily ever after when she dumped me out of nowhere.