Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Wyn
“I’m going to just say this, Wyn,” Sheriff Fury says. He holds up his hands like he doesn’t want to offend me, which is the tell that he’s about to do just that. “I know you’ve been through it?—”
I cut him off right there. Glaring at him, I hold up my hand. “Fury, not for nothing, but you have no idea what I’ve been through. So please don’t try to get on my good side here when you’re about to tell me something that you already know I’m not going to like.”
Reed can’t help but snort out a laugh, knowing I’ve just shut up our county sheriff with a few words.
I glance at Reed, almost annoyed that he’s listening to any of this. He barnacled himself to me as soon as I showed up here.
“Fine. Fine. You should know then that I spent a couple of hours last night talking with Julian Colton.”
I furrow my brow. “Wait, what?” I ask, coming back to what Fury is saying to me.
“Julian was real honest about some things, mostly about being here.”
My stomach sinks at his words. There’s no way he could really be honest with him, not about what brought him here. And there isn’t a single part of me that could see Julian cooperating with Fury.
Fury loops his thumbs into his belt loops and adds, “I’m not convinced that he’s not hiding something. The timing of your friend’s arrival in town keeps gnawing at me.”
What the hell would have taken a couple of hours to talk about at the sheriff’s station?
The reality that knocks the wind out of me isn’t the fact that Julian knows the whereabouts of Deputy Stan Billings, but that he could easily negotiate saving his own ass.
If he cooperated and shared what he knows, my family would be the target.
I swallow and try to remain unaffected at what their conversation could’ve resulted in.
When I look out to the crowd, and past Birdie doing her reading, Julian’s having a beer and laughing with Jameson. When the hell did they get friendly? Jameson doesn’t like very many people.
I tune out the rest of what Sheriff Fury’s saying.
I’m embarrassed for allowing other people's opinions of my family to play such a huge part in my choices when I was younger. I wish I’d paid attention instead of shoving the distance between us.
I hate that they kept secrets from me the same way I’m lucky that they had.
But at the core of the choices they made, they protected who and what they could.
“Sheriff, are you assuming Deputy Billings is dead, or still missing?” Reed asks next to me, but my focus is on my grandmother now.
I watch as Birdie fans out her cards, asking the woman sitting across from her to choose.
It isn’t often that a reading takes all that long, but sometimes, when there’s more to be discussed, she has her company pull out more cards to help explain a situation more clearly. Or maybe it isn’t a reading at all.
I replay every word she and my mother had said in that kitchen, trying to think about what I could have missed over the years, but I come up with nothing every time. Nothing has stood out to me, but now . . .
Birdie isn’t looking at the cards being pulled; in fact, she isn’t saying much at all.
When I see who’s sitting across from her, it makes me pause.
Blond braided hair and dark-rimmed glasses—Andi.
I haven’t taken all that much time to get to know this semester’s assistants yet, but she’s been paying Birdie quite a few visits lately—her visit at the house during dinner seemed like that wasn’t the first time she’d met with my grandmother, and now, tonight.
Andi swats away at her cheek like she’s batting a tear, talking quickly and looking upset. Normally, it isn’t my business, but after knowing more, it feels like it is. Like she can feel curious eyes on her, Birdie glances up and stares right back at me.
“Ah, shit, there’s Cora looking a little more drunk than I expected,” Sheriff Fury says as he moves around us. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“When was the last time she did one of those for you?” Reed asks, but it’s Andi who’s walking past that steals my attention.
“Andi, are you alright?” I ask, stopping her in her tracks.
Her eyes are rimmed red as she offers a barely believable smile when she realizes who I am.
“Dr. Crowne. So sorry. I didn’t see you there.
” She clears her throat. “I’m just really stressed with my class load, and—” She waves it off, seemingly more jumpy than overwhelmed, but I know the requirements of the graduate program and what is expected of teaching assistants.
She keeps her focus on me until she pulls her phone from her back pocket.
“I have to run. So nice seeing you,” she says, all of a sudden seeming like she has to rush off.
“I’m going to grab something to eat. Want to get a plate?” Reed asks, seemingly just as eager to get away from me now too.
“Oh, no, thank you.” I have no plans to spend time with him. I’m here for someone else tonight. Someone I need to talk to, immediately. “I’m actually meeting someone. Thanks anyway, Reed,” I shout in his direction, and just as I do, I see Julian walking right toward me.
I can’t figure out how I should be feeling or which emotion is the right one for this situation.
One moment, I want to flirt and play, and the next, I’m trying to navigate authorities, and now, I’m anxious at the idea that someone I want to trust might have just spent hours building a case against the two women who raised me.
“Crowne,” Julian says as he reaches me, his deep voice like a caress.
I shake my head, ignoring how he affects me. “Don’t Crowne me. And definitely don’t look at me like that,” I say, trying to skirt around him. I need to move. If I don’t move, I’m going to pick the wrong fucking emotion, I know it.
“Okay got it.” He nods. “Do not Crowne you and don’t look at you,” he says with a lilt of humor in his voice. “I am going to follow you, though, because clearly I’ve done something you’re not thrilled about.”
“I’m not thrilled about a lot of things,” I mumble to myself as I weave through the mass of people. I keep having to stop and pivot around them.
“Wyn,” he calls out, louder than the music.
I stop and take a breath. Standing at the edge of the makeshift dance floor, just as another chord starts, I can feel Julian step up right behind me.
The smell of oak and mint lingers in the air with him so close.
His hand grips my shoulder, steadying me.
I see his brown leather cuff out of the corner of my eye for the briefest moment, and I find myself exhaling.
Hold it together. Moving from my shoulder, down my arm slowly, his hand reaches my wrist, and then he’s intertwining our fingers until our palms meet.
He holds my hand without saying anything more.
This simple touch, the warmth of his palm against mine, feels like my undoing. It softens me, almost too easily.
I’ll ask the question I need to ask, but with just this simple gesture, I already know the answer.
He steps closer, brushing against my back, and I instantly feel safe. The music lingers around us, along with people standing and watching others dance a few feet away.
Lowering his head next to mine, his mouth hovers next to my ear as he says, “Want to tell me what’s going on now?”
This is the part of him that I didn’t expect—the calm and patient.
On his exterior, he comes across as intense and confident, arrogant even, with the way you have to earn it to get him talking with you.
But when he starts talking, the charming parts of him bleed out, and having his full attention feels like an achievement.
But this, right here, with my hand held and a simple question asked, it’s like he knows I need this before anything else.
I take a step forward to turn and face him, which forces our hands apart. “I’d like to dance,” I say, lifting my chin.
He doesn’t answer, just holds my eye contact, knowing there’s more.
So I clear my throat. “On one condition,” I say, trying to steal my reserve.
At that, he smiles, looking down as he takes a step closer to me. “Okay, but only because I’d like to dance.”
I try to suppress my smile, so I glance to my left, making sure this interaction doesn’t have an audience. A few glances, but not enough to keep me from saying what I need to say. “You tell me what the hell you talked about with the sheriff for two hours after I left with my sister last night.”
“That’s her,” I hear someone loudly whisper, stealing my attention. “The one who apparently died?”
“Are you surprised? I mean, look at that family . . .” The insult drifts off, and what would have made me self-conscious in the past now has me ready to fight.
My posture changes, my back straightening and the muscles in my shoulders tensing.
Julian watches me, because I know he heard it too.
I shake my head, trying to laugh at how damn stereotypical this is right now. “If you ever forget where you are, the people around here will quickly remind you how this town earned its name,” I say, feeling angry and defeated by the callousness of their words.
“I didn’t hear anything worth remembering,” he says, refusing to look away from me. “And I know exactly where I am, and where I want to be.”
Another woman in the same small group asks, “But, who is that . . . with her?”
I know they’re talking about Julian.
Someone in the small huddle snorts a laugh. “A tad out of that league, if you ask me.”
But just as I turn to tell them where they can shove it, Julian wraps his hand around my hip and pulls me closer to him.
His other hand wraps along the back of my neck, his thumb grazing my jaw.
The move shakes me and has me forgetting all about them.
Everything tunes out—the snarky comments, the low hum of the crowd, the instruments gearing up for another song.