Safe with the Deputy

1. Cece

CECE

I’ve never liked driving, even in the best case scenario, but this is ridiculous.

The canyon road is seventeen miles of dark clouds looming over hairpin turns.

I’ve driven every single one of them on four hours of sleep and the last sugar-free vanilla latte that I bought with a gift card from my former mother-in-law.

At least Birdie is fast asleep in her car seat. She's been out since before the canyon entrance. I glance in the rearview mirror. Her dark curls are stuck to her forehead and one chubby arm hooks around Flower, her stuffed rabbit.

She looks peaceful. My little girl has no idea where we are or what I did to get us here. That's probably for the best. I blow out a deep breath and catch my own reflection. You're okay. You made it. A fresh start is exciting.

For a moment I almost believed it.

The road opens up and the town appears below me.

It’s not hard to see why my sister decided to stay.

The place is straight out of a storybook.

The whole thing is just a small cluster of lights at the bottom of a box canyon with granite walls rising so high on either side that the town looks cradled.

Steam curls up from somewhere between the buildings.

The mountains are black against a sky so full of stars it looks fake.

I want to push through to Evelyn's cabin. In fact, I probably should with the way the sky looks like it’s about to open. But now that I’ve made it my first stop has to be for diapers.

Birdie's been in the same one since the last rest stop four hours ago. She's going to wake up the second I carry her inside. I am not walking into my sister's kitchen unannounced with a toddler who needs changing and nothing clean to change her into.

The general store on Main Street has a neon OPEN sign flickering in the window. I pull into the gravel lot and park. For a second I just sit there with my hands at ten and two. The engine ticks in the cold. Main Street is quiet, but there’s a comfort in the silence.

A cruiser is parked two spaces down with its lights off. I clock it the way I clock everything, the full-body scan, the where-are-the-exits routine. My nervous system knows that it’s all on me now.

I check the mirror. Birdie hasn't moved so I try to pull off the impossible and keep her asleep as I ease her out of her car seat. In what can only be described as an act of God, it works.

The store smells like pine cleaner and Birdie doesn’t stir. She’s heavy headed in my arms as I make my way across the store. I get a few friendly nods and more eye contact than I’m used to from shoppers. A radio plays classic Britney in the background. I like that.

Birdie’s drooling down my shoulder when I find the baby aisle.

I grab the smallest pack of the right size because I am counting every dollar.

Then I grab the little pouch of crackers with the duck on the box too because they are Birdie's and because I need something she'll be happy about when she wakes up somewhere unfamiliar.

The man at the counter is older with a white beard and reading glasses halfway down his nose.

I adjust Birdie on my hip and she lets out an adorable snoring sound.

The cashier smiles at me then rings me up without making small talk, which I appreciate in a way I don't have the bandwidth to articulate right now.

"Twenty-three forty," he says.

“Thanks.” I slide my card.

It declines and my heart stops.

I hoped it wouldn't but deep down I knew there was a chance it would. These are the things that happen when you're living on one income. I slide it again, slower this time. Please. Please just go through.

Declined.

"Try it as credit," the man says, not unkindly.

My face burns and I feel myself flush with heat. “Right. Thanks.” I hit the button for credit.

Declined.

My throat tightens and goes dry. I reach for my wallet and start counting cash. I don’t know why I bother, I already know what's in there, fourteen dollars and some change. It’s not going to cover it. The whole store seems to quiet around me and my head spins.

"Oh, there must be an issue with the bank. I didn’t tell them I’d be out of state. They take fraud protection seriously which is such a good thing…" My heart flutters as I stand there at the counter with my hand on the back of Birdie’s head and my eyes on the duck-cracker pouch.

I’ve always felt the need to keep Birdie out of daycare but now I need money more. The thought is so loud I almost say it out loud.

For two years I have held that line. Birdie with me.

Birdie at home. Birdie not handed to strangers while her mother works to keep a roof over her head.

It was the one thing I refused to negotiate in the divorce, the one thing I clawed back from Greg's lawyer, the one thing I promised myself in the dark on the nights when I couldn't sleep. Not daycare. Not yet. She’s too small.

And now I'm standing in a general store at the bottom of a box canyon with fourteen dollars in cash and a declined credit card. My line is going to have to move because lines move when the ground shifts under them.

"Can I just take the diapers? Or do you know of any coupons?” My voice is steadier than I deserve and I force a bright smile. “You know what, I'll come back after I call my bank, I’m—"

"I’ve got it."

The voice behind me is low and unhurried. It’s close enough that I feel it in my back before I turn around and it seeps through me. I turn toward the sound and my breath catches in my chest.

The man is tall and broad-shouldered in a way that makes the fluorescent lights feel smaller. It’s like his presence is a physical fact the whole store has to account for. His deputy's badge catches the overhead light and his uniform is pressed with precision.

His face is quiet. Not blank. Quiet. There's a big difference. There’s a comfort in his stare that I can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it’s the combination of his dark eyes and a jaw that could cut glass that takes my breath away. But it feels like more than that.

“No, that’s not…” I stop myself when I realize that I have no room for ego right now. "I can't—"

"You can," he says. Quiet. Final. He steps around me and puts a twenty and a five on the counter like it's nothing. "You just did. Keep the change, Earl.”

“Appreciate you, Deputy."

Then he picks up the bag without missing a beat.

My bag. He heads toward the door with the diapers and the duck crackers.

I should say something. I should refuse.

I should do literally anything except stand here with my face doing something I can't control.

But in the end, I readjust Birdie on my hip and trail behind him.

“I appreciate this more than you know. I can take it from here.” I mutter the words and know they aren’t enough.

“You’ve got your hands full. I’m going to get you squared away. Third row back, right?”

“Yes.”

My eyes sting and I blink back the tears with everything in me as I point him toward my car.

I am not crying in a general store in a town I have been in for approximately eleven minutes in front of a deputy who just paid for my daughter's diapers.

I get the door open and slide Birdie into her car seat.

"Thank you." I turn to look up at him and then take the bag. Our fingers brush and my whole arm lights up from the electric charge. "I'm going to pay you back. I'm going to—"

"I didn't ask you to."

"I know you didn't. But I can, I will once I get settled here.” I tuck a rogue strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m not used to asking for help.”

The ghost of a smile plays on his lips. “I think I could have guessed that about you. Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad to hear you’re planning on settling here.” He holds my eyes and I feel it reverberate through every inch of my body. "I'm Ryan.”

"Cece."

“It’s nice to meet you Cece.” He looks at me for one more beat. Then he nods once, like something's been noted, and he steps back to let me pass. “You have a place in town?”

“Yes, I’m staying with my sister at her cabin.” She doesn’t know it yet of course, but I don’t mention that part. “It’s just up the road… I think.”

“Who is your sister?”

“Evelyn Porter she and her husband—”

“James? I know them well. Know the place too. Do you know where you’re going?”

I hold up my phone with a laugh. “Not yet, but Google Maps does.”

He laughs too and then shakes his head. “Adorable. But you aren’t making it there relying on that phone.

” He opens my driver's side door and waves a hand for me to step inside. “Come on. Follow me, before the sky lets go on us and your little one wakes up. You’ve got to respect the weather out here. I’ve got you. ”

I refuse, but the man is nothing if not decisive. Just like that the door is closed and I’m following Ryan’s cruiser up the winding canyon roads. My heart thuds in my chest and my hand feels shaky on the wheel.

I blow out a deep breath. I’ve got to calm down.

This isn’t a big deal. It’s me and my girl in our car together.

Doing things just the two of us is our new normal.

Only now I’ve got diapers, crackers that are going to make her smile, and a smoking hot deputy leading the way.

All the while, Birdie hasn’t even opened her eyes.

She has no way of knowing that everything has changed.