Chapter 2
chapter
two
Hope
His taillights are barely off the end of my drive before my knees give out and deposit me on the porch step.
I sit there in the dark and replay it. All of it.
The ladder. The twirl—God, the twirl, I did a little twirl, see, Sheriff, I’m all good.
He’d stood there just staring at me with his assessing green eyes.
Those eyes have seen things; that much is clear.
And there I was twirling and acting like a fool.
Then I go inside for water, and I catch myself in the mirror over the sink.
There is a stripe of cadmium blue up one cheekbone. A bold one. Confident. The kind of mark you’d make on purpose if you were trying to communicate war to a rival tribe.
It was there the whole time. It was there for the ladder and the twirl and the perimeter walk and the snickerdoodle rejection.
I met the new sheriff of Bluebonnet County looking like a Smurf who lost a bar fight.
And I’d had no idea. He’s probably laughing about it now.
How I’d stood there and offered him cookies while looking like an utter mess.
I want to lie down in the yard and let the watch call somebody about it.
I look down at the watch still sitting on my wrist, with its cheerful yellow band. “Traitor,” I mutter. I have the sudden, powerful urge to drop it in the toilet.
I don't. Partly because it cost more than I like to think about, even secondhand.
Mostly because the whole reason I have the stupid thing is that a doctor with kind eyes and a clipboard told me to wear it.
Let's just keep an eye on that heart rate, Miss Bailey.
Nothing to worry about. Only to be safe.
Here's the thing about me that nobody knows about me… Okay, my foster sisters Cora and Jules know, but no one else. I have spent my entire adult life making very sure I never have to rely on someone else for anything. It’s fine if I want to ask for help, but for the most part I approach life with the confidence of a three-year-old: I can do it myself.
I do my own oil changes. I killed the wasp nest over the porch myself, with only a broom and a murderous attitude. I bought this old, neglected house alone and I am fixing it alone, one crooked shelf at a time. That is the entire hard-won point of me; I don't need anyone to save me.
And now I've got a gadget strapped to my wrist. A gadget that managed to call the most competent man I've ever laid eyes on. Nothing says thriving, self-sufficient woman quite like flinking your arms out and twirling.
So yeah, I’m pretty mortified by today’s events. So I do the only thing that has ever reliably helped: hand the humiliation to the two people morally obligated to love me through it: Cora and Jules.
Me: So… update. I summoned law enforcement with my body today.
Me: Nobody died. Well, except me. But that was only death by shame.
Me: I died in the yard. It was over quick.
Cora: What is happening? Are you okay?
Me: Remember the watch you made me buy?
Cora: I made you buy it so you wouldn’t become a headline. Your house is a walking death trap.
Cora: But please explain. Pregnancy brain is limiting my cognitive powers over here.
Me: Basically, my watch thinks I fell off a ladder. So it alerted authorities.
Me: Called the new sheriff. Directly. Not even through dispatch. I still don’t know how that happened.
Me: Said new sheriff drove all the way out to the edge of the county because my wrist reported that I fell off a two-step ladder like a Victorian child fainting onto a settee.
Jules:
Jules:
Jules: This would only happen to you. OMG Hope, are you okay?
Me: Terminally embarrassed, but otherwise right as rain.
Cora: Oh, Hope. Was he at least nice about it?
Jules: Forget nice. I wanna know if he’s hot?
Me: How is that relevant?
Jules: Because hotness is always relevant, but especially in these types of situations. Was. He. Hot?
Me: No comment.
Jules: HOPE.
Cora: Pretty sure that means he was seriously hot.
Me: He was fine.
Jules: Fine like meh, he was fine, or fine like you know the precise shade of his eyes and whether or not he looked like a good kisser.
Cora: We need to get you laid, Jules.
Jules: This isn’t about me. This is about Hope and her crazy-hot sheriff; she has a speed dial. Besides, who said I’m not already getting laid?
Me: We’re going to circle back around to that, Jules.
Me: Do you think you can actually expire from extreme embarrassment?
Jules: Answer my question, Hope. You know I’m not going to let it go.
Me: Ugh! He was enormous.
Me: Like so big, his shoulders probably hold up bridges as a side gig. And his jawline. Pretty sure I could use his jawline as a sawhorse.
Cora: Uh-oh.
Me: Don’t even get me started on his voice. Deep and rumbly. And annoyed. So very annoyed. As every word he said was being deducted from a fixed lifetime supply and I was wasting them
Jules: She’s done. Look at her. She’s writing fanfiction about a public servant.
Cora: Wait. I thought Madison Crawford’s husband was the sheriff.
Me: That’s the thing. This is the new sheriff. Meadows. Sheriff Burton retired; this guy got elected last month.
Cora: Ohhh. That’s right. I remember Oliver and his brothers discussing him. Said he was originally from here. Bit of a grouch, Henry said.
Me: Understatement.
Jules: A hot grouch with a rumbly voice. I fail to see the problem here.
Me: He WALKED MY PERIMETER. Like this was an active crime scene.
Me: I offered the man lemonade and snickerdoodles and he looked at me like I was attempting to bribe a federal witness.
Jules: Okay so here’s what you do. Trigger the watch again.
Me: Absolutely not.
Jules: fall down. tastefully. artfully. it’s basically theater.
Me: I am NOT committing wellness-check fraud to lure a man to my house.
Jules: Why not? It’s efficient. He already knows how to get out to your house.
Cora: Don’t encourage her.
Cora: Did he take a cookie though?
Me: No.
Me: He wanted to, though.
Me: That’s the part I can’t stop thinking about. He clearly wanted one, and he said no anyway and got in his big sad truck and drove off into the dark.
Me: Who says no to a snickerdoodle?
Jules: Snort. A man with self-control. *Shudder.
Cora: Hope. sweetie. You’ve lived here six weeks, and you’ve already got a crush on the sheriff.
Me: I do NOT have a crush.
Me: I have a mild architectural appreciation for a very large man. Vastly different.
Jules: Name one way they’re different.
Me: Goodnight.
Jules: You can’t.
Me: GOODNIGHT.
The kitchen still smells like cinnamon. Four dozen snickerdoodles, cooling in neat rows, going stale for no one.
I eat one standing at the counter, out of spite, and it’s still warm in the middle, and it’s perfect, and I think—just once, just to myself, where not even Jules can get to it—
Sheriff Meadows really missed out on eating one of my cookies.