“I don’t remember her. I guess she’s not local,” I said, feeling him out for information while I dug into my omelet.
“Not local. You were still in town when they arrived though,” he said, pointing at me with his fork, the sausage link bobbing on the end of it. “You might remember. Her mama was Daisy Flynn.”
“She had some sort of medical emergency, right? They didn’t get to her in time.”
“Something like that,” he said, lowering his voice, his eyes on the counter. “They found her slumped by the doors of the health center. Figured she must have been waiting for them to open, but it was too late. Diabetic coma. She died three days later.”
It happened on my first day back in town after my team won their first semi-final in Portland. But I still had two days off before I went back to work. By the time I’d clocked back in, the situation had been handled.
“Where’s her father?”
“Never could find him. Maisy doesn’t even know his name, so that didn’t help.”
“Other family?” I took a bite of the thick toast slathered with butter. Shit, I missed the food here. Not that Boston didn’t have good food, but good food meant crowds.
“None that we could find. They only landed here because this is where Daisy’s car broke down. She got a job over at the Beacon Motel and they gave her and Maisy a room to live in as part of her pay.”
Just a kid sleeping in a hole in the wall motel while her mom slipped away. Her mother probably hadn't woken her up to tell her she was running out.
The toast lost its appeal and I tossed it on my plate. “Where did she go after?”
“Where they all go at that age. Bay Wilderness.”
My jaw clenched so hard my temples throbbed with it. “But that’s for troubled youth.”
“She was fourteen and all of our foster homes were full. At least the ones in town, and she didn’t want to leave.”
“So, she chose it?” I told myself I was only seeking information, but with every new detail, my blood pumped harder and faster. I couldn’t afford to care, but I couldn’t stop myself from wanting—needing—to know more.
“In a way, yes. I would say it worked out. Who knows, might just be where she got her talents for herding stubborn old fisherman. Thanks to her keeping them in line, for the first time in ten years, Milton let that restraining order on Gerald lapse.”
“Her doing, huh?”
“Maisy’s blunt with them, but affectionate. They know if they don’t let the old shit go, they’ll lose her and she’s the bright spot in their day.”
“I haven’t seen that side of her yet.” But I saw something. Something I didn’t want to examine too closely.
She’d definitely decided where I belonged, and she was right.
Even as my mind knew keeping my distance was best, something in me just wanted to poke at her. Activate that temper.
Go head-to-head and see who came out on top.
“I don’t suppose you’ll be in town long enough to see it. She doesn’t trust easily, and we can’t seem to get you to stick around,” the sheriff said, his hard eyes settling on me.
I leaned back in my chair and turned my focus to the sunlight bathing the ripples of saltwater jumping on the surface of the ocean in a golden glow. “It’s better for everyone if I’m gone.”
The sheriff heaved a heavy sigh. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“That’s what everyone keeps saying.”
“When are you going to believe it?” the sheriff demanded with a hard rap of his knuckles rattling the table between them. The utensils on the sheriff’s now mostly empty plate rattled with the force.
Undaunted by the heat in his words, I looked him dead in the eye. “I’m not.”
“That sense of responsibility you’ve got is going to be the death of you.”
“Better than lack of responsibility being the death of others.”
Heat crept up my neck and my skin burned under the sheriff’s stare. The one man who knew all of it. The past and the present. The bad, and the downright disastrous.
Because there sure as hell wasn’t any good.
Sheriff Chase whistled low and leaned back in his chair. “You, son, are dancing with some old ghosts. You’ve gone back in time, clean past the accident and straight on back to your brother, haven’t you?”
Ah, there was the sore spot, always festering. Always making me wonder what the outcome would have been if I’d done something different.
If I’d been different.
“Wouldn’t you?”
“You were a kid, and your dad was a coward.”
“So was I, but I moved on. Made a life here just like you all said I should. Just like you all convinced me I deserved,” I hurled the words at him, resentment wrapped around my heart for the way I let them all convince me I deserved more. Could be more.
I wouldn’t fall for it today.
Not ever again.
The sheriff shot daggers at me with his narrowed eyes, but he couldn’t scare me. I’d seen far worse than him.
“I had the start of a solid career I could be proud of on a small-town police force. I got involved with my community, with my heritage, and you know how that all turned out.”
The sheriff scraped his hand along his chin. “We have an opening coming up this spring. I was kind of hoping with Lilith having a baby I could convince you to take it, but you’re too far gone, aren’t you?”
“It’s better for the town, better for my family and my nephew if I go.”
“Nothing heals if you keep running from it, son. You’ve got to face the ugly shit. Have hard conversations. When Sanders called me, told me he was sending a boy and his baby sister our way, sending them home where they belonged,
