But Julie was following Nate out.
“Well, I guess this forum is over.” Mayor Larry sounded relieved as he closed out the meeting. “We’ll gather again tomorrow to see how each candidate conducts a traffic stop, and then the day after for the shoot off at the winery. We’ll watch from the road just as we did when the barn was brought down. Bring your binoculars.”
Nate held the door for Julie. “We’re not shooting.”
“You’re afraid she’ll win,” Leona said, sitting in the back pew, fingering the pearls at her neck. “Strong women often scare men away.”
Julie slipped out and Nate turned his back on Leona to do the same.
He wasn’t afraid of losing. He was afraid Julie wasn’t ready to shoot again—not physically, not emotionally.
And not against him.
* * *
JULIE WASN’T A QUITTER.
Julie wanted to quit.
The debate had been a disaster. She was lucky they hadn’t asked her any hard questions, because she hadn’t considered what it took to be a good sheriff. Not that anyone in Harmony Valley besides Doris wanted her to be sheriff. Terrance was right. No one knew her well enough. She’d stepped into this mess in a moment of weakness and now she was stuck. Because Julie wasn’t a quitter.
She lay in Nate’s bed watching the moon rise through the window and rubbing her thumb over the worry stone. As soon as Nate returned, she’d move to the recliner to sleep. Duke had passed out long ago on the bed. Since they’d come to Harmony Valley, he was sleeping better, perhaps because he wasn’t getting any naps, perhaps because they were always on the go.
She heard Nate come in from his evening rounds. She could tell it was him from the slow, steady pace of his steps.
From the moment he’d learned she was running for sheriff, he hadn’t treated her any differently. Julie couldn’t say she would’ve done the same. She’d have been defending her turf vehemently. He was steady, like the old oak tree in the town square. She’d been wound up tight, but just hearing Nate come in relaxed her. She should move to the recliner. And she would. In a minute.
Her eyes closed.
Something heavy dropped over her legs. Chained! She was chained.
Julie bolted upright, prepared to fight. Her heart pounded. Her stitches throbbed.
Without waking up, Duke had rolled on her legs.
Julie froze. She could have kicked him. She could have swung a fist. She could have hurt April’s precious little boy. Her pulse raced, but couldn’t outrace fear.
Nate. She needed Nate.
She eased her feet free and padded to the open door leading to the stairs, taking the steps slowly and on tiptoe. She’d just look to see if Nate was still awake. If he wasn’t, she’d return to the apartment and try to sleep in the recliner.
“You don’t have to sneak down,” Nate said softly. “I’m up.”
The blinds on the plate glass window were down, but open, illuminating the room with light from the street.
“Bad dream?” Nate’s voice echoed from the jail cell. It was magnetic, that voice.
She drifted to the cell door, anchoring herself by gripping a cool bar lest she drift into his arms.
When she didn’t say anything, Nate sat up. “Are you okay?”
In the golden light, there were no hard angles to his face, no tight half smile, no distance in his eyes.
“People don’t like you,” she blurted when what she really wanted to say was, “Hold me.”
“Are you including yourself in that statement?” he asked in a guarded tone.
She didn’t think she was. The light from the window wasn’t illuminating enough. She couldn’t see his face. She leaned forward, still holding the bar.
“Was that what kept you awake?” His words navigated the chasm between them carefully. “Thinking about my dislike rating?”
“People in town who don’t even know me claim to like me.” She wasn’t used to being a pawn. She didn’t like it, but it was all her fault.
“And that’s what’s keeping you awake.”
Since he hadn’t phrased his response as a query, she didn’t answer him with a correction.
“When I was a kid...before I turned eight...I saw the world differently.” Nate leaned back against the wall. “I trusted everyone. I believed what they told me about Santa Claus.”
Duke had noticed Santa painted on an empty storefront across the street. The jolly old man was cracked and faded, but his smile still had the power to charm a toddler.
Julie gripped the cool metal tighter, because she suspected Nate’s experience with Santa wasn’t as golden as hers had been or even the one she hoped to provide to Duke.
“My faith in Mr. Claus was one-dimensional, because that’s all you can handle as a kid. He was a magical fat man bringing me toys. At least sometimes.” Nate tilted his head toward the ceiling. “Then I learned that Santa wasn’t real, that it was my mom. And I felt betrayed. Lied to. At least until I was mature enough to realize she’d done it out of love.”
That hadn’t been a devastating revelation. Julie breathed easier.
“The sheriff’s race isn’t keeping you up,” Nate said softly. “You’re still feeling betrayed by the law enforcement system and feeling guilty for pulling the trigger. Would you have felt the same if the shooter was at a school, aiming at kids?”
Her breath caught. “No... Yes... I don’t know.” She didn’t want to have this conversation. And yet, she was afraid she’d be avoiding the topic until the day she died if she didn’t bring it out in the open now.
“Since the day I met you, you’ve been trying to prove you can fit in as a cop.” Nate angled his head her way. How she wished she could see every nuance in his expression. “You did what you were trained to do—protect others. You don’t have to prove anything.”
She knew he was right. She knew she’d crossed a bridge the night she had ended a life. She just hadn’t known how costly the toll would be. “The drive to be a cop is gone.” Her legs gave out and she sank to the cold floor. She hadn’t realized that either. “I can’t go back.” Not to SWAT. Not to the police force. Not even to being sheriff of Harmony Valley. “I can’t be a cop anymore, my dad would be crushed.”
Nate was next to her before she drew her next breath, gathering her in his arms. “You’re wrong. He’d be proud of you no matter what career you chose.”
“Would he?” She’d wondered about that, too. “I killed a woman. A mother. Someone’s daughter.” A defeated sound escaped her throat. “She was carrying a gun and...her baby and...wearing a heart pendant, like the one I got April for Mother’s Day.”
His arms were strong and steadfast around her. He wasn’t letting her go.
She didn’t want him to.
“Jules, could you have lived with yourself any easier if you hadn’t pulled the trigger? If she had killed those innocent kids? Or if someone in your unit had died because you’d drawn a picture in your head of what bad looks like and she hadn’t fit?”
“No.” She’d have felt worse.
“Then you have to let that dark cloud over your head go.” His hold on her lessened, only for a moment, so briefly she almost imagined it. “In the cold light of day, you’ll eventually figure out if you want to stay a cop or not. Or stay in Harmony Valley or not.”
He was right about all this, too. She took a few deep breaths, but she still held on to him. She held on and she began to wish she didn’t have to ask him a question for the Daddy Test tomorrow.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“HEY. WHY DO I feel like you never sleep?” Julie’s voice. The sound of her shifting beneath the covers. The scent of flowery perfume in the air.
This was the second night Julie had slept in Nate’s bed. He wondered what it was like in hell tod
ay, since it must have frozen over.
Last night, Julie hadn’t wanted to sleep alone. He’d dozed in a sitting position on top of the covers once more, her head resting on a pillow in his lap, his hand stroking her back.
“Juju wake.” Duke sat on the kitchen counter, eating a sausage link and watching Nate cook breakfast.
“And when I say you never sleep, I mean the both of you.” There was no mistaking the teasing in her voice. He’d missed that and the way the humor spread to her eyes and her lips.
Don’t look.
If Nate looked, he’d see Julie’s sleep-laden eyes and her broad smile. Maybe he’d close the distance between them. Maybe he’d kiss her and never let her go.
Don’t look.
He had to let her go, just as he had to let Duke go. And yet...
Don’t look.
If hell had frozen over, what harm was there in looking? Nate glanced over his shoulder. Julie yawned and ran a hand through golden locks. And then she smiled. At him.
His emotions were as scrambled as the eggs in his frying pan. He knew she could never see him as more than a friend, nor should she. Julie deserved the best life had to offer. She deserved to be whole and to be able to sleep without someone watching over her. She deserved a job that was challenging and satisfying.
He turned his back on her. “Do you want coffee before or after your shower?” Before or after she interrogated him with the Daddy Test. That test. It dredged up painful memories.
“Before and after.” She breezed past him toward the bathroom, stopping only to pour herself a cup of coffee.
A few minutes later, Duke rested his head on the arm of the recliner and watched cartoons standing up. Julie and Nate sat at the table. She consumed more coffee than she ate eggs. She was going to the bakery later. He was sure of it.
“How are you feeling today?” He had to make small talk. Otherwise, the waiting for her to bring out April’s notebook would kill him.
“I’m feeling more like me.” She set down her coffee cup and poked at her eggs with a fork as if he’d served her fried calamari. She hated seafood.
“Eat your eggs,” Nate said gruffly. “You’ll live longer.”
She set the fork down, clasped her hands and tucked them under her chin. “I don’t want to ask you any more of April’s questions.”
Relief allowed him to breathe easier. But he had to know. Had he failed already? “Why not?”
The sun coming through the window glinted off her golden hair. “What is it going to change?”
She pitied him. He’d barely told her anything and she pitied him. Anger, sharp and reckless, raked his insides. “I don’t need you to ask any more questions.” He knew he wasn’t fit to be Duke’s father. He leaned forward, hands braced on either side of his paper plate. “I can tell you what you need to know.”
Her lips parted, but she didn’t say anything.
“In the army, they told me I had nerves of steel on the shooting range.” Something happened to him when he trained his gun sight on a target. He should have been nervous. He should have had shaky hands or sweaty palms. He should have had to fight to steady his breathing. “They put me through an extra round of psych eval. They thought I didn’t feel emotion.” Nate didn’t look at shooting emotionally.
Duke climbed into the recliner and sighed. The sun was rising, slanting rays from Julie’s bright hair onto her untouched eggs. Normal. It was all so normal.
Just not his normal.
Should he tell her who he really was inside? Could he?
Nate started talking before he made up his mind. “After my dad went to prison, we moved to my uncle’s dairy farm in the central valley.” They’d lived in a tiny home between the main house and the milk barn. “Uncle Paul was convinced once Dad got out he’d come to find us. He said I had to be the man of the house and be prepared to defend my mother and sister. On Sundays, after we milked the cows and went to church, we’d head to a gully near the marshes at the rear of the property. He taught me how to shoot.” And how to shoot when all hell broke loose. Shouting, setting off air horns, clanking an old cowbell until nothing unsettled Nate’s aim.
“I’m worried for you, as a child,” Julie said in a voice that wrapped around Nate’s heart and gently squeezed. “Don’t stop talking.”
Nate almost smiled. “I could stop.” He held out his arms. “You can see how the story ends. I survived.”
Julie frowned. “But I can’t see here.” She reached across the table and tapped his chest, over his heart.
“Oh.” That was as much intelligence as he could muster. Her touch, her empathy. Uncle Paul hadn’t prepared him for that.
She drew back. “I want to know what’s in your heart. What makes you...you.” Those soft gray eyes. They didn’t round with pity.
Nate was afraid to name the emotion there, afraid he’d misread her interest and try to steal a base and...
Get a grip, Landry.
All he had to do to push her away, to ensure she never looked at him like that again or asked him to hold her through the night, was to tell her the truth.
He cleared his throat. “A couple of years later, I got off the middle school bus and there was my dad, sitting on the front steps of our house having a smoke. I was the first one home.”
His mother had been at work, waitressing at the coffee shop by the highway. When Mom came home, the first thing she did was check all the hiding places in the house. Molly’s elementary school bus wasn’t due for another half hour. She still had nightmares and often slept on the floor of Nate’s room. Uncle Paul was getting his trailer fixed in town. He was a retired cop who had no qualms about taking on his former brother-in-law. They’d all been gone. Nate had to face his father alone.
Julie’s gray gaze was riveted on Nate’s face. He wet his lips, but didn’t speak.
Dad had flung his cigarette into the hedge and stood. The years in prison hadn’t taken the edge off the blades of his father’s cheekbones or the sharpness to his black eyes.
Nate had been scared. He’d wanted to run. But he’d also been angry, too. And he didn’t want to let his family down.
“I can see you don’t want me here,” Dad had said, his voice as sharp as the rest of him.
Nate blinked back to the present, to gray eyes that waited for his story to continue. “Dad made me an offer. A shoot off. If I won, he’d leave and never come back.”
“Was he a good shot?” Julie’s question barely registered above the whisper scale.
The sound of a bullet whizzing by Nate’s head on his eighth birthday returned. “He could be.”
“You were what? Twelve? Thirteen?”
“I was a mature twelve.”
There was a flicker of respect in her eyes.
He sat taller in his seat. “I got out my rifle.” The one he’d been given when he was eight. “I led him to the dairy’s shooting range with shells and a paper target in my hoodie pocket. It was the longest five minutes of my life.”
Uncle Paul had tried to prepare him. He’d paid for self-defense classes. He’d shouted what-if scenarios and obscenities at him until Nate’s ears buzzed and he learned not to rise to the bait.
Nate had been silent too long.
Julie touched his hand. “Did he say anything to you?”
“He didn’t stop talking. I suppose he wanted to get into my head.” He had, but not in the way he’d intended. Nate could still hear his father’s voice, loaded with derision and fired with a scattershot approach, looking for any sign of weakness. But every word had an underlying note of uncertainty.
“Your mother’s going to be happy to see me.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you a son can’t beat his father?
“Somebody’s been telling you you’re somebody, I see.”
/> “Finally, we reached the gully and I tacked up the target.” He’d stepped aside so his father could get a look at it. “Uncle Paul had printed up photos of Dad with target circles around his face.” The bullseye was centered between the eyes.
“I see the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Dad had said, eyes narrowed. “I bet you’ve got no friends. I bet the girls think you’re creepy. I saw you get off the bus. No one said a word to you.”
Having walked to the top of the bank during his father’s tirade, Nate knew he had more at stake than bragging rights or scoring points in a video game. No wonder he felt like such an outsider with other kids.
He found his balance. He found his center.
“You need to teach those kids to respect you,” Dad had said. “Just like I’m gonna teach your mama to respect me.”
The ground beneath Nate was soft. The sun glinted off the stagnant water at the bottom of the gully and into his eyes. The wind pushed at his shoulders. Nate didn’t care. He lifted his rifle. He breathed. He adjusted. He drew a bead on the dot between his father’s eyes and fired.
Bull’s-eye.
“Dang, you must really hate me.” Dad had laughed. Laughed!
All of Nate’s anger. All of Nate’s bitterness. All of Nate’s fear. All those gut-churning nights when he’d relived the helpless moments his father had caused.
Nate spun and took aim at a live target. Right between the eyes. “I could plant this bullet in your head. I could roll your body to the bottom of this gully and bury you. No one would come looking.” Mom and Molly would be safe.
His father had raised his hands to his hips. He’d leaned forward. It was then Nate had noticed his knuckles were swollen and bruised. He’d been in a fight. Or he’d stopped by the diner and found his Mom.
Nate’s heart lodged in his throat, but he didn’t waver. He held the rifle steady.
“You’d kill me?”
“Yes, sir.” And in that moment, Nate knew it was true. He’d kill to make sure the ones he loved were safe.
Dad had rocked back on his heels, something akin to appreciation in his eyes. “I came here to get my revenge, one way or another. But it seems like I’ve been collecting the Big R the whole time I was in prison.”
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