Page 70 of By the Book

She looks between me and him, her eyes widening. “This is because of Ivy.”

“Everything in my life is because of Ivy,” I say matter of factly. “And I like it that way. But he,” I motion to my friend who is now steps away, “does not.”

Wes reaches us, giving a curt nod to Millie. “Can you give us a minute?” he asks.

“I actually think I should stay, in case our sheriff gets assaulted again.” She sounds more like my partner again, compared to my deputy. We never left the other one hanging when responding to calls. I just never thought that it would be necessary with Wes.

He takes a seat across from me and shrugs. “Fine, stay. I’m just here to talk though.”

“Go ahead then,” I tell him, motioning for Millie to close the door.

“You are going to stay away from Ivy, starting today.”

A bitter laugh escapes me, I can’t believe it has come to this. Leaning forward, I clasp my hands together and rest my forearms on the stack of papers scattered across my desk. “You want me to stay away from her? What does that even mean?”

“It means you’re done screwing my sister. You’re not going to use her like you did Kelly.”

I fly out of my chair, the sound of it ricocheting off the wall behind me echoes through the room. “Fuck you.”

Kelly is the tourist from Boston that happened to come to town when I needed a distraction from my grief. The woman I decidedly did not treat in a way that would make Pops proud. I felt like the worst guy after that, and apologized profusely when I came out of my fog of heavy, fresh grief. To be fair, she didn’t seem to mind and said she didn’t need to leave Boston to find a hookup, but that she didn’t want to be the one to say it.

Wes was going for a kill shot with that one. He knows that I feel bad about how I handled it all. He knows I wouldneverthink of Ivy in that way. Even if he wasn’t there to see what I was going through, he knew what losing my grandfather was doing to me.

“I would never use Ivy. I love her more than anything in this world. So no, I won’t be staying away from her, and hopefully you can get over that. Because I feel wicked bad about this. And so does Ivy. We care about you, and you come in here with shit like that?”

“You feel bad, but you jump into bed with her before you tell me? If you’ve loved her for all these years like you claim, you don’t think you could have slipped that into a conversation before screwing her?”

“I am sorry about that.” He’s got me there. I sink back into my chair, my eyes flitting to Millie watching in awe from the corner of the room. Outbursts aren’t like me, of course she’s surprised. I shake my head and sigh. “It doesn’t matter though.I literally can’t stay away from her. I’m the sheriff and she’s the target of ongoing aggression in my investigation.”

“Yeah, seems like your professional boundaries are being crossed there then. So put Millie with her and focus on doing your damn job.” Wes stands, apparently deciding this discussion is over.

I watch him storm out of my office and through the lobby before I throw my head back and stare at the ceiling. Maybe I am distracted by how I feel about Ivy, and clearly the vandal is counting on that. His notes taunting her about her boyfriend prove as much. It’s time I try to be truly objective.

“Have time to go over everything with fresh eyes?” I ask, looking up at Millie. She purses her lips, clearly holding back an opinion. But she nods in agreement instead of voicing it. “Alright, then.” I wait for her to take a seat before continuing.

“We need to start with the idea that this is focused on hurting me. And it started when I won the sheriff position. There were four of us that ran for it. I can’t believe this, but I think we start there.”

“Any chance it can still be Jackson or Reid?” she asks hopefully.

“Reid hasn’t come back to town. So, there’s something going on there, but I don’t think it is related. Jackson has a witness placing him on his boat in the harbor two days after the break-in. He still had his keys.”

Millie drags her hand down her face and groans. “Which means, if you hadn’t taken Winston’s recommendation to run, the person doing this could be sitting in that sheriff’s seat right now. That is terrifying that we could be reporting to someone so awful.”

“Well don’t feel too comfortable yet, my recall has begun.”

“I would have never imagined. I mean we have some characters around here—but this is a tight knit community, a community that loves you!”

Shrugging, I turn to my computer and pull up the profiles of my previous competitors. “People do surprising things when they’re scared.”

“Then let’s get the bastard and make sure they all feel safe again.” She sits forward and looks at the screen with me. There were four of us that ran for county sheriff.

Two of my fellow candidates have harbor keys.

One of them was at the Taylor’s roast.

But there’s no way.

Chapter 28

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