Page 7 of Chasing Shelter

Depends, are you going to follow me on my home visits AGAIN?

Kye

If you go after dark to bad neighborhoods, I sure as shit am.

My back teeth ground together. Fallon was determined to stand on her own, sometimes to her detriment. It drove Kye and me crazy, but him especially. The two shared a bond that went beyond words. When Kye came to live with us at sixteen, raging at the world and the horrific situation he’d come from, she’d been the only one who could reach him.

Fallon

Then prepare for my can of whoop-ass.

She dropped a glitter explosion emoji in the chat, and I knew Kye would be paying for his latest protective stunt.

Me

If you jerks aren’t going to help me, I’m going to work.

Shep

Watch out, he said the J-word. Might as well be an F-bomb. We’re all in for it.

Me

I hate you all.

I switched the chat to silent, noting that I hadn’t heard from our siblings Arden and Cope this morning. Cope was up in Seattle, back to hockey training, his fiancée, Sutton, and her son, Luca, making the trip with him. And Arden was likely holed up with her fiancé, Linc, or lost in a painting or sculpture. But I still typed out quick texts to make sure all was good.

Making sure all was good with my siblings on a daily basis was a compulsion, and I knew it. But most of us had come from rough circumstances, making our way into the system through loss, neglect, or abuse. Even Nora Colson’s two birth children, Cope and Fallon, hadbeen through their share of heartache, losing their father and brother in a car accident at a young age.

It was a reminder that none of us made it out of this life unscathed. And recent events only made that more evident. The thought had twitchiness surging back to life. The urge to call the school just to check on Keely was strong, but I fought it back and climbed out of my SUV.

Striding toward the station’s front door, I appreciated the slight chill in the air. After a summer of record temps, everyone was ready for fall. As I stepped inside, a man in his mid-twenties looked up from behind the desk with a grin. “Morning, Sheriff.”

“Morning, Fletcher,” I greeted. “Anything on fire today?”

“Just the mountain of paperwork from your arrest last night. Nice tackle, by the way.”

I cracked my neck, trying to relieve some of the leftover pain from the move. “I’m getting too old for this stuff.”

Fletcher shook his head, making his light brown hair flop over his eyes. He looked like a quintessential college quarterback without a care in the world. “Never.”

I scoffed. “I’m thirty-six, not twenty-six. Practically geriatric for law enforcement.”

“Whatever you say, Sheriff.”

I waved him off. “I’m gonna go fill out that paperwork and probably ice my back.”

I headed through the bullpen, the familiar din of various voices filling my ears. Some stopped conversing to say hello, others just gave me a chin lift. Will Wright pretended he didn’t see me at all, as if that were some sort of power play. The deputy was power-hungry, and that sort of thing made an officer dangerous. But so far, he hadn’t done anything I could fire him for.

“Hey, Sheriff,” Beth Hansen greeted as she balanced an egg sandwich in one hand and a phone in the other.

“Morning, Beth.”

“Left a sandwich on your desk.”

“Thanks,” I muttered. I’d managed Keely’s breakfast this morning but not my own.

“Kiss ass,” Will muttered.

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