Page 16 of Mountain Freedom
I sighed. “Honestly? I don’t know.”
“Can we try? Allison, I could really use a friend right now.”
I closed my eyes, unable to block out the pleading in his voice. “We can try,” I finally said.
“So, uh. Tell me about your new job.” It was clear this was as awkward for him as it was for me.
For a brief moment, I considered ending the conversation, preferring to go back to the one I was having before Mike had interrupted. My eyes automatically sought out Jackson, but he was at a new table, having an animated—and hilarious, by the looks of it—conversation with a gorgeous redheaded woman who appeared to know him quite well.
Other than Jackson, who was obviously occupied, I didn’t have a single friend in town, and the only thing waiting for me was an empty house. So I tried to shake off the past and take all the emotion out of the conversation.
But I couldn’t. “I’m sorry, Mike,” I said. “But I need to go.”
When I left O’Malley’s,the late summer sun had already slipped behind the mountains, letting darkness wash over the woods. I shuddered involuntarily as I pulled my car up to the lonely farmhouse. “This is Rosemary Mountain,” I reminded myself aloud, forcing my voice to be steadier than I felt inside. “It’s perfectly safe. Much safer than Memphis. You just need to get used to it again.”
Still, I put my pepper spray in one hand and my keys in the other before getting out of the car.
“Doesn’t anyone here believe in garages?” I muttered to myself. This house was from the days when Rosemary Mountainwas still a tiny mountain town with homes built by people who didn’t have many resources. A carport was a luxury back then. This house didn’t even have that.
Pulling into a garage and closing it behind me would have felt so much safer than walking exposed to the front porch. If I decided to make this move permanent, a garage would be at the top of my wish list.
As I stepped out and closed my car door, something swooped down above my head, making a screeching noise. I shrieked, unable to help myself, and took off running to the relative safety of the porch before it registered that I was running from a bat. I shook my head, feeling my heart pound in my chest.
“It’s just a bat,” I said aloud, attempting to reassure myself. But my voice seemed so small here, surrounded by the vast forest. My hands shook as I put the key in the front door and turned it, practically falling in as soon as it opened. I closed the door behind me and locked the deadbolt before flicking on the lights and letting out a sigh.
I was home—in more ways than one. And I wasn’t going to let a creepy house, angry patients,ora rude receptionist send me running back to Memphis.
Chapter Six
Jackson
I atea quick dinner at the pub, shoveling down bites of food in between quick exchanges with the host of people who stopped by my table to chat. Despite being alone, I was never lonely in Rosemary Mountain. Everyone knew everyone else in this small town, and most people here had an appreciation for their law enforcement.
A few years back, I had returned to town as a stranger, hiding my past association behind my new name. I knew people were unlikely to recognize a kid who had been a nobody here years before. But when events forced me to tell the truth of who I was, the townsfolk had still accepted me—in fact, to my surprise, they had embraced me even more warmly. I was a local, one of them. I belonged. They called me a hero for changing my life and walking a different path than my father.
The same should be true for Allison, and I hated that it wasn’t. It bothered me that her first shift had been so rough. Bothered me even more that I couldn’t fix it all for her.
I made up my mind to take a closer look into what had happened when her family left town. Information was power, and maybe if I at least understood what some people held against her, I could do something about it.
With that in mind, I went to pay my tab only to find it had already been taken care of.
I whistledas I walked to my truck, my thoughts drifting back to those childhood memories of Allison. I was so distracted I almost didn’t notice the footsteps trailing behind me in the shadows.
Almost.
“What do you want, Russell?” My hand automatically went to my service pistol as I spun around to face him.
Russell moved into the light, grinning as he dropped his cigarette onto the ground and stamped it out with his boot. “Been a long time, young Jackson. Is that any way to greet your pa?”
“You’re no pa to me,” I replied, crossing my arms. When Russell came around, it was always the same song and dance.
He shook his finger. “Your blood says different. Don’t matter how long you try to deny it. That’s Sharp blood running through your veins, and it’ll get you in the end.” His grin turned sly. “Oh, what a story that will be, won’t it? When the town hero finally falls. Good cop gone bad. You’ll see, boy. Blood don’t lie.”
I kept my face straight, even though the words cut me like a knife. They always did. I suspected that’s why he repeated them to me so many times. He knew the quickest way to hurt me was to remind me that I came from him.
“What do you want?” I repeated.
“Money,” he spat out, glaring at me. He hated asking me for money. Hated that I had worked diligently to cut off as manyof his illegal activities as I could. It hadn’t been easy. He was as slippery as an eel and conniving enough to keep himself out of any serious trouble these days. But the people he worked for weren’t always as smart, and I had managed to take down some of his biggest “patrons,” seriously cutting into his ability to earn income by doing their dirty work.
