Page 38 of Surly Sheriff
His answer followed her up. “Wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
She looked at the clear blue sky, desperate to let go of the chains and evaporate like her sister wished many years ago. “I’m okay.”
“Liar,” he said above the rustle of wind.
The truth of that single word stabbed at her conscience.
Everything about her life was a big fat honking lie.
She stilled her legs and slowed, eventually stopping fully, and focused on him. He wasn’t the only one keeping secrets. “Who’s Moira?”
He sighed. “My ex-wife.”
It was not what she was expecting to hear. “You weremarried?” she asked, sliding off the swing. And couldn’t help the envy surging through her. He’d loved another woman enough to marry her.
“For two and bit years. Been divorced for ten.”
“Oh.” She ambled across to Kismet, pretending nonchalance. She sank to the ground, cross-legged, and snuggled closer to Kismet. The dog swiped his tongue over her cheek. “Why?”
“Why we divorced?”
She gave him a side-eye. “Yeah.”
Beau sat down next to her, resting his forearms loosely over bent knees. “She cheated.”
“She cheated? Onyou?”
Stupid, stupid woman. Letting a man, loyal andgoodto his marrow, slip through her fingers.
“Moira got lonely when I deployed and, uh, looked elsewhere for companionship.”
“She was a fool,” Rae snapped.
He shrugged.
But she wasn’t misled by his feigned indifference. And she needed to know the answer to her next question. A question that shouldn’t matter as she was leaving today, yet it did. “Do I resemble her?”
Beau twisted his upper body and raked his gaze over her. He frowned. “I guess in a way you do. Same hair color and body shape. But” — he lifted his arm and ran the back of his fingers over her cheek — “you’re all soft and loving, full of compassion.” He dropped his hand. “Moira was … hard. She only thought of herself. She never would’ve kicked in to help Bella. The two of them positively hated each other.”
“Why did you marry her?”
“It was during my first year in Europe stationed at Panzer Kaserne Base near Stuttgart. I met her in a bar in the city. She was touring Europe with a group of friends. We got talking and discovered we were both from Nebraska. I was homesick, young and foolish enough to mistake my infatuation for love. When she decided to not return to the US, but stay on in Germany, we got married. It seemed like the right thing to do. And it was nice to come home to a cooked meal, companionship, and regular sex. But then I got assigned to the Black Sea Rotational Force, and Moira stayed behind in Stuttgart.” He rolled his shoulders. “I returned from my six-month stint to find I wasn’t the only young and foolish man for whom she spread her legs.”
“I’m sorry she hurt you,” she said, hearing the bitter note in his voice.
He shrugged again. “It is what it is.”
They lapsed back into silence, and Rae concentrated on the orange and black patterned butterfly flitting across the grass, landing for a moment before fluttering on to the next, repeating the process, moving farther along. It reached a little white flower and set down. She waited for it to take off, but it lingered. Then it folded its wings. And stayed.
And in that moment, she knew what she wanted to do.
For too long she flitted from place to place, never settling.
Never finding a spot to fold her wings and stay.
Never belonging.
But now … wedged between this man and his dog …
