Page 81 of Surly Sheriff
And fucking cowardice.
His wife didn’t even have the decency to look him in the eye and give him a reason for leaving him.
Just a note. And poof! Gone.
Like his mother.
He dropped his head back against the recliner and looked at the ceiling. “Is there something wrong with me, Bella?” he wrangled out.
“Of course not, Beau,” his sister whispered.
But fuck, his nose stung with suppressed emotion. He sniffed and blinked away the fucking moisture in his eyes.
The first thirteen days following her desertion had been spent in a frenzy hunting for her. After her trail in Lincoln had dried up, he’d taken unpaid leave and driven all the way to Key West.
There he visited every bar, hotel, motel, guest house, diner, café, shop. The library. The hospitals and clinics. Themorgue. He showed pictures of her, even one altered with short red hair, but no one recognized her. A visit to the police station turned up a fat fucking zero.
His wife had vanished.
Then the report from his PI friend arrived in his inbox, making him face the harsh reality.
The last three days he spent wallowing in misery and self-recrimination.
And drinking himself into a stupor, wondering how he’d been so stupid to fall for the deceitful woman.
Because there was more.
So much more.
Stuff the PI had uncovered about the woman who’d vowed to love him till their dying day.
Not only was the woman a deserter, but she was also a fucking liar.
“Raegan Williams was born thirty-one years ago in Dallas,” he said, still looking at the ceiling.
He heard Bella’s approaching footsteps and lifted his head in time to see his sister sink onto the couch opposite him. He took another deep pull from the long neck.
Bella frowned. “I thought she was from Seattle.”
“Medical records and school records show Raegan Williams growing up inTexas. Just her and her parents. No sister. No other family.” He gave a bitter laugh. “The woman spun me a tale of her mother dying when she was six, and her father being a no-good bastard, and hergrandfathersexually abusing her sister for years. Except” — he pointed the beer bottle at Bella — “there was nograndfather,” he spat. “Andher parents died in ahouse fireduring her first year at Texas A&M.”
Beau drained his beer and chucked the bottle to the floor where it rolled a short way before clanging against the other dozen or so discarded bottles. He surged to his feet, stumbled to the dining table, and gathered up the loose papers strewn sent by the PI across the surface.
A nasty belch escaped him. For a moment, the sour smell gave him pause.
Fucking beer.
Or maybe it was gas from the betrayal burning in his gut.
“Fucking Rae,” he muttered, shoving the papers in the trashcan.
How he wished he could get rid of his memories of her as easily as the incriminating evidence of her lies.
But one phrase kept repeating in a corner of his mind — why?
Why the lies? Why the con?
He’d have loved her just the same without the elaborate tales she spun.
