Page 59 of Moonshine Kiss
He lifted a shoulder to his ear, dropped it. The smirk faded from his face.
“How about we do this instead. You apologize sincerely to Mrs. Plunkett and I’ll set you up as the student rep on the 3D printer lab. We’d need you an hour or two every afternoon. Maybe even some time on the weekends when we’re closer to opening the lab.”
He perked up. The kid might have been a punk, but he was a tech nerd punk.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Yeah. But that apology has to convince her,” I reminded him.
Johnny snorted, but the hope remained in his eyes. “I’m like totally convincing.”
“We’ll see,” I said dryly. “Go on. Get out of here.”
I shooed him out the door and turned my attention to the inbox of new emails when someone else crossed my threshold.
“Mornin’, Bowie,” Sheriff Tucker said, rocking back on his heels, hands in his pockets.
“Mornin’, sheriff.” There were only two reasons why he’d be in my office during the school day. Either there was a break in the Callie Kendall case or he’d somehow found out that I’d had my hands and every other body part all over his daughter last night.
“I talked to Cassidy this morning,” he began.
Fuck.
“Mind if I sit down?” he asked, gesturing to the chair still warm from Johnny’s punk-ass.
“Sure,” I said, trying not to freak the fuck out. It was ridiculous. I was just shy of thirty-one years of age and I was still scared to death of losing this man’s approval.
“Y’all got any coffee around here?” he asked, taking a seat.
“Yeah, sure,” I said getting up and punching buttons on the coffeemaker. I was making the man a triple espresso for all I knew. Panic was stampeding through my system.
“Think we’ll see snow again this weekend,” he predicted.
“Uh-huh. Maybe,” I agreed.Was I having a heart attack? Or a panic attack?I needed to calm the hell down. I was an adult, and for all I knew the sheriff here was stopping by to talk about Thanksgiving.
“I think you and I may have had a miscommunication,” he said when I handed over the coffee and sat back down.
Fuck.This was definitely not holiday chat. It had nothing to do with my father being a murder suspect. This was about Cassidy and me.
“It was a momentary lapse, sir,” I blurted out my confession. “It won’t happen again.”
Sheriff Tucker set his mug on the desk and rubbed his hands over his face. “Christ, son, why the hell not? Do you know how horrific it is to watch my daughter date jackass after jackass? It’s like she’s picking dumbasses just to drive me into my grave early. For the love of all that’s holy, when are you going to ask her out?”
I blinked. “Wait. What?”
“You two have had feelings for each other since forever,” he pointed out.
I heard a weird buzzing in my ears and wondered if I was hallucinating or having a stroke. I reached up and felt my mouth. “Is my mouth drooping?” I asked him.
“Huh?”
“Which arm goes numb in a stroke? Or is that a heart attack?” I demanded, flapping both my arms up and down, testing for weakness.
“Are you tryin’ to take flight, son?” Sheriff Tucker asked incredulously.
“I’m tryin’ to figure out if I’m having some kind of medical emergency. You told me to stay away from Cassidy. You told me people get hitched up to the wrong people.”
“Ah, hell. Bowie! I didn’t mean forever and I was talking about your parents. I didn’t want you and Cassidy gettin’ together when she was too young to be smart. Y’all would have gotten knocked up or she would have hated being apart from you and dropped out of school. Or you would have given up the job you wanted so bad to be close to her at college.”
