Page 101 of Protecting What's Mine
“Yes.”And another beer.
32
The mood was festive in Remo’s as if everyone were celebrating something that night. Linc’s crew filled him in on their calls. Calls as in multiple.
They’d responded to a missing person report, a toddler locked in a car, and a garden shed fire that had spread to a farmer’s dry pasture. All three calls were successful. And, just like that, his department’s drought was officially over.
He fired off a text to Aldo when Mrs. Moretta stormed the bar with another new boyfriend. He was a tall, black man with shoulders so broad Linc wondered if his sport coat was tailor-made. “He played for the Steelers in the 80s,” Mrs. Moretta bellowed to anyone who would listen.
Linc: Your mama’s here with your new daddy.
Aldo: He’s too good for her. I’m going to ask him to adopt me when he comes to his senses and runs screaming back to Pittsburgh.
Georgia Rae, requisite small-town gossip, was celebrating the birth of her seventh grandchild and quizzed both Linc and Mack for a good twenty minutes on their most recent heroics. He could tell Mack was thanking the baby Jesus for HIPAA laws that protected her from most of the inquisition.
The appetizers were devoured, and actual dinners were ordered. Mack switched from beer to water, and Linc did the same. They debated who was going to be more hungover the following day: Tuesday or Linc’s lieutenant, Zane Jones. The guy brewed his own beer but had been goaded into switching over to shots of Fireball with Tuesday.
“Good thing neither of them work tomorrow,” Mack pointed out.
“We’ll still drive an engine past his apartment and blow the sirens,” Linc told her cheerfully.
“Mean.”
“But funny.”
Sheriff Ty, out of uniform, meandered through the door around eight and laid a baby-making kiss on Sophie when she leaned across the bar to greet him.
“Evening,” Ty said to Linc and Mack once his tongue was back in his own mouth.
“Sheriff,” Mack said.
“We’re filing charges tomorrow,” Ty said, cutting to the chase. “Just givin’ y’all a heads up.”
“Appreciate it.”
“If anyone makes their displeasure known, you tell me.”
“Will do.”
Linc gave Ty a not-so-subtle nod in the direction of the men’s room and then excused himself.
Ty met him in front of the urinals, leaving a respectable amount of space between them.
“You expecting trouble?” Linc asked, unzipping his jeans and trying not to piss on himself with his half hard-on thanks to those big green eyes and smart mouth at the bar.
Ty sighed. “I wouldn’t put it past them. The Kershes aren’t known for being logical or taking responsibility for themselves.”
“You just expecting Mack and that girl’s family to fend for themselves then?”
Ty broke urinal man code to give him an “are you stupid?” look. “I am not. And fuck you for thinking that I would. I’ve got regular patrols going past both houses for the next week or two to keep an eye on things.”
“Eyes on your own paper, sheriff,” Linc told him. “What about the clinic?”
“That, too. It would help if a trusted neighbor maybe insisted on a basic alarm system, some new locks,” Ty mused.
He’d install them himself, Linc decided, zipping back up. Mack had handled herself in war zones and through every imaginable emergency situation. However, she hadn’t yet dealt with an ignorant redneck family hell-bent on revenge. It was a different beast and required a different kind of vigilance.
He returned to the bar, finding their dinners had arrived.
