Single-Dad Sheriff. Amy Frazier

the pebble-strewn ground. He wasn’t leaving without either his friend or the gun. “But you’ve been back a month now. Don’t you think it’s time you let someone know what’s gnawing at your gut?”

      Mack sank against the mossy embankment near the cave entrance. “Even if I told you, you couldn’t begin to understand.”

      “Try me.” Garrett suspected part of Mack’s despair was that he’d returned from war while one of his unit—one of their high school classmates, Nate Dona-hue—had not.

      “Sheriff—” the word was spoken with uncustomary contempt “—you live in a mighty small world. In little ol’ Applegate you think you have a handle on right and wrong, black and white, up and down. But I’m here to tell you you’re one misinformed sombitch.”

      “Sounds like you’re the one offering up the sermon.”

      Mack said nothing.

      “Rory’s home,” Garrett said, trying to break through to his friend. From the minute of Rory’s birth, Mack had embraced the role of uncle. “He’s been asking after you.”

      “What’d you tell him?”

      “I don’t know what to tell him. Do you want to see him?”

      “No.”

      “Okay. I get your point. You look like hell. Why don’t you come back to the barracks with me? Have a shower and shave. It’s McMillan’s turn to cook. Chili. Everybody would be glad to see you.” He kept talking even though it was obvious Mack was tuning him out. If Mack wanted to wall himself off after what he’d been through, who was Garrett to judge? But he was determined not to give up on his buddy. “Come on.”

      Mack shook his head.

      “Suit yourself. I’ll leave you the bottle, but your daddy needs the shotgun to take care of a woodchuck that’s been raiding your mama’s garden.”

      Mack narrowed bleary eyes. “His case of hunting rifles isn’t enough?”

      “Apparently not.” Garrett picked up the weapon.

      Mack didn’t resist. Instead, he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the embankment. When he spoke, his words were low and menacing. “There are a thousand and one ways to destroy life, and none of ’em needs a shotgun.”

      The satisfaction Garrett had felt at retrieving the gun drained right out of him. “Sure you couldn’t use some chili?”

      “What I could use, friend, you can’t supply.”

      “I’ll be back, anyway.”

      “Don’t bother.”

      “You know me better than that.”

      “I know nothing anymore.”

      This statement—from a guy who had always been confident in who he was and his place in the world—made Garrett’s blood run cold. He wouldn’t argue now, but he’d keep returning until Mack showed signs of the man he’d once been.

      With a heavy heart Garrett got in the car. Thank God he still knew who he was. Sheriff. And father. And regarding the latter, he needed to take care of matters he could still control. He needed to get in touch with Noelle. Maybe she hadn’t made a decision about Rory’s schooling. Kids could hear a suggestion and blow it all out of proportion. When he did reach her, his ex would want to know what their son was doing with his summer so far. Noelle might be highly focused on her career, but she was also a fiercely devoted, often overprotective mother. He wanted to be able to reassure her Rory’s job was safe and his employer reliable. She, too, would want a background check on Samantha Weston.

      While driving back to headquarters, he phoned Noelle. Surprisingly, she picked up immediately. “Garrett, hello. I was expecting your call. Is Rory okay?”

      “He’s fine. For the most part.” He tried to choose his words carefully. “He seems to think boarding school is a done deal, however, and he’s not happy about that. I can’t say I’m too pleased about it, either. You could have consulted me.”

      “I threw out the idea of Harpswell, among others, to get Rory thinking about the broader possibilities in his future.”

      “Broader than?” Garrett didn’t trust the implications of the broader concept. Not long after they’d married, Noelle had begun to chafe under what she considered their constricting life in Applegate. “He’s going to be an eighth-grader. How much broader than decent grades, friends and an interest in the world around him—animals, for instance—does his life have to get?”

      He could hear her sigh from clear across the Atlantic.

      “Less restricting than North Carolina,” she said at last.

      “Are you moving?”

      “I didn’t want to discuss it with you or Rory until I had something solid to add to the list of possibilities. But, yes, a move might be in the future. I’m here interviewing for a position—a promotion—in our London headquarters.”

      He had to pull his cruiser to the side of the road. Had to tamp down his rising anger. “And you want to put our kid in a boarding school so you can take a job overseas? What’s wrong with the possibility of letting him live with me?”

      “That would be one of the choices. As is boarding school. But I was really hoping you’d support me in trying to convince Rory it would be a wonderful experience to live in London. It would be an education in itself.”

      “You want to take him with you?”

      “Of course. But I want him to want to come.”

      “Even farther away from me.”

      “You would have summers together. That wouldn’t change.”

      But how much would Rory change in a year’s time? Garrett didn’t want to be a stranger to his son.

      “Besides, there’s e-mail and the telephone,” Noelle insisted. “Letters even. And you could always fly to England.” She made it sound so simple. Made him sound so provincial for not immediately embracing such simplicity.

      “The three of us need to discuss this.”

      “Absolutely. But don’t jump the gun. I haven’t been offered the job. Yet.”

      With her talent and drive, he had no doubt she would be.

      “I have to run.” Her voice was charged with the thrill of a challenge. “Wish me luck.”

      “Luck,” he replied without enthusiasm, wondering, sourly, if wanting to have a good, solid father-son relationship here in Applegate meant limiting Rory.

      He and Noelle hadn’t even talked about how happy he was to be working at Whistling Meadows.

      THE ROCKBROOK VAN departed as Red’s pickup, the bed loaded with bulging garbage bags, arrived in the barnyard. Rory got out, but Red leaned through the driver’s window. “I’m hauling this to the landfill,” he said, then added with a nod to Rory, “The kid can work.”

      “So I see,” Samantha replied, surprised Rory had pulled Red out of retirement.

      “Someone dumped all this in the pasture by the road.” The boy wrinkled up his face. “Who would do that?”

      Red smiled. “I tried to tell him some kids around here think summer activities mean dumping garbage, smashing mailboxes and toilet papering the trees along Main Street. Seems they do things differently in Charlotte.”

      “You might have a dog problem, too,” Rory said. “We walked the fence line and saw signs of digging.”

      Red’s smile disappeared. “Most likely those would be Tanner’s dogs.”

      Samantha didn’t like the sound of that. If dogs got in the pasture, they could wreak havoc with the llamas.