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No, I couldn’t call the station, not the one in Wisper, ’cause, like she’d said, her husband Frank had taken my shift tonight, and my boss had gotten stuck at headquarters here in Jackson. There’d been some kind of HR nightmare at the main Jackson station. I wasn’t sure of the particulars, but I knew Carey had his hands full. I didn’t want to make his night worse. No, my co-workers had enough to deal with without me calling them with my drama.
The rest of the guys from HQ had sticks up their butts about me being a deputy, y’know, ’cause I was a woman and all—God forbid—but I knew Carey’d paid for it over the years, so I stayed out of their way when I could. Which meant I wouldn’t call any other station in Teton County either.
Fine.
Clicking my screen two more times, I called the one person on the planet I really didn’t want to, rubbing at an annoying twinge I had begun to feel that festered an inch below my sternum.
“Mama?”
“What, Abey? My show’s on. I can’t talk.”
In this age of digital streaming, she couldn’t just press the pause button?
“Ah, yeah, I know. It’s Saturday night, but I need a ride. I’m in Jackson.”
She took a drag from her cigarette; I heard the inhale and the sizzle of the paper burning at the end. “Call Frank.”
“Can’t. He’s workin’ my shift.”
“Why’s he doin’ your job for you, Abey?”
“I, uh, I had a… date.”
“Girl, you know that ain’t what Jesus wants.”
The twinge turned into a full-blown ache. I rubbed harder.
“Yeah, Mama. I know you think that, but I still need a ride. If it makes you feel any better, the date was a bust.”
“Hm.” That one syllable told me everything I needed to know about how my own mother viewed my sexuality. Besides the judgmental looks and the comments she sometimes made that I was hurting Jesus’ feelings because that was what her pastor was always spouting, she never made a peep about the fact that I was gay. Since Daddy died, she avoided the subject like the plague.
Breathing through my nose, I closed my eyes, tapping on my chest now. Damn near beating on it. “Y’know what? Never mind. Thanks anyway.” I hung up.
Shit. Shit. Shit. This would be the last time I let somebody convince me not to drive my own damn truck on a date.
I didn’t want to call my brother. He had so much on his plate. My niece was probably already in bed, and Bax had to get up before the sun every morning. The last thing he needed was to be awoken on a Saturday night and reminded that he was alone with no one to take out on a date since his wife Candy had died. My brother was still heartbroken, and I’d walk across the entire Teton range before I bugged him.
I had two other brothers. One lived too far away, and the other one might as well have. Dixon was about as reliable as a piece of toast.
When I turned to pop a squat on the curb to download Lyft, I caught a glimpse of a possibility. A sexy but argumentative possibility.
Devona Mescal.
Devo.
It wasn’t unusual to run into someone from my hometown in the city. Wisper was still severely lacking in entertainment and food options, although, if José from the diner heard me say that, he’d chase me down the street and threaten to paddle me with his spatula. His chili was the best I’d ever tasted, but a girl could only eat so much chili. But my point was, variety was the spice of life. Right? Wasn’t that the saying?
“Last ditch effort,” I said to the summer moon, and a shooting star zipped in front of it. Maybe that was a good sign?
If this didn’t work, I’d be spending half my next paycheck on a ride.
I held my breath as I approached the one person from my hometown who didn’t automatically smile when she saw me.
I really didn’t like asking people I barely knew for help. Offering the help—easy peasy. Asking for it was a whole other thing. And maybe I worried a little about how Devo might turn me down when I begged her for a ride. She wasn’t exactly known for holding her tongue, and I felt pretty confident that tongue was loaded with all kinds of things she might feel the need to spit at me.
But if she wasn’t the sexiest woman I’d ever seen, I was a liar.
I hadn’t known she was gay until the day I arrested her the first time. I’d figured she might be since she worked at the community center and it had become a safe haven for LGBTQ kids, but I hadn’t had confirmation until that morning. As I slapped cuffs on her wrists for organizing a protest without a permit, parking in front of a fire hydrant, and mouthing off to the sheriff, her anger was delectably adorable. Her cheeks had turned red as a rose, and she huffed and puffed all the way across the street to the station. She hadn’t really been “in custody,” but she’d pissed off Carey that day with all her backtalking, and he thought she could use a little time to cool off.
