Page 6

"Somebody's the event coordinator."

"Somebody's also a woman by herself in a dark field after midnight." He says it without heat, just a fact laid on the table. "I drive by around eleven. Saw your car."

"You drive by?"

I have no idea what to do with that, so I turn back to the generator. "It's fine. It's temperamental."

He walks over, crouches, and looks inside the box with his own light. He doesn't touch anything. His shoulders are so broad they block out half the stage. I get a noseful of him when he leans in. Soap. That's all. Just clean soap and cold air, and it goes straight to my knees.

"It's not fine," he says.

"It's fine."

He glances up at me. The beam catches his face from below, the hard line of his jaw, those dark eyes that don't blink enough. He doesn't argue. He just stands, brushing off his knees, and reaches into his jacket.

"Mabel sent this with me." He holds out something wrapped in foil. "She said you'd lie about eating."

"I ate."

"What?"

"A protein bar."

"When?"

I think about it. Too long. He keeps holding out the foil until I take it. It's still warm. A biscuit split open with ham and melted cheese inside, and my stomach growls so loud Sergeant's ears swivel toward me.

I sit down on the edge of the stage and eat it in about four bites. He doesn't watch me do it. He watches the tree line instead, easy and patient, and gives me the privacy of not being looked at while I'm starving.

"So." I lick butter off my thumb. "Iron Creek. What does a sheriff even do in a town with three hundred people?"

"Three hundred and twelve."

"Oh, my mistake."

"Yesterday morning I got a bull out of the post office."

I stare at him. "You did not."

"His name's Dumpling. He ate the Sears catalog. The postmistress was standing on a stool with a broom." His voice stays dead flat. "He likes the post office. It's warm."

The laugh comes out of me before I can stop it. Loud and ugly, the real one, the one I haven't heard in so long it startles me. I clap a hand over my mouth, and above it his eyes crinkle at the corners. He doesn't grin. He just looks at me, and that's worse.

"Does that happen a lot?"

"Third time this year." He sits beside me on the stage, leaving a careful foot of space. "What about you? How does somebody from Albuquerque end up painting banners in Bear Creek Valley?"

"The printer in Durango backed out two weeks ago. Somebody had to."

"That's not what I asked."

The wind kicks up again. I tuck my hands under my arms and hunch in on myself, and my teeth start chattering before I can clench my jaw.

"I plan events," I say. "Weddings, mostly. Corporate retreats. The county posted the contract and I bid on it."

"Weddings."

"People like having somebody else worry about the details on their big day."