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Rick found his name. The in column had his big, clumsy letters drawn in the center: 6:48. He added 19:03 to the out column, then scrawled his signature next to it.
Willie took the pen back, slapping the binder closed. “Thank you.”
“No problem.”
Rick zipped up his coat. For October, it was getting pretty nippy out at night and he was never one for the cold. It was all he could do to give the outsider directions in his thin deputy jacket without shivering like a wimp.
Though his back was to Willie as he yanked on his hood, Rick could sense the holes her worried stare was boring into him. When he heard her clear her throat, he fought the desire to roll his eyes.
It was Willie, so he knew what was coming. He glanced over his shoulder at her, raising his eyebrows.
She had risen from her seat, fiddling with the long necklace she wore over her ample bosom. “Rick, honey, I just… I don’t want you to think we’re not happy to have you home again.”
Rick had known Wilhelmina Parker since he was a kid. She was a friend of his mother's, an honorary aunt of sorts even though she was barely a decade older than he was, and when Rosemarie Hart died a couple of years before he enlisted, Willie looked after him like she was one of hers.
Now, more than a foot taller than her, fifty pounds heavier, and with a head full of nightmares he couldn’t escape, Willie was still trying to take care of Rick.
He knew his voice could be gruff. He purposely softened it. “I know, Wil. Don’t worry about it.”
“It’s just, after what happened to Caity...”
Her voice trailed off to a close as she let her necklace fall. Even after all the time that passed, Willie couldn’t help but choke up whenever she mentioned Caitlin.
He didn’t blame her. Her name and the memories it conjured stung him, too.
Rick always had, well, a thing for Caitlin Scott. Growing up, tall and skinny and awkward, he could never work up enough nerve to strike up a true conversation with the younger, vivacious girl, let alone a relationship that was something more than old friends.
By the time he filled out and grew some balls, she already had her hooks in Lucas De Angelis. So Rick settled for that friendship, while watching the one woman in Hamlet he wanted fall for another man.
Joining the Marines was something he dreamed of doing since he was a kid. Coming from a military background, he was expected to go into the service; the Marine Corps was his choice. But he was fooling himself if he didn’t admit that one of the reasons he was so relieved to escape the stifling small town when he did was because the townsfolk were already taking bets on how long before De Angelis popped the question.
Just like he was fooling himself that—after he completed his tours and fulfilled his obligations—he didn’t choose to return to Hamlet for any other reason than to see Caitlin again; his family was already long gone by the time he joined the Corps, so he wasn’t going back for them. Rick felt a pull back home, and since Sly didn’t want to go back to California, he took Sly with him.
When he returned from service and discovered she left her pretty boy husband, Rick thought
he might finally have a chance. She’d been promoted to sheriff in the time since he’d been gone. With Rick putting in a good word for him, Sly easily got a job as a deputy. Rick could have too, but since he had different plans when it came to Caitlin, he declined her offer and went to work at the barbershop on Main.
He learned the skill while on active duty. He figured he might as well use it while planning his seduction of Caitlin Scott with the same precision as any other mission he’d undertaken.
She wasn’t a big girl. She was tough, though. Sturdy. She could take his size, and he wouldn’t have to worry about hurting her if he forgot for a moment to be anything less than gentle.
She also didn’t look at him with morbid fascination, wondering what he did while in the Marines. To Caitlin, you were either a local or an outsider. If you were an outsider, she didn’t have the time of day for you. But if you were a born local? She didn’t care how many years he was gone. The instant he was back, it was like Ricky Hart never left.
So he went down to Thirsty’s most nights, hoping he would find her there, work up his nerve, and finally ask her out. Word around town said that she spent a good chunk of her time off duty at the bar. He figured it would be his best bet to engage her in a social setting, when she could be Caitlin instead of the sheriff, and he could put his memories and insecurities behind him.
It worked. Somewhat. He managed to snag a dance or two with her whenever they met—he just never got the chance to talk her into going home with him.
Then again, his thousand-yard stare and military bearing made certain she didn’t go home with anyone else, either.
It didn’t take long before Rick realized that Caitlin was still hung up on her ex. Three years after they divorced, she would’ve done anything to get Lucas back. Deep down, Rick knew he never stood a chance.
Sometimes he wondered if that was why, as a grown man, he continued to pine hopelessly after her. Because he knew that it was hopeless. Because he knew that Caitlin Scott—no, Caitlin De Angelis—was the one woman in Hamlet he could make a play for and never, ever win.
In the end, it didn’t matter anyway since, a year ago, she went and got herself killed by her own deputy.
To mention Mason Walsh in Hamlet was like pouring gasoline on a bonfire: everything exploded. There were those who were convinced he was innocent, and those who wished for vigilante justice to visit their small town. For the crime of gunning down their beloved sheriff, the ruthless in Hamlet would’ve liked to see him swing.
Thirteen months out from her funeral, Rick still couldn’t believe she was gone. He bypassed her old office whenever he could. He wasn’t the only one, either. Even Sly set up his desk in the old broom closet for the days he needed to make appearances inside the station house. Caitlin’s sheriff’s badge resting poetically on her desk was a shrine left to the fallen woman.
