AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She scowled at him, but since she didn’t have her own car, she didn’t have a choice.
“Fine.” Her back was ramrod straight as she reluctantly agreed. Briar was clearly not pleased with him.
Royce wanted to ask what Briar Nilson had been doing since he’d watched her and Julianna Alworth drive out of town, but she wasn’t in Rexville to talk about old times. And they hadn’t ever been friends. Still, he was curious and every little thing he was learning about her right now made him want to know more.
“Tell me what happened,” she said.
“Garrison died in his sleep three days ago. Somehow my sister convinced the mayor to appoint me to the rest of his term. That happened yesterday morning.”
Briar stared at him for a long second and Royce thought he spotted a glimmer of humor in her gaze. “I meant with my father, but… that’s ballsy.”
“That’s Raine. Maybe I should have a t-shirt made for her.”
Royce caught Briar’s sharp, assessing gaze and was impressed by the intelligence he saw there. He could tell she was adding up everything he’d said and everything she’d seen in this room and coming to her own conclusions. And she was probably close to right.
“Here’s the thing,” he started, “there are no deputies. The last one resigned about a year ago. I haven’t been out to the scene yet—which is my bad but, as you can probably tell, my becoming sheriff was a bit of a surprise. So when we get out there tomorrow, it’s going be a new scene to me and we need to treat it as such. Do you think you can handle that?”
She was amused by something. Yes, that was definitely humor lurking in those eyes. “You don’t know anything about me, do you?”
“How could I?”
He was regretting not spending any time researching Briar Nilson, but it hadn’t seemed important—until now.
“You know the ATF? Big A, big T, big F? That’s me. I’m perfectly comfortable at crime scenes.”
Of course, she was. He should have realized from her composure and the way she held herself that she was in some kind of law enforcement. It had been lazy of him not to look her up. But it wasn’t as if he didn’t have anything else going on.
“My apologies. Things have been kind of hairy around here.”
Her gaze took in the pigsty of an office again. “You definitely have your work cut out for you.”
Royce didn’t want to think about it. “Should we go get your suitcase? Have you thought about where you’re going to stay?”
Her gaze drifted to the window, toward the Tainted Crown right across the highway and still open. Not visible was the Utopia Motel, pretty much the only place to stay in town unless a person found a vacation rental.
“Like I said, I had planned on staying at the house. Now I guess I need to see if there are rooms at the motel.”
Royce practically bit his tongue to keep himself from offering the spare room at his house. He didn’t impulsively offer people a place to stay—after his years in the Army, he liked being alone, he liked having things his way. So why was he thinking about doing it now?
“And I left my suitcase in the tow truck.”
“I have keys.”
She raised an eyebrow at him.
“I co-own the shop with Jordan.”
He wasn’t going to tell her it was his attempt to make things right after leaving his siblings, especially the twins, who’d been ten when he left. Royce and Jordan were working on their relationship but in many ways, they were strangers to each other.
“That’s a lot of hats you’re wearing.”
He shrugged. It was a lot of hats.
“I hope they all look good on me.”
Briar snorted and gave him an assessing glance.
“Maybe.”
“Let’s go then.”
