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Thirty-Six
The holding cell at the sheriff’s office was the smallest one Dean had ever been in. A narrow cot sat sandwiched, end to end, between two brick walls, the cell’s metal bars less than a few yards ahead. There were no clocks, but if he had to guess, he’d been in this steel cage for close to two hours.
He lay his half-beaten body on the sheetless cot, nothing but the mattress with its cold blue plastic cover pressed against his skin. The tiny, bare room shouldn’t have been a surprise. In a town like Harlow, filled with good people who probably did little wrong, chances were, this cell didn’t get much use.
This town and those people, they served up a stark contrast to him and his current predicament. The cell’s unwelcoming metal toilet and soulless gray walls were an apt reflection of where his life sat. But hadn’t that always been the way?
Except for those blissful few weeks.
Sarah.
The look on her face when she realized the truth.
What I’ve done… Who I am… I deserve this misery and more.
He dabbed at the weeping gash above his brow with a ball of scrunched-up tissues. Blaine Callahan, for all his injuries, packed a mean right hook. No doubt being a carpenter gave the man’s hands an unusual amount of strength.
Where was the sheriff? This room was all too quiet and unfamiliar, though perhaps this was his way of biding time for Dean’s thoughts, and thus nerves, to run wild. Deprive him of human contact. Get more information.
Well, at least this time he was guilty, but never had he guessed how gut-wrenching real guilt was.
His body ached, but that pain paled in comparison to the crushing agony clutching at his heart. Then there was the sickening churn of his stomach and the hollow growing within his ribcage. What had he done? To Emilia. To Blaine. To Sarah. He’d always told himself that his actions boiled down to mere survival. The world was a cruel place that had never been kind to him, so why should he care?
But he’d come to care all the same. And he was just one man, whose survival had hurt many. Unintended or not, he’d taken his sore lot in life and inflicted his screw the world attitude on innocent people.
And the irony, that of all the fucked-up things that had happened to him, he was the cause of his greatest downfall. The loss of his second chance. Once more in a cell, his freedom gone.
He’d entered Maynard’s believing Blaine and Emilia wouldn’t connect him with Anthony’s appearance in town. The mutual recognition based on an incident from ten years ago—the details of which he’d mostly forgotten—came as a shocking sore statement on the damage he’d caused.
This end was inevitable. Sooner or later, he would have landed in this cell. In no time at all, he’d be logged into the prison system and Luciano would know. When that happened, some connection or another would find Dean and take him out of this hellhole world altogether.
So be it. He should never have stayed here in town, allowed his feelings for Sarah to grow or take over. Not because those feelings brought about his downfall. No. His broken heart and his incarceration he could handle, but the truth had broken her. Truly broken her. After he’d spent weeks pretending he was someone worth trusting…
Why? Why did I do that?
Because I took one look at her and lost my fucking mind. That’s why.
I lost my mind and fell in love.
And everything he’d ever loved had ceased to be. He should never have expected anything different.
Because of love and hope, I didn’t have the strength to walk away. I should have walked away.
A derisive scoff burst from his lips. His weakness hid behind a facade of strength. A man everyone looked at as some big and all-encompassing monolith. An intimidating model of masculine control.
But he was just as breakable as any other.
He’d had dreams and deficits. A little boy palmed off so his mom could keep the peace and his dad could keep drinking, a little boy who grew into a railroaded young man, one imprisoned for his naivety. And now to the man he’d become…
He’d needed love. Always needed love. Just like everyone else. And time and time again, he got the same result. Rejection. And each rejection left him more and more alone.
I should just take the hint…
A sharp, metallic screech came from his cell door.
The sheriff pushed the metal bars open. “Follow me.”
The sheriff had changed into his uniform, his face now pale and drawn. He stood aside, making room for Dean to pass, once again not using the handcuffs, as if he grasped Dean’s lack of will to fight.
