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Gemma’s blue eyes narrowed as though she’d realized there was a challenge to be met. “That’s why I made sure you had Christmas and New Year’s off, and you don’t have to work night shifts for the first month. You’ll work with Nate so he can bring you up to speed, but at some point you would be his number one. Cam going part time means we need a deputy to be in charge of the other deputies. I’m offering you an almost immediate promotion.”
“To a job I never said I wanted,” Elisa pointed out.
A little humph came out of the blonde. “Look, Leal, you’re perfect for this job. You spent a lot of time in the military.”
“So maybe I want some time off from being the authority figure.”
“I promise you it’s different out here. It’s not going to be some rigid organization. It’s super chill.”
“Except for all the murders.” She’d done her research. For a town so small they had a healthy murder rate.
Gemma waved that thought off. “That is mostly tourists and criminals. I make zero apologies for killing the dude who tried to off me. I cannot help it if Bliss manages to attract a surprising number of people who other people want to kill. It’s not Jen Talbot’s fault she worked for an art forger who ran afoul of the Russian mob. It wasn’t Rachel Harper’s fault that she picked up a stalker. Now I do blame Hope Glen. She should be able to recognize a cult when she sees one.”
“All of that seems interesting, but it still makes me think I’ll get shot at a lot. More than when I was in the military. Also, who is Maurice?” She was settling into the fact that she was probably going to take this job. When she thought about it, it was far more stable than waitressing, and maybe way more interesting.
“Maurice is the town moose. Lately he’s been frisky,” Gemma admitted. “It freaked out some people who were renting a cabin, and they called the sheriff because when you’re a rural department you deal with everything. Including oncoming alien invasions.”
She said the last like it totally made her point, like it was now Elisa’s obligation to take the job because the department often had to deal with her father. “Dad has promised me he can handle any upcoming invasions.”
“I think it would be helpful to have someone your dad knows on the team.” Gemma laid the garment bag over the chair at the small desk that was the only other furniture in the room. “The older he gets, the more he can be triggered by certain things. I worry that the never-ending rotation of new guys is making him worse.”
That was a low blow. “He’s okay. I know he has some eccentricities, but he’s not dangerous.”
“He can be dangerous to himself,” Gemma said quietly. “We had to get him out of a tree two weeks ago. He’d climbed up because he thought he saw evidence of the Greys nesting, but he couldn’t get back down. One of the temps was on duty, and he wasn’t exactly kind.”
She hated the idea of her dad being dealt with by someone who didn’t care to understand him. A sheriff’s department in a town like this would be different. It wouldn’t be like big-city police work. She would have to get to know everyone and let everyone know her. She wouldn’t be anonymous. There would be no place to hide the way there would if she worked at Stella’s, where she would deal mostly with tourists, and only for brief periods of time. Still…it was presumptuous of Gemma, and they needed to start out on a proper footing. “Fine. I’ll agree that it would be best if someone from town dealt with my dad when he’s…working. You seem to have some knowledge about alien life.”
She’d mentioned Greys. In the short amount of time she’d spent with her father, she’d learned a couple of different alien species concerned him, and one of those were the Reticulan Greys.
“When I took the job at the sheriff’s department, I realized the best way to deal with Mel was to speak his language. He’s a nice guy. He deserves to be treated with respect, and hell, I’ve seen a lot of weird shit in my time. Who knows. He could be right. I’m a hedge my bets kind of girl. Now let’s talk about getting you a county vehicle.”
Oh, she needed so much more than that. “I don’t think I can handle a full-time job while I’m living here in this motel.”
It was another thing she hadn’t managed to sort out yet. She needed some space if Sabrina was coming into town. Cassidy had offered up the bunker, but that would not work. Elisa knew there were plenty of cabins for rent in the valley. Most of them were short-term rentals, but that would work for now. She’d been told that some of the cabins were used as summer homes, and the owners rented them out most of the rest of the year, so they would come furnished and everything. By the time she would need to move out, she would know if she was staying for the long term. But finding a place took time and knowledge, and Gemma seemed like a chick who knew everything.
