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At least Celestine had the decency to come by at the same time every day.
It meant Valentine could hang out on her porch, drinking her coffee until she knew her sister was about to show up.
The sheriff was another story.
There was no way to tell when he would stop by.
Sometimes, it was early in the morning. Other times, it was just before lunch. Sometimes, it was in the late afternoon.
But the most annoying times were when the sheriff stopped by at dusk. It was never dark enough to be night, but the setting sun burned the last light hours. It was Valentine’s favorite time to sit on the porch, and the sheriff robbed her of that.
It made her hate him a little bit. Didn’t he know how annoying he was? Why did he care if she never left her house again, or if she never saw another human … or wolf or Half-Blood … ever again?
The only thing that made it better was that he had stopped knocking. He would just call out to her.
“Hey, Valentine. This is a wellness check.” He would then sit onherrocking chair, onherporch, watchinghersunset.
Once he had enough, he would stand, stretch, and say, “See ya tomorrow, Valentine.”
He would drive off, and she would sit on the porch in the seat he had warmed for her. After a couple of weeks of this, Valentine knew that the sheriff’s name was Nero Greenlee.
He was the Greenlee sheriffandthe alpha of his pack. He smelled like strawberries for no apparent reason. He liked coffee with way too much sugar, judging by the cup he had left for her once.
She also knew that he wouldn’t stop until she opened the door.
It would have been very easy to open the door, show him she was fine, and then never see him again.
In fact, it was exactly what Valentine should do.
But, somehow, she didn’t want to.
She would never admit this to anyone, but there was something definitely comforting about the sheriff’s presence. She liked that he hadn’t given up. Surely, he wasn’t coming just for Celestine and Reece anymore.
Maybe he had his own reasons for not giving up.
And those reasons gave Valentine plenty to think about. It was a nice break from the things shehadto think about.
Her thoughts weren’t only about Lilliane and why her little sister had lost her mind and decided to live with a bunch of stuffy old vampires.
Now, she could cut those thoughts with something a little bit more fun.
Maybe the sheriff was lonely because his mate had abandoned him. Maybe he had a broken heart, and sitting on her porch made him feel like he had a friend. Maybe he was secretly not a wolf, and while he pretended to go on rounds, he sat on her porch looking at the sun setting.
There were more fanciful things roaming in her mind, but she only let those exist for seconds at a time. A girl could be a tad insane, but she couldn’t fully lean into the madness.
A man couldn’t fall in love through a door.
Neither could a girl, for that matter.
As if on cue, the sound of tires crunching gravel made her jump. It was the sheriff’s truck pulling up next to her car. She didn’t dare peek out of the window in case he would spot her. If he did, she had a feeling hewoulddo the big, bad wolf thing and blow down her front door.
Valentine didn’t have a clue what Sheriff Nero Greenlee looked like, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t stopped to imagine it a bunch of times. She had spent more than one night in the dark, picturing the contours of his face, the length of his legs, the color of his hair and eyes.
“Evenin’, Valentine,” he called out before sitting in her rocking chair. “Brought you a bit of a treat. Well, it’s for me, really. Since you never opened your door, I figured that I’d eat it all by myself.” He laughed alone. To himself. As if she couldn’t hear him.
Maybe he was insane. Maybe it was a better idea to stay on her side of the door.
“Though I did forget a spoon. Think you could hand me one? Not sure how I’m going to eat this cookie dough crunch ice cream without a spoon. I guess I could lick it, but eventually, that’s gonna pose a problem.”
