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“I’m so sorry, C—” He catches himself. “Dr. Chaplin.”
The darkness beyond the front porch seems to swell, as if it’s trying to creep up the stairs to snatch us up. “I don’t lie. About anything. But definitely not my work, Sheriff.”
“I hear that. I’m sorry I questioned you.”
Takes a real man to apologize with such clarity. Without any hemming and hawing or backtracking. I respect that. “Thank you.”
Rory tentatively holds out his hands. “Look, I think you and I would do better working together than… not working together.”
“Those are opposites, you got it right,” I say.
“I heard?—”
“From your super-secret source.”
Rory hesitates. “I prefer confidential, sounds better, but—” He closes his eyes. Pauses. Takes a breath. “I heard you know this town like the back of your hand. And I think I could really use that since I’m new here and you’re not, maybe you could help me out.”
“Why would I do that?” I ask.
Rory smiles. “I knew there’d be a catch.”
“You were accusing me earlier today of faking the theft of my own museum’s artifacts in order to protect a historic building I had no idea was under threat of being demolished, I think I deserve something in return.”
Rory glances over his shoulder as if we’re not on a remote country road and someone might deign to be listening in. “I can get you your bones for the Bicentennial.”
I burst with excitement. “You can?!”
“Relax, not so loud…”
“Sheriff, this is Horace, not the big city.”
His whole body shivers. “Old habits die hard.”
I don’t know much about Rory McEvoy beyond his job description, but I now suddenly find myself wishing I did. Not many handsome single men decide to move away from the big city, full of opportunity, to a small, sleepy town like Horace.
Rory might be more interesting than I’ve given him credit for. This might be the only time I have him docile enough to get answers to questions he would normally ignore. “How did you end up Sheriff of Wabash County? You aren’t even from around here.”
“I ran unopposed. Don’t you vote in your local elections, young lady?” Rory asks, screwing his forehead up comically.
I ignore the question. Feels like elections are always happening, I’m bound to miss one. “So, what, you just covered your eyes and jabbed your finger at a map to decide where you’d move?”
“No, Horace is two hours from Chicago, which means I can make the drive to visit my family when I have time off without the time it takes being… prohibitive.”
I go a little soft in the chest. No wonder he’s got his act together. I’d imagined you’d have to, working in a big city like that. “You left your family in Chicago?”
Rory leans his forearm against the doorframe, stretching his long frame, his hip cocking outward. “Not happy about that part of it, but yeah.”
Here we are, opposites on a spectrum. I ran toward my family and he ran away. Or went away. Still not sure of the story there. Granted, my dad’s the only one I have left. And I’m all he has, too.
Oh, stupid Rory McEvoy. Now I have an inexorable curiosity about him that won’t be sated until I know more.
Rory might be right about the fact I know Horace like the back of my hand, but I don’t know him that way. It’s driving me crazy. I want to pick him apart, dissect him to the sum of his parts so I can understand who our new county sheriff is, what he’s got hiding in that handsome head of his.
Not handsome.
Gah. Whatever.
“I didn’t leavebecauseof my family, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he says. “We’re close.”
