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“Red, why you gotta be such a dick?”
“What? How dare you talk to me like that?”
Ah, shit. I hadn’t meant to say it out loud. But c’mon. “Look, I’m sorry, but are you really surprised after the crap you been pullin’ lately?”
“You got some nerve. Me? You’re tryin’ to make me out to be the bad guy now?” He shook his head and let the broom fall. It clacked loudly against the tile floor when it hit the ground.
“Yes, you,” I said, following him as he marched through the maze of T-shirt racks, shelves full of Yeti tumblers, and stacks of fishing hats with handmade lures pinned to them, until he was standing behind his sales counter. I stood in front of it, hands on my hips. And oh joy, he’d even had the LGBT thing printed on stickers. I picked one up from the pile of them he’d stacked in front of his cash register and held it high for him to see. “Ace’s House is right across the street.”
He shrugged. “What do I care about Ace’s House?”
The cowbell on one of the doors jangled when somebody else entered the store. It was Brian Nichols, a local ranch hand and friend of Red’s.
Red nodded at him. “Brian.”
Mr. Nichols tipped his hat at me but spoke to Red. “How you doin’, ol’ man? Heard about your window. Just wanted to check in on ya. Make sure we don’t need to get a posse together to go teach the vandal a lesson.”
Red grinned at me manically, raising his eyebrows in defiance.
I shook my head. “You better be jokin’.”
“’Course I was,” Mr. Nichols said.
“I’m not,” Red replied.
I sighed. “Nobody’s puttin’ a posse together. Nobody’s doin’ anything. You hear me?”
“You ain’t the sheriff, missy,” Red said.
Not yet. He was bound to have a coronary when I did become acting sheriff.
“Nope, but the sheriff would agree with me, and if you doubt me, go ’head and give him a call. Let’s see how pleased he is with you for interruptin’ his busy day when he finds out I told you but you didn’t listen.”
Mr. Nichols laughed awkwardly and slid his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “We’re just havin’ some fun, Deputy. Who broke the window, anyway?”
Red growled. “That little b—troublemaker who works across the road.”
“Dammit, Red.”
“What?” he argued. “I said troublemaker. I didn’t say bitch.”
“You’re a piece of work, you know that?” I said, completely exasperated. “Can’t you back off just a little? Y’know, if you played it right, you could actually sell to the people you been tryin’ to offend. I thought you were a smart business owner.”
“I don’t need no rabble-rousers comin’ in here. The business I do with normal people suits me just fine. Besides, you ever heard of the right to free speech?”
“Yeah, I heard about it,” I said. “Which is what allows me to tell you that sometimes, you’re downright insufferable.”
But there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I turned to go.
Mr. Nichols bristled beside me. He smiled when I looked at him, though, and I saw kindness in his eyes. I knew he could see both sides of the issue. His kid had come out as transgender a couple years ago. He didn’t love it when his only child chopped off all his hair and asked to be called Oscar instead of Olivia. He loved his kid, so he was trying to accept Oscar’s transition, but he wouldn’t have chosen it if he’d had a choice. Hell, a couple years ago, he would’ve rounded up a posse.
But there were still a lot of other people around town who’d buy the offending T-shirt. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was Red’s bestseller.
Devo thought Red was the ultimate redneck—and who could blame her with the show Red seemed to like to put on—but she didn’t know that he’d donated to Brian’s son’s crowdfunding campaign to help pay for his top operation.
Actually, no one knew that besides me. And Red wasn’t aware that I knew. I had just happened to be standing behind him when he donated to the website on his phone after he’d seen a poster about it tacked up to the bulletin board at the station before the Fourth of July festivities last July. Red had come in to complain about out-of-towners parking illegally in front of his store.
I had no clue why Red was acting like such a twat towards Devo. I wasn’t even sure if Red knew why, but somewhere deep inside the old fucker lived a good friend and a helpful member of our community. I was 78 percent sure of it.
