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His cock twitched and started to thicken against his thigh at the mental image. Fuck. This is exactly what he'd told himself he wasn't going to do. Still, his hand was in the air as he signaled to the waitress for two beers. A minute later two ice-cold bottles of Bud were on the table.
"You off the clock?" Leah asked as she lifted the bottle to her red lips and took a long swallow.
"We're celebrating." Yeah, that almost sounded reasonable.
"You didn't answer. I know you're not in uniform because of the Rhinestone Cowboys, but you haven't been since I rolled into town."
He glanced down at his daily staple of white T-shirt and jeans. "For all intents and purposes I'm off the clock as sheriff permanently."
"You quit?"
"I was acting sheriff after Sheriff Finnigan had a heart attack, but I lost the election to take it on full time."
It had been the best and worst day of his life all rolled into one. The truth was he needed to get out of Catfish Creek. His mom had enough sobriety under her belt to not need him watching over her. Scratch that. What she really needed was to have the confidence to watch out for herself and kick his cheating ass father to the curb.
Leah's already big eyes went buggy. "Who wouldn't vote for you?"
He laughed and took a sip of cold beer. "All the folks pissed that I wouldn't let little Jimmy and perfect Paula get away with underage drinking, routine violations and other bullshit."
"Didn't they realize they were appointing Mr. Law and Order?"
The way she said it made it seem like he should be wearing a cape and a mask. The image made him crack a smile despite the shitty reality of the situation. "I guess they thought those rules only applied to some folks."
"Wow," she said with a chuckle. "You must have made them nuts."
Now that was the understatement of the year. "Yep."
"So what now?"
He glanced around the bar, taking in the handful of customers eating chicken tenders and downing a quick beer after a long day at work. Nothing out of the ordinary—and maybe that was part of the problem for him. The job with the Fort Worth Police Department seemed ideal, but was that just him falling into another familiar cycle? For a man who never thought much about the big picture of his life, he couldn't help but realize over the last few days that he was in one helluva rut. One that he probably wouldn't have realized if not for the tornado of trouble that was the woman sitting across from him.
And he couldn't have her. Not for real. And that was beginning to be a spiky bur under his saddle so he did what any good kid who'd grown up with a functioning alcoholic parent would do. He deflected. "We enjoy the win while we can."
Leah took a sip of her beer. "Doesn't sound like you've had a lot of those."
"Not as many as I thought I'd have when I graduated high school." Shit. When he'd graduated a few years before Leah and his sister, he had thought the world would be his within five years. He'd been wrong, so very wrong. "The truth is, life doesn't always turn out the way we expect it and it sure doesn't give you any do-overs."
She smacked her bottle on the table, sending foam over the lip and nailed him to his seat with a challenging look. "So you force it to."
"Wow." He laughed. "You almost sound like a woman who doesn't have a Texas-sized chip on her shoulder."
"I don't," she said a little too fast for either of them to be fooled.
"Really?" He took a drink of beer, watching her over the rim. "Then why'd you come back to the reunion? The truth."
He didn't expect her to answer, but once again she did the last thing he'd figured. She straightened her shoulders and gave him what sounded an awful lot like the truth.
"To show them I wasn't the woman they all thought. That there was more to me than just trouble."
How many high school expectations were they both still running from all these years later? He was the responsible one who'd never take a chance, the one voted most likely to uphold law and order. Leah? She was the bad girl with a devious, quick brain she'd probably never use for good. It was past time both of them got over that. You could go home again, but there was no reason why they had to be those people they had been just because they were once again where it all had started.
Fuck this. He was breaking out of his rut.
"Come on." He stood up and jerked his chin toward the empty pool room. "Why don't you try to kick my ass in pool?"
"Try?" She stood up, all sexy confidence and determination.
He smirked. "I'm feeling lucky."
