Marilyn Pappano - The Sheriff's Surrender

Even though, for a long time, a future with Neely had been all he’d ever wanted. Love. Marriage. Kids. Till-death-do-us-part.

Death had parted them, all right. Just not in the way he’d expected.

“I’ve got to go, Shay,” he said abruptly. “Give my best to Easy and Victoria. We’ll try again some other time.”

Neely stood at the living-room window, staring off to the west as the setting sun turned the sky pink, lavender, blue, and every shade imaginable in between. When the darkness began to gradually seep over the colors, she was tempted for one whimsical moment to applaud and call out, “Good job!” and “Do it again!” Of course, she did nothing of the sort. She smiled, though—to herself, for herself—and wished she could grab hold tight of this fleeting serenity and wrap it around her for a little longer. She had so few truly peaceful moments in her life that they’d become dear.

“Get away from the window. Someone might see you.”

She didn’t argue with the curt command—didn’t point out that she stood in a darkened room on a dusky evening, or that the blackjack oaks that grew thick as weeds between the street and the yard made it impossible to see that there was even a house back here. She simply moved away from the window and toward Reese.

She’d offered her help with dinner and he’d turned her down. She’d said she would set the table and he’d told her to go away. Now she stood in the doorway of the brightly lit kitchen, hands clasped behind her back, and watched as he dished up steaks and baked sweet potatoes. If she could be reasonably certain that he wouldn’t snarl or snap at her, she would make some lighthearted comment about how she liked having a man cook for her. But he would snarl or snap, and she wasn’t up to it tonight.

And so she said nothing as he carried the plates to the table, then the glasses and a pitcher of tea, or as he gestured for her to take a seat. She didn’t compliment him on the flavorful steak, grilled to just the right degree of doneness, and she certainly didn’t speculate on how he’d remembered after all these years that she liked her beef medium-rare.

Halfway through the meal, she paused to refill her glass, then evenly asked, “Is there anything at all we can talk about that won’t make you angry?”

He pretended to think about it for a moment, rubbing his jaw with one long, slender finger, then shrugged. “Not that I can think of.”

The wise course would be to accept his answer, finish the meal in silence, and return to the living room, where the television would talk at her if not to her. Naturally she didn’t go that route. “Aw, come on, Reese. You always prided yourself on being able to talk to anybody about anything, no matter how much you detested them.”

“That was before I knew just how much I was capable of detesting someone.”

She didn’t wince, didn’t give any indication that he’d scored a hit. She kept her expression bland, her voice level and empty of emotion. “Aren’t you the least bit curious about what I’ve done the last nine years, how many people I’ve screwed and how many lives I’ve destroyed?”

She’d certainly screwed up her own life, and it wasn’t fair. All she’d ever wanted was to be a good lawyer and to help people. She’d dedicated most of her thirty-five years to achieving those goals, and what had she accomplished? The only man she’d ever loved despised her. He’d taught her to despise herself. Her noble career was a joke. Judy Miller was dead, and if Eddie Forbes had his way, she would soon be dead herself.

“I am curious about one thing.” Reese laid the steak knife aside as if he didn’t trust himself to talk to her with it in hand.

“How did you sucker Jace into believing that your life was worth saving?”

A faint tremor passed through her, making her pull her hands into her lap before he noticed. She summoned her best smile, her most casual shrug and her most intimate voice, and replied with her own question. “How do you think?”

Neely knew exactly what he thought, without needing to see the suspicion enter his gaze, or the tension that set his jaw and knotted his fingers. Keeping the smile in place through sheer will, she laid her napkin on the table and rose as gracefully as she could. “Dinner was wonderful. Hope you don’t mind if I leave the cleanup to you.” Still smiling, she left the room.

Her bedroom was dark once she closed the door, but she didn’t need light to make it to the bed. She sat on the mattress and let the smile slip as a great shudder rocketed through her. She had never thought she would see the day when she would anticipate taking up residence in a jail cell, but as far as she was concerned, tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough. Anything would be better than staying here one moment longer than necessary.

Well, anything besides a middle-of-the-night-wake-up call with fully automatic assault weapons.

She didn’t know how long she sat there—long enough for the sounds of cleaning in the kitchen to stop, long enough to make her flinch when she turned on the bedside lamp—before she finally stood up. She removed a toiletries case and night-clothes from her suitcase, eased the door open enough to see that the lights were off in the kitchen and on in the living room, then padded next door to the bathroom.

Like the guest room, it was functional—all the necessary appointments, clean lines, nothing unusual or remarkable. Everything was white—counter, floor, walls, the plumbing and light fixtures, even the towel rods and the towels they held. The only spot of color in the room was her. She didn’t know whether she loved the pure starkness of it all or hated it. Not that her opinion mattered one bit to Reese.

After showering, she wrapped one white towel around her body, another around her head. By the time she’d brushed and flossed her teeth, dried her hair, smoothed three different moisturizers over their appropriate body parts, added a dusting of powder and put on her T-shirt and shorts, the pristine bathroom looked well-used. Though she was tempted to leave it that way, she repacked everything and left the room almost as spotless as she’d found it. She couldn’t do anything about her scents that lingered, but they would be gone before Reese ever noticed them.

Kind of like her.

Suddenly weary, Neely returned to the bedroom, put the toiletries back in the suitcase and folded her dirty clothes on top of it, then stretched out on top of the covers. She felt more alone in that instant than she’d ever felt before. Even her toughest times—when her father had been taken away in handcuffs, when Reese had left her bleeding on the courthouse steps, when she’d lain in the hospital praying that he would come to see her, when she’d driven away from Thomasville and known she would never return—hadn’t felt quite like this. If she were a weaker woman, she would cry, but she’d learned well that crying resolved nothing. It hadn’t brought her father back, or Reese. It hadn’t made her feel any less betrayed or helped her deal with her disappointments.

She’d had so many disappointments, and had caused so many more.

When this was over—if she survived—she needed a new life and a new job in a new place. She would forget about making a difference, about helping people or being important to someone, and she would concentrate on keeping to herself, not getting involved, not doing any harm or destroying any lives. She could work as a waitress or get some dreary office-drone job where she would spend her days alone in a cubicle, having little contact with the outside world and zero chances to screw up.

As she turned onto her side to face the window, she smiled faintly. She didn’t indulge in self-pity often, but when she did, she did it well. Anyone watching her now would think her life had gone to hell in a handbasket, when the truth was, she still had a lot. No one could take away her law degree and ten years of hard-learned experience. Her bank accounts were healthy beyond her greediest dreams. She owned a beautiful house that would bring a small fortune in Kansas City’s current market. She was alive and well, at least for the time being, and might actually manage to stay that way. She had a lot to live for.