Page 16 of Dove
And then that closing statement. That she hated me.
I already knew that of course. She'd been hating me for most of her life, and since I got home, she hadn't been quiet about it.
I throw myself into my chair, frustration leaking out of every pore, and switch to the other mantra in my mind. The one that tells me how fucked up everything is. My life, one nonstop disappointment. That fucking mission that had taken too many of my men. The discharge from the military–and an OTH discharge, too, which meant I wasn't eligible for many of the jobs I would have sought out.
My return to Hawke's Wood, the town where it had all started.
And the award of the sheriff's office here, partially as a favor to my brother.
My brother.
Now there's a path I don't particularly want to go down, though now that I've put my feet on the path, I know I don't have a choice. I haven't fully dealt with my homecoming yet, or what it means for Gunner or his kid. Hell, I've hardly talked to them since the first week I got home, when he called me because there was a disturbance on his property.
I'd hustled over there with Mars, Dutch, and their men in tow, and given Gunner the backup he needed. Put my shiny new badge on the line and crossed over into the barely legal to make sure he was safe, and that his family was secure.
Not that he'd said thank you.
This brings another huff of displeasure, though at least that part was expected. Gunner has never been able to thank anyone, least of all me, the younger brother who never bothered to walk the straight path Gunner plowed through the world. The kid who wanted only sunshine and rainbows in life and refused to deal with the storm clouds my brother lived in. The artist to his scholar. The smile to his frowns.
The younger son who never quite lived up to his father's expectations.
I lean toward the desk, sweep through the stack of papers there, and find the rough sketch I did yesterday. It's nothing yet; a nose, wide-set eyes, and the ghost of curls around rounded cheeks. A flash of temper in the eyes. A quirk of the lips that means she's either going to laugh or spit at whoever's looking at her.
I don't name her. Not here and not now. Probably never. But I wonder what she would have been like if life had treated her a little more kindly. If she'd still be so angry at the world.
Hell, I could wonder the same thing about myself, I guess.
If I had the time to go through everything that's gone sideways on me between the day I was born and this day mid-way through my forty-second year.
I don't have the time or inclination to do it, though, so I turn my mind to work and find the reports from last night and this morning. I don't want to think about Gunner, and I sure as hell don't want to think about Sammy and what she said, so I might as well spend some time getting into my job.
Sheriff of Hawke's Wood. I never would have imagined this as my landing after I got out of the military.
And yet here we are.
The prodigal son returns home, only there was never a fortune to be had and the return is anything but voluntary. And instead of joining the family business, he finds a brother who wants nothing to do with him and a road that's entirely too straight and narrow for a heart that wants to fly but has forgotten how.
Fuck I'm maudlin this morning. I need more coffee.
I look down at the papers in my hand and scowl, already angry at what I'm seeing. Every day here starts the same: a stack of complaints that came in after I left yesterday, combined with anything called in overnight. The thing is, the complaints are usually small. Someone's cat is up a tree. Someone else gotsomething stuck in their chimney. A baseball on a roof. A truck that won't start.
It's a small town, and nothing exciting happens here.
Except lately, the reports have been getting dramatic.
Which is... odd.
I glance through the stack and then organize them into an order that makes sense, with the most important reports at the top of the stack. Other things–the cats in trees–can wait until after I've dealt with anything vital.
If I can.
The truth is, I'm not good at this. Sure, I was in the military learning how to take orders, but I never liked it. I always fought my superiors or found ways to undermine them, and when I was put in charge, I inevitably looked for ways to cut corners and make things more efficient. Before I signed with the Marines, I'd been an artsy, free-spirited kid who definitely didn't believe in following rules, and now that I'm out in the real world...
Hell, following rules is the last thing I want.
Which makes the role of sheriff pretty... ironic.
I'm a fish out of water and in over my head at the same time, which shouldn't be possible. But isn't that what my life's always been? A contradiction. Two different people living in one body, one of them always having to clean up after the other and try to make sure I fit in.
