Page 20 of Secrets Hidden In The Glass

“I feel like we should go find ourselves a seat.” He took her hand and they started back toward the fair.

~~~~

Nate stood outside one of the Porta-Potties the town had brought in for the weekend, waiting for Callie. He looked toward the stars in the cloudless night sky, deciding that this year’s Fall Festival was probably the best he could remember. The whole evening was turning out far better than he’d expected. Dancing, dessert, and a ride on the Scrambler with his impromptu date, but talking and laughing with Callie was by far the highlight of the last couple of hours. This morning when he’d encouraged Callie to come join in on the fun, he’d hoped they might have a chance to chat again—maybe even walk around for a few minutes and share some fried dough. But this was so much better.

She opened the bathroom door, sending him a smile as she walked over to the small cleaning station and squirted hand sanitizer into her palm. “Thanks for waiting.”

“No problem. Are you sick of me yet or are you up for another ride?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m having fun.”

He knew she was. He could see it in her eyes. Tonight she seemed totally carefree—like the vibrant woman he’d studied in her DMV photograph earlier last week. “Good. Me too. How about the Ferris wheel?”

“Sure.”

They walked the short distance and got in line, making it into a car almost immediately as many of the families with smaller children had started heading home and the crowd was thinning. Within minutes, they were taking their seats and soaring up for their first rotation.

Callie peered over the edge and sighed. “Everything looks so perfect up here—quaint and homey.”

He looked out over the lights twinkling in his town—the place he loved to be. “I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”

“You’ve always lived here?”

He nodded. “For the most part. I left for college. Then I did the whole police academy thing in Boston and put in some time as a beat cop.”

“But you weren’t a fan of the city.”

He shrugged. “It was all right. I gave Boston PD thirteen months. After that, I went down to Virginia for a year.” He’d gone for Elizabeth, but he’d always wanted to be right here on Carter Island. That had been the plan all along until his fiancée had gotten the career opportunity of a lifetime.

“Virginia’s a beautiful state.”

He nodded. “It is, but this is home.”

“So you spent a few years away, then came back to be Sanderson’s sheriff.”

“Nah,” he said, chuckling a little. “Not quite. I worked as a deputy for my dad. He was sheriff for twenty-five years—my grandpa was sheriff before that.”

“Three generations,” she said, smiling, clearly liking the idea. “When did you take over?”

“Three years ago.”

“You were pretty young for so much responsibility.”

He shrugged again. “Twenty-seven. Taking over hadn’t been the plan—at least not then, but my dad’s sister got sick. She was a bit of a globetrotter and spent a lot of time down in South Africa. She ended up contracting a nasty case of yellow fever.”

Callie winced. “That’s terrible.”

Nate nodded. “It turned into quite a mess trying to get her back to the States, so Mom and Dad ended up going over to stay with her, and I became acting sheriff. Unfortunately, Aunt Hazel’s health continued to deteriorate. She passed away after a couple of months.”

Callie touched his arm as compassion filled her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. My sisters and I never knew her particularly well, but Dad was devastated. He decided rather abruptly that it was time for him and Mom to start enjoying life. They sold Mom’s interior design business and bought the little retirement home in Arizona they’d always talked about. Shortly after Dad made his decision to retire, Sanderson held a special election, and I officially had a town to look after.”

“That’s quite a story.”

He smiled, noticing that Callie had goosebumps as she folded her arms across her chest. “It’s breezy up here.”

“I should have brought a sweater with me, but I wasn’t thinking about it when I left the cottage. It’s been so warm.”