Wrecked (Josie Gray Mysteries #3)(4)
“Seriously?”
She held her knife in the air. “I’m just repeating the conversation.” She watched him grab another egg and crack it against the rim of the bowl. “You aren’t using the whole dozen eggs, are you?”
“Chester has to eat,” he said.
Josie glanced to the floor where Chester lay stretched in front of the stove, eyeing every move Dillon made. She snapped her fingers and the dog turned his droopy eyes toward her in disbelief.
“Up, up, up. You can’t lie there.” Deliberately slow, one leg at a time, he pulled himself up into a standing position, but he refused to leave Dillon’s side. The dog was a gentle giant, but he had an obstinate side.
“Let that poor dog alone. He’s not hurting anything.” Dillon slipped the dog a piece of bacon. Chester chewed it slowly, his eyes never leaving Dillon’s hands. “So, does Caroline believe men are to be trusted?”
“Caroline told me that the mayor cheated on her before they were married.”
“Could be she’s part of the reason he can’t get anywhere politically.”
“It was awkward. She’d had a few mimosas at that point and she got wound up and couldn’t stop. She told me she laid down the law to him. She said, ‘You do this after the marriage and we’re through. No tears or begging to come back. Marriage over. See you in divorce court.’”
Dillon took Josie’s bowl of chopped vegetables and dumped them into the sizzling frying pan to sauté. He glanced at Josie. “More power to her.”
Dillon had once been engaged to a TV news anchor in California who cheated on him in a very public way, causing him so much humiliation that he moved out of state to Artemis.
She wandered over to the coffee pot, thinking about the heartbreak and embarrassment Dillon had suffered, and poured them each a cup of strong black coffee.
“So, Caroline’s verdict was clear. No man can be trusted. What’s yours?”
“Depends on the man.” She winked. “Fortunately, I got a good one.”
TWO
After breakfast, Josie made the fifteen-minute drive into town. She took one of the few paved roads outside of downtown: the slowly curving River Road, which ran parallel to the Rio Grande. The Rio served as the two-thousand-mile border with Mexico, the most frequently crossed international border in the world. At a little before eight, Josie parked in front of the Artemis Police Department, but before she got out of her car, she dialed Dillon’s cell phone number and got his voice mail.
“I forgot to remind you. We’re helping Dell fix his fence line at six. You were going to come by at six thirty, after your meeting. Don’t forget to bring old clothes.” She paused. “Love you.”
Her face flushed and she closed her eyes for a moment. She wondered if the words would ever slip off her tongue as easily as they did for Dillon—as they seemed to do for everyone else but her. Dillon had asked her one night why it was so hard for her to say the words.
“You love me, right?” he’d said.
They were walking the pasture behind Josie’s home one cool evening in October, watching a deep red sunset fade to black. The sweet smell of wood smoke drifted toward them from Dell’s cabin up the lane. They had been holding hands, and Josie had been thinking about how incredibly happy she was, and then he’d said I love you. She had squeezed his hand in return, her body tensing, but then he’d stopped walking and held on to her hand, forcing her to stop and face him.
She had smiled, embarrassed at her response, and looked away.
“Of course I love you,” she said. “It’s just hard. I don’t know why. Like a lump in my throat.”
He stood nearly a foot taller, and she could feel him peering down at her as if trying to understand. She’d wanted to tell him, This is pointless. I can’t figure my feelings out for myself, so how can I explain them to you? And then he had cradled her head in his hands and kissed her neck and the side of her face, until she had turned and kissed him back, and the question faded.
He had finally wrapped his arms around her and whispered into her hair. “You don’t need to explain yourself to me. I love you for who you are.”
Josie stared at the cell phone in her hand and felt the familiar burn in the center of her stomach. There were other women, young and attractive, who would be happy to slide a gold band on their finger and become the newly wedded Mrs. Dillon Reese. She knew he deserved better, and if she didn’t give him better, who might take her place?
*
The Artemis Police Department was located in a two-story, shotgun-style brick building across the street from the courthouse. Plate-glass windows lined both sides of the entrance door, and a dark blue awning had recently been installed above them to block the afternoon sun. As Josie entered, she found city dispatcher Louise Hagerty sitting at her computer behind the long faux-wood counter that separated the dispatch station and intake area from the public.
Lou arrived at seven most mornings to relieve the night dispatcher. Despite years of that routine, anything before nine still made her grouchy, and she made no effort to hide it. She only nodded as Josie said hello and walked through the swinging access door and straight to the back of the building. She gazed at the scattered papers on the two intake desks on either side of the aisle and made a mental note to remind Otto he had a mess to clean up. The desks were used by the three officers in the department to take initial statements and fill out basic paperwork. She passed a row of filing cabinets, walked by the flagpoles that held the U.S. and Texas state flags, and up the steps to her office.