had been the same way, that Jeffrey Tolliver’s love of the hunt was probably what had gotten him killed. Will’s fight or flight was similarly stuck on fight. He didn’t want Sara to be terrified every time he walked out the door.
He glanced up at the house again as he mowed the next row.
Rich, drunk aunts aside, he felt like things were going well with Sara. They had settled into a routine. They had learned to accept each other’s faults, or at least to overlook the worst of them, as in two examples: a lack of desire to make the bed every morning like a responsible human being and a stubborn unwillingness to break the habit of throwing away a jar of mayonnaise even when there was enough in the bottom to make half a sandwich.
For Will’s part, he was trying to be more open with Sara about what he was feeling. It was easier than he’d thought it would be. He just made a note on his calendar every Monday to tell her something that was bothering him.
One of his biggest fears had disappeared before a Monday confessional had rolled around. He’d been really worried when Sara had first started working with him at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Things had smoothed out, mostly because Sara had made them smooth. They each stayed in their own lane. Sara was a doctor and a medical examiner, the same job she’d had back in Grant County. Her husband had been chief of police, so she knew how to be with a cop. Like Will, Jeffrey Tolliver probably hadn’t been in line for any promotions. Then again, what promotion would the man get when he was already at the top of the food chain?
Will pushed this out of his brain, because as dark as his thoughts were, letting them dip into that pool would be fairly treacherous.
At least Sara’s mother seemed to be coming around. Cathy had spent half an hour last night telling him stories about the first few years of her marriage. Will had to think this was progress. The first time he’d met her, Cathy had basically spit nails in his direction. Maybe his Sisyphean battle against her drunk sister’s lawn had persuaded her that he wasn’t such a bad guy. Or maybe she could see how much Will loved her daughter. That had to count for something.
He stumbled as the mower jammed into another gopher hole. Will looked up, shocked to find that he was almost done. He checked the time.
1:44 p.m.
If he hurried, he could grab a few minutes in the shed to hose down, cool off, and wait for the dinner bell.
Will pushed through the last, long row of grass and practically jogged back to the shed. He left the mower cooling on the stone floor. He would’ve kicked the ancient machine but his legs were basically silly string.
He peeled off his shirt. He went to the sink and dunked his head under the ice-cold stream of water. He washed all the important areas with a bar of soap that had the texture of sandpaper. His clean shirt skidded across his wet skin as he put it on. He went to the workbench, pressed his palms down, spread his legs, and let everything air dry.
His cell phone showed a notification. Faith had texted him from the big shot meeting that Will was not invited to attend. She’d sent him a clown with a water gun pointing at its head. Then a knife. Then a hammer. Then another clown and, for some reason, a yam.
If she was trying to make him feel better, a yam wasn’t going to pull him over the finish line.
Will looked out the window. He wasn’t given to navel-gazing, but there was nothing to do but think as he stared at the expertly tended lawn.
Why wasn’t he in that big shot meeting?
He couldn’t begrudge Faith the opportunity. Or the nepotism. Amanda, their boss, had started out her career partnered with Faith’s mother. They were best friends. Not that Faith was skating on her connections. She had worked her way up from a squad car to the homicide division at the Atlanta Police Department to special agent status at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. She was a good cop. She deserved whatever promotion came her way.
It was what came next for Will that would be the real humiliation. Setting aside having to tell Sara that Faith had moved up while he treaded water, Will would have to break in a new partner. Or, more likely, a new partner would have to break in Will. He was not good with people. At least not with fellow cops. He was very good at talking to criminals. Most of Will’s youth had been spent skirting the law. He knew how criminals thought—that you could lock them in a room and they would come up with sixteen different ways to break out, none of them involving just asking someone to unlock the door.
The point was that Will closed cases. He got good results. He was a crack shot. He didn’t suck up all the air in the room. He didn’t want a medal for doing his job.
He wanted to know why he wasn’t asked to be in the meeting.
Will looked down at his phone again.
Nothing but yam.
He stared out the window. He sensed that he was being watched.
Sara cleared her throat.
Will felt his bad mood lift. He couldn’t stop the stupid grin that came to his face every time he saw her. Her long, auburn hair was down. He loved it when her hair was down. “Is it time for lunch?”
Sara looked at her watch. “It’s one forty-six. We have exactly fourteen minutes of calm before the storm.”
He studied her face, which was beautiful, but there was a streak of something above her eyebrow that looked suspiciously like the smeared entrails of a dead bug.
She gave him a curious look.
“Have you seen the shed?” Will offered her the grand tour, but only as a ruse to get her onto the couch. He was exhausted from the mowing. He was starving. He was worried that Sara was only fine with a poor cop as long as that poor cop had ambitions.
He asked, “It’s great in here, right?”
Sara coughed at the dust that huffed up from the couch. Still, she looped her leg over his. Her arm rested along his shoulders. Her fingers stroked the wet ends of his hair. He always felt a sudden calm when Sara was with him, like the only thing that mattered was the connection that tethered them together.
Will asked, “Can we move in? I’m only halfway kidding.”
Sara’s curious look turned guarded.
Will stopped breathing. The joke had landed wrong. Or maybe it wasn’t a joke, because they had been dancing around this subject of moving in together for a while. He was basically living with Sara now, but she hadn’t asked him to properly move in, and he couldn’t figure out if that was a sign, and if it was a sign, was it a stop sign or a go sign or was it the kind of sign she was beating him over the head with, only he was missing it?
He desperately searched for a change in subject. “Look, a guitar.”
Will fiddled with the strings. His teenage self had had the patience to learn exactly one song in its entirety. He started out slow, humming the tune so that he could remember the chords. And then he stopped, wondering why he’d ever thought “I’m on Fire” was The Song that would persuade a girl to let him touch her breasts. “That’s kind of gross, isn’t it? ‘Hey little girl is your daddy home?’”
“How about ‘Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon’? Or ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me’? Or the opening line to ‘Sara Smile’?”
