huh?”
He shrugged.
So did she. “I’m good with that. Been called worse. Okay, so here’s what I’ve heard.” She lowered her voice. “Blink once if it’s true, twice if it’s not.”
“No.”
She huffed. “Fine. Well, one story is that you shot a fellow cop in New York and you felt so guilty about it, you needed to get away.”
“I have shot a fellow cop before. Don’t feel the least bit guilty.” The rookie officer had caught a bullet in his left butt cheek in a liquor store robbery shoot-out, after ignoring protocol and advancing on the perpetrator. He’d been lucky it was only his butt; if Jacob hadn’t fired when he had, the guy may not have walked away at all. “What else you got?”
Her eyes widened for a quick moment, then she said, “Another theory is that you were fired, and no other big-city department would hire you.”
That was a little closer. “Fired for what?”
“The thoughts on that are varied. Some people say it was for withholding narcotics, others for killing an innocent bystander in a shoot-out. One person was kinder and said it was because you’d gotten strung out and went a little crazy.”
That was kinder? “That all you got?”
“Pretty much...the others are too ridiculous to be true.”
Right.
These people knew nothing. Reassured and relieved, he stood again and reached for his gloves. “Well, sorry to say they are all wrong. I’m just here for a change of scenery.”
“No one’s buying that story, Jake—I mean, Sheriff Matthews,” she said.
Jake. Sheriff Matthews. Man, the worst part about this whole thing was not even being allowed to keep his own name. He hated when people called him Jake, but at least he answered to it. Better than getting used to something totally different, and he wasn’t about to argue any of the conditions of his placement. Originally, they’d wanted to send him with his sister and nephew to some remote location, indefinitely, under the federal witness protection program. He’d been lucky to convince the department to let him stay close to New York and take on this mundane sheriff position instead. He’d claimed he wanted to stay nearby for when and if the drug case went to court and they needed him to testify, but the truth was he was still on the undercover case...just not officially.
“I’m not asking anyone to buy it,” he said, heading toward the door. He just needed them to mind their own business. “Have a good night.”
* * *
HEATHER CRADLED HER cell phone against her shoulder as she carried the heavy garbage bag through the back door of the pool hall. She set the trash down on the icy ground next to the already heaping bin, making a mental note to call the disposal company in the morning to come empty it. When she’d taken over running the bar from Melody Myers eleven months ago she a) hadn’t expected it to be so hard and b) hadn’t expected to be running it longer than six months.
“You still there?” her older sister said on the other end of the line.
“Barely,” she mumbled, glancing at the seconds ticking away on her phone. Cameron had left her on hold for almost nine minutes.
“Sorry... I’m working, you know,” she said distractedly.
Heather shivered in the late November air as she made her way back inside. “So am I.”
“Yeah, at some crappy pool hall in the middle of nowhere. Heather, you have an MBA.”
“I know,” she said, tugging the heavy metal door closed behind her and locking it. She hadn’t forgotten how hard she’d worked for the life and career she’d once had in New York; she was just struggling to figure out how to get back there, to all of that. “That’s why I’m asking you for this favor.”
“Heather, this is Highstone Acquisitions in Manhattan. Not some rinky-dink firm.”
She sighed, suppressing the urge to remind her sister that she had worked at Clarke and Johnston for over ten years. They weren’t a rinky-dink firm, either. “That’s why I want to apply for a job there.”
“Heather, you know I love you and I want nothing more than to have you back here in the city, but this is Rob’s employer. Asking him to stick his neck on the line for you is...”
Heather gaped. Sticking his neck on the line? Seriously? “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Cam,” she said. “You know what? Never mind.” She’d look up the firm herself and apply for the acquisitions agent position without Rob’s help. It would be the fourth one she’d applied for in a year. She’d yet to even be called for an interview. And it baffled her. Her résumé was solid. She had the MBA Cameron had just mentioned. It was as though her previous employer had blackballed her somehow, she thought bitterly.
Calling in the favor to her sister’s husband had meant swallowing her pride, but she was getting desperate. She had exactly five hundred and seventy-two dollars left in her bank account, after depleting her savings for the past year while she searched for a job.
“I’m sorry,” Cameron said, sounding sincere. “That’s not what I meant.” She sighed. “Okay, Rob’s direct boss is Mike Ainsley. He owns the company. His phone number...”
Going to the register behind the bar, Heather ripped off a piece of receipt paper. “Can’t I just email him?”
“He’ll probably want you to email a résumé, but Rob always says he likes to have a chat with potential candidates first.”
That made sense, and she wasn’t opposed to calling him, she was just hoping for more time to prepare for a discussion with the man. She wanted to make sure she got a shot at this position. “How old is he?”
“Old. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. You’re looking for a new employer this time, not a potential boyfriend, remember?”
Heather cringed. Her sister would throw that in her face again. “Believe me, I’ve learned my lesson about that,” she mumbled. Three years in a relationship with her boss at Clarke and Johnston, only to lose him as both employer and boyfriend, had taught her to diversify.
Workplace relationships were not an option anymore.
“Good. So, just put away your sarcasm and resist every urge to be funny, and get through a short telephone call. We really do want you back here in the city.”
She wanted to get back to her old life, too. She’d been away and out of the game long enough. Her career as an acquisitions agent, buying out smaller companies on behalf of million-dollar clients—usually box stores and hotel chains—had come to a halt after she’d been fired and dumped in the same week. She’d hightailed it to Brookhollow for her friend Victoria’s wedding and a mini-vacation. She hadn’t planned to stay for two years. The reminder of her friend momentarily gave her pause. “Look, Cam, I’ll be there as soon as I can, but Victoria is depending on me now, too.” Victoria ran a B and B in town. Her business partner and best friend had died months before in a car accident, and Heather had stepped in to help as much as possible. Days at the Brookhollow Inn’s
