one by one and looked at the labels. He wasn’t a connoisseur when it came to alcohol, but he could see that there were some very expensive bottles in the carton.
“I’m counting on it,” Daniel told him. “Maybe his parents will think twice before leaving Matthew alone with all this temptation again.”
“What did Elena say about you doing this?” Joe asked.
Daniel blew out a breath. “Not anything I feel like repeating right now,” he answered.
Opening his desk’s middle drawer, he took out a pad and a pen and began to write down the various names that were on the labels.
“Here, let me do that,” Joe told the younger deputy, taking the pad and pen away from Daniel. “You go on back to your sister. Like I said, the sooner you get yourself back home, the less tempted she’s going to be to fly the coop again.”
This was where Daniel would have wanted to say that since Elena had given him her word she’d stay home, he felt confident that she would be there when he walked in through the door. But the truth was that he wasn’t confident she’d be there. Not confident at all.
Joe was right. The sooner he got home, the more likely it was that he’d still find Elena at home. Because if she decided to take off again, this time he wouldn’t be able to just shrug it off or let it slide. This time, he was going to have to come down on her.
Hard.
And that would do even more harm to their relationship, causing it to splinter and break apart that much more. Maybe even irreparably, because he was only able to hold on to his temper for so long before it exploded on him.
“Thanks, Joe, I owe you,” Daniel said, heading for the door.
“Damn straight you do,” Joe called out, his voice following the other deputy as Daniel went outside to his vehicle.
How did it all get so confused and heavy-handed? Daniel couldn’t help wondering as he got in behind the wheel of his car again.
How did he and Elena go from being practically best friends to being these people who kept snapping at each other and regarding everything the other person did as being suspect?
He wished he knew. Daniel couldn’t even remember how it all had started to unravel. All he knew was that somehow, it had. And not just slowly but with what felt like lightning speed. One day he was Elena’s confidant, her shoulder to cry on, the next day, he was her enemy, part of “them,” otherwise known as a grown-up. And everyone knew that grown-ups or adults were the ones who stood in the way and impeded anything that even remotely looked like fun.
Elena stopped telling him things, stopped confiding in him, stopped looking at him the way she used to. These days, she wasn’t proud of him. She was just leery of him and it showed in everything she did, everything she said to him.
How did he go about changing that back to what it had been?
And just as important, how did he get Elena to realize that getting an education was the only way she would ever get out of Forever?
Shania made sure that she always parked her feelings of doubt and insecurity outside the door before walking into any classroom. It was the one major rule she always abided by. She felt it was her personal mission to inspire her students, to get them to focus on not just their schoolwork, but also on their abilities to surmount any and all obstacles that existed in their daily lives. She did her best to instill a work ethic within them that enabled them to work hard at achieving their personal goals.
On those occasions when things got particularly rough for her, it was then that Shania found herself channeling her great-aunt Naomi.
Early on in their relationship, the gruff, far from soft-spoken woman became her inspiration. To Shania’s recollection, there was no problem too big or too taxing to bring Aunt Naomi down or cause her to throw in the towel and give up. No matter what it was, Aunt Naomi had taught them that they could always find a way to deal with it.
Today had been about as taxing a day as she could ever remember enduring.
Usually, on those days when her students turned out to be particularly challenging, she’d go home and then she and Wynona would act as each other’s cheering section—or support group—whatever way wound up doing the trick.
But Wynona was no longer here. Right after the wedding had taken place, she and Clint had moved in together at the ranch. For a few minutes after her day had ended, Shania debated picking up the phone and calling Wynona just to unwind for a minute.
She would be damned if she was going to call her cousin to complain about today. Wynona didn’t need to hear her carping. What her cousin needed was to spend quality time with her husband, not to mention that she was also acclimating to being a mother to Clint’s nine-year-old son, Ryan.
No, Shania thought, growing more restless, Wyn had her hands more than full with all that going on, plus teaching. Her cousin definitely had no time to offer her a shoulder to lean on, Shania thought, even though Wynona would if called upon.
She wasn’t going to call her. But that didn’t mean that she didn’t still need at least a willing ear to listen to her, Shania thought as she chewed on her lower lip.
She could only think of one place where she could find that willing ear. An ear that only listened, but didn’t feel obligated to give advice.
“No offense, Belle,” she said, looking down at the rather diminutive German shepherd that was shadowing her every move and weaving in and out between her legs when she walked, “but tonight I really think that I need a human to talk to.”
Belle stopped moving and looked up at her with her big brown eyes. Shania could have sworn that the dog understood what she was saying—and forgave her.
“I won’t be long,” Shania promised as she grabbed her jacket from the coat rack by the door and shrugged into the garment.
Granted it was only just the end of September, but sometimes the weather took an unexpected turn around seven or eight o’clock, becoming cold. The last thing she wanted to do was to catch a cold. It was bad enough having to deal with low spirits, something she was not accustomed to having.
* * *
Murphy’s, the town’s only saloon, has initially been owned by Patrick Murphy, the present owners’ uncle. A lifelong bachelor, he had taken in the three orphaned brothers when they were just boys after his younger brother, their widowed father, died. Eventually, since they comprised his only family, Patrick left the establishment that was his pride and joy to them when he passed away.
Although the two younger Murphy brothers occasionally took turns operating it, everyone agreed that the saloon was Brett’s baby. The oldest of the Murphy brothers was the force behind its present success and he was the reason that most people in and around Forever would find their way there.
Murphy’s had an unspoken agreement with Miss Joan, the woman who owned the town’s only diner, which was also its only restaurant. Miss Joan’s was where people went for food and, on occasion, for advice. Murphy’s was where they went to have a drink amid people
