A Better Man. Emilie Rose

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СКАЧАТЬ he was starting to think folks didn’t want him here. You’d think they’d be pleased that he’d finally gotten his act together.

      An hour later he had emptied the truck bed and had everything out of the trailer except the sofa, dresser and his king-size mattress, and still no one had offered assistance. That wasn’t like the town he remembered. Screw it. He’d hit the hardware store, buy better locks and try to round up a strong back to help him finish the job.

      He locked up, hoofed it across the asphalt and turned down Main Street. This morning when he’d driven in he’d been surprised to find that little had changed in the past twelve years. There were a few more shops—he’d investigate another day.

      He pushed open the door and automatically noted two customers, white males, sixties, and Hal Smith behind the cash register in what looked like the same blue apron he’d always worn. The store owner, with his wispy white hair in a bad comb-over that couldn’t hide his pale, spotted scalp, had to be eighty by now.

      “Mr. Smith, good to see you again.”

      The owner sized him up. Roth offered his hand and the man hesitated before returning the gesture. The shake was brief. “Sterling. Heard you was coming back. What can I do for you?”

      The cool tone was hard to miss. Damn strange, considering Quincey needed a chief, and Roth was, if anything, overqualified, and he’d taken one hell of a pay cut for this job. What was the problem? “I need window and door locks.”

      “Doyle’s apartment not secure enough for you?”

      “No, sir. A credit card would jimmy anyone in.”

      “Locks are on aisle three.” But Hal didn’t move to help. Maybe age had slowed him down.

      “I also need help unloading a few bulky items. Know anyone interested in earning a few bucks?”

      Smith glanced toward the other customers then at Roth. “Can’t say as I do.”

      Roth nodded his thanks and turned for aisle three. Guess it would take a while for folks to figure out he wasn’t a hell-raising kid anymore. He wouldn’t be in town longer than absolutely necessary, but he’d be here long enough to show this apple had fallen far from his daddy’s rotten tree. He wasn’t white trash anymore.

      * * *

      ROTH STERLING WAS BACK.

      Piper Hamilton fought a rising tide of panic as she reversed out of her parking space as fast as she dared. Her fingers cramped on the steering wheel and her palms grew slick.

      She’d heard the first whisper of impending doom when Mrs. Peabody had brought her geriatric cat into the veterinary clinic after lunch. Then it seemed each successive client had made a point of sharing the latest Roth sighting with Piper.

      Roth had bought locks at the hardware store. Roth had hired a couple of high school kids to help him unload furniture. Roth had visited the market, but he hadn’t driven his big black pickup over to the old home place yet….

      Roth this. Roth that. As if she wanted a play-by-play on the man she used to love—the one who’d dumped her and left her pregnant.

      Most of the afternoon’s clients had also made sure Piper knew they wouldn’t welcome the man who’d usurped her father as chief with the community’s usual open arms and Southern charm. While she appreciated their loyalty, their animosity only added to her worries. If the town gathered their figurative wagons around her, Roth might think she had something to hide. And she did.

      The only stoplight turned red as she approached the intersection at Main Street even though there wasn’t any oncoming traffic. She muttered a curse and braked hard. It had been one of those days when nothing went right.

      She checked her mother’s real estate office parking lot. Empty. Hopefully Mom was at home guarding the fort and the treasure.

      Piper ripped the clip from her hair and massaged her scalp, then tapped the wheel, urging the light to change. When it finally did she had to resist the impulse to race home. Not even being the chief’s—former chief’s—daughter made her immune to getting pulled over for a lecture. If anything, her father’s deputies had become a little overzealous in their honorary “uncle” roles since her father’s stroke six months ago.

      Her father. She sighed. Eight weeks ago the town council had strong-armed him into resigning and told him they’d already begun searching for his replacement.

      His bitterness over being stripped of the job that defined him for thirty years festered inside him like an abscess. He’d spread his infectious pus of discontent over anyone within hearing distance.

      But why had the town council hired Roth Sterling? Surely there had been better candidates than a troublemaker who’d left town and not once come back to visit?

      Her street finally came into view. She saw her mother’s sedan in the driveway of the home they shared and exhaled in relief. If her mother was at home, then maybe Josh would be, too. Piper prayed her son would be in his room, doing his imitation of an uncommunicative adolescent.

      She threw the car into Park and raced up the walk. Her mother opened the door before Piper could reach for the knob. “I take it you’ve heard?”

      Piper didn’t ask for clarification. “Yes. Where’s Josh?”

      “Upstairs. I bought him a new game to keep him occupied until we come up with a plan.”

      “Good idea.” Usually Piper didn’t allow her son to veg out on video games until after he’d finished his homework, but today she’d settle for anything that kept him out of sight.

      “Piper, what are we going to do?”

      The house smelled delicious, a testament to her mother’s stress level. Mom always baked when she was agitated. Piper put down her purse and hung up her jacket then checked to make sure Josh wasn’t nearby. To be on the safe side, she pointed to the kitchen and held her tongue even though her thoughts were tripping all over themselves. They reached the room on the opposite side of the house from his bedroom.

      “We’ll do whatever it takes to protect him, but we’ll have to stick with the same story you told everyone before Josh and I came home.”

      “Do you think Roth will buy it?”

      “I hope so. I can’t believe he came back. He always wanted more than Quincey had to offer.”

      More than she had to offer.

      Strain lined her mother’s immaculately made-up face. As the town’s only real estate agent, her mother never looked less than magazine-advertisement perfect even when she was baking.

      Her mother pulled a cookie sheet from the oven. “I cannot believe the town council kept their choice for chief a secret. They even conducted the interviews out of town. No one said a word about who they’d hired until Roth arrived today. And now everybody’s talking.”

      Piper pressed a finger against the tension headache chiseling between her eyebrows. This spelled disaster in so many ways. “Does Daddy know?”

      “Who do you think told me? Your father was there when ‘Sterling strutted into the g’damned station like СКАЧАТЬ