In Seconds

She jumped to her feet. “If you’d like me to go over there with you, I will.”

He made a gesture that suggested she needn’t trouble herself. “That won’t be necessary. But…can I ask you one more thing?”

Her face lit up. “Of course!”

“How well do you know Vivian?”

“Not very well,” she confided. “I met her when we both helped out at the school last year—our girls are in the same grade. I invited her to one of my jewelry parties, but she canceled the day before.” Chrissy wrinkled her nose. “She’s not very social. I don’t know what her problem is, but I’m beginning to think she’s hiding something.”

She was hiding something. She was hiding herself and her children. An abusive ex would motivate anyone to keep a low profile, maybe even buy a gun. But he planned to check out Chrissy’s report, just in case.

Chrissy hesitated at the door. “Oh, and, Sheriff?”

“Yes?”

“I’m not sure if this is important, but in light of recent events, I think it might be.”

“What’s that?”

“When Vivian first arrived in town, her daughter told my daughter that she moved here because ‘bad men’ were chasing them.”

Myles came to an abrupt stop. He might’ve expected “a bad man.” But men? As in more than one?

Was this a lie Vivian had concocted for the sake of her children? So they wouldn’t have to know that it was their father causing all the trouble? “Did she say who those bad men might be?”

“No. But it had to do with someone breaking into their house, someone who was shot and had—” she made quotation marks with her fingers “—‘blood coming out all over.’”

Another surprise. He had no idea what it meant, and yet he felt the urge to defend Vivian and Mia. “That could be make-believe, something she saw on television.”

“I know it sounds far-fetched. I thought the same thing at first. I mean, not every mother is as diligent about what their children watch as I am. But now I wonder…”

Myles wondered, too. Was Mia speaking about an actual event? If so, how did this tie in to what Vivian had told him? Was there one man she feared—or more? Did she really have an abusive ex?

And, if so, had she killed him?

Myles stood on her porch. Vivian could see his blurry image through the misted oval glass, recognized the blue of his uniform and knew why he’d come. Because of Chrissy. Buster wouldn’t have bothered the sheriff. Buster wasn’t a nosy troublemaker like Hope’s mother, who was generally known as the bane of the elementary school staff, if not the whole town. Unfortunately for Mia, Hope was turning out much the same. Before school ended for the summer, Hope had purposely excluded Mia from her popular clique.

Frowning, Vivian pushed away from her computer, where she’d been using Gchat to convince Claire that Pat’s murder had nothing to do with her mother’s disappearance. She’d been answering some of the emails that’d flooded her box over the past twenty-four hours, too. The blue-jean cutoffs and Little Big Town T-shirt she’d donned when she got home wasn’t really what she’d choose to wear in front of guests, especially male guests. But she didn’t want Mia to know the sheriff had come, didn’t want her to overhear the questions Myles might ask. So she got up and hurried to answer before he could ring the bell.

Fortunately, he knocked first, and not very loud. He could probably see her inside the living room, just as she could see him on the porch.

Determined to keep their encounter as brief as possible, she opened the door slightly. “Yes?”

When his gaze dipped to her chest, she knew he’d already noticed that she wasn’t wearing a bra. It’d taken less than a millisecond for her breasts to become his focal point and raise the tension between them. But the tension itself was nothing new. That was why she’d been bold enough to proposition him last night. She’d never dreamed he’d refuse her.

“Vivian.” He bent his head.

Forcing a polite smile, she used a similarly formal tone. “Sheriff. How are you today?”

“I’ve been better.”

So had she. For a lot of reasons. The most pressing was Rex. She couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d once meant to her, couldn’t stop wondering if he was still alive and whether or not she’d contributed to his downfall. Although she’d grown used to living with fear, guilt was new and more difficult to tolerate. Then there was the embarrassment she’d been trying so hard to avoid. With Myles standing less than two feet away, it was virtually impossible to shove the memory of her offer and subsequent rejection into the recesses of her mind.

She considered apologizing for her behavior and blaming it on the wine, but she wasn’t one for excuses. The alcohol hadn’t changed how she felt, only revealed it. He probably understood that as well as she did. Besides, if he thought she was a tramp, maybe he’d make her life easier by staying away from her and refusing to let Jake hang out with him.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” She paused, but he didn’t take the opportunity to come to the point of his visit. Instead, silence fell.

“Can I speak with you for a few minutes?” he asked when she didn’t invite him in, as he’d obviously expected.

“Of course.”

His eyebrows slid up. “Do we have to do it right here?”

Mia would be less likely to overhear if they chatted on the porch. “Why not? It’s a beautiful day. I’ll join you.”

Stepping outside, she closed the door quietly behind her and crossed the wooden planks to one of the rocking chairs she’d picked up at an antique auction last summer. She loved these chairs. Their weathered look fit perfectly with the wide veranda and stark simplicity of her hundred-year-old house. Her hundred-year-old house.

But maybe not for long. If she had to go on the run, there’d be no way to make the payments. She wasn’t even sure she’d have the money to survive. She’d have to lean on Virgil, and how long could she expect him and Peyton to take care of her? It was possible they’d have to leave what they’d created, too.

“You’re not curious about why I’m here?” he asked, trailing after her.

She sat down and pulled her legs up to hide her chest. “Judging by the uniform, it looks official, so…I’m guessing you haven’t stopped by for a quickie.” She’d thought making light of her blunder would ease the awkwardness between them, but her joke didn’t draw the grin she’d been angling for—or any other indication that they could laugh about last night.

Instead, his gaze slid over her bare legs, making her regret the reference even more.

“Forget I said that,” she muttered. “It was my way of apologizing for putting you on the spot after you were kind enough to come to the rescue of my refrigerator. That’s all.”

“It was an apology?”

“That’s right.”

“Not a suggestion.”

She cleared her throat. It definitely wasn’t a suggestion. “I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.”

“How sorry are you?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m just wondering if you’re sorry enough to change your mind about letting me buy you dinner.”

Most men would be grinning while they threw out a line like that, but he wasn’t. Hugging her knees closer, she shook her head. “More like…embarrassed enough to avoid you in future.”

His eyebrows knotted in frustration. “You’re not giving us a chance.”

And he wasn’t used to that. She couldn’t name a single unattached woman, at least one anywhere close to his age, who wouldn’t drop everything to spend a couple of hours with him. All she heard was, “That poor Sheriff King. How he loved his wife.” While it was a compliment, it was almost always spoken with a certain wistfulness that said the speaker would like to be next in line.

Vivian wasn’t any different. She felt that same desire to have what Amber Rose King had enjoyed. But that wasn’t something she could have, not unless she somehow managed to free herself from the past. “Maybe I don’t have a choice.”