Page 36 of Wayward

“Then thank you again.”

“You’re very welcome,” I said softly, smiling at her.

More tears then as her daughter rushed over to me. I wasn’t used to having little kids hug me, but I patted her on the back and assured her nothing bad was going to happen again. “Your uncle Thad will keep all of you safe.”

“Okay,” she whimpered.

When I glanced at Linda, she mouthed a thank-you. I had to wonder if perhaps Thad could come off a bit gruff to a young person. Maybe my vouching for him, after I’d saved Harper’s pets, was a good thing.

It took a bit, getting the three men into the cruisers. I watched as the deputy and his two men, Woosley and Tan, put them in the back of their utility vehicle, all crowded in together. All three, the deputy said, were telling the same story about how I’d attacked them. But since there was security footage from the front of the vet clinic that the deputy collected, there was no talking their way out of being charged.

The deputy stayed with us while his officers left with the men, taking them to the detention center in Seaside, where there were others to assist them.

“So are you the sheriff’s first deputy and the other guys are not deputies?” I asked, trying to get my head around the hierarchy.

“No,” he replied, looking up from the tablet he was typing on and meeting my gaze. “We have a chief of police here in Rune, Daniella Ramirez. She was promoted last year when her predecessor, Gil Brasher, took a job as the chief of police in Seaside.”

“So he basically moved to a bigger post, and Ramirez moved up. And the other two guys?”

He grimaced. “Were already here when I transferred.”

“The plot thickens,” I teased him, which wasn’t like me, but he was smiling and we were talking like regular people, which hadn’t happened to me in ages. I never met anyone new, but the past few days, between two sets of marshals and my trip to the vet, had been full of new faces. And the deputy’s was by far the best.

“Yeah,” he groaned. “Tan and Woosley are good guys. They’re just not…thinkers?”

I scoffed.

“There’s no way to make that sound any better, and believe me, I’ve tried.”

“So they’re great at following directions.”

“Yes. They’re great at executing orders,” he said, jumping on the compliment. “Just excellent at that.”

“But Ramirez, she needed someone who could think outside the box to back her up.”

“That’s what she said, yes.”

“And you wanted to live here in Rune for some unfathomable reason.”

He nodded. “I did. I used to live in New York, and I…shit, you don’t wanna hear my entire life—”

“Yes, I do. Please.”

He searched my face for a moment, took a breath, then said, “I lost a friend in the line of duty, and once, he was more than just…that.”

“I’m sorry,” I said softly.

Slow nod. “After that, doing the same job just wasn’t feasible anymore, so I looked for a new one as far away from home as possible and finally ended up here.”

“Do you miss home?”

He squinted at me.

“You said you looked for a new job as far away from home as––”

“I did?”

I nodded.