Page 45 of Dead Men Tell No Shells

He spread butter over his toast, then took a bite while I forked up some eggs and bacon. The simple familiarity of sharing a meal with him, talking about our lives as if we were two people catching up after a long absence, was both comforting and disorienting.

“Was it what you expected?” I asked.

“Some of it. Not all of it.” He swallowed, then took a sip of coffee. “There were long hours, difficult cases, and plenty of days when I came home wondering whether I’d made any difference at all. But I learned to do the job, and I was good at it. I had colleagues I respected, and I made friends. I built a life there.”

I waited, sensing that there was more.

“But I didn’t go to Baltimore just because I wanted to keep working in law enforcement,” he continued. “When I left the Air Force, it was because a part of me thought that if I moved closer to a place where I could drive home to visit my parents on my days off, maybe I’d find the courage to contact you. I told myself that if I got settled, if I found a way to explain what I’d done, perhaps I could reconnect with you.”

He paused, his fingers tightening around his coffee cup.

“But I chickened out. I kept thinking I’d left it too late, that you’d moved on, that hearing from me would only reopen wounds I had no right to disturb. Then your books came out, and I saw that you were building a life of your own. I became certain I was firmly in your past. I convinced myself that the kindest thing I could do was leave you alone.”

I set my fork down. “You should have let me decide that for myself.”

“I know.” His gaze held mine. “I know that now, and I knew it was a possibility even then. But I was afraid of what you’d say, and I let that fear make the decision for me.”

I took another bite of bacon, mostly because I needed a moment to think. It was difficult to reconcile the man across from me with the boy who’d left without saying goodbye, and yet the more he spoke, the more I could see how the same stubbornness that had once made him dependable had become something he could hide behind. He’d convinced himself he was protecting me when he was really protecting himself from the possibility that I might reject him.

“And Hartwell Cove?” I asked. “What made you come back now?”

“When I heard the previous sheriff was retiring, I started thinking about it seriously. I could have stayed in Baltimore. I had a career, a routine, people who knew me. But it never felt like home. I was always aware that I was somewhere else.” He looked down at his plate, tearing a piece from his toast. “And because I wanted the chance to see you again and not be able to talk myself out of it, because here, there would be no way to avoid facing you head on.”

There it was. No clever evasion, no attempt to pretend that his return had been entirely about public service. He’d come back with a hope he’d had no right to expect me to share, and he was finally saying so aloud.

I looked away toward the window. Outside, a couple of volunteers were loading folded tables into a truck, the last remnants of the festival being packed away. The town would be cleaning up for days, and people would be talking about Harvey’s death for far longer than that. Life had a way of carrying on, even when something terrible happened.

“I don’t know what to do with that,” I said quietly.

“I know. You don’t have to do anything with it today.”

I glanced back at him. “You keep saying things like that.”

“Like what?”

“That I don’t have to decide anything. That you don’t expect me to forgive you. That you’re not asking for promises.” I gave a small, helpless shrug. “It’s hard to argue with you when you aren’t trying to convince me of anything.”

“I’m not trying to convince you. I want you to make your own decisions, Max, but with all the facts. I should have respected that the first time and made sure you had them.”

I swallowed. There it was again, the acknowledgment of the very thing that had hurt me most. He’d made a decision for both of us, then spent years trying to convince himself it had been the right one. Now he was finally giving me the choice he’d taken away. It didn’t undo anything, but it mattered.

We talked for a while longer, about his parents and mine, about how much had changed in town and how much remained stubbornly the same. He told me his parents were enjoying retirement in Florida and that his mother still worried about him eating properly, even though he was a grown man and a sheriff. I told him my father had developed an alarming interest in recreational activities that involved water, gravel, and the possibility of finding gold, and Josiah laughed hard enough that June glanced over to make sure we weren’t choking.

I finished most of my eggs, worked my way through the bacon, and buttered another slice of toast. Josiah ate his bacon and toast, occasionally pausing to drink his coffee or ask another question. The conversation meandered from my writing schedule to the changes in town, from our parents to the people we’d once known. For a few minutes, it felt almost easy.

Then his expression grew thoughtful again.

“I’ve wondered what you thought of me,” he said.

I looked at him. “Over the years?”

“Yes. I wondered whether you hated me. Whether you’d forgotten me. Whether you’d met someone else and built a life you were happy with. I knew I had no right to ask, but I wondered.”

“I didn’t forget you.”

His eyes held mine, and I felt the weight of the admission settle between us.

“I tried to,” I continued. “There were times I wished I could. It would have been easier than wondering why you’d left without saying goodbye, or what I’d done wrong, or whether there had been someone else. I had to build a life that didn’t depend on you coming back.”