Period.
Standing the sledgehammer in one corner of the living room, she brought the pan out onto the small front porch to escape the demolition dust. Outdoors, it smelled like pine and dried leaves, a heady autumn fragrance that she breathed in deeply.
She missed the country only for moments like this—the proximity to nature that had been her best reprieve from the stress of living under the microscope in a small town. She’d always loved the sound of cicadas in late summer or the sight of peach orchards in bloom each spring, turning half the town pink. But fall was her favorite season with the wealth of pumpkins and Indian corn decorating entryways, and the rich, earthy scent of drying leaves.
She took a seat on the swing to devour her treat and enjoy the quiet. She hadn’t eaten two bites when her only neighbor appeared on the hill below the house. Sam Reyes charged toward her with purposeful steps. For a moment, she was able to observe him unaware. Dressed in dark pants and a gray button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, he looked more like a Fed than a local sheriff today. He walked fast, his posture rigid and his gaze downcast.
He was a handsome man. Prominent cheekbones and the straight blade of his nose gave his face character. A full lower lip and moody gray eyes were romantic touches that would make women notice him. He’d definitely turned her head as a teen. And now?
He caught her staring.
“Amy.” He gave a brief nod. No smile. No other greeting.
Had she thought those gray eyes were romantic? Today they had the crystalline sharpness of ice chips. How crazy that she could tell he was upset when she hadn’t seen him in a decade.
“You caught me.” She swallowed her first bite of brownie. “I was just thinking these are so good it’s a crime, and out of the blue, the sheriff appears.” She held out the tray. “Would you consider a bribe?”
“No. Thank you.” Stepping up on the porch, he settled against the wooden railing. “I need to ask you a few questions.”
She lost her appetite. Setting the pan aside, she stood.
“Would you mind if we took a walk?” She hoped the movement would hide her nervousness. “I’ve been cooped up inside since I got here, except for my one outing to the stores a few days ago.”
And, frankly, she didn’t feel comfortable walking through the woods alone. But with Sam, she could at least enjoy the sights and scents while he questioned her. Nerves fluttered as she steeled herself for the conversation she did not want to have.
“Sure.” Nodding, he waited for her to precede him, then followed her onto an overgrown path behind the cabin. Their footsteps crunched pleasantly through dried leaves as they trekked uphill. “I’ve thought a lot about what you said the last time I was here. About you having questions regarding my friendship with Gabriella and the way we left.”
The statement caught her off guard. She’d been bracing for him to start quizzing her about that summer. She hadn’t been expecting answers.
“You left without a word to me.” Her voice sounded brittle, the memory a dull ache.
“I regretted that. But let me explain. A few days before I left, I was at Zach’s house, waiting for him to get home from that nursing home where he worked. He’d had to stay late because one of the patients had fallen ill.”
She remembered. Before Zach Chance became mayor of Heartache, he’d grown up in the town, the son of a wealthy, white-collar criminal who’d scammed millions of people in a pyramid scheme. Zach had done everything he could to separate himself from his crooked parents, taking a job at a senior center where he’d volunteered countless hours.
“Zach was a teenage mayor before he became the real mayor.” When Amy had heard he’d taken over after her father passed away, she thought it made sense.
“Right.” Sam lifted a low branch for her to walk under, his boots a steady thrum of vibration beside her. “He was worried about his sister that summer because she hadn’t taken it well when their father went to jail. I was trying to help keep an eye on her.”
“That was kind of you.” She hopped over a rotted log.
He made the relationship sound more innocent than what she’d imagined. But he sure didn’t need to run away with the Chances to help Zach watch over his sister. He must have had good reason for wanting to leave town with them.
“I owed Zach. He made school bearable for me as a foster kid. Ensured I had friends and wasn’t just the freak of the week from the local foster group home.”
“I didn’t know.” She’d certainly never viewed him that way. But then again, she was younger than him and hadn’t been aware of him until she’d started attending high school.
“Anyway, I was at their house when Gabby told me she was leaving to meet a friend.” He shook his head, eyes on a distant point ahead, lost in a long-ago moment. “And if they’d had normal parents, she probably wouldn’t have been allowed out of the house at that hour on her own. But her dad was in jail, and their mom was grieving like the guy was dead.”
“I’m convinced there’s no such thing as normal parents.” It had been a common refrain between them at one time. “Except you, now that you’re a father, of course.”
He didn’t crack a smile at the playful jab. A bird flew low over her head, landing on a nearby branch.
“Of course. And I had to be the responsible one then, too.”
“You told Gabriella she couldn’t meet her friend?” she guessed, watching the blue jay hop from a maple tree into an evergreen.
“No. I followed her.” Something in his voice changed.
“What happened?” Amy slowed her pace as they neared a rushing stream, not wanting to miss anything.
“She stopped the car on the quarry road and got out like she was going to...” He halted at the water’s edge. “I thought at first she might jump off a cliff or something. It was so deserted out there.”
“She didn’t see you?” Amy hugged her arms around herself, warding off a chill despite the warmth of the late afternoon sun.
“I cut the lights of my own car and parked well behind her, then sprinted through the dark toward her.” He seemed lost in the past, his gaze unfocused. For a long moment, he paused. When he continued, his voice was hard. “But some other guy got to her first.”
“A boyfriend?”
“I think that’s what she expected. I found out later she was meeting a guy she’d been talking to online. He must have been stalking her for some time, looking for the right moment to set up a meeting. But this guy was no teenager—he was masked, but I could tell he was older than we were.” Sam’s hands fisted even now. “He had her on the ground and was on top of her before I could even get close to where they were.”
She gasped, connecting the dots to her own trauma that night. “He hurt her?”
“He tried his damnedest.” His eyes cleared, focusing on her. “But I got there before he could do much physical damage. I lunged at him, but he was bigger than me, and he started to get the upper hand until I got my hands on a log about the size of a baseball bat.”
“A weapon,” she half whispered, knowing she couldn’t change the outcome of a story that was long over, but she still found herself breathless from hoping Sam and Gabby got away.
“I hit him so hard I thought I killed him.” He leaned down to scrape his hand along a scraggly cattail growing near the creek bed. The movement released a cloud of fluffy white into the air. “Gabby had run off, and I left the guy to search for her. Another