Support Your Local Sheriff. Melinda Curtis

I get it,” Julie groused. “You have experience with little kids.” Drat and darn. “Why didn’t you tell me last night?”

      Nate met her gaze squarely. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d been shot?”

      She sat back, resisting the urge to touch her shoulder. He must have called someone from the force. “Why would I? We don’t work together. We’re not partners, friends or in-laws.”

      He ignored her boundary setting. In fact, he steamrolled over her defenses. “You look like hell. I thought you were dying of cancer.”

      Julie clung to her coffee cup and held her tongue.

      “You’re not taking time off to grieve. You’re taking time off to heal and awaiting an internal investigation into the shooting.” Something passed over Nate’s face, a bleakness so fleeting, she couldn’t catch its meaning. “I heard it was your first.”

      Her first kill, he meant.

      Sweat traced the band of her bra. Only because the fleece of her hoodie was too thick and the heater above her too warm. Her toes were still cold.

      “Don’t talk about it as if I was hunting deer.” Julie stared into her mug while Duke slurped his milk and black birds twittered and the morning fog dissipated and life went on happily for other people.