Sweet Hill Homecoming (18 page)

“You’re trying to make everyone like you,” Mia cut in. “And I get that, I really do. But you don’t have to shut out other people to make that happen. You’ll be the next Sheriff, Tatum. What’s the worse that will happen?”
 

“That I won’t forgive myself.”
 

And there she saw it. As always, Tatum West was the golden boy trying to do the right thing. But there was more. A true fear, like a man holding on to an uncertainty.
 

“Branch is the only father I have left and I feel like I’m betraying him, and that everyone can see it. I’ll never be Branch. I’ll never be my father. I already have half the town thinking I’m not right for this job, but every time I make a move to show I am ready for Sheriff, it’s just another step in the direction of selling out Branch.”
 

Her breath stuck to her throat. Tate looked lost. Sad. Frustrated. Like he was taking on weight that wasn’t his to shoulder.
 

“You’re not selling him out. This is a natural progression. People retire and others take their place.”
 

Tate shook his head. “He’s not well, Mia.” Something so raw and pained flashed in Tate’s eyes and made her own sting. “I don’t know how I saw this going, but I never saw it like this. I feel like I’m losing him. At the same time, it’s what’s right for the town.”

Mia’s ribs hurt from the breath she was holding. Tate was trying to live up to two men he idolized and while feeling guilty for following his dreams.

“You’d be a great Sheriff, Tate.”
 

“I need the town to think that.”

“You can’t expect every single person to like you.”
 

“No,” he said. “But I need the majority. I’d feel like a fraud otherwise.”
 

And there it was. Mia was hit with the bright truth that she and Tate were fighting for the same thing, just in different ways. He wanted the consensus of the town to support him because it made him feel like a part of it. Mia understood that all too well.
 

“I know.” Mia said, hating how much she did know.
 

She understood dreams. Wanting more. Wanting that next step up in life.

Tate was reaching for the same thing she was, he also seemed to have a deep seated pain that went with it. At the very least, she could respect that, no matter how it kind of hurt her heart. This was his home too. They were both clinging to it.
 

“Mia,” his eyes locked on hers. “I see you and the way you walk around with all the confidence in the world. I want to just be near you. To listen to you. To talk to you.” He scoffed. “And now I sound like a pussy but damn it, when it comes to you, I don’t know what to do. Just like I didn’t know what to do today at the station.”
 

Mia was pissed and kind of wanted to yell at him in that moment. She also got a deeper glimpse of the man that was setting up shop in this place in her chest she thought permanently empty. Emotions were always at war and she couldn’t tell who was winning…but all of a sudden, it didn’t feel like a game anymore.

“Tell me what to do,” he whispered.

There was a flash of unease in his eyes that made her think he did want her. Now was the time she needed to be the tough woman she knew she could be. The woman she had been all these years. Game or not, they both had a hand to play. She wasn’t going for the upper hand anymore, she was going for the safe bet. Preservation.

She grabbed his chin and yanked him down so that his mouth brushed right over hers.
 

“You, Deputy West, are going to do two things. One is this,” she bit his lower lip, closing the distance between them and kissed him hard. Plunging her tongue for one quick, hard taste of him. Just when he leaned closer for more, she backed away, but kept a hold of his chin. “And the other is to remember that,” she breathed against his mouth. “When you go on your date with Abby.”

With that, she released him and walked back behind the counter.
 

Tate stood and if Mia was in the mood to laugh, she just might. Because the Deputy looked shocked.
 

“If you don’t mind, I have to get back to work,” she said. “Have a pleasant evening Deputy.”

~

Pleasant was the last thing Tate was feeling. Sitting across from Abby McAdams in low lighting, white table linens and Italian music in the background, all Tate felt was wrong.
 

“Should we get an appetizer?” Abby asked, looking over her menu.
 

Tate took in the picture around him. It should look right. Him sharing a meal with a woman like Abby. She was what he should be interested in. What should excite him in terms of relationships. But she didn’t. It wasn’t her fault, it was Tate’s.

“I can’t do this,” he said.
 

She frowned. “What? What do you mean?”

 
“I appreciate everything you’ve done in spreading the word about my running for Sheriff but—”

“Of course! As you know, my father has known Branch a long time, but he seems to be warming up to you taking over.” She winked at him. “I’ll just keep raving about you until he’s one-hundred-percent on board.”

Tate forced a smile. He really was grateful because the Chief’s endorsement would go a long way. Yet everything about tonight, this dinner, didn’t fit. Wasn’t what Tate wanted or where he wanted to be. He opened his mouth to tell her but she continued.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you to my parents’ Christmas party. They’re always so much fun.”
 

Tate put his forearms on the table and leaned toward Abby, softening his voice. “Abby, I think you have a lot of wonderful qualities, but this doesn’t feel right to me. I’m sorry.”

“What? Doesn’t feel right? But Tate we’ve known each other for years.” She fidgeted in her chair. “We make sense.”
 

“Yeah,” he nodded. “We do make sense, but I think we both deserve more than that.”

She set her menu down and crossed her arms. “Oh, I get it. I know what you see in a woman like Mia.” Abby shook her head. “She’s not right for a man like you and you know it.”

Tate had to fight the urge to yell, because despite instant and concentrated anger raging through him, he was taught manners. And you never spoke rudely to a lady.
 

“What I see in Mia is a bright, ambitious woman,” he said firmly and rose.
 

Putting money on the table he walked to where Abby sat and shook her hand. She was obviously shocked that he was leaving her, but the truth was something he couldn’t ignore.
 

He was falling for Mia.
 

~

“Please don’t cry, Mia,” Kyle said but his words had the opposite effect. All she wanted to do was cry. Yesterday was a disaster. She sent the man she was sleeping with out the door and on a date with another woman and now the other man in her life was in pain.
 

“Oh my god,” she whispered and gently brushed Kyle’s cheek so she could look at his face. Getting a call that Kyle was in the hospital in the middle of the school day took twenty years off of Mia’s life. But seeing him sitting in the ER, in a blue gown and bleeding made her want to vomit. “Are you okay?”
 

“It looks worse than it is,” he said, wincing a little when he sat up in bed. There was a cut over his eyebrow that had just been freshly stitched and his bottom lip was busted. “Doc said I just have a few bruised ribs but nothing serious.”

“Nothing serious?” Mia said. “Kyle, you were beaten up.”
 

He glanced at the floor.

“Who did this to you?”

He shook his head.
 

“No!” she snapped, her chin trembling and trying like hell to hold it together. “No more covering for these assholes. Who did this, Kyle? Who’s been hurting you?”
 

He grit his teeth together. Mia wanted to scream. Her brother was being tormented and now physically hurt, and he said nothing.
 

The privacy curtain wooshed open and the Sheriff walked in. Kyle instantly sat up a little. Though Mia hadn’t laid eyes on him since she moved back, she was a little shocked at his appearance. He looked tired and older than his years. Granted, he was getting up there in age, but something about the Sheriff just looked…bleak.
 

She thought about what Tate said, that Branch wasn’t well, but had no idea the seriousness. Judging by his absent grumbling and wrinkly shirt, he wasn’t the same man she remembered.
 

“Can I help you, Sheriff?” Mia said.

“The school called me. In cases of bullying, the school notifies the local law enforcement.” Judging by the way he spoke, Sheriff Branch didn’t want to be there anymore than Mia wanted him there. But it would help Kyle. Hopefully they’d catch who did this to him. That is, if he started talking.
 

“Why don’t you tell me what happened, Kyle,” the Sheriff sounded like he was being put out and added, “and the truth.”
 

Mia frowned. Though she had some run-ins with him when she was younger, he was always polite. But now? He seemed mentally checked out and angry. Which upset Mia, considering it was Kyle lying in the ER bed.
 

“What are you insinuating, Sheriff?”
 

Branch cleared his throat. “It’s convenient that these things start happening right after you move back is all.”

“These things?” Mia scoffed. “You mean like my brother getting harassed, set up and now assaulted? And you want to blame us?”
 

“Just tell me what happened,” Branch said. “Then we can blame the proper people.”
 

She didn’t miss the insult in his tone and Mia had to literally bite down on her tongue. “Are you going to actually look for these kids?”

He grumbled again like she asked him to move the moon. “I don’t know, Miss Blake. Look at this kid,” he tilted his chin at Kyle, “he’s one of the biggest boys at the school and
he’s
being harassed?”

“His size has nothing to do with it.” She held up Kyle’s hand and showed the Sheriff. “Not a single scrape or bruise on his knuckles.” She swallowed hard because while it proved her point that Kyle wasn’t a fighter, it also proved that he wasn’t defending himself. “There is more than one person doing this to him.”
 

Kyle peeled his hand from hers and she met her brother’s eyes. “Tell him, Kyle,” Mia said softly to him. “Tell him who did this.”

Kyle shook his head. “I didn’t see.”
 

Mia’s eyes went wide and she was about to scream bullshit. “Kyle whatever you’re afraid of, don’t be. I’m here. Just tell me who did this to you.”
 

She gripped his hand again and again, her heart broke into pieces realizing how little control she had in this situation. He was struggling, hurting, and she couldn’t help. Didn’t know how.
 

“Well, if that’s it, then there’s nothing to report,” Branch said and touched the bill of his Stetson. “Be well,” he said and left.

“Wait,” she called after him. He turned to face her. “You can’t leave yet. Nothing’s been solved.”
 

Branch took off his hat and scratched his head. “Did you want to file a complaint?”
 

Mia frowned. Either the Sheriff was confused or Mia was in the twilight zone because she couldn’t believe how this was playing out.
 

“Ah, yeah, I would like to file a complaint. My brother is in there with stiches in his face!”
 

Branch looked at his feet and his bushy brows drew together like he was trying to solve calculus. “Well, you have to come to the station for that,” he huffed, put his hat back on and walked away as if eager to get out of the conversation.
 

“Sheriff?” she called again, but he didn’t stop, just kept marching down the hospital hallway like she was mute.
 

Mia stood in shock as to what just happened. Kyle wasn’t defending himself, and the Sheriff just basically told them to piss off. Nothing was happening. Nothing was being solved and the people who did this to her brother were going to get away with it.
 

She sat next to Kyle and did the one thing she had never done. She begged.
 

“Kyle, please. Talk to me, honey.” Kyle looked on the brink of tears himself and met her eyes.
 

“I can’t, Mia.”

~

Tate stood in the court house ballroom alone. Mia was supposed to show up an hour ago and if he already didn’t feel like an idiot, he did now. He walked out on Abby last night and wanted to tell Mia how he felt. He tried texting her again, but no response. Now with it getting dark outside, he decided to cut his losses and go home.
 

Making a quick stop by the station to grab his jacket and check to see what went on today, he walked around the front desk.
 

“Hey, Gail,” he said to the receptionist.