“You just gotta give the people what they want, Uncle Wes.Law, order, and kiss some babies.”
“Who are you?”Brooke said.
“Sheriff Max Garcia Hart, running for office,” Max said over his shoulder as he pulled out several tubs of ice cream.
“That does have a nice ring to it, son,” Dalton said, beaming with his arms crossed as he sat back like a proud father.No one would even suspect he wasn’t Max’s biological dad.And once Dalton and Brooke got married this summer it’d be official.
“Well until the next generation of Harts can take that job from you, Wesley Hart, Sheriff of Sandy Point, is who we need,” Gran said.“But tell me why I’m just finding out you don’t sound like you want the job.”
“It’s not that I don’t want the job, Gran.It just comes with different political, budgetary, and schmoozing responsibilities.I’ve been content to avoid those.”He was hesitant to admit he’d been considering leaving town for the last year, and he didn’t want to hurt his grandmother’s feelings.
“I see.Would this change of heart have anything to do with a young woman who has yet to move back to Sandy Point permanently?”
“It’s been on my mind the last few years.I just thought there might be someone else, more qualified, who would step in.Then after Dalton moved back, the idea of not needing to stay in Sandy Point crossed my mind more than once.”
“And?”Gran had a knack for knowing how to lead a person through the entire story.”
“And now I just know I can’t let Sam Shepherd be the law of the land here.He’s a corrupt bully who’s never worked a real day in his life.”
“And?”
Dalton told Max he could take his ice cream into the living room and start a movie, and Wes waited until he left the kitchen to finish his thought.“And I think the recent fires might be someone’s attempt to intimidate or discredit me from winning.”
Gran gasped but then reached her hand out to him.
“So you can’t let Sam Shepherd think he can run you out of this town, and you can’t let him win, Sheriff, so now you have to run?”Dalton said.
“Pretty much,” Wes agreed.
“That’s BS.You took on a lot after Mom and Dad died; I can manage the estate with Gran, and Brooke’s help.Besides, Atlanta isn’t that far away.”
“I agree.As much as I would love to have all three of my favorite grandsons back in Sandy Point raising families and giving me great-grandbabies, you have to follow your own path.You only have this one life,” Gran said.
“We either need to find someone else well known, well liked, and well funded to run for sheriff or I have to.All official candidates need to file their intent to run this Friday.”
“Do you think there will be more incidents after you make your announcement?”Brooke asked.
“If these fires are linked to the sheriff’s race, there are likely to be even bigger attempts to dissuade me, and we need to be ready for anything.”
Brooke looked at Dalton.“We already talked it over and we’re going to stay with Gran until things settle down,” Dalton said.
“Alright, I was hoping to spend the weekend in Atlanta, but it looks like I’ll be here until we can figure out who is behind the recent problems.
“I just hope this doesn’t get out of control, and no one gets hurt.But maybe it would be best if someone else in the community did decide to run,” Gran said.
“If anyone could convince someone else to run for sheriff, it would be you,” Wes said.
The more they talked about the idea of someone else running for sheriff and winning, the more aggravated Wes was with the situation.All this time he thought he didn’t want the job, that he didn’t need to stay in Sandy Point.He had set all his plans aside when his parents died.He’d been mourning, trying to look after his brothers, and needed a job.Working for the sheriff’s department was an easy solution back then, but the truth was he did love his job.He liked helping people, protecting his town.There was honor in his work.Now he couldn’t remember why he thought he’d want to be anywhere else, which meant he had a real election to run, an arsonist to find, and he needed to figure out how to tell Shelby he didn’t want to leave Sandy Point.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Shelby
Cowgirls
After two moredays of barely writing, Shelby packed an overnight bag and decided to spend a few nights back at Pops’s house.She still couldn’t think of it as hers, but it was the last place she’d gotten any real work done on her new series and for some reason she couldn’t get that out of her mind.Authors were known for all sorts of creative limitations, or superstitions.One of her friends only wrote by hand and then transcribed everything as her first round of edits.Another friend could only write first thing in the morning but wrote every single day, 365 days a year.
She’d made numerous connections with authors over the years attending book signings or conferences, but most lived in different cities.For the last twelve years she’d thought of Atlanta as her home, but suddenly it felt like anything but that.After just two weeks in Sandy Point, everything looked different.In Atlanta she’d collected a few people.Her editor was based out of Atlanta, as were a few other writers from college, but in actuality she was a bit of a loner.Just like when she was a kid, she was more content to be with her horses or books.
