Summer
Iused to think this town was too small to hold a future like mine.
Turns out, it was just the right size to bury it.
It started slow—so slow I convinced myself it was nothing. A lock that used to stay open clicked shut. The curtains, once left wide to let in light, stayed drawn. The landline stopped working. My cell vanished from my nightstand. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Sheriff Jacob Darnell started showing up more and more.
It began with him—Jackson Moore.
His name carried a pulse in this town. He was a rumor and a warning rolled into one. Rachel Sinclair used to strut through the halls at school, chin high, claiming she’d shared his bed. She said he’d kill for her. We all called it a lie, but no one said it to her face—not when half the boys flinched at the idea of proving her wrong.
Jackson had been arrested, held until his trial. And overseeing the case for the state was my papa, Michael Miller—district attorney, steely and immovable. I should have felt relief that someone with a reputation like Moore’s was off the street; instead, I felt a small, strange hollow, as if his arrest had only made the world more complicated.
The whole town hummed with the knowledge that Papa was leading the case. Questions followed me like a second shadow—atschool desks, on porches, from drivers slowing to stare. Everyone wanted my version, my reaction; none of them seemed to understand that being asked made the thing inside me grow heavier.
I asked Papa once, quietly, what Jackson had really done. He smoothed the newspaper flat, eyes never leaving the print.
“Confidential,” he said, voice clipped. “Loose talk can wreck a case.” And that was the end of it.
But after the jury came back guilty, the truth spilled everywhere—human trafficking, murder, the names of girls who never came home. Papa stood in front of cameras, harsh light carving shadows into his cheekbones while he was hailed a hero. When the dust settled, he spoke about the evidence stacked high and how juries swayed like reeds if you leaned just right.
“Twenty-three years as district attorney,” he told everyone. “Had all led to this.” He never doubted he’d be the one to bring Jackson down. Not for a heartbeat.
Papa came home late the night the verdict dropped. His tie hung loose, shirt stale with sweat that no amount of air conditioning could mask. Reporters swarmed our driveway, their questions snapping like firecrackers.
“District Attorney Miller—how does it feel to put Jackson Moore away?”
Papa lifted a hand, jaw tight, but the corner of his mouth twitched like he’d swallowed a victory.
For a while, the world exhaled. Normal crept back in. My acceptance letter to Blackwood Medical School still hangs above my desk, its edges curling beside polaroids of laughing faces—friends I haven’t seen in months. Their smiles are frozen, but mine falters every time I look.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Papa said when the letter came. “Moving away from home is a big step. Let’s think about it.”
I thought it was fear. The kind of fatherly love that doesn’t let go too soon. But then, I was pulled from school before finals. Told it wastemporary.
Before long, there were no more shopping trips. No calls with Adelaide or Constance. No stepping outside without a parent watching.No explanations. Just tight smiles and tired eyes, like I was imagining it all.
The air in our house grew thicker, stiffer. Like a storm pressing against the walls—and behind that pressure—Jacob. Always Jacob.
He came around at least three times a week. Uniform pressed, smile tight. Groceries. Flowers. Paperwork. Excuses. Always with his eyes on me. Studying me like a locked box, and he had the only key. Sometimes, I caught his gaze tracking my legs, my hands, the curve of my waist. It felt like interest—dark, forbidden, the kind that burns and bruises at the same time. His gaze didn’t wander; it devoured, but I didn’t say a word. Not when Mama poured him coffee. Not when Papa called hima good man.
Jacob was the kind of man you noticed—because you couldn’t not. He filled a doorway like he owned the air on the other side of it. Broad shoulders, lean muscle, jaw carved enough to cut if you got too close. His hair was a disciplined sweep of gold and ash—the kind meant for shaking hands in a boardroom. Except he smelled of smoke and the woods after a kill.
His eyes were worse. Too dark to read, deep enough to drown in if you made the mistake of looking too long. They didn’t see you—they stripped you down to the thoughts you didn’t say out loud. And somewhere beneath that steady stare was the unshakable truth: Jacob Darnell wasn’t the kind of danger you ran from, but the kind that found you.
Back then, that combination made my stomach flutter. My friends called it a badge crush when we giggled over milkshakes.
But crushes don’t follow you to your dates.
They don’t show up uninvited and linger in the silence like they belong.
I learned that the hard way.
The first time he crossed the boundary of the friendly neighborhood sheriff still burns fresh in my mind. The night at the bowling alley should’ve been harmless. I was two weeks from nineteen—out with Constance and two boys from school, Terry and Shane. Nervous smiles, too much hair gel, the kind of boys who tripped over their own words.
Jacob was already there when we pulled in. Sitting on the hood of his truck, arms crossed, boots planted like he’d been there long enough for the metal to cool beneath him.
He didn’t glance at me—he looked at them. Told them to “treat us right.” Said we were “good girls.” Then his eyes locked on Shane, and his voice dropped enough to make the darkness of the night feel heavier.
