“You can’t have a dog in here!” the woman said, then bent over and started petting Milo. “Oh, well, he’s just so sweet. Maybe just this once, though I don’t think Stitch is gonna be too happy about you being in his territory.”
“I was called by Sheriff Wynne about collecting Josie.”
“Josie?”
“The woman in the fight.”
“I meant, what is her last name, dear?”
“Hell if I know. She’s my neighbor. And why would you not know? This is the smallest town in Montana. Are you telling me you don’t know a woman named Josie?”
“Not the smallest town,” Sheriff Wynne said, walking out of the back. “She’s just trying to pry information out of you,” he grinned at the older woman. “Bea is my hound dog. She finds out everything around town.”
“Been doing it for forty years. Why stop now? You are bringing donuts tomorrow, right?”
“Have I ever let you down?”
“Well—”
“I meant this year, Bea,” he hurried on. “She’s been bringing up the donut incident of ’22 ever since I forgot her donuts, all because I missed my alarm. I’ll never live it down.”
“I wasn’t aware you could have a donut incident.”
“Trust me,” he said, motioning for me to follow. “In a town this small, everything is an incident.”
“So, what exactly happened?”
“Well, it would seem that Scarlet, the fiancée of your neighbor’s boyfriend, traded in Josie’s car today, making a deal with Frank down at the dealership.”
“She traded in Delilah?”
Maverick turned and grinned at me. “She got to you.”
“What?”
“You called the car Delilah. This is very interesting,” he said, shoving the door open. “Anyway, Frank doesn’t always play by the rules, and agreed Josie could handle the paperwork when she got off work. Scarlet insists she was only looking out for the safety of her soon-to-be sister-in-law.”
“Right,” I drawled.
“I’m not sure exactly what happened, but Josie lost it in front of the diner. Let’s just say Scarlet isn’t quite as pretty as when she arrived in town.”
“And the brother is siding with his fiancée?”
“Well, have you seen Scarlet?”
I rolled my eyes. I didn’t want to be involved, but I also didn’t want Josie to be in jail any longer than she had to be after the stunt that woman had pulled.
“Now, just remember, she’s still a little worked up,” Maverick warned me. “But the letdown is coming.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
His lips twitched in amusement. “You’ll see.”
“Hey!” I shouted as he opened the door and walked through. “What letdown?”
When he didn’t answer, I walked through to the back, a place I was more than a little familiar with—if not the same jail cell I’d been in myself a few times. Josie was on one bench with her arms crossed over her chest and a scowl on her face. Her hair brushed her shoulders as she huffed every few seconds.
Scarlet, on the other hand, cried like a wounded dog as Sawyer sat in the cell beside her, pressing an icepack to her face. At first, I thought maybe Josie decked her, but when he moved the pack, I saw red lines scratched into the woman’s skin.
