And maybe Sawyer liked antagonising Ciaran a little.
He was clearly rankled by Sawyer’s presence, so a bit of snark and a smirk aimed at him made it more fun.
He wanted Ciaran to break first.
Sawyer could make his interest known, but it had to be Ciaran who made the first move. Sawyer being the only cop in town complicated things. He couldn’t be the one to act first because it could look like coercion. As in, accept my advances if you want me to look the other way from whatever criminal activity you might be into kind of thing.
Not that he thought Ciaran was doing anything illegal. Not at all. He might have thought that in the beginning. But not now. He didn’t think any of these guys werebad guys.
Was there something going on? Was there something Sawyer didn’t know about that all eight of them were involved in?
Yes.
Sawyer was certain of that.
Was it nefarious? Was it illegal?
Or were they just a bunch of close-knit guys who preferred to live off the grid?
Sawyer could hardly blame them for not wanting anything to do with city life or people in general. Sawyer felt much the same way. There was absolutely nothing wrong with not needing city conveniences. Not needing town or city services when you were self-sufficient enough was fine. Admirable, even.
That being said, not everyone was cut out for small-town living.
Though Tenebrae Cove was hardly even a small town. It was more a village. With a population closer to ten than twenty-two.
Well, nine if Sawyer included the fact that one of them, the guy named Dylan, was “gone.” Notmissing, as Ciaran had been so adamantly sure about.
Sawyer couldn’t help but wonder....
He’d told Ciaran he’d dropped any police concern. If the guy wasn’t technically a missing person or a person of interest, there was nothing Sawyer could do.
He’d searched Dylan’s name in the police database, but there was nothing.
No criminal record, no driver’s licence, no anything.
He was, by all accounts, a law-abiding twenty-four-year-old guy. No passport, so he wasn’t leaving the country, no listed phone number under that name and address, no fines, no credit history.
No record of any kind.
Was that uncommon?
Not really.
Not for a guy who lived in a tiny town with no need for a car, or university debts, or anything an otherwisenormaltwenty-four-year-old might have. Whatever normal meant these days.He had no digital footprint either, but for a kid basically living off the grid that wasn’t so unusual, was it?
So Sawyer let it go.
If Ciaran really needed his help in finding Dylan, he’d come and ask.
Sawyer had to believe that. He wanted Ciaran to trust him.
Maybe if they did go fishing overnight, Ciaran would open up and talk. Sawyer hoped they would go, and he hoped Ciaran might stop being so defensive.
He also hoped they’d do way more than talk.
Sawyer tried not to think about that too much, or in too much explicit detail, because it wasn’t doing him any favours. Especially given the hot-as-fuck sex dream last night and the way Ciaran had looked at him today...,
Plus, this whole fishing night might not even happen. Ciaran certainly hadn’t given any indication of when it could.
