“She’s yours, huh? At least you still have a little fire in you.”
I stepped even closer to him. “I’m calling the sheriff over.”
That finally made Arlo pause. “You wouldn’t.”
“I have a lot I could tell him about.”
He yanked his arm out of my grip. “Narc,” he spat before he hurried out the door.
Piper and I watched him until he was gone. I let out a sigh of relief the moment he disappeared from my view. But then Piper turned to me, her brow creased and another frown on her face. I saw the expression I feared.
Disgust.
Fear.
“You ... know him,” she whispered, backing away from me like she had with Arlo.
“I—”
“No,don’t. Just when I thought I ...” She trailed off and shook her head. “Stay away from me.”
And then she was gone. The door swung shut, both in the shop and on anything we could have been.
An inexplicable feeling of disappointment hit me.
I’d imagined the town finding out who I was a million times over. But I hadn’t known Piper long enough for the nightmare to extend to her.
Reality was so much worse than what my mind could conjure.
“Fuck,” I said. Leave it to a man like Arlo to find my shop and ruin things with Piper.
Panic gripped my chest as I realized this was the one thing I couldn’t let happen. I’d built a life here, and while I knew the peace was fragile, I did everything I could to make sure it would never end.
I also didn’t want Arlo and my family to set their sights on me, or Strawberry Springs.
My breaths came out in heaves as I closed the shop early. I knew I had to make true to my statement to keep Arlo away.
Sheriff Mike wasn’t a bad guy. I knew the entire town respected him and he did keep a watchful eye on what happened here. But I was taught from a young age to never trust anyone who could arrest me, so I kept my distance from him, even though I wasn’t doing anything wrong.
The sheriff’s station was newly opened in the town hall. Wren had been working on parts of it, eager to give the town a place to gather.
I had planned to avoid it.
Mike blinked when I walked in. “Oh, Theo. How can I help you?”
My heart pounded as I tried to pull words together. This went against everything I’d ever planned to do, but I couldn’t keep silent. The town didn’t need Arlo here. “Something happened and I ... need to talk to you.”
He raised an eyebrow, but gestured for me to sit. My leg started bouncing the second I did.
“There was a man in my shop today. Someone who deals ... illegal things.”
“And you know this how?”
“I used to know him through my family. I don’t anymore, though.”
Mike eyed me and slowly brought out his pen and a piece of paper. “What did he want?”
“To bother me.”
