The Sheriff's Daughter

“Because if I did, everyone in the new neighborhood would be notified about me being there. I’d likely have hate mail, things thrown at my house, signs put in my yard and people running scared with their little kids.”

“That’s bullshit!”

“It’s life.”

His life, anyway.

“I’m comfortable where I am, son. People know me.”

“It’s a ghetto.”

Not quite. But close.

“You could get gunned down taking out your trash.”

“We’ll stay in Cleveland next time your mom leaves town, okay?”

“I think you should move.”

Mark gave up trying to convince his nephew of things he had a hard time accepting himself.

CHAPTER FOUR

AMAZING, REALLY, how quick and easy it was to disassemble something that had taken fifteen years of hard work to build. Agree to split all assets in half, file papers, wait thirty days and the state of Ohio dissolves a union once destined to last a lifetime.

Sara hadn’t even been able to fully wrap her mind around the idea before the marriage was legally ended.

Providing male oversight on the last day of June, while the movers took her half of the household out of the home in which she’d hoped to raise children and grow old, her father gave her hand a squeeze.

She nodded.

And that was the end of any conversation they were going to have on the subject.

“When do you close on the new place?”

“A couple of weeks.” The new house had been vacant and the owners were letting her rent it until the paperwork was complete.

Retired sheriff John Lindsay stood up straight, staring out the front window toward the moving van. “Brent seen it yet?”

“No. Why should he?”

“Has he found a place?”

“Chloe has a place on a lake. He’s moving in with her for now.”

“She got kids?”

“Two.” Don’t let it show, she ordered herself. Don’t let it show and it won’t hurt nearly as long.

Her father’s nod said more than she wanted it to. He saw the irony in the situation. Her husband had refused to have babies with her—a woman who desperately wanted to have a chance for do-overs in that department—and yet he was willing to take on another man’s children for someone else.

She couldn’t stand his pity. All her life she’d had her father standing over her, watching her hurt. The pattern had to stop.

“Have you called him? Seen if he’s changed his mind?”

Sucking in air, Sara counted to ten, squeezing fingers to her thumb as she did so. “No.”

Two brawny, sweaty, unshaven young men were loading her dresser. Part of a set that was now split up.

“Don’t you think you should?”

Her father wanted what he thought was best for her, she reminded herself, while her mind screamed silently.

The man was unfaithful to me! An adulterer, dammit. More than once. For years. How could you want him to ever come near me again?

“He chose Chloe.”

“You’re better for him. He’s going to realize that.” But he’s not better for me.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that. She’s going to be a high-powered attorney someday.”

A furniture pad went over the dresser.

“He has his own power. What he needs is a woman on his arm who knows how to make him look his best.”

As much as Sara cringed at the description, she knew that her father had just paid her his idea of the highest compliment. How he survived in today’s world, with his chauvinistic views, she had no idea.

“I guess he doesn’t think so.”

One nightstand was next.

“Did you split the mattress set, too?”

“No. I gave him the set in exchange for the bed frame. I didn’t want the mattress we shared, anyway.”

“What about the cars?”

“I got the Lexus.” Leaving Brent the Expedition. She’d had to give up the boat, too, but it was worth it. She had no use for a recreational vehicle she could neither get into nor out of the water by herself.

“Good for you.”

With a nod, her father was gone—outside, giving last-minute instructions to the crew he’d hired.

BY SIX THAT EVENING—the first of July, a new month, a new life—all boxes and belongings were off the truck. Just as the Two Man Movers van drove away, the pizza delivery guy pulled up. Paying him and taking the hot cardboard box, Sara climbed over cartons on the way to her new kitchen.

The walls were green, but they were going to become yellow before the week was out.

“Dinner’s ready!”