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Left to raw reactions she might have stood up
and snapped at him to get the fuck out of her house, but she
didn’t. She just ...
blinked
.

“I don’t mean to imply there’s any suspicion
of wrongdoing that I’ve seen. Crime rates here are admirable, like
I said. But let’s not forget the basic attitude of a biker club.
It’s misogynistic. Women are not given a fair say.”

She got to her feet at that, crossing to the
sink and just
standing
there, trying to will back the panic
she felt suddenly. What if that was all true? What if they’d been
playing her along all this time, pretending to adhere to her
authority in some ways and appreciating it when she let them rule
the roost, in shit storms of their own making, but still …

Hell, even Fritter meeting her might have
been giving the club a few hours to do whatever the hell without
fear of the Sheriff finding out.

Fuck. What if they’d known all along?

“Sharon? Shit, I have a big mouth. Sometimes
I don’t say things as delicately as I should. And again, I’m not
trying to question your professionalism. Please don’t think that.
It’s the furthest thing from my mind. But if you think there’s some
kind of friendship or courtesy with them, I just suggest you watch
yourself carefully. Personally, I’d love to see you make sheriff
again, in another election, on your own merits. But you might need
to make a bit of space between you and them.”

No problem there
. She nodded, taking a
deep breath. “Sorry. I’m overreacting, just ... jumbled. Maybe
yesterday still has me rattled.”

“Don’t worry about the kids. My friend’s
working on finding their families, and the FBI has taken over the
file. I can try to get reports to you if you want.”

Sharon nodded, smiling and finally turning to
face him. “Yes. Thank you.”

“I don’t want to waltz into inappropriate
territory here, but the next time I’m in Markham ... would it be
okay if I took you out for dinner?”

Another shot to the head. She studied him,
for the first time in
that
way, and decided he was
attractive. He was a few years’ older than her, well-kept. He had
no sign of flabbiness to his face or neck, hard to tell about the
midsection even with an ill-fitting suit. Clean-shaved, square jaw,
red-blonde hair. Complexion that likely reddened in the heat and
with alcohol. All in all, one of the better offers she’d ever
had.

“Um, sure.” She was stunned. Barely aware of
what she was saying. But at least he was kind and
career-appropriate and he’d
asked
, so there was that.

“Great. I do have to go, catch my flight. But
keep me up to date on the election, all right, Sheriff?”

Sharon nodded again. Hogan gave her a
friendly smile, squeezed her elbow, then showed himself out.

Huh. How about that.

-oOo-

Shortly before supper, just as she’d reached
the end of her palms’ capacity to deal with the blisters, her son
showed up, ready to eat. But he’d brought her a frozen pizza so he
had it in the oven while she went to take a shower. They ate on the
couch with some stupid comedy movie on the TV.

“How’s the job search?” she asked, yanking a
string of cheese to free her piece from the pizza.

“Not good. Maybe everyone thinks they’ll have
the sheriff breathing down their necks if they hire her son?”
Brayden was trying to sound light-hearted but she knew it was
getting him down. In Bakersfield they were overrun with part-time
jobs.

“Sorry honey. It’s tough hiring kids not from
here, too. Maybe they think if they hire a local they might stay on
for weekend shifts once school’s back in.”

“Maybe.” He didn’t sound convince and glared
at his pizza.

“Something’ll come up.”

“Only one place offered me something but I
said I’d have to discuss it with you.”

Sharon frowned, setting her slice on her
plate and grabbing her napkin to wipe the sauce off her chin. Once
the mouthful was gone she asked, “Where was that?”

“Grainger’s Garage,” he looked sheepish and
still wouldn’t look at her.

“Oh, hell no, Brayden.”

“I knew you’d say that,” he said defensively.
“That’s why I said I’d ask.”

“Who’d you talk to? And how did you know who
they were?”

“Well, first I was talking to Jolene. She’s
really cool. And hot.”

“Brayden.”

“Sorry, but she is.”

“Move the story along.”

“Okay. Anyway, she said they need a detailer,
part-time. Clean the cars once the repairs were done, wash the
windows, dump the ashtrays, all that kind of thing. Thought I might
also learn something about engines. Maybe.”

She took a long drink of water. “You’re still
into that stuff, hey?”

Brayden shrugged, looking sheepish. “It might
be stupid—”

“Why would that be stupid? Knowing how things
work? There’s not nearly enough people who can fix things.”

“Yeah?” He looked surprised, and she took a
moment to wonder where the reluctance was coming from.

“Who told you this was stupid?”

One-shoulder shrugs pissed her off,
especially from her teenage son.

“Was it Dad?”

Brayden sighed and set his pizza down, too.
“Dad
and
Jasmine. They want me to go to university. Dad said
if I insist on messing with motors I should at least get an
engineering degree. But I can’t see myself taking anything that
hard.”

She loved her son and believed he was
brilliant, but book smarts were not his strength. He knew it, she
knew it, and her ex-husband refused to believe it. Sharon had
always tried to instill in him that being happy was what was
important. How much money he made was an unhappy person’s measure
of success, and she wanted him
happy
.

“If you want to go to community college and
learn how to fix car engines I completely support that,
Brayden.”

“I know, Mom. But Dad won’t pay for that. And
I don’t think I qualify for student loans.”

Sharon mulled it over for two seconds. “It’d
be cheaper to take something like that around here. Live with me
and we’ll figure it out from there.”

He stared at her as though he was waiting for
her to crack up, show she was just kidding. When it was obvious she
wasn’t pulling his leg he shook himself out of his shock. “Mom,
Dad’ll never go for it.”

The more despair she heard from her kid the
more pissed off she got. He shouldn’t be this jaded at sixteen.
“When you graduate high school you’ll be eighteen. You can decide
where to live. Apply for a few scholarships in your senior year to
help out and we’ll see where it goes. Do you know where you’d want
to go?”

Brayden shook his head, but his voice sounded
a modicum more enthused. “Hadn’t thought about it yet. I was mostly
trying to figure out what to take at university.”

Sharon picked up her pizza again. “Okay, so
here’s the deal. You can take the job at Grainger’s
but
,”
she held up a finger before he got too excited. “You only detail.
You don’t deliver a box somewhere if they ask, you make sure that
what you’re doing is legal at all times.” She paused before taking
another bite. “And how did you know who they were?”

Brayden shrugged. “I was just talking to
Jolene, I told her who my mom was and she introduced me to her
husband. Mikey?”

“Mickey, yeah.”

“Yeah. And there was a guy named Buck, too.
They seemed nice.”

Sharon sighed. “They’ll show you some stuff
about engines, and that will be cool. But that’s
all
I want
them to show you. Understand?”

He nodded, and his grin was wide as he dug
into his pizza again.

Well, this should be interesting.

“Shit, look at this. Fucking Turnbull’s got a
website for his election campaign.” Spaz made a dismissive snort.
“Nice layout. What is this, 1992?”

Fritter ignored the kid, focusing on the
glass of Jack in front of him instead. It was just the two of them
at the moment, the crew was coming back from a run and Fritter and
Spaz had drawn the short straws to stay home. Jayce wasn’t on the
run but he was taking his brood back to the airport in Bakersfield.
Trinny and the kids had been down for another visit. It had only
been two weeks since they’d had the shower for David Junior—or
Davie, as he was becoming known—and the family was already back for
a visit. Things were looking brighter for the McClune’s.

“Jesus. These are professional portraits and
he still looks like a bloated corpse. Normally I wouldn’t make bets
on elections based on appearances, but there’s no way this guy’s
beating Downey in a popularity contest. No matter how rich he
is.”

“He’s rich and so are his friends,” Fritter
mumbled, twirling the glass on the table top. “He’s got more money
to campaign than she does.”

“So what? I don’t think anyone wants to see
him squeeze his gut into that uniform.” Spaz sighed. “Fuck, I hope
he loses. Downey in that uniform really fucking turns me on.”

The flare of jealousy was slight and he
ignored it. He’d managed to avoid seeing the Sheriff since their
little spat and she’d stayed out of his thoughts since. Well,
mostly.

The club had tried to make a donation to
Downey’s campaign last week. She’d turned it down. Jayce offered to
make it in his name, privately. Still she said no. There was
something going on with ties to the club and he felt some guilt
over that.

Fritter was really hoping they didn’t cost
Sharon her job. But really, he tried not to dwell on it. She was
done with him, she’d said so, so he had to take his hurt little
feelings and deal with it. She was a grown up. She could handle it
and so could he.

They’d had the Fourth of July club barbecue
in the lot the previous weekend. For the first time he could
remember the Sheriff did not attend. It had not gone unnoticed.

“Downey doesn’t even have a website, though.
Just a Facebook page. I wonder who’s administering it for her. She
doesn’t have a personal profile anywhere.”

Fritter frowned, tilting the last of the Jack
into his mouth. “Why the fuck are you talkin’ so much?”

“What?”

“Jesus, you won’t shut up. There’s nothing
wrong with silence, you know.”

“You’re making me nervous. Normally you talk
a lot. It’s actually you being quiet that makes me talk.”

Fritter got to his feet. “Sorry. I’ll leave
you to your solitude, nerd.”

“That’s better,” Spaz said with a sigh as he
left the office.

At least everything with Sachettis was
holding. That was the bright side of life at the moment. Every week
or two the club had work to do for them. And after the disgusting
find out in Hazeldale, Spaz had been asked to devote more time to
hunting down Tiffany and Brian Pullman, as well as any other
properties they had owned or rented in Markham County. His list had
been compiled on the property front, so at the worst case scenario
they were shutting down more trafficking depots. Best case
scenario, they’d find the Pullmans and take them out. They had no
qualms killing a Dirty Rat, as long as his friends were far, far
away.

That was the plan that would take place in
the next couple hours. They’d scoped out the locations that were on
Spaz’s list. They were all types of properties, some in great areas
and others where anything and everything could be taking place. The
Nomads were already in town, taking over the main room of the
clubhouse at the moment, all to help the mother chapter take out
six locations at the same time. Two of them were trailers, they’d
only take one or two men. The others, full houses, would require
more manpower. Especially since they didn’t know what was inside.
There were strange people coming and going in the bit of
surveillance the Rebels had already done, but if it was drugs or
kiddie peddling it was hard to tell. Rats had only been spotted at
two of the six spots. The rest all looked to be manned by
Mazaris.

The anticipation of some unadulterated
violence had him humming. He couldn’t wait. Anything to take his
mind off the blonde sheriff and the stupid shit he’d said to
her.

Talking about feelings like a whiny
bitch.

Guido, President of the Red Rebels Nomads,
approached Fritter with a chin nod. “The crew is pulling in right
now. Jayce should be here in ten.”

“How’s the armory looking?”

Guido grinned. “A thing of fucking beauty,
man. You getting a good deal from Sachetti on this shit?”

Fritter gave a heave of his shoulders. “It
seems expensive but compared to street value, yeah. They want their
underlings to have nice things.”

“Lucky pricks.”

They had crossed the room to the club’s board
room; a space closed off behind the bar with a long scarred and
marked table with mismatched, ancient, uncomfortable-as-fuck
chairs. At the moment it looked like a press conference where the
cops were showing off seized weapons. There were enough AK-47s for
each man to take one. Glocks, Rugers, Colts, whatever your
preference, they were all there for back-up firepower. Then of
course they had hunting knives, but most of the crew already had a
blade that was near and dear to their hearts. The clips and
magazines for all the firearms were lined up at the far wall on a
second folding table.

“All the AK’s are new, they come in without
serial numbers. Handguns are from our old stock so they’ve had the
numbers filed down.”

“Who the fuck’s using the Enfield?” Guido
mumbled as he brought the rifle up, resting it on his hip as he
looked it over. To be fair, it was awfully pretty.

“That’s for Tims. He’s our sharpshooter.
Whoever has him in their crew will be lucky. I’d just set him
outside to pick off anyone fleeing.”

“He’s that good?” Guido’s eyebrow was
raised.