Page 44 of Sheriff's City Girl

“You’re home early,” I commented, shifting my weight into my heels. “I thought you were spending the night with Dara.”

“Uh…” Her voice trailed off in a way that made me uneasy. I kept trying to push away the idea that she might be lying, but honestly, I was pretty sure she was.

And as much as it pissed me off, it worried me even more.

I’ll ask Lily about it tomorrow.

Right now, I just needed to focus on the situation at hand—my teenage daughter showing up in the middle of a date… One that I hadn’t told her about.

“I can tell you two have a lot to chat about,” Emma spoke up, interrupting the silence settling in the room. “I think I’m going to go ahead and get out of your hair.”

“No,” Jess and I both said in unison, stopping her in her tracks as she tried to slink by.

“Dara talks about you all the time,” Jess said, her attention staying on Emma. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to avoid talking to me about what she had been up to this evening, or if she really was curious about Emma. Either way, I let it play out. I wasn’t going to force Emma to stay…

“Does she?” Emma lit up, her shoulders relaxing as she hovered by the front door, where her boots were. “I’ve always been fairly close to her, but ever since I moved here, things have gotten even better.”

“Yeah, she says you’re like her second mom or something.” Jess smiled, and for some reason, I thought I might have caught a hint of sadness in her eyes… But it quickly faded. “Were you gonna watch a movie?” Jess gestured to the TV; the screen had settled on some suspense movie I’d never seen before.

“We were…” Emma said, a little hesitant. Her eyes met mine, expecting me to give an answer, and I felt stuck—should I shoo Emma out and end our date or ask her to stay and watch a movie with my teenage daughter? I had no idea, not wanting to pressure her one way or the other.

Emma must’ve confused my silence with my not wanting her to stay. “I actually should really get home for the evening. I have a lot of prep for tomorrow. I, uh, am working on some new recipes and whatnot.”

Jess frowned. “Okay.”

“I’ll walk you out,” I said, giving in to the awkwardness of the situation. “We can have you over for dinner sometime again—all three of us.”

“Yeah, that would be nice,” she smiled back at me, but it didn’t reach her eyes. In fact, it was incredibly half-hearted. “I can walk myself to the car, thanks.” She held up her hand, stopping me as I stepped toward her. “There’s no need to walk me out.”

I furrowed my brow. “Are you sure? I don’t mind…”

“Absolutely,” she said, forcing her smile a little more. “I’ll see you around sometime soon.”

I nodded, hating the way that sounded but before I could say anything more about it, she was already out the door. It slammed shut behind her, and I let out a sigh of defeat. That did not go the way I wanted it to.

“You totally blew that, Dad,” Jess said, her tone flat as she said what I was already thinking. “I don’t know why you always think you should hide people from me.”

I ripped my eyes from the door to my daughter’s face, which strangely mirrored my own defeat. “What? I don’t hide people from you.”

“You’re hiding Emma.”

“I’m just trying to get to know her.”

She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Dad. You clearly like her—I’m sixteen years old, I’m not an idiot. I know that you like her. I don’t understand why you won’t just tell me about stuff like that.”

“I’ve always been careful dating,” I admitted, shrugging my shoulders. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Jess. It’s important to protect your heart just as much as it is mine.”

Her face softened. “I… I guess that’s true. But sometimes, I wish you’d met someone. It’d be nice to have a mom. Lily is as close to one as I’ll probably ever have.”

I opened my mouth to say something but didn’t know what to say to her. It broke my heart that I hadn’t been able to bring the right person into her life—and it pissed me off that her mother left her the way she did.

“Good night, Dad. Love you,” she said when I didn’t respond as quickly as she’d prefer me to. She slipped out of the room and headed for her bedroom, the door clicking shut behind her.

In a span of just a handful of minutes, I had managed to screw up things with both Emma and Jess.

Women are exhausting.

“So he doesn’t want to report almost fifty head of cattle missing?” Jackson’s expression mirrored the same disbelief that I felt when I first found out. Now, however, my mind was still stuck on the awkward way that Emma had left the house—and my daughter’s sadness about not having a mother.

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