Page 46 of Sheriff's City Girl

“It’s rare to be on the same page as your teenage daughter, I think. Hell, Drew never knows what’s going on with Dara. That’s my job. Jess doesn’t have that kind of figure in her life, and even though I try to be there for her, I know that it’s hard for her. She’s not going to tell me what’s going on in all aspects of her life.”

“Yeah, I get that, I do,” I said with a sigh, my eyes scanning the empty café. “But at the same time, I would’ve loved to have stayed and watched the movie with both of them—but it took Mason so long to answer that I just escorted myself out.”

“Maybe he was just thinking it over? Mason is a pretty thorough guy—well, mostly. I don’t know. He did get in that accident…”

“What accident?”

She waved me off. “It was some sort of vehicle accident after his first wife left. I think he was just in a bad place, but he still gets headaches from it sometimes.”

Well, that’s news to me.

“Anyway, I just think you should let him at least have the chance to make it up to you. Like I said, having teenagers can make things so weird. I can’t even imagine trying to date with one always poking around.”

“You give him way too much slack,” I muttered, sliding down into the chair beside her. “I just want something easy.”

“The easy things are never worth it. You’re just in the push and pull stage. It’ll either work out or it won’t. You’ll just have to see. Regardless, you have a baby to think about… Put the baby first.”

“Yeah, well, I said I wouldn’t tell Mason until I figure out where he stands with me…”

The sound of the door opening cut our conversation short, and I spun to see none other than Mason himself coming through the door. My heart stuttered in my chest, my mind flashing to the intimacy before us that was disrupted… Ugh.

“Hey,” he greeted us. There was an urgency to his step as he approached, his expression coming across like he was either going to explode in anger or excitement… And I had no idea which one it was.

“Hi, Mason,” Lily said, giving him a smile. “I heard about the awkward date night with the two of you.”

I shot her a warning glance, feeling the heat flush to my face at the way my best friend had just outed me. “It’s all fine.”

“Well, first of all,” Mason said quickly, his tone rushed. “I’m sorry about that. Jess was real upset that I didn’t invite you right then to watch the movie. I just didn’t want to pressure you to hang out with my daughter—sometimes she’s a mess…”

Relief flooded my chest, and I smiled, ignoring the knowing look on Lily’s face. “Thank you, maybe we can have a raincheck. I’d love to get to know Jess better.”

He held my gaze for a moment, like whatever I said to him hit the freeze button, but then he nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure she’d like that, anyway,” he blew out a sharp exhale. “I found out earlier today that Graham Hudson is putting on some gala at his new mansion. They apparently hear about a bunch of causes, and then the rich folks donate to whatever they want—and with a little research, I saw that some donate millions.”

Lily raised an eyebrow. “And why are you telling me this? It seems almost like a sympathy convention… or something. Drew was invited, but he said he didn’t want to go.”

“Yeah, but I think we should go.”

“…why?” I asked, tilting my head as my brain suddenly thought of Brittany. “I don’t know about that…”

Mason glanced back to the door, and then leaned against the counter. “Lucas is in real bad shape financially, and he does all the community events, gives riding lessons, and is the foundation of the town. He needs the money, and all the missing cattle might make him default on the ranch. When his dad passed, I guess there was a lot of debt that he had left hidden.”

So he does have bad debt.

“I don’t think it would count. It’s not a nonprofit,” Lily said thoughtfully. “I don’t know how you’d pull it off.”

“I read all the stipulations. It doesn’t say anywhere in the rules that it has to be a nonprofit. I saw they gave money to a couple of businesses over the years. I think it would be worth a shot… And I think Graham would feel some pressure to help out his community.”

My stomach felt uneasy as I thought about the plans they had made to buy the land… Did Mason know about that? Before I could mention it, Lily beat me to it.

“You do know that Graham wanted Drew to convince Lucas to sell part of the ranch, right? Well, actually, in the beginning, Graham wanted the entire thing, but then he just went after some of the land.”

Mason shook his head. “I had no idea, but that makes a lot of sense… And I bet Graham knew about the standing with the bank.”

“Yeah,” Lily said sadly. “Graham knows a lot more than I think he should, but you know how small towns work… Word gets around.”

“But I had no idea about the bad debt until I talked to Lucas recently,” Mason reasoned, looking more and more defeated as the conversation went.

“Yeah, but those developers have ties to everything—even Drew knows about the bank stuff. He tried to push Graham in a different direction, but it just didn’t seem to work.”

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