Page 81 of Rosie and the Beast Next Door

“No,” Mrs. Savage said. “I was waiting for you.”

Sheriff Savage scooped them each a bowl of stew and brought them to the table. It was a small gesture, but one that warmed me in a different way than the hot shower and stew. What would it have been like to have a father like him?

“Dylan’s in the shower,” Mrs. Savage said. “They’re going to stay here for a few days.”

Sheriff Savage responded with a huge bite of stew. Avoiding conversation, maybe? There seemed to be a lot of that going around. The silence slowly morphed into a comfortable clinking of spoons on ceramic bowls.

“Did you get a hold of the town yet?” Sheriff Savage pushed his empty bowl back and clasped his hands in front of him on the table.

“Yeah. They reached out to the restoration company, and they’re supposed to call me at some point today. My phone died this morning, and we didn’t have any electricity to charge it.”

“Where’s your phone?” Mrs. Savage asked. She’d finished her lunch as well and stood.

I pulled it out of my hoodie pocket, and she reached out for it.

“I’ll stick it on the charger.” Another small thing that felt really big. The Savages had a way of making you feel loved in the little moments, something I found myself craving. Especially Mrs. Savage’s motherly brand of showing love. I soaked it up like a dry sponge. Mrs. Savage was one of those dreaded nurturers Dylan talked about—and exactly who he got his own nurturing tendencies from.

Sheriff Savage spoke again. “Do you have insurance on your art?”

“Yes.” I hadn’t called them yet; that was next on the to-do list.

“You’ll need to take a good accounting of everything that was damaged.”

“She knows that,” Dylan said shortly. He walked into the room wearing a T-shirt and gray joggers. His bare feet padded across the carpet, and my memory flashed back to those feet tangled with mine this morning. It was too much to hope Dylan hadn’t noticed me checking him out—especially since he tossed me a smirk.

“I’m trying to help.” Sheriff Savage sat up straighter.

“She doesn’t need your help,” Dylan said, his back set in a firm line as he took the chair beside mine.

“I mean, I kind of do,” I mumbled trough a crumbly biscuit.

Dylan and Sheriff Savage stopped their silent stand-off to look at me, and I shrugged. It was true. Not only did we need to sleep here for a few nights, but I had one more favor. “Can I store my belongings in your garage? Including my art?”

“Yes. You can park the cruiser in the driveway,” Mrs. Savage said to her husband.

He grunted in a way that could almost be in agreement, so I decided it was. This morning, when I’d seen that the damage had gone all the way to the shop, my heart had sunk. But it looked like my artwork had all come out of it mostly unscathed.

Except the mural, which had been dumb and pointless anyway.Notworth getting emotional about.

Dylan’s hand covered mine under the table and he squeezed my fingers.

“They’re going to stay with us for a few nights,” Mrs. Savage said.

“Together?” Sheriff Savage barked out, looking hard at Dylan.

I could tell Dylan was getting ready to say yes, just to get a rise out of his dad, so I stepped in. “No. Well, both of us, yes. But not together, together.” I clasped my fingers together as if I needed to demonstrate what together, together might mean. I regretted it instantly.

I think Sheriff Savage regretted it instantly, too, based on his tight-lipped expression, which I usually only got after I broke some city ordinance.

The air was still tense between Dylan and his dad. Was this how father-son relationships were? If my brothers met up with my dad, I didn’t think it would be this calm kind of tense. Maybe the aggressive kind. Like what happened when Hudson met Dad at the town picnic. That felt like a preview of sorts.

I hated that this was making me wish my dad wasn’t in the houseboat, and that he’d figured out a situation for himself already. Guilt immediately followed, as usual. Dad was doing the best he could, and this financial setback wasn’t going to help matters, for sure.

“Why don’t you go help Rosie get set up in the bedroom,” Mrs. Savage said to Dylan. I jumped up, did the dumb half-wavethat needed to be purged from my body language library, and scurried up the stairs behind Dylan.

As we reached the top, I heard Sheriff Savage exclaim, “What in the world?” as his chair legs squeaked on the tile.

“That’s Rosie’s cat,” Mrs. Savage explained.

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