Page 48 of Starting Over

That was a mistake.

Chapter Twelve

Declan

“Sheriff.”

I looked back at the mayor. Allison Hoffman was a damn good mayor. Her husband was a jackass. We had a standing lunch meeting once a week at The Diner, to go over anything in town coming up. Putting together a plan for any events, troubleshooting issues that had arisen, and discussing the town budget and how it would be affected by everything.

You know, town shit.

This had been going on since Allie had been elected, four years ago. And for four years, her husband, Chad Hoffman had been giving us shit about it. We met at The Diner because it was public. Everyone could see us. Neither of us wanted a hint of impropriety.

Multiple town residents stopped by our table to say hello, offer suggestions, and pass on some gossip they might be concerned about. There was nothing suspicious or untoward about our meeting.

Ever.

I almost wondered if he would prefer we met in private in her office or mine. Then he could actually make accusations, rather than just allude to them.

For the past twenty minutes, we had gotten nothing accomplished. Allie had spent that time complaining about her husband and his narcissistic tendencies.

“Why are you still with him?” I asked, shaking my head.

“I’m not,” she replied quietly.

I sat there stunned. Had she really done it? Had she kicked him out? I tried not to get my hopes up too high. Allie deserved better than what she had been living with.

“You really did it?”

“I really did it.” She nodded.

I sat there, watching her. Looking for any sign that she might be hurting. Allie was a friend. I didn’t want to pile on to her pain, but as I watched her shuffle through her papers, I recognized what she was feeling.

She was pissed.

I reached over, placing my hand on her arm, putting a pause on her shuffling, and asked, “What did he do?”

“I am not telling you that,” she scoffed.

“Allie—”

“Nope, not your battle to fight, Dec. It’s mine. I can take out my own trash,” she informed me icily.

Nodding, I let it drop, for now. I would see about having Nav do some digging for me and find out what Chad did to make her finally kick him out. I assumed he cheated, which wouldn’t surprise me. But I needed to know if it was worse than that.

“How are the kids dealing with it?” I asked, knowing that a broken home at any age wasn’t easy.

“Wilder seems fine. He and Chad constantly butted heads. Chad always saw him as a dumb jock. Never mind that Wilder’s IQ is in the one-forty to one-fifty range. But because Chad was never good at sports, they never had anything to bond over.”

“What the hell did you ever see in him?” I asked.

Ignoring my question, she continued, “Tenley is Tenley. She’s too busy with school to concern herself with her father’s drama.” She waved her hand in the air. “I suppose that’s a good thing. Though what does it say about him, that both of hischildren can see what he’s really like and want nothing to do with him?”

Leaning forward and crossing her arms on the table, she looked at me and asked, “What does it say about me that I married him in the first place? What does that say about me leading this town when my marriage has fallen apart?”

“Allie, you are not to blame for what he did. The guy’s an asshole.”

“I wish I could say he changed. That he didn’t use to be this way, but the truth is, this is exactly how he has always been.”

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