Page 6 of Sunsets & Slow Dances

“J.T.’s gonna be stoked you’re back,” Chief Dawson called out.

That made one of us, I thought, lifting my hand and grinning as I pushed open the station door and made my way down the steps onto the grassy expanse of the town square.

J.T. was Sheriff Dawson’s son Jack, who everyone called Dawson. He and I were close growing up. We bonded over the shared experience of having high-profile fathers in positions of power and visibility in the small-town community. We understood the scrutiny of living our lives under a microscope and navigating teen years with so many eyes on us. He was one of the handful of guys I’d kept in relative contact with over the years I’d been gone.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out, hoping it was a call from Chloe. When I saw it was a message from my son’s mother Felicity, my hope morphed to frustration. She was an influencer with over five million followers on her social media platforms. Nearly ten months ago she left on a brand trip that was supposed to last two weeks but had now lasted nearly ten months.

We got engaged a month after my son was born, and she claimed since I put a ring on her finger, she’d lost her identity. Apparently, the search to discover who she was meant traveling abroad and not coming home for nine and a half months.

If it were just me, it wouldn’t bother me at all. Of course, if it were just me, we wouldn’t be engaged. But Matty asked questions. He didn’t understand why she was gone so long. She hadn’t been there for milestones she’d never get back—birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas with him.

Felicity was five years younger than me, which I took into consideration when judging her behavior. She had Matty when she was twenty-two, and she was twenty-eight now. I was trying to be understanding. Maybe she simply didn’t want to miss her twenties by being tied down. But I had a feeling it was more than that. I had a feeling she just didn’t want to be a mom or a wife. I’d suggested that was the case, but she vehemently denied it.

The problem was, Felicity knew I didn’t want Matty to grow up in a broken home. She knew how much it meant to me to have his mom and dad together, and that I would do anything I could to make that happen. She’d always done whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, and there hadn’t been any consequences. She went out and partied, and I didn’t care. She left to go on brand trips for weeks at a time, and I never said a thing. She only spent time with Matty when it served the purpose of her social media, and I let it go. But this time was too far.

“Hey,” I answered the call.

“I got your message. Where are you?”

If she got my message, she already knew the answer to that question. “I’m in Firefly.”

“Why?”

Again, if she’d listened to my message, this would be information she’d have. “For my sister.”

“You don’t have a sister.”

“Yes, I do. Remember, I told you my dad had an affair, and he had a child.”

“Yeah, but that’s not like yourrealsister.”

“Yes. She is.”

“What does she want?”

I exhaled. I didn’t know why she insisted on asking questions that she already had the answers for, but she did it a lot.

“She doesn’t want anything. Her mom died, and she named me as Chloe’s guardian.”

“Why?” Felicity’s tone was clearly offended. “Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know.”

I didn’t know a lot about Danielle Marsh before finding out about the affair and Chloe. I’d met her on several occasions when I’d visited my dad at the office. From what I remember, she’d grown up in Atlanta and moved to Firefly in her early twenties. That was about the extent of what I knew about her.

“Whatever,” she sighed. “When are you going back home?”

“We’ll be here for a while.”

“A while?”

“Yes.”

“How long isa while?”

“At least until the summer.”

“Why?”

---