Page 14 of Brewbies
“That isn’t what happened, and you know it.”
“It’s what you’re doing right now. Doing your very best to royallyfuckme and walking away as if it isn’t your fault.”
She had it all wrong. He wasn’t doing thistoher. He was doing thisforTownsend Harbor and the constituents who signed his paycheck. “Again. Not my intention. I didn’t know it was you when—when the paperwork was filed.”
“You know it’s me now,” she challenged.
“Doesn’t change the law.” He tapped the papers with two fingers.
“No one even enforces these kinds of laws anymore!” Because she didn’t have room for a good pace, she threw her arms up and spun in a circle, reminding him of how tight her ass was. “Are you kidding? Do you really have so little to do that you have to harass people for showing up to work in a bathing suit?”
Yeesh. The H-word. An officer’s death knell. He should go. “I’m sorry, Ms. Dunwell.” He turned on his heel, gritting his teeth at the chalky sound of the gravel.
That was not a bathing suit. His grandmother wore a bathing suit. That was a… Well, it was a distraction, was what it was. One he hoped would do them both a favor and hop in the driver’s seat and peel out of town ASA-fucking-P.
Or at least before the town found out what they did to each other.
She seemed like the kind of person who overshared.
“Oh, you haven’tbegunto be sorry.” Her quiet threat was encored by the loud tears of high-quality paper. “You and your town can take this notice and shove it up your collective twats. Then keep it up there and see if you can turn it into a pearl, because this ismyland andmytrailer andmybusiness, and I’m not moving. You got a problem with that, I’ll see your ass in court.” With that, she flung the confetti she’d just made into the air. “I’m going to figure out how to fight this, sheriff. You can count onthat.”
“The info you need is in the paperwork. Have a nice day.” It took all his self-control not to take a running vault into his truck and skid out of there. Instead, he kept his pace unhurried, then paused to indulge in a whim. “Keep your eye on the mail, Ms. Dunwell.”
She crossed her arms over her lovely breasts. “For what?”
“For your littering citation.”
THREE
Tamper
SMALL, PESTLE-LIKE DEVICE WITH A ROUND, FLAT END USED TO DISTRIBUTE AND COMPRESS GROUND COFFEE INSIDE THE FILTER BASKET
“On your right!”
Darby flicked the lever of the rose-gold bell to alert the gorpcore-obsessed couple to her presence, but didn’t wait for them to shift to the side of the narrow asphalt ribbon before whizzing by them on her bike.
Their startled quacks of outrage were a balm to her still-smarting soul.
Those two had definitely signed it.
It.
The reason she couldn’t drive her camper into town for fear of being chased down by a mob waving torches and pitchforks.
The reason why her body felt like a Tesla coil of sizzling outrage.
The reason why the Wicked Witch of the West’s theme song had played on repeat in her head as she rage-pedaled into Townsend Harbor.
The petition.
All those names. Rows and rows of them. Handwritten seals of disapproval as distinct as the people they represented.
Obsessively small and neat. Aggressively angular and fussy. Slouching and messy. Looping and feminine. All of them sharing one common purpose.
They wanted Darby gone.
Priiing. “On your left!”
