Page 14 of Faking I Do
“Sure.” I settled against the back of my chair and drew in a long breath. His mantra of “family first” had been drilled into me my entire life. But I was getting tired of being guilted into looking the other way. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Buck Little made us an offer we couldn’t refuse.” Dad’s chair creaked under his weight. “Simple as that.”
“What kind of offer?” My stomach tightened. I had a feeling the kind of offer Buck made wasn’t exactly above the law.
“He wants us to move our operation over to Swynton.” Pops lifted his foot, placing his custom-made alligator boot on top of his knee. “Like your dad said, it was an offer we couldn’t refuse.”
“But Idont needs the business. How can you turn your back? Our family settled this town, it’s in our blood?—”
“Business is business. Sales have been down. Buck is giving us some tax breaks we don’t get here,” Dad said.
“And free rent.” Pops rubbed his hand along the white whiskers on his chin. “We gave up the land the business sits on years ago.”
“What?” My gaze bounced between the two men. “What do you mean?”
“The land belongs to the town,” Dad said. “We’ve been leasing it back from them for over a decade. With sales taking adip, we haven’t made a payment for a while. When Buck offered us a break, we decided to take it.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it all worked out, then.” I stood, eager for a breath of fresh air.
“Wait a minute.” Dad pointed to the chair. “Like we said, we have a few loose ends to tie up.”
I slumped back into my chair. “I don’t understand what this has to do with me.”
“We should have cleared out the inventory before we made the announcement to shut down.” Pops glared across the desk. “Your dad got a little trigger-happy spreading the word.”
“And?” I had lost just about all the patience I possessed. “I still don’t get what you want me to do about it.”
“Well, since we aren’t current on our rent, the town considers us in default. Now they’ve told us they’re going to seize our assets to pay off the debt. We need to get our stuff out of there so we can move it over to the new place in Swynton. Figure out a way to make it happen,” Dad said.
“Hold up. How exactly am I supposed to do that? You want me to help you break into the warehouse and steal back all of your stuff?” I stood again. I didn’t have time to listen to their harebrained ideas.
“Of course, we wouldn’t ask you to help unless there was something in it for you.” Dad pointed to the seat I’d vacated.
“I’ll stand.” I crossed my arms over my chest. What could they possibly offer me that would make me consider breaking the law I’d sworn to uphold?
“Suit yourself.” Dad shrugged. “But Buck is willing to guarantee you the sheriff’s position in the next election if you help us out.”
My eyes narrowed. “Why would he want to do that?”
“Buck knows how things work around here. He scratches our back, we scratch his.”
“He must want one hell of a back scratch in return for rigging an election.” Of course, it had been done in the past. Rumor had it Lacey’s dad hadn’t won the mayor’s seat fair and square when he’d been elected. But to so blatantly be offered the bribe . . . something didn’t add up.
Pops grunted. “You don’t need to worry about that part of the negotiations. Just figure out a way to get in and grab our stuff and you’ll get yourself a promotion. Why the hell you want to work in law enforcement boggles my mind, but isn’t that your dream job? Sheriff?”
I’d enjoyed learning the ropes in the tiny town of Idont, but my career aspirations didn’t stop at playing deputy sheriff for the rest of my life. Sure, I wanted to move up. Even more than that, I wanted to move out. I’d always had my eyes set on a bigger town. One that would get me far out from under the thumb of my meddling family, making it impossible to get myself wedged into a situation just like this.
“I don’t know, Pops. Who else knows about this?” I scrubbed my hands over my cheeks.
“You, me, Buck, your dad. Probably whoever takes care of payments down at city hall. But we don’t want to cause a scene. Just get our stuff moved over to the new place in Swynton before anyone notices it’s gone. Should be easy enough.”
“I’m gonna have to think about this.” I should leave my dad’s office and head straight to the sheriff. But was I willing to rat out my family and sever those ties once and for all? My dad and granddad had caused a stink over the years, but they’d always managed to find a way to come up smelling like the aromatic gardenias my mom had planted around the pool out back.
“We don’t have a hell of a lot of time, son.” Dad grunted as he levered himself out of his chair. “We’ll need an answer soon.”
“Give me until the weekend?” Three days. They could give me three damn days to think about whether or not I wanted to risk career suicide.
“You got it.” Pops stood, too, then lifted his arm so his hand stuck out in front of him. “Family handshake?”
