Page 10 of Hillbillies and HellHounds

“What’s that gotta do with the rest o’ us?” Ol’ Ned muttered.

Sicily looked at him. “I’m getting to that part if you’d have some patience.” Then she looked at the rest of the table again and resumed her pleasant grin. “We’re going to have to divvy up the workload to cover the most ground.”

“Don’t forget Miss Green!” Ol’ Ned called, and I had to bite back a snide remark. Florence Green was a Gardner-turned-dryad whom Ol’ Ned had finally got the guts to confess his crush to last week, and to all of our surprise, she was more than happy to reciprocate it. She’d offered to help him on his ‘little monster hunting squad’ with free candies to give out, and it was kind of amusing to think she wanted to win the feral beasts over with lemon drops.

“Right, of course.” Sicily nodded to Ol’ Ned. “And Miss Green. Now, I’ve already divvied up the workload by region, so let me know if anyone has any issues with their areas. Boone, Ol’ Ned, you two are going to canvas Devil’s Run.”

“Alrighty,” Boone said nodding.

“Bud, you and I are gonna go up to Dagwood,” Sicily continued. “I’ve got some people I know from school up there, so I’ll probably have the best luck canvassing that area.”

Bud gave her a toothy grin and leaned his furry, brown arm on the table. There were a few patches of missing fur because Bud had recently had a bout with mange and the mange had mostly won.

“An’ ya want the scary wolf-man behind ya just in case them Dagwood folks don’t take you serious, right?”

She smiled sweetly. “It couldn’t hurt.”

“Anythin’ for you, darlin’.” Bud saluted her like a captain.

Mason cleared his throat then and Sicily looked over at him.

“Mason?”

He jumped a little, his skin going darker beneath his jaw.

“Oh… yeah, no, I’m—I’m good.” He smiled but glanced at Sicily shyly. “I was just—well, I guess I was wondering if I could go to Dagwood, too. Just ‘cause I, uh, I lived there for a while before… so I know the area pretty good… is all.” He cleared his throat again and put his head down, an odd sheepishness overcoming him. Sicily looked surprised, but it didn’t take me long to figure out that Mason’s wanting to go to Dagwood didn’t have anything to do with exploring old stomping grounds.

I was afraid it had more to do with exploring new ones.

Sicily blushed, as well, and looked down at her binder as if checking over her data again, though her eyes were stuck on one part of the page. “Oh… well,” she giggled a bit, “I—I guess you and Bud could switch, if that’s okay with you, Bud.”

Bud looked a bit dumbfounded, and I sighed, straightening up and placing my hand gently on her arm.

“Don’t you think it might be best to put those who are least experienced in Windy Ridge since everyone knows everyone else here?” I asked softly, adding a knowing look when she glanced down at me. “Mason and Miss Green are the least experienced, so we don’t want to throw them into the deep end, do we?”

“Oh, right.” Sicily seemed disappointed but shrugged that disappointment off pretty quickly. “Sorry, Mason. You’re gonna go to Windy Ridge with Miss Green.”

“Yeah, sure, no prob,” he answered too quickly.

Sicily nodded. “Maybe see if you can get close to finishing the census off for this town, okay? There’s not much left to fill out.”

I sat back in my chair, trying to keep from looking Mason’s way. I didn’t mean to be the buzzkill, but I was worried the little crush that was forming between the two of them would interfere with their actual work. If they wanted alone time, they could have it when they weren’t on a job.

That was when I realized who the last people to be paired up were…

And I realized that had been entirely intentional on my daughter’s part.

“Sheriff Dean,” Sicily turned and pointed just as the thought hit me, a small fire starting to burn in my belly, “you’re the one with the most authority of us all. And, Mama, you’re the strongest of us all. So, I figured you both would do best going to the most unwilling residents around the county to try and get them to open up.” She snapped her binder closed, and I swore I saw a smirk that was angled in my direction. Yep, definitely intentional. “And that should be everyone. We’ll keep in contact via Slim Jim’s communication net which he’ll control in his trailer. Is everyone clear on what to do?”

Dean looked at me. His eyes were soft, even a bit excited, and he flicked me a smile and shrugged. I tried not to squirm in my seat. Part of me wanted to call Sicily out on her little game, but to be honest, she had a point. Dean and I together were going to be a formidable pair, and sending us to the most difficult areas was a genuinely good tactical move. So, instead, I sighed, nodded, and kept quiet, at least for now.

We all finished our lunch, and I went to slip back behind the counter, preparing to finish the rest of my shift. Sicily handed out the rough maps of each person’s respective area and the documents we’d need to get the information she was after, giving me a fleeting hug and a sneaky look before she and Bud left. Dean stayed behind for an extra coffee, and we chatted casually, mostly about the documents as Dean decided to scout out our route. The more I looked at our route, the more I realized how well Sicily had set up her little game. The area we were headed to was sparse, wooded, and each destination seemed to be miles away from the last, which meant that between questioning locals, there’d likely be hours of alone time.

I looked at Dean.

He looked at me, and both of us knew what that meant.

We were going to be alone for averylong time.

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