Page 42 of An Unfinished Memory

He nodded and turned his focus back to Sutton. He was quiet a moment. “She was a city girl. Followed me out here. This was my dad’s land, and he got it from his parents. You know how it goes.”

“I know it.” In my family, my father had gotten awindfall from my mama’s inheritance. Land that had oil and a working ranch. The outcome had been the same. Barns had been the country boy, and Mama had gotten the fuck out of Dodge.

“We were separated for a while.”

“How’d you work it out?” I faced him. Suddenly, his answer was everything I needed to hear.

“She gave up her career.” His smile was dry. “I wouldn’t recommend that route.”

I’d never asked Sutton to give up hers. Wouldn’t consider it. I knew the siren call of working on something that was more your identity than your job. She’d never asked me to give up mine either. She knew how important being a deputy was to me.

Repeating that thought didn’t make me feel better like it used to.

“Her roots are here now.” The clinic was her baby. She wouldn’t leave it.

“Yup. In this kind of life, someone’s gotta sacrifice.”

Hadn’t Chambers said the same thing to me when I’d asked about the success of his marriage? We’d sacrificed each other. “Too little too late for us.”

“You’re here, ain’tcha?”

I wasn’t getting into the disintegration of my marriage with Ryan. “I’m here. But I have a whole county counting on me.”

He scoffed. “We got police here.”

“I’m going to be sheriff.” My reply came out like a proud fifth grader telling me what he wanted to be when he grew up.

“We got a sheriff too. It’d be nice to have a different one,” he grumped.

“I also still help my brother ranch.” Fornow, but I felt like I needed a stronger excuse for Ryan. It shouldn’t be hard to justify why I wasn’t leaving a career I’d worked so hard for.

His grunt was more disgruntled. “That’s the thing about sacrifice. One of you’s gotta do it, or it’s not going to work.”

“We already came to that conclusion.” I swallowed a dull burn down my throat. “I’d appreciate it if you kept seeing me to yourself. I don’t want her reputation to get flagged.”

He grunted. “Don’t worry. Not everyone is as observant as me. Wife called it nosy. But I won’t say a thing if it keeps her getting business over Dr. Jake.”

My relief was acute, and my mind turned to what he’d said earlier. When Sutton had told me she wanted a divorce, I’d been stunned. Confused. Hurt and angry. We’d seen each other every day, yet she complained about how we weren’t together. We didn’t take fun vacations. Or do weekend getaways. And maybe because of my shift work, sometimes she was sleeping while I was awake, or I was sleeping during the day because I’d had a night shift.

So we’d sacrificed some quality time together, that shouldn’t make or break a marriage, but weweregiving up things to be together.

She’d hit me with,If I’m going to live like a single woman, I might as well be one.

As I watched Sutton bend and move over the calf with a hovering Sheldon at her side, I couldn’t convince myself that equally sacrificing had been a good balance.

Nine

Sutton

Tova lobbed a dart. The bar was dim, and the music wasn’t as loud as usual. Our Thursday night girls’ night hangout wasn’t as busy as normal.

She spread her palms over her belly and grimaced. “Can I blame my wonky center of balance for my bad aim tonight?”

Aggie stepped up to the line of white tape. “Might as well. You’re running out of time to use that excuse.”

Tova wiggled onto a tall chair. “I’m going to die of nerves. Cody’s been talking me down for days, and I get motherhood is supposed to be natural, but is it supposed to be scary?”

I could only listen sympathetically in these conversations. I knew about animal pregnancies, but human ones had evaded me.

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