Making It Right (Most Likely To #3)

“You don’t have a car.”


“None of us drove.”

He stood silent for the space of a breath; his eyes bore down on hers. “None of you . . . you mean Zoe and Mel?”

It was Jo’s turn to play quiet.

“Where did you get the liquor?” His voice was calm, almost too much so.

“I’m not ratting out my friends.”

“Zoe?”

“No.”

“Mel?”

“No, Dad, stop. It’s not the end of the world. It’s just a little alcohol.” She moved past him and grabbed the duffel bag he’d rifled through to find her stash.

“That Julian guy in Waterville?”

The guy she needed the birth control pills for supplied her with more than booze.

“Let it go, Dad. I’m an adult now.”

She tried to move around him but he blocked her way.

“Did you steal it?”

Jo looked at the floor before remembering to make eye contact.

Her hesitation was all her dad needed to sniff out the truth.

“Damn it, JoAnne.”

“I didn’t steal it,” she lied.

“Bullshit.” His voice edged higher.

“You never believe me.”

“You’re always lying to me. Now tell me where you got this.” He waved Jose in the air.

“No.”

His jaw twitched. “I can’t have my daughter running around town stealing liquor from our neighbors.”

“I didn’t—”

“Do I need to put you in handcuffs before you’re going to learn to keep your nose clean?”

She shot both hands toward him, her wrists close together. “Go ahead, Dad. Arrest me for having a bottle of alcohol, something just about every kid in this town my age has access to.”

Joseph slammed the bottle on the table. “That isn’t the point. You’re my daughter. I can’t have you breaking the law.”

“Because you’re a cop.”

“I’m the cop!”

Something she’d always hated. “And because you play sheriff, I have to wear a fucking halo and pretend I’m prim and innocent.”

“No one is expecting you to be a Disney character.”

“Good. I’m glad we understand each other.”

She tried to move around him again.

He didn’t budge.

“No more of this, JoAnne.”

The noose of his presence, his uniform, started to cut off the air in the room.

“I hate that you’re the sheriff.”

Her words did nothing to him. She’d said them before.

“I’m going to find out who this belongs to, and you’re going to face them, apologize, and hope they don’t want to press charges.”

“No one presses charges against you, Dad.”

“This isn’t about me. One of these days I’m not going to be able to stop you from sitting in that jail cell.”

She glared at him. “So you believe what all those assholes at the school said about me, too?” Voted most likely to end up in jail had been her sentence from the graduating class at River Bend. And obviously her father had read that in her yearbook.

“I believe that if you don’t start having a little humility, a little respect, you’re going to hate life.”

“I already hate my life.”

Her father visibly winced. “I’m not a perfect father, I know I’ve made mistakes, but you don’t have it that bad.”

Her teenage hormones wanted to scream. “I’m a cop’s kid. I’ve always had to be something I’m not. Right now half the graduating class is waking up with a hangover, and I bet their parents are yelling at them.”

“We’ve been through this—”

“We have, and you know what? I don’t give a shit what you think.”

“That’s enough!” He yelled loud enough to rattle the china in her late mother’s cabinet. “You will respect me in my home.”

“What are you going to do, kick me out?”

“If I have to.”

He wouldn’t.

Only his eyes said he meant business.

“Is that what I have to do, JoAnne? Does something tragic have to happen in order for you to get your crap together?”

She’d lost her mother to a car accident when she was just a kid, which helped prompt her rebellion.

“High school is over,” he said as if she didn’t know. “You’re eighteen now. You get caught stealing, even liquor, and I have no choice but to put you behind bars. That doesn’t go off your record.”

“You’re worried about how it will make you look.”

“I’m worried about my kid screwing up her life for something as stupid as this.” He pointed to the bottle. “I think you should join the military.”

She shook her head, the towel holding her hair started to come undone. “I’m not joining the military!”

He lifted his hands in the air. “Well, you’re not doing this all summer. You’re getting a job if you’re living here.”

“I help out at Sam’s.”

“A real job. To keep you out of trouble.”

“Where do you suggest I get one in this one-crap town?”

Her dad stared her down. “I don’t know if you can get a job in this one-crap town since you can’t be trusted.”

The image of the words in her yearbook scrolled in her mind: JoAnne Ward, most likely to end up in jail.

Instead of saying anything else, she grabbed her bag from the table and shoved past her dad into her bedroom. She slammed the door and took less than two minutes pulling on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. With wet hair, she charged into her bathroom, grabbed the cell phone and the charging cable, and went ahead and shoved her birth control pills into her bag. A few changes of clothes made it into her duffel before she stormed out of her childhood bedroom.

Her father sat at the kitchen table, the half-empty bottle of tequila was winning a staring match.

When he heard her, he glanced up.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To find a job,” she told him, having no intention of actually looking.

He sighed. “Sit down, JoAnne. Let’s try and talk about this.”

“Why? So you can tell me what a crappy kid I am? How I disgrace you and your position in this town? I don’t think so.” She ran out of the house and half jogged the five miles of back roads and shortcuts to Miss Gina’s Bed-and-Breakfast.

Once on the steps of the inn, she dropped her bag and caught her breath.

She hated her dad, hated this town.

It choked her every damn day.

The screen door to the inn opened, and Miss Gina, with her gray-speckled long hair, sixties throwback skirt, and flowing blouse plopped down beside Jo on the steps. “Well, look what the wind blew in.”

“I hate him, Miss Gina.”

Miss Gina wrapped an arm over Jo’s shoulders. “You don’t hate him.”

“He doesn’t understand.”

It took a lot to make Jo want to cry, but she was fighting back tears.

“C’mon inside and you can tell me all about what Sheriff Ward doesn’t understand.”





Chapter One