Making It Right (Most Likely To #3)

“He still checked on you. Kept in contact with the sheriff in Waterville, enjoyed a glass on the back porch with me.” Miss Gina waved her half-empty glass. “He knew you were turning your life around.”


Yeah, but he didn’t live to see it.

Jo winced.

The weight of all the eyes in the room silenced the thoughts in Jo’s head.

Mel offered her a soft smile and Zoe changed the subject. “Luke and I have decided on the first weekend in September for the wedding.”

The conversation turned to dresses and color choices, tents and food. Luke and Zoe were officially engaged the previous Christmas.

Jo weighed in on the conversation where she could, but her thoughts kept rolling back to her father. How was it possible she knew nothing about his trips to visit Miss Gina? His knowledge of Miss Gina’s vodka-infused lemonade?

What else didn’t she know?

The graduating class the year her father was murdered put triple the amount of people in the town during the days around his death. Something she’d never considered while she attempted to find his killer.

All these years she’d studied the town, the people . . . the gossip. The reports on her father’s death that pointed to “accidental.”

“Hey, Jo . . . you still with us?”

“I am . . . but I just thought of something.” She stood. “I gotta go check . . .” She left the lie on her tongue.

“Jo?” Mel’s unasked question was left unanswered.

Jo grabbed her keys off the table, smiled, and promised to see them all the next day.



“I’m worried about her.” Mel watched the taillights of Jo’s Jeep leave the driveway.

“She isn’t happy.” Zoe’s words put an exclamation point on Mel’s thoughts. “She isn’t even faking it anymore.”

“She didn’t even drink tonight.” Not that Jo needed liquor to make her happy, but she’d always have at least one cocktail with them on girls’ night.

“All that talk about her dad got her thinking again,” Miss Gina said. “She pulls into a ball when she reflects back. I don’t think she’s ever forgiven herself for being a rebellious teenager.”

“She wasn’t that bad.”

“She really wasn’t,” Mel agreed with Zoe. “But her dad didn’t see it that way.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

Both Mel and Zoe looked at Miss Gina.

“Joseph knew more about what you kids were doing than he let on. He didn’t always show his cards.”

“Are you kidding?” Zoe protested. “He helicoptered Jo and the two of us all the time.”

Miss Gina shook her head. “He watched over you because he knew of the trouble in your house. He watched over Mel because she was the straight-A student that pulled Jo back every once in a while.”

“I didn’t pull her back,” Mel denied.

“You did. You just didn’t realize it,” Miss Gina said. “You both anchored her when it was possible she’d spin out of control. Joseph watched all of you and made sure her circle of friends in town were the good kids.”

“He didn’t control that.”

“He fostered it.” Miss Gina sighed. “You both were kids, you didn’t see him as a man or realize why he did the things he did. Raising a daughter by himself, being the sheriff . . . it wasn’t easy for him. The stick up his ass didn’t help, but I did my best to wiggle that free.”

“Did you?” Zoe asked.

Miss Gina picked up her glass and winked. “I managed.”





Chapter Three




“Agent Burton?” With the phone to her ear, Jo sat behind her desk, staring at the walls of her father’s office. Her office.

“Sheriff, how are you? I’ve been thinking about you.”

“Good things, I hope?”

Shauna chuckled. “Anything new on the eyes in the dark?”

From anyone else, Jo would think Shauna was being sarcastic. But cops, law enforcement, even the FBI knew better than to ignore their instincts. “It’s been quiet. Too much so.”

“I never trust silence either. Is there something I can do for you?”

Jo tapped a pen against her notepad, the only sign of nerves she let herself have. “I want to know if I can take you up on that training course we talked about last year.”

“Honing your skills, Jo?”

“It’s not like I have a lot of use for them in River Bend.”

They both laughed. “I think the next course is late April. Outside DC.”

A little over a month away.

“That will work.”

“It’s a weeklong deal, you able to get away from there that long?”

No, but she’d make it happen. “Yeah. I have vacation time coming.”

“I’ll get back to you later this week with the details.”

Jo hung up the phone with a smile.

“Proactive, not reactive,” she muttered. For the first time in a long time, she looked forward to the next month.



There was a push, a pull, and a whole lot of red tape to make her trip to DC work. The training would last Monday through Friday, but Zoe and Mel convinced her to take the weekend before . . . for herself.

Once the plane leveled off at 32,000 feet, Jo ordered a drink and let herself relax.

She was just a woman on a plane . . . and until the training started on Monday, she’d just be a woman. Not a cop, not responsible for anyone but herself, not Sheriff Ward’s daughter from River Bend.

Just a woman.

The first bar she went into was all suits and ties. Lawyers, lobbyists . . . office jockeys who held no appeal. She didn’t even bother with a drink. Dressed in tight jeans and a tank that Zoe insisted she wear to prove to anyone who looked that she was a woman, Jo felt entirely underdressed.

The second bar was a little farther from the city center and slightly better. The ties were off, but it was obvious the men ditched them in their sedans before attempting a night out.

She picked up her cell and texted Shauna.

Burton, you there?

Hey, Sheriff. What can I do for you?

I’m in DC. Flew in early. Are you here yet?

I fly in tomorrow. What’s up?

Looking for laid back bar. No suits and ties. Any suggestions?

The dot dot dot that followed told Jo that Shauna was either reading between the lines or checking a nightclub app.

Uber to Marly’s. Dive bar-ish, so no suits. Sane enough to avoid cuffing anyone while you’re there.

“Perfect,” Jo muttered to herself.

Thanks!

While Jo looked up Marly’s on her phone, a final text from Shauna proved the woman read through the lines. Be safe. Use condoms.

At Marly’s, Jo hit pay dirt.

Loud and smoky despite the laws suggesting people not smoke indoors, and littered with hard bodies and hard liquor, Jo felt at home.

A few heads swiveled her way as she moved toward the bar. That’s when she saw him.

He had his back to her, a tight T-shirt stretched across a thick layer of muscles built by hours at the gym, and maybe a few steroids. She really hoped steroids were not this guy’s thing. Ink peeked out on both his arms just above the sleeve line. A shadow of growth gave evidence that his baldness was by choice. He had a nice ass. Now if only his face matched.

She waited until her gaze inched up his spine like an insect in the forest on a hot summer night.