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  Larx tilted his head to the exact opposite angle. “You sure do believe in keeping your population safe. One person at a time, even.”

  Aaron had blue eyes and fair skin, and he fought against the heat building in his face. “Well, it’s a small town. We’d feel it if you became roadkill—can’t deny it.”

  Larx pulled a corner of his mouth back in a cynical smile. “Then don’t try.”

  His eyes were brown, and his mouth wide and mobile. Aaron stared at that mouth just long enough for the moment to become uncomfortable.

  “Tomorrow morning, Sheriff?” Larx asked, breaking the silence.

  “You want a ride back?” Aaron asked courteously, pretty sure that would be the worst thing ever at this point, given how acute the attraction.

  “No, sir. I think I’m going to finish my run.”

  Aaron nodded and repositioned his baseball cap. “Suit yourself.”

  He turned then and strode back to the SUV, resisting the urge to look back and see if Larx was gazing after him. He was pretty sure he felt eyes boring into his back, but he damned well wasn’t going to turn around and check.

  He managed to keep the little encounter to himself as he returned to the county office and filled out his dailies. He briefed the chief on his activities—how he was pretty sure the mom-and-pop weed operation they’d spotted a month ago had escalated and they might need to call the DEA, and how the high school’s request for a sidewalk lining school property should be backed by the sheriff’s office as a matter of general safety. He didn’t mention Larx, but Larx wasn’t the only idiot who thought he was immune to traffic.

  Sheriff Eamon Mills nodded, asked if Aaron’s report had been filed, and then, just as Aaron turned away, stopped him. “Uh, George?”

  “Yessir?”

  “I know this isn’t your shift, but there’s a home game coming up in two weeks. It’s from one of those schools out of county—you know….” Mills grimaced. “We’re a small town, mostly, and this is a big-city school. I’m sure their kids are going to be just fine, because I know the coach, and Foster runs a tight ship. It’s our parents we need to worry about, you understand?”

  Aaron grimaced. Yes, he did. Kids these days, with the internet and cable—they had a view on diversity and the wider world that was both boggling and gratifying. The adults in the family? Well, that wasn’t always the case. Two years before, a school bus driver from a city school had gotten freaked out by a snowflake. Terrified at the prospect of driving in the snow, he’d left his students stranded in front of Colton High after they’d won a playoff basketball game. Aaron and Larx had managed to round up sheriff’s vehicles and parent volunteers to get the kids back to their home school, but Aaron could still remember how afraid those kids had been, huddled together against the gym, surrounded by a hostile population of rednecks who were not happy to lose to a big-city team.

  “You’re looking for some more uniforms at the game?” he asked, not reluctantly. Not at all. Larx would be at the game. Game nights were part of a small-town officer’s duty, and Aaron had worked his share. When Larx had been teaching, Aaron had seen him occasionally, because it was a community event, but not always. The principal had to attend the game, though.

  Larx would be there. They’d have over a week of running under their belts. Aaron would drag Kirby there, Larx’s youngest daughter would probably attend—it would be fun.

  Platonic, single-parent fun.

  Uh-huh.

  “Yeah, son. That would be helpful. Maybe you and Larx could spend some time in the opposing team’s bleachers laughing, giving out free concessions, letting our people know we’re all friends here. That okay?”

  Eamon was African American and in his sixties, probably ready to retire. He’d spent a few years in the military, a few more in ’Nam, and a few more “getting lost in New York,” as he liked to say. He was both as homegrown and redneck as they came, and surprisingly educated and cosmopolitan in his own way.

  Aaron loved him like the father he’d wished he’d had. “That’s fine,” he said, smiling a little. “I’ll bring Kirby—nobody can be mean to that kid when he bats his brown eyes at ’em.”

  Eamon nodded. “I appreciate it. And definitely bring the whippersnapper along. That kid needs to spend more time here filing. Last time he went into the archives, he actually solved two cases.”

  Aaron grimaced. “Yessir, well, I’d just as soon he not get quite so excited about law enforcement as a career. He’s a danger to himself without the firearm.” Caroline had been sort of a charming klutz too, and that kid did take after his mother.

  Eamon chuckled. “We’ll keep the cabinet locked, don’t you worry. But maybe don’t actively keep him away, Aaron. You know kids. The more you say no, the more the kid wants to find ways to make that a yes.”

  “Two teenaged daughters,” Aaron said grimly. Eamon had been there. Hell, Eamon had been there when Aaron’s oldest, Tiffany, had to be taken home in a squad car when she’d been busted having sex with her boyfriend under Cofer’s Bridge. He’d been there when Maureen had been busted getting drunk with the other drama kids after they’d taken down the stage of their senior production. Name an embarrassing moment in a parent’s career and Eamon had been there to give advice, his hand on his deputy’s shoulder.

  “I remember,” Eamon said now. “How are Tiff and Maureen?”

  “Well, Tiff is on track to graduate in two years, because she just changed majors at the last fucking gasp and needs to take almost her entire four years over again.”

  Eamon whistled. “Pricey.”

  “It is indeed. I told her she’d have to work through part of that, and she called me a tyrant. I told her the only reason she didn’t have to earn all of it was that her sister was on track to graduate a year early and join the Peace Corps so she could go teach children to read in India. Tiff called her sister a name, which I will not repeat, and Maureen called Tiff another name, which I will not repeat, and by the time they both went back to school, neither of them was speaking to the other.”

  “Or to you?” Eamon asked kindly.

  “Well, Maureen was speaking to me. Which only cemented her identity as an ‘ass-kissing little pussy’—in her sister’s exact words.”

  Eamon grunted. “Son, you can’t take that to heart. Kids….”

  Aaron sighed and scrubbed his face with his hand. “I know. She’ll get over it. She almost always does. I just… I have a brother I haven’t spoken to in years. He just lives on the other side of the country, is all. I wanted so badly to have the kids grow up and give a damn about each other.”

  “Aaron, you’ve done your best. And you know, you’ve got Kirby. That kid can bring those girls together in a heartbeat.”

  Well, truth. Kirby had been sending the girls a letter a week over the past six weeks, each one on a little note card, each one updating the other on what her sister was doing. If anyone could play peacemaker there, it was Kirby. “I’m hoping so,” Aaron agreed. That sounded like a good place to leave, so he turned away, only to be brought up short.

  “Aaron?”

  “Sir?” Aaron turned back.

  “I almost hate to ask this, as a meddling old man, but I am old, and I haven’t made it a secret that I may decide not to run in the next election. And if I don’t, you know I’m going to ask you to step up and run.”

  Crap. This. “Yessir—and I’m honored.” Aaron did know how Larx felt. There was not much he hated more than the thought of being the only grown-up left for other people to look to.

  “Well, don’t be. It’s a shit job and you get no sleep. But it sure is easier with a helpmate on the home front.”

  Aaron grimaced. “Yessir. I have been aware of that for the last ten years.”

  “I know you have. And yet you’ve never looked for another Mrs. George.”

  Oh God. His whole body washed in a prickle of sweat at the prospect of lying to Eamon—or even dodging the question. You just did not do that to a man whose wife
had cooked for your family once a week on the pretext of “just making extra.” You didn’t do that to a man who had kept cookies at his desk for ten years in case his deputies’ children should be forced to do their homework in the police station. It wasn’t right.

  “Or Mr. George,” he said, lungs feeling like they were being pressed between a Volkswagen and a sheet of steel.

  Eamon’s eyes opened wide, and he gaped a few times.

  Aaron smiled weakly.

  Eamon snapped his mouth shut and shrugged. “Is that so?”

  “It’s a toss-up, sir.”

  “Well, a missus would be easier, but that’s not my call to make. I’m just saying that you don’t have to do it alone.”

  Aaron closed his eyes to try to keep the burning behind them from getting out of hand. “Thank you, sir,” he said quietly. “I should get home now.”

  “Gail’s making cookies tonight, son. She’ll have some ready for Kirby tomorrow.”

  Aw, dammit. Aaron had to turn away, because he was not at his manly best at the moment. “That’s right sweet of her, sir. I’ll have Kirby draw up a thank-you note.”

  “We look forward to them every time.”

  Kirby tended to draw cartoons on his thank-you notes. The last one had featured a pig rolling around in hearts and daisies, snuffling with happiness over a steaming plate of cookies.

  “I’ll tell him that.”

  Aaron kept walking. He just could not handle another hit in the feels this day, and that was the truth.

  When Aaron got home, Kirby was at the kitchen table working dutifully on his homework, some sort of chicken/veggie/Thai disaster cooking in the small kitchen behind him.

  “You’re late,” Kirby said without looking up. He was a stickler for things like that.

  “I was talking to my boss.” I was coming out to my boss in case I could possibly maybe someday bang your principal. Nope. That last part was staying subtext.

  Kirby looked up as he walked in from living room, and the familiar shock of seeing Caroline’s brown eyes, surrounded with a thick fringe of lashes, peering back at him zapped a little path of sweet pain through Aaron’s heart. “What about?” Kirby worried. He had an active imagination, and in the same way Aaron couldn’t watch Larx jogging down that horrible road without picturing the worst, if Aaron was so much as five minutes late, Kirby imagined him dead.

  “About going to the football game next Friday night.”

  Kirby grimaced. “You’re on redneck patrol, aren’t you? To make sure we don’t embarrass ourselves because we haven’t ever seen big-city folk before.”

  “Pretty much. Want to come make some new friends?”

  Kirby perked up. “People who have spent the last ten years of their lives somewhere that hunting season isn’t considered a legit excuse not to go to school? I’m there.”

  This was Kirby’s last year of high school, and Aaron could sense that need in his boy to get the hell out of this tiny town. Not that he blamed him—Aaron would miss him is all.

  “Thanks. Eamon asked about you. He’s sending cookies tomorrow.” Aaron strode into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of protein juice to fortify himself for his run. Stuff tasted like shit, but Kirby had mixed it up for him the year before, and it really worked. Anything to keep him from eating cookies after his shift.

  Kirby grimaced. “Dad….”

  He walked back toward the battered wooden table so he could let Kirby see his actual sympathy. “Yeah. I know.” Gail was the loveliest woman, and her casseroles and side dishes were amazing. But her cookies….

  “We have chickens who will love them,” Aaron said diplomatically.

  Kirby shook his head. “That’s why I drew the pig last time.”

  “Well, if it hadn’t been so darned cute, maybe she would have gotten the hint. How’s dinner?”

  “Ready when you’re done with your run,” Kirby responded promptly. “So maybe get out of my hair and let me finish my chemistry. Larx’ll be pissed if it’s not perfect.”

  “Deal. But I’m going to start running with Larx in the mornings from now on, so however that fits into your plans.”

  Kirby squinted at him as though he had sprouted another head. “You’re going to what?”

  Aaron fidgeted with his empty glass. “I, uh, you know. Me and Larx are going to go running. In the morning. So he doesn’t have to run on the side of the road. That sort of freaked you out.”

  Kirby blinked slowly. “Yes. Yes, it did. But I didn’t expect you to go out and invite him to run. That’s like, super deluxe up close personal service there, Dad. I’m not sure you can go above and beyond for every citizen in town—even this town.”

  “Well, Larx isn’t just everyone,” Aaron said, soldiering on. “He’s the principal.”

  Kirby’s face had been sweet and round as a child, but he’d developed a strong jaw and high cheekbones as he’d grown. He had dark blond hair like his father, and he’d be a fine-looking man someday, but right now he was a beautiful adolescent. The kind you thought angels modeled their own faces after.

  Right up until his “bullshit” line arced between his eyebrows.

  Like it was now.

  “There are secret adult machinations at work here,” he pronounced. “I’m not sure how or why, but this does not bode well for any involved.”

  Aaron fidgeted with his empty cup and then walked back into the kitchen. “Uh, watching a lot of science fiction there, son?”

  “Yes, Dad, with you. So don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “Not a clue. Gonna change and go running. Back in half an hour. Bye!”

  It wasn’t pretty, but retreats seldom were.

  That night he fell asleep remembering Larx squinting at him in the dusty sunshine, the iron out of his spine and some sweetness in his smile.

  He dreamed he’d moved forward, taken a step, until he could feel the heat from Larx’s exertion, until he could feel Larx’s breath on his face.

  He dreamed of their lips touching in a simple kiss.

  Chromic Acid and Alcohol

  “OKAY, BOYS and girls, quick review. Are we ready?”

  “Ready, Larx!”

  Larx looked up at his class and grinned. They’d said that in tandem, and he loved it when his kids played with him. “Good to hear it! Okay, what are the four measurements we use to evaluate chemical substances?”

  A forest of hands shot into the air.

  “Kimmy!”

  “Particles!”

  “Isaiah!”

  “Moles!”

  “Christiana!”

  “Mass!”

  “Kirby!”

  “Volume!”

  “Way to go! Now, Kellan, what do we use for qualitative analysis?”

  “Coulomb’s law, sir!”

  “Excellent—and according to Coulomb’s law, what is the formula that tells us about electrostatic force?”

  And the drill went on.

  On Monday they’d do the experiment where they charged the metal balls, used a laser pointer to measure the distance they repelled each other, and applied that to electron movement, but today they needed to know what they were learning when they did that. After the experiment and the lab write-up, they’d have the test to show if the kids could pair up the stuff they learned from the book with the stuff they learned in real life—and that would be one more step to passing the AP test.

  “Very well done,” he praised as the drill ran down. “Now, I want you guys to set up your lab reports with the info from the textbook so we’re ready to run the lab on Monday. You’ve got about twenty minutes, so I need to see your lab books out, and any talking you do needs to be about my class and my class only. Are we clear?”

  “Yes, Larx,” they all said, like Larx didn’t know they were about to spend twenty minutes talking about the football game, the dance, and who was dating who.

  Didn’t matter. What mattered was he gave them the time. How they used it made the
difference between responsible students and last-minute slackers.

  Larx had pretty much been the latter, so he had all sorts of understanding for that.

  Still, he wandered from table to table, checking to see if anyone had any questions. He had to gird himself internally when he passed Kirby and Christiana’s table. Aaron George’s son and his own daughter were looking at him with grim mischief in their eyes.

  “So, guys, any questions?”

  “Yeah, Larx,” Christiana said perkily. “I’ve got one. What do two middle-aged geezers talk about when they go running in the crotch of dawn? Inquiring minds want to know.”

  Larx glared at her, wishing she looked like her mother, because then he could dig his heels in against her like he had with Alicia during their entire marriage. But no, she looked exactly like Larx’s late older sister, who had died of leukemia when Larx had been in college. Larx had adored Lila—wanted to be just like her, had lived for her visits to his dorm when he’d been confused and lost in a place he never thought he’d get to go to.

  When Christi looked at him with that darkly arched eyebrow and those sparkling brown eyes, Larx didn’t have a chance.

  “We talk about our ungrateful offspring, of course,” he replied smugly. “And how we think they should be getting better grades and doing more chores so we can eke every last nanojoule of value out of them before we fund their launch into the great wide world.”

  They both rolled their eyes so hard he was surprised they didn’t get headaches.

  “You’re funny, Dad,” she sulked. “Very funny. You were gone for an hour this morning.”

  “Well, that means I’ll be home an hour earlier tonight, Christi-lulu-belle—doesn’t this make you happy?”

  “No,” Kirby whispered frantically to her. “Tell him it does not make us happy. I was using that half hour to study and now my dad wants to know about my day!”

  Larx looked directly at Kirby as he responded. “Tell your friend that this makes his father very happy, since he only has one child left at home and would like that kid to come back to his house after college.”