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"Or you could leave"

"Yeah, but it’s much more fun to stay and make you squirreen eyes "

Yeah She sure as hell did "Annoyed?" he offered "Irritated? Frustrated? Infuriated?"

"Horny"

He shook his head, but hell if she wasn’t right "Option two"

"Irritated?" she asked

"No You talk"

She laughed, then talked about her last trip to Belize, where she’d gotten the small tattoo on the inside of her wrist, which apparently meant "Be Yourself" "Hurt like a bitch," she said "And Tara’s certain that I’ll never land a corporate job because of the location--it’s hard to cover it up She’d probably freak if she saw my other tat, but she won’t because it’s…discreetly placed," she said, flashing a grin

Sawyer thought about that for a very pleasant beat, enjoying the distraction of picturing where and what thata job in the corporate world?" he asked, unable to envision her in an office setting, all ta nice? No, I’m not sure I have that in me"

"What do you have in you?"

Chloe looked surprised at the question "Well, I’d like to get this natural skincare line I’ly corporate"

"Bite your tongue," she said

He found hi

"Wow," she said "You should do that a lot nored that "You like what you do"

"Well, yeah Isn’t that the point?"

He opened hiswith a nod "Did you always knohat you wanted to do?"

"Yeah When I was little, I camped with my mom all the time Did you know that?"

He shook his head He didn’t know h, and she hadn’t exactly been the reith their dads, but I ith Phoebe Ca," Chloe said "Mostly we traveled froo off for another adventure But I always had everything I owned in a little Saved by the Bell backpack"

He felt sohten in his chest, and it took hiirl" His childhood had been a world away He’d had a house, a ardless

"Oh, I liked it," Chloe said "I mean, ere poor as dirt, of course, but I didn’t know that We s we needed e could Soap, sha out which scents went best hich ingredients"

Of course, she would have made the best of the cards she’d been dealt But the nos would have been different for hiiven hi arrested, he’d found a different, evenofficer, of all people Sheriff Allen Coburn had been the first adult to take the tihtened Sawyer’s ass out by checking on him weekly, and had until his death a few years back

It didn’t sound like Chloe had had any such stabilizing forces, at least not until this past year "Moving around like that," he said "How did you go to school and make friends?"

"Phoebe hoh school We settled in San Francisco for a while because she had a boyfriend as a theater stagehand I went to school there"

"You and your mom lived with the boyfriend?"

"No, he lived in his car in the theater lot We ca deal; it hat it was "I made friends wherever ere; that wasn’t really a proble a home"

So the B&B with her sisters was the first real hohtened the knot in his chest

"What about you?" she asked

"What aboutlook, waiting impatiently for hi Do you have any tattoos?" she asked "Childhood stories? So?"

"I thought the deal was that you talk and I sit"

She shook her head "I looked you up, you know" She nudged her shoulder to his "And for a town that loves gossip more than Walmart, there’s not a lot about you out there Actually it’s kind of nice that the people here are so protective of their big, bad sheriff"

Protective? He shook his head, but he should have known she wasn’t going to let it drop "Is that no, you’re just boring as sin?" she asked "Or no, you’re being obtuse sihed just as the surgeon caot to his feet and braced himself for the worst, but the doctor assured hione well In sheer relief, he sank back to the chair Why he gave a daht his son wasn’t worth his tiioplasty A heart replacement, maybe…

Chloe sat, too, and slipped her ar her head on his shoulder She didn’t speak, just gave him a moment Which was another surprise She was always in such perpetualhim up a wall Or hell, maybe it wasn’t hard work at all, ht this veryWhat the hell was she doing here anyway? And why did it feel so daathered her in close Just for ahis face into her sweet-s

Finally they rose from their chairs, and in another surprise, she stared up into his face With a satisfied nod that he was apparently looking okay in her book, she went up on tiptoe and kissed his jaw And then she walked out of the roo in her wake an odd void that he couldn’t naed his sorry, aching ass into the Love Shack, the bar co-owned by Jax and Ford That h to screw up the roads Which one on after that had been a life-or-death situation just getting out of his da traffic control, and twice he’d been nearly hit by so too fast for the conditions

But it had been his last call that had gotten to him--a fatal accident just outside Lucky Harbor A twenty-year-old kid drinking and driving had wrapped himself around a tree

Once upon a tiht, Sawyer hadn’t been driving but he’d been just as drunk as the driver when they’d hit a pole