“I don’t need you to fit with anyone but me.”

It was a lovely thought. “You’re an elected official. I don’t think it’s going to help you to be associated with me.”

He chuckled, his whole body moving. “I’d love to see them bring someone else in to run against me. No one wants my job. No one wants to deal with the crazies, I assure you.”

“They’re not so crazy.” It felt good to be here with him, too good. “I never thought I would be here. I actually was very against my sister marrying Remy and moving here.”

Armie chuckled. “As you should have been. Have you met his family? Sera is okay, but Zep keeps an overnight bag at the station house because he’s in jail so much, and I swear Delphine Dellacourt Guidry is a con artist of the highest order. She’s worked some kooky schemes with Miss Marcelle. Makes us all crazy.”

“It wasn’t about that. I didn’t think he was good enough for her.”

“He’s definitely not.”

“I’m being serious.”

“No, you’re piling on and you’re trying to put up walls I have to climb over to get to you because you’re afraid you’ve done bad shit in the past, which means you don’t deserve to have a man as sexy, smart, and unbelievable as me.”

She snorted, a completely unsexy sound, but she couldn’t help it. “Think a lot of yourself, huh?” But he wasn’t necessarily wrong. He was all the things he’d said he was and she was definitely scared of falling in deep with him. “I was just pointing out that there are reasons I don’t fit in here.”

“Give it time. You’ll fit in nicely once people get used to the idea of you. Folks around here don’t like change because change is almost always a bad thing for them. You’re a good thing. It’ll all be okay.”

She wasn’t sure about that. Today had been out of the norm. “Even as I was stabilizing Janice today she told me she wouldn’t come back. She actually said to me she wouldn’t go to a female doctor. She told me she remembered how she’d been when she used to have periods and she wasn’t about to risk it.”

He chuckled again, the deep sound soothing. “Janice is a character. And I think she’ll come around because you definitely made a believer of Hallie.”

“It was one day. They’ll forget. Something else will happen and they’ll forget about it and I’ll be the new girl again.” She was afraid she could live here for twenty years and she’d always be the new girl. Her sister was far better at fitting in than she was.