So why did it hurt so damn much coming from him? It was an actual ache in her gut. She should have stuck to her plan. Work. Sleep. Visit with her sister. Repeat.

Except she didn’t have much work to do. She didn’t sleep well at all. And her sister didn’t have a ton of time for her.

When had she become this needy, clingy thing?

“Whatever he said, he didn’t mean it,” Noelle offered. “He’s not good with women. Or people at all, really.”

She disagreed. He was excellent with everyone, and he’d meant every word he’d said. “Everything’s fine. Like I said, I have to get back to work.”

“I guess you changed your mind about lunch.” Dixie was staring at her with a frown. “You don’t want the bacon anymore? You know we had to make it. We didn’t simply have it sitting around in case someone wanted it.”

She didn’t want any of this. Somehow she’d thought she would come down here and everything would fall into place. It was a sleepy town, and she’d made the mistake of thinking it would be different here. In the city, most of the time people ignored her. No matter how good she was at her job, there was always someone who could take her job. She’d thought she would have a place here. She hadn’t expected to make a ton of friends, but she certainly hadn’t thought people would actively hate her.

What the hell had she done? She’d given up a great job, awesome salary, pretty apartment, and for what? Everything she had was sunk into a clinic no one wanted to come to and a house that was full of a dead man’s junk. Now she apparently had a dog to take care of, and she would have to avoid the hot sheriff at all costs.

Not that she would be here long if the town turned on her.

“I left the cash on the table. I’ll brown bag it from now on.”

Dixie sighed and put a hand on her hip. “Food’s not good enough for you?”