“You son of a bitch!” Sheriff Barnes shouts. “That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.”

He’s stalking toward me, winding up for a round two I can’t let him start. I throw an uppercut to his gut, and though he huffs at the contact, it doesn’t stop him. What does is my answering shout, “Then what the hell are you talking about? What did you do to Zoey?”

“You keep saying that. Why do you think I did something to her?”

I glare at him, panting. “Because she ran out of the courtroom this morning and you were the only one sitting next to her. What did you say to her? Did you call her one of those hurtful names? Drop-Dead Gorgeous? Or Black Widow? Or something worse? Do you know how much that guts her? This whole county just shits on her, treating her like a pariah, when she hasn’t done anything wrong. She never did anything wrong!”

We’re scuffling, arms flailing as we push off one another, neither one of us making any headway. He gives me a big shove, creating a gap between us that we fill with panting breaths. “She ran out because of you, you stupid idiot.”

I’m struck dumb and forget all about the fight, dropping my guard and standing defenseless. “Me? What did I do?”

“You used her for this whole Everlife case. I know she put that invoice together and gave it to you.”

“Then you know why I didn’t say that. I was protecting her.”

Sheriff Barnes snorts disbelievingly. “Sure, and it just conveniently proved your whole theory so Everlife didn’t have pay out.”

“We didn’t pay out because it’s not a valid claim and you haven’t done your due diligence in investigating when Zoey told you it wasn’t open and shut from the get-go. You ignored her, and we did what we had to do to find the truth!”

Our accusations twist around us like barbed wire, digging into our tough guy exteriors to the soft underbellies we both hide and pulling us to a middle ground that seemed impossibly unreachable just moments ago.

“You really weren’t using her?” Barnes finally says.

I shake my head, looking him in the eye. “You didn’t say something to hurt her?”

“I treat her like my own daughter. Though my daughter is always asking for money and wanting me to take her to the mall. Zoey wants to be left alone, so I do that as much as I can and make sure no one else messes with her.”

“I’m just trying to get underneath all those layers of defenses and get her to go out with me, something she finally agreed to, and then this whole court thing blew up.”

We eye each other carefully, hearing the different ways we try to protect the same woman.

“Well, shit,” I say.