“We’ll go ahead and take some pictures that you can send to your insurance company, Gloria. In the meantime, is there anyone you can think of who isn’t feeling particularly friendly toward you?” Sheriff Bodett asked.

“You know exactly who’s responsible for this,” Aldo growled. “Gloria’s got two enemies in this entire town, and one of them is behind bars.”

“Be that as it may,” the sheriff said, unaffected by Aldo’s temper, “there’s still a procedure we have to follow.”

Fuck the procedure. Aldo wanted Sheriff Bodett to pull up in front of Linda Diller’s house with lights and sirens.

“I really don’t want to make a big deal out of this,” Gloria cut in. She rubbed her arms with her hands despite the fact that there was no chill in the July night air. Aldo tucked her into his side, wishing he could spirit her away and take care of this for her.

“She’s being threatened by Diller, and last night, his mother confronted her publicly,” he pointed out. “When is the ‘procedure’ going to start protecting Gloria from that family?”

This situation was the perfect shit show of everything Aldo hated in life: Glenn Diller and feeling helpless.

“I’m sure we’ll get all this worked out,” the sheriff said mildly. “Gloria, you go ahead and send these pictures over to your insurance company, and they’ll take care of you.” He bustled away with the notebook in which he hadn’t written a damn thing.

Gloria stared glumly at the letters carved into her paint. “I have a thousand-dollar deductible.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Aldo urged her. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Oh, no, you won’t.” She rounded on him. Even though she was shooting the look at him, Aldo was glad to see some fire in her eyes.

“Why the hell not?”

“You’re not paying my deductible. You’re not paying my anything.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

She shook her head. “It’s a huge deal.”

Aldo bit his tongue. Fuck. Glenn had held the purse strings and likely wielded it over Gloria. For the first time in her life, she was responsible for herself financially.

He closed his eyes, changing tack. “Glo, this is like me being out of laundry detergent and you having some. You’d share your detergent with me, wouldn’t you?”

“Aldo!” she said in exasperation. “Money is different. Money means power and control. And I’m not comfortable accepting money from you for my problem.”

“Your problem is my problem,” he reminded her, his voice steely. But she didn’t flinch. Instead, she rolled her eyes at him.

“That’s such an annoying alpha male thing to say.”