Chapters (110)
- Cover
- ALSO BY J. TODD SCOTT
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- PROLOGUE
- I
- II
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- PART TWO
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- PART THREE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- SIXTY-ONE
- PART FOUR
- SIXTY-TWO
- SIXTY-THREE
- SIXTY-FOUR
- SIXTY-FIVE
- SIXTY-SIX
- SIXTY-SEVEN
- SIXTY-EIGHT
- SIXTY-NINE
- SEVENTY
- SEVENTY-ONE
- SEVENTY-TWO
- SEVENTY-THREE
- SEVENTY-FOUR
- SEVENTY-FIVE
- SEVENTY-SIX
- SEVENTY-SEVEN
- SEVENTY-EIGHT
- SEVENTY-NINE
- EIGHTY
- EIGHTY-ONE
- EIGHTY-TWO
- EIGHTY-THREE
- EIGHTY-FOUR
- EPILOGUE
- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V
- VI
- VII
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Excerpt from LOST RIVER
- LITTLE PARIS
- DILLON
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next onyour reading list?
“Mama?” she asked the following silence, and waited for a reply.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Mel couldn’t remember the last time Chris had worn a suit.
She’d bought him this one in Midland and had to drag him there to have it tailored. It was charcoal—a shade or two darker than that—and it fit well, but he said he looked like an undertaker in it. Despite the fancy bloodred tie she’d chosen.
The suit, and the tie, had cost too much money. They both knew it, but she’d done it anyway.
She focused on straightening the gold pin in his lapel, a small Big Bend County Sheriff’s Department star. Sheriff Ross had always worn one, and Chris had found boxes of them in the man’s desk. They were some of the only things Chris kept around after Ross’s funeral, and he’d let the deputies wear them or give them out at schools.
He always refused, but she put this one in now.
It shined sharply, from where she’d polished it bright on her hem, matching the one she had pinned to her dress.
Till Greer had already poked his head in to report he’d seen Bethel Turner heading over to the school in a charcoal-gray suit of his own, and a new Stetson the color of morning fog.
Chris had his Stetson Brimstone on the desk, the same one he’d owned since he’d taken over as sheriff, but he wasn’t committed to wearing it. Yet.
The debate was only thirty minutes away, and they were in Chris’s office, where he was reluctantly letting her fuss over him. She was brushing off his shoulders with her hand, brushing his neatly cut hair out of his eyes. She’d made him shave back at the house, and it had left his face raw, exposed. She counted them both lucky he hadn’t nicked himself, leaving bloody spots on ruddy skin roughened by the Big Bend’s wind and the sun. As she was about to get into the shower, she’d caught him staring at himself in the mirror with a last bit of Barbasol on his chin, and tried to read his thoughts: that he looked way too young, way too thin, too frail. That he was pretending and playing dress-up, wearing a grown-up’s suit and another man’s badge and gun. Worst of all, that he didn’t even like the man he was looking at. To break those darker thoughts, she’d pulled him right into the shower with her and wrapped her arms around him and run hot water over them, hot enough to make them both gasp.
Only for her to gasp again, and again, when he entered her and breathed her name into her wet hair.