Bone Harvest - Mary Logue [74]
He watched her walk up to the counter and lean over to grab the phone from behind the cash register. Claire wasn’t his type but she was sure fun to ogle. Good hair, great lips, nice ass. Not so skinny as many white women tried to be. She looked like she’d be a handful in bed. Five years ago he probably would have tried to find out, but five years ago he hadn’t met Sandy yet. She was good enough to be faithful for.
Claire came back to the table shaking her head. “Nothing’s going on. No calls have come in.”
“Maybe he’s taking a day off.”
The food arrived. The fries looked like a pile of straw, but were nice and crispy. The hamburger wasn’t bad. Tyrone was facing the door and looked up from his food as a man walked in. He stood in the doorway and looked over at Tyrone with an odd, determined look. Tyrone was accustomed to the look. It happened from time to time when someone walked into a place where they didn’t customarily see a black man and there he’d be. He usually ignored it. Did no good to even think about it. But he was surprised when the man pushed open the door and went back out. He hadn’t looked so redneck to Tyrone that he wouldn’t even have a drink in a place serving a black. Tyrone lifted his beer mug again.
Claire knocked hers against it. “What’re we celebrating now?”
“Satisfaction,” he said.
Rich didn’t know what to do with himself. He felt like an idiot. Why had he backed out the door? Why hadn’t he walked in and gone over to the table and kissed the woman he loved? Instead he had acted like he had done something wrong, or found her in a compromising position.
He walked down toward the lake and thought of going back to the Fort, but his stomach turned.
Rich felt like something broke in him. Seeing her with another man. Even though he was sure the guy was official—some deputy or sheriff or agent or cop. That was her world; that was her life. She was the only woman in an arena of men. She could handle it. Why couldn’t he?
He wasn’t sure he could share Claire the way he would have to if he wanted to be part of her life. It would always be like this. One case or another would take her away from him. She would go out for drinks with the guys after work and he would not be included.
Why, if it was so important to him to have a wife who stayed close to him, had he fallen in love with a deputy sheriff?
The lake stretched out greasy and hot under the setting sun. When he turned back to go to the bar, he saw their patrol car pull away.
He missed her.
CHAPTER 23
Debby didn’t usually work the late shift. It had been one of the requests she had made when she took the job, that she not have to work at night. Everything was screwed up these days. She had started to hate to come to work since her flowers were dead. Everyone was working longer hours. All because of that guy who had stolen the pesticides and something that had happened fifty years ago. She didn’t get it.
Debby had agreed to fill in at the front—she was tired of answering the phones. She had only another couple hours left and she could go home. It was nearly ten o’clock and she thought of her husband, her new husband, watching the news without her.
Ned told her that he loved every ounce of her. She was a little overweight, but not only did it not bother him, he saw it as positive. “Something to hold on to,” he whispered in her ear. “Something to keep me warm at night.”
She was sorry she wasn’t there snuggled next to him on the couch, her eyes opened only a slit, ready to climb into bed. But she was at the sheriff’s department, watching no one walk in the door and waiting to go home.
She left the desk for a few minutes to go to the bathroom and make a phone call to Ned. He told her he had just made popcorn. Then she came back to finish up her shift. She had told the sheriff she was leaving at eleven. She had already worked three hours extra, and although she was glad she was getting overtime, it still