LITMIR.BIZ

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about this since sixth-period lunch.”

      “Right. Okay.” Megan tightened her grip on the wheel. “Maybe I have been dying to share that quote. But I also wanted you to know you have as good of a shot at this job as anyone else. Have confidence.”

      “Meg, I’m not the kind of girl to undersell myself. I’m writing college application essays that make me sound like a child prodigy. But I have mega-valid reasons to worry about applying for a job with the man who arrested my mother. The sheriff is...” She couldn’t think how to describe him, but he wasn’t exactly warm and encouraging. Even if he hadn’t arrested her mom for harassment last month, instantly turning Bailey into a high school pariah, she would have thought he was sort of scary. “...the sheriff,” she finished lamely.

      Her mother had had an affair with Jeremy Covington, a guy now accused of stalking girls online for the last decade. Bailey’s mom had covered up the affair by convincing Bailey to date Jeremy’s son, J.D., who’d been as much of a jerk as his father. Little did Bailey know her mother was simultaneously helping her new boyfriend by cyberstalking Megan. Jeremy and Tiffany McCord were both on the town council, and they’d thought they could scare Megan into convincing her father—also on the council—to move away from Heartache. Apparently, Jeremy and Tiffany had seen Megan’s dad as their chief competition for the mayor’s job next year. It was all so convoluted, petty and sickening. Bailey’s dad had sent all his wife’s things to a storage facility last week, half emptying the house in the process. It was like living in a ghost town. And through it all, Bailey felt so angry at her mom for betraying her in every way. Bad enough she’d cheated on Dad. But she’d also destroyed Bailey’s trust.

      As if high school wasn’t already hard enough.

      “He may be the sheriff, but he’s also just a guy who needs help with a baby.” Megan kept her eyes on the road, but she used one hand to straighten the pendant on her necklace, a present from her new boyfriend, Wade. The pendant was a tiny saltshaker, which apparently symbolized how they met—they both worked at the Owl’s Roost diner and had their best talks over refilling the shakers.

      It was kind of cute, Bailey had to admit. And sort of unheard of to be with a guy who listened to you. But then, Bailey’s last boyfriend had gone to jail around the same time as her mom for also helping Jeremy stalk girls, so, clearly, she attracted the wrong sort.

      “I do like babies,” Bailey admitted, double-checking Sheriff Reyes’s address in her phone. She’d always wanted a sibling, but she’d never gotten closer than the occasional new baby doll as a kid. “But I can only work so many hours this semester.”

      She’d looked into graduating early after her family became the town’s most talked-about scandal, but she would have had to file the paperwork back in August. Now she was putting all her efforts into loading up on AP classes in the spring to cram as many credits onto her transcript as possible.

      “So tell him that.” Megan reached over to give Bailey’s arm a quick squeeze. “He’d be lucky to have you.”

      She took comfort from her friend’s easy confidence in her.

      “I’m so glad we’re friends again.” Bailey hated that she was Ms. Mushy lately, crying every time she turned around. But it was the truth, and Meg deserved to hear it. “Hanging out with you is the only good thing about me not being able to graduate early.”

      “We can have a fun senior year even if no one else wants to hang out with us.” Megan was used to being more of an outcast, and she seemed comfortable enough in her own skin that it didn’t bother her. An unabashed gamer who took quirky to a whole new level, Meg couldn’t get through a day without recounting an idea for the fantasy video game she wanted to create. She also played guitar and composed music that sounded like a sound track to a steampunk novel—electronica meets baroque.

      “Fun?” Bailey laughed. “I’d be happy just to know what that word means again.”

      The last few months had well and truly sucked. Because watching her mother go to jail and knowing Tiffany had harassed Bailey’s best friend wasn’t the worst of it. She’d also dealt with the fact that J.D. had hit her.

      She still hadn’t told anyone about the worst parts of their relationship, and she really needed to. How disappointed would Megan be in her if she found out Bailey was that big of a coward? She’d told the cops he’d shoved her and that had been enough to get a restraining order. But she hadn’t been able to share the rest of it. Maybe that was one of the reasons she’d felt compelled to answer Sheriff Reyes’s ad for a babysitter. Surely she’d work up the courage to talk to him about it if she saw him every day?

      “Fun is our new mission, then.” Megan drove onto Partridge Hill Road and slowed the car to look for the house. “We’re not going to let a few bad breaks keep us down. Let’s hear it for girl power!”

      She hooted and hollered, pumping a fist out the window. Bailey did the same, needing to yell as an outlet for the nervous energy building up inside her.

      She wasn’t ready to face the sheriff yet. And she sure as hell wasn’t ready for the world to know she’d turned into a doormat the moment a bad-tempered guy had taken out his anger on her. How weak did that make her?

      For today at least, it felt easier to pretend she was someone else. Someone strong and smart. Someone who didn’t have a secret eating her up inside.

       CHAPTER THREE

      I need background checks on every candidate.

      TWO DAYS AFTER his visit to Amy, Sam sat at the long wooden table on his deck and sent the text to Zach. He’d thought long and hard about where to conduct interviews for a sitter for his son, mindful that it could be problematic for a single man to hire an underage girl. He hoped like hell he got some applicants who were grandmothers. In any case, he’d decided to hold the interviews outdoors, in full view of the road in case nervous parents wanted to oversee the proceedings. He didn’t begrudge any parents the urge to supervise their kids. God knew he wasn’t letting Aiden out of his sight until he was twenty-one.

      Which was why he’d called for the background checks on the applicants. To keep Aiden safe. Zach’s digital security firm could unearth even more information than Sam’s police computers. It was a sad commentary on the tools available to a public servant these days, but knowing how important this mission was, Sam wanted the best possible intelligence on the four women he was interviewing today.

      Background checks on high school girls?

      The text flashed across his phone screen, delivering all the snark that Zach would have given the question in person.

      Do I need to remind you J. D. Covington was in high school?

      Sam typed with one hand and draped a blanket over the playpen with the other. He’d brought Aiden outside for the interviews, wanting to see how the potential sitters might interact with him. Not that ease with a baby was his number one criterion. Sam himself had possessed zero sense of how to handle a kid when his ex-girlfriend had handed Aiden over to him. But Sam had learned fast.

      It still floored him that he had a son. The past month had changed his life so drastically that he didn’t even recognize his house with all the baby gear. Plus he walked through his days like a zombie.

      But for the privilege of raising his own child? So worth it. He was just glad his ex-girlfriend had brought the boy to him when she was struggling, or he might not have ever known about his existence. His ex was a traveling nurse, and she’d left town without telling him she was pregnant.

      She might have had a tough time with it, but for Sam, who’d been raised in foster homes and had little memory of his real parents, being a dad ranked as the most important thing in his world.

      Something he never could have predicted after all the years where catching Gabriella’s stalker had been the priority.

      Point taken, Zach

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