LITMIR.BIZ

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      Her daughter lifted her chin. “Snitches get stitches. That’s what Dad always used to say.”

      At the reference to her ex-husband, Dani glanced at Ruben, who was watching this interchange impassively.

      She could feel heat soak her cheeks. Why did this particular man have to be involved? It was hard enough knowing he was a firsthand witness to her daughter’s poor choices. She didn’t need him knowing about her own.

      “You, of all people, should have learned never to take to heart anything your father might have said,” she said quietly.

      She could never be quite sure if Silver hated her father or idolized him. The mood shifted constantly.

      Since Tommy’s violent death three months earlier, Dani was afraid Silver’s memories of all those disappointments had begun to fade in the midst of a natural grief over losing her father, even after everything he had done.

      “At least he never would have brought me to a stink hole in the middle of nowhere,” she snarled back.

       No. He would have just broken your heart again and again, until you had nothing left but shattered pieces.

      “I happen to like this stink hole,” Ruben said mildly.

      “You would.” Silver’s voice dripped sarcasm and Dani stared at her, appalled at her daughter’s rudeness to an officer of the law. She had taught both of her girls that nothing good ever came out of being disrespectful to people who were only trying to do their jobs.

      “That’s enough,” she snapped. “Your father has nothing to do with this discussion. This is about you and your own mistakes. I can’t believe you would do something like this. How could you?”

      “It was easy. You just push the little nozzle on the spray can.”

      At Silver’s flippant tone, Dani’s anger spiked.

      Sometimes being a parent really sucked.

      She dug her nails into her palms to hold on to the fraying edges of her temper, drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly before she trusted herself to speak.

      “How much damage did she do?” she asked Ruben.

      “Hard to say in the dark. My boat will need some serious cleanup work. It will take the right solvent that won’t damage the finish, so I’ll need to talk to the marine supply places. We checked out the other places she hit and I’m thinking it would be cheaper in those cases to repaint.”

      Dani wanted to cry, to just sit right here in the middle of her living room and throw a good, old-fashioned pity party, with a healthy dose of temper tantrum thrown in.

      Why couldn’t anything be easy? It was hard enough trying to fit into a new place—a new school, a new neighborhood, a new town. Why did Silver have to go and make everything worse, for absolutely no reason Dani could see?

      “We’ll take care of all costs associated with the cleanup, of course.”

      Ruben was quiet, watching her out of those big, thick-lashed dark eyes. “Seems to me, Silver should be the one to put in the elbow grease and make it right.”

      “Me?” Her daughter’s eyes widened and she looked appalled.

      “Sure. Why not? If you can make the mess, you can clean up the mess. You could always share the burden by letting us know who else was with you tonight, so they can help in the cleanup.”

      Dani watched Silver’s chin jut out with the stubbornness that was as much a part of her makeup as her green eyes and dimples. “No one was with me. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

      “You can tell me as many times as you want but I heard voices and saw others running. None of your partners in crime will face the necessary consequences of their actions unless you come clean.”

      Silver folded her arms across her chest again. “I didn’t have any partners in anything. It was only me.”

      Ruben shrugged. “That’s fine. Then you alone can clean up the mess you created. Or I suppose I can go ahead and talk to the property owners and see if they’ve changed their minds about pressing charges.”

      Fear flashed across Silver’s delicate features. For all her bravado, she didn’t like being in trouble. She never had.

      “Fine. I’ll clean it all up by myself. Can I go to my room now?”

      Dani wanted to keep her out there to yell at her some more but she figured some distance between her and her daughter wouldn’t hurt right now while she worked a little harder to restrain her temper.

      “Go shower and get your pajamas on. I’ll be in to you in a minute.”

      Silver gave one last resentful look to the room in general—as if she had anything to be angry about!—and stomped to her room, leaving Dani alone with the deputy sheriff.

      She never would have expected it, but she found the man far more intimidating when he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt under his down jacket, instead of his uniform.

      The uncomfortable little sizzle of attraction didn’t help matters any.

      “I don’t know what to say to you,” she said after Silver’s bedroom door closed. “I’m so sorry.”

      “It’s not your fault—unless you were one of the people I saw take off running.”

      He smiled in response to her narrowed gaze. “Yeah. I didn’t think so. In that case, you don’t have any reason to apologize. You had nothing to do with it.”

      “Except I trusted her, when she told me she was going to watch a movie at her friend’s house.”

      “Which friend was she supposed to go to? I can start there. You said Jenny? Which Jenny? I know a few.”

      She didn’t want to answer him. Her tongue felt thick, the words tangled in her throat. Apparently her late ex-husband’s disdain for snitches had worn off on her, too.

      She sighed. She didn’t know how to keep the girl out of it. “Jenny Turner.”

      “Sean and Christine’s daughter.”

      “That’s right. But Silver said she didn’t go to her house and it wouldn’t surprise me if she just used her name as an excuse, mainly because I know her parents. I can’t imagine Jenny would have anything to do with this. I’ve only met her a few times but she seems very nice.”

      “She is. But nice doesn’t have much to do with it. Even the so-called good girls can make mistakes with their friends egging them on.”

      Was Silver negatively influencing the whole neighborhood? Oh, she hoped not.

      “I’m sorry,” she said again. To her dismay, she could feel tears burning behind her eyes and blinked as hard as she could to keep them back. “She’s never done anything like this before. I can’t understand what got into her head.”

      Ruben’s features softened in a way that made him seem far less intimidating. “Don’t beat yourself up. She made a mistake and did something stupid. Probably won’t be the first time or the last time.”

      Who would have guessed that she could take such comfort from the words of a tough deputy sheriff? She wanted to draw them close and hold on tight.

      “I did plenty of stupid things when I was her age,” he went on. “So did most of my friends. We even got caught a few times. Despite it, we all turned out okay. One’s the county sheriff, one is an FBI agent and one is the town police chief. Don’t worry. Silver will get through this.”

      “I suppose you’re right. I just wish she had chosen something a little less destructive to the community for her first stupid foray into teenagedom.”

      “We can’t change that now. The only thing she can do is try to make it

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