Travis (Pelion Lake) by Mia Sheridan

I let out a chuckle devoid of humor. “You think too much of me. You don’t know all the details. If you did know . . .” If you did know, you wouldn’t be sitting out here on this porch with me, speaking softly and kindly because you sensed I could use a friend. I suddenly realized that I wanted this woman to know me. But with the realization came fear, because if she truly knew me, if she knew all the things I’d said and done, not as a child, not as a teenager, but as an adult who should have known and done better, she’d turn away in disgust. And why shouldn’t she?

“We’ve all made mistakes, Travis,” she said. “We get to reinvent ourselves. And if the new version is even better, it means we’ve learned and we’ve grown.”

“That easy?”

“No.” She laughed softly. “No, not easy. But . . . but I think it might be worth it.”

I eyed her. “You sound like you know a thing or two about reinventing yourself.”

“I know about trying. And failing. And trying again. That’s mostly what this road trip is about. Reinventing myself. Starting fresh.” She looked troubled, as if she doubted the probability of that happening.

A bird dove down over the water, and swooped upward just as quickly, wings flapping softly in the still nighttime air, a spray of water arcing behind it. The bird’s talons were empty. Whatever he’d spotted under the smooth surface of the water had managed to get away.

“How do you know what to change, and what to hold on to?” I asked. Were there parts of me that were good and valuable, or did I scrap it all and start completely from scratch? And if that was the case, how in the hell did one go about doing that? Especially in a small town where stories became legend, and every buried secret eventually rose to the surface?

If I wanted a fresh start, I’d likely have to change my name and move to Siberia.

Maybe Haven had come to a similar conclusion. Only instead of settling in a deserted arctic tundra, she’d chosen to settle nowhere . . . and everywhere.

There are one of two paths for you. Either lose it all. Or lose it all.

Haven smiled at me. “Well, that’s a deep question and I don’t know if I’ve quite figured that out yet. I guess the answer is different for each of us. Maybe it’s an ongoing process, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.” When it came to learning and growing in an emotional sense, I’d seldom been quick on the uptake.

We were both quiet for a moment but it was a comfortable silence, broken only by the soft splashes of the wildlife in the lake, the buzz of insects, and the muffled shout of laughter that found us from the other side of the house.

“Can I ask you a question?” Haven asked.

Will I kiss you again? Will I take you upstairs to my bed and put my mouth on every inch of your skin? My body stirred, despite the slightly melancholy nature of our conversation and the mood I’d been in since I’d made the drive home from my mother’s. Will I arrest Gage and lock him up for life? Throw away the key?

“Sure.”

She tilted her head. “Why do you drive all the way over from the other side of the lake to work out at that snotty club?”

“That snotty club? The one that hired you?”

She gave a half-hearted eye roll. “I’m temporary help.” She paused. “It just seems like it’s a long way to go when you live—usually anyway—and work in Pelion. Don’t they have clubs or gyms there?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, but the club in Calliope is the best.”

But that felt off. It felt like I was lying . . . to her . . . to myself. Especially after I’d just thought about how my family name was often said in contemptuous tones by Calliope residents. So why did I make the thirty-minute drive to the exclusive club when I could have worked out in Pelion? Why did I frequent the restaurants on the other side of the lake? Was it because—as I’d told myself—I wanted something of my own? Something that didn’t have Archer Hale’s fingerprints all over it? Even if I wasn’t a hundred percent welcomed or embraced?

Or was it something I hadn’t acknowledged?

Talk about straddling lines. Maybe it came easy to me as far as Haven was concerned, because I had plenty of practice.

Perhaps I’d grown used to straddling the line between the old life I’d lived when my mother owned Pelion and I was set to inherit it all—when I’d felt important and when Victoria Hale was the toast of the town—and my new life as a small-town chief of police who would never live the high life, at least not on the level I once had.

Certainly not on Gage Buchanan’s level.

But was there really anything wrong with still enjoying a few holdovers from the life I’d grown up with? The life that separated me from my brother? The one that was my own? Mine and no one else’s? Should I apologize for that?

“Just preference,” I answered her. Or habit? I scratched the back of my neck. Jesus. Maybe I had no idea who I really was. Still. Even after all this time.

She bit at her lip momentarily as if unconvinced by my answer. Why shouldn’t she be? Hell, I was unconvinced of it myself. “Any interest in running for political office?”

“Political office? Where did that come from?” I gave her an amused half-smile.

She shrugged but looked away. “Being chief of police is a government position. I just wondered if maybe you’d thought of running for other offices.”