Make You Mine by K.T. Quinn

45

Charlotte

I was stunned. I stared at the sheriff, who looked back at me with an increasingly intense gaze.

“Two weeks ago?” I asked. “That’s impossible…”

“Filled out the paperwork myself,” he replied. “Right after y’all finished on the judge’s fence. How much did Jayce help?”

I’m in trouble, I realized. “I don’t know.”

“Sure you do. How much?”

“I mean, he drove the truck with the supplies,” I admitted. “He did as much work as me.”

“And you let him?”

“Why—why wouldn’t I?” I stammered. “He told me he wouldn’t be done with his community service until a couple of days after me!”

But the sheriff was already turning away from me to dial a number on his phone. “This is not acceptable. Judge Benjamin needs to hear about this. You didn’t complete a proper hundred and twenty hours of service if you had help the whole time.”

“I didn’t know…” I said weakly.

“Doesn’t matter what you knew. Only matters what you did.”

I don’t remember standing up and leaving the police station. The next moment I was walking down the main street of town, the sheriff’s angry voice drifting behind me, demanding that I come back and sit down. I pretended like I didn’t hear.

Jayce had finished his hours weeks ago. He could have left Eastland without fearing that the law would catch up to him and arrest him, like he’d said. But he didn’t leave. He stayed. Every day for the past two weeks he’d woken up, driven into town, and helped with the most mind-numbing work two people could do underneath the Georgia sun.

And he’d done it for me.

I reached the diner before the sheriff caught up to me. Mindy was wiping down Flop’s booth even though he still sat there with a cup of coffee. They both looked at me with confusion.

“What’s wrong? Did that goddamn judge screw you over?” Mindy tossed down her rag, then pointed at my face. “He can’t do this. Not to someone like you, someone who’s put her head down and worked hard every damn day.”

“Jayce,” I said. “Did you know?”

The fire left her eyes, and then she snorted. “Why do you think I’ve been callin’ him a fool every time he comes in here? I told you to stay away from that boy. Told you the first time you sat in that booth, yes I did.”

“The sheriff’s upset about it,” I said. “He’s acting like I cheated my hours by having help. I think I’m going to be in Eastland a lot longer than I expected.”

Mindy’s brow furrowed with worry. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry…”

Flop gave me a sympathetic shake of the head, as if to say, welcome to Eastland.

I walked back outside just as the sheriff pulled up. “Stay right here!” he shouted at me, rushing out of his car. “The judge is cutting his fishing trip short. He’s on his way.”

“Well that’s a shame for him,” I said numbly.

“It is,” the sheriff said. “Fish were biting today. Judge won’t be pleased with you.”

“Lucky me.”

I tried to feel some sort of hope about the situation. Maybe I could convince the judge that it wasn’t my fault, I did all the hours expected of me, that I couldn’t help if Jayce had tagged along while lying to me about his hours. But I couldn’t muster the energy. Good things didn’t happen to people in Eastland. I’d been here long enough to know that.

And then, to make matters worse, I heard the familiar sound of an Indian Scout motorcycle.

Even though he was riding up the main street slowly, Jayce’s hair blew gently in the wind and pulled his face tight behind his sunglasses. He had a backpack slung over his shoulder and wore the same hole-filled jeans as the first night I met him, along with the jacket he’d given me to stay warm in the jail cell.

No, I thought. I should have been out of town by now. Then I wouldn’t have had to see him. I could have avoided this twisting, suffocating feeling in my chest.

“Can we go wait in the station?” I asked the sheriff. He pretended like he hadn’t heard me while watching the bike approach.

Jayce rolled to a stop in the middle of the road, planted his feet on the ground to steady the bike, then stared at me for a long time. When he finally removed his sunglasses, his eyes were so bloodshot I could see them from twenty feet away.

“You’re not supposed to be here, Peaches,” he said quietly.

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” I spat back. “Your community service ended a long time ago.”

He froze with his hand in his pocket. The guilt on his face was confirmation enough.

“Why did you do that?” I demanded. “Why?”

He got off the bike, leaving it in the middle of the road where it would block traffic. None of us cared. He took a few steps toward me, then stopped a respectable distance away. Which was good, because if he got any closer I probably would have slapped him.

“For you,” he said, barely more than a whisper. “I stayed for you, Peaches.”

My heart tried to leave my body and go to him. I wanted to forgive him. To pretend like everything was okay, and embrace him there in the middle of town. Jayce had done it for me.

He’d stayed for me.

I was close. All I needed was a little more convincing and I would have given in and thrown my arms around him. But he didn’t say anything else to me.

Because he wasn’t here for me.

“You need to get out of here,” he told the sheriff. He pointed. “Take Charlotte back to the station and hide.”

The sheriff squinted at him. “Hide? Boy, you don’t give orders to me. I’m the sheriff in this town.”

“You’ll be a dead sheriff if you stay.” He turned to Flop and Mindy who were coming out of the diner. “Flop, things are about to get hairy. Go hole up in your bar away from the windows.”

Flop sprinted off without questioning it.

“You too, Mindy,” Jayce added.

She crossed her arms. “I ain’t one for hiding.”

“You’re one for living, I hope.”

She hesitated, then went back inside her diner, though she didn’t look happy about it.

“Now you listen to me,” the sheriff said as he approached Jayce. “If you’re thinking of starting trouble here in the middle of the day, in my town…”

“This is the Copperheads’ town,” Jayce corrected. “And they’re coming here now.”

That’s when I noticed the pistol on Jayce’s hip. That, along with his fatalistic tone, made my stomach sink even deeper. “What’s happening, Jayce? What have you done?”

He looked up the road to the north at something I couldn’t see. “Something I should’ve done a long time ago.”

The money.

“Jayce, no!” I grabbed his arm. “You don’t have to do this.”

“It’s the only way,” he said, still looking to the north. “Leave with the sheriff while you still can.”

“You can leave!” I insisted. “Why don’t you leave, Jayce?”

“Not much point.”

I hated how he sounded resigned to whatever was about to happen. Like he was already dead. “There’s no point to living?”

“Nothin’ worth living for.”

He glanced at me finally. Waiting for me to say what my soul wanted to say. That I was worth living for. That we could be together.

But I couldn’t make myself do it. I was still too hurt to say the words.

“You were right,” Jayce admitted when he realized I wasn’t going to say anything. “What you called me in that jail cell all those weeks ago. I’m just an asshole who only cares about himself. But today, I’m gonna fix that.”

“By killing Sid?”

“Someone has to, Peaches,” he said with a sad smile. “Someone has to try.”

I wanted to argue more, to grab his arm and drag him away, but then a car came up the road toward us, not from the north, but from the south. I started to move out of the road, but then I stopped in my tracks.

I recognized that car.

“No,” I groaned when I realized who was inside.