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“Yeah,” he said. “Some do. But I’m a police officer because I want to change things. It isn’t just because I want to arrest people. What I want is to live in a world where more people help than hurt. All right?”

“I don’t know about that.”

“I’m just coming off shift,” he said. “Why don’t you come on back to the ranch house with me and we can have dinner.”

She frowned. “This sounds like a recipe for rape and murder, and I’m not actually interested in that.”

“Is it so hard to believe that I just want to help you?”

“Yes.”

Fair enough.

“We won’t be alone back at the ranch house. My whole family is there.”

“Your... your family?”

“Yeah. Come have dinner. You’ve been staying on the property, I could’ve come and raped and murdered you at any point. I can do it now. I don’t have to take you back to the house.”

She appraised him. Her eyes fell to the gun on his hip. “True,” she said.

“Come on back. Get a plate of food, have a shower. If you still want to leave, leave. But you’re not hanging out here on the edges of the ranch.”

“You’ll give me a jump?”

“Yeah. If that’s what you want.”

She screwed up her face, appraising him with hard, squinting eyes. Then she seemed to relax slightly. “All right, Sheriff. I’ll go with you.”

“I’m not a sheriff,” he said.

“It’s all the same to me. Oink, oink.”

“Cute. Haven’t heard that one.”

She barely came up to the middle of his chest and she was mouthing off. She clearly wasn’t that scared of him, no matter what she said.

“You don’t have a husband, do you?”

“Is it so hard to believe that I might?”

“You don’t look a day over eighteen.”

“I’mtwenty-six,” she said.

She was lying. He didn’t know why he was so certain of that, but he was.

“Okay,” he said.

“You don’t believe me.”

She looked wounded.

“Since I’ve met you, you’ve cycled through about four personalities. So, no. I don’t believe you. I think you’re desperate to keep me from finding out your real situation, and I also think you don’t want me to know your name.”

She huffed. “It doesn’t benefit me.”

“If you want a paycheck, I might have to know. I’m going to run you through payroll.”