Page 103 of Kiss Marry Kill

“I wish I knew what it was I did to make him hate me so much. Maybe I didn’t like him from the first moment I met him, but I never actively tried to harm him. Mostly, I tried to avoid him. He’s simply not my kind of person.”

“I seriously thought you were exaggerating his desire to screw with you.” She laughed self-consciously. “Now I see it though. What’s his plan, to buy up every piece of property you’re interested in?”

“Something tells me he wouldn’t bother interfering if I were to lease a spot in the Bandito Business Park.”

“No?”

“I think he only cares to interfere if it’s something Iwant. I liked the other property my clinic was on, so he wanted to control it.” I swallowed hard. “I loved this property, so of course he won’t let me have it. He’d have stolen Royce from me if he could have. Anything that brings me happiness, he wants to take it away.”

“That’s ridiculous. It makes no sense.”

“I agree,” I mumbled. “I’d love to know where he’s getting the money to buy all this land.”

“He told me he’d received a huge settlement from a lawsuit he was involved in.” Mrs. Numi sighed.

“I see.”

She scowled. “I’m so darn frustrated. If Reginald just hadn’tsaidanything to anyone, the sale would have gone through. River wouldn’t have been able to stop you from having what you wanted.”

That ache in my chest returned. “But he did say something, and this is how it turned out.”

“I’ll tell you one thing. I’m going to give Jerry Fleming a piece of my mind. Sneaking in to steal something from one of my clients is unacceptable.”

As she ranted about all the things she was going to say to the other broker, I stared at the side mirror. Heart sinking, I watched the redbrick building I’d hoped to call home fade into the distance.

Out of reach.

Chapter Fourteen

Royce

For some reason, Mayor Penelope Granger insisted I join her and Fire Chief Jargon for an after-work drink. Maybe the day was over for her, but I still had plenty of work to do and wasn’t in the mood for meaningless chitchat. I really just wanted to go home at a decent hour for once. I wanted to see Max. I knew I’d confused him earlier today, and I wanted to try and explain myself.

His news earlier had caught me completely off guard. I’d been unable to express myself properly. Truth was, I was bummed that he was moving out soon. I’d loved having him in my home. But he’d seemed only too eager to live on his own again, which of course hurt my ego a bit. I didn’t want to live by myself forever. I wanted our relationship to progress. Deepen. While I didn’t want to pressure Maxwell, I did hope that maybe he would’ve wanted to keep living together too.

He’d made it clear that wasn’t what he wanted. He was ecstatic at the thought of having his own place again. That was his right. He wasn’t obligated to live with me. I guess his enthusiasm to move out simply forced me to see that maybe we weren’t in the same place as far as what we wanted from this relationship. I knew he loved me, but if he preferred to live separately, that was disappointing. I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t.

The problem with having separate residences was we both worked long hours. I didn’t want to go back to just seeing each other every other day during the week. Often, I was too tired after work to go to his place. He worked long hours too and had the same issue. When we’d live together, at least I’d always had some time with him each day. We wouldn’t see as much of each other when we went back to living separately. Maybe that was okay with him? Maybe living with me had been more of a strain than I’d realized.

“Sheriff?” Penelope’s voice cut into my thoughts.

I glanced up and found Fire Chief Jargon standing beside the table. “Oh, are you taking off now, Chief?” I felt guilty that I’d completely zoned out.

“Yep.” Chief Jargon settled his cap on top of his thick white hair and took a big breath.

Oh, God.

I knew what that big breath meant; he was about to launch into one of his long-winded spiels. Nobody could talkatyou like Fire Chief Jargon. He didn’t seem to ever need oxygen. He just talked and talked and talked, bouncing from one thought to the next. Groaning inwardly, I braced myself as he began speaking.

“It sure was good seeing you, Sheriff. One of these days, I need to come over to the station and take a tour. It’s been a long time since I bothered to take a tour of the police station. Maybe I could do a fire inspection while I’m at it. What do you say? All the buildings in Rainy Dale need to be inspected periodically. Even the police station. You’re not above the law, eh?” He guffawed.

“No, we are not.” I laughed weakly.

He continued. “The other day, I was in the grocery store, and I went into the back room. You know, where they have all the pallets and the boxes? Anyway, I was looking around to be sure that everything was up to fire code. You gotta do that every now and then, but people get lazy, and before you know it, you have a fire. Then everybody wonders how that happened? Well, I’ll tell you how that happened—because you didn’t let the fire marshals do their job.”

I did my best not to look at my watch, but it wasn’t easy.

“Well, this young fella came in, and he saw me. Now, he didn’t know who I was from Adam because I wasn’t wearing my uniform. Why would I? After all, I was grocery shopping.” He grinned. “So, anyhoo, this young kid asks me who I am and—”