Page 5 of The Aster Valley Collection, Vol. 2

DECLAN

The brash squawk of my radio woke me out of a dead sleep. If dispatch was trying to raise me on the radio, it meant they’d tried my phone already with no success.

“Sheriff Stone,” I mumbled, getting up and grabbing my clothes out of habit.

I sighed and told Janine to tell the bar owner I’d be there in less than ten minutes.

After a quick visit to the bathroom and a shot of bottled iced coffee down my throat, I was off.

The clock in the dash said it was almost three in the morning.

Matt tried to close up the bar by half past one most nights, so if he was still having trouble with some drunk patrons, he’d most likely tried all his usual tricks.

When a few of my brain cells kicked into gear, I called back to Janine and asked which deputy was supposed to be on duty right now.

“Well, that’s just it, you see.” Our evening dispatcher was young and a bit too into local gossip for my taste, but since her mother was on the county council, I’d decided not to rock the boat by reassigning her to something a little less sensitive.

“I sent Rolly over there, but you know how he is.”

Yes. I knew how he was. Rollins Kepplow was a well-meaning doofus, a leftover hire from the old regime.

Had we been in any other town than Aster Valley, I probably would have insisted on letting him go straightaway.

But, like with Janine, I’d decided caution was the better part of valor in making big personnel changes in my first few months.

Hearing the young deputy hadn’t been able to manage helping Matt close out the bar made me rethink my stance.

Sure enough, when I pulled into the parking lot of the Roadhouse, the place was filled with vehicles including a sheriff’s patrol vehicle. I strode through the front door of the bar in time to catch Deputy Kepplow taking a selfie with one of the actors from the movie.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. Of course this disturbance was caused by those assholes from California. Leave it to the film people to wake me from a dead sleep.

After a few friendly hellos from patrons leaving, I stood on a nearby chair and slipped my thumb and middle finger between my lips.

My shrill whistle split the air, bringing the happy chitchat to a sudden stop.

“Everybody, out. Last call was more than two hours ago. Unless you want to see poor Matt get shut down for serving violations, I recommend you save your thirst for another night.”

The bar owner met my eye from across the crowd.

His expression was full of exhaustion and gratitude.

I wasn’t fool enough to think he’d tried too hard to get everyone out as long as the money and fun were still flowing due to the notoriety the actors had brought to his place.

Penny had mentioned the new social media hashtags popping up all over Instagram, and Matt had been the source for at least a few of them.

I caught a few teenaged girls begging the actors for body autographs, so I hopped down from the table and cut through the crowd to put a stop to it.

“Melanie and Samantha, right?” I lifted an imperious eyebrow at the girls. “Don’t you have Mr. Reyes for summer school tomorrow?”

The girls both dropped their jaws in shock. “H-how did you know that, Sheriff?” one of them asked.

“It’s my job to know where everyone is supposed to be at any given time,” I lied. “And if I’m not mistaken, at no time are you two supposed to be at a bar after hours. Do your parents know where you are?”

The truth was, I’d helped Daniel Reyes track down his lost wallet a couple of weeks ago, and for the first hour, he’d insisted he’d most likely been pickpocketed by a couple of girls in his summer school class.

But I wasn’t about to tell them that. Especially since the wallet was later found in Dan’s own gym bag in the faculty lounge locker behind his own combination lock.

The girls panicked and bolted, leaving one of the actor twerps drooling in their wake. I didn’t recognize the drooler or the two women sitting at the table, but I definitely recognized two of the other men as the brats who’d asked me to park their car at Rockley Lodge the night before.

“Let’s go,” I said, placing my hand on the shoulder of the man closest to me.

The body under my hand stiffened. I looked down to see my hand on Finn Heller’s shoulder.

The Finn Heller. The famous actor who’d played Chip Clover in the long-running sitcom Cast in Clover .

The kid America had watched grow up from their living rooms. The asshole who’d treated me like the help the night before.

When I’d seen him at Tiller and Mikey’s house, I hadn’t realized who he was at first. He looked nothing like the smart- mouthed boy next door who’d made millions flashing his dimples in front of American households on Thursday nights for all those years.

He was all man now. Even though he still had distinctive freckles scattered across his nose and cheeks, he also had tattoos I’d never noticed before inked on his muscular forearms and the rounded shadow of shoulders and pecs defined under his shirt.

I cleared my throat and pulled my hand away. “Time to go,” I said again. “This isn’t the Bayou on Santa Monica for god’s sake.”

The beach-blond man I’d pegged as Finn’s sidekick the night before raised one corner of his lips at me, and his eyes turned predatory. “You know the Bayou?”

“Sure do. And I also know that Colorado has a mandatory community service requirement for first-time DUIs. You look like the kind of guy who might want to stick around after filming is done to help beautify our little hamlet here. What do you say?”

Finn answered before his friend could mouth off at me.

“He’s not driving. I am.” He met my eyes, and his gaze held a potent combination of defiance and exhaustion that made me feel enraged and shockingly protective all at the same time.

My stomach pitched a little like it might qualify for a DUI even without the alcohol consumption. “And I’m sober.”

I had no idea why I did it, but I grabbed Finn Heller by his biceps and hauled him out of his chair and toward the door of the bar. “We’ll see about that.”

What the hell was I doing? The kid was cherry-cheeked, sure, but he didn’t actually seem drunk. But once I’d started this ridiculous charade, I was going to finish it.

“Could you… go easy on the optics, please?” His voice was soft as if he only wanted me to hear him.

I glanced sideways and noticed a few people watching me haul him out of the bar.

I loosened my grip and instructed him over to the side of my vehicle where I proceeded to ask him a few questions, followed by holding out my finger and moving it side to side for the first part of the field sobriety test. Normally, that would be followed by the walk-and-turn test, but it was clear to me he wasn’t drunk.

Now that we had an audience with a few cell phones out, I decided to spare the town the additional drama.

“Wait in your car while I check with the bar owner. I’ll escort you back to your hotel.”

Finn opened his mouth to argue with me, but I glared him into changing his mind. After making sure Matt was able to close the bar down peacefully, I returned to the McLaren. Several fangirls were swarming the vehicle with their boobs and fluttering cocktail napkins.

The sidekick was drinking it all up, but Finn himself just looked tired. He must have still been hungover from partying the night before after arriving in town.

“Alright, let’s go,” I said in a voice that meant business. I made significant eye contact with the fans, and they scattered like dandelion seeds.

The sidekick pulled his celebrity schtick on me again. “Do you have any idea who this is?” he asked with a laugh.

I tried to skewer him with my crusty, middle-of-the-night eyeballs. “Yes. I’m fairly sure it’s the man who asked me to park his car last night.”

Sidekick snorted. “Well, you should know he barely ever drinks. The man’s a total bore.”

Right. And I was Aristotle. “Be that as it may, I’m actually the sheriff of Aster Valley. And when I say it’s time to go, that means it’s time to go.”

Finn actually blushed. What the hell? “Sorry, man. I didn’t know,” he murmured to his lap.

So now he was playing the innocent schoolboy. Not interested in that garbage.

“Now you do. And now the sheriff is going to escort you back to your hotel.”

Finn looked up at me. “Yes, sir. We’re staying at the Rockley Lodge property.”

Normally, I didn’t appreciate being “sir’d.” But when that lush mouth did it? Jesus Christ on a motherfucking hot bed of coals did I have thoughts screaming through my head in response to it.

I cleared my throat to keep from squeaking like a hormonal teen. “Follow me.”

As I turned to my vehicle, I heard the sidekick murmur, “Yes, Daddy.”

I clenched my teeth against a smart retort. The McLaren’s hungry engine followed me through the dark mountain roads until pulling safely into the drive of Rockley Lodge.

The drama was over.

Until the following night when the same damned thing happened all over again.

This time, I wasn’t nearly as polite as I’d been the first night. I was exhausted and running on less than fumes. Janine had woken me up again with a loud radio squawk, and I was contemplating running over the damned thing with my vehicle.

“What is it?” I growled into the radio mic.

“Matt needs y?—”

I didn’t even let her finish. “On my way, and tell Rollins to bring his sidearm and badge to my office first thing in the morning.” Aster Valley had no use for a deputy who couldn’t help Matt close his damned bar in the middle of the night.

Was I being an asshole? Maybe. But at least the command would scare him into compliance.