Chapter 9

Ryan

I took some trash bags from Sara’s garage and wrapped the fawn up tightly before putting it in the back of the SUV. I walked around the front yard looking for any kind of clue as to why someone would have done this. I had never seen a dead deer in person before, and it made me sad to have to wrap it up. There were a bunch of local guys working on the ranch now, and I knew one of them would be able to tell me how to dispose of it. I hoped one of them would take it and maybe even give me some idea why someone had killed it. It was just a baby, and this couldn’t possibly be legal when it came to hunting, not that I knew that much about the sport. Either way, I had to get rid of the thing for Sara. There was no way that she needed to deal with something like this.

I walked around to the backyard and poked my head in the small shed, just making sure there was no one around hiding. When I felt comfortable enough, I turned, walking back toward the house. I didn’t want to be gone too long. I knew that Sara didn’t need to be alone. I wanted to focus on her, help her through this. She was incredibly upset, and I didn’t blame her one bit. Anyone would have been upset by it, and there was no way that fawn wandered into her yard and was injured like that by accident. Sara had spent her entire life learning about animals, taking care of them, nursing them back to health and everything in between. She loved animals more than she loved people. I could tell by the way she talked about her job. Seeing a dead one, one that was so young and obviously killed on purpose had to be no fun for her, and I couldn’t imagine how she might be feeling.

I stepped up to the door and knocked, hearing the sound of a teapot and seeing her standing with her back to me. I waited, finding it pointless to keep banging when she couldn’t hear me. As she turned around, though, she jumped straight into the air, grabbing her chest. I smiled and waved at her, making sure she knew it was me. She shook her head and walked over, opening the door and letting me in. I walked into her kitchen and watched as she closed and locked the door.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “But I will survive it. That poor baby deer. I just don’t understand.”

“Me either,” I said.

“Would you like some tea?”

“I’d love some,” I replied.

She grabbed the mugs off the counter, walked over to the kitchen table, and sat down. I sat next to her, turning my chair toward her to talk. I needed to know what was going on, what she thought might be the motive for someone dropping off a dead animal in her driveway. She took a sip of her tea and put the mug down, looking over at me. I took her hands in mine and smiled at her sweetly.

“Do you have any idea what might have happened?” I asked. “How that animal might have ended up in your driveway?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed. “This morning, when I got up to go to work, there was a dead cat in the driveway. It spooked me at first, but when I took a closer look, it seemed as if it had maybe been hit by a car or fallen and broken its neck. It certainly didn’t look like that deer, which was obviously killed by someone and brutally.”

“What did you do with the cat?”

“I took it to the mortuary and had it disposed of,” she said.

“Do you know why someone would leave the cat there?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I figured maybe someone from the community, someone who knew I was the only vet in town, put it there. Maybe they thought they were somehow helping by bringing the dead animal to my home so they wouldn’t just rot in the street or something. I thought it could have been someone’s pet, or someone hit the cat and didn’t know what to do so they brought it to my house. People here in this town try to do the right thing, even though sometimes they’re misguided in their attempts.”

“Right,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “I can see how you would think that with the cat.”

“The deer is strange, I know,” she said, shaking her head. “It doesn’t look like it was accidentally killed, but you never know what happened.”

“True,” I said, shaking my head.

I wanted to believe Sara’s theory was the truth. It would be simple, non-threatening, and could be handled with a call to the mayor or to the paper to let people know how to properly dispose of animals. It was also a little far-fetched, and I found it hard to believe that was what was going on. Truth be told, my gut was telling me something else might be at play, something that had more to do with the message behind the dead animals than someone trying to help out. My mind immediately went to the other night when I’d first met Sara and to the confrontation she’d had with the sheriff. I had to wonder if he had something to do with what was going on. My first impression of the man made me think there was a very real possibility he’d had something to do with it, but I couldn’t know for sure without knowing more about his relationship with Sara, something I wasn’t sure she wanted to talk to me about.

We sat for several moments in the quiet, and I watched her stare blankly out the back door window as she sipped her tea. I still felt like I needed to protect her, and I couldn’t let some simple questions get in the way of that. I needed to ask her about the sheriff.

“Sara, I think you know I could tell there was more to the incident with the sheriff in the parking lot than him losing a bid,” I said carefully. “I’d really like to know what kind of relationship the two of you had.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “The past needs to stay in the past. Digging that kind of stuff up can only lead to bad things, and I’m one person who thinks looking to the past can only be harmful to the future. I just want my past to stay dead and buried, Ryan. I don’t want to think about it anymore.”

“I understand,” he said. “I have things like that in my past. And I agree it’s usually best to leave the past right there and move forward. However, after seeing how the sheriff reacted to you and me in the parking lot the other night, I can’t help but think …”

“What?” she said, looking at me. “You can’t help but think what?”

“That maybe he doesn’t see you as part of his past,” I said. “Maybe he still sees you as part of his present and part of his future. This is a small town, and there’s no way he didn’t know about our date tonight.”

“Dammit.” She frowned and rubbed her face. “I don’t want anything to do with that man. He’s really not a good person. That night in the parking lot was a fluke. I’ve stayed away from him for a very long time.”

“Why?” I said. “You can trust me. I’m just trying to help.”

“Fine,” she said after a few moments. “I’ll tell you about the sheriff and me, but first you have to tell me about your exes or at least the last one you had.”

As soon as she said that, a wave of anxiety ran through my chest. I’d been trying to keep things about myself on a positive note all night long, but as with most exes, there was never a good story behind it. I wanted to let her in, I really did, but at the same time, I still wanted her to see me in a positive light. There were things from my past, things about me, that I wanted to keep hidden, and it wasn’t for any other reason than that I wasn’t the same man I used to be. My last relationship hadn’t ended well at all, not even in the least. It was a complicated story with twists and turns, and in the end, I would come out looking like the worst out of the two of us. I really didn’t want to tell Sara about it, not yet at least. I wanted her to continue to see the man I was, not the man I used to be, but if I told her everything, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from seeing that man. I twisted my hands together and looked down at the floor, trying to decide what to say next.

I might not want to reveal my past but neither did she. I needed to know what had happened between the sheriff and Sara. It was a burning need in my gut. It mostly had to do with my suspicion that he was somehow involved in the animals being left in the driveway, but it also had to do with my protective urges toward Sara. I couldn’t explain why, but I no longer just wanted to keep her safe. I felt like I had to keep her safe from the sheriff and everyone else. The only way to get her to open up was by telling her about my ex or at least most of it.

“All right,” I said, sitting up. “My last relationship didn’t end long ago. I was dating a girl named Mia, who I had met at one of my technology convention dinners. She was the daughter of a very wealthy and very powerful man who did business with my company and many others throughout the world. She was used to a life of luxury and privilege. It was just how she was raised, and it was the only way she ever knew. Her father was extremely controlling over her, watching her every move, scrutinizing every man she ever dated, and basically pulling the purse strings, which, in her life, controlled everything else. This upset her. She wanted freedom from that but didn’t want to give up the life she was accustomed to. So, she started dating me to piss off her father. He didn’t like my past.”

“Your past?” Sara asked.

“I grew up poor, with very little, and had to work for everything I had from the time I was a kid,” I said. “I didn’t come from any sort of money at all. Her father didn’t care what kind of money I had now. He wanted Mia to marry into a rich family dynasty. He wanted her to be part of a family with old money like his family was. The last thing he wanted was a guy who had built himself up from the bottom and still thought like a poor guy. Don’t get me wrong. I have really nice things, but I don’t think like the rich people do. I don’t have an air to me, and I don’t look down on others because they aren’t rich.”

“I can see that,” she said, listening to my story. “You’ve come off as very down-to-earth since I met you.”

“I am down-to-earth.” I smiled. “I don’t want to be the guy who raises a family with a silver spoon in their mouths. I came from nothing, and I’ve seen how quickly you can go back to that. I will never take that for granted. Anyway, she got tired of the game, and after quite a while, she dumped me.”

For a moment, I felt guilty about only having told her a slice of the real story. The look on her face was of sincere sympathy, and that was what triggered the guilt. In reality, the story had so many more pieces, but I wasn’t ready to let her know about the man I used to be.