The sheriff must have sensed it. He held up his hand in a stop motion.
“Your lady isn’t the only one who can be clever when she wants to be,” he added. “We’ll keep everything low profile as well as keeping JJ’s name away from all of this. Trust me.”
The tension in Price’s shoulders lessened but only minimally.
Liam’s seemed to tighten.
His voice came out with undeniable command.
“Don’t think though for one moment I’m letting you continue running around this town playing detective without a badge for it,” he said. “It’s time for you to leave. As of right now, Price Collins, you are officially benched.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Price stood shoulder to shoulder with Winnie. Each had a bag at their sides. Both were staring at the house behind JJ with grade A poker faces.
“I know it doesn’t look like much, but the inside isn’t as bad as, well, this.” She motioned back to the work-in-progress two-story that she had purchased before coming to Seven Roads.
“It’s…charming,” Winnie tried, smiling as she did so. “Right? Kind of like one of those nice older homes you see on HGTV that everyone ends up wanting.”
She not so subtly elbowed her dad’s side when he didn’t immediately respond.
Price took the hint. With his duffel bag held up by his hand over his shoulder and wearing his baseball shirt and jeans, he reminded JJ of a college student coming home after a long week at school. Young, carefree and ready to eat.
It wasn’t a bad look.
In fact, it was almost nice to feel like he wasn’t the same man who kept having to change his life around to deal with her problems.
Even now, he brought out that charm that JJ had begun to crave.
This time, it came out with some teasing.
“You definitely can’t buy character like this much anymore.” He grinned. “That’s for sure.”
“Dad,” Winnie scolded in a not-so-quiet whisper. She sent another elbow to his ribs. He laughed and looked at JJ.
“As a former part-time home renovator, I understand that burden of thebefore. I ended up selling my fixer-upper to the sheriff’s mother-in-law and haven’t looked back.” His words softened. “Don’t stress about us. We’re fine.”
JJ wasn’t so sure about that.
She said as much while leading them to the front porch.
“Let’s remember you said that.”
The old home off Whatley Bend was the center of JJ’s cover story. She had purchased it as the reason for coming to Seven Roads, as well as the blueprint for her future. It had been chattered about in the gossip mill for a while when she had first come to town, but when no progress had been visibly made, that chatter had died down. It helped that Janice Wilkins’s former home was less than accessible and not near any locations or public areas remotely interesting.
If anything, it felt like an outsider to JJ.
A part of the town but not, at the same time.
Maybe that’s why she liked it, despite never having had any experience or desire to buy and renovate a house.
JJ bypassed the urge to explain why the siding was warped in places, wood was rotted off others and the landscaping could use a few—if not several—helping hands, and led them into the foyer. Winnie slipped off her shoes, but Price kept his and the duffel bag on. He had work to do, but he stayed long enough to listen to the two-bit tour.
“Everything in here works, but just isn’t that nice-looking yet,” she said, sweeping her arms toward the stairs just off the space. “This goes to two bedrooms, one bonus room that looks like a wasteland where supplies and tools have gone to die, and two bathrooms thatlooklike they should also be in the wasteland. But I swear, everything is clean.”
JJ went on to explain the bottom floor’s layout, make a few excuses for her utter lack of progress on the house again and then showed Winnie to the bedroom.
“Is all this furniture yours? I thought it might be empty here.” Winnie eyed the guest bedroom’s yellow-painted iron-rod bed covered in a paisley bedspread.
