Jed Had to Die(69)

I look at him hopefully, realizing quickly when I see a muscle tick in his jaw that I won’t be able to distract him with sex OR slop. He’s back to staring at the ceiling and he does it for so long that I start to worry his head exploded or his heart gave out, going by how silent and still he is.

“Really, the one to blame in all of this is the wine. It’s all cool and yummy and then it forces you to make poor life choices, like keeping important things from the guy you’re-”

“Stop talking,” Leo cuts me off in a low, gruff voice, his eyes still up to the heavens.

He sounds a little scary right now, but I’m too busy being grateful he cut me off when he did, because I almost said something completely insane like “Keeping important things from the guy you’re falling in love with.”

And I couldn’t even blame the wine for that almost-slip.

Leo continues staring up at the ceiling in Emma Jo’s spare bedroom until I can’t stand the silence anymore and I have to say something.

“Are you having an aneurism? Your eye is doing a funny, twitching thing.”

He gives me the silent treatment for a few more minutes before doing something completely unexpected.

He laughs.

And not just one of his usual, low chuckles. This one is a head tossed back, full belly roar of amusement and it goes on a lot longer than the uncomfortable ceiling stare.

“It’s not that funny,” I complain, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Oh, believe me, it’s not funny at all. Nothing about this situation is funny but if I don’t laugh, I might be tempted to throw you over my knee and spank the hell out of you for keeping this shit from me,” he replies, the laughter finally dying out. “I’m the sheriff, Payton. I was elected to keep this town safe, and the people here have been counting on me to solve Jed’s murder, and while I was busy working my ass off to do that and working my ass off to get close to you, you were busy covering up a murder and lying to me about it.”

I bite my bottom lip nervously and have to swallow a few times to stop myself from crying.

“Well, when you put it that way, it does sound kind of bad,” I reply sheepishly. “Can we go back to the spanking thing? I’d like to know more about that.”

My attempt at lightening the situation doesn’t work. Leo pushes himself up from the bed and starts pacing in the middle of the room, running his hands through his hair while he curses and grumbles under his breath.

“Okay, now it’s your turn to talk. I don’t like all of this pacing and mumbling. It’s making me nervous,” I tell him.

He finally stops his manic movement, sighs deeply and comes back over to sit down next to me on the bed.

“Payton, Jed wasn’t poisoned.”

I laugh and roll my eyes at him.

“Yeah, I know that. Did you already forget about the dead raccoons and the missing pie?” I reply.

“No, I mean, I’ve always known he wasn’t poisoned. Like, as soon as Billy Ray rolled his body over,” Leo informs me. “Maybe if you would have trusted me and told me about what was going on a lot sooner, you could have avoided all the freaking out, wine drinking and poor decisions.”

I throw my hands up in the air with a huff and glare at him.

“How in the hell was I supposed to know? You haven’t said anything to me or Emma Jo about the autopsy or what’s been going on with the investigation. We’ve had to hear everything through gossip and rumors around town. And then you got all weird, giving us those knowing looks and winks and bringing up pie all the time, so we thought you knew and it turned us a little crazier than normal. And I’ll have you know,” I say, poking my finger into his chest. “It made me feel like absolute shit to keep it from you, especially after we slept together, and I’ve been trying to tell you since then but we kept getting interrupted, and then the mystery of the pie was solved.”

“And then wine happened,” he adds.

“And then wine happened,” I agree with a nod. “Fucking wine.”

We’re both quiet for a few minutes until Leo finally reaches over and takes my hands in his again.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what was going on, but I’m not sorry you felt like shit for keeping this from me. You should feel like shit for that,” he sighs. “And I only brought up pie around you all the time because I knew it made you act weirder than usual, and I was just trying to get you two to tell me what was going on. I seriously had no idea it was because of something like this. You honestly thought this entire time that you were the one who murdered Jed?”

All I can do is shrug. The more I think about it, and actually saying it out loud to Leo, made me realize just how stupid the entire thing was and how dumb Emma Jo and I acted. Did we honestly think we could get away with murder if it turned out Jed really had died from eating the poisoned pie we made?