Free Impulse by Joann Ross Page B

sheriff, he could feel the weight of the town’s expectations, like giant boulders pressing down on his shoulders. He doubted many of the people who’d known him back in the bad old days would’ve ever expected him to grow up to be the guy in charge of Hazard’s laws. He had, after all, been the wild kid, the rebel without a clue who’d gotten drunk, stolen cars, and brawled on Saturday nights.
    But never had he landed in any trouble anywhere near like the mess his son might be in.
    His son.
    Even now the idea seemed almost beyond belief. Weird enough he’d ended up being a cop. But a father?
    A father was supposed to be the grown-up, the guy in charge, the dad who always knew best and who protected his children against all those dangers lurking outside the safety of their home.
    The road to hell was definitely paved with good intentions. Will’s reasons for having come back to Hazard were complex, but the bottom line was that Josh’s unexpected arrival in Savannah had changed both their lives. He hoped for the better, but unfortunately, that remained to be seen.
    If he’d stayed in Savannah, his son wouldn’t have met Erin Gallagher. And the lad sure as hell wouldn’t have landed himself in the middle of a murder investigation.
    Will’s fingers tightened on the leather-padded steering wheel. He flexed them. Drew in a deep breath. Let it out again. Drew in another. Inhale. Exhale. Find the center.
    Yeah. Right. Like meditation was going to solve this problem.
    Josh admittedly had some issues. The kid was angry, confused, and every bit as rebellious as Will himself had once been. And although from what he’d been able to glean from the lawyer, Whitney sounded as if she’d been about as far from June Cleaver as a mom could get, and although Josh refused to discuss it, Will suspected Josh was also grieving for his dead mother. The mother who’d not only neglected to inform Will she’d gotten pregnant, but had, for sixteen years of his life, lied to their son about his real father’s identity.
    Any kid would have to be majorly pissed. Will sure as hell would’ve been. But even with all he had going against him, there was no way Josh could harm anyone.
    Will knew that. Unfortunately, people tended to believe the worst. Which meant he had to find Erin Gallagher’s murderer fast. Before runaway rumors put a scarlet bull’s-eye on his kid’s back.
    Recalling all too well a time when he’d been perceived as Hazard’s bad boy, he vowed not to let that happen.
     

 
     
    15
     
     
    “ W ell? Will you come?"
    Staring into the orange and red flames blazing away in the fireplace, the man raised by wolves could see the scene so clearly, it was like watching a movie. One in which he’d played the starring role.
    The girl standing in front of him smelled like a tropical garden. Not that he’d ever been to the tropics, but he had not a single doubt that Hawaii would smell exactly like nine-year-old Mandy Longworth.
    “Does your mother know you’re inviting me?”
    “Of course.” Her cheeks, already a deep pink from the bite of the Rocky Mountain winter wind, blushed even deeper. “She said I could ask whoever I wanted.”
    He’d never been invited to a birthday party. Partly because he’d never fit in with the kind of popular kids who went in for that sort of thing. But mostly because he knew that no parents would want a boy from Muddy Hole—a ramshackle neighborhood of rusting trailers on the wrong side of the tracks, guarded by residents’ snarling junkyard dogs—inside their magazine-perfect homes.
    “Bet you invited everyone.”
    “I always invite the entire class.”
    “Back in Texas.” Her father, a big shot at Odessa Oil, had transferred his family here from Dallas. “Where you went to some fancy private school.”
    She tossed her blond head. “If you’re calling me a snob, you’re just stupid and you don’t have to come to my party if you don’t want to.”
    “I didn’t say that.” He