Sheriff’s Secret

  Sheriff’s Secret

  Copyright © 2020 K Webster

  Editor: Emily A. Lawrence

  Formatting: Champagne Book Design

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information and retrieval system without express written permission from the Author/Publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Title Page

  Copyright

  About This Book

  Welcome to Brigs Ferry Bay…

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Epilogue

  Kian’s Focus

  A Note to the Reader

  Playlist

  Acknowledgements

  About Author K Webster

  Books by K Webster

  From USA Today bestselling author K Webster comes a steamy and emotional MM romance!

  When you’re the sheriff of Brigs Ferry Bay, certain things are expected of you.

  Marry a local girl, settle down, have a few kids. You know, the small-town dream.

  But I’ve got a secret I’m terrified will get out.

  I’m gay.

  Not bi. Not curious. Not confused.

  Just gay.

  So, settling for that dream won’t be happening.

  If this secret gets out, the people I serve and protect, especially my father, won’t be accepting.

  I’m not brave like my high school sweetheart, Kian.

  The day he came out was the day I had to let him go, and with it, love.

  I’ve done a great job of pretending I’m perfectly fine being single. Until a villainous and annoyingly charming new B&B owner, Dante Kincaid, rolls into town. The spark between us is electric and undeniable. He wants to give me a taste of what he has to offer, and better yet, he vows to be discreet. I’m too selfish to refuse.

  But my secret is still a heavy burden, leaving me handcuffed to expectations and unable to fully grasp what I want—him. History has a way of repeating itself, but this time around, with Dante, it’ll hurt a lot worse.

  I have to decide if I’m going to let love slip away again or if I’m going to finally fight for it.

  **Brigs Ferry Bay is a steamy MM romance series. While each book can be read as a standalone, in order to get the full experience, they’re best read in order. Enemies to lovers, friends to lovers, hurt comfort, age-gap romance, and so much more. Fall in love with the charming small-town gay romances of Brigs Ferry Bay…**

  WELCOME TO BRIGS FERRY BAY…

  Brigs Ferry Bay is a steamy MM romance series.

  While each book can be read as a standalone, in order to get the full experience, they’re best read in order.

  Enemies to lovers, friends to lovers, hurt comfort, age-gap romance, and so much more.

  Fall in love with the charming small-town gay romances of Brigs Ferry Bay…

  To Matt—You’re the inspiration in every story I write, but you’re the hero in ours.

  To Misty—You’re the Jane to my Daria, the Michele to my Romy, and the calm to my crazy. Love you bunches, my friend.

  Jaxson

  It’s official.

  I’m destined to be exactly like my father.

  Model citizen. Straight, family man. Town babysitter.

  Sure, Dad filled my head when I was a child about the pride of being a law enforcement officer. How Brigs Ferry Bay relied on him and his deputy to keep the peace, protect the people, and arrest the bad guys. I’d wanted nothing more growing up than to be exactly like him.

  Fast forward to my twenty-nine years of age and I’ve done it.

  I’m just like Dad.

  Fucking wonderful.

  Not.

  Because in becoming just like him, I lost myself in the process. I lost him. My once best friend and lover, Kian Abrams. God, it feels longer than a decade ago when I made my choice.

  I chose wrong.

  I’m feeling extra pitiful this blistery January day in Maine because I’m reminded of my mistake. I’ll have to sit in front of him for an entire hour, trying desperately not to drink in every detail about him, and run a goddamn meeting like my heart isn’t still bleeding since high school graduation.

  It still bleeds. Every damn day.

  “Yeah, Mr. Clementine, he’s right here,” Brie, my deputy, says, holding up her phone despite my shaking head. “Not busy at all. Just staring out the window.”

  I flip her off and grunt as I walk over to her desk, stepping over my lazy German Shepard, Ox, who’s sprawled out on the floor snoring logs.

  “Sheriff Bell speaking,” I greet in my most cordial tone I can muster on this fucking day. “How can I help you, Mr. Clementine?”

  “He drives that damn cah that looks like a crittah,” the old man grumbles. “Fur, kid. There’s fur on it. Why does he have to park it right on Main Street? It’s a damn eyesore is what it is.”

  Like I said…town babysitter.

  Dad lied. There were no bad guys. Only grumpy-ass people who have nothing better to do than to complain about each other. My job is not what I thought it would be when I went off to Portland and joined the academy so I could follow in my father’s footsteps. By the time I got my foot in as deputy under my father, I quickly realized this wasn’t the job for me, but it was too late.

  I’m in it for life. Just like Dad.

  And then I can run for mayor.

  My damn life is a joke.

  “Are you making an official complaint?” I ask, stifling a sigh. “You know there’s nothing I can do. There’s no laws against a car with…unique…paint jobs.”

  “There oughta be a law, kid,” Mr. Clementine barks. “There oughta be a law about the nightmare clothes he wears too! Why can’t he buy his damn clothes from Bean’s like the rest of us?”

  I glance at the clock, no longer wishing for time to slow, but instead wanting it to speed up so I can get off this asinine phone call. “Mr. Rhodes isn’t breaking any laws and he’s free to wear what he wants. If that’s all, I need to head out.” He blabbers some more, but I cut him off. “Goodbye, Mr. Clementine.”

  As soon as I hang up, I glower at Brie, who’s giggling so hard, her face is splotchy red. Unbelievable.<
br />
  “You’re such an asshole,” I mutter, shaking my head. “You know I hate when he calls.”

  “But it’s so entertaining to watch you deal with that bastard. It really makes my day,” she says, grinning prettily at me like that’ll get her off the hook.

  Newsflash. It won’t.

  She’s my friend.

  And no matter what romantic notions this town has about the two of us, she will always be just that. My friend. Her flirty smiles don’t work on closeted gays like myself.

  “Aww,” she taunts. “You need Deputy Larson to hug it out and make it all better.”

  “Go away,” I grumble as I make a grab for my thick, winter coat—that coincidentally did come from Bean’s. “I’m done with you.”

  Her skinny ass hugs me from behind anyway, squishing her boobs against my back. Sometimes I wish I could just be straight for five minutes to convince myself Brie and I could be a thing. Mom would shit herself if I married the blond bombshell of Brigs Ferry Bay and gave her a million gorgeous grandkids.

  Unfortunately, I prefer hard over soft.

  No matter how much I try not to.

  “Say hello to Kian for me,” she says, her voice genuine. “We should all go have drinks one day soon.”

  I extricate myself from her surprisingly strong grip and pull on my coat. “Yeah, sure.”

  “He’s lying,” a familiar voice chirps as he clomps down the stairs. “He’ll do what he does every Chamber of Commerce meeting. Grumble and groan and get through it with a grimace that’s already causing wrinkles on his handsome face.”

  Brie smacks me. “Dick.”

  Rubbing my arm, I face Cato Rhodes. Mr. Clementine’s nemesis. Also known as the owner of And Puppies!—the pet grooming salon housed on the floor above our tiny two-manned police station.

  “You’re such a snitch.” I zip up my coat as I take in his ensemble. “Where’s your coat, dumbass?”

  “Does a coat look like it will go with this outfit?” Cato does a dramatic show of gesturing to his clothes.

  Typical Cato.

  Loud. Dramatic. Insanely bright colors.

  “You’re wearing a T-shirt and the tightest pair of red leather pants known to man. Just because you pair it with boots and a cashmere scarf doesn’t make it warm. You’ll catch pneumonia before we make it to the end of the street.”

  He pouts, his fat bottom lip poking out as he looks down at his outfit. “Then no one will see my Madame Secretary T-shirt.”

  Someone’s taking his new Chamber role a little too seriously…

  “The important ones will,” I throw back. “At the meeting. Take your coat off when we get there.”

  “But—”

  “It’s twenty-seven degrees out there, Cato, and I’m not giving you mine like last time. Get your damn coat or you’re walking by yourself.”

  “Someone needs to get laid,” he grumbles, stomping back up the stairs like a petulant child and not the twenty-five-year-old business owner he is.

  “I’m available,” Brie jokes. “You know. I could use to dust out the cobwebs.” She elbows me playfully. “What do you say, Sheriff? Wanna cuff me in the breakroom and get dirty?”

  Ox, always annoyed by our banter, sighs heavily from the floor.

  “What he said,” I say with a smirk.

  She sticks her tongue out at me. “Fine. Maybe I’ll just ask the hot new B&B owner out.”

  I rankle at her words. “Mr. Kincaid?”

  “Dante,” she purrs and fans her face. “Smokin’ hot, Jax. Like I would do filthy things to that man if he let me.”

  “Did you forget who he was?” I huff out. “What he’s trying to do?”

  I certainly didn’t forget. The man swooped in last summer, bought old Jeffrey Howe’s cliffside home, all but tore it down, and began construction on a bed and breakfast that’s going to cause havoc for this town when all the rich, hoity-toity assholes flood it for vacation season.

  Brigs Ferry Bay resists change tooth and nail.

  And Red Hake Bed & Breakfast is going to change everything.

  “It’s a friggin’ B&B,” Brie says with a frown. “It’ll be good for our town.”

  “He’s a New Yorker,” I remind her, the words bitter on my tongue. “Which means he’ll tell all his fancy business friends about our little slice of heaven out here and we’ll soon be bombarded by tourists, transplants, and fuck knows what else.”

  “Ew,” Cato shrieks when he bounds down the stairs again, this time bundled up in a light gray pea coat. “You sounded like Mayor Bell just then.”

  I don’t have the energy to argue with either one of them. Sure, I might be like Dad on this aspect, but it’s because I’m right. The moment big New York businesses start moving into Brigs Ferry Bay, we’ll lose our small-town charm and get lost in the shuffle. Traffic will become a nightmare and crime will skyrocket. The upscale B&B is just the beginning. And, the moment it officially opens its doors this spring, we’re fucked. I’ll try my damnedest to keep more businesses like his out of my town.

  “Let’s go,” I bark out, not bothering to respond to his comment. “We’ll be late.”

  I push through the police station door and groan when the icy wind hits my face. Januarys on Beacon Island are harsh, to say the least. The chilly northern Atlantic air sweeps over Wolffish Bay, funneling right up Main Street. But the other three seasons are comfortably fantastic, so we put up with this shit for a few months as a tradeoff.

  Cato screeches like a cat in heat when he steps outside. “Hell to the no! Why is it so cold today?”

  “Man, it’s cold every day,” I remind him. “And to think you were going to prance up the road in a fucking T-shirt.”

  He scrambles to put on his red gloves and whines when the wind blows his perfectly styled hair. I chuckle at the sight of him so frazzled. Sure, Cato likes to tease me like Brie does, but he’s earned that right. He’s one of my closest friends. One of the few people who know my secret.

  I’m gay.

  Not bi. Not confused. Not pan or whatever the fuck the kids are calling it these days.

  Just gay.

  And, to make matters worse, I’m not just closeted. I’m stuffed in the very back of the dark, lonely closet behind boxes of emotional baggage and sacks of fear of disappointing my father. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to wade my way through it all just to even chance opening that door and peeking outside.

  Once, in the past eleven years, I let myself slip.

  Once.

  Cato blew me on New Year’s Eve after too much liquor three years ago and I’ve regretted it ever since. Not that it wasn’t good head, because it so was. It’s just once the alcohol haze faded and I realized I’d gotten a blowjob from my friend, I knew I wasn’t any closer to revealing my secret. If anything, I was even more worried my father and the whole damn town would figure it out. Luckily, Cato may be a bigmouth, but not when it counts.

  We’re better as friends and I’ve been careful not to let loose like that since.

  “Walk faster,” I warn, as we shuffle past the windows of Jarrett’s Antiques. “I don’t want to—”

  My words are cut off when the door to the shop flings out and Jarrett Sullivan pounces out like the shop cat he keeps inside the store. “Sheriff Bell,” he exclaims, the small gap in his teeth more noticeable as he grins. “Funny chance meeting you here.”

  Cato cackles because this shit never gets old for him. We get stopped by this guy once a month on our way to the Chamber meetings. He stalks us. Fucker.

  “What a coincidence,” I deadpan. “We’re late, so—”

  “This’ll only take a second, big man.” He lets the shop door close so he can step closer, his eyes shifting around to make sure we’re not being overheard. The wily curl on his forehead bounces in the wind, much like his energetic self today. “We have to stop them.”

  Cato stifles a snort and I discreetly flip him off behind my back.

  “Who?” I lift a brow, s
tudying the older man. He’s probably fifteen years or so older than me. Good-looking if you’re into the weird ones.

  His smile falls as he points across the street to the new home décor shop. “The Manhattan bitches.”

  “I feel like that’s a little unfair,” I say, though I agree with part of the statement. “They’re not bitches.”

  “Addison and Adeline Granger are bitches,” Jarrett argues. “They put their shop right in front of mine!”

  It was shitty and low to sell home décor right in front of his antique shop. But it’s out of my hands. I may be the sheriff and this year’s president of the Brigs Ferry Bay Chamber of Commerce, but I’m not King of Beacon Island, for fuck’s sake. There’s only so much I can do.

  “Are your sales being impacted?” I frown at him. “Besides them being bitches, what’s the real problem?”

  He scowls. “Business is good.”

  “Oh yeah? So what’s the problem then?”

  “I feel like a sellout.” He crosses his arms over his chest, seemingly unfazed by the brutal wind threatening to knock us over.

  “A little birdie told me Jarrett’s furnishing the new B&B,” Cato tattles from beside me. “Right, old man?”

  Jarrett’s eyes widen comically. “I…it’s cold as fuck out here. See you around, Sheriff.”

  With those words, he hightails it back into his antique shop, leaving me to shake my head. I’ve yet to personally meet Dante Kincaid, but I already dislike him. It’s his B&B, his New York friends, his big mouth that are changing this town. And he can’t even be bothered to show his face. Hell, I don’t even know that he spends any time in Brigs Ferry Bay at all. Just has his contractors work on his establishment while he does whatever rich businessmen do in New York.

  “Oh my God,” Cato groans as we pass Fernando Lopez’s diner called Comida’s. “Wanna skip out on the meeting and eat the Wednesday special instead?” He presses his nose to the glass and waves at the patrons inside. “Pleaaaaase.”

  “No,” I grumble. “We’ll grab a bite later.”