his triumphs and all his disgrace, and it didn't make it any easier that no one seemed to hold the latter against him.
Their blindness to his failure was what he couldn't accept. It seemed so damned unjust. He rubbed his chest, his palm finding the gold St. Barbara medal he wore beneath his shirt. For God's sake, he knew better than most that life wasn't fair, but there was something ... unforgivable in all the forgiveness he'd found here eight years ago.
They'd called him a hero, when he'd known he was a fraud.
It was why he'd left. It was why he hadn't ever come back. It was why he'd do whatever it took to break the ties of this insane marriage to Kitty, because it tied him to the town.
He took a deep breath of the warm, clean, weed-scented air, so much lighter and invigorating than the heavy ozone and toxins that passed as oxygen in L.A. The scent of roses from someone's nearby garden drifted by his nose, reminding him of Kitty, and a smile pulled at his mouth.
She'd stomped into her aunt's living room, farmer's daughter cum Valkyrie, her long golden hair held back by a knot halfway down her back. He hadn't been able to look away from that for a minute - the astonishing sight of that silky hair knotted like a hank of rope.
But the only thing on Kitty's mind had been keeping her secret. He didn't know why she worried about her aunt learning about their so-called marriage, and he was trying not to care. Not that he was particularly eager for anyone else to know either, but his curiosity about Kitty's motivation was even more dangerous.
When you grew up in a town the small size of Hot Water, your fellow residents became like extended family. Since he'd watched her grow up, he found it hard to resist turning the puzzle of her character into a crossword he knew most of the answers to. But detachment and distance had worked for him for eight years and would work best for him now.
Which was why he hadn't for a minute seriously considered playing the part of sheriff, though he hadn't been able to resist pulling Kitty's tail about it. For God's sake, she deserved a little torture after what she'd put him through.
It had been a hell of a shock when Warren Witherspoon had taken him to lunch the week before and asked him about his wife. Of course, he'd already been reeling at the idea that the man had investigated him, but that was nothing compared to the bombshell that he'd been married for nearly eight years.
Warren had suggested siccing a lawyer on her, but Dylan believed a man cleaned up his own messes, at least as well as he could. That was the reason he'd joined the FBI.
Besides, he figured taking a day or so to clear up the marriage was his ticket out of the rest of the worthless, three-month vacation he'd "agreed" to. Even before the sticky marriage issue had come up, the supervisor of the L.A. FBI field office had claimed Dylan needed the time away as a cure for his increasing tiredness.
But what L.A.'s Special Agent in Charge, David "Deuce" Ducent, didn't know was that Dylan couldn't sleep at all unless he worked his caseload to the point of exhaustion. The clincher to Dylan's decision to come to Hot Water was that he figured if he returned to L.A. unmarried - or nearly so - Deuce would prove his salvation by waiving Dylan's remaining vacation. Dylan didn't want more time to think.
A Siamese cat dashed across his path. Startled, he nearly stepped on its tail, and it gave him a reproachful look from its wide blue eyes, then stopped directly in front of him to clean its foreleg. Time was, Dylan had known every citizen of Hot Water, and nearly all the cats, dogs, and horses by name as well.
"Hey, buddy." He crouched to rub the Siamese between the ears in apology. It stretched into his hand, its warm fur as soothing as a pleasant memory.
Okay. So he missed the animals. What was wrong with that? His sterile condo complex in L.A. didn't allow pets. There was probably some regulation against person-to-person socializing too, because he couldn't think of the name of any one of his neighbors.
"That's Tinkerbell," a voice said.
He looked up. Kitty. Somehow she'd found him, and he couldn't tell if she was happy or sad about