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Gentry didn’t answer, but he did jerk his head toward the door.

Dempsey got the point and headed for the door, but stopped to apologize at Louellen’s table before she did.

Gentry just shook his head and said, “Have a nice day, Jess. You, too, ma’am.”

“Zee,” I told him. “Her name is Zinnia, but everyone calls her Zee.”

Gentry winked, and even though he was happily taken, it still made my heart kick a beat.

The man was attractive as fuck.

No straight woman wouldn’t look.

They made it out the door when I remembered something.

“Oh, be right back.”

Zee nodded. “I’m gonna get a couple of danishes. Want one?”

“Of course.” I snorted out a laugh. “Who would say no to danishes?”

I made it out the door and looked both ways, wondering where the two deputies went.

Thinking maybe they went to the alley, I started to head that way when their voices had me pausing.

“She’s a menace,” Dempsey said.

“She is,” Gentry agreed, making my heart drop. I’d always gotten the feeling that Gentry liked me. But maybe I’d been wrong, because there was no way they weren’t talking about me. “But she’s also off limits. Black made her that way, and let’s everyone know that she’s his to deal with. Don’t fight him on this. Just let Black deal with her. He’s the only one that can get her in line, too. She doesn’t respond well to anyone else. And he has something against forcing any real time on her. Just deal with his rules, okay? Not that one.”

Dempsey growled. “Those ladies told me all about her. And I’ve heard all about her in town. She’s hated by damn near everyone. She’s argumentative, has zero issues with bucking authority, and her poor sweet brother has to deal with her abuse.”

I gritted my teeth.

My poor, sweet brother.

It always boils down to him.

And, though I knew that everyone hated me, it’d never been confirmed.

Until now.

Which fucking hurt.

Plausible deniability had been my thing for a long time.

Now, I couldn’t very well go about hiding my head in the sand anymore, could I?

Maybe I should move.

That might be the only way that I could be free.

I went back inside.

I drank my coffee. I ate the danish that my new friend—who probably wouldn’t stay that way for long—bought me. And I pretended.

I pretended that I was normal, when in reality I was anything but.

I still had one thing to do, though. And that was to go to the funeral of a woman that deserved a bad rap, but had enough money to buy herself out of everything.