Full Circle by Mariella Starr Page A

was not too solid. "Only a little bit. You've got an extra hitch in that rump sway. Next time it will be worse."
    "Why?" Josie demanded.
    "Next time I see you, I might decide to fire up your ass, for all that sass you gave me when I was trying to be so nice to you," Jack teased with a cocky grin.
    Josie grinned. "You'll have to catch me first."
    "I've already caught you, Babe. It's too late for retreat, now."

Chapter 4
    Jack entered Riley's Tavern and took a stool at the bar. Riley brought over a beer without asking. Jack didn't drink a lot. He came in for the company and nursed a single beer the entire time he was there. He'd tried to drown his memories in liquor, but he had discovered that he couldn't destroy what was part of him. Now, he controlled what he put in his body the same way he managed and controlled everything else in his life.
    He looked up at the television screens, checking out the sports, but nothing interested him. He didn't want to be in a bar. He wanted to be in Josie. Working around her full schedule between sheriff's duties and responsibilities to the boy, well, it interfered with his need to be with her. Right now, his need was not something he was controlling very well. Josie had responsibilities, and she took them seriously. Her job was a fact of life, and the town relied on her. Beyond that, she put Alex's needs first. She hadn't pulled any punches about that. She laid out the facts straight for him, and he had agreed to the terms. He respected what she did for the town, what she was trying to do for the boy. He liked the kid, but he liked Josie more. It was his problem, and he usually dealt with his problems better. His problem was he thought about Josie all the time—24/7 and he was walking around with a permanent hard-on.
    Someone sat down on the barstool beside him, and he realized it was Buck Marshall.
    The older man sat there for a while, and Jack could tell he was eyeing him, could tell something was on his mind.
    "If you've got something to say, say it," Jack said gruffly.
    "I do," the older man barked out. "I looked you up. Treat my kid decently, or I'll kick your ass."
    Jack raised an eyebrow at the threat. "I looked you up, too. You dumped your kid damn near thirty years ago and let her fend for herself. Did you step back into her life now expecting a payout?"
    "You bastard," Buck Marshall snarled out clenching his fists. "I didn't come here for that."
    "What did you come for?" Jack asked.
    "Because." Buck clamped his mouth shut and took a deep breath. "I didn't dump her. I didn't know where she was or even if she was still alive. I didn't know anything until about eighteen months ago, when she was caught up in a sting operation in Washington, D.C. It was big news, especially in the Tidewater region. I was stationed at Fort Belvoir, working at the Pentagon. The agency was playing coy, leaking tidbits of information each day. Someone got a photo, not a real good one, but still—it was her. Josie looks exactly like her mother. Later, someone released her name along with commendation details for an A. J. Raintree. It didn't take a genius to figure out the agency was trying to spin the details of the operation to the positive side. It struck a nerve since my ex-wife's maiden name was Raintree, and the details matched."
    "How do you lose a daughter?" Jack asked skeptically.
    Buck took a long swig of his beer. "By being stupid, by marrying for the wrong reasons and being too immature for marriage. I married Sue Ann, Josie's mother, when I was twenty-five, and she was a pregnant nineteen-year old. I'll admit that for twenty-five, I was pretty damn stupid. We lived in a little town in Arkansas where jobs were scarce and money even scarcer. I'd quit school at sixteen mostly because, in those days, I had a brain the size of a pea. I didn't have any schooling, or any skills to earn a living. I couldn't keep a job, not because I wasn't trying, but because I'd get one, and then get laid off. Last to