They Left Me at the Canyon, So I Came Back for the Wedding novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Served

Caleb's POV

I pulled on my jeans and went down the back stairs barefoot.

Carrie came behind me with her flannel shirt buttoned wrong.

The deputy stood under the bar's yellow porch light with a clipboard.

He was about fifty, tired, and he did not look happy to be there.

"Caleb Dunning?"

"Yes."

"I'm serving you with a temporary protective order. Petitioner is Joanna Haskell."

He held out the papers.

I took them.

"It says I stay five hundred feet from her, from her mother's house, and from Haskell Hardware," I said.

"Yes, sir."

"I don't live near any of those. I live in my sister's guest room."

"Then it shouldn't be hard." He almost smiled. "There's a hearing Thursday at nine. Bring whatever you've got."

"What does she say I did?"

"Page two."

I read page two under the porch light.

Joanna had written that I came to her mother's lawn screaming, that I tore a family ring off an elderly woman's hand, and that I had followed her to a venue and threatened her.

There was a link to a video.

It was the porch video, cut so that you saw my hand close on Diane's wrist and nothing before it.

"She says she fears for her life," the deputy said quietly.

I laughed.

I couldn't help it.

It came out of me thin and ugly, and the deputy looked at his shoes.

"I'm sorry," I said. "That's funny."

"I've served worse," he said. "Good night, Mr. Dunning."

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