Hometown Sheriff Read online

  “Maybe.”

  They listened in companionable silence.

  “Birdy?” she asked softly.

  It took a minute to figure out what the question was, and when it dawned on him Ryanne was still questioning him about his dates, he turned to her. “No!”

  She found a rock and threw it herself. “Good.”

  That stumped him. “Why?”

  “Just wouldn’t want to picture you and Birdy, that’s all. I’m supposed to be having lunch with her soon.”

  “And thinking about that would spoil your appetite? Thanks.”

  “No,” she said, humor in her voice. She was standing higher than him and reached out to place her hand on his shoulder. “Let’s drop it.”

  As an instinctive reaction, he raised his hand and wrapped his fingers around her wrist. Beneath his touch her bones were delicate, her skin soft. She wore a light powdery fragrance that wasn’t overpowering or flowery, and he liked it on her.

  That same electrical current that had passed between them earlier arced now, and their easy camaraderie vanished, replaced by a tension so thick and tangible he found it difficult to draw a breath.

  “Nick,” she whispered, almost a question, almost a caress.

  She raised her free hand and touched one fingertip to the corner of his mouth.

  This was Rye, his friend. This was a desirable, beautiful woman whose touch set him on fire. He couldn’t remember ever wanting anything as badly as he wanted to kiss her right then.

  So he did exactly what he shouldn’t do. He covered her lips with his.

  CHAPTER SIX

  RYANNE WAS SO surprised that she couldn’t think right away. And when her thoughts did slide into focus, she realized she was standing on the creekbank—one hand on Nick’s shoulder, the other fisted in the air—kissing him. A dizzying quiver ran along her brain stem and turned her insides to jelly.

  She shouldn’t be doing this—they shouldn’t be doing this. This was Nick, and this just wasn’t right.

  All the contradictory feelings she’d had for him—all the looks he’d given her, the remarks he’d made—flowed into place and made it clear that this moment was what all that had been leading toward.

  His lips were warm and full and gentle. It was easy to lose herself, to close off reality and simply indulge.

  And that’s what kissing Nick was like, an indulgence...like a calorie-laden, hot fudge sundae with whipped cream and red, ripe strawberries.

  “Rye?” Nick said softly.

  Her eyes fluttered open. In the moonlight, her brow furrowed in a questioning frown.

  “What are we doing?” he asked, his voice sounding ragged to his ears. When he heard it, his brain was jogged into a moment of lucidity. This was the girl who couldn’t wait to leave for greener pastures, the woman who had aspirations and dreams that didn’t include him or his obligations. He wasn’t up to subjecting himself to her desertion once again. “What are we doing?” he asked again.

  This time he released her and backed away.

  After swaying in the darkness, she caught her balance as though orienting herself. She stuck the fingers of one hand in her hair, pulling it away from her face and stared at him, her eyes wide. “Oh, my...”

  “We are going to forget that,” he said, and turned away to stare at the creek.

  She didn’t say anything. The frogs had begun a cadence that filled the silent void.

  Finally, her trembling voice reached him. “I want to be friends, Nick.”

  She’d always wanted to be friends. He almost laughed at the futility of getting himself mixed up with her again. “I know.”

  “I’ll forget if you will.”

  Like there was a chance in hell of that. “Okay.”

  “I’m going home.”

  “I’ll be right behind you.”

  The grass swished and she moved away. Nick turned and watched her walking up the bank. After a moment, he followed, staying behind her as she hurried through the neighborhood and reached her mom’s place.

  She entered the house and closed the door.

  * * *

  BY TEN THE next morning, Nick had completely vetoed the idea of another physical encounter with Ryanne. He needed to give his brain a little more control. He was sitting at his desk at the sheriff’s department, reading the mail the dispatcher had opened for him, when the phone rang.

  “It’s Ann Marie Vincent,” Sharon called, her hand over the mouthpiece. “Eddie’s at it again. Want Bryce to take it?”

  Nick stood. “No, tell her I’m on my way.”

  He grabbed his hat and headed for the door.

  Five minutes later, he was driving up the graveled lane to the Vincent place, a small house with peeling paint that sat on an acre of land. Ann Marie worked afternoons and evenings at the Three B’s Bar; her husband, Eddie, worked nights at the nearby soybean plant. Their only child, a son, would be a fifth grader at Elmwood Elementary when school started in the fall.

  Nick had been to this house too many times to count. He parked and ran up the cracked walk. Through the screen door, he could hear the man shouting. Without bothering to knock, he yanked open the door. “Ann Marie! Eddie!”

  The living room appeared unscathed, the worn carpet, upholstery and spindly-legged tables looking as pathetic as always, the portable television tuned to a game show. “Did you call him?” Eddie’s angry voice rang from the kitchen.

  Nick strode toward the sound, his gut clenching with apprehension at what he might see. The first sight that met his eyes was food strewn across the floor and streaked, as though it had been walked through. A pork chop lay under the edge of one counter, peas smashed everywhere.

  Ann Marie was sitting at the table, her head buried in her hands, her dark hair covering her face. Eddie, obviously drunk, told her to shut up and stared at Nick with glaring defiance. “You can get out of my house,” he said.

  Nick crossed the room. “Ann Marie, are you all right?”

  She didn’t look up.

  He placed a hand on her shoulder, and she flinched, then tossed her hair back and looked up at him, shame and grief and hopelessness prominent in her glistening eyes. The corner of one and her cheekbone were turning black and blue, and a trickle of blood ran from the corner of her dry, cracked lip.

  Helplessness and anger washed over Nick in a nauseating wave, and he tamped down the emotions to let the lawman in him take over.

  “I’m all right,” she said. “Just take him in to cool off for a while.”

  Eddie threw a plate across the room and it crashed against the doorjamb. “I wouldn’t need to cool off if you’d learn to fix me a decent meal! I work all night long and I come home to leftovers! A man has to eat to stay alive! How do you think the bills get paid around here?”

  “Yeah, well, I work, too, Eddie,” she said tiredly. “It’s not exactly a picnic at the Three B’s, no matter what you think. And I don’t get any help around here.”

  “How do you think other women do it?” Eddie asked. “Other women work and still fix decent meals.”

  “Maybe their husbands don’t spend the grocery money on booze!”

  “I got a right to relax!” he shouted, and stomped toward the table, slipping on the mashed peas and lurching forward.

  Nick shot out a hand and restrained him. “Back off, Eddie.”

  “She’s mouthy, you hear that?” he shouted, catching his balance. “The witch deserves everything she gets.”

  “No, she doesn’t.” Nick still held him by a shoulder. “Nobody deserves to get hit for voicing an opinion.”

  “She never had an opinion worth wastin’ breath on.” Jerking from Nick’s grasp, Eddie threw open the back door and stomped out.

  Nick leaned both palms on the laminated tabletop and appealed to the woman. He’d known her most of his life, had gone to school with her, and these domestic scenes made him sick. “Press charges this time. Do it for yourself. Leave. Go to your mother’s. Do anything, Ann Marie, but do
n’t stay here and let him do this to you.”

  “I can’t take Dylan away from his friends, disrupt his life. And I can’t go to my mom’s. She never liked Eddie.”

  “Me taking Eddie in for a day isn’t going to fix things, and you know it. It’s like putting a bandage on a severed artery. You both need some help. Make him get it.”

  Ann Marie looked away. “I can’t do that, Nick. He doesn’t mean to get like this. He can be real sweet most of the time. It’s just the alcohol.”

  “And that’s what he needs help with. If you press charges, a judge will have him evaluated, maybe force him to go into treatment.”

  “It’s like quitting smoking,” she argued. “You have to want it before it will work. And it probably wasn’t the best supper I’ve ever fixed him, you know?”

  Nick straightened and stood with his hands on his hips in exasperation. They’d had this discussion a dozen times in the last year. He always wondered why she tried to reason with Eddie, and here Nick was, trying to reason with her. Ann Marie was right about one thing, though—she had to want Nick’s help before he could give it to her. But he sure didn’t want to come out here and find her beaten senseless—or worse yet, dead. His hands were tied as long as she refused to take the necessary steps. “Don’t be a fool, Ann Marie.”

  She stood and went to the sink. “Thanks for coming, Nick.”

  He turned and exited, finding Eddie on a stump in the overgrown weeds behind the house. “You coming peaceably, Eddie?”

  Eddie stood, teetered some and raised a hand. “No handcuffs.”

  “Okay. Get in the car.”

  “Pick me up a carton of smokes tonight!” Eddie called on his way past the kitchen window.

  The sound of running water accompanied his wife’s compliant, “All right, Eddie.”

  Nick shook his head, ushered his prisoner into the back of the cruiser and radioed Bryce about the situation.

  * * *

  AFTER THE NIGHT deputy, Duane Quinn, arrived with supper and coffee for both himself and Eddie Vincent, Nick briefed him on the events of the day and headed home.

  “Dad!” Jamie met Nick as soon as he pulled into the drive.

  Nick got out and knelt for a hug. “Hey, little mister.”

  “Dad,” Jamie said, dragging him toward the house. “Me an’ Wade wanna set up the big tent and camp out. Can we do that tonight?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yeah. Please, Dad?”

  Nick figured the boys wouldn’t make it the whole night, but he’d be awake to watch them, anyway, so it didn’t make much difference that it wasn’t a weekend. “I guess so. Is it okay with Wade’s mom and dad?”

  “You can talk to them.”

  In the kitchen, Mel stood, stirring something on the stove. “What’re you cooking, Pop?”

  “Just instant potatoes to go with these here pork chops.”

  The image of that pork chop lying under the Vincents’ cabinet immediately flashed through Nick’s mind and he shoved it aside. “Sounds good. I’ll change and set the table. We have salad greens from yesterday. I need to get out there and pull radishes.”

  Upstairs, he washed, changed into jeans and a T-shirt and glanced out the window. Ryanne was sitting on her shady front porch with a book, her bare feet propped on the banister. Why should he deny himself something with the possibility of being so good, just because it couldn’t be permanent? What would be the harm in dating Ryanne? For the tenth time that day, he changed his mind.

  After supper, Nick told his dad to leave the dishes, and he and Jamie brought a tent from the garage and laid it out on the grass in the backyard.

  “It smells funny, Dad.”

  “Needs some air is all. You usually want to let ’em stand a day or so after they’ve been stored.”

  Mel had come out to watch from a lawn chair, and a few minutes later, Natalie Perry dropped off Wade. The excited boys proved to be more hindrance than help, as they asked questions and used the stakes in a sword fight. They ran toward the Whitaker house and returned with Ryanne in tow.

  “Want a hand?” she asked.

  Nick glanced at her in navy jogging shorts and a sleeveless white top. She looked beautiful. “Sure.”

  With her help, the tent went up quickly. “There are cots in our basement,” she said. “I saw them the other day.”

  “Can we use ’em?” Jamie asked.

  “Of course,” she agreed. “Why don’t you boys come help me carry them?”

  Nick couldn’t help turning his head to watch her walk away, Jamie and Wade jogging along on either side.

  “She’s really something, isn’t she?” Mel remarked.

  Nick tied up a canvas window flap. “That she is.”

  “The air-conditioners working okay over there? The girl never uses ’em. Evelyn never did put in central air. Shame she didn’t.”

  “As far as I know, they work fine,” Nick replied. He had wondered the same thing about Ryanne not running the window units. Maybe the humidity just didn’t bother her, but he couldn’t imagine that being so.

  A sound sidetracked him, and he glanced over to see Ryanne using a handheld vacuum on two aluminum frame cots. She helped the boys carry them over, and Nick set them up inside.

  “Now we gotta get all our stuff,” Jamie said, and he and Wade galloped indoors.

  “Nick’s a dad like you,” Ryanne said to Mel, and from inside the tent, Nick overheard the comment. He glanced out the net window opening. She nestled down on the lawn in front of his father’s chair. “My dad never did fun things with us.”

  “He was a busy man,” Mel replied.

  “So were you. But even later, when your wife was ill, you had time for your boys.”

  Mel said nothing, but laid his hand on Ryanne’s shoulder. She turned her head to smile at him, and Nick’s chest hurt at the sight. He bent at the waist to exit the tent opening and busied himself with picking up the bags and his hammer.

  “Do you remember when Justin set off that bottle rocket and it caught my mom’s clean sheets on fire on the clothesline?” Ryanne asked.

  Mel groaned, but she laughed.

  She continued. “How about when he poured gas down that hole in the yard and threw in a match to get rid of the snakes?”

  Mel shook his head. “That boy didn’t have eyebrows or eyelashes for months.”

  Listening to them reminisce, a person would think Justin’s antics had all been harmless and amusing, but they hadn’t been. He’d been in trouble time and again, and it had always been Nick getting him out of scrapes. The older Justin had gotten, the more serious the incidents, until he and Nick had been at odds all the time. Nick grabbed his tools and headed for the garage to put them away.

  Ryanne rearranged herself on the grass to watch Nick stomp away. “It bothers him to hear us talk about Justin?” she asked.

  Mel shrugged. “He never talks about his brother.” He stood and glanced at his watch. “I’ll be heading in. Time for my TV show.”

  Ryanne got up and followed the path Nick had taken, finding him replacing tools on an orderly Peg-Board inside the gigantic garage. Two draped cars were unrecognizable, except for the shape of the tail fins she knew belonged to the ’57 Chevy. Machinery and storage units of all kinds lined the walls.

  “This looks a lot different from the garage I remember,” she said, coming up beside him.

  Nick wiped a clean workbench with a cloth. “It is.”

  “I didn’t mean to upset you by talking about Justin.”

  He turned around, leaned back against the wood and crossed his arms over his chest. “Let’s drop it then.”

  “Are you angry with me?”

  He shook his head. She hadn’t been able to think about much besides what had happened between them last night, and she didn’t want to spoil the tenuous friendship they’d resumed. She hadn’t had a friend for a long time, and she was realizing what she’d missed out on. “Are you upset about last night?”

&nbs
p; “Define upset.”

  “Mad?”

  “No.”

  “Disappointed?”

  His disturbing gaze locked on her mouth. “No.”

  Ryanne almost turned away, but at the last second, stood fast. She really didn’t have anyone except her mom, who was far away, and the Sinclairs had always been part of her family. After years of independence, it was obviously a weakness to need someone like she was starting to need Nick. Maybe she could fix it—cut herself off and regroup. Or maybe she didn’t want to go back to being herself—at least not just yet.

  Nick lowered his arms to his sides. He pursed his lips before saying, “I had a really bad day. That’s all.”

  “Renegade cows?”

  “Something like that.”

  “How long do you say the boys will last in the tent?” she asked.

  “Ten-thirty,” he replied.

  “I’ll say eleven-thirty.”

  He raised a brow in curiosity. “What’re you betting?”

  She thought a minute. “I’ll do your chores for a week.”

  He grinned. “Dishes, too?”

  “Okay. And if I win?” she asked.

  “You won’t. I know Jamie, and he gets tired early.”

  “But if I do...”

  “What do you want?”

  She considered. Dishes wouldn’t do. She needed something to alleviate the boredom. “A midnight drive every night for a week.”

  “Together?”

  She nodded.

  “Driving what?”

  She gestured to the cars beneath the covers. “Yours. Mine. It doesn’t matter.”

  “I could drive your car?” he asked.

  Seemed harmless enough. “Okay.”

  Nick extended his hand, and Ryanne shook it, the brief contact all the warning she needed to know that whatever this thing was between them, it wasn’t over yet—and she definitely hadn’t forgotten the night before.

  * * *

  AT TEN-FIFTEEN, Ryanne heard a commotion, dropped her stack of papers on the table and moved to the dining room window. Reaching back to flip off the light, she peered into the darkness toward the Sinclair house.

  Someone was growling loudly...a man. Nick. He was out there trying to scare the boys! She shot across the room, through the kitchen and out the back door. “You’re cheating!” she called.