No Place Like Home

Sheriff Brady Cannon seemed like a great guy, who had no wedding ring on his finger. But none of these facts mattered. And that was the way it would remain. She had an agenda that left no room for infatuations of the personal kind.

Period. She wasn’t that fickle.

She had an agenda of the heavenly sort, a payback for a life changed. And that thought was all it took to get her head on straight again.

Too late, Brady realized he hadn’t been thinking straight when he’d suggested they walk. Dottie seemed a little unsteady. She was obviously weak, a woman didn’t pass out without a reason. What a buffoon he was! And now here they were, walking along and she was limping—stumbling even, and trying hard to hide it. He slowed his pace to match hers, causing her to glance at him, her eyes wide.

“I needed the exercise,” she blurted out as if reading his mind, as if not wanting to admit a weakness. Her words were breathless. “I, well…I get a little stove up when I ride long distances all at once.”

He nodded, noticing how she moved away from him. “You came far?” He glanced at her, curious about her but trying not to be intrusive, a hard thing for a cop.

She nodded but didn’t look at him. “Yes.”

Single-word answers were not what he was looking for. Though his beat was different here in his tiny hometown, his previous life as a cop on the streets of Houston still imprinted everything he did. He wanted details and suddenly he was full of questions. “How far? Where are you from?” Smooth, Brady.

“I started out in Florida five days ago.”

“Ouch! That is a long way.”

“Oh, yes, but most people would’ve made it here in three days. I hurt my hip in an accident and can only travel so far before I’m forced to stop for the day. That is if I want to be able to move the next day.”

“What kind of accident?” What are you doing, Brady?

She locked her arms and looked into the distance, as if she really didn’t want to elaborate, then focused back on him. “I was bullheaded enough to think I could protect my home from a hurricane.”

“Ohhh.”

She grimaced. “Sounds stupid, I know, believe me, and the house collapsed on me, despite my personal efforts at holding it up under category-three winds.”

He could tell, though she gave a quick smile, there was nothing funny about her ordeal. However, he knew only too well in his line of work that sometimes humor took the edge off.

“I spent three months in the hospital. I was a mess. Not a vacation I’d recommend at all, as you can imagine. I spent several months rehabilitating. I’m doing great, considering everything. I can’t run a marathon yet, though.”

She met his gaze, her expression blank and unreadable but entirely captivating with the intensity of her words. How much pain and suffering must she have endured? It was obvious Dottie still hurt. He could see it. As a cop he’d learned to read people pretty well. And Dottie was a book that had to be read slowly. Carefully.

“But I will.” She smiled.

He stopped. They’d made the fifty-yard walk to the corner. Though she hadn’t voiced any of it, he had a vivid picture of this fragile woman in pain unlike any he’d ever experienced. Looking into her eyes, he searched harder this time. He glimpsed a shadow of…anger, despite the smile. He’d seen it before…but suddenly he wondered if she even knew it was there. “I bet you will,” he said. “You impress me as a person who can do anything she sets her mind to.”

To his surprise she shook her head, and her eyes misted with tears.

“Only by the grace of God.” She lifted her chin and blinked away the mist. “You can’t imagine how many times I felt like quitting. But that verse! It kept popping into my head, forcing me on, reminding me that God was there, right beside me. The truth is—until I was so low I couldn’t get any lower, I never really understood that I can really do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Her earnest expression melted into another smile. “That’s what got me through grueling rehab, through days that I couldn’t take on my own. God’s faithful. He can take the worst of times and make something good. If we let Him.”

Brady was in trouble.

He knew it the moment she smiled at him again.

He knew the moment she lifted her eyes to the sky and winked, like she and God had a secret. It was as if she was defying the tears and the anger to grasp the joy.

Oh yeah, Brady was in trouble all right, because although he’d only known Dottie Hart for less than thirty minutes, he knew he wanted in on her secret.

Chapter Two

Mule Hollow was getting ready for a pretty big day. Even in the dusky light Dottie could see there were spots sectioned off in the field for booths and trailers. They’d even set up electrical services for vendors, which she wasn’t. But how coincidental that she was both a baker and a candy maker on her way to California, who just happened to find Cassie on the side of the road, which brought her to Mule Hollow where her motor home happened to die. She smiled, reminded of the song about the old woman who swallowed the fly.

It had dawned on her just now talking to Sheriff Brady—Mule Hollow seemed like a safe place to be stranded. God had protected her. Even before she knew she needed protecting. How sweet was that?

He’d even given her a way of saving her money for California. At least most of it. Instead of dipping into her bank account she now had a way to pay for the repairs to her RV…she could make and sell some simple candy and baked goods over the weekend and have a little extra money to help pay the mechanic. She wouldn’t have to tap into her insurance.

Everything was fine, except for the time factor. But that was what had her winking toward heaven a moment ago. She was on God’s time schedule, so she was going to try and relax. Try not to worry. Really…why should she? She’d prayed for a safe trip to California—never had she envisioned God would take her a hundred miles out of her way to get her there safely. But the reality was that if she’d been on the highway when the engine burst into flames—she hated to think about it. For one, she may not have been able to stop the fire; two, she’d have become a hitchhiker herself.

And three, she might have lost everything.

Again.

Not that much meant anything to her anyway. When a person lay dying beneath all her worldly stuff, stuff accumulated over a lifetime, it changed a person’s perspective. But she had to admit that her RV mattered to her. It had belonged to her granddad and there was a host of memories inside the poor-looking thing.

Besides, it had been beat up and banged up during the same storm that beat her up…she and her prehistoric monstrosity were survivors.

Sheriff Brady pushed his hat back a bit and looked down at her, and she realized with a start that he’d said something. He probably thought she was crazy since not everyone winked at heaven and grinned like a goofball.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” she asked, focusing on him.

“I said, the rest of the vendors will start trickling in tomorrow afternoon, but the actual event won’t start until Friday.” He paused, touching her shoulder with his finger, halting her. “Are you okay?”

His touch was gentle and Dottie tried to ignore the warmth that seemed to radiate from it. “Yes, I get kinda weird sometimes, thinking about how good God is, that’s all.”

He smiled. “I have to say I’ve never seen anyone wink at God.”

“Get outta here.” Dottie shoved his arm. “You’re telling me you never winked at God.”

He laughed. “I’d have to say that’d be an affirmative. But it was cute.”

She laughed and their gazes locked.

The laugh died in her throat. His face was shadowed, his eyes shimmered, in the disappearing light. Suddenly it felt like a pebble dance across her stomach, instantly sending ripples radiating through her solar plexus. Oh my!

“L-look,” she managed to say. “I have to explain something.”

“What’s that?” He dropped his chin and raised an eyebrow.

What in the world was happening to her? She was tired—it had been a long, a very long, hard day. “I didn’t come here to be a vendor in the trade show.” She rattled out the words so fast that he stepped back, head cocked back a notch.

“You didn’t?” He looked over his shoulder at the motor home being set up in the vending spot. The motor home that looked exactly like it wasn’t out of place in a setting like this.

“Actually…” She snapped the words out. Ignoring—well, trying to focus on what had brought her here in the first place. “I picked Cassie up on the road. She was hitchhiking about a hundred miles away. I just couldn’t stand seeing that young girl out there on the road, so I broke my ‘no hitchhiker’ rule.” She made quotation marks in the air with her fingers. “I picked her up. When she started telling me where she was going I couldn’t just drop her off somewhere along the way and hope someone else brought her safely here—I had to bring her.”

Brady removed his Stetson and scrubbed his hand through his short brown hair.

And Dottie, drat her fickle brain, forgot everything for a moment. The man was gorgeous—even with the hat crease running across his forehead.

“You’re telling me you went a hundred miles out of your way to bring a hitchhiker to Mule Hollow?”

She nodded, hearing the disbelief edging his words, understanding it completely. It was her reaction to him that she didn’t have a clue about! “Not any hitchhiker. Cassie. Oh, wait—is hitchhiking against the law?”

The corners of Brady’s lips curved engagingly and her stomach did a double backflip!

“Nope. Least not the last time I checked. Though it could possibly be bad for your health.”

“Funny.” She scrunched her face at him before she could stop herself. “I didn’t want to get Cassie in trouble,” she continued, regaining some composure. “I can’t help feeling like I need to watch out for her. She knows everything about this town and has talked nonstop all the way here about finding herself a husband. It’s like she’s obsessed with getting a husband and getting him yesterday.”

“She wouldn’t be the first woman looking for a husband—hold on just a minute. How old is she?”

“Bingo! I honestly don’t know. I thought she was really young, too, but I don’t think she’s as young as I first believed. She wouldn’t tell me earlier when I asked, claiming a lady doesn’t tell her age.”

He was instantly all law enforcement. A gleam lit his eyes and she could very nearly see his brain rolling. “I think I need to do some checking on Cassie. She could be in some kind of trouble.”

“Please do, and thank you. Only, I don’t want to scare her. I don’t think it would be a good idea to let her know you’re checking into her background. Is that possible? If she’s a runaway she might get scared and run again if she’s spooked.”

“I agree,” he answered. “It’s a good thing you’re going to be around for a while to keep an eye on her.”

Dottie couldn’t agree more. She’d have to talk to her brother Todd, let him know what was going on. Once he heard all the facts, he’d agree that looking out for Cassie was important. There wasn’t too much she could do at the moment anyway in California, at least nothing until they heard whether they were going to keep the lease…she said a quick prayer that God would step in and save No Place Like Home. It was inconceivable to think that a place that was doing such wonderful work would have so many sudden problems. She forced away the worry, certain everything would be okay. God was taking care of her, surely He would take care of the women’s shelter.

“Did you ever in your entire life see such a dreamy guy?” Cassie paused, filling her glass with water, and sighed.

Plumping her houseguest’s pillow, Dottie tossed it up onto the bed above the RV’s driving compartment, then picked up another one. Cassie had been beaming ever since Jake had driven up to help them. Dottie fully expected to see the girl float to her bunk at any moment.

A far cry from the hard-edged kid she’d picked up on the highway.

Dottie paused, mid-plump. “He’s a dreamboat. But, Cassie, he can’t be much more than twenty.” It was a weak argument but all she had to try and slow Cassie down.

“And what’s wrong with that?”

“Well, nothing. He just seemed…well, young.” Dottie felt older than her twenty-eight years looking into Cassie’s youthful face as she plopped into the table booth, and stared up at her, her chin in hand. Her bright gaze sent Dottie to check her cupboard. She really was uncomfortable giving advice, and she…well, she needed to see what supplies she had so she could start baking in the morning.

No, she needed to try and talk some sense into Cassie.

“How old are you, Dottie?”

“Hey, you’re the girl who wouldn’t tell me her age earlier this afternoon. Remember?”

“Well, that was before I knew you. Before I trusted you.”

Trust.

Dottie’s stomach soured thinking about how Brady was going to check on Cassie’s background. Trust. “I’m twenty-eight. How old are you?”

“I’m really nineteen. Really. I know, I know, I don’t look it. I hate people telling me I look younger. But if you look at me really close you can tell I’m not sixteen. Look, I have crow’s-feet.”

Dottie busted out laughing, turning toward her just in time to see Cassie pointing at the edges of her eyes. “Oh, brother!” True, she did look nineteen on second glance. Maybe. Once more she wondered about Cassie’s background.

“Okay, you look nineteen, sort of. Don’t you think that’s a bit young to be so gung-ho about finding a husband right away? You do know that you need to fall in love.”

“Hey, I want a husband and I’m gonna get one. I’ll fall in love, but it’s about…never mind. I’m too tired to think straight. What are you cooking tomorrow? Can I help?”

“Can you help?” Cassie had effectively changed the subject and Dottie let it slide. Tackling the subject of husband hunting with her was going to require alertness and at the moment she was worn out. “Aren’t you the one who got me into this fix?”

Cassie chuckled. “That’d be me.”

“Then, yes, you’re about to learn to make candy. Tomorrow. We’ll just make things like fudge and brownies though. Cooking in an RV is limiting. But we can make do. And the microwave can be utilized, too. Do you like to cook?”

Cassie’s smile faded. “I—I can cook some. Your average can of beans and corn.”

Something about the way she said that, despite her air of humor, made Dottie wonder if there was more to the story. There usually was.

“But—” she beamed “—I love fudge. It’ll be cool learning how to make it. I wonder if Jake likes fudge. He said his boss told him to spend the next three days doing whatever Miss Norma told him to do, so he’ll be around tomorrow.”

“Who’s that?”

“Norma Sue Jenkins. I can’t wait to meet her and Adela and Esther Mae. They’re the ladies who first put out the ad that brought Lacy Brown and Sheri Marsh to town. And then there’s Molly, of course, and Sam. And Clint, and Cort and J.P. and Bob—”

“Whoa Nellie! How many people does this Molly write about?”

“Everyone…I think. I don’t know though, ’cause she never wrote about Jake, and I’ll tell you this—she should have. Although Bob’s probably gonna be my man. Bob’s special—”

“Bob? Who’s Bob, and what do you mean ‘your man’?” Dottie felt queasy.

“Bob Jacobs, he’s been a headliner in Molly’s stories. He’s the main reason I came. He’s the one I’m gonna marry.”

Brady hopped from the cab of his tractor, his boots sending up a plume of dust from the barn floor as he landed. He needed a shower, a tall glass of iced tea and some unwinding time. Striding from the barn, he made his way across the expanse of Saint Augustine grass and flagstone separating the house and the barn. His mom and dad had outdone themselves when they’d built the huge two-story ranch house.

What a waste that he lived here alone.

He was still gnawing on that problem a short while later walking, freshly showered, from the silent house out onto the front porch. The sound of his bare footsteps echoed behind him, reminders that no single guy should have this much house all to himself.

Sinking to the top step, he relaxed against the porch post as he’d done a thousand times in his lifetime and took a sip of his tea. Besides being the sheriff, the only official emergency responder within twenty miles, he also ran his own cattle operation. It made for a very full plate. And that helped him not think so much about how the house was too big for him.

Or about how it would never hear the steps of children…

He inhaled sharply, feeling the warm breeze, smelling the dust and grass, laced with a faint sweetness from the ancient wisteria bush growing up the trellis. It was hard to believe he’d spent most of his youth planning his escape from the quiet of the country, Mule Hollow specifically.

And his parents’ hopes and dreams for him.

His parents, had they lived to see his return, would have been happy…at least in theory. Dreams didn’t always turn out the way they were dreamed, but he’d adapted to the reality of his return home.

Life was about illusions. And overcoming regrets.

Dottie Hart.

The beautiful woman was special. The very essence of her being reached out and expressed the fact, he was certain, to everyone. He couldn’t imagine she had this effect on him alone. It had to be momentary, though, she was just passing through. Here today, gone tomorrow—literally. So where were all these thoughts bombarding him coming from?

He took another drink of his iced tea, then studied a pebble on the porch step as he rubbed his big toe back and forth across it. He’d accepted when he’d come back to Mule Hollow that he was damaged goods and he hadn’t really cared, yet the realization of his past and what it meant to his future had hit him full force today. For the first time in six years he suddenly cared that he was never going to marry and have a family.

It was ridiculous, he’d only just met Dottie and suddenly he was reevaluating his decisions.

He rose and walked to the end of the sidewalk, feeling the cool breeze on his sweat-dampened skin.

A picture of Dottie Hart formed in his mind. He couldn’t believe she had gone that far out of her way to watch out for Cassie. He thought of the Good Samaritan in the Bible. As a kid hearing that story in Sunday school, he hadn’t thought what an unusual thing the man had done. If he had fallen off his bike and skinned his knee, there had always been a herd of people who would stop to help him.

But that had been a kid’s perspective.

As a cop he’d seen firsthand just how unusual it was for someone to stop and help a person on the side of the road. People didn’t want to get involved. People were afraid. With good reason.

He understood all too well how dangerous it was out there. Witnessed it up close and too personal. There was a part of him that wanted to tell Dottie what she’d done had been reckless, most especially for a woman alone in an area she didn’t know. But his admiration for her overruled all his cautions. Again he wondered what her story was. He wondered… Stop wondering, Brady.

Other than helping her figure out if Cassie Bates was a runaway, he didn’t need to be wondering anything about Dottie.

Because the reality was, when each day ended, he would always walk into his house alone.

He’d chosen the life of a cop. He’d seen what happened to a cop’s family when things went wrong in the line of duty. He’d thought watching his partner die in his arms was the hardest thing he’d ever done. But it had been watching Eddie’s wife and two kids at the hospital that had changed his life.

He’d decided he would never put anyone he loved through that anguish.

Life was about choices. Good ones. Bad ones.

Hard ones.

Turning, he strode to the hollow house, yanked open the screen door and stepped inside. Alone.

Chapter Three

Sam’s Pharmaceuticals and Diner. Dottie read the sign splashed across the window. She smiled when she got close enough to read Eat at Your Own Peril, in small print. Sounded like Sam had a sense of humor.

When she awakened at her usual five in the morning she’d decided to check out the town and get a cup of coffee at the café. After working out and writing an e-mail to her brother, filling him in on what was happening, she’d made quick time coming over. She was excited to see the café Cassie had so vividly described to her with its jukebox that got stuck on forty-fives, playing the same song over and over again until it got good and ready to switch to something new.

Now, as she pushed open the door, she was instantly swept back in time. She felt like a child again, holding her granddad’s hand as he bought her a soda pop at the general store just down the road from his house.

She loved those days.

Today the smells were of aged, oiled wood, bacon frying and the sweet scent of five-cent candy…. Inhaling deeply, she knew she could really love this place.

The first person she saw when she stepped into the room was Sheriff Brady. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, the guy was the perfect adornment for any setting. All night she’d tried to tell herself there was no way he could be as handsome as she’d remembered.

Wrong.

He was everything she’d thought and more.

She had no time for this. She had an agenda to accomplish a long way from this small town. She was out of here in just a few days. So maybe she could look at the good sheriff, but that was it. No flirting, not that she was any good at flirting… The man was off-limits.

And you’d better remember it!

“Mornin’, Miss Hart.” His slow, easy drawl drew her to meet his eyes over his coffee cup as he took a sip of the steaming brew.

Dottie rubbed her suddenly clammy hands on the fronts of her workout pants and gave him a puny smile.

She’d had a terrible night after she’d finally turned in, which was strange since she’d had such an interesting day. No way had she been expecting the nightmares to start again. When she’d awakened drenched in sweat, her heart pounding in the darkness, not even the small night-light she kept near her bed helped. The only relief, as always, had been to flee outside to the sweet open space where she could sit and talk to the Lord. Her caring Savior was always there for her.

Everything was fine now. “Good morning to you, Sheriff. Did you sleep well?”

He raised an eyebrow. “How about you?”

She shrugged, noticing the two eavesdropping older men sitting at the window hunched over a game of checkers that they were valiantly pretending to play. Instead, they were covertly listening.

She swallowed the cotton in her mouth. “New surroundings don’t always lend themselves to a good night’s rest. That and Cassie’s snores. Whatever you do, don’t tell her I said that. If there’s one thing a young girl doesn’t want getting out it’s that she snores.”

Brady chuckled. “You’re probably right about that.”

Their gazes met. Dottie swallowed, forgetting everything for the moment as what felt like static electricity hummed between them. This was ridiculous!

She’d hoped she’d only imagined the electricity.

She hadn’t imagined anything.

He cleared his throat, set his cup down and motioned to the seat across from him. “Why don’t you join me.”

She nodded, purely a reflex action. Besides, she did need to talk to him. Pushing away the butterflies tearing up her stomach, she crossed to his booth, glad her limp had eased up this morning. She slid into the bench across from him and looked him straight in the eye.

No childish infatuation was going to ambush her and muddle her good sense. She had a bigger agenda than this, this infatuation.

Oh, but he did have nice eyes.

In her peripheral vision the two checker players leaned out from their chairs a bit, getting their ears a little closer to the action. Shaking herself again, she smiled at them, even though they hadn’t yet acknowledged her existence. Small towns always did have ears, and they had eyes, too, these two just hadn’t caught on to the fact that she was on to them.