“That’s why I’m sheriff,” he said happily. “It’s an autocracy.” He stopped the engine. “You’ve been hanging around those little blue-haired friends of yours too much. Any day now I expect them to bring out their suffragette banners.”

“That’s not very nice, Duke Forrester. Shame on you.”

He smiled, appreciating the sensation of being the bad boy with a bad girl. “I couldn’t boss you even if I wanted to, Liberty Wentworth. You’re far too unquantifiable for that.” Leaning over, he brushed her lips with his. “Of course, I’ll always be bullheaded enough to take what’s mine.”

“That’s it,” Liberty said, getting out of the truck, “you flunked the test.”

“Poor testing parameters, if you ask me.” He took her arm, helping her to the porch. “You and I were made for each other. We’re like an odd shape, not meant to fit another puzzle on the planet.”

“Sounds dreadful.” Liberty knocked on the door. “Mrs. Carmine! Are you home? It’s Liberty Wentworth!”

“I believe that’s my job,” Duke said to her. “And Sheriff Duke Forrester!”

“Sometimes it’s easier for women to talk to women. Especially about things like husbands that run off for days.”

He crooked an eyebrow at her. “One day, our last name is going to be the same, and then we can stand on Mrs. Carmine’s front porch and just holler ‘It’s the Forresters!’”

“Sounds like a movie title. Maybe it is. It was probably a bad one, too,” she said as Mrs. Carmine opened the door.

“No way. Everything about the two of us together is good,” Duke said as Liberty hugged Mrs. Carmine.

“How are you doing?” Liberty asked the elderly lady.

“I’m fine.” She smiled bravely. “I’m just lonely. Would you mind fetching my husband home?” she asked Duke.

It would be a chore searching all the acreage, but one he’d done many times. “A pleasure,” he said, interpreting Liberty’s glare to mean be gracious. “We’ll go right now. Don’t you worry about a thing, Mrs. Carmine. We’ll tell Bug it’s time to get home.”

She nodded. “Thank you. It’s good to see you, Liberty,” she said, her voice quavering. “If I’d known how men like to disappear, I probably wouldn’t have married Bug, as much as I hate to say it.”

Great. That’s all I need—a little help from the “Wish I Hadn’t” club. “Now, Mrs. Carmine,” Duke said patiently, “you know you love Bug.”

“Bug is a pain in my ass,” she declared. “Like a child, always running off.” She looked at Liberty. “You’re lucky Duke is such a stalwart sort.”

Duke enjoyed the blush pinkening Liberty’s face. It was good for Liberty to know that other women considered him a catch!

“Of course, stalwart can be boring,” Mrs. Carmine said with a frown. “If I was your age again, I’d run off with an Italian lover or a Russian circus performer first. Then I might settle down. Might.”

Liberty blinked. “Let me fix you a cup of hot tea, Mrs. Carmine.”

“No.” A sigh so deep it made her pinafore rise escaped her. “You just go find my Bug before I get the urge to squash him.”

Liberty hugged the older woman, then walked out the front door Duke held open for her.

“Now don’t go getting any ideas,” Duke said. “It’s well-known that the Carmines married very young.”

“Her words are food for thought, though,” Liberty said.

“Try a diet,” Duke said. “Some foods aren’t healthy for you.”

Liberty got in the truck. “Then again, sometimes the food you like most is the least healthy for you.”

He turned to look at her before grabbing her shoulders and kissing her hard. “How’s that for an appetizer?” he asked after he’d thoroughly ravaged her mouth.

She raised her chin and gave him a haughty look. “So good I prefer to skip the main course.”

He rammed his hat down on his head, not sure what to say to that. What was wrong with her? Women didn’t push him away as hard as Liberty was doing. Driving down the hill into the back pasture, he considered his options where Liberty was concerned.

He didn’t appear to have many.

“Duke, when do you run for reelection?”

The change of subject startled him. “I don’t really run. No one else wants the job. I’ve always been a shoo-in.”

“When does that happen?”

“I suppose the elections are this month. I hadn’t really thought about it.” He began to scan the landscape for Bug. “You look on that side, I’ll look over here.”

He thought about her question and idly wondered what had brought her back to town. “Are you running?”

She looked at him. “From you?”

“For sheriff,” he stated flatly, his jaw tightening. Did she have to bring that up again?

“Oh, no. I heard your brother Zach was. Then I heard your sister Pepper was, but that’s silly. Pepper’s not here.”

His jaw untightened and went slack. “Where did you hear that?”

“At the saloon.”

“They haven’t told me.”

“Actually, what I think I heard is that the ladies have decided to petition them onto the ballot.”

“The ladies?” Duke demanded. “By that you mean the little group that’s constantly scheming.” He was slightly hurt, he had to admit. The “ladies” always conspired against him, but it was usually in a somewhat delightful spirit that he indulged. They were, after all, much older than he and deserved his respect.

But petitioning his siblings onto a ballot to run against him didn’t sound like something he cared to indulge. He kept looking for Bug, trying to ignore the hammering in his heart.

“All the ladies,” she clarified. “At least the ones who were in attendance at today’s Ladies Only Day.”

“I knew that was a bad idea. If the men had been there, the gang would have been soundly overruled.” He scratched his chin, aware that he was beginning to sound truculent. He softened his tone. “You still haven’t told me what you were doing wearing the dress you were supposed to wear to our wedding. I have fond memories of you trying it on and letting me button those tiny little buttons.”

He had taken his sweet time doing so, enjoying touching her and looking down at her bare shoulders. She was the smoothest, softest thing he’d ever seen.

“The ladies were trying to convince me that it was a good idea to marry you,” Liberty said. “I had a weak moment.”

“Ouch.”

“No! I didn’t mean that. I meant that I allowed them to coerce me into trying it on.” She put a hand on his arm. “Duke, it wasn’t you as much as it was me, really and truly.”

“You spend too much time around women, listening to them gripe about their men,” he said gruffly, “and it scared you.”

“No, frankly just the thought of marrying you spooked me.” She sighed. “You can’t blame them. I had my own doubts.”

“I’m not so terrible,” he complained.

She turned away. “You’ll be wonderful for the right woman.”

“You are the right woman!” he roared. “Or at least you would be if you’d act right.”

“Duke,” she said, “we’d end up like the Carmines.”

“Only you’d be the one running off. Even Mrs. Carmine said I’m stalwart.” He was proud of that. “By the way, you still look good enough to eat in that dress. It always reminds me of a big, fluffy piece of Ms. Pansy’s divinity when I see you in it.”

“Ugh. I’m not sure that’s what it was supposed to evoke.”

“I like dessert, so the dress was perfect, in my opinion.”

“There he is,” Liberty said, pointing.

Duke slowed the truck as he saw the old man sitting propped against a tree, watching ducks fly overhead. His rifle was on the ground next to him but the elderly man didn’t have a hand on it. He appeared to be watching the wedge of ducks as they flew, perfectly content to enjoy the silence and the heat of the day. “He doesn’t look ready to go home.”

“You tell him,” Liberty said. “I’m not in a position to tell someone they should return home.”

“You got that right,” Duke said, “and I might remind you, based on the popular opinion of my stalwartness, you should tell your lady friends that their idea to write Zach and Pepper into the ballot hurt my feelings.”

Liberty laughed. Then she saw the seriousness of his face as he parked the truck. “Did it really?”

“Yes, damn it.” He switched off the engine, keeping an eye on Mr. Carmine. “How would you feel if you knew all your townfolk that you’d sworn to serve and protect were always conspiring against you?”

“It’s not actually against you,” Liberty said, but Duke waved her comforting words aside.

“Sure it is. They’ve got some bee in their bonnets over something. Like I haven’t given in to them enough. They wanted to change the name of the town to reflect the Dutch ancestry of the settlers, so I agreed. They wanted to change the name of a perfectly good establishment to make it more of a tourist attraction, and I agreed to that, with great reservation. Now they’re trying to run me out by writing in my siblings’ names—one of whom hasn’t been here in a year—with their little wizened hands. Judases!” He frowned. “Or would that be Jezebels?”

“Oh, gosh.” Liberty got out of the truck. “Duke, come on. We’ve got a job to do.”

He got out, his heart heavy. What was the matter with all the females in his world? Clearly none of them cared that he was so easy to get along with.

It wasn’t fair.

“Hello, Mr. Carmine,” he said.

“Howdy, Sheriff,” Bug said, not surprised to see him at all. “Nice day, isn’t it?” He nodded to Liberty. “Glad to see you back in town, girl.”

Liberty sat next to him. She picked up his bottle, which looked empty and probably had been for some time. From her jeans pocket, she pulled out a package of spearmint gum, and they each had a piece. Duke raised an eyebrow, watching this silent communication.

“Mrs. Carmine is wondering about you,” Duke said.

Bug looked back at the sky as if searching for the ducks he’d been watching before. But they were long gone and only small white clouds trailed across the blue in cumulus strings. Bug’s gaze came to rest on Duke. “How’s your jail, Sheriff?”

“It’s a jail,” Duke said. “And occupied,” he continued quickly, in case Bug was looking for a place to stay. “Mr. Parsons is still in residence.”

Bug nodded. “Marriage is a jail, and I’m still in residence, too.”

Liberty shot a worried glance at Duke. He remained silent. Maybe his powers of communication weren’t quite what he’d thought they’d been.

Liberty stood, putting her hand out to Mr. Carmine. After a moment, Bug took her hand and lifted himself to his feet, giving all appearances of using Liberty’s strength as emotional support. Duke watched as the two of them headed to the truck. Bug silently settled himself into the back seat of the double cab. Liberty nodded at him, telling him they were ready to go, so he got behind the wheel and drove back to the ranch house.

Mrs. Carmine came out onto the porch, her face lit with a gentle smile. Bug got out of the truck, and walked toward the house, where he was enveloped in a big hug he seemed happy to return. The two of them went inside the house arm in arm and closed the front door.

Duke blinked. Checking the back seat, he saw Bug’s shotgun and empty whiskey bottle.

“He won’t need the gun ’til next time,” Liberty said. “Why don’t you just keep it with you at the jail for now? He’ll come get it soon enough.”

He didn’t understand any of what had just happened. But Liberty seemed to, and he was happy to take her suggestion. “What happens now?”

She shrugged. “Now Mrs. Carmine ignores that he went away because she loves him, and he ignores the fact that he’s unhappy because it’s not her fault.”

What a prison. A curse, maybe. Like something out of a Grimm’s fairy tale. Duke plucked at the steering wheel. Maybe Liberty was on to something where they were concerned, though he was hard-pressed to admit it.

Still, he didn’t want her to ever think marriage to him was a jail, though Mr. Parsons seemed to like his own prison well enough. “Ye gods, you people are hard to live with,” he said, and Liberty looked at him.

“So?” she asked. “Your conclusion?”

“That you’re right,” he said slowly. “There really is no happy ending.”

“I think not,” Liberty said, “which is a very scary thought.”

“Damn,” Duke said. “I need to get home and feed my dog.” He started the engine, glad to have an excuse to hurry back to town.

“I thought Mr. Parsons took care of Molly-Jimbo.”

“He feeds her peanuts as a snack,” Duke said righteously. “I want to make certain I head him off at the pass.”

“Does she like the peanuts?”

“Molly likes anything that comes from a human hand.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Liberty asked.

“I don’t like it. A dog should eat dry dog food.”

Liberty raised a brow. “Duke, do you ever bend the rules?”

“No,” Duke said, surprised. “If I did, I wouldn’t be sheriff, would I? At least not a very good one.”

Liberty turned her head to look out the opposite window. “I suppose not.”

They rode in silence until they reached the town square.

“Please drop me off at the Tulips Saloon,” Liberty said.

“It should be closed. No one will be there.”

“I have a key,” Liberty said.

“A key?”

“Yes. Of course. I am one of the co-owners of the saloon,” she said. “Along with Pansy and Helen and a few others, as you very well know. It was our gift to ourselves, a woman-owned business.”

“And a questionable one at that,” Duke grumbled, griping because he knew full-well that the ladies had been catching tourists who came to town with their stained-glass-decorated monument to femininity and womanhood. “I just thought that perhaps since you’d left town, maybe you’d given up your key.”

She looked at him for a long moment, long enough to make his heart shrivel. God, how he wanted to kiss her again, kiss her the way they used to kiss, without worry or hurry or anything more than intense pleasure on their minds.

“I guess you were the only person who thought I’d never come back,” Liberty finally said. She got out of the truck and closed the door, not looking back. The door to the saloon opened for her, and Helen and Pansy peered out at him before snatching Liberty inside and slamming the door.

Heaven only knew how he’d become the villain.

Chapter Three

Duke was proud of three things in his life: his family, his job and his reputation. He loved his sister, Pepper, and his brother, Zach, so it hurt that they might be part of the blue-haired angels’ plan to oust him from the vocation of which he was most proud. All of this directly impacted his reputation, which was bad enough. The root cause of the problem, he realized, was the woman he loved.

He had a plan for dealing with Liberty Wentworth-who-should-be-Forrester-by-now. A taste of her own medicine was what she needed. If he could straighten her bent ways, then all the rest of the crooked line that had become his life would return to being straight-as-an-arrow predictable as the road to the Forrester homestead, on which he was now driving with his traitorous brother.

“Maybe,” Zach said, watching Duke glare out the windshield, “you should talk to the ladies. They’ll have insights into your female issues.”

Duke pinned him with the glare. “Zach, do not violate the bachelor code.”

“Is there one?”

“Hell, yes. Bachelors only commiserate with each other. They never, ever side with the enemy.”

“Since when are women the enemy? I like them,” Zach said. “I’ve got two dates this weekend.”

“I’ve got the Tulips Saloon Gang banded together against me with their dolly faces and their innocently spindly frames. I need backup, please, so don’t give me any more advice like that. It just doesn’t help.”

“Spindly?” Zach repeated with a laugh.

“Yes,” Duke said, “how can anyone put up a good fight against such frail and fragile creatures?”

Zach shook his head.

“And I want to know how much a part of their newest plot you are,” Duke said indignantly. “And don’t act like it’s news to you, because they’ve already told me about The Plot.”

His brother grinned. “We just think you might need a vacation, Duke. Of the honeymoon variety. Take some time off. Start a family.”

“Did I ask anyone’s advice?” Duke abruptly braked to a stop in front of the house, sending up clouds of dust. He turned to face his brother for dramatic impact so Zach would know he’d really stepped over the line this time. “I don’t want to start a family, thank you. And I like my job a lot. It’s never boring.” He thought about that for a moment. “In fact, it’s downright exciting, a cross between Peyton Place and Petticoat Junction.”

Zach slapped him on the back. “It was Pepper’s idea.”

Duke gestured toward the old house. “Pepper doesn’t even live here!”

“Actually, she does now,” Zach said, pointing to an upstairs window where their little sister waved at them with something that looked vaguely like a butterfly net.

“Did she come home to hunt insects?” Duke asked.

“I believe that was a Victoria’s Secret undergarment,” Zach said, amused. “Not that I’m surprised you didn’t know.”

“Why would she wave that out the window?”

Zach laughed. “Because she’s crazy and it was what she was holding at the time we pulled up. She’s unpacking her suitcase, dummy. How ’bout you go give her a proper brotherly greeting and act like you’re happy she’s back after all these years?”

“But selfishly, I’m not,” Duke said, following Zach, though he knew in his heart he was glad. “If the only reason she’s come home is to conspire and plot—”

“Duke, everybody conspires and plots with Helen and Pansy and the rest of them. Even you do. So let it go.”

Duke didn’t like that, but there was a bit of truth to the comment, so he did what he wanted to do, which was take the stairs three at a time and grab his sister in a bear hug. “I’m so glad you’re home,” he said. “You can cook my dinner.”

Pepper laughed and gave him a smart kick in the shin. “No deal. You are cooking mine. I’m the weary traveler.”

She looked anything but weary. “You were gone too long,” he told her.

“I was here for your wedding,” she said. “February wasn’t that long ago.”

He frowned at her. “I meant…you know what? You’re as bad as Zach. You just want to argue!”

She put her arm through his. “I like arguing with you. Your face gets all red. And you make such an easy target because you have so many opinions.”

He shook his head, liking how she linked her arm through his and led him down the stairs. Sometimes Liberty was soft with him like this, too, and he always melted for women who knew how to work him. Not that that was particularly a good thing. A man had to watch women who plotted against him. Even his dog knew he was a softie.

“Please tell me you didn’t return to run for my office.”

“I didn’t, although something was mentioned to me about it, I will admit,” Pepper said. “But I have bigger things in mind.”

“Great,” Duke said. “Tulips needs fresh blood.

Where are you going?”

“Into town,” she said, grabbing a gaily wrapped present off the entryway table.

“Hey, I’ll drive you,” he said. “Bye, Zach.

Thanks for the pep talk.”

Zach laughed, appreciating the sarcasm. “Any time.”

Molly, who had come along for the ride, leaped into the truck bed, a blur of golden beauty. “She loves you,” Pepper said.

“When it suits her,” Duke said, starting the engine. “Who’s the present for?”

“Someone special,” Pepper replied, with a teasing smile. “Drive and mind your own business.”

“Not as if I won’t know eventually. There are no secrets in this town.”

Pepper laughed. “The hell there aren’t. Tulips is charmingly secretive.”

He frowned. “I’ve always found it to be annoyingly busybody.”

“Duke,” Pepper said, “one day you’re going to have to accept where you live. And the people you live with.”

“I do. I’m the sheriff, aren’t I?”

“This is a woman’s town. You should feel lucky.

You get good food, good gossip and lots of drama.

All the ladies suck up to you.”

“Not anymore. Liberty ruined it,” he said.

“Now all the women treat me as if I contain a polar charge. They bounce away any time I get close.” He frowned. “It’s not fair. Zach has two dates this weekend, and all I want is one.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Duke said, not wanting to talk about it anymore. He wasn’t going to get the date he wanted, so that left him with the option of moping or getting over it, and he always preferred to get over whatever needed getting over. “But I’ve got a plan to straighten out Miss Liberty.”

“You do?”

He was pleased by the surprise in his sister’s tone. “Yes. She wants to play hard-to-get. I will be harder-to-get. And I may even date other women, if necessary.”

“To make her jealous?”

He scratched at his chin, not certain Liberty would be jealous. “Just to let her know she’s not the only girl around.”

“Oh. Okay.”

As they pulled up in front of the Tulips Saloon, a melodic sound tinkled through the truck, sounding very much like a wind-up lullaby. Duke listened for a moment, unable to place where the sound was coming from. “Your cell phone?”

Pepper hesitated a moment. “It sounded like a cell phone, didn’t it?” She smoothed the fancy pink-and-blue ribbon on the big box in her lap.

“You going to answer it?”

“I don’t think so. Not right now.”

The music stopped, so Duke shrugged. “Well, they’ll call again.”

“No doubt they will,” Pepper murmured. “Thanks for the ride.” She kissed his cheek and got out of the truck. He waited while she patted Molly, who then decided to follow Pepper into the saloon, much to his chagrin. The dog was completely faithless, a Pied Piper to whomever petted her.

A moment later, Pansy and Helen disappeared inside the doors of the saloon, also carrying wrapped presents. Then in his rearview mirror he saw Valentine pushing a white wicker pram on huge wheels and walking alongside a rangy cowboy—the kind who made the girls squirm and swoon at rodeos. He carried a large cake in his big arms. They, too, went into the Tulips Saloon.

“It isn’t Ladies Only Day,” Duke declared to no one but himself. He drummed the steering wheel, straightening when Holt the hairdresser also went inside. It appeared that there was a party, one to which he had not been invited, which gnawed at his already rough feelings. What in the hell was going on in there?

There were more arrivals, including Mr. Parsons and Mr. Carmine, who looked around with surreptitious glances to make certain they weren’t seen before slipping inside as well. Duke blinked. They hadn’t been carrying presents, but… The Plot! Of course, The Plot. The townspeople really were working to unseat him! “What did I do to deserve this?” he asked himself. There was nothing for him to do but slink back to his jailhouse and try to ignore the fact that it was utterly empty for once. He could clean out a filing cabinet. Hell, for that matter, he could dust his cactus and maybe check the mailbox, not that there was ever much of anything in it.

He hated it when conspiracies brewed around him. But he drove across the square, parked at the jail and got out, morosely glancing over his shoulder at the Tulips Saloon.

Just then he saw the biggest traitor of them all sneak through the stained-glass doors like a garden snake into a watering can—Zach. His own brother!

No doubt Liberty was in there. Of course she was. She would be right in the thick of the action, surrounded by her friends.

He felt the urge to cross the street and crash the party, feigning that his invitation had been misplaced. Maybe it had been? But his sister would have dragged him in, at least, if she’d thought he’d been invited, which meant he most definitely had not.

And he’d vowed to stay clear of Liberty, to give her a taste of her own medicine.

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