Sarah And The Sheriff

“Drug trafficking shouldn’t be going on anywhere,” Max said flatly. For five years, he’d been serving on a special task force investigating distribution cells that were cropping up in small towns. The less traditional locations were highly difficult to pinpoint.

“You’re right about that,” Sawyer agreed. “Seems as if Weaver is just one more small town to become involved lately.” He tilted his head back, studying the sun that hung low on the horizon. It wasn’t quite evening yet, but the temperature was already dropping. “Much as I hate to admit it, we need help. That’s why I didn’t oppose your assignment here.”

It wasn’t exactly news to Max since he’d have done just about anything to get out of this particular assignment. But he was here now. He’d do his job.

He was a special agent with the DEA and it was one thing that he was usually pretty good at.

“I’m going to need the details about your discrepancies,” he told Matthew.

The other man pulled an envelope out of his down vest and handed it over. “Copies and my notes.”

Max didn’t bother opening it now. He shoved it into his own pocket. “Anything else?”

“Matthew!”

All three men turned at the hail from the house.

“Supper’s on!”

For a moment, Max thought the woman on the porch was Sarah. She bore an uncanny resemblance. But when she turned and went back inside, he didn’t see that waist-length braid.

“Care to stay?” Matt offered. “My wife, Jaimie, is a pretty fine cook.”

“Another reason why I’m out here,” Sawyer admitted. “Bec—my wife—is in Boston on some medical symposium all this week. Been getting tired of my own cooking.”

“Appreciate the offer,” Max said. “But I need to get back to town.”

“At least come in and say hello or Jaimie’ll bug me from now until spring. Everyone in the county wants to greet the new deputy.”

“Sure, until they start remembering the days when I lived here,” Max countered. His father, Tony, might have been the criminal, but Max hadn’t exactly been an altar boy. Getting friendly with the folks of Weaver was not in his plan. He was just there to do a job.

In that way, at least, he could make one thing right with the Clay family.

But after that, he and Eli would be gone.

Still, Max could read Sawyer’s expression well enough. The steely-eyed sheriff expected Max to act neighborly.

“I’d be pleased to say hello,” he said, feeling a tinge of what Eli must have been feeling when Max had lectured him on behaving well.

Matthew wasn’t entirely fooled, as far as Max could tell, as they headed toward the house. They skirted the front porch entirely, going around, instead, to the rear of the house. They went in through the mudroom, and then into the cheery, bright kitchen.

“Don’t get excited, Red,’ cause he’s not staying,” Matthew said as they entered. “But this here’s Sawyer’s new right-hand man, Max Scalise.”

Jaimie rubbed her hands down the front of the apron tied around her slender waist. “Of course. I remember you as a boy, Max.” She took his hand in hers, shaking it warmly. “Genna talks of you often. She always has such fun sharing pictures from her trips out to see you and Eli. I know she must be so pleased that you’re back in Weaver. How is her leg coming along?”

“More slowly than she’d like.”

“Mom, I still can’t find the lace—” Sarah entered the kitchen from the doorway opposite Max, and practically skidded to a halt. “Tablecloths,” she finished. “What’re you doing here?”

“Just picking up some paperwork from the sheriff,” Max said into the silence that her abrupt question caused. “Nice to see you again, Miss Clay.” He looked at Jaimie, who was eyeing him and her daughter with curiosity. “And it was nice to see you, too, ma’am.”

“Give your mother my regards,” Jaimie told him as he stepped toward the mudroom again.

“I’ll do that. Sheriff. Matthew. See you later.”

He was almost at his SUV when he heard footsteps on the gravel drive behind him.

“Max.” Her voice was sharp.

The memory of that voice, husky with sleep, with passion, hovered in the back of his mind. He ought to have memories just as clear about Jennifer.

But he didn’t.

He opened the SUV door and tossed the envelope from Matthew inside on the seat. “Don’t worry, Sarah,” he said, his voice flat. “I’m not trying to run into you every time we turn around.”

She’d taken time only long enough to grab a sweater, and she held it wrapped tight around her shoulders. Tendrils of reddish-blond hair had worked loose from her braid and drifted against her neck. “Believe me,” she said, her tone stiff, “I didn’t once think that you were.” She worked her hand out from beneath the sweater. She held an ivory envelope. “It’s an invitation for your mother to my cousin’s wedding.”

He took the envelope, deliberately brushing her fingers with his.

The action was a double-edged sword, though.

She surrendered the envelope as if it burned her, and the jolt he’d felt left more than his fingertips feeling numb. “Ever heard of postage stamps?”

She didn’t look amused. “Most of the invites are being hand-delivered because the wedding is so soon. Friday after Thanksgiving. We’re all helping out with getting them delivered. Since your mom’s in the same quilting group as Leandra’s mother, they wanted her to have an invitation.”

“Leandra?”

“My cousin. She’s marrying Evan Taggart.”

He remembered their names, of course. Taggart had grown up to become the local vet. Leandra was yet another one of the Clays and, he remembered, Sarah’s favorite cousin. If he wasn’t mistaken, he thought the vet had been on some television show Leandra had been involved with. More proof that Weaver wasn’t quite so “small town” as it once was. “I’ll make sure she gets it.” He tapped the envelope against his palm. “Eli told me what he did today.”

She pulled the dark blue sweater more tightly around her shoulders, and said nothing.

He exhaled, feeling impatience swell inside him. “Dammit, Sarah, at least say something.”

Her ivory face could have been carved from ice. “Be careful driving back to Weaver. Road gets slick at night sometimes.”

Then she turned on her heel, and for the third time that day, she walked away from him.

Chapter Three

Despite Sarah’s hopes, days two, three and four of Eli Scalise were just as bad—or worse—than day one.

He didn’t hit another student with a dodge ball, but he was still miles away from the model of behavior. A conversation with his previous school had told her that this was not the norm where Eli was concerned.

By Thursday, she knew she had to speak with Max about it. She hated the fact that several times throughout the day, she put off calling him. It showed her cowardice.

And since she was supposed to be thoroughly over the man, what did she have to be afraid of?

For another ten minutes or so, her students would still be in the cafeteria, practicing their part in the holiday program they’d present in less than a month. And Sarah had done enough dithering.

Nerves all nicely inflated, she snatched up the phone and dialed the sheriff’s office. But Pamela Rasmussen, her uncle’s newest dispatcher, told her that Max was out on a call.

“I can get a message to him if it’s urgent. His son’s okay, isn’t he?”

Okay was a subjective term, Sarah thought. “It’s not urgent. I’d appreciate you asking him to give me a call when he’s free, though.”

“Sure, Sarah. No prob. So, how are Leandra’s wedding plans coming together?”

“Rapidly.” Sarah was Leandra’s maid of honor. “She’s got so much going on with the start-up of Fresh Horizons that we’re all doing as much as we can to take some of the wedding details off her shoulders.” Fresh Horizons was Leandra’s newly planned speech, physical and occupational therapy program. It would be located at her parents’ horse farm, so they could utilize hippo-therapy as a treatment strategy.

“Wouldn’t mind taking the honeymoon off her shoulders,” Pam said with a laugh. “Think Evan Taggart was one of the last hot bachelors around here. Everyone else seems too young for us. Or too old.”

Sarah had an unwanted image of Max shoot into her brain. She knew he’d turned forty that year. His August birthday was just another one of those details about the man that she couldn’t seem to get out of her head. “Hadn’t really thought about it,” Sarah lied. “Thanks for leaving the message, Pam. Gotta run.”

“You betcha.”

She quickly hung up, then nearly jumped out of her skin when the phone rang right beneath her hand where it still rested on the receiver. She snatched it up. “Sarah Clay.”

“Sounding sort of tense there, Sarah.”

Her breath eked out. “Brody. What’s wrong?”

“Nada. Kid’s fine.”

She looked toward the classroom door. She could hear footsteps outside in the corridor. “Then what are you calling me here for?” She made it a point not to blur the lines between her real life and her other job. It’s the reason she’d been as successful at keeping that other duty under wraps as she had been.

Not even her family knew about it.

“Megan needs more schoolwork. She’s already blown through the materials you left.”

She wasn’t surprised. Her few encounters with Megan Paine had told her the girl was exceptionally bright. “Maybe you should just register her for classes.” Her associate, Brody Paine, hadn’t been entirely thrilled with the idea of homeschooling Megan. Presenting the child as his daughter while under his protection was one thing. Trying to keep the girl up on her schoolwork was another. Not even two months of it had made the man more comfortable with the situation.

“My daughter’s not ready for that. She is still adjusting to her mother’s death.”

Sarah’s nerves tightened a little. That was the cover, but she wasn’t used to Brody using it when it was only the two of them. Which probably meant that Brody wasn’t confident the school’s line was secure.

The man was notoriously paranoid when it came to things like that.

“I see. You know best, I’m sure.” Sarah wasn’t so sure Brody was right on the school attendance, but she wasn’t going to argue with him. He was a trained agent.

She was just a…go between.

It was a position she’d sort of fallen into.

The only good thing to have come out of her time in California. When Coleman Black had approached her, she’d been swayed by his passionate explanation of how a person like her was needed by the agency. She’d believed she’d been abandoned by Max and had just lost their child. She’d needed to count. To matter to this world in ways that had nothing to do with her family, with anyone else but her.

She and Brody had already discussed the matter at length. Who would expect Megan to be in Weaver, after all? That’s what made Sarah’s involvement these past years with the agency work so beautifully. Their charges—children who, for one reason or another needed more protection than could be provided through traditional avenues—could be hidden in plain sight. In Megan’s case, her parents, Simon and Debra Devereaux—both mid-level politicians—had been brutally killed earlier that year. Hollins-Winword had become involved when other means to protect Megan—the only witness—had continually failed. The sight line of Weaver was pretty much off the radar unless you were a local rancher or worked for CeeVid, her uncle Tristan’s gaming software design company.

Nine times now, she’d arranged the houses when Hollins-Winword contacted her.

Another agent—never the same one—came in with their assignment for a while, and then moved on when it was time. She never knew where the children went, only that they’d been found a permanent safe haven.

This time, the agent was Brody Paine. And it was his opinion that ruled, whether she considered him paranoid or not.

The footsteps outside in the hall sounded louder. “I’ll pull some more work together for her. Want me to drive it out to you?” The safe house where Brody was staying with Megan was located about fifteen miles out of town. Located midway between nothing and more nothing.

“I’ll pick it up sometime tomorrow.”

She frowned a little, not liking the alarm that was forming inside her. “Brody—”

“Appreciate your help, Sarah. You’re a good teacher.” He severed the connection.

She slowly replaced the receiver. When she lifted her gaze to the doorway, though, Max Scalise stood there. The sight so surprised her that she actually gasped.

“Didn’t mean to startle you.”

Denying she had been would be foolish. She drew her hand back from the telephone and eyed him. “What are you doing here?”

His eyebrows rose a little. He wore the typical uniform of brown jacket and pants, his radio and badge hanging off his heavy belt that could also sport a weapon and a half-dozen other items, but currently didn’t.

She realized her gaze had focused on his lean hips though, and looked back at his face.

“You left me a message, remember?”

“Barely five minutes ago. I didn’t expect you to show up here.”

He closed the remaining distance between them and picked up the gleaming porcelain apple that she’d been given by a student at the end of last year. “What’d you want to see me about?”

She hadn’t wanted to see him at all. “Eli cheated on his math test today.”

His gaze sharpened on her face. “Eli doesn’t cheat.”

She pushed back from her chair and stood. Sitting there while he towered over her desk just put her at too much of a disadvantage. “Well, he did today. And he did yesterday. During the spelling test. He also tried to turn in another student’s homework as his own.”

A muscle flexed in his jaw, making the angular line even more noticeable. It was only one in the afternoon, yet he already had a blur of a five o’clock shadow. “He doesn’t need to cheat,” he said flatly.

According to her conversation with Eli’s last school, that had been the story, too. Eli’s grades hadn’t been as high as they could be, but they’d been solid. “Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.” She pulled out a slightly wrinkled piece of notebook paper and pointed at the corner where pencil marks had clearly been erased and overwritten with Eli’s name.

“Any kid could have done that.”

She exhaled and reminded herself that Max wasn’t the first parent who didn’t want to acknowledge some imperfection about their child. “Any kid didn’t. Eli did.”

He tossed the paper back on the desk. “Look, I know his first day here wasn’t the best. But he’s promised me that every day since he’s been on his best behavior.”

“And you believe him, unquestioningly?”

“He’s my son.”

She pressed her lips together for a moment. How well she knew that. “Yes, and it doesn’t change the facts,” she finally said, and hated that the words sounded husky. She cleared her throat. “Why don’t we three meet together, later. After school. And we can talk about it then.”

“I don’t have time after school.” He replaced the apple on the desk. “Maybe Eli would be better off with a different teacher.”

Her fingers curled. “I’m the only third grade teacher here.”

For the first time, he showed some sign of frustration. He pushed his long fingers through his short hair, leaving the black-brown strands rumpled. “Damn small town,” he muttered.

Defensiveness swelled inside her. “You’re the one who came back here, Max. Lord only knows why, after all this time.” She felt the warmth in her cheeks and knew they probably looked red.

“I came for my mother’s sake.”

The dam of discretion she ordinarily possessed had sprung a leak, though. “How admirable of you. It’s been once in…how long? Twenty years?” The last time he’d been in Weaver, she’d been all of six years old.

His lips tightened. “Twenty-two years, actually.”

“Like I said.” Her lips twisted. “Admirable.”

“I’m not here to argue with you, Sarah. What happened in California between you and me was a long time ago.”

Seven years. Four months. A handful of days. “If you think I’m holding the fact that you dumped me against your son, you’re way off the mark.”

“I didn’t dump you.”

She gave a short, humorless laugh. “That’s exactly what you did. But it doesn’t matter anymore. I never even think about it.” Liar, liar, pants on fire.

“Then why the hell are you so angry?”

Her lips parted, but no answer came. She’d gotten over angry a very, very long time ago. But the hurt?

That was a much harder row to hoe. Chock-full of boulders and stone-hard dirt.

“Maybe I just don’t understand why my uncle thought you’d be a good choice for deputy,” she finally said.

His well-shaped lips thinned. “I am not my father.”

“No, he just rustled Double-C cattle. You rustled—” She broke off, her face flushing again.

“Rustled what?” He planted his hands on the desk that stood between them and leaned over it. “You?”

She would have backed up if there hadn’t been a wall right behind her. “There’s not anything in Weaver that’ll hold your interest for long. I think you’ll get bored stiff catching the occasional speeder and settling disputes between Norma Cleaver and her neighbor over her dog barking at night, and you’ll take off again, leaving my uncle to find yet another deputy.”

“I think your uncle is capable of deciding whether or not that’s a problem for him.”

“I just don’t like knowing my family is going to be disappointed by you.”

He stifled an oath. “Jesus, Sarah. We saw each other for less than a month. Does it occur to you that you might be overreacting?”

Anger wasn’t beyond her, after all. It curled low and deep inside her like a hot ember.

Mirroring his position, she pressed her hands against the edge of the desk and leaned forward. Close enough to see the individual lashes tangling around his green-brown eyes. To see that the faint crow’s-feet beside those eyes had deepened and that an errant strand of silver threaded through his thick, lustrous hair, right above his left temple. “Dumping me was one thing. Lying to me was another.”

“What, exactly, did I lie about?” he asked, his expression suddenly unreadable.

She could hear the roar of kids coming down the hall. Chorus practice was definitely over. “I’m not interested in giving you a list, Max. What would be the point? You know your own lies better than anyone.” She pushed the homework page that Eli had swiped at him. “Talk to your son,” she said evenly, “about his behavior in school. We need to get this straightened out for his sake.”

“Eli never had trouble in a class until now.”

Meaning this was her fault?

She didn’t reply. If she did, she’d lose her temper for certain.

Chrissy Tanner was the first student to round the classroom door, closely followed by several more, and Sarah was heartily glad to see them.

When Eli skidded around the corner, his eyeballs about bulged out of his head at the sight of his father standing there. He gave Sarah a furtive look as he gave his father a “yo” in greeting and headed to his lone table.

Max looked back at Sarah. The radio at his hip was crackling and he reached for it, automatically turning down the volume. “We’ll finish this later.”

It sounded more like a threat than a promise of parental concern.

And the problem was, Sarah didn’t know what they were to finish discussing. The problems with Eli, or the past.

Once Max departed though, Sarah enjoyed one benefit from his unexpected appearance in her classroom. Eli didn’t do one thing to earn a second glance from her for the remainder of the afternoon. He even offered to help clean up the counters after their science experiment.

She handed him the sponge. “Don’t make me regret this,” she murmured.

He gave her an angelic smile that she wanted to trust.

And aside from flicking water at Chrissy when she began telling him that he was sponging all wrong, he behaved.

In the end, as she was driving out to her aunt Emily’s place later that evening, she decided to look on the afternoon as a success.

By the time she arrived at the horse farm that bordered a portion of the Double-C, Sarah was more than ready to put thoughts of both the Scalise men out of her head. And the evening of wedding planning with Leandra would surely provide enough distraction to do just that.

She didn’t bother knocking on the door at the Clay Farm house. She’d grown up running in and out of Leandra’s house just as comfortably as Lee had run in and out of the big house at the Double-C. The kitchen was empty and she headed through to the soaring great room. There, she hit pay dirt.

Leandra was standing on a chair, long folds of delicate fabric flowing around her legs while her fiancé’s mother, Jolie Taggart, crouched around the hem, studying it closely.

“Looks serious,” Sarah said.

Leandra shot her a harried look. “I never should have thought it was a good idea to wear a wedding gown. Who am I kidding? I’ve already done the whole white wedding thing. People are going to think we’re ridiculous.”

“The only thing people are going to think is that they wish they were as lucky as you, getting married to the person you love.”

Leandra had come back to Weaver only a few months ago to shoot a television show featuring their old friend, Evan Taggart, who was the local veterinarian. The show had been a success, but even more successful was the love they’d managed to find along the way.

“And besides, you’re not wearing white,” Sarah pointed out. “You’re wearing yellow.”

“Hint of Buttercup,” Emily Clay corrected blithely. She sat to one side with Sarah’s mother, Jaimie, watching the fitting. “And if you’d wanted to elope with Evan, you’ve had ample time to do so.”

“Well, thanks for the sympathy, Mom.” But Leandra was smiling faintly, even though she was dragging her fingers through her short, wispy hair. She turned her gaze on Sarah. “I’m telling you. When you get married, just pick the shortest route between you and the preacher, and forget all this folderol.”

“I’d need a date with a man first before I could entertain such lofty notions as marriage.” Sarah dropped the box of soft gold bows that she’d picked up in town on the floor beside her mother and aunt. “We just need to attach the flower sprays with hot glue. Glue guns are in the box, too,” she told them, then looked back at Leandra. “And you’re just stressing because you’re trying to do too many things at once. Put together a wedding in about a month’s time and take care of all the details for Fresh Horizons.”

“Speaking of which—” Leandra jumped on the topic “—I wondered if you’d mind helping me look through the resumes of all the therapists that I’ve received.”

Sarah immediately started to nod, only to stop and eye her cousin suspiciously. “How many are there?”

Leandra lifted her shoulders, looking innocent.

Sarah was reminded of Eli’s habit of making that sort of shrug, accompanied by that sort of look. Usually, when she’d pretty much caught him red-handed at something. “That many, huh?”

“Yeah. Nice problem to have, though, right? We figured it would be hard to find a therapist willing to come to Weaver to staff the program. Even though our focus will be the use of hippotherapy—I mean this is a horse farm, and we’ve got the best pick of animals to train for it—there could well be situations when hippo-therapy isn’t the strategy that the therapist will want to use.” Animation lit her cousin’s features as she lifted her arms to her side. “Anyway, we’ve got a huge stack of resumes to go through. It’s great.”

“Keep still, honey,” Jolie said around a mouthful of stickpins.

Leandra lowered her arms. “Sorry.”

“Good thing your future mother-in-law is better with a needle than I am,” Emily observed, grinning. She, like Jaimie, held a margarita glass in her hand.