Learning To Trust

“Family’s a good thing.”

She hoped so.

Her mother had kicked her aunt out of the house when Christa was twelve. They’d emigrated from Guatemala before Christa was born. Her mother had come to America to give her three-year-old sister and her unborn child a chance at a new life. She’d sacrificed so much to offer a clear, clean future, but neither she nor her aunt had respected that as a teen.

Christa was sorry for that now. It was too late to make it up to her late mother, but maybe she and Marta could make a difference together. She eased out the door and started toward her classroom.

“Ms. Alero.”

That voice. Kind, yet commanding.

She’d seen the election posters that had popped up around town the past few days. Now she could put a face to the Tug Moyer for Sheriff signs dotting many front lawns.

Evangeline’s good-looking father wasn’t only a local deputy. He was running for county sheriff, and that position could make him privy to all kinds of information. Like why she had a juvenile record back in California.

She turned and looked at him.

He met her gaze with such a sincere expression that her heart almost melted, but not quite. “Yes?”

He fell into step beside her, as if he cared that she was needed in her classroom and didn’t want to hold her up. “I truly am sorry about this. Impressed, too.” He slanted her a grin and she had to work hard to ignore the way her heart jumped again. “Vangie’s a quick learner, and I’m her project-of-the-day, it seems.”

The fairly laid-back assessment tweaked her. “Project-of-the-day?”

“In her quest for total world domination, my daughter is pretty sure she can fix things if people would simply listen to her.”

His frank words drew her smile. “A lady boss.”

The title deepened the laugh lines around his eyes. “Exactly. And it will be fine with me when she moves on from the current quest because I’m pretty much a lost cause in the romance department.”

She was about to do a mental eye roll because that was about the cheesiest line she’d ever heard, and she’d heard her share over the last few years…

But then he went on.

“We lost her mom three years ago.”

The revelation sparked her sympathy. “I’m so sorry.”

He acknowledged her words with a look of appreciation. “Thank you. I won’t pretend it’s been easy, but other than the current debacle,” he added frankly as they neared her door, “we’re doing all right on our own. And while I hate to disappoint my resident matchmaker, that’s how it’s going to stay. I’ve got enough on my plate. As you can plainly see.”

They’d reached her classroom.

She paused.

So did he.

And when she looked up and met his gaze, she read the sorrow and sincerity there, and that expression was enough to make her wish he’d give romance a second chance.

Chapter Two

Tug’s mother had texted him that their house was surrounded by reporters from all over the Pacific Northwest. He could either face them now or face them tomorrow when his work was done and he’d had time to sleep. The thought of saying something stupid that might cost him the election made the decision for him.

Tomorrow won.

He drove toward the O’Laughlins’ apple farm, then pulled into what used to be Libby Creighton’s driveway. Libby had gotten married last year, and the hands-on exhibit farm was already knee-deep in early-September apples, but no one would expect the Moyers to be staying in the vacant bungalow-style home. The press had staked themselves outside his house and his parents’ place. His parents had sold their farm to a major fruit conglomerate after his dad’s heart attack, but their former orchard abutted the O’Laughlins’. Once a neighbor in Central Washington, always a neighbor. It was a good place to hide in plain sight. He was glad his mother had thought to call Libby and arrange things so they could avoid the onslaught of sudden interest in his private life.

His aunt Grace was waiting at the side door. “I know you’ve got things to do,” she told him as the kids hopped out of the unmarked car he’d borrowed from the station. “I’ll watch these guys tonight. We’ve got folks going in and out of your parents’ house to keep the press occupied.”

“Decoys? Mom’s idea, I expect.”

“Always looking out for folks,” Grace told him with a laugh. “Two morning shows are already requesting interviews. And I expect there will be plenty more.”

That brought his chin up after kissing the kids goodbye. “Interviews?”

“I forgot.” She waved her hands as she talked, totally animated 24/7. “You’re never around to see the morning news. They love anything nice that goes viral. It might be something to think about. It could be a great shout-out for your teen ministry. That’s if we don’t kill Vangie first,” she added cheerfully as the eight-year-old hurried by her. “That would change the story, I expect.”

“Auntie…” Vangie tipped the sweetest of smiles up to her aunt. “Really?”

“Oh, we’ll let you live, darling, but only because you are a delightful package of beauty, brains and tenacity, and I happen to like all three,” Grace assured her. “I’ll leave the scolding to others because I loved that video, Evangeline. I may have shared it a few times myself.”

“Aunt Grace.” Tug frowned purposely, but had to bite back a grin.

“Go on in, you two,” Grace directed the kids. “I’ll be right there. I made mac and cheese for supper,” she continued once the kids were out of earshot. “I’m keeping them inside tonight even though it’s nice out. Just so no one happens to see Evangeline and notifies the press. Libby’s at the old barn up the road and she said we can use the house as long as we need to.” Libby and her husband, Jax McClaren, had turned her family farm into an old-fashioned hands-on facility over the past year. In the middle of huge commercial fruit farms and orchards, O’Laughlin Farms offered folks a chance to step back into simpler times.

“I’m grateful.” Things would die down eventually. They always did, but the outpouring of affection for Vangie’s plea was astronomical. Now he needed to keep everyone safe—including his own children—while reporters and strangers milled around their small town. And while he considered both sides of his new school assignment. “I’m going to the station house to take care of some paperwork. I’ll be back soon.”

“I’ve got this,” Aunt Grace said.

He knew she did. He was blessed with great family. His wife Hadley’s parents had relocated to Arizona before she’d passed away, but his whole family loved being part of the kids’ lives. It meant a lot to him to have his children surrounded by so much love.

Tug called Jubilee Samson’s number as he drove to the station, then asked about the boys when the social worker answered. “It’s Tug Moyer, Jubilee. How are the little guys doing?”

“Well enough,” she replied. “The hospital is releasing them to an emergency foster-care placement for overnight and I’m searching for family. Jeremy’s hanging in there, but little Jonah is beside himself. He just keeps crying for his mama and no one seems to know where she is.”

That could mean several things. If the kids were the children of an undocumented immigrant, the paper trail thinned quickly. And finding them with an addict who had a long rap sheet wasn’t normal. No one would intentionally leave their children with someone like that. Given the circumstances, he’d be surprised if their mother turned up happy and whole anywhere, and that thought made him sad. “Was the guy with the gun their father?”

“No,” she replied. “And no trace of the mother. He didn’t make it, by the way.”

Tug sighed. He loved his job, but he didn’t love that kind of outcome. Losing someone to anger or depression or desperation never sat right, even when the guy had a fairly lengthy criminal record.

“But you and Renzo got the boys out before the guy turned the gun,” she continued.

Renzo Calloway was his partner and best friend. Long before they’d become deputy sheriffs, they’d been joined in friendship as both sets of their parents reached out to foster kids throughout the county. Tug’s parents paused their fostering efforts when his father developed a heart problem, but Renzo’s mother had taken on orphaned triplets a few years before. Vangie and Nathan thought the identical girls were an oddity at first. But now they were just three kids who happened to look alike.

“You saved the boys’ lives,” Jubilee added. “You did good, Tug.”

Something to thank God for, right there. It broke his heart to have little children involved in death and disaster. Children were so special. So dear. Each one a gift from God. “I wish we could save everyone, Jubilee.”

“That poor soul had a long history with the Quincy police, according to what I’ve seen. He’s been on the down side of life and the high side of drugs for a long time. How he ended up in that house with those little ones is anyone’s guess. I’m hoping this was an aberration and that their mother shows up healthy and whole.”

Would a mother who loved her children leave them in that situation? Tug couldn’t imagine it, but that was a topic for another day. “Keep me posted, okay? I want to make sure they’re safe and sound and together.” Recently it had been difficult to find families willing to take multiple kids for foster-care placement. The Calloways and the Moyers had always been exceptions to that rule. If these little fellows were brothers, he didn’t want to see them separated.

He filled out the required forms at the station house as he considered appropriate forms of punishment for Evangeline. Except…

Her little ruse amazed him. Yes, she’d created a spectacle. He knew she didn’t comprehend the far-reaching effects of social media. She saw the thousands of likes and shares on his posts, but a girl her age couldn’t comprehend these out-of-the-stratosphere numbers on his social-media account. He’d never had one of his videos snowball like this.

For a kid her age to have that much gumption and initiative was mind-boggling. It was wrong, yes. But how many eight-year-olds could execute a plan like that in the thirty minutes she and her brother were at their grandparents’ house this morning?

The kid showed promise. It was kind of a shame to clip her wings, but he was the parent. Therefore, that fell into his wheelhouse.

Aunt Grace called a few minutes later. “I promised the monsters they could say good-night to you.”

He laughed. So did they. Nathan burbled with joy, such a happy child. And Vangie had already moved on to something else after watching a nature show about the effects of plastic on sea waters. She’d worked on fixing his marital status that morning. Now she was ready to protect the world’s oceans. All in a day’s work, it seemed.

He loved them. He loved them so much that he couldn’t imagine life without them. Hadley had left them far too soon. She’d lost out on years of hugs and kisses, so when he did those things, he did them for two. Every embrace and cherished moment wasn’t just for him, but for their mama in Heaven. A woman who was too busy to take care of herself because he was too busy being cop-of-the-year.

He tamped down the guilt that threatened to overflow from deep inside him.

Tomorrow he’d check on the boys again. Make sure they were all right. When he’d plowed through the pile of paperwork related to their case, he grabbed a burger at a drive-through in Quincy, ate it on his way home and pulled into the small parking area outside the O’Laughlin farmhouse.

He hadn’t been followed. He’d checked deliberately. If he could get a good night’s sleep, he’d tackle reporters in the morning. He hugged his aunt, sent her on her way and slept on the comfy sofa in the living room. He’d don his superhero uniform first thing in the morning, but for tonight…

Tonight he slept.

Christa steered her car around the throngs of reporters lining the street and eased into a space in the teacher’s parking area. Deputies had moved the reporters off school grounds, so it wasn’t quite the fiasco they’d faced yesterday. She was grateful for that. As she stepped out of the car and took a deep breath of fresh, clean country air, she realized there was a whole list of things to thank God for up here.

Central Washington wasn’t like any other place she’d known. While she’d never lived in a small town, she was pretty sure she’d fallen in love the first day she got here, and that was an amazing feeling. Once she settled in, she’d make a concerted effort to find her aunt Marta. The Quincy address Marta had sent years ago had been a dead end, and there hadn’t been time to delve further while starting her new job and setting up her classroom, but she’d give it a try this weekend. If Marta still lived here, Christa wanted the chance to get to know her, without all the drama that had surrounded them as youngsters. Was it silly to long for a nice, normal American family existence, like the ones she saw on TV?

She hoped not.

She slung her heavy canvas teaching bag over her head and shoulder, then lifted the science box from her back seat as an SUV backed in next to her. She had no free hands, so she hip-checked the door to close it, then moved forward.

Her neck jerked back.

The full book bag slid backward, weighing her down. When she tried to loosen the weight on her throat by taking her right hand off the heavy box, the box tipped precariously.

She tried pulling at the strap to ease the strain.

That maneuver only tightened the noose around her neck, and she couldn’t bend low enough to set the science box down. Dropping it was out of the question. She’d spent nearly two-hundred-and-fifty dollars on those microscopes and lenses. They wouldn’t survive the fall to the asphalt. But she was trapped by the closed, locked door that had caught her strap, with no way to get her key fob to unlock it unless she dropped the box.

“Oh, this isn’t good.”

That voice again, a ripe blend of amusement and chagrin.

“Hang on, Ms. Alero. Let me take the box. Vangie, hold your brother’s hand and go straight into the school.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

Tug didn’t just lift the box from her hands. He realized instantly that the strap was choking her and he slid one big, strong hand beneath the tightly woven canvas strap and pulled it toward him to release the strain on her throat while he grabbed the science box with his left hand. Spiced aftershave made her long to draw closer. Breathe deeper. But the current predicament made both impossible, which was probably a good thing. He gripped and pulled the canvas strap a little farther. “Can you duck under?”

She couldn’t find her voice to say yes. She nodded and slipped beneath the strap. Then she grabbed her key from her pocket and hit the unlock button on the fob. A pain shot through her chest when she tried to draw a breath.

That surprised her, but when she realized how short the free end of the strap was, she understood why she’d been gasping for air. She jerked the door open.

The snagged strap fell free. She closed the door again, hit the lock button and turned.

Whoa.

He was watching her with worried eyes. Eyes that went straight to the heart and maybe even the soul. Eyes that drew her even more than the spiced autumn scent surrounding her.

“That was a close call, ma’am.” Concern deepened his gaze further. “If I was setting up an accidental death scene, I would never have thought about this particular combination.”

The ma’am was cute. Colloquial. Like old-time Mayberry stuff. It would be so easy to flirt with him. See how much of that charisma was genuine. But she hadn’t come to town with the goal of ruining someone’s political career, and new sheriffs and old felons weren’t a good mix, and he’d already made his lack of options known. End of story.

“You could have dropped the box.” He raised the container slightly. “Things are replaceable. You aren’t.”

“Too much invested in that box,” she replied as she pulled the bag back up. She didn’t feed the strap over her head this time. Over her shoulder would be good enough. Her voice rasped slightly when she spoke. The sound made him frown.

“That strangle did a number on you. You should go to the nurse,” he advised. He fell into step beside her, and even though the entire crowd of reporters was shouting his name and pressing against the police tape that someone had erected to keep them off school property, he kept his gaze on her and still managed to get the door open with his free hand without glancing away. “What if it did internal damage or something?”

“I’m fine.” She took a deep cleansing breath and the next words came easier. “Just a little shaken that something like that could happen. I would have never imagined it. Thank you, Deputy.”

“Tug,” he told her. “Just doing my job.” He brushed it off as if he went around saving people from rogue bag straps on a regular basis. He winked and smiled, which only managed to send her thoughts straight back to the flirting that couldn’t possibly happen, while he saluted Mrs. Harrington at the main entrance desk. “Good morning, Miss Ivy.”

The elderly woman hurried around the curved desk and threw her arms around him. “Tug, I’m thrilled that you’re going to be working here! There’s a group over at the middle school that bears watching. They’ve been trying to mess with some of our fifth and sixth graders, and not much has been done.”

“Mrs. Menendez told me about the gang symbols in the boys’ bathrooms,” he replied. “I’ll keep my eye on things. We’ll figure out what’s going on and see what we can do to stop it.”

“Riffraff from the coast, that’s what’s going on,” complained the old woman. “Bringing drugs to small towns. It’s not right, Tug. It’s just not right.”

Christa didn’t stick around to hear his reply, because she was some of that coastal riffraff. It wasn’t wrong for a town to protect itself, but was this a common assumption here? That everyone who came from a troubled past was suspect?

She’d broken free with the help and inspiration of some wonderful teachers. Now she wanted to do the same for others. This section of Central Washington had a more diverse population than the state as a whole. Here she could begin anew and inspire children. That was her goal.

Broad footsteps followed her down the hall. She didn’t have to turn to know who was approaching. When she turned into her classroom, Evangeline’s eyes lit up. “Daddy!”

He came in behind Christa, set the science box down, then hugged his daughter. “You be good, smart and respectful because right now I have to go outside and face those reporters, young lady.”

She peeked up at him, guilty.

“And then I’ll be here on school grounds for the foreseeable future. Here’s my cell number.” He raised his gaze to include Christa as he handed her a slip of paper. “Just in case.”

The hot cop’s cell number.

The born romantic in her loved the notion.

The pragmatic woman with a record knew better.

But when he touched his daughter’s head and said, “I love you, Vangie. You are the very best of your mama and me put together, and she’d be proud of your initiative,” she heard the longing in his voice.

And that touched her even more than his magnificent smile.

Chapter Three

“Here he comes!”

A female voice announced Tug’s appearance as he crossed the wide driveway leading to the school’s drop-off areas. A host of voices began hurling questions his way, and when it seemed more like mayhem than an interview, he raised his hands for quiet.

Surprisingly, most of them hushed up. “I have ten minutes,” he told them. “Let’s not waste them. I’m sure you’ve all got the basics on me because it’s public record, so let’s start with you.” He motioned toward a middle-aged woman with short spiky hair.

“Two questions,” she announced briskly. “One, do you intend to let your daughter live—”

A soft chorus of laughter rolled through the group of reporters.

“And two, why would a sheriff train a child on how to use a dangerous instrument like the internet?”

“She’s alive and well thus far,” he replied and didn’t soften the droll note to his voice. “And while I didn’t train her, I did teach her how to shoot videos to send to her grandparents who live out of town. That way they stay in touch with her visually. The ease of social media did the rest because my mother had my vlogging app on her phone.”

“For your teen-empowerment videos?”

“Correct.”

“Are you searching for a wife, Deputy?”

That came from a man a little farther back, and the entire group seemed to wait for his reply. He gave them a rueful grin as he scrubbed a hand to the back of his neck. “I’m not.”

“And yet we have a list of women who would love to meet you,” stated a local reporter. She raised a sheet of paper in her free hand. He recognized her from the midday news that was often on in the station-house break room.

“Please tell me you’re kidding.”

She made a face at him. “Not kidding. And some of the comments have gone viral, as well. You’ve become a meme.”

He’d thought this couldn’t get worse.

It just had.

“There are worse things I could be, I suppose. But I had not figured on being a meme, so that’s something new.”

“Deputy,” a middle-aged man he didn’t recognize called out from the back of the group. “There is speculation that you put her up to this to garner more local votes in the November election. Is there a grain of truth in that? The timing does make it suspicious.”

The hairs along the back of Tug’s neck stood up.

No one who knew him, or Evangeline, would think that, but Ross Converse, the other candidate for sheriff, liked to throw shade. Ross was fairly new to the Columbia Plateau area. He’d been a police chief near Seattle, then moved inland three years ago. He quickly became known for his I-know-best summations at local governmental meetings and didn’t seem to understand that Central Washington folks didn’t always appreciate being told what to do by outsiders. He’d stirred up a lot of negative discussion lately, and now he was running for sheriff. It didn’t make a lot of sense to Tug, but he met the reporter’s gaze and shrugged. “A man can’t control what folks might say, but I’m going to let my record as a deputy sheriff and unit commander speak for itself. I know a lot of these voters. They’re smart people and I’d never insult their intelligence by rigging an attention-grabbing scheme.”

“Deputy, we’d love to have you on WPAB,” cut in another woman. “I know you’ve gotten lots of interview requests, but it would be wonderful to have the local stations get the scoop.”

“I’m a scoop?” He flashed a grin. “I’m taking all requests seriously, but right now I have a job that I take even more seriously, and as you can see—” he motioned toward the school as a chorus of village church bells announced the eight o’clock hour “—my workday has begun. Thank you all.”

He ignored the clamor of voices that followed. He could reconvene with them later, but right now, he needed to meet with the principals and design a game plan that kept him in proximity to all three schools despite the spacious layout that left room for high-school athletic fields.

He wanted the administrators’ trust and to trust them in return, but by the end of the day he realized that the junior-high principal was too busy trying to be the kids’ friend to be an effective leader. Was the middle school’s spike in problem behaviors and lack of proficiency due to her ineptitude? Or because there was a bad crop of kids in the current seventh-and eighth-grade classes?

He let himself into the east wing of the elementary school for a quick meeting with Mrs. Menendez as the buses pulled out that afternoon. The first thing he heard was a grief-stricken child. The little one was sobbing as if his or her little heart would break, and Tug hurried in that direction.