No Ordinary Sheriff

Dad.

When the dust cleared, Cash could just barely tell that the car he was driving was the old junker that had been parked in front of the station.

Dad didn’t have money.

Cash started to run. To catch it.

Dad. Stop.

He’d made it a block before someone honked, startling him to a halt. Timm Franck eased his old pickup closer and rolled down the window. “Hey, Cash, are you okay? What are you doing in the middle of the road?”

Had he actually run out into the street to chase Dad?

He’d just made a fool of himself on Main Street.

Had anyone else seen Frank? Had they realized he was related to Cash? These were Cash’s people, Timm a good buddy, but they knew nothing about his past. He intended to keep it that way. Cash settled on a lie. “I was trying to catch someone speeding through town.”

“On foot?” Timm laughed. “That’s a new one.”

“I saw a car rushing past, tried to get the plate number.”

Timm smiled. He’d bought the lie. “Wonder who it was?”

“I didn’t recognize the car. Someone driving through, I guess.”

He’d always promised himself he’d be a better man than Dad, but here he was, lying to a friend.

How could he stand here and behave so calmly when his stomach was turning somersaults? Because you learned a long time ago to bury emotion. Mom had done enough crying for the both of them and Cash had learned to be the strong one.

“See you later,” he told Timm and strode back to the office.

Everything was fine. He was fine.

* * *

SHANNON CALLED HER superior at the Domestic Field Division of the DEA in Denver.

“Have you found anyone to help me out?” she asked Sam Morgans.

“Nothing’s changed since you called yesterday. We’re working at max. I’ve got no one to send to Ordinary right now.”

“You’ve got me.”

“You’re on vacation—one I practically begged you to take. Remember?”

“I remember, but—”

“Stop. There’ve been plenty of studies. Police officers working in stressful positions need regular time away from the job.”

“I know. I’m on vacation, okay?”

“Good. Now rest. As soon as I have a team available, I’ll send them up to Montana.”

“But still not likely for another month?”

“That’s right. You enjoy your vacation. Got it?”

“I’ve got it. Thanks, Sam.”

Shannon cursed.

This sucked. Someone had sold her brother bad meth and they were still out there, selling that crap to others. Tom had said it was being cooked in Ordinary, Montana.

Despite the overdose, on that point, he had seemed lucid.

Whoever Dave Dunlop had spoken to in Ordinary had said there was no way the meth had come from there. “Look somewhere else” was about all Dave could get from them.

When she’d protested, Dave had said the cops knew their town. He couldn’t butt in.

So the local cops were a dead end.

Maybe Dave couldn’t do anything, and maybe the DEA had no one right now, but she was available. She could snoop around. And would. Vacation or not, Tom’s overdose trumped everything.

She got out of her car and entered the hospital. It was Thursday. Tom had been here since Monday. So had she, sitting with him every day.

She entered his room. No change. Tom, wake up. Please.

She stayed with him for a while but the whole situation ate at her. She was sitting here in a hospital room with her sick, and probably dying, brother while a meth manufacturer and drug dealer walked free in Ordinary.

No way.

Shannon stormed out of Tom’s room and did what she always did in times of stress. She took control.

A couple of hours later, she arrived at Janey’s house just outside of Ordinary. She had a quick meal then jumped into the shower to wash the city’s grime from her skin, along with her anger and grief, wishing like crazy this was a normal Thursday night and that this had been a normal week.

But it hadn’t been, and this was a bad time for wishful thinking.

Tom still floated in his coma—and she still hadn’t told her sister.

She dialed Janey’s cell number. “Janey? It’s me.”

“How’s Tom?” Some kind of animated music played in the background.

“Not good. That’s why I’m calling.”

“Just a minute. The kids are watching a Disney movie. I can’t hear.”

A second later, it went quiet on the other end and Janey said, “What were you saying?”

“Where are you?”

“In the bathroom of the hotel room with the door locked.” She laughed. “It’s the only way I can have peace and quiet. About Tom?”

“He overdosed. He’s in the hospital. In a coma.”

She heard Janey gasp. “Oh my God. We’ll come home right now.”

“Oh, no, you won’t. I almost didn’t call because I knew you’d say that, but I had to tell you.”

“But—”

“No buts. Honestly, there’s nothing you can do.”

“Poor Tom. Life has been too hard on him.”

“It sure has.” Shannon changed the phone to her other ear and took a sweater out of a drawer Janey kept packed for her. “I’m staying at your place, okay?”

“Of course, but why are you there?”

“Tom got the drugs in Ordinary. I’m taking a look around.”

“Ordinary?” Janey’s voice held disbelief.

“Apparently the town isn’t the source. It isn’t being made here, but he definitely got it here.”

Shannon’s next bet was on the biker bar Janey used to complain about.

“I’m going to check out the biker bar in Ordinary first.”

“Biker bar? That’s gone. The Sheriff chased them out of town. They’re all over in Monroe now at a place called Sassy’s.”

“Okay, I’ll scope it out.”

“Shannon, be careful,” Janey warned in her big-sister voice.

“I will. I’m good at my job.”

“I know. I worry anyway.”

“I’ll see you when you get home Sunday.”

No matter what her sister said about being careful, Shannon was going to check out that bar. The distance between bikers and drugs was no big leap for imagination.

She hung up and spread her favorite lotion over her skin, then dressed in panties, a bra and a pair of jeans. She had just picked up the sweater when she heard something downstairs.

She stopped and held her breath.

Another noise. A creak on the stairs. Damn.

There was definitely someone in the house.

She finished pulling on her sweater and took her gun out of her purse. Hiding behind the bedroom door, she waited.

CHAPTER TWO

NAVIGATING A MINEFIELD of children’s toys, Cash crept across the veranda to the front door of the Wright house. With the toe of his cowboy boot, he nudged aside the cop car he’d bought for Ben’s third birthday.

Cash’s buddy, C.J., was married to Janey and crazy about his wife. They had a bunch of great kids C.J. adored. Cash was still single—children a daydream—and nothing but an honorary uncle to his friend’s children.

Now Dad was dying and Cash might be the end of the Kavenagh line. He wanted what C.J. had with Janey, a family life instead of the horror show his childhood had been.

‘I was a rotten role model. You never got married and had kids.’ Was it Dad’s fault?

Yeah. Maybe. He didn’t know.

The crisp wind that had arisen with nightfall spoke of autumn running into winter. He inhaled the scent of leaves breaking down on damp earth then exhaled on a sigh. If he had a bunch of kids, he might be in California visiting Disneyland, too, like the Wrights.

Instead he was here, investigating a light on in the upstairs window of what was supposed to be an empty house.

Hailey Hall babysat Janey’s kids sometimes. She would have a key to the house. Cash had caught her and her boyfriend, Jeff, in the weirdest nooks and crannies around town, making out like, well, teenagers.

He wouldn’t put it past those kids to use the place while it was empty.

He opened the front door and stepped inside. Time to teach them a lesson by scaring the wits out of them.

He looked for anything out of the ordinary, treading carefully in the darkness in case the intruders weren’t Hailey and Jeff. His gun sat like a metal backbone, tucked into the waistband of his pants.

This was only Ordinary, but crime touched even small towns. No sense taking chances.

Moonlight poured in through the kitchen window, illuminating groceries on the counter—including a white box from a bakery over in Haven. He lifted the lid and checked inside. Doughnuts.

Damn kids. They had some nerve bringing snacks. A plate, silverware and a mug sat in the drying rack along with one small pot. An empty tin of canned pasta and sauce had been thrown in the recycle box. They’d made themselves at home. He was going to give them a good piece of his mind.

Only one of them had eaten, though. Probably Jeff. Kid was growing like a weed.

Cash heard a sound from the top floor—a drawer opening and closing, maybe.

He climbed the stairs. In the dark, his hand touched a stuffed animal that one of the children had left on the railing. He rubbed the soft fur between his fingers. Yeah, a bundle of kids and a great wife to wake up to every day would go a long way toward dispelling this feeling he’d had lately of…of…holding his breath, of needing…something to happen, even before Frank showed up this evening.

Another noise, softer this time, pulled him out of his reflections. Snap out of it. Self-pity wasn’t usually Cash’s thing, but at the rate Hailey and Jeff were going, they’d have children long before he ever did.

Crazy teenagers. They were going to curse him from here to Memphis because, really, where were a couple of horny teenagers supposed to go when they still lived with their parents?

He strode down the hall and banged his fist on the wall to give them a chance to cover up before he walked in.

Hailey must be wearing that great-smelling perfume.

“You two had better be using condoms.” He stepped to the doorway.

The bed was empty but he had the sense of someone being in the room. The skin on the back of his neck tingled, but before he could react, the door slammed against the side of his face and pain exploded in his forehead. “Son of a bitch!”

He reached for his weapon.

A woman jumped from behind the door with a gun in her hand.

They stared each other down, weapons drawn and aimed, tension as thick as honey in the room.

Cash didn’t glance down to see what kind of gun she held, semi-automatic or pistol. He watched her eyes. If she planned to pull the trigger, she would show it a fraction of a second before with a subtle flinch.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Who am I? You’ve got a lot of nerve, lady, breaking into my buddy’s house. What did you think you could steal?”

“I’m not stealing anything. My sister lives here.”

Then why hadn’t he met her? “What’s your sister’s name?”

“Janey Wilson. At least, that’s who she used to be. Now, she’s Wilson-Wright.”

Okay, so she knew Janey. That didn’t mean she was Janey’s sister.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Who wants to know?”

He had to give her credit. She was cool as a brick of ice. All business. Even with a gun in his hand, he didn’t intimidate her.

“I’m Cash Kavenagh, Sheriff of Ordinary.”

Her eyelids flickered. She knew his name.

“Let me see ID. Slowly,” she said.

He drew his wallet out with careful movements, his aim never wavering and his eyes still focused on hers. Amateurs got trigger happy and people died.

He handed the wallet to her and she double-checked that it was he in the photo.

“Okay, you’re the Sheriff.” She handed it back.

“Now that we’ve got that settled, who are you?”

“Shannon Wilson. Janey’s sister.”

“You don’t look anything like Janey.” Janey was short and voluptuous, a dark-haired Goth with immaculate white angel’s skin. This woman, a cool drink of lemonade on a hot day, had long golden hair, flawless tanned skin and pink lips. Her toned athlete’s body made his libido race double time.

Some of Janey’s attitude shone through. Man, she was gorgeous. And tough. He liked that.

“Your turn,” Cash said. “Let’s see ID.”

Still aiming her gun, she took her driver’s license out of a purse she picked up from the bedside table and handed it over.

Okay, she was Shannon Wilson, but…

“Let me see the permit for the gun.”

She looked like she might refuse, then sighed and passed it to him.

It was legit. What was a woman doing with a Glock 23.40?

“Why do you carry it?”

“Protection. I’m an investigative journalist. Sometimes I get into sticky situations.”

Why carry a semi-automatic revolver instead of a small pistol?

Growing up in the house of Kavenagh, Cash had developed a finely tuned bullshit detector, courtesy of his father. At the moment, it clanged like a fire alarm.

“What are you doing in Ordinary?” he asked.

“Vacationing.”

A lie.

“No way. Janey or C.J. would have warned me if you were going to stay here.”

She shrugged. “I only called Janey to tell her a minute before you showed up.”

“How’d you get in?”

“I have my own key.”

“Why haven’t we met before?”

“We have.” She dropped her permit back into her purse. “At Janey’s wedding. It was a long time ago.”

He had a vague memory of a pretty blonde, precocious and flirtatious. She’d come on to him, but had been eight or nine years younger than he. He’d run the other way.

“Because of my job,” she continued, “I haven’t visited a lot, but Janey and I talk on the phone all the time.”

“You haven’t visited once in ten years?”

“Yes, but you and I seemed to miss each other. You were visiting your mom a couple of times. Once you were on a training course in Bozeman.”

“How do you know that?”

“Janey told me.” She smiled. “I asked where her good-looking friend from the wedding had got to.”

She’d been interested in him. She’d been too young, though. She wasn’t too young now. She was beautiful, with a woman’s body and knowing gaze.

He was interested, all right.

He tucked his gun back into his waistband and she put hers away in her purse.

Cash leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms. “You wanna tell me why you’re really here?”

She raised one blond eyebrow.

He waited her out.

“Fine. I’ll tell you the truth, but first I need a coffee.”

She brushed past him and that great-smelling perfume followed her out of the room. So did Cash, like a bird dog on the trail.

Vanilla. She smelled like sugar cookies.

Cash’s hand touched that stuffed animal on the stair rail again and his gaze fell on the sway of Shannon’s hips. She had great hips.

Downstairs, she turned on lights as she went.

She took her time making a pot of coffee, not once looking at him.

He sat at the table in silence, enjoying the elegance and efficiency of her movements. A couple of minutes later she put coffee mugs on the table, along with the box of donuts, and sat across from him. She pulled something out of her back pocket—a black leather badge holder like his—and slid it over to him. He opened it. DEA. Special Agent Wilson.

Stunned, his gaze flew to hers.

“Janey never said you were a cop.” It put her off-limits. Damn.

Unlike his father, he didn’t fool around with co-workers, even if she didn’t work in Ordinary. He didn’t want to have anything to do with female cops. His dad had screwed everything with breasts, no matter her age or her occupation, from female cops to hookers.

He’d cost one cop her job. It had been the end of his career, too.

“Why didn’t you just tell me you were DEA?”

“Because I didn’t want anyone here to know.”

She bit into a donut and a dot of jelly ended up on her lower lip. He tried not to imagine himself licking it off.

“What’s the case? You’ve got to be here for a reason.”

“I’m on vacation.”

He ignored that. “Is it centered in Ordinary?”

She sighed and nodded. “I think it might originate with the bikers in the next county, though. I’m here to see what I can learn.”

“About what?”

“Someone in the area is cooking crystal meth.”

“How do you know? I haven’t heard a thing about it.”

“It’s happening.”

“Why are you so sure it’s here?”

“My brother visited last weekend and stayed with Janey.”

“Tom? The one who lost his family to a drunk driver?”

She nodded.

“I met him. Nice guy, but messed up. No wonder. What about him?”

“He brought meth home with him. Said he got it in Ordinary.”

Cash’s mind raced. Where in Ordinary? From whom?

“So the DEA sent you here to investigate? Why didn’t they contact me?”

“A cop in Billings called your office and was told there were definitely no drugs here and that you wouldn’t investigate.”

“I didn’t talk to anyone. Must have been my deputy.” Wade should have brought that info to him, but his deputy was still fairly new. There were a lot of things Cash still had to explain to him. “I’ll call the DEA and let them know I’ll cooperate.”

She raised a staying hand. “I’m not here officially.”

“What?”

“I really am supposed to be on vacation, but I can’t let this go.”

“Why not? You have no jurisdiction here.”

She put her donut down on a paper napkin, carefully, and he had the sense that she was trying to hold herself together. “It’s important to me. Tom overdosed.” She looked like she might break down but then sucked it up. As he’d thought upstairs, she was tough. Strong.

“He’s in a coma,” she said.

“Is he going to live?”

“I don’t know.” She wrapped her hands around her mug.

“You need to take a giant step away from this.”

She shook her head. Those full lips thinned to a determined line, her chin took on a mulish jut and those pretty green eyes suddenly became cop eyes—hard-edged and suspicious.

“I spoke to the domestic field division in Denver and they have their hands full right now. There are meth labs everywhere these days.”

“Then wait.”

“I can’t.”

“I’ll call your bosses.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m on vacation. My sister will be home soon and I’ll visit with her.”

“Who are you kidding? My guess is you won’t sit still while you think there are drugs in the county.” It wouldn’t be the first time a cop went rogue for a family member in trouble.

She shrugged, admitting nothing. Distrust radiated from her. She didn’t have faith in the local law enforcement—and that included him.

She likely thought he didn’t have the goods to do the job, that he was a country hick who couldn’t deal with anything more serious than speeding tickets.

He’d been raised in San Francisco. By a cop. He understood exactly what human beings were capable of, and he knew how to deal with it. All of it.

He walked to the sink and rinsed his mug.

“I’m taking care of C.J.’s horses while he’s away. Mornings and evenings I’ll be around. I’ll also be investigating drugs in the area.” He pointed a finger at her. “You stay out of it. Got it?”

She nodded, but she was lying again.

“I mean it.” Cash left the house.

He walked to the corral to gather in C.J.’s horses and his own, Victor, who Cash boarded here on the Wright land.

Wind whistled through the tops of the poplars lining the driveway. Their few remaining leaves chattered like a bunch of old women, sending him confusing messages about his dad and families and model-beautiful tall blonde women.

She was a grown-up now, no longer a kid who was off-limits.

He was angry with her because she’d come into his jurisdiction to investigate a crime she had no right to look into. She was too close to the victim, and needed to keep out of it.

His body, though, and some part of his mind or his heart, wondered: What if he gave it a shot? What if he asked her out?

She was gorgeous, and she’d thought about him over the years. She’d asked Janey about him whenever she visited Ordinary, hadn’t she?

He’d seen the look in her eyes. She still found him attractive. He certainly found her attractive. How could he not?

Cash put away the horses for the night and got into his truck to drive home, his thoughts drifting to Shannon.

His house sat between Ordinary and Haven and it wasn’t a long trip. He turned down a driveway nearly hidden from the road that ran half a mile through a tunnel of trees.

The house was pretty in the moonlight with its purple gingerbread trim—too pretty for a man. He’d bought the two-bedroom from Timm Franck’s sister, Sara. It sat on a piece of land that would allow for a sizable addition later, when he started his family.

As he stepped out of the truck and stared at his house, his stubborn mind returned to thoughts of Shannon. Again.

Forget it, buddy.

Why?

Because she’s a cop.

Yeah. She is. So what?

How important was that, really? They worked for different jurisdictions. Hell, different levels of government even.

He knew she was off-limits. At least, his rational mind did, but she’d kick-started both his libido and his crazy need to move forward on that family.

Maybe her being a cop could work in his favor. She would have the same values and morals as he. She would understand that the job got crazy, that sometimes the hours were long and dangerous.

And she was hot. She drew him in like no one had in a long, long time. How insanely perfect was that?

Hope sent that feeling of holding his breath, of waiting for something to happen in his life, to change and move forward, scurrying off into the night.

A sigh gusted out of him and he stared at his dark house, unable to resist a couple of “What ifs?” What if Shannon were waiting inside for him? What if she were his and they could start on that family he wanted so badly. How good would that feel?

What was that old saying? If wishes were horses, beggars would ride? Hope did that to a person—made a beggar believe he could be a wealthy man.

The only ones waiting inside for him were Paddy and Danny.

Cash opened the front door. The dogs bounded out and circled the bushes that would one day be replaced by a stable. He left them to their business.

He stepped inside and turned on the living room light. Empty. What if it weren’t?

Cash went straight to his computer. He had a buddy he’d studied with, Denny O’Doyle, who’d ended up working in Washington. Cash emailed for info about Special Agent Shannon Wilson of the DEA.

What kind of woman was she?

An hour later, he got his response. Shannon Wilson was on the fast track to the top. She was smart, independent and…ambitious. The DEA had big hopes for her. Huge hopes. She was going places.

Cash’s heart sank. Great. An ambitious cop. Wasn’t that just the kiss of death? After Dad, Cash had had a bellyful of cops with ambition.

She was DEA, she likely investigated drug problems in every part of the country. Probably thought Ordinary was a hick town compared to the places she’d been.

He wandered to the living room and stared at the empty furniture. Shit. For a few minutes there, he’d had this incredible dream.

He went to the front door to call in the dogs but his voice caught in his throat. Disillusionment and disappointment weighed on him. That feeling of being stuck in life slunk back in from the shadows of the yard and settled in his chest.

No way would Shannon settle in a place like Ordinary, Montana, and no way would Cash leave, not when he had a great job, amazing friends and this house.

He knew what life in the big city was like, chock full of temptations to distract a man from what was really important—family—and Cash wanted no part of those distractions.