The Lawman's Runaway Bride

“I’m sorry,” Sadie said. “But there was no kind or easy way to call off a wedding the morning it was supposed to happen. I made my peace with that a long time ago. At least I didn’t marry him and break his heart after two kids and a mortgage.”

Lucy’s Diner was located at the corner of Birch Street and the highway, an old brick building with a red roof and a large sculpture of a bull that stood between the highway traffic and the parking lot. Lucy’s Diner had been in that exact spot for the last sixty years, when Comfort Creek was nothing more than a gas station, a church and a grain elevator, and as they approached the front door, Sadie heaved a sigh. This was past the point of discomfort, and the last thing she wanted was to sit in a diner and rehash old hurts.

“Do you really want that coffee?” she asked as they stopped in front of the diner. “We could do this another time. No pressure.”

“Of course, there’s pressure,” he retorted. “We have to work together. We have a deadline.”

He was right about that. Chance pulled open the door and stepped back. What was with him and those perfect manners? He’d always been like this—proper, disciplined, always the cop. She sighed and walked into the warmth, then headed toward a booth in the back. He followed, accepting a couple of menus from the waitress on his way past.

Once they were settled with glasses of ice water in front of them and their coats piled beside them, Chance leaned forward in his chair.

“I have to ask this—” Chance swallowed. “Was it because of me? I was out of line that night on the porch. I shouldn’t have confused you like that. I should have—”

“Confused me?” Sadie shook her head. “You make me sound like a half-wit. I wasn’t confused or in a muddle, Chance.”

His face colored, but he’d hit a nerve there. That was a question she’d asked herself a hundred times since. Had she dumped Noah because of Chance? Was that moment of butterflies and tenderness enough to unhinge a five-year relationship with a good man?

“I just...” Her stomach had flipped. Her breath had caught. She’d stared up into Chance’s blue eyes and she’d felt weak in the knees—none of which she’d ever felt for Noah. But there was no way she could confess that to Chance.

“It wasn’t because of you,” she said, and that was the truth. “Noah and I weren’t strong enough together. That’s all.”

She’d wanted what Noah had to offer. He was a carpenter who was doing very well for himself in Comfort Creek. He had a large extended family who were close and supportive. He’d already built their future home on an acreage outside of town. He’d offered her everything she thought she wanted...

The waitress arrived just then, and Chance ordered a coffee and a piece of pie.

“Just coffee for me, thanks,” she said with a tight smile.

The waitress left them in peace once more and Sadie fiddled with the napkin-wrapped cutlery in front of her. She’d been to this diner countless times over the years, but the first visit that she could remember had been with her nana.

At the age of eight, her mother had brought her to Comfort Creek to visit Nana for a few days. That night, Sadie watched from the upstairs window of Nana’s house as her mother loaded a suitcase into the back of her musician boyfriend’s car. She remembered being confused. Why was her mother outside at this time of night? Why was Angelo here? Her mom had looked up, seen Sadie in the window and blown her a kiss. Then she’d hopped into the front seat and the car roared off.

No one blew a kiss and left forever, but that was what Mom had done, and that was how her life with Nana had begun. The next morning, Nana had brought her to the diner for a special breakfast, and she’d laid it out for her. Mom had gone away. Nana would take care of her from now on.

So Comfort Creek was home—the only home she had—and if Chance thought she’d stay away because they had some complicated history, then he had another think coming.

“I thought if I gave Noah some space, he could move on more easily. I owed him that much, at least.”

“He didn’t,” Chance said.

Noah only died a year ago, so he’d had enough time to move on. He would have been one of the most eligible men in Comfort Creek. He would have had his pick of women...especially after what Sadie had done to him.

“There must have been girlfriends...” she said.

“Nope.”

Her heart sank. “I know I hurt him, but—”

“It more than hurt him. It crushed him, Sadie.” Chance’s voice was low. “He wasn’t the same after that.”

And then he’d joined the army. Was Chance blaming her? Noah had mentioned an interest in the army before they got engaged, but she had no interest in being a military wife, and he’d let it drop. She’d assumed that was the end of it.

“I didn’t know he’d do that,” she said, hoping he’d believe her. “I thought I was doing us both a favor. I thought he’d move on with Melissa Franco or Melanie Brooks.” Both women had been halfway in love with Noah, throwing themselves in his path every chance they got.

The waitress arrived with a coffeepot and the slice of pie. She poured them each a steaming cup.

“Anything else I can get for you two?” she asked.

“No, thanks.” Chance’s tone was curt, and the waitress retreated. “So why are you back, then? I thought you’d made your life in Denver.”

Sadie’s gaze wandered toward the window—the familiar stretch of highway, the faded sign out front promising the county’s best burgers next to the black-painted sculpture of the bull with its horns down. A dusting of snow fell from the gray sky.

Sadie dragged her gaze back to Chance and smiled sadly. “I wanted to come home.”

And maybe Comfort Creek wouldn’t be the respite that she’d imagined it would. She’d wanted the comfort of Nana’s advice and home cooking. She’d wanted to come back to the only place that knew her—the good and the bad. She wanted to settle down, not with a man, but on her own terms.

“And you’re starting up a business, I take it,” Chance added.

“Yes,” she said, grabbing a sugar packet and tearing it open. “I am. Mayor Scott is being very supportive. He has friends who need a good event planner, and his daughter Trina’s wedding is coming up. I have a good chance of making a go of this here. In Denver, I was working with a big event planning firm and I got some great experience.”

“And if you do well with this remembrance ceremony, he’ll pass your name around with a glowing recommendation,” Chance concluded.

“Something like that.” That was how businesses got started—word of mouth. This was a priceless opportunity. If she was going to support herself here, she needed the boost. She stirred the sugar into her coffee.

“So basically, you’re back to make some money,” he concluded.

“That isn’t even fair!” Her anger sparked to life. “I need to make a living. What do you expect me to do? I’m good at this, Chance. I’ve got some great experience, and I really think I have a lot to offer Comfort Creek. So yes, I need to make a living, and yes, I want to grow my business and succeed. What’s so wrong with that?”

He heaved a sigh, then shook his head. “Nothing. I hope it works out for you.”

Did he really? She wasn’t so sure. But a single woman didn’t have the option of laying low if she wanted to support herself, so if Chance didn’t like seeing her around town, he’d have to sort out his feelings on his own. She was tired of feeling guilty. She deserved a fresh start as much as anyone.

“Chance, I’m asking you—” She paused, unsure how to say this. “I get that you’re mad at me, and I know that we won’t be friends like we were before...but I’m here. And we have to work together. I just need to know if that’s going to be possible.”

In fact, it would be better if they weren’t friends like before. Those lines had blurred, and there wasn’t an easy way to recover from that. At least not for her.

“Of course,” he said, and for a moment, his gaze softened. “Like the mayor said, we’re all professionals.” He slid the plate of pie toward her, then grabbed his coat from the bench beside him. “It’s on me. I remember you liked pie.” Then he rose to his feet and tossed a bill onto the table. “Come by my office Monday morning—let’s say nine—and we’ll get to work.”

“Alright.” She nodded. “Thank you. I’ll be there.”

Chance turned and walked away, leaving Sadie alone at the table with a piece of strawberry-rhubarb pie and a cup of untouched coffee. Not exactly the welcome she’d been hoping for, but it was a start.

Chapter Two

Sadie was back in town. Chance rolled that fact over in his mind while he drove toward the police station. If it weren’t for the timing of this commemorative ceremony, he might not be so raw about the whole thing, but as it was, all those memories crowded just beneath the surface, and it had only been a year since Noah’s death. He’d been praying for God to help him to heal, but so far, those prayers had gone unanswered.

And he needed healing from more than just his brother’s death; he needed to let go of those feelings for Sadie. He’d thought he had, but when he saw her again today, it came crowding back in—that same unwanted attraction to Sadie and a flood of guilt.

He was the chief of police, and ran a sensitivity training program here in Comfort Creek—he wasn’t supposed to be the one struggling with personal issues. He was supposed to be the guy with the answers. How come every time he prayed for strength, he ended up driven to his knees? If anyone had asked him yesterday if five years had made a difference, he’d have said yes, it had. A lot had changed. But today, looking Sadie in the face, it was as if those years had melted out from under him.

The heat in his cruiser pumped into the car, and he reached over and turned it down. Sadie was back, and by the sounds of it, she wanted to make this permanent. He knew that he’d played a part in her run for Denver, but he’d been willing to talk about it. He could have told her that it was one moment of weakness, and that he could curb his feelings and she’d never be faced with them again. Had she stayed to talk about it. But she hadn’t. She’d run. And now she was back and all was supposed to be forgiven, and he couldn’t do it. The anger was back, and he couldn’t just push it aside.

A fully planned wedding didn’t evaporate, and it had taken weeks to help his brother handle all the details—clean up, return gifts, move her things back out of Noah’s house. The entire time, his brother had been a walking shell of a man. He’d been hollow, wan, brittle. Sadie might have been able to just walk away, but Noah had to stay and deal with the fallout. And all that time, Chance had kept his secret and never told his brother what he’d done. He regretted that now. He’d never imagined that he wouldn’t have a chance to get it off his chest.

Chance remembered the afternoon when Noah had told him his plans to join the army.

You can’t just leave, Chance had protested. You and I were going to buy that boat together, I thought.

They had plans for the future—the Morgan brothers. They were going to buy a boat, then buy a little cottage by a lake and spend every weekend from April through October fishing.

I don’t have anything left here, Noah had replied.

You have your entire life here!

And he had—Noah had run his own successful carpentry business. He had built a beautiful home on an acreage about twenty minutes outside of town, and he had his extended family all right there. This was the life he’d offered to share with Sadie, and there were several other women who’d immediately perked up at the news of the wedding that didn’t happen. Noah didn’t have to leave. What Chance should have said was, “You have me here, Noah.”

Noah had been a wreck, and he’d said that the best way forward was through. Chance would have agreed, except through meant something different to Noah—it led to the army. He’d gone on one deployment, and the night he came back, Chance could see that his brother had changed. Of course, a year in Afghanistan would have an impact, but it was more than the tan and the ropy muscle. It went deeper, to the steely glimmer in his eye. Then he left for another tour, and the distance between the brothers grew more pronounced. And then there was a third tour that Noah never came back from.

Chance pulled into the parking lot next to the Comfort Creek Police Department. It was a squat, brick building on Main Street, right across the street from the bank. A large elm tree grew just beside it, branches blanketed with snow.

This sleepy town was the location of Larimer County’s sensitivity training program. The cops who came here needed soft skills—patience, self-control and character growth. They didn’t come to face off with criminals, they came to do just the opposite, actually, and face their own issues. Comfort Creek had plenty of space and quiet to do just that, and Chance took his training program incredibly seriously. For the most part, these were good cops struggling with problems larger than they were, and Chance could sympathize with that. He knew what it was like to make one wretched mistake and watch his brother disintegrate because of it. A mistake didn’t have to define a man, but all too often it did.

Sadie’s face was still swimming through his mind as he trotted up the front steps to the police department. Her return had shaken him more than he liked to admit. He saw her grandmother, Abigail Jenkins, on a pretty regular basis. He’d have thought Abigail would give him a heads-up, but apparently he was wrong again. The women here seemed to have their own agendas that didn’t include keeping him in the know.

Chance pulled open the front door of the station and was met with the familiar scent of coffee and doughnuts, and the low hum of the officers working at their desks.

“Chief, your newest trainee is waiting.” Cheryl Dunn, the receptionist for the department, handed him a folder. She was about forty, slim, pale and efficient. She had three school-aged kids who called for her on a pretty regular basis, but she got the work done, and that was what mattered to Chance.

Trainees didn’t usually arrive on a Friday, but he could be flexible. Besides, if he got this trainee sorted out before the weekend, it would free up his morning to meet with Sadie.

“Thanks, Cheryl.” He flipped through the pages—signed forms, ID, that sort of thing. He was familiar with his newest trainee already. His name was Toby Gillespie, and he was being given this extra training because he was inflexible and generally intimidating to the public. The other officers nicknamed him Bear.

That had been Noah’s nickname, too... Well, they’d called him Teddy Bear, and it was bestowed upon him by the girls in school for very different reasons—he gave good hugs, and despite his muscular physique, he was gentle with those smaller than him. Noah had been the all-American boy growing up. He was athletic, good-looking and got top grades. He played on the high school football team. He’d been dark haired and swarthy compared to Chance’s sandy-blond hair and blue eyes—as different in appearance as they were in personality. Noah was a tough act to follow for a twin brother who had to study hard for mostly Bs and lacked that easy charismatic charm his brother emanated without even trying. It made for a complex dynamic between them, and if Chance had to be honest, he’d been jealous of Noah. And yet at the same time, he’d also been just as enamored with him as the rest of the town. Noah was like that—when he turned his attention onto a person, they couldn’t help but love him.

Including Sadie...until the end, of course.

A uniformed officer sat in a chair in front of Chance’s office. He wasn’t tall, but his build was stocky, and he was muscular. Toby Gillespie obviously spent a lot of time in the gym, and Chance guessed the guy drank protein shakes for breakfast.

“Toby, I take it?” Chance asked.

Toby rose to his feet and stood at attention. “Good morning, sir.”

“Come on in.” Chance opened his office door and gestured to the chair opposite his desk. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Toby stepped inside and stood beside the chair rigidly.

“At ease, officer. Have a seat.”

The younger man visibly deflated and sank into the chair. None of his trainees liked being here—he was used to that. This was discipline, after all. Chance shut the door and went around to his own chair and flipped open the folder.

“You started out as military, right?” Chance asked.

“Yes, sir. Four years of army service, three deployments.”

That was pretty close to Noah’s service.

“And you’ve been on the force how long now?”

“Another four years, sir.”

“Do you know why you’re taking sensitivity training?” Chance asked.

“I’m too by-the-book, sir.” Toby shook his head, and a look of disgust shone through that granite expression for a split second. “But the law’s the law.”

According to Officer Gillespie’s commanding officer, Toby was intimidating to the public and no amount of coaching seemed to change that.

“Do you like desk work?” Chance asked.

“No, sir. Hate it.” Toby arched a brow. “And yes, I know that’s where I’m headed.”

Chance had an idea of how to help this young officer, but it meant embracing this remembrance ceremony—something he’d been fighting ever since the mayor brought it up to him several weeks ago. There was no getting around it—Sadie had already been hired, and as police chief, he should have a role in it, too. Being a community leader didn’t mean he always got to do what he wanted, but right now, he could see that this commemorative ceremony might be of use to more than just their own.

“Considering that you’re ex-military, I have something I want you to help us with,” Chance said.

“Yes, sir.”

“We’re working on a ceremony for Comfort Creek that is going to commemorate four young men who died in service. I want you to help us with that.”

Toby froze, then shook his head. “Do I have a choice, sir?”

“Absolutely.” Chance smiled amiably. “There is a room full of binders about feelings and appropriate reactions to them in the basement. You have two weeks with us, and I’m sure you could work your way through fifteen or twenty of those binders in that amount of time.”

Toby looked away, his jaw tensing. He was doing the mental math there—how much could he endure, and which avenue did he prefer?

“I don’t like rehashing my military days, sir,” Toby said. “The past is the past. I’m a civilian now.”

Toby was no civilian in his head, or in his demeanor. He was still acting like the soldier.

“Understood.” Chance shrugged. “I’ll get an officer to show you down to the basement, then. You can get started today. I’ve got your first binder waiting on the table there. You can’t miss it. There are some workbooks that go along with it, and we’ll need full written responses that will be sent for psych evaluation—”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t help out with your commemorative ceremony, sir,” Toby said quickly. “I just said that I didn’t want to dig into my own military service, if it’s all the same.”

Chance paused, watching conflicting emotions flit across Toby Gillespie’s face. He was a good cop—most of the officers who ended up here were. He was the cop you wanted to cover you going into dangerous territory. He was a veritable tank who just needed to figure out how to disarm himself from time to time.

“I can tell you what it would entail,” Chance said. “I need you to speak with the family members of the fallen men and get some personal information about them—pictures, military ranks and any medals they might have been awarded...that sort of thing. Bring that information back to me, and we’ll talk.”

Toby frowned. “That’s not normally my strength—grieving families and all that.”

No one liked facing grief, especially their own. Chance knew that better than anyone.

“It would be good practice with letting down your guard a little bit,” Chance said. “But I’m not sending you in without some preparation. One of the men who died was my brother. You can practice with me.”

Toby cleared his throat and looked down. “I’m used to interviewing suspects, sir, so talking with them isn’t an issue. It’s just that I don’t tend to...come across right. Normally those kinds of assignments are saved for officers with a softer touch.”

“That’s what we’re working on here,” Chance said frankly. “The softer touch.”

“So, if I did this—”

“No binders.” This was an option he gave nearly all his trainees, and 95% of them chose to avoid the binders. There was something about county-approved sensitivity training that rubbed just about every officer the wrong way.

A smile flickered at the corners of the younger man’s lips. “Fine. I’ll do the interviews with the families. But if they complain about me—”

Chance had hoped that he’d agree, and not only because it would be of service to the community right now. Toby Gillespie was behaving like a military man, and it wasn’t working with the police force. There was a certain amount of discipline and respect for command authority that the two careers had in common, but Officer Gillespie was suffering from something that had happened in the military—at least that was Chance’s best guess—and it was bleeding into his work on the force.

“You’ll start with me, remember? It’ll be fine. In the meantime, you’ll be assigned a cruiser and you can start patrol.”

Chance didn’t want to grieve for his brother with an audience, but sometimes helping a good officer get over his own issues meant a certain amount of vulnerability.

Lord, I hate this, he admitted silently. I asked You to help me heal, and now everything seems to be about Noah all over again.

He didn’t want to face this, but it didn’t look like he’d have a choice. He’d prayed that God would help him to work through his own grief, and sometimes when God answered a prayer, He did it with all the subtlety of a pile of bricks.

* * *

Sadie dropped her bag onto the seat of a kitchen chair and ran a hand through her hair. The meeting with the mayor had been more exhausting than she’d anticipated. There had been a very small and naive part of her that had been hoping that seeing Chance again would spark the old friendship they used to share, before those lines had blurred. Back when their relationship had been simple and sweet, she’d looked forward to seeing him, chatting with him, sharing jokes. Five years ago, Chance had been fun.

Marrying into a family that you honestly liked was a smart move, and that had been part of what had kept her moving toward the wedding. Mr. and Mrs. Morgan were kind and compassionate people—but they also knew how to stay out of a young couple’s relationship. Chance had been a good friend, too, and she had pleasant memories of sitting in his cruiser on a summer day, her bare feet up on the dashboard as she chipped away at that serious shell of his.

Feet down, he’d say.

Make me, Officer. She’d shoot him a teasing smile, and he’d crack a smile at that point—possibly imagining what it would take to get her to do as she was told. Personally, she thought he enjoyed the challenge.

She’d thought that flirting was safe—this was Chance, after all—but maybe she’d been naive about that, too. Because the day before the wedding, Chance had swung by her place to drop off some place cards that Nana needed for the reception. While talking on the porch, everything had changed...melted away into a foggy moment as their eyes met and the world faded away around them. He’d pushed a piece of hair away from her face, and as he did so, his eyes had locked on her lips, and she’d known that he was thinking about kissing her. She was an engaged woman, after all—she knew what that looked like. And he’d confessed his feelings.

I should have asked you out first, because watching you fall in love with my brother has been agony. I’m not saying I’m better for you than he is, I’m just— Never mind.

You what?