Jack Murray, Sheriff

“Ms. Sommers…”

Jack growled something under his breath, then continued. “This is unprofessional of me, but I’m going to do it anyway. Will you have dinner with me?”

“Dinner?” Beth felt like an idiot echoing him, especially since on some level she, too, had felt the attraction. But she’d assumed he was married, or that he would be put off by her problems. “I’m sorry, but…”

“Why not?” he asked bluntly.

He was big enough that she felt crowded in the booth. His knees bumped hers as he moved restlessly; his shoulders blocked her view of the front of the café.

“Surely you can see this isn’t a good moment for me to be thinking about getting involved….”

“Don’t let him stop you.”

She blinked. Was that it—did she fear she’d anger her ex-husband more? But she knew even without deep analysis that her reasons were more complex. “I’m flattered that you’re interested, but you’ll have to accept my regrets. Now, I really should be getting back to the store.”

Hands flat on the table, he had gone very still. “If you change your mind…”

She made a face. “I’ll call the Butte County Sheriff’s Office and pass on a message.”

His mouth crooked into a faint smile. “That wouldn’t be a problem.”

Dear Reader,

My daughter read my PATTON’S DAUGHTERS trilogy and said, “I’m not sure I like Jack.” I pointed out that, like most of us, he’s a work in progress, a mix of cowardice and nobility, kindness and impatience. In other words, he’s as real as I could make him. Jack is a hero who doesn’t believe he is, a man who has spent his life trying to make up for one moment of fear and weakness. All these years later he still hasn’t convinced himself that he has in him the ability to be heroic. And our perceptions of ourselves are as important as our behavior, right?

For me, this added up to a character who demanded his own story. Perhaps I always intended him to have it. For those of you who’ve read PATTON’S DAUGHTERS, I hope you’re waiting for this book. For the rest of you—Jack is a hero, and the most interesting kind: flawed, self-aware and stronger than he knows. I loved writing these books, and as always, I’m eager to hear what you think!

Sincerely,

Janice Kay Johnson

You can reach me at: www.superauthors.com

Jack Murray, Sheriff

Janice Kay Johnson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Jack Murray, Sheriff

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

BETH SOMMERS STARED blindly at the screen of her computer. She squeezed her eyes shut, drew in a long breath and tried to release tension as she exhaled. But even as she opened her eyes, her glance strayed to the wall clock.

Nine, long past time for the girls’ baths and the gentle rituals of getting ready for bed. And they still weren’t home.

Beth stood restlessly and went to the window, which overlooked the street. Street lamps illuminated the sidewalks and front yards, leaving pools of darkness. Headlights approached, but she could tell that they didn’t belong to her ex-husband’s pickup.

“Damn him,” she said aloud, the intensity in her voice shocking her.

How could Ray use their children this way? He had once loved them, she knew he had. He hadn’t been much for changing diapers or giving baths, but she remembered how gently he had held Stephanie when she was a baby, the look on his face when she smiled at him with wonder and delight.

And Lauren, the quiet one, the shy one, coaxed by her daddy into riding on his shoulders, so terrifyingly high up. Beth remembered her younger daughter clutching his hair, eyes saucer wide. By the end of the ride she was giggling and kicking him with her heels and shouting, “Giddyup!”

When had his anger swamped his love to the point where he could hurt his daughters just so he could hurt her?

She was turning away from the dark window when the high bright headlights of a pickup truck appeared around the corner down the block.

“Please, please,” Beth whispered, frozen in place.

The pickup stopped at the curb, and her muscles unlocked. In an agony of relief, she ran out of the office and down the stairs to the front door. Wrenching it open, she hurried along the walkway to meet the girls, who tumbled out of the high cab of the pickup and raced to her.

“Oh, sweeties!” Beth swept them both into a hug so hard her muscles quivered. Tears burned in her eyes, but she lifted her head and smiled shakily. “Did you have a good visit with your dad?”

Eight-year-old Lauren had been crying, Beth could tell. Her older sister’s face closed at the question, and she glanced nervously over her shoulder. “It was okay.”

“You guys get your stuff and go on in,” she told them, trying to sound casual, natural. “I need to talk to your dad.”

Stephanie said in a low hurried voice, “I think he’s mad at me ’cause I asked him when we were going home. He said that his apartment was home. But it’s not! I was scared—” She broke off abruptly, a sixth sense seeming to tell her that her father had grabbed their bags out of the back of the pickup and was approaching.

Both girls lowered their heads and turned to meet him, taking their overnight bags from him and obediently accepting his hugs. Then they fled into the house, leaving their mother and father facing each other on the front walkway.

Despite her best effort to speak levelly, Beth’s voice was trembling with suppressed anger. “You are three hours late. I’ve been worried.”

He shrugged and smiled. “We were having a good time. What’s the hurry?”

Dear God, to think she had once been attracted by that slanted, lazy grin! Now she wanted to erase it, once and for all.

But, heaven help her, he was her daughters’ father. Somehow she had to convince him that they counted more than his feelings of anger.

“You scare them when you do this,” she said. “Please be a father Steph and Lauren can rely on. Please.”

His grin faded, all right, as his lips drew back from his teeth. Just like that, he was shouting. “I’m not the one who drove their father from them! You want to run your own damned household, run it, but don’t tell me how to run mine! You got it?”

Her own anger exploded. To her eternal shame, Beth couldn’t stop herself from yelling back, “You bring them home late one more time, and you won’t take them again. If you can’t be a decent parent, then forget you ever were one!”

A few equally nasty exchanges later, Beth retreated to the porch, but Ray followed as far as the steps. When she reached for the doorknob, a clay flowerpot smashed into the door, barely missing her. She turned around and screamed, “Go away! Just leave, or I’ll call the police, I swear I will!”

“Don’t push me,” Ray snarled. “This was my house, too, and I haven’t seen any bucks from my half!”

“The court order…”

“I don’t want to hear about the goddamned court order! You know what you can do with it? You can…”

Beth darted inside, slammed and locked the front door, then with shaking hands fastened the chain. With her back to the door, she whimpered for breath. Stephanie and Lauren were huddled on the bottom step of the wide staircase, staring at her with identical looks of terror on ghost-white faces.

There was momentary silence outside. Would he go away? Seconds ticked by, then a minute. Beth straightened and bit her lip. Should she look? What if he was still standing there? He had a key, and the chain wouldn’t stop him if he really wanted to come in.

At that moment something else hit the door and shattered. Beth jumped away and clapped her hand over her mouth. Behind her one of the girls screamed, and the door quivered again under the hammer of fists.

“I’m scared!” Lauren wailed.

Suddenly a siren gave one ear-splitting burst outside, and Beth saw the reflected dazzle of blue and red lights off a living room window.

Through the heavy door she heard an obscenity, and then Ray’s feet thudding down the steps. Beth wrenched open the front door and hurried out, stumbling over the shards of broken flowerpots. A big man in a dark suit, the jacket pulled back to show the butt of a gun in a shoulder holster, was coming up the front walk. Behind him the lights of the cruiser still flashed.

Ray waited at the foot of the porch stairs. “This is none of your business,” he said loudly.

“Domestic disturbances are our business,” the man replied, his voice carefully dispassionate. He extended a badge, his gaze flicking past Ray to where Beth stood silhouetted in the open doorway. “Are you all right, ma’am?”

“Yes, I…” she faltered, pressed her lips together.

“I believe he was just leaving.”

Ray turned. “I told you not to call the cops!”

“I didn’t!” she flung back, before remembering the audience. How had her marriage, her life, come to this—two people arguing so violently that they had frightened the neighbors, that the police felt compelled to intervene?

“We’ll talk about it later,” Ray snapped, and stalked across the lawn past the police officer.

“Ma’am?” the officer repeated, a note of inquiry in his slow, deep voice. “Are you, or is anyone else, hurt?”

“No.” Her knees suddenly wanted to buckle, and she grasped for the porch railing. “No, it was just…angry words.”

He was beside her so quickly she hadn’t seen him coming. One large hand closed firmly over her elbow and steered her into the house. He kicked a large piece of clay pot aside. “More than words,” he commented.

The wide entry hall was deserted. She had a mother’s moment of panic—where were the girls?—before Stephanie poked her head cautiously out of the dining room. Her frightened gaze took in the stranger before she asked, “Is Dad gone?”

“Yes. Oh, sweetie…” Both girls stumbled into her arms again. All the time Beth held them, she was conscious of the police officer waiting. After a moment, she eased her daughters back. Looking into first Stephanie’s eyes, then Lauren’s, she said, “Guys, your dad is angry and upset right now, but he’s never hurt any of us, and I don’t believe he ever would. He was just…throwing a tantrum.” She actually managed a smile, and Lauren giggled weakly. “Now, you two go take baths and get ready for bed. Lay out your clothes for school tomorrow, and I’ll be up in a few minutes to tuck you in. Okay?”

They both nodded, collected their bags from the floor where they had been dropped and started up the stairs.

Beth took a deep breath and turned to the officer. Only then did she become aware of how tall he was, of the breadth of his shoulders and the bulge of the gun nestled beneath his smooth-fitting suit jacket. Only then did she recognize him, from the article a few weeks ago in the local paper. The witness to her humiliation was the Butte County sheriff and former Elk Springs police chief. She had heard him speak at Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce luncheons, although they had never met.

Only then did she realize that he had no jurisdiction here, because she lived within the Elk Springs city limits.

Elk Springs had once been a small ranching town nestled at the foot of Juanita Butte and the Sisters in eastern Oregon, while the county had been entirely rural; thanks to the new ski resort on the butte, development had sprawled far beyond city limits. Even the new high school and middle school complex was Jack Murray’s problem, not the Elk Springs PD’s.

So what was he doing on her doorstep in Old Town Elk Springs?

Quietly, she said, “You must have been passing. Did you see him? I…thank you.”

His dark eyes were perceptive enough to make her uncomfortable. He nodded toward the porch. “You have a real mess out there. That was quite a temper tantrum.”

She was gripped again by shame. How would she be able to face the neighbors after this, knowing that they had heard every word tonight, had seen the revolving lights on top of the police car in her driveway?

“I…we…” Beth stopped, tried again. “We divorced some months ago. By my choice. I’m afraid my ex-husband is still very angry.”

“I live on Maple.” He nodded toward the cross street half a block away. “I’ve heard from neighbors that this isn’t the first time you and your ex-husband have had this kind of exchange.”

She was already flushed; now Beth was assailed by a wave of dizziness. “Would you mind if we sit down?” she asked.

She must have swayed, because that large, competent hand gripped her elbow again. A second later she found herself planted at the kitchen table. “Let me make you some tea or coffee,” he said, already filling the kettle.

“Thank you…that cupboard… The sugar bowl’s on the counter.” She sounded like one of those virginal heroines in a Victorian novel, swooning whenever confronted with a crisis. Beth was disgusted with herself, which helped clear her head.

The kettle made noises; he sat at the table without waiting for an invitation and held out a hand. “I’m Jack Murray, with the Butte County Sheriff’s Department.”

“I recognized you.” They shook hands solemnly, and she said, feeling inane, “How nice to meet you. I’m Beth Sommers. I own Sisters Office Supply.”

A small pun, she had intended the name of her business to be: a reference to the triple mountains rearing jaggedly to the west, and to the fact that she, a woman, was sole owner.

“Ah.” He pulled a small notebook from an inner pocket of his suit coat, then without opening it replaced it. “I can’t help you officially.”

“I realize that. I do appreciate you stopping.”

“Would you like to tell me about it?”

Like was hardly a word she would have used. And yet she’d had nobody familiar with such situations to give her advice. Her best friends were happily married. People threw things and screamed at each other on the other side of town, where lawns were shaggy and yellowing and paint peeled, not here. Or so she had always believed. This man, she guessed, knew better.

Without having consciously made up her mind, Beth began to talk, giving him the facts: Ray had moved out nearly a year before, at her request. At first he hadn’t believed she meant it. When he picked up or dropped off the girls, he alternated between charm and feigned indifference, both designed to show her what she was missing. When she went ahead and filed for divorce, he tried arguing with her, only at the last minute getting a lawyer to represent him. He hadn’t disputed custody; Ray was a long-haul trucker who was gone for days on end. The visitation was to be liberal, agreed upon between the two of them. So far he had picked up the girls when they expected him, which was the only positive Beth could think of. He had paid the child support until the divorce was final, but since then he had changed, giving freer rein to the anger that was one of the principal causes of the divorce. He wanted her to beg for the support check, and she refused.

At first he had said things to her, but out of the girls’ hearing; when she stayed calm, he said them in front of Stephanie and Lauren. Which upset her enough that she couldn’t pretend composure she didn’t feel. That it upset them, too, seemed to have no weight with him.

Once he realized he’d found the way to get to her, Ray escalated his tactics. He gave one or the other of the girls “messages” to pass on to Mom. He had little talks with them about how crazy it was that their mother had broken up the family. Tonight was the third time he had brought them home late—so late, it couldn’t possibly be innocent. Maybe the first time had been; Beth was willing to give him that much credit. But by the time they showed up four hours later than she had expected them, she’d been terrified.

She might as well have handed him a weapon.

“If I didn’t react, he’d probably quit doing it,” she concluded with a long sigh. “Maybe I could, if it weren’t for all the articles about noncustodial parents who disappear with the kids. Every time I see a picture of a missing child, I can’t help imagining…” She gave an involuntary shudder. “I don’t think Ray would do that. I don’t think he really wants the kids full-time, he just enjoys these little jabs. But when they’re due and an hour goes by, and then another one and another, every time I wonder…” She didn’t have to finish. Instead Beth lifted the mug of tea for a sip, needing the second it gave her to regain her poise.

The sheriff listened to her bleak story without interruption or comment. Nothing she said surprised him; his expression told her that he’d heard worse, and probably seen it, too.

He wasn’t a handsome man. In fact, he should have been homely with a crooked nose and features that were too crudely sculpted, yet somehow he wasn’t. She might have even found him attractive, if his eyes hadn’t been so cynical, his mouth so hard. Sheriff Murray had been sympathetic to her, but he wasn’t a soft man.

When she set down the mug, he met her gaze squarely. “What if I hadn’t shown up tonight?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your ex-husband struck me as a very angry man, Ms. Sommers. If he got some satisfaction from scaring you this time, he’s going to do it again. Question is, what will he do next time? And how long will just scaring you be enough?”

“I…don’t know,” she admitted, feeling sick. It was ironic, when she ought to know Ray better than anyone else in the world. They had been married for twelve years, and had dated regularly for two years before that. But Ray had changed, even his anger becoming more unpredictable. She was no longer confident that she knew what he would or wouldn’t do.

“Let me check on the girls,” Beth said, and at his nod hurried upstairs. Stephanie was in her nightgown, bending over the tub to rinse Lauren’s hair. Beth paused in the bathroom doorway to watch for a moment, unobserved.

“Too hot!” Lauren exclaimed.

Her sister adjusted the water, then dumped another cup over the eight-year-old’s soapy, sodden red curls.

“Too cold.”

“For Pete’s sake,” Stephanie muttered, but she fiddled with the knob again. The mirror and the sliding doors that turned the tub into a shower enclosure were both steamed up. Kneeling on the bathroom floor with the towel wrapped around her head, Stephanie looked like a mother in miniature. With the mild exasperation in her tone, she even sounded like one.

The normalcy of the scene was reassuring. Beth hated the weekends when her daughters went to their father’s, but it helped to know that they had each other. At eleven going on twelve, Stephanie was the usual confused mixture of maturity and childishness, but Beth had confidence in her judgment—up to a point.

“How are you doing, guys?”

Stephanie turned her head. “Okay.”

“Too hot!” Lauren yelled.

Stephanie rolled her eyes. “It’s never perfect!”

Beth stepped forward to kiss the top of her older daughter’s head—actually, to kiss a wet towel, but the gesture was understood. “Sweetheart, it was never perfect when I had to rinse your hair, either. Forget toilet training. I was really happy when you started taking care of your own hair.”

“How come she isn’t old enough to?”

“Lauren’s doing everything but finishing up the rinsing,” Beth reminded her. “Now, I’ll be back to tuck you two into bed in a few minutes.”

“Can we read in bed?”

She ought to say no, as late as it was, but she was afraid once they went to bed, they would lie in the dark remembering tonight’s scene and worrying about the next visit to their dad’s. Maybe a good book would give them pleasant thoughts instead to fall asleep with.

“Why not?” Beth said.

She’d half expected to find the sheriff waiting in the hall, eager to make his departure. But no, he was still sitting at her kitchen table, his head back and his eyes closed as if he were catnapping. When she entered the room, he became alert instantly, his eyes appraising. She was suddenly uncomfortable, perhaps only because she hated being in this situation. Or was it that, for a moment, she had been aware of him as a weary and very sexy man, not just a police officer?

If so, she must be crazy. She had every reason to feel grateful, humiliated, frightened, you name it. But attraction was ridiculous. Unless her hormones had decided that any man who came charging to her rescue was worth keeping around.

If she had imagined that his appraisal had been masculine rather than professional, he quickly disabused her. “Have you changed the locks on the house since your divorce?”

“No. I’ve been intending to…”

“Do it. You might consider a security system as well.”

“The only trouble is, I have to let him in,” she pointed out. “He has a right to see the girls.”

“Yes, but at least then he couldn’t surprise you.”

She nodded slowly. Steph and Lauren would be well aware why Mom was having a security system installed.

“Do you have a brother or a father who could be here when Mr. Sommers picks up and drops off the children?”

“No,” she said tersely. “I think that would make matters worse, anyway. Ray would get more belligerent. And I don’t want anyone hurt on my behalf.”

He frowned. “You need protection, Ms. Sommers. A woman alone with two children is vulnerable.”

Beth set down her mug with a click. “Exactly what is it that a man could do to protect me that I can’t do myself?”

“Exert physical force, if need be.” Before she could respond to that one, he switched directions. “Tell me, do you know how to handle a gun?”

“No, and I wouldn’t shoot my ex-husband if I knew how!” Beth said. “That’s all the girls need, to see their dad bleeding to death on our front porch.”

Jack Murray leaned back in his chair, an expression of impatience on his hard face. “Ms. Sommers, I have the feeling you’re not taking this threat seriously. I know it’s hard to picture a man you’ve lived with doing violence to you, but…”

Beth stood, pushing her chair back. “Sheriff, I’m a capable woman. I own a business. I employ six other people. I consider myself competent and reasonably intelligent. I would probably lose a fistfight with my ex-husband, but since that hardly seems like a solution to my problem, I’m afraid I don’t see how I could take this threat more seriously.”

Their gazes met, before he said in that neutral tone a policeman must have to master, “I didn’t mean to imply that you’re incapable. The problem is, in a situation like this you have the reasonable facing the irrational. What if he’d come through that door tonight?”

“He has a key,” Beth said. “He didn’t use it. When I told the girls that their father was throwing a temper tantrum, I meant it. That’s all it was.” Please, God.

Jack Murray made a sound under his breath, one in which she read disbelief and impatience. But presumably it was also a form of concession, because he, too, stood.

“I’ll talk to the people at ESPD.” His patronizing tone was enough to set her teeth on edge. “I’m sure they’ll have a patrol car come by regularly for now, especially on weekends, if that’s when Mr. Sommers takes the girls. And you know where to call.”

“Yes, I do,” she said, inclining her head with unaccustomed coolness. “I certainly hope I won’t need to.”

“Ms. Sommers…” The sheriff seemed to think better of whatever he’d intended to say. He only shook his head. “I’d best be getting home.”

He followed her to the front door. Beth held it open and said again, “Thank you.” She meant it. Jack Murray might be patronizing, but he had come to her rescue. His intentions were good.