Hometown Sheriff

by Cheryl St. John

  Nick had been walking aimlessly, scanning the grass and bushes and flowerbeds with the beam of light. Something glittered, and he moved the light back to find it again, then walked closer. He’d traveled all the way to the house next door while pondering his dilemma of the heart, and what had caught his attention lay on the ground right beside old lady Pascal’s enormous front porch.

  Nick shone the beam at what appeared to be casings. Brass shell casings.

  He glanced up at the dark house, then bent and scooped them up. Half a dozen or more empty casings from a .22 lay in his palm. Dropping them into his pocket, he switched off the light and headed for the cruiser.

  “Don’t we have a Polaroid around here somewhere?” he asked Duane, once he’d arrived at the station.

  “Can’t get film for it anymore. There’s a digital in the drawer back there.”

  Nick found the camera, placed the shell casings on a piece of paper and snapped a couple of shots. “You know how to send these pictures?”

  “Sure. I have plenty of time to play with the toys on the night shift.”

  “Good. Send them to the state boys and see what they think.”

  Duane picked up a casing and examined it. “Where’d you find these?”

  “I’m not saying until I get a response. And don’t tell anyone.”

  Duane tossed it back and held up a palm defensively. “I won’t.”

  “If they get back to you before I come in the morning, call.”

  “Roger. ’Night, boss.”

  The clock on the dash read 1:10 a.m. when he turned off the ignition. Nick got out of the car and locked it. Fireflies danced in front of him as he made his way to the back door.

  “You said you’d be my friend.”

  Her voice startled him. Nick made out Ryanne’s form on the cushioned glider that sat on the deck. “Rye.”

  She got up and moved toward him. “You said you’d be my friend, Nick, no matter what. You promised that getting more involved wouldn’t spoil that.”

  He remembered making that promise in the heat of the moment. Maybe he’d really thought he could keep it. Being merely her friend had always been too hard. “We can go back to being friends like before,” he said. “You live and work and have a life in California, and I live and work here. We see each other once every five years or so. It worked until now.”

  The only light came from the moon and a fluorescent bulb above the sink inside the kitchen, which gave a meager glow through the curtain at the window. He made out her features, but her expression was unreadable.

  “Actually, I’m not going back to California,” she said.

  He moved closer to the glider and sat on the lawn chair across from her. Hope surged up in his chest like a volcano ready to explode. She was staying? He kept his voice calm. “You’re not?”

  “No. I’ve accepted a position in Albany. Doing marketing for a pharmaceutical company.”

  As quickly as hope had surged up, it plunged back down, taking any remaining good humor with it. “New York? That’s quite a change. What about your agency?”

  “I’ve sold it.”

  “When did you have time to do that?” She’d been here for a few weeks and had gone to her mother’s for only a few days.

  “I sold it before I came here.”

  And she’d never said a word. Never shared a glimpse of her life with him. “Why are you telling me now?”

  “I want to keep in touch. See you and Jamie from time to time. You should know where I am, I guess.”

  “Maybe it’s better if we just call it quits, Rye, and not pretend that it’s going to be comfortable trying to stay friends.”

  She stood. “You promised.”

  “It was an unfair thing to make me promise.”

  “So this is it? Fine.” Ryanne hurried down the wooden stairs before she started to cry. She’d got along without a friend until now; she could do it again. She should never have come over here.

  “I’m not the one who made the rules and set the limits,” he called after her.

  “Lower your voice. The neighbors already watch me like hawks.”

  He caught up with her, but she kept going. “You’re the one who wanted it this way. Nice and friendly. No strings. And now you’re ready to move on with your glamorous career and your life in the fast lane.”

  She stopped and swung at him, but he caught her wrist. “Are you jealous of my career?” she asked. “Is that it? You stayed here and married Holly because ‘it was the right thing to do,’ but it turned out to be the wrong thing. You never wanted more than this, and now you’re sorry?”

  “You don’t know what I wanted,” he said, his voice low and angry.

  She jerked her arm away and continued toward the house, up the porch stairs and through the door. She didn’t have a chance to close it, because he was still right behind her.

  “You don’t have a clue what I wanted, Rye.” She’d left a light on in the living room and the anger in his face was clearly revealed.

  Ryanne took a step back, daring him to tell her, to say something she didn’t know—or maybe only suspected. “What did you want, Nick?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THIS HAD ALWAYS been a sore spot between them—her ambition, his seeming lack of. The unfamiliar look in his eyes frightened her. She wanted him to understand, to forgive her, to hold her and make her world stop spinning out of control.

  “It’s not like you said,” she managed to say past a throat constricted with tears. “It was never just a good time with you, Nick. It was good—it was wonderful...but it meant something. To me, it meant something. This is what I never wanted to happen. This—” she gestured to the space between them “—this awful, oh, this awful hurt and these words we’ll regret.”

  His expression changed, softened. He ran a hand down his face and cupped his chin for a moment, all the while studying her with eyes full of mistrust and disappointment. She’d done that to him. She’d disappointed him.

  Crossing the space between them, she took his hand from his face and replaced it with her own, touching the faint, scratchy evening beard, his silky dark hair, and those lips...

  Then he kissed her.

  His kisses made everything right, and for a few minutes she forgot everything else. Lost herself in the security and warmth that was Nick.

  The window unit whirred on, brushing a breeze across them. Nick pulled back. “Rye?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Are you selling the house because you need money?”

  She stiffened in his arms, and she knew he felt it. “Why do you think that?”

  “I’m not Magnum, but I did get an obvious clue or two.” He brushed her hair from her shoulder. “You’re selling your car. Now you’re selling the house. Apparently, you sold your business.”

  Ryanne’s entire body burned with humiliation. She took a few steps back, creating more distance between them.

  “I thought maybe, if you’d let me, I could help you out. I have a little money.”

  Her worst nightmare was unfolding—worse than losing the business and her self-respect, worse then losing Nick as a friend. Now he’d know her secret shame. Her blood pounded in her ears. “Even if that was true, why would you want to help me?”

  “Because I care,” he answered simply.

  “Even if it was true and you had enough money to give me—it could be a huge amount, you don’t know—it could be possible that I couldn’t begin to pay it back for a good long time. But trust me, Nick, you don’t know what you’re offering.”

  “So it’s a lot of money?”

  She hadn’t denied it. She’d walked right into his questions unprepared and hadn’t had a response to satisfy his curiosity. “Okay, I owe a lot of money. There.”

  “Let me help you.”

  “We’re talking tens of thousands here, not a few hundred in a savings account.”

  Something flared in his eyes. “Okay.”

  “Close to a hundred grand.�
�� That ought to send him running.

  “Okay. It’s yours.”

  She stared down at him. “You have a hundred grand.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’d give it to me.”

  “Sure.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s only money. If I can’t use it to help the people I—I care about, what good is it?”

  “Where did you get a hundred grand to throw away?” she asked, completely baffled.

  His tightened jaw revealed his irritation with the question. He got up and moved to the edge of the sofa. “I’ve done pretty well with my little hobby,” he said sarcastically.

  “Fixing cars?”

  “Restoring classics. Making customized parts for collectors.”

  “You’re serious?”

  He nodded. “You know those magazines you saw in my room?” At her nod, he went on. “If you’d looked closely, you’d have seen my cars and parts featured. I have a website I sell from, too.”

  Ryanne couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d told her he’d discovered a cure for cancer. All along, Nick had been building a profitable business from his home right here in Elmwood. He was a success, more of a success than she’d ever been. And he hadn’t sacrificed his family or his integrity.

  She mulled over the irony. “So, if you have a successful business, profiting from something you obviously enjoy more than being a sheriff, why are you still chasing turkeys and locking up drunks?”

  He sat down and leaned his head against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. “You want to get right to the grit, don’t ya?”

  Not to be put off, she settled on a footstool.

  “As long as it’s not you spilling your guts, you get right to the point,” he added, but she said nothing, simply waited. After a minute, Nick raised his head and looked at her. “My dad thought it would be a wise decision. He needed me. The work was steady. It was an income before I had anything else established. Once I had so many years in, got promoted, I was obligated to so many people that I just couldn’t back out.”

  “You became the sheriff to please your father. You married Holly because it was the right thing. Why was it the right thing, Nick? Was she pregnant?”

  “No!” He shook his head and frowned. “I never touched her until after we were married.”

  “Then why? Did you love her?”

  “I thought I could love her. I thought she needed someone.”

  At that moment, it all started making sense. “Because of Justin,” she said softly.

  He nodded. Then stood. “You always manage to turn it around so that I’m the one on the hot seat, have you ever noticed?”

  “Nick, you’ve spent your whole life trying to please other people, trying to take care of everybody. When are you going to take care of yourself?”

  He shook his head as though he didn’t know the answer.

  Ryanne got up and went to him, wrapping her arms around his waist and hugging him. “Thank you for offering to help me. I can’t take your money. This is something I have to get out of myself.”

  “What happened?”

  “I made a mess of things. Didn’t pay close enough attention to finances and got wiped out. But I can start over. And I can do it on my own.”

  He took a step back, let his arms fall to his sides and kept his gaze carefully averted. “Yes, I’m sure you can.”

  He kissed her, a sad, yet sweet kiss, rubbed his knuckle against her cheek as though savoring last moments, then turned and left.

  She’d made a mess of things, all right. Not only in her marriage and partnership with Mason, but in her relationship with Nick. If she’d wanted a friend, she should never have let herself fall into the delight of dating him. They’d shared something above and beyond friendship, something that couldn’t be easily forgotten or left behind.

  She’d been seeking a place for herself for so long, and she’d thought she’d found it at the agency. But the work had never been as fulfilling as she’d thought it should be. The supposed successes of her past paled beside her recent experiences with her mother and the Sinclairs. She’d felt important. Accepted. She’d felt as though she belonged. The Sinclairs, Birdy, everyone here had accepted her for who she was—or who she was pretending to be. A pang of guilt struck her once again.

  She’d learned that she didn’t have to strive to be better and better, or to prove anything—or knock herself out to become the person her father thought she should be. Elmwood no longer represented an obstacle to overcome. The town and its citizens had somehow come to mean peace and contentment.

  This time when she left, she would be leaving something she truly cared about behind.

  * * *

  NICK STARED AT the stack of work on his desk. On top was a folder that he’d been opening, then closing and ignoring, for most of the week. Finally, he took out all the data and reports and looked them over again.

  “I got findings back on those bullet casings,” he told Bryce.

  “What’d they say?”

  “Pretty vague. Shells from a .22, as we knew. I’m going to go visit Mrs. Pascal today.”

  “Old lady Pascal?”

  Nick nodded. “I want you to come with me.”

  Bryce’s grin inched up one side of his mouth. “You need backup, boss?”

  “I need a diversion.”

  “You think the old gal has a .22 she’s firing?”

  “Those casings were under her porch railing, so it’s likely. Her husband could have had an army-issue weapon, or something for target practice. Even a squirrel gun.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I don’t know. Have her show you her roses or something. Give me some time to look around her house.”

  “You don’t have a search warrant.”

  “Actually, I do. But I don’t want to frighten her by going in like a SWAT team.”

  Bryce grumbled, but he accompanied Nick to Marguerite Pascal’s home.

  “What a delightful surprise,” she said, and welcomed them in. The house smelled of aged wood and ginger. The plump little woman wore a floral-print house dress and an apron, like Nick remembered his grandmother always wearing. “You’re just in time for fresh cookies.”

  Reluctance fleeing, Bryce raised his eyebrows and cheerfully followed her into the living room. Nick glanced around, seeing only vases and doilies and old black-and-white photographs.

  “Follow her and keep her in there,” Nick mouthed.

  Bryce trailed Mrs. Pascal to the dining room and through a highly polished swinging door. Ryanne would love this place, he thought, looking around at the vintage furnishings. Everything he did made him think of her, it seemed, and he pushed away the ache and focused on his job.

  Once alone, he opened drawers and Mrs. Pascal’s sewing box, peeked inside an old phonograph player, then made his way into the dining room. Several china cabinets and a marble-topped sideboard were possible hiding places, but he didn’t have time to look through any of them before the door swung out and Bryce, carrying a tray, preceded Mrs. Pascal.

  “Is this your husband?” Nick asked, pointing to a picture on the wall, as though he’d been absorbed in it all along.

  “Yes, that’s my dear Gerald. He was a fine figure of a man, wasn’t he?”

  “He was a handsome man,” Nick agreed. “He was a veteran, wasn’t he? Seems I remember him carrying the flag in the Memorial Day parades every year.”

  “Oh, yes. We were married only weeks before he went to war. Come have a cookie.” She handed him a glass of tea and an embroidered linen napkin.

  Nick and Bryce munched warm ginger cookies and listened to her rattle on about Norm Turner discontinuing items she’d bought in his store for as long as she could remember. “Says he doesn’t sell enough to keep it in stock,” she said indignantly. “Now why wouldn’t powdered starch sell?”

  “Maybe because if anyone irons these days, they buy the spray kind?” Bryce offered.

  “I
tell you, women these days don’t know how to keep a house and do laundry. Not like in my day. They waste time watching nonsense on the television and serve their families food filled with preservatives. Why, they’re too lazy to even teach their children to tie their shoes and instead buy them shoes with Velcro!”

  “Times have changed, haven’t they?” Nick said in sympathy. “I haven’t seen anyone who can grow roses like yours, Mrs. Pascal. Nobody cares to put in the time anymore. Have you seen them, Officer Olson?”

  Bryce took his cue. “No, but I’d like to take a gander. Did you win a blue ribbon this year?”

  He got up and Mrs. Pascal ushered him toward the door.

  “I’ll just take my time on these cookies, if you don’t mind,” Nick said. “They taste just like my grandmother used to make.”

  “Now, there was a woman who could cook,” the silver-haired matron said to Bryce.

  The minute the two were on the porch, Nick got up and investigated closets and drawers. In a small room with a narrow bed and a freezer, he discovered a gun cabinet. Inside were a couple of rifles and an English-made Walther. Nick opened the unlocked cabinet and checked both the rifles. The cagey old woman had been shooting out Harold Clement’s yard light.

  When Bryce followed her back into the house fifteen minutes later, three boxes of cartridges were lying on the mahogany table beside the serving tray. Mrs. Pascal stopped short when she saw them.

  “I’m taking all the bullets, Mrs. Pascal,” Nick said. “It’s not safe for you to be shooting at Harold’s yard light. Someone could be seriously hurt. Or killed. And you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

  The old woman looked confused for a moment, then settled herself regally in her chair, which had crocheted doilies arranged on the arms and back. “I asked Harold a dozen times to move that light where it didn’t shine in my bedroom window. I like to have my window open for fresh air at night, and that light shines right in my eyes. People don’t get enough fresh air anymore, you know. Houses are all closed up. More and more children have asthma because of it.”