Always the One: (Meadowview Heroes # 2) (The Meadowview Series Book 6) (Meadowview Heat)

by Rochelle French

  She should have bugged Juliet to loan her a few outfits, but after what Juliet had pulled back at the ER, it hadn’t occurred to her. So yeah, sweats would have to suffice, even though she wanted to look nice for Remy when he returned. The order for him not to kiss her still stood, but she was a girl and had her pride.

  And she wanted to make him dinner.

  He’d told her to take a bath and then lay back down, and yeah, he’d yelled at her for cleaning his microwave earlier, but maybe if she found enough yummies in his fridge and pantry, she could make him something so delicious he’d forget about her concussion. She’d slept all afternoon, after all. It was time she made some contribution to her keep. She could dig around in his kitchen and whip up something delicious, and as she did so, she could come up with a rock-solid plan as to how to locate Visada.

  And figure out how many lattes she’d have to steam and how many shovels she’d have to sell at Ye Old Coffee & Hardware before she had enough money to buy back her horse.

  Before she could grab the shopping bag with her clothes, a strange sound caught her attention, and she paused. Had that come from outside? She waited a moment, and the sound came again—a mewling cry.

  Was that a kitten?

  Remy hadn’t mentioned having any pets. Where was the sound coming from? She wrapped the towel around her tight, tucked the corner in between her breasts to hold it there, then padded out into the great room and paused, listening again. Again, the sound came. Definitely a kitten somewhere outside in Remy’s back yard.

  It took a moment for her to open the French doors that led to the back patio; apparently Remy had locked not only the overly intricate handle but also the deadbolt.

  “The man is way too serious about the whole locked door thing,” she grumbled as she pulled the door open. Slipping outside, she shut the door behind her and then paused on the travertine patio and waited, peering out into the dusk, listening.

  There!

  A tiny cry came from somewhere near an above-ground hot tub surrounded by a wooden lattice. She pursed her lips and made a kissing sound. No movement, but the cry came again, as if in response.

  She tiptoed over to the hot tub, calling out softly, “Here, kitty, kitty.”

  The cry came again, but she still couldn’t see the source. At the hot tub, she got on her hands and knees in the grass and bent to peer through the lattice. There, huddled next to what had to be the very warm side of the hot tub, its eyes big and glowing, sat a white and black spotted ball of fluff.

  “Oh, baby!” Coraleen murmured. “Where’s your mommy?”

  The kitten meowed loudly in response.

  “Come here, sweetheart. I won’t hurt you. You look like you’re cold, and probably hungry.”

  She waited, hoping the kitten would recognize the concern and care in her voice and would come to her. Instead, the kitten cried out again and backed even further into the dark area. Huh.

  Coraleen sat back and examined the lattice work. Someone had gone a bit overboard with their construction tools. The decorative lattice appeared massively solid, each slat screwed into a framework of pine two-by-fours.

  She called out again, and was once more met with a plaintive cry. The kitten was too scared to come to her. Darn. She could wait and see if the baby would come out on its own, but the poor thing seemed puzzled and afraid and waiting could take hours.

  A sudden burst of wind whipped through the yard, and Coraleen realized that as dusk was dropping into twilight, the temperature was dropping, too. Spring days in Deloro County could be balmy and warm, but nights still dropped low, sometimes dipping close to freezing. Too low for a solitary kitten to spend the night outside, alone.

  She leaned back and glanced around. A shovel and a six-foot iron pry-bar stood to the side of Remy’s extensive back yard, next to a halfway turned-under garden plot and a large pile of rocks and boulders.

  An idea formed. Thank goodness Remy wasn’t the world’s most tidy person—the pry bar was just what she needed. She glanced at where the kitten hid, then looked back at the pry-bar. Remy would have to forgive her, right? After all, he was known for rescuing damsels and critters in distress. Surely he’d support her kitten rescue.

  “So that’s the way it’s gonna be, I guess,” she told the kitten. “But you have to be the one to explain to Remy why I’m vandalizing his property.”

  Her efforts took only a few minutes, but soon a section of the latticework lay in a pile of jagged and splintered pieces next to the hot tub and she was on her knees again, squeezing her head and shoulders through the newly-created hole. Although grass surrounded the latticework, between it and the hot tub lay a trench of…ew. Mud.

  “C’mon, baby,” she said, extending her fingers to the kitten, trying to keep her shoulders up above the mud. The ball of fluff was just out of reach. It blinked its eyes and meowed again.

  “Seriously? You can’t move forward like, six inches?”

  The kitten held still, looking at her with an expression that read more perplexed than freaked out.

  Coraleen huffed. “I just took the first bath I’ve had in five years. I’m cleaner than I’ve been in five years. I smell better than I have in five years. And now you’re making me crawl through mud?”

  The kitten blinked.

  “Oh, Lordy,” Coraleen breathed out. So much for making Remy a nice dinner. So much for her getting all cleaned up. So much for smelling sweet and all non-convict-y. But needs must prevail pleasures, and a kitten’s life was in danger.

  It didn’t take long. Just a few squirms, a couple of “oofs,” and the cold, sucking sensation of mud all over her forearms, elbows, and shoulders. But within seconds, Coraleen had come back to standing, now holding a squirming and slightly muddy kitten.

  She peered around in the dark but couldn’t see any other kittens or a mama cat that might claim this one as its own. With one hand, she tucked the towel in tighter and shivered as the wind picked up again. The kitten shivered, too, and Coraleen tucked it into her neck, draping it with her hair.

  “You all alone? An orphan, like me?” she murmured. That old, familiar ache formed in her chest again as Pop’s face took center stage in her mind. She stroked the kitten, which burst out in a rapid-fire purring.

  “You like being talked to, is that it?” The kitten purred louder and kneaded at her hair with tiny claws. Visada had liked being talked to, also. He even nickered back from time to time.

  For a moment, Coraleen relaxed into a warm and loving memory of her out in Visada’s pasture, riding the horse without a bridle or saddle, and Pop sitting on the fence, smiling as he watched the two of them canter around the field.

  Pop had done everything he could to make life wonderful and grand for his lonely granddaughter. He’d taken her everywhere he went, involved her in his accounting business, introduced her to all his friends, made sure she discovered her own, helped her with her homework…and indulged her in paying for riding lessons.

  And because he’d given her so much, she’d done everything she could for the man who’d been about to retire but had put his own life and ambitions on hold to take care of her the day Child Services dropped her off at his doorstep.

  She squeezed the kitten tighter and snuggled her face in its soft fur. The kitten purred louder.

  “Aw, you’re so sweet. Sorry you don’t know where your mommy is.” The kitten seemed to find comfort in the sound of her voice, so she continued on, stroking the ball of fluff as she spoke. “But I’ll give you lots and lots of love.”

  She headed back to the patio’s French doors, planning on finding a box and a blanket to put the kitten in and a bowl of warm milk to feed it. While it ate, maybe she’d still have time to make dinner for Remy. And she’d definitely need to take another bath. She did not want to track mud all over Remy’s house.

  Only when she tried the handle, the door wouldn’t open. “Uh oh,” she muttered. When she’d come outside to find the kitten, she’d shut the door behind her, whi
ch must have automatically locked. Great.

  By this time, the kitten’s kneading had intensified, and Coraleen had to unhook sharp baby claws from her hair.

  “You’re hungry, aren’t you? Let’s find an unlocked door to this place. Worse comes to worst, I’ll crawl through a window.”

  It took one full pass around the single-story house, trying each and every door and window, to realize that yes indeedy, the man took locking up seriously. She’d have to find another way in.

  She doubled-back to the side door on the garage. That had been the one door without a deadbolt, she’d noticed. Using a piece of heavy plastic she found in a recycling bin near the door, she worked to jimmy the lock.

  Only as she popped the lock and opened the door, a loud shrieking of a siren rent the air.

  The kitten scrabbled at her neck in fright, causing Coraleen to let go of the door, which slammed shut. She tried the handle. Nope. Locked out again.

  “Well now, this sucks,” she muttered, giving up and leaning against the door as the house alarm continued to split the air.

  How long had Remy said he’d be gone? About two hours, right? One hour had passed while she’d luxuriated in the tub and caught the kitten. She’d have to wait another hour.

  So much for preparing him a lovely meal to show her gratitude. Or making herself look and smell pretty. Plus, now she owed him a repair job on the latticework.

  Maybe if the car repairs weren’t over a thousand bucks, she could hire Jack Gibson, Chessie’s brother, to repair the damage. He’d been several years ahead of her in school, and when he’d graduated from college he’d moved back to start a construction company. Chessie was among those in Meadowview who didn’t hate her guts, so her brother probably wouldn’t, either. Coraleen could see if he’d cut her a deal. Blast. Her debts were really starting to add up.

  The wind burst through again and she shivered. An hour was a long time to wait in the cold.

  Wait—Remy’s hot tub was warm. Sure, Remy had ordered her not to get into the hot tub, but she wouldn’t immerse herself completely.

  Besides, when he’d come up with that ridiculous list of rules, neither of them had anticipated her getting locked outside in the cold.

  She headed back and stuck her legs in, sitting on the edge with the kitten still lodged in tight next to her neck, and settled in to wait for Remy’s return. Not easy, what with the way the house alarm still shrieked, but at least the hot tub water around her calves and knees warmed her and she was no longer shivering.

  The kitten finally settled down enough for Coraleen to hold it out at arm’s length. It had big blue eyes and its coat was white with large black splotches all over. Like her, it needed a good bath.

  It took a moment for Coraleen to realize that something new had been added to the wailing sound of the house alarm…was that a police siren?

  Red and blue lights flashed through the twilight sky and the kitten fretted again, scrabbling to bury her face in Coraleen’s hair.

  “It’s okay, baby,” she murmured and patted the kitten, but tension crept up her spine. That siren sounded loud. And close. A car door slammed, the sound echoing in the twilight, and heavy footsteps crunched the gravel in the drive leading to the back yard.

  Her heartbeat intensified and the kitten scrabbled around her neck.

  A white light burst through the darkness, blinding her. “Hands up!” a loud voice shouted.

  Oh, no. Not again. Seriously, not again.

  Remy began looking for Jacob Bullard in the laundromat, then in the alleyway between the Goldpan Pub and Cuppa Joe, where he sometimes found wayward teens huddled next to heating vents (usually smoking joints), but the boy hadn’t been at either place. By chance someone had mentioned seeing lights out at the historic graveyard a few nights before, and Remy headed over. Lucky for him, Jacob had indeed picked this place as his temporary home.

  The scent of jasmine hung heavy in the evening air, mixed with the cloying scent of decaying stargazer lilies, damp grass, and freshly overturned earth. Remy sighed and squinted into the oncoming darkness. There, ten yards ahead, curled in a ball next to a headstone and sound asleep, lay Jacob, wrapped in a thick horse blanket and with several empty bags of crinkle-cut potato chips and a flashlight by his side.

  A knot formed in Remy’s stomach seeing the kid like that. Ike Bullard must be in a bad way if his son was out sleeping at the cemetery.

  “Jacob? Wake up, son.”

  The boy lurched upright, eyes wide and out of focus, panic written across his face. Remy bent to his knees and made soothing noises.

  “It’s just Sheriff Toussaint. You’re fine. You’re safe,” he said calmly.

  Jacob’s eyes focused on Remy’s face and he seemed to relax. “Oh, uh, hey Sheriff.”

  “Your dad on a bender?” Remy asked gently.

  When the boy glanced away, swallowed, but refused to respond, he added, “I won’t take you home if that’s what you want. But I do need you to come with me. Can’t sleep on a grave, kid.”

  “I’m fine,” the boy mumbled, but sat up and stared at his hands folded in his lap.

  Remy held a difference of opinion, but kept his thoughts unsaid. Instead, he eased down to a seated position next to the kid, but far enough away not to send Jacob sprinting off into the darkness. “I saw you this morning, on the street, during school hours. I called Principal Sloane, who said you and Madison Cabot skipped school today.”

  Jacob wouldn’t look at him and instead found a hangnail vastly interesting.

  “I’m glad to see Madison is making friends. She had it rough when she first moved here.”

  “I know all about her vandalizing Chessie Gibson’s place last year,” Jacob said. “And about how she went to juvie.”

  Remy hadn’t wanted to see Madison end up there, but he’d made sure she’d gotten out of the system quickly. He’d visited her a few times, let her know that even with her bad behavior she was a member of the community she’d moved to, and now—except for apparently ditching school—the girl was mostly on the right path.

  “I’m sure you’re a good friend for her, Jacob.”

  At that, the boy’s eyes brightened.

  “But I need to make sure neither of you are truant,” Remy continued. “She can’t afford any more trouble. And you have a bright future ahead of you. You know that, right?”

  Jacob looked away, but a flash of guilt crossed his face. “Did Sloane tell you we only skipped first period? Madison missed the bus and texted me, so I cut to walk her to school. That’s all. We were there for all the other classes. I swear.”

  “Good. I’m glad to hear it.” Remy leaned back on his hands, the grass damp and cold under his palms. Damn. The kid had slept out here for how many nights? “You know, also, that I can’t let you stay out all night. It’s not safe.”

  The boy sat up and pulled his knees in tight. “I’m not going home.”

  Remy sighed. There’d been no physical abuse that Remy knew of, but if Jacob had taken to sleeping in alleyways and graveyards he had to assume Ike’s inability to control his alcoholism had intensified and was putting the kid in danger.

  “Understood. I won’t take you home, but need you to come with me,” he said calmly.

  “I’m not going into Child Services, either. Been there, done that, not doing it again.”

  Remy sighed. “It’s the best thing for you. My options are limited. Rules are rules.”

  “But the home Child Services put me in is really strict. They won’t let me work at the judge’s barn after school. Judge Reinhardt pays me really well to take care of his horses and muck stalls and stuff. My grades totally rock and I’m even wait-listed at Stanford, but I need to save up. I swear to god, man, I can’t lose this job.” Jacob’s eyes had gone wide and his voice quavered.

  Leaning forward, Remy held up his hands. “I have to follow protocol, and that protocol demands I keep you safe. I get it, though, how important your job is to you. And I know you’ll be
eighteen in a month. But I still need to help you. Make sure you’re okay. Trust me when I tell you I’ll see to it you’re safe, warm, fed, and that you can keep your job.”

  “Thanks,” the boy said quietly, looking off into the distance.

  For a moment they sat together, side-by-side, listening as the frogs slowed their evening chorus, then drifted into silence. Then Jacob whipped his head around and glanced at Remy, his eyebrow cocked. “Hey, who was that hot chick?”

  “What hot chick?”

  “This morning. The one in the super sexy shorts and T-shirt who crashed her car into Delilah’s. You looked like you knew her.”

  Remy twisted his mouth to the side. Hot chick was right. Even the thought of her sent his pulse revving up a gear. “Coraleen Pettigrew. She grew up in Meadowview. Lived with her grandfather outside of town, out on Riverbend Road. She’s too old for you,” he added sternly.

  “She’s still hot. Did she move away or something? And why was Bill trying to put her under arrest?”

  “She went to prison about five years ago.”

  “Seriously, dude? What’d she do?”

  Nothing, Remy automatically thought.

  That’s what his first response had been all those years ago when she’d thrust her wrists out in front of her and ordered him to cuff her, claiming she’d been the one to embezzle Lydell Wallaby’s funds, not her grandpop.

  He hadn’t believed her. Not one word. He’d figured she was making a desperate attempt to keep her grandfather out of prison.

  So he’d argued and argued with her, telling her Macer would be devastated if she went to prison for something he’d done. But she’d stuck firm with her story and insisted he take her to the stationhouse so she could provide a confession. He had, she did, and that was that.

  There was nothing else he could’ve done.

  But he’d refused to cuff her.