He blinked open his eyes, the room around him blurry as he sought out his seductress. Then his sight settled on a pair of brown eyes with slitty pupils…and he got a blast of the nastiest breath he’d ever smelled.
Darby wasn’t running her fingers through his hair. Rather, Billy the Goat was licking his hair.
He sprung from the bed so fast he was lucky he didn’t pull a muscle.
Billy bleated in protest.
“You’re upset?” he muttered, running his hand over his hair and the saliva coating it. “Try to imagine how I feel.”
He heard giggling by the door. He swung around to see Erin and Lindy trying to hold in their laughter as Billy rounded the bed and came after John, the bell around his neck clanging. John caught the goat’s lead and pointed a finger at the mischievous twins. “Payback’s…well, not very much fun. For you two.”
Over the past three days he’d suffered myriad practical jokes, from shaving cream in his boots, to cat hair in his comb and gravel in his bed. This, however, was the first time he’d had to contend with a live animal licking his person.
The war the girls had waged against him was escalating. And it was past time he entered it.
His eyes began to water. He rubbed the back of his hand against his nose, then gave a sneeze that rocked him on his feet.
“Oh, my God!” Darby stepped hesitantly into the doorway, slapping her hand over her mouth as she took in the scene. The girls made a beeline to pass her, but she caught both of them by the shoulders. “What’s going on here?”
John grimaced, sidestepping a charge by Billy. “Let’s just say I won’t have to wash my face this morning. Billy saw to that for me.”
“He didn’t lick your face,” Erin said. “He was eating your hair.”
Lindy began giggling again, setting off a fresh round of laughter at John’s expense. Even Darby appeared to be having a tough time keeping a straight face. John grimaced at her.
“Erin, go get Billy, please, and take him back outside,” Darby turned the six-year-old toward the goat. “Lindy, you help.”
Suddenly the laughter stopped and the twins mumbled protests as they trudged toward John. He all too happily handed them the goat’s lead.
The clump-clump of hooves on the stairs sounded; John gave a sigh of relief, and Darby smiled at him.
John couldn’t help a smile of his own now that the incident had passed. “Don’t tell me, I took Billy’s room and he’s out to get me for it?”
“Not exactly.”
“Tell me you weren’t in on this.”
“I wasn’t in on this.”
“Why doesn’t that make me feel better?” John reached for a towel on top of a pile Darby had put on the dresser for him. “Yeah, well, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go wash goat gunk out of my hair.”
Darby apparently gave in to temptation, and her laughter filled the room.
“Sure, go ahead and laugh,” he said. “You weren’t the one who woke up expecting to find a sexy woman sneaking into bed with you only to get blasted by goat breath. Add my allergies on top of it and you wouldn’t be laughing, either.”
Darby made an effort to stop. “Well, at least I won’t ever have to worry about morning breath with you, will I.”
Heat, sure and strong, swept through John. Her comment seemed to indicate that he would get the opportunity to wake up in the same bed with her. The prospect brought every one of the naughty images from his dream back to him tenfold. “Darby, your breath could be twice as bad as that goat’s and I’d never say anything.”
The smile eased from her face, replaced by a weightier expression that left no doubt that her mind was traveling down the same path as his.
Three days, and he hadn’t had a single opportunity to continue his campaign to win her hand. Well, okay, maybe there had been a couple. But he’d been caught so off guard he hadn’t been able to take advantage of them. Dealing with the new living arrangements, the nonstop shenanigans of the twins and his constant state of arousal whenever Darby was within touching distance was enough to knock any man off-kilter.
Downstairs the back door slammed. Darby averted her gaze. “Um, coffee’s ready and breakfast should be done in a few. See you downstairs?”
He’d rather see her in his bed. But considering the state of his hair, he didn’t think it was a good idea to make a move just now.
“Um, yeah. See you downstairs.”
Later that morning John wondered if standing on the alien surface of Mars would feel the same as watching the ultrasound screen at Old Orchard General Hospital.
“See, there’s the baby’s head,” the doctor was saying. He didn’t quite catch her full name. Something Barnaby. She was new here, and he’d never met her before.
Darby reached for John’s hand and squeezed. He looked at her face, finding it full of joy and hope and brightness. He couldn’t help but smile when all he really wanted to do was bolt for the door.
“Would you like a video of the session?” the doctor asked as she switched off the machinery and rubbed the goop from Darby’s stomach with a paper towel. The slightest of swells rounded the surface, something he hadn’t noticed until watching the ultrasound and seeing the baby, his baby, in there. It seemed uncomfortably intimate, somehow, witnessing Darby’s examination. Strange, since they’d been very intimate and he hadn’t felt any discomfort then.
He cleared his throat. “Can you tell what sex it is?”
The doctor smiled. “Are you sure you want to know?”
“No,” Darby said, giving him a stern glance. “No, we don’t want to know.”
He grimaced. He wanted to know. Wanted to be able to refer to the baby as he or she, rather than the anonymous it.
“Can you tell just me?” he asked.
The doctor told Darby she could get up. “I think that’s something you’ll want to discuss with your wife first.”
John locked gazes with Darby. His wife. The words sounded weird coming from the young obstetrician’s mouth, yet somehow right.
Darby, on the other hand, looked ready to jump out of her skin. “We’re not, um, married,” she said.
“Yet,” John added.
The doctor merely smiled. “Then I think it’s doubly important that you two talk about the sex issue.” She wrote something down in her file. “If one parent finds out, it’s a pretty good bet both parents will know, regardless of his or her wishes.”
John bristled. “I can keep a secret.”
Darby laughed quietly. “Yeah, like you wouldn’t tell the entire town if you knew it was a boy.”
“Is it a boy?” John asked the doctor, the whole prospect of his having a child growing more real to him.
She wagged her finger at him. “Talk to your…er, to Darby if you want to find out.”
He grinned at Darby. She shook her head.
Just another thing he was going to have to bring her to her senses about.
How, exactly, did a guy go about seducing a woman he was already living with? That was the question that plagued John throughout the remainder of the day on the job. The twins…well, their presence proved a challenge he hadn’t thought of when he’d agreed to move in. Erin and Lindy were more alert than nearly all his deputies combined.
Except for Cole, of course, who seemed to be one step ahead of him more often than not as of late.
“Your unannounced opponent for this year’s election, Bully Wentworth, had a few choice words to say about the integrity of the office in this morning’s paper,” Cole was saying, leaning on the doorjamb. “He didn’t come right out and say anything about your…situation with the Widow Conrad, but he didn’t have to. It’s all right there, between the lines.”
John sat back in his chair, wincing at Cole’s calling Darby the Widow Conrad. “Shocker, seeing as his father owns the paper.”
Cole grinned. “I think you should ask for space for a response.”
“Yeah, and they’d give me two lines between advertisements for
fertilizer and feminine products. No, thank you.”
Cole straightened from the doorjamb. “You have to offer some sort of response, John. Surely you can’t plan to sit back and do nothing. You have to defend yourself.”
“Who says?”
“I do, for one.”
“Besides you.”
Cole took a long sip of his coffee. “Nearly half the population. I can’t seem to go anywhere without someone asking me about what’s happening with you and what you have to say about Wentworth’s accusations.”
“That makes two of us, but since when does gossip have anything to do with the sheriff’s office?”
“Since townsfolk are calling in fake reports just to get one of us out there in hopes of getting a scoop.”
John lifted his brows. “That’s happening?”
“Yeah. Just this morning Jugawatt called in a possible intruder alert. The intruder was a bird.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
John sighed and rubbed his face, wondering when things would start getting easier, instead of more complicated. From some of the townsfolk, especially the guys, he got thumbs-up signs. When Dusty heard the news, he’d nearly threatened to blacken his other eye. But it was the reaction from the women in town that puzzled him. A few looked at him with downright hostility. Others seemed to size him up, as if the news cast him in a new light and had them wondering what he could do for them.
Yeah, invite the sheriff out to do some tasks around the house and he’ll satisfy all your needs.
Ouch.
“Threaten to arrest anyone who calls in a false report from here on in,” he said.
“That’ll help in your reelection campaign.”
“What campaign?” he said under his breath, not expecting Cole to answer.
“The one Mrs. Noonan’s heading up, along with the Old Orchard Women’s Club.”
Good Lord. “You’re kidding?”
“Nope. They’ve posted signs in Penelope Moon’s window and everything. Put them up this morning. Though I think connecting that wacko to you may not be in your best interests.”
“Penelope’s not a wacko,” John said in defense of the New Age shop owner he’d gone to school with. “She’s just…different.”
“And different is just what you don’t want right now. You want to make yourself one of the people. Of the people, by the people, for the people, that kind of thing.”
John pulled a file in front of him and reached for the phone. “What, are you putting a bid in as my campaign manager? Assuming there’s going to be a campaign. Which I haven’t said one way or another that there is.”
Cole shrugged. “Just trying to help.”
Distantly John realized he was being a little tough on the young deputy, but he couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t deal with this one more thing heaped on top of everything else at the moment.
“Yeah, I know,” he said gruffly. “Thanks.”
Cole took that as his cue to leave, and John buried his face in his hands. The saying “When it rains it pours” certainly held true here. He glanced at his watch, Darby slipping into his thoughts again. He wondered if she wouldn’t mind having her mother keep the twins for the night so he could at least make some progress in one aspect of his life. The problem with that was he had the feeling Darby was using the girls to keep him at arm’s length and might even see his asking to get rid of the girls as another reason she shouldn’t marry him. After all, he couldn’t ask her to ship the kids out every time he wanted to sleep with her. Especially since that was the sorry state he was in every moment of every day.
No. Instead, he would have to find a way to get a handle on the girls, work around them and plant a bull’s-eye directly on Darby’s back.
And this Saturday morning would be the perfect time to do that. If he could wait two more days.
“Sheriff?”
“What?” he barked, dropping his hands to the desk in frustration.
Only, instead of Cole, he found himself staring at the questioning face of Pastor Jonas Noble.
Great. Just great. That was all he needed now….
“Pastor Jonas really told you that either we should get married or you should move out?” Darby asked that Saturday morning, comfortable if not particularly attractive in her flowered capri pants and pink T-shirt. Attractive wasn’t what she was going for, anyway, she reminded herself as she led the way into the barn, John following on her heels. In fact, she’d gone out of her way to make herself as unattractive as possible since he’d moved in. She wore little if no makeup. Donned her oldest and ugliest clothing. And if worse came to worst, she kept the twins firmly between her and the man who made her want to leap into bed with him every time she met his gaze and felt that hum of attraction arc between them.
The problem was that now the twins were somewhere out in the back field playing with Ellie Johansen, Dusty and Jolie’s foster child. Darby hadn’t made the play date, John had. She had little doubt, however, that Jolie was more than a willing conspirator. Despite how tough the fire chief was, she had a romantic streak a mile wide. And never passed up the opportunity to remind Darby that nearly a year had passed since Erick’s death and it was time she moved on with her life.
She thought of the baby growing within her and wondered how much more quickly she could move.
“Yeah, it wasn’t pretty,” John said, and Darby realized he was still talking about Pastor Jonas. “Though I got the impression he really wasn’t all that concerned with our living arrangements. It was like he felt obligated to say the words, but wasn’t in complete agreement with the meaning. Odd, considering his position. I would have thought he’d quote scripture or something to back up his position. Where do you want these?”
“Over there is fine.” Darby motioned toward a stack of hay bales and he put down his load. Only Sheriff John Sparks could pull off looking masculine while holding dainty wicker baskets.
“You know, several people have said things like that. Ever since Pastor Adams came back from his pilgrimage and asked Pastor Jonas to stay and take over some of his responsibilities permanently, more parishioners than not come away from counseling more confused than when they went in.” She pushed a strand of hair from her eyes. “He actually told Elva Mollenkopf that she should speak her mind whenever she was moved to.”
“Maybe he was trying some twisted sort of reverse psychology.” John grimaced, likely thinking of the thoughtless woman whose razor-sharp tongue had injured many, Darby included. “I hope it works. We have a running bet around the office on how long it will take before someone snaps and runs Elva over with their car.”
“You do not.”
“Okay, we don’t.” He grinned. “But we should.”
Darby smiled as she picked up one of the baskets and headed for the barn’s back door. John hesitantly followed and she surreptitiously turned to watch him. He was looking around the barn as if he’d just stepped into a parallel but different universe.
John’s being uncomfortable in rural surroundings was exactly what she’d been banking on. Over the past five days he had come to fit in more than she had imagined, adding a warmth to the household that found her frequently thinking of him as a permanent addition. Which was exactly what she didn’t want. This morning, she planned to make him see that he didn’t belong here. That they didn’t belong together. He tripped over a thick rope, and she stopped herself from asking if he was all right. And if she helped herself believe that he didn’t belong here, well, all the better.
So far he’d proved himself more than capable in everything. He’d even taken Billy’s tongue bath the other day in stride. And the twins… No matter how incorrigible they were, he somehow always managed to diffuse the situation in a way that left everybody feeling good. Including her. So much so that she actually found herself imagining what life would be like if he was here permanently.
Darby nearly tripped over another length of rope.
“Are you all right?”
/>
She swallowed hard. “Yes…I’m fine.” Or at least she would be once she’d convinced him that he didn’t really want to marry her and he left the farm once and for all. “The, um, chicken coop is out the back way. I positioned it that way so the twins wouldn’t have free access.” She unlocked and opened the door. “Of course if you’d rather wake up to chickens pecking you on the cheek, just let me know.”
“I think I’ll pass, thank you.”
She motioned for him to go ahead of her. “I thought you’d say that.”
He turned, the small confines of the coop putting him chest to chest with her. “Of course should I wake up to find you pecking my cheek…well, I’d have no objections to that.”
Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea, after all, Darby thought, absently wetting her lips with her tongue. His gaze followed the movement, making the ball of awareness in her chest dip lower. Much lower.
“I’ve never, um, collected eggs before,” he said.
Darby thrust the basket at him, using it as a buffer between them. “Well, if you’re going to be staying here, you’d better learn.”
His eyes narrowed on her face as if trying to read the motivation behind her words. Darby turned toward the row of chickens to her left and positioned the other basket in front of her. “You get the other side.”
“Okay,” he said slowly.
When she sensed he had finally turned his attention away from her, she took a deep breath. That was a close one. Perhaps she should have rescheduled her farm lesson for a time when the twins could be with them. She looked through the chicken wire, catching sight of the twins in question, playing hide-and-seek with little Ellie in a thatch of trees some fifty yards away. She slanted a glance at John, finding him trying to shoo a chicken away from her straw nest. The chicken squawked and pecked at his hand. He shook it, stared at the offending chicken, then tried again with much the same result. After four such attempts, he finally managed to get under the chicken and retrieve the one egg that waited there.
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