Lawful Heart

by Amity Lassiter

  Nan lifted her head, smiling proudly. “You’d win that bet. Jarred tomatoes from my garden. Beef from the Baylor’s ranch. You’ve never tasted spaghetti like this.”

  “I’m excited.” Until she landed in Three Rivers, Norah couldn’t think of the last time she’d had a proper home cooked meal. Not just home cooked, but made with love. Nan’s love for people was evident in everything she did. It was the kind of thing that made Norah consider the type of person she wanted to be when she reached that age, and Nan was the perfect model. From the way she interacted with her grandsons to the people she saw on the street, the woman clearly loved taking care of others.

  “Knock knock!” a familiar voice came from the doorway. Everything inside of Norah tightened for a second. She might have just been reliving the flush of embarrassment when Banks had caught her sketching this morning, but there was something else, too…warmer. If Nan was the grandmother you wanted to take care of you, Banks was the man you wanted to sweep you off your feet and protect you. And she seemed to have inherited both when Rob had left her here.

  “Oh come in, dear,” Nan said to Banks, then to Norah. “I hope you don’t mind, I invited Banks.”

  Norah’s cheeks flushed. She might not have invited her grandson if she knew her boarder was lusting after him. “Of course I wouldn’t mind, this is your home after all.”

  Nan flashed her a smile, busying herself with cutting the garlic bread and arranging it on a serving plate. Banks stepped up beside Norah and she was suddenly aware of his large body, warmth radiating off him. She couldn’t have made eye contact, not after this morning. Maybe it would have been nicer if he hadn’t been there, but the residual awkwardness from their morning’s encounter warred with the pleasure of just being in his company. If he got a little closer, maybe she’d experience that pleasant buzz of energy that had passed between them the night before. She wasn’t looking for anything—obviously—but she figured she was owed a little bit of good endorphins after her public humiliation yesterday.

  Banks lifted the cover on the pot of noodles and gave it a stir. She watched his big hands close around the narrow handle of the wooden spoon he’d taken up, her eyes making the trek from his calloused fingers up to his wrist, banded in a canvas strapped digital watch. He’d folded up the sleeves of his uniform shirt and exposed his sinewy forearms. She drew a big breath and finally glanced over to find Banks offering her a gentle smile, right up to his eyes that crinkled a bit at the corners. Yep, this was a mistake.

  Nothing could have slowed the gentle warming in her stomach from that smile.

  “We’re totally spoiled,” he said, like it was a conspiratorial secret.

  “I’m halfway convinced the main reason you’re still a bachelor is so you can take advantage of supper at my house four nights a week,” Nan said over her shoulder.

  Banks chuckled, and the private, intimate feeling moment between them was broken. That little smile had easily convinced her they were the only people in the room. He lifted the pot off the stove and poured the water off the pasta, nabbing a glass bottle of oil off the back of the stove and giving the noodles a little swirl of it.

  “That’s not to say I don’t know how to cook. It’s just easier if Nan does it. Besides, you like it,” Banks teased his grandmother.

  “You boys say that so often it sounds like you’re trying to convince yourselves,” Nan said with a chuckle, laying out plates, cutlery and glasses on the table along with the garlic bread. “This isn’t fancy; you can go ahead and serve yourselves.”

  Banks reached behind him to the table, grabbing his plate and Norah’s and passed it to her, then stepped aside to allow her to serve herself before she headed back to the table. Nan took her seat at the head of the table, which left the spot set directly across the table from Norah for Banks. There was no way she could avoid eye contact now, though. She decided the spaghetti would require a large amount of concentration.

  About halfway through her plate, Nan cleared her throat. “I think Banks has something he’d like to ask you about.”

  Norah looked up to see Banks looking pointedly at his grandmother. She wasn’t sure there was anything for Banks to ask her about, seeing as she was stranded with a backpack and a few bucks, but her heart rate still picked up a little.

  When Banks didn’t start speaking right away, Nan cleared her throat. He wiped his mouth with his napkin and set down his fork on his plate.

  “Well, the paperwork at the office has been getting a little out of hand.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Nan interjected, which earned her another glare.

  “I’m a little sensitive about it,” Banks said with a chuckle, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. “But anyway…I’ve been meaning to hire someone to take care of the office, answer the phones, help file reports…”

  “Keep him in line,” Nan quipped again, and Banks gave up, shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

  “Anyway, it’s not a tough job, just tedious. And the pay’s decent. If you think you’ve got the skills to do it and you pass a criminal record check, I’d be happy to have you come in.”

  Well that was unexpected. Norah sat back in her seat, a couple butterflies taking a whirl around her stomach. If the universe was trying to tell her something, maybe she needed to listen. Was it really such a coincidence that she’d found herself abandoned in a place where she had family—where there were people with hearts as big as the Montgomery’s? Was it a coincidence that there was a job open at the sheriff’s office, and that her aunt had as good as told her she should stay?

  She must have hesitated too long, absorbing the goodness of the universe because Nan broke her train of thought.

  “Of course you can stay in the apartment for as long as you need to. You wouldn’t be my first long term tenant.”

  Her first instinct was to say no. Accepting help was outside of Norah’s comfort zone but would she face some kind of karmic retribution if she walked away from this perfect opportunity? Would it be more painful to put her pride aside and take the things this family was offering her or say no and try to figure out what came next?

  You’re not just looking after yourself anymore, Norah.

  Damnit.

  “That…would be wonderful,” Norah said, finally letting out a breath. The big smile that cracked Nan’s features told her the woman had had a hand in laying this plan out. “I…thank you so much.”

  The sting of tears surprised her, but she was doing a lot of things that surprised her lately. She willed the tears back and smiled as Banks reached across the table. She put her hand in his to shake it and zing! almost pulled back in surprise at the frisson of energy that passed between their palms. He grasped her fingers for a moment and then released them, in a perfectly platonic handshake.

  “I guess we’ve got a deal,” he said.

  “I guess we do.”

  —ELEVEN—

  Norah took a deep breath and waved to Nan on the exhale as the woman drove away. Turning, Norah took in the sheriff’s office. It was a small building, brown brick, that squatted on a big patch of green lawn that had a few trees and a picnic table. Out front, a flag danced nonchalantly in the light breeze of the bright spring morning.

  It was one thing to run into Banks from time to time, but it was quite another to spend the entire day in Banks’ abode. She’d gone to bed last night with a warm spot in her heart when she thought about the heat of his skin against her palm, the callous of his fingertips against the softness of her wrist, where his fingers had lingered just a second longer than might have been absolutely necessary, if she wasn’t imagining things. She could chalk half of it up to pregnancy hormones and the other half into some sort of white knight syndrome, but the whole of it was she had the hots for the sheriff.

  There were a variety of reasons why this was a bad idea: she was pregnant with another man’s child, she had nothing—no money, no roots, no security apart from what he and his family was giving her, and sh
e was fresh out of what had turned out, in the end, to be a pretty shitty relationship, even if it hadn’t been one she could see herself in forever. Most of that spelled a recipe for disaster, or at least a crash and burn. Still, those butterflies she’d felt last night took flight when she started toward the double glass doors of the building.

  Banks must have been waiting for her, because he pushed the door open from the inside with a big smile on his face. God I hope he wasn’t watching me stand out here like an idiot.

  A block-headed, long-haired black and white dog burst out the door and jetted toward her in a blur.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed as the dog sidled up to her, pushing his side into her leg with almost enough force to knock her off-kilter.

  “Crash!” Banks shouted from the door, but the dog ignored him in favor of Norah, who had crouched to pet him. Better to lower her center of gravity anyway, she figured, or else he’d take her out at the knees. The dog panted happily as she found the spot behind his ears, leaning into her even more heavily. He clearly loved the attention.

  “Hello there,” she said quietly, stroking his glossy coat. She’d always loved dogs, but with as much as they’d moved in her childhood, they’d never had the luxury, and once she was out on her own, a dog didn’t fit into her lifestyle. “Crash is a very appropriate name for you.”

  “All right, all right, buddy, you gotta let her come inside,” Banks said. The dog still ignored him—until Banks let a short, sharp whistle, and the dog barreled back toward him at the same velocity he’d headed for Norah. She straightened, her anxiety already receding. A dog was a good distraction and a nice common ground, and when she wanted to avoid having to make eye contact with Banks, she could just defer to Crash.

  “Sorry about that. Good morning,” he said, ushering her inside.

  Norah stepped in past him, close enough to smell his aftershave. Cedar and something else she couldn’t put her finger on. No matter, whatever it was was intoxicating.

  “Good morning. Don’t worry about it, I love dogs.”

  “That’s Crash and he’s been the office ‘manager’ for a while now, but he’s not very good at filing,” Banks paused, seeming to know that would draw a chuckle out of Norah. “Permanent fixture. Bit of a lunkhead, but we lunkheads have to stick together. That’s what Nan tells me, anyways.”

  Norah laughed, feeling the rest of her tension ease out of her body. Up close, Banks was more personable. Warm, friendly, a little bit humorously self-deprecating. The Banks she’d envisioned last night while she’d been trying to go to sleep, but couldn’t will herself into it because she was too excited, was practically a romance novel cover model, all smoldering and charismatic. Alone, in his work environment, he was just easy to get along with. And that was probably why he was so good at his job. She shouldn’t have been surprised, considering how accommodating Nan was.

  “Prepare yourself, now,” he warned, outstriding her quickly to lead her deeper into the office. “I’m afraid I haven’t been great at keeping up with this paperwork. It’s going to seem like a lot.”

  He pushed open the door of an office to reveal a big oak desk literally piled high with papers. An old, square computer monitor sat on one corner, but she couldn’t even see a keyboard for the paper. She pressed her lips together and glanced up at him. Maybe this was more than she could handle.

  “Seem?”

  Banks laughed.

  “I’ll help get things in order. And then we’ll develop some kind of system for filing. Something that works well for you and minimizes the work, since you’re going to be the one handling most of it. This isn’t meant to be a hard job to do; I just haven’t done it very well in a very long time.”

  Or ever?

  “How do you even…you know what? Never mind. We’ll figure this out.” She said with a nod. Because her other option was a Greyhound back to Denver and she had literally no idea how she would pay for that ticket. “I’ve never backed down from a good challenge.” Except for when it came to leaving bad relationships before they crashed.

  “That’s what I like to hear,” Banks said with a chuckle, moving into the office, toward the desk. She followed, passing behind. He moved a stack of papers and she found the keyboard and mouse. He pressed a couple buttons and the computer groaned to life, all pixelated text and bright blue screens.

  “Banks?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Who’s older? You or this computer?”

  He laughed then. A good, deep sound that came from down in his chest. Sincere, authentic. It made Norah smile.

  “This one’s been around at least as long as I have been. I keep meaning to order something new, but a) I can’t order it on this ancient beast, and b) I just haven’t had the time to research my options. Maybe that’ll be your first order of business.”

  “Right after we manage this mountain of papers. I just need it stacked neatly so I know what I’m doing.”

  “You lead the way, boss.”

  *

  Three hours into rearranging the precarious piles of paper Banks had been working on over the last year, Norah looked up at him and smiled that sweet smile that he’d seen flashes of this morning. She hadn’t had much to smile about when he’d met her first in Danny’s Bar, but things must have been looking up for her. He felt pretty lucky when it got sent his way.

  “I think we might actually be ahead of this.”

  “It’s still chaos,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Organized chaos,” she corrected him. “I can live with organized chaos. It’s like a to-do list. I can visualize what needs to be done way easier if it’s at least broken down into piles.”

  She pointed out the three big stacks they’d made. Each was crowned with a yellow sticky note.

  “These are pending—to be processed,” she said, pointing to the first. “Then completed—the papers just need to be filed in ye olde filing cabinet, and odds and ends are…well, odds and…” she stopped herself short and scribbled something onto the pad of paper.

  Banks raised a brow. She was more efficient and quick than he had expected. She’d torn voraciously into this daunting task. He barely believed this was the same girl he’d seen sitting on the bar stool in Danny’s just days ago with no prospects. Giving her a job seemed to invigorate her. Once again, Nan had been right. Nan was always right.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Well, I think there must be a better way to do this than keeping these big old file cabinets. I know that’s like 50% of the job, but if we had a new computer and a scanner, I could scan these all onto the computer and store them in a cloud so if, God forbid, anything ever happened to the office physically, there’d still be a record of all this stuff.”

  “…a cloud?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  She squinted across the desk at him, her nose scrunching up a bit as she did so. It was damn cute.

  “You are definitely older than the computer.”

  “Hey, why don’t we knock off for lunch?”

  “Quit trying to change the subject.” For as anxious as she’d looked standing in front of his office after Nan had dropped her off in the parking lot this morning, she’d quickly developed an easy way with him, and he liked it. She was just a hint feisty and he wondered how on earth she’d gotten—and stayed—tangled up with that loser who had dumped her here. He hoped someday he’d figure it out.

  “Seriously, let’s head over to Hinkley’s. I’ll buy you a sandwich. Reward for a job well done.”

  “Well that’s what paychecks are for, but sure,” she said with a shrug.

  Banks gestured toward the door and followed her out as she shouldered her purse.

  “I usually walk if you don’t mind. It’s only a block, about like anything here in the ‘downtown core’. Plus, it’s been a long winter and it’s beautiful out.”

  “I cannot disagree with that,” Norah said as they walked out of the parking lot.

  Any excuse to spend a bit of extra time
with her was welcome. He was going to have to stop hovering shortly, especially now that she’d gotten the lion’s share of the desk straightened out. But he could prolong their company just a bit longer with the walk, then lunch.

  Hinkley’s was hopping, like any lunch time. As one of the only establishments that offered a sit down meal, most of the residents of the town who worked in the shops and offices on the main drag were here at lunch time. They’d hit a bit ahead of the rush, because the corner booth he liked was open. Rosie Anderson greeted them at the door with a coffee pot in hand and a stack of shiny menus under her arm.

  There had been a time he’d been a little sweet on the young waitress, but their timing had never worked out quite right. Story of his life when it came to women, and now he wasn’t even sure he could go there, busy as he was. Nan wasn’t slowing down but she could anytime, and he needed to keep everything clear to help her when the time came. It was the least he could do in return for everything she’d done for him and Nate.

  “Hey Banks,” the waitress said. Banks nodded in response.

  “How ya doing, Rosie?” he responded. She looked expectantly at Norah. Where were his manners? “This is Norah Clarke. She’s my new receptionist.”

  Beside him, Norah spoke up. “Good to meet you.”

  Rosie’s brow furrowed and she pressed her lips together. “Clarke…”

  “Rosie Anderson?” Norah queried. “I think we were in Mrs. Braden’s fifth grade class together.”

  “Ah, that’s exactly it!” Rosie said with a nod. “Good memory.”

  “I do what I can,” Norah replied.

  “Your usual spot, Banks?” the waitress asked.

  He nodded and Rosie led them through the diner to his normal spot where Banks took up the seat in the corner with his back to the wall. He’d picked it up off another sheriff at a conference once. Not that he typically had to worry about who came through the doors of Hinkley’s.

  Banks sat down and Norah slid in across from him while Rosie prattled off the day’s specials and handed them the menus.