“He’s seven!”
“Eight, actually. And he comes from a family I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Look, Abby. I’m not trying to say Calvin is a saint. There’ve been more than a few times when he’s been at fault in similar situations, and maybe he is this time, as well. But I’ve been doing this job for a long time. I recognize that neither of those boys is being truthful with me, and I’m going to trust that my teacher is accurately describing what he saw. Dillon and Calvin were fighting. And that’s not allowed. So I’m suspending them both until Monday.”
Abby swallowed. Suspended. She’d never been suspended in her life. And now, in the second grade, Dillon already had been.
“It’s only for a day,” he added, sounding sympathetic. “And I know you’re new in town, so you’ll probably need to take the day off to stay home with him, as well. I don’t want you to worry about this affecting your position here or anything. I’ll call in a backup for you here for the rest of today and tomorrow.”
She hadn’t even gotten so far as to think about that. “I appreciate it. Did you tell Dillon he’s been suspended?”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, sending a silent apology to her grandparents for the rotten job she was apparently doing. Then she blew out a breath and stood. “I’m sorry about all this,” she told Joe.
He accompanied her to the door and opened it for her. “It happens, Abby. Talk to Dillon. Find out why. Let’s try to keep it from happening again.” He sounded more encouraging than judgmental, and Abby could see a little more clearly why Dee was so taken with him.
With Dillon in tow, she stopped at her office, collected her things and locked up. Then they headed outside and began walking home.
It was quiet and felt strange without the usual end-of-day chaos. And it seemed entirely fitting when she realized it was starting to snow again. “Principal Gage said you were the one who started the fight,” she finally said. “You want to tell me why?”
Dillon walked on, silently.
She tried another tack. “Was Calvin making fun of you entering the sheriff’s contest?” Dillon had been drawing badges for a week now. They were pinned up all over the walls of his bedroom.
But Dillon just shook his head.
“Honey, I wish you’d tell me why it happened. I’m going to have to come up with some sort of punishment, and if I knew why, maybe it would help.”
He looked at her as though he wanted to argue. But still he said nothing.
She exhaled. “I guess I’ll have to take away my permission for that field trip next week.” The second-and third-grade classes were going to tour Cee-Vid, and Dillon had talked of little else since he’d brought home the permission slip.
“No! That’s where they make ‘White Hats’!”
“I know. So tell me why you were fighting.”
His mouth clamped shut. He pulled up the hood of his jacket and kept walking.
Abby dashed a snowflake from her face and kept walking, too. She was so frustrated, worried and focused on Dillon that she didn’t even notice at first the sound of an engine until Dillon stopped on the sidewalk and looked.
Sloan was pulling up beside them in his SUV. The passenger window rolled down, and he looked across at them. “You two look like you’re in need of a ride. You heading home?”
It was pointless to deny it, though Abby was tempted. He just looked so darned good. And she felt so darned miserable.
Without a word, she pulled open the door, gesturing for Dillon to get in. He scrambled up into the front seat. She closed the door and got in the back, which was separated from the front by a see-through grille. She shuddered a little. Dillon was getting a taste of a ride-along regardless of the drawing contest, but Abby wasn’t enjoying it one little bit. She felt like some sort of criminal.
Maybe her crime was moving her brother from everything he knew in Braden. If they’d stayed, none of this would be happening.
“You going home sick or something?” Sloan asked Dillon. “Your face looks swollen.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Dillon’s face looks swollen because he got punched,” Abby said bluntly. “He was fighting and got suspended. That is why we’re going home.”
Sloan looked over his shoulder at her. He looked as poleaxed as she felt.
She turned away and stared out the window. At least he seemed to genuinely care about Dillon. Not that she knew him well enough to know anything for sure.
“Why were you fighting, bud?”
Good luck, she thought. That was the million-dollar question.
“’Cause Calvin Pierce called me a liar.”
She snapped forward on the seat when Dillon answered as if he’d only been waiting to be asked. “What?” She latched her fingertips through the cold metal grille. “Now you’re in the mood to explain?”
Sloan shot her a look through the mirror.
She pressed her lips together and subsided.
“What did he say you were lying about?” Sloan asked calmly.
It was probably easy for him to be calm. Dillon was an ordinarily shy seven-year-old. Sloan was used to dealing with a treacherous motorcycle gang full of murderers and gun runners.
“I told him I wore a real deputy badge, and he said I didn’t. That I was a liar and a weenie.”
“Oh, Dillon,” Abby said, sighing. She sat forward and started to put her fingertips on the grille again but stopped just in time. “It doesn’t matter what someone else says to you. You can’t start a fight because of it.”
“He said I was a liar,” Dillon repeated. His agitated voice rose. “I never been a liar. That’s what Black Hats do!”
“Take it easy, bud,” Sloan said. He turned onto their street and a moment later was parking in his driveway. “Let’s go inside and you can tell us about it.” He turned off the engine, and he and Dillon opened their front doors to get out. Abby tried, too, but the handle on her door did absolutely nothing, and she had to wait for Sloan to come around and open it for her.
“Back doors don’t open from the inside,” he pointed out needlessly.
She quickly climbed out, feeling no small amount of relief. “Thanks for the ride,” she told him. “But I think I’ve got it from here on out.” Without looking at him again, she grabbed Dillon’s hand and headed across the yard. “You and I are going to have a little talk,” she warned when they reached their front steps.
“Abby. Wait.”
She unlocked the door and nudged Dillon inside before she turned and faced Sloan.
He’d followed them across the yard. Snowflakes glittered in his hair, and he was so freaking beautiful that it was almost painful to look at him.
“This isn’t your problem,” she told him huskily.
“It is if it all started because I let him wear my badge for a few minutes.” He looked genuinely pained.
“It doesn’t matter if Dillon did or didn’t wear your badge. He’s old enough to know right from wrong. And he knows that fighting is wrong.”
“It’s not always wrong.”
She exhaled roughly and tugged the door closed behind her before stepping next to the wooden railing of the porch. “Fine. Maybe there are situations when fighting is the right thing to do. But the situations that call for it are a lot more serious than a little bully egging on my brother. I said I’ll handle it and I will, even if I have to deal with Calvin’s parents to do it.”
“Don’t go anywhere near Calvin’s parents.”
Something rippled down her spine. She’d never been particularly good at having someone tell her what she could and couldn’t do.
She’d had the same reaction the first time someone had told her she was too young to take on raising Dillon. But her grandfather had believed she could, and that was what had mattered. She closed her hands over the rail. “There’s no law I’d be breaking, Deputy. I’m perfectly free to have a civil discussion about their son and Dillon. For heaven’s sake. They’re little boys!”<
br />
“Abby.” He covered her hands with his. Neither of them wore gloves, but his palms felt like hot irons in comparison to her cold fingers. “There’s not much that ever stays civil where Bobby Pierce is concerned. I have a lot of experience with that family, and I’m asking you, for your sake, to keep your distance.” He squeezed her hands.
Maybe if he wouldn’t have done that—pressed his fingers so warmly, so familiarly against hers—she would have just taken his words for the advice they were. But he did, and she leaned forward until her face was barely a foot from his. She searched his eyes, wishing she knew what was going on inside. Wishing she knew if her attraction to him was so great that she’d only imagined he might feel the same. “I don’t know what to make of you,” she said huskily. “Is this just the deputy speaking, Sloan? Or is it someone else?”
“It’s just me,” he said evenly. “I wouldn’t want to see anything happen to you or Dillon.”
It was an answer, but a singularly frustrating one because she knew nothing more than she ever had. Which was a big fat zilch.
“For whatever reason, Dillon has taken to you,” she said finally. “He’s telling you things he won’t tell me. And while I appreciate that, I don’t want him hurt. Not by Calvin Pierce.” She moistened her dry lips. “And...and not by you.” Sloan had already told her he was with the sheriff’s office for only a few more months. He’d never said what he intended to do after that. She wasn’t so wet behind the ears as to think he’d be around for Dillon forever.
His gaze turned even more inward. “You’re a smart woman, Abby. Dillon’s lucky to have you.”
And that was it.
That was all he said.
Because he turned and walked back across the yard, got into his SUV and drove away.
Chapter Seven
“Remind me when we play again not to bet against you,” Dee said the next night as they carried the folding chairs she’d brought to Abby’s back out to her car and stacked them in the trunk. There’d been eight of them playing, and though the competition was fierce, there had been just as much gossiping, pizza eating and margarita drinking going on as there had been shuffling cards. “You’re a shark in sheep’s clothing. Who taught you how to play poker?”
Abby set the last chair in Dee’s trunk and stepped back so the other woman could shut it. “My grandfather. He also taught me how to shoot and how not to spit into the wind.”
Dee was wearing her usual mischievous grin. “The man did too good of a job. I can’t afford to lose like that. Don’t earn enough teaching.” She looked past Abby toward Sloan’s darkened house. “Was hoping to catch a glimpse of Deputy Hottie.”
Abby didn’t have to look over her shoulder to know that Sloan wasn’t there. His SUV hadn’t returned since he had given them a ride home from school the day before. “And here I thought you were the last to leave because you wanted to help me clean up the mess.” She hadn’t pulled on a coat before bringing out the chairs, and the night air was cold through her long-sleeve turtleneck. “Why do you care so much about Deputy McCray, anyway, when Principal Gage is the one you want?”
Dee peered at her. “Who told you that?”
“Nobody had to tell me. I have eyes.”
The other woman’s lips twisted. “Wish Joe Gage had eyes.”
“Ask him out.” She knew the principal wasn’t married or otherwise involved. “Open his eyes for him.”
“Easier said than done. He’s the boss. Dating one of his employees is against the rules.”
“Some rules are meant to be broken.” Only as soon as she said the words, they reminded her of Sloan telling her that it wasn’t always wrong to fight, and even though she’d vowed not to, she glanced back at his house.
“The school board also has some pretty strict rules,” Dee was saying. “And I need my job. So...” She trailed off and lifted her shoulders. “I can’t have his body, but I can have the pleasure of watching the man’s backside whenever he’s walking down the hallway at school. It’s a poor substitute,” she lamented with a wicked smile, “but it’s all I’ve got.”
Abby couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re terrible.”
“I am. Everyone in town will tell you so.” Dee gave her a quick hug and then pulled open her car door. “Sorry if we were too noisy for Dillon once he went to bed.”
“It was fine.” She’d checked on her brother a few times throughout the evening. He’d fallen asleep reading a book. She hoped he managed to make it till morning without a bad dream. He’d awakened twice with nightmares the night before. So even though she’d been horrified about his school suspension, it was just as well, because they’d both fallen asleep for a few hours in the middle of the afternoon as a result of their disturbed night. “And I had a lot of fun. So thanks again for inviting yourselves to my place.”
Dee chuckled. “Anytime.” Then she got inside her car and drove away.
Abby rubbed her hands up and down her arms. The sky was clear again, black and studded with stars. Only two of the houses on the street had lights on inside at this late an hour: hers and Mr. Gilcrest’s next door. She’d met the elderly man the week before when she’d taken over a plate of chocolate cookies. It had been the neighborly thing to do. Just as it had been the neighborly thing to do to bake cookies for Sloan. It meant exactly the same thing.
On the surface, it worked. Underneath, though, she knew that was plain malarkey.
She sighed and turned around, her boots crunching through the snow as she headed back across the yard. The scarf around Frosty’s neck was looking decidedly bedraggled, and his cookie eyes and carrot nose had disappeared days ago. She stopped in front of him and his smaller companion, who was scarfless and faceless because Abby had interrupted Dillon and Sloan while they’d been making him.
“Well, guys. I’d invite you inside for hot chocolate, but I don’t think you’d survive it.”
“They say the first sign is when you start talking to snowmen.”
She nearly jumped out of her skin, yelping as she whirled to see Sloan standing in the middle of the street. “Must you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Sneak up and startle the life out of me!”
He came closer, and she realized his dark clothing wasn’t his uniform at all, but running clothes. He looked more like a wide receiver geared up for a workout than an off-duty deputy. “Sorry.”
“No, you’re not,” she countered. “You’re like little boys everywhere who enjoy sneaking up on little girls just to see them jump.” He was so far from boyish that it was ridiculous, but the assessment made her feel better. “Do you always go out running in the middle of the night? Where’s your truck?”
“Sometimes. And it’s at the office.” He came a little closer. His head was bare. “I don’t always bring it home, and I’m off duty until Monday morning. I’ve got my own wheels, too.”
She’d been living there nearly two weeks and had seen him drive nothing other than that sheriff’s SUV. “Where are you hiding them? In your attic?”
His teeth flashed. Just for a moment.
Or maybe that was her wishful thinking.
She’d told him to go away, and he had. It was still the smart thing to do, so she had no business having wishful thoughts where he was concerned.
“In my garage.”
“Are you talking about that dinky shed behind your house?” If he was, his car would have to be even smaller than her little sedan. It was hard to picture.
“None other.” He stepped over the chunks of grit-filled snow at the edge of the street. “It’s nearly midnight. Little girls shouldn’t be out so late.”
She’d been the one to use the term first, but when little girl came from him, it reminded her how young he really considered her. “Maybe I had a date,” she said blithely.
“A threesome with Frosty and his snow-bro?” He came closer. “I’m thinking probably...no date.”
She shivered. Lifted her chin. “You don’t know ever
ything.”
“I know you wouldn’t leave Dillon.”
Caught, darn it all. Her chin lowered. “I had some friends over.”
“Girlfriends.”
Her breath escaped on a puff. “Friends.” She was completely out of her depth with him. Didn’t even really know what they were doing talking in the middle of the night on her front lawn.
“Girlfriends,” he pushed again.
She pressed her lips together. Shivered some more and crossed her arms tightly. It was mid-January, and the temperature was hovering below freezing.
So why did she feel so hot inside?
“Why does it matter to you if they were girls—” she drew out the word the way Dillon would “—or not?”
“It shouldn’t.” He took another step. Stopped within arm’s reach of her. “But it does.”
Her spurt of bravery disappeared. Her heart thumped hard inside her chest, as if she’d been the one out having a midnight run.
“I don’t like thinking of you with another man.”
She dug her fingertips into her arms. Her nails poked hard. She wasn’t dreaming. “Dee Crowder from school,” she said faintly. “And some friends of hers. We...we played poker. I won.”
Again, a brief flash of white teeth. “That’s my girl.”
“I’m not your girl.” She shifted her feet, and the snow creaked under her boots.
“Half the town keeps telling me that you are.”
She swallowed. Moistened her lips. The heat inside her was rising up her neck, and she wanted to claw at the snug turtleneck that felt as if it was strangling her. “I’m not your girl,” she whispered.
He took another step. It was either stand her ground or back up into the snowmen. Sloan didn’t touch her, but she still felt the heat radiating off him as he lowered his head until his mouth brushed against her ear. “If you were—” his deep voice was soft “—we wouldn’t be standing out here freezing.” His gloved hand slid against her neck. Curved beneath her jaw. Her knees felt like melting wax. “I’d have you in bed....” His lips grazed her earlobe.
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