The Sheriff (Men of the White Sandy Book 5)

by Sarah M. Anderson

  “If you could please return my call at your earliest convenience, I’d appreciate it. Again, this is Sheriff Tim Means of the White Sandy police force…” He listed his number and then the call ended.

  Georgey.

  Her brother.

  Panic flooded her system. Was the boy okay? Why were the police trying to call her? Was he dead or just in trouble?

  Oh, God—her mother was going to have a fit of epic proportions about this. Summer hadn’t talked to her father in fifteen years for a reason.

  Her hands shaking, she hit the call back button on her phone and waited. “White Sandy Police, this is Tim. Is this an emergency?”

  “Um, hello. My name is Summer Collins and I think you just called me? Is Georgey okay?”

  “Ms. Collins, hello. I see you got my message.”

  If Summer could have glared at him through her phone, she would have. He hadn’t answered her question and whoever this Sheriff Tim Means was, she could throttle him right now. “Yes. You called about Georgey?”

  “Ms. Collins, do I have the correct information on you? Are you related to Georgey Crow Dog?”

  “Yes,” she said, more frustrated by the second. “He’s my half-brother. Is he okay?” she demanded.

  There was a pause. Finally, the sheriff said, “Well, that depends on your definition of ‘okay.’ I’ve got Georgey in lockup right now. He tried to break into the medical clinic and steal drugs last night.”

  “That’s not true!” Summer heard a voice shout in the background. It didn’t sound like the little brother she remembered—the voice was deeper. And angrier.

  “This is not the first time Georgey has been a guest of the White Sandy,” the sheriff went on, as if Georgey hadn’t interrupted him. “At this time, his mother is unable and unwilling to pick him up. His grandmother has been transported to the hospital in Rapid City and is also unable to get him.”

  “Oh.” Summer didn’t know how she was supposed to feel about that. She’d only met Georgey’s mom once, the last time Summer’s mom had taken her home to the reservation. The last time she’d seen her father. “What about Dad? I mean, what about Leonard?”

  The sheriff did not reply. In the background, Summer could hear Georgey asking, “What’s she saying?”

  “Ma’am,” the sheriff said in a gentle voice, “I thought you knew. Leonard Two Elks has been dead for almost ten years.”

  An odd sort of silence filled her head. It wasn’t surprise—at least, not much of one, anyway. Hadn’t her mother been saying, “He’s probably dead, so just forget about him,” for years?

  No, she couldn’t be surprised by this. And on some level, it almost made her feel better. It wasn’t that her father had forgotten about her. He’d just…died. And she hadn’t known.

  “I’m…” She swallowed against a lump that had formed in her throat. “I’m sorry to hear that.” What was she supposed to say? She didn’t know. She didn’t have a clue.

  “Yes. Well, you can see the problem. Georgey,” he added, as if she’d forgotten about the brother she barely knew. “I’d like to release him into the care of a guardian. But I need a guardian who will actually take care of him.”

  “Me?” It came out more of a squeak than a statement, but seriously?

  “I take care of myself!” came the shout from the background. “I don’t need anyone.”

  “If a blood relative can’t take him,” Sheriff Means said in that sympathetic voice that was beginning to drive her nuts, “then I’ll have to turn him over to social services. I’m going to level with you, Ms. Collins. If he gets arrested again, I can’t promise he won’t do time. He’s got quite a rap sheet of petty crimes and he’s dropped out of school. He’s on a fast train to nowhere. You may be his last chance.”

  “A rap sheet?” She tried to make that information fit with her last memory of her brother. The last time she had been on the White Sandy reservation. The last time she’d seen that part of her family.

  Georgey had been no more than three, a fat-cheeked toddler that went too fast. He got into everything, a tiny tornado of energy that spun and spun until he dropped from exhaustion. One of Summer’s jobs had been keeping an eye on him during the big pow wow. She’d been twelve and nervous about visiting the Indians. She hadn’t thought of herself as an Indian before that—according to her mother, she wasn’t.

  During the trip, Summer played with her little brother and listened to her dad tell stories of his time in the Army and met her grandparents and Georgey’s grandparents and it had all been… Wonderful. One of those warm summer memories that was hazy around the edges and perfect in every way.

  And now that happy little boy was in jail for trying to steal drugs from a medical clinic. And Summer was his last hope.

  “I… I can’t. I mean, I’m a teacher and school’s not done for the summer yet.” The silence in her head transformed into something else, a little buzz that began to build. It was the sound of panic. “What are you going to do with him if I can’t…” Because honestly? She had no idea what she was even supposed to do in this situation.

  Bring the kid to Minneapolis to live with her? Become a parent to her brother? She was doing okay, although she had a hell of a lot of student loans to pay off and, on her teacher’s salary, it was going to be a long time before she ever got to the end of that mountain. But to suddenly be responsible for another person? One who’d been in trouble with the law?

  Was she seriously supposed to consider bringing a juvenile delinquent into her apartment and hope for the best?

  And that didn’t even scratch the surface of dealing with her mother. If Summer brought Georgey home with her, Linda Collins might finally lose what was left of her mind. No, Summer was under no delusions about that—Linda would make Georgey’s life a living hell. She’d make everyone’s life a living hell.

  “What about after school gets out?” Sheriff Means' voice was maddeningly calm. Her entire world had just shifted to a different axis and apparently his was going to keep on turning. “Could you come see to your brother then?”

  “She’s not my sister,” Georgey shouted in the background. “I don’t have a sister. I don’t have anyone.”

  “We are all family,” she heard the sheriff say—although his voice was quieter, as if he’d pulled the phone away from his mouth. It was the first time he’d responded to Georgey during the call. Then he spoke in the phone—louder than necessary. “If he can’t make bail, I guess I’ll have to leave him locked up.”

  “I hate you!” Georgey screamed.

  It sounded like the kid was being tortured—which didn’t entirely fit with the image she'd developed of Sheriff Tim Means. She was picturing an older man, with a beer gut that hung over his belt buckle, and graying hair. In her mind, there was a box of donuts on his desk. But that was an unfair assumption and she knew it.

  She’d made plans for her break. She was going to teach summer school for extra cash and she was going to go camping and see movies and find a boyfriend—a summer fling, just for fun.

  But she couldn’t leave her little brother in lockup—even if he wasn’t the little brother she remembered. “I can’t get out there for another week and a half. But I don’t want you to leave him in a cell for that long. That’s not the right thing to do.”

  “We might have to respectfully disagree on that, Ms. Collins. It might do him good to see what’s waiting for him if he can’t straighten up and fly right.”

  The buzz in her head was now a dull roar. “Isn’t there anything you can do?”

  “I don’t know if you noticed, but Georgey and I aren’t exactly good friends.” She might have been mistaken, but it almost sounded like he was laughing.

  “Asshole!” came Georgey’s bitter reply.

  “I might have picked up on a little tension,” she conceded.

  “I’ll see what I can arrange,” the sheriff said. “He broke a window before he got caught, so I think community service is a good place to start—if th
at’s okay with you? I can find things to keep him busy.”

  “Will you leave him locked up? I mean, at night?” Because community service was great but even the toughest kids might crack alone at night in jail. Or, worse, not alone.

  There was a long pause. “I’ve got a few alternatives. I’ll see what I can do.”

  That had an ominous sound to it, but community service was better than jail time. Probably. Almost definitely.

  She’d have to completely throw her plans out the window and her principal was not going to be happy that she was going to bail on summer school, but it couldn’t be helped. Georgey was family, after all. And she couldn’t help but think back to when she met him all those years ago and her father had said, “Keep an eye on your baby brother, okay?”

  And Summer had promised she would.

  “That’s fine,” she said, as if she knew what she was talking about. “I’ll leave for the reservation as soon as I turn my grades in. Please keep an eye on him.”

  “I will,” the sheriff promised. “I look forward to meeting you, Ms. Collins.”

  Her father was dead and her brother was in jail and, for the first time in fifteen years, she was going to South Dakota.

  What on earth was she going to tell her mother?

  ***

  Tim hung up the phone and stared at it for a moment. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Rebel had managed to talk to Darlene, Georgey's grandmother, enough to know that Georgey had a half-sister who lived in Minneapolis named Summer. Leonard’s daughter. Tim thought maybe somewhere deep in the back of his mind, he knew Leonard had had another kid—but he had no memory of having ever seen or met her.

  Her voice had been soft and quiet—and, yes, more than a little panic-stricken. He couldn’t blame her for that. She hadn’t even known her father was dead.

  “Well?” Some of Georgey’s bravado had faded and he sounded nervous again.

  Tim was tempted to ignore the boy, but he couldn’t do that for long. Summer Collins had been right about one thing—he couldn’t keep this kid locked up for a week and a half. The boy may need to be scared, but that didn’t mean he needed to be tortured.

  Tim swung around in his office chair. “Well, what?”

  Georgey stared at him. At least he’d gotten up off the floor and was now perched on the edge of the lumpy mattress. “Well, what did she say?”

  “Gosh, it was awfully hard to tell, what with all the shouting.” Tim notched an eyebrow at the kid. “She might have said to leave you here until you learn your lesson, but I can’t be sure.”

  Georgey’s eyes went wide as he unfurled from the bed. “What? But…but…I’m just a kid! You can’t keep me locked up in here!” His face paled. “Can you?”

  Dammit. Tim had a reservation to protect. He couldn’t spend all his time babysitting a sticky-fingered seventeen-year-old boy. But he also couldn’t just show the kid the door and say, “stay out of trouble.”

  Tim stood and walked over to the cell door. “You’ve got two choices, kid. You can stay here for the next week and a half as a guest of the White Sandy police force. You get three meals a day and some of the finest industrial-strength soap known to mankind.”

  Georgey eyed him warily. He looked like a rabbit surrounded by a pack of wolves—except it was just Tim. “Am I going to like the second option any better? Because that option sucks.”

  Tim was going to regret this. His only consolation was he was going to regret it no matter what Georgey picked. “I let you out and you do what I tell you.”

  “Any chance for a third option?”

  Tim laughed—a genuine laugh. The kid had spirit, he had to give him that. “Nope. The station needs to be cleaned and I understand that there’s a window at the clinic that needs to be replaced. I’m sure Dr. Mitchell has some other things that she needs done too. You spend a week and a half fixing the mess you made and she might not press charges. And if she does, I’ll speak to the judge about your good behavior.”

  “You want me to clean this dump?” Georgey looked around. “This place is disgusting.”

  “You don’t have to. You can stay locked up with all the filth. Trust me, this place is paradise compared to prison. The rats here aren’t even that big. They’re more cuddly than anything.”

  He was teasing, of course—the station didn’t have rats.

  Georgey didn’t realize that. “You can let me out now.”

  Tim didn’t make a move toward his keys. “There are conditions. I’m not lying when I say you have to do what I tell you. This place better shine like the top of the Chrysler building—and the Clinic, too—because if I have to put you back in the cell, you won’t get out until Summer Collins arrives, and maybe not even then. And, just in case you’re thinking about slipping off into the night, let me remind you that I’m not the only one who can put you back here.”

  At the reference to Nobody, Georgey got very serious. “Do I have to sleep here?”

  “No.” Tim rubbed the side of his jaw with his thumb. He didn’t want to leave the kid here alone at night and he didn’t want to spend the next week and a half dozing in his office chair. He’d done that before and had no desire to repeat the experience. If Jack were back, that’d be a different story. But as it stood, Tim didn’t have anyone else he would trust inside the building and he didn’t trust that Nobody wouldn’t come in anyway and scare the kid some more. “You’re going to come home with me.”

  All the blood drained out of Georgey’s face. “What?”

  “Your choice, kid. You can stay in the cell or you can sleep on my couch. Which is it going to be?”

  Georgey slumped back on the mattress and for a second, Tim thought he was going choose the lockup. But then he sighed heavily and got to his feet. Tim hadn’t realized the kid had grown another two or three inches since their last run-in. His pants didn’t have a shot in hell of covering his ankles and everything about him looked…shabby and thin. Had Darlene been feeding the boy enough? How long had she been sick, with only Georgey to rely on?

  “Is she going to take me away from this place?” Georgey asked in a low voice and Tim had no idea what the kid was hoping to hear.

  “I don’t know.” He dug out his keys and unlocked the cell.

  Georgey walked to the door, but he didn’t step out. “What did she sound like? Did she sound…” He dropped his gaze, embarrassed. “Nice? Or… I don’t want to go with her if she’s like Mom.”

  Tim thought back to the way Summer had found a little bit of humor in a hard conversation. Her voice had been soft and sweet and he didn’t know how old she was, but he found himself hoping she wasn’t…

  Wasn’t what? Married? Get serious, Means, he scolded himself. The woman was returning to the reservation under less than ideal circumstances. He didn’t have the time to indulge in any little fantasies—even if they were about a woman he’d never arrested, a woman who might not look at him as if he were the scum of the earth for upholding the law.

  Like too many people here did.

  Besides, she was a city girl. The White Sandy was a hell of a long way from Minneapolis and she hadn’t even known her dad had passed on. No, she wouldn’t be the slightest bit interested in him.

  Still… “She’s a teacher. She sounded sweet, not mean. Not drunk.”

  Nodding, Georgey took the last step out of the cell. Tim swung the metal bars shut behind him. When the lock clicked, Georgey jumped. There was that fear of God, hovering just below the surface. No Lakota wanted to be locked up. Tim knew that as well as anyone. “Now what?”

  “Now,” Tim said with a smile, putting his arm around the boy’s shoulder and swinging him toward the broom closet, “you get to experience the joy of manual labor. Do a good job and I won’t make you eat prison food for dinner.”

  Georgey’s shoulders sagged and Tim felt a little bit sorry for the kid. “Cheer up. In a week and a half, Summer Collins will be here.”

  Maybe her arrival was something they all could look
forward to.

  Chapter Three

  It took a day to get from her apartment to the White Sandy reservation. A long, boring, painful day of driving. The farmlands of western Minnesota and eastern South Dakota were vast, all right. And none of it helped Summer’s mood.

  She’d had an epic fight with her mother about Georgey Crow Dog. Summer had always known that her mother was bitter about her father leaving. But the rage Linda Collins unleashed at the mere mention of Summer going back to the reservation had surprised her.

  She’d always known Dad had left them. And her mother hadn’t bothered to hide the fact that Dad had cheated on her while they were still married. But after last night? The things her mother had said?

  Linda Collins had said—okay, screamed—so many awful things that it took most of Summer’s mental energy not to remember. And the ultimatums? “You go after that bastard, you’re no daughter of mine!”

  Summer knew her mom hadn’t meant it, not really. But that didn’t mean it hurt any less. She’d already lost her father and she hadn’t even known it. She didn’t want to lose her mom too, because then she’d have no one.

  Well, she’d have Georgey. A teenager with a rap sheet and an attitude problem.

  “We are all family.” Somehow, the words the sheriff had uttered—not to her, but to Georgey—were what brought her comfort now. What would it be like to have a family that stuck by you through thick and thin—even when you did something they didn’t like? Her dad had bailed and her mom promised to cut her off and…

  And driving through the grasslands of the Great Plains made Summer feel insignificant. Alone.

  By the time the sun was blinding her, Summer had made it to the edge of the White Sandy reservation. She was tired and her butt hurt and if she never saw amber waves of grain again it’d be too damn soon. But the moment she passed the “Welcome to the White Sandy Reservation” sign, something in her chest unclenched. Fifteen years had passed since she’d been here. But it was crazy how much it felt like coming home.