A Sweet Life-kindle

by Andre, Bella

  Andie smiled. She had yet to meet Beth's niece, but according to her friend, the eleven-year-old was a real handful.

  "I know you don't want to hear it," Andie said, "but Jace is right. You can't be too careful with that baby of yours." She couldn't help the spasm of old pain that twisted her heart, but she was proud of herself for keeping any of it out of her voice. "You've waited long enough for her that these last few months will go by fast."

  "I can always count on you to keep life in perspective," Beth said fondly. "Which reminds me. I need a really, really, really big favor."

  "Anything," Andie said, and meant it. No favor she could do for the other woman would repay Beth for the past five years of friendship.

  "It's about my brother Will," Beth continued. "I told you he'd planned to rent Ruby Miller's house on the other side of town for the three months he's going to be here, but now her son has changed his mind. He says he wants to get the thing ready so he can sell it. Greedy little snot didn't even wait until Ruby was cold before selling off all her prized possessions. So I've been frantically trying to find somewhere else for him to live."

  "For Ruby Miller's greedy little snot of a son?"

  "No, silly. For Will and Emily. Do you realize we have no rental property around here? At least nothing decent. It's absolutely disgusting, if you ask me. Anyway, while I was sitting here moping around I had this brilliant idea. Don't say no until you think about it, okay?"

  "Until I think about what?"

  "Could you possibly let Will and Emily live in the cottage? I know you like to save it for your mom to stay in when she visits, but she was just here and you said she's not coming back until next spring. It's only for a few months, Andie, Christmas at the latest, and you wouldn't even know they were there, I swear. Please, please, please."

  Stunned, Andie could do nothing but clutch the phone. Will Tanner in the same county was trouble enough, but to have him living just across the driveway would be close to catastrophic.

  "Beth, I don't... I don't think it would work."

  "Why not? It's perfect. You know how I worry about you living out there by yourself. Wouldn't it be a comfort to have the law right next door?"

  A comfort? Andie almost laughed, despite her shock. It wouldn't be a comfort in the least, not when "the law" was Will Tanner.

  "I don't think we'd get along."

  She could practically hear Beth's frown transmitting itself through the telephone wires.

  "How do you know? You've never even met the man."

  "Wrong. He pulled me over not an hour ago cruising sixty-five in a fifty-five zone. We didn't exactly hit it off."

  "I know he can be a bear sometimes, but he's really a sweetheart beneath all that gruff. Or at least he used to be," she added, her voice breaking halfway through the sentence. Beth paused for a moment, then continued. "Andie, I really am in a bind. Every morning my heart just breaks when I see Will try to hide how much sleeping on that awful couch is killing his shoulder. If this goes on much longer, I'm going to let him use our bed, no matter what that husband of mine has to say about it."

  Andie closed her eyes, momentarily furious at Will Tanner. Beth didn't need this anxiety right now. She was in the last two months of what had been a dangerous, strenuous pregnancy. She needed calm and quiet, time to gather her strength before delivery.

  "He might not like it, you know," she said, realizing she'd already given in. "You know how small that place is." And Will Tanner was the kind of man who looked like he needed acres of space to sprawl around in.

  "It's furnished, it's clean, it's convenient. Plus he gets a gorgeous landlady like you. What more could a man ask for?"

  Andie grimaced in defeat. "If he wants to take a look at it, tell him to drop by the school tomorrow to pick up the key."

  "Oh, Andie, thank you. Thank you! You do this for me and I'll name my baby after you, I promise."

  Andie hung up the phone and walked slowly back across the kitchen. The hinges need oiling, she thought as she opened the squeaky screen door. Just one more thing to add to her list.

  She let the door slam closed behind her and looked across the yard at the guest house just a few hundred feet away.

  What have I done? she wondered, slumping down on the front porch step. Immediately, both dogs and two of the cats cuddled up looking for affection, and she absently scratched whatever fur was closest.

  "Well, guys," she warned the menagerie. "There goes the neighborhood."

  Chapter 2

  "If Aunt Beth wants us out of her house so bad, why don't we just go back to Phoenix? Wyoming bites the big one!"

  Will clenched his fingers on the steering wheel and frowned at his daughter. She glared back at him, chewed her gum hard, and folded her arms across her chest, a mutinous expression twisting her little-girl features.

  How had his sweet, easygoing daughter grown into such a wild and angry rebel as she teetered on the brink of teenagehood? he wondered for the umpteenth time.

  "You know why, Emily," he said patiently. "I have a job to do here for the next three months."

  "Right. You have a job to do. Meanwhile, I'm stuck in the middle of Hicksville, Wyoming, without my friends or a mall or even MTV. It absolutely sucks. All because you were stupid enough to get yourself shot, and now you can't cut it as a cop in the city."

  "Watch it, young lady," he growled, even though what she said was nothing less than the truth, at least for the moment "You're not too big that your stupid old dad can't turn you over his knee and teach you a few manners."

  Despite the fact that he'd never laid a hand on her in anger during her entire eleven years, the threat seemed to work, at least temporarily. As he drove the last few miles from Beth and Jace's ranch, the Bar W, to the town of Whiskey Creek, she sat silent and sullen, staring out at the passing pines.

  She'd been this way—angry, confrontational—for three months, ever since he'd been shot. Or maybe it had been longer than that, he admitted with a painful jolt, and he just hadn't seen it. He hadn't bothered to look until being knocked flat on his butt had forced his eyes wide open.

  Where had he been while his little girl's interests had changed from dolls to boys? When had she stopped calling him Daddy with a world of innocent love in her voice and begun regarding him with such apparent contempt?

  What had been so damned important to him that he missed out on so much of her life in the past three years?

  Vengeance.

  The word, brutal and fierce, pounded through the fragments of headache lingering from the day before.

  Vengeance.

  It ate away at his calm, leaving him edgy, uneasy. Sarah's face haunted him on the rim of his vision, beautiful and beseeching, before he quickly blinked it away. He forced himself to relax his fingers on the steering wheel and fill his lungs with air.

  His chance would come, Will reminded himself. He was close, achingly, agonizingly close. He only needed time, a few months to build up his strength. Then he could return to finish it.

  Time to heal. It was the only reason he was smack in the middle of Hicksville, Wyoming, as Emily called it. Either he could have taken the temporary sheriff job when his old buddy Hank Martinez called and asked for his help after a heart attack laid Hank up, or he could have sat in their house in Phoenix and watched Emily grow up and away from him.

  Hank had been one of his instructors at the Wyoming police academy what seemed a lifetime ago. He'd retired several years back to the slower pace of Whiskey Creek but had been sidelined a month earlier. All three of his deputies were greenhorns he wouldn't trust with a jaywalker, he'd said when he called from his hospital bed, so would Will take over until Hank was back on his feet?

  It had seemed the perfect solution, even if, as Will suspected, Beth had been the one behind the idea. He'd been at loose ends since his bosses in Phoenix were still angry at him. They didn't take kindly to one of their officers getting in a shootout while working on a case he wasn't supposed to even be close to
.

  Beyond the probation he'd gotten that would extend for another few months, they also wouldn't let him into the station house until his shoulder healed completely, unless he wanted to take a damn desk job.

  Percolating underneath the desire for something useful to do while he recovered was a hope that if he could wean Emily away from whatever shady influences she'd begun to run with, he might be able to break through her brittle shell. Somewhere in there was the little girl who used to fling arms smelling of baby powder around him and nuzzle her face into his neck.

  Crowding into his sister's house hadn't helped their relationship any, though, he admitted. He'd been just about to tell Beth he wanted to find a place of their own for these few months when she told him about her friend's ranch three miles from the Bar W.

  "It has this perfect little two-bedroom cottage on it, apart from the main place," she'd gushed during breakfast that morning. "It was the main ranch house once years ago, and then when the other house was built it was used for a foreman's place. Since the ranch doesn't support many animals now, just a few chickens and an ornery little goat named Mr. Whiskers, there's no foreman anymore. Just Andie and that little zoo."

  With Beth's typical mercurial change of emotion, her enthusiasm veered into concern. "You don't feel like I'm pushing you out, do you? If it were just the baby, Will, I'd love to have you stay even if we had to decorate the nursery three months from now and have her sleep in a dresser drawer until it's finished. But I can't stand that you're in pain, and I just know that couch is killing you."

  "Don't fuss, Beth. I'm okay," he answered gruffly.

  "Horse pucky. This is your little sister you're trying to fool here and I'm not buying it. A man your size, even without your injuries, needs a big bed to stretch out on, not some teensy couch."

  He sighed. Beth had been able to twist him around her little finger since long before their parents' deaths had made him her guardian. Fifteen years hadn't changed anything.

  "I'll look at it, okay?"

  "That's terrific. You're a doll." She threw her arms around him, and he barely managed to hide his wince when she jostled his shoulder.

  "I talked to Andie about it yesterday, and there's no problem with you taking a look at it today. I'll just write the address down where you can pick up the key. You'll love it, I promise!"

  Will had his doubts. Nothing about this temporary job had been as he expected. Including the address where Beth told him he could find this Andy Some-thing-or-other.

  He shoved the Jeep into park and stared at the building he'd stopped in front of. With wood siding and a shake roof, it looked like many of the newer buildings in town, but a playground adjacent to it, the swings swaying in the wind, set it apart. A big sign out front blared its name in rainbow colors: Growing Minds Preschool.

  When they walked inside, Will had a quick impression of a child's wonderland. Bright and colorful, with skylights and big windows, the schoolroom was filled with things to stimulate a child's imagination: blocks and books and paints. Miniature furniture was scattered around the room in little conversation nooks. A real live tree grew up in the center of the room, reaching for one of the skylights, and lush, ferny plants in the corners gave the room a jungle feeling. There was even a porch swing hanging inside, covered with plump pillows and storybooks.

  "Wow! What a cool place," Emily exclaimed, her face glowing with more excitement than he'd seen in weeks. As soon as she met his gaze, the delight slid away to be replaced by the bored mask she favored of late. "I mean, if you're into that kind of lame baby stuff."

  Two dozen preschoolers, giggling and munching cookies, sat in a half circle around a wooden structure that looked like a square playhouse with a ladder leading up to a loft on the roof. A puppet show was going on, with a large window in the playhouse serving as a stage.

  Three women sat in chairs behind the children, and he walked over to them.

  "Excuse me," he said in a loud whisper to the closest one. "I'm looking for somebody named Andy. Am I in the right place?"

  "Shhh," the woman admonished him.

  Impatient, he frowned but slid onto a chair to wait for the show to end. After a few minutes, he had to admit it was cute. Even earned a rusty smile or two from him.

  He spied Emily laughing right along with the younger kids, and felt an ache lodge in his chest. Lord, he missed that sweet little girl she used to be.

  The show ended to the laughing applause of the children, and the narrator ducked out of the small house to take a bow. Will's jaw dropped.

  It was his speeder, Andrea McPhee. She looked like a completely different woman, though, in a trim navy skirt and striped T-shirt. With her mop of curly dark hair held back with a scarf and pearl earrings, she looked prim and proper and worlds away from the tanned, dusty siren of the day before.

  Bracelets jangling, she reached down to hug a black-haired girl and high-fived a tough-looking boy all in the same motion. Will could tell when she spied him because her eyes widened, then narrowed. She slowly straightened, disengaging herself from the crowd of children, and walked to him.

  "Sheriff Tanner," she greeted him, smiling. "I hope you haven't come to arrest me. I paid my ticket just this morning, honest!"

  That undertone of throaty laughter annoyed him for some elusive reason. He stood abruptly. "I'm here to find somebody named Andy. Is he here?"

  Again that subtle laughter floated from her. "No, he's not. She is."

  For a moment, he faltered. He could swear Beth had referred to Andy as a man, but then he hadn't really been paying much attention.

  "Fine," he said abruptly. "Where is she?"

  She smiled, revealing a dimple on one side of her mouth. It zeroed right into his gut, making him even surlier.

  "You've found her."

  He stared. "You're Andy? The one I'm supposed to be renting a house from?"

  "Isn't life just a kick in the seat?" She was openly laughing at his disbelief now as she led the way to a cramped little office overflowing with more books and plants and toys.

  "Right. A real kick."

  He couldn't possibly rent a house from her, Will thought as he stood in the doorway watching her dig through a huge straw bag. Besides this odd and uncomfortable awareness that seeped under his skin when he was near her, he didn't think he wanted a landlady who found such obvious enjoyment at his expense.

  "Sorry to have bothered you," he said stiffly. "Beth said you don't normally rent the house out. I'm sure you don't want to make an exception in my case."

  "It's no bother."

  "We'd probably be terrible tenants."

  She laughed again. "That's okay. I'm probably a terrible landlady too. We nosy types who think we're above the law usually are."

  Had he really said that to her? he wondered. Just another reason why he needed to convince her they wouldn't suit.

  "I mean, with my job, I might be coming in and out at all hours of the day and night." He clenched a fist at his side. "Hell, even when I am home at night, I usually don't sleep well. And then there's Emily. I could tell her not to bother you, but she probably still would."

  "What do you want me to say, Sheriff? That I've changed my mind and I'm no longer willing to rent to you?"

  "Yeah," he growled. "That's exactly what I want you to say."

  "Sorry," she returned blithely. "I'm not going to make it that easy on you."

  "Why not?"

  Her smile tightened. "Look, Sheriff, I don't give a flying fig about you and your late nights and your erratic hours. The only person in this I care about is Beth. She's my friend. For the first time in five years she has asked me for a favor, and I'm going to do everything in my power to grant it, even if it means putting up with her ungrateful oaf of a brother for a few months."

  She wound down and drew in a deep breath. "Take the key. If you think the place will work you will darn well move in. Got it?"

  He watched her wordlessly for a few beats, then snatched the key from her ha
nd.

  "Fine," he snapped. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

  ***

  Don't say I didn't warn you.

  Andie thought of his ominous words as she drove into her gravel driveway four hours later.

  An unfamiliar SUV, its hatch open and overflowing with boxes, waited in front of the foreman's house to be unloaded.

  Looks like she had herself a tenant.

  What had she gotten herself into? The last thing she needed was an ornery bear of a man crowding into her space, watching her suspiciously out of those tormented, weary, beautiful eyes. Stirring up feelings she'd thought long dead, buried so deep within her they'd crumbled away into nothing.

  Still, it was too late to back out now, especially after she'd all but ordered the man to move in.

  She had a sudden, fierce longing to escape into her gardening clothes and hide away among her herbs, to repair her shattered composure amid the hum of honeybees and the gentle dance of columbines.

  Surely these past five years had made her more adept at handling confrontations. But at the first sign of trouble, here she was wanting to run away again.

  Not this time, she thought. She slammed her car door and resolutely marched up the back porch steps and rapped on the old wooden door.

  When Will answered, wariness flickered in his eyes, the color of the sky just before a summer squall. He said nothing, just watched her from behind the screen.

  "May I come in?" she asked.

  He shrugged and held open the door. "It's your house."

  "For the next few months, it's yours." She tried a smile, uncomfortably aware of the current sizzling between them as she slipped past him into the kitchen. That summer storm came to mind again, all lightning and superheated air and distant rumblings.

  She cast off the fanciful thought. "After Beth called me yesterday, I turned on the power and lit the pilot light for the water heater. I'm afraid there's no air conditioner, but it only stays hot in here from about noon to four. The ceiling fans should help until it cools down in the evening. We only have a few more weeks of summer weather, anyway."