Riverbend Road

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “Right now I’m painting chalkboard paint on buckets.”

  “Any chance I could convince you to help me down at the community center with my yoga class?” Dev asked.

  “Um, sure. I’m not really that knowledgeable but I can swing a mean Warrior Two pose.”

  “No doubt.” Devin smiled. “I meant with that self-defense class you and I have talked about before. I’ve had several people request a few tips. I’ve tried to show them what little I know but they could really benefit from someone with your expertise.”

  Learning self-defense had become somewhat of an obsession after her attack. It was amazing how fear and powerlessness could motivate a person in new directions.

  “Oh yes!” Eppie’s wrinkled features lit up with excitement. “I want to learn a proper knee strike!”

  She blinked. Did Eppie know how to implement any knee strike, proper or otherwise? Good grief. The woman had both knees replaced five years ago.

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “What day this week would work?”

  “How about tomorrow?” Devin asked. “We’re soaking at the hot springs the next day, which might be a good idea the day after a hard workout.”

  “I can do tomorrow.”

  “Is anybody welcome?” Roxy asked. “Every woman should learn a few basic moves to protect herself.”

  Everybody but Cade-hungry project managers, Wyn wanted to say. Yes. News flash. She could be a bitch.

  Fortunately, Devin spoke first. “Everyone is welcome,” she said. “Wednesday morning, nine a.m. at the community center, which is up near the high school.”

  Maybe she would casually mention that to Andrea Montgomery when she dropped off the food. If the woman was having trouble of some sort, she might welcome a few self-defense tips. On the other hand, with a sprained ankle, she might not be up for it right now.

  At least Wyn now had one more thing to occupy her time during her suspension. She would have signed up to give a chicken driving lessons if it would keep her mind off a certain moonlit kiss.

  CHAPTER NINE

  SO FAR HIS week was heading from lousy to miserable.

  Cade drove down the quiet afternoon streets of Haven Point on a June afternoon with all the windows down on his official vehicle. Even then, the overpowering yeasty scent of beer permeated every molecule, taking him straight back to his childhood in Sulfur Hollow.

  He reeked like he’d tried to take a shower under the tap, which was why he was driving home at four on a Tuesday afternoon when he had hours of work ahead of him.

  Tourists who started drinking before noon ought to be dragged out of town and forever banned from the city limits, in his humble opinion.

  A couple of hikers wrapping up a weeklong trip into the Redemptions had come down from the mountain ready to party. By two, they were both loaded and started picking fights with a few of the locals who liked hanging out on the Mad Dog’s balcony overlooking the lake on a summer afternoon, eating burgers and shooting the breeze.

  The bartender had called him to break things up and next thing he knew, he’d ended up wearing a nearly full pitcher of the nice pale ale they brewed down at the Mad Dog.

  He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. He had about twenty minutes to grab a shower and a bite to eat before he needed to head back. He turned onto Riverbend Road and pulled into his driveway. He was just trotting up the steps when he happened to glance toward the little stone house down the street—just accidentally, he would almost swear it—and saw Wynona heading his way with her arms weighed down by two bulging grocery bags.

  Seeing her in civilian clothes always gave him a little shock—maybe because she always looked so different than she did at work, soft and sweet and pretty. When not wearing her uniform, she favored flirty little skirts and flowery blouses or cute sundresses with strappy sandals, as if compelled to hold on tightly to that feminine side every chance she could.

  She wore a skirt now in a pale salmon color with white polka dots and a soft white blouse and she looked good enough to eat.

  He closed his eyes briefly, remembering the wild, wrong dreams that had tormented him all night—of tangled sheets and slick bodies, warm curves, and a soft mouth that tasted of strawberries and heaven. He had awakened hard, achy...and racked with guilt.

  He had been a bear all day long, irritable and frustrated. Having a full pitcher of beer thrown at him hadn’t helped the situation.

  So why did he suddenly feel like the sun had just come out?

  He really needed to get a handle on this inappropriate attraction to Wynona before he did something else completely stupid.

  While he was tempted to give a polite wave and head into his house, he had to ask himself what he would have done before he’d stupidly kissed her the night before.

  Yesterday’s Cade Emmett probably would have headed over in an instant to help her with the bulky load.

  More than anything, he wanted to return their relationship to the casual, comfortable one they had always known before he’d rolled up to that fire scene with gut-twisting fear for her. He had assured her they could do it, which meant he needed to act just as he would have before the day before ever happened.

  With a sigh, he pocketed his keys and headed up the road. She smiled as he approached but he didn’t miss the flash of wariness in her expression.

  “Can I give you a hand?” he asked.

  She wrinkled her nose. “Wow. You smell like you took a bath in Bud Light.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I get for stepping into the middle of a bar fight started by a couple of stupid tourists down at the Mad Dog.”

  “How many years have you been a cop, Chief? Don’t you know, you wait until all the pitchers of beer have been tossed at someone else before you step in to break up the fight. I learned that the first week on the job.”

  Her teasing eased the tension as nothing else could have and he felt a vast wave of relief. Maybe they could both forget that kiss eventually. In ten or twenty years.

  “Sometimes a guy has to relearn all the old lessons. Don’t worry, though. Haven Point is safe from beer-tossing idiots for now. The perps have been arrested and booked, so now I’m just heading home to clean up and grab an early dinner.”

  “In my experience, pizza always goes great with beer.”

  He made a face, then pointed to her bags. “Looks like you’ve got your hands full. Can I help?”

  She inclined her head toward the house of their new neighbor. “Just making a delivery. A friendly welcome-to-the-neighborhood kind of thing.”

  He could see several containers of food inside the bags as well as a couple of children’s books. “Nice.”

  “We’ll see. She might throw me to the curb like you did with your early-drinking tourists. I figured it was worth a shot. Gain her trust, and all that, so I can see if she’ll let me help her out of whatever trouble she’s in.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You’re a stubborn woman, Officer Bailey.”

  “That’s funny. My mom was just saying the same thing about you.”

  He could imagine. He did have a tendency to stick to his guns, no matter what. He reached for the bags and took them from her. “Let me give you a hand.”

  “I’ve got this,” she protested. “You have clean clothes and dinner waiting for you.”

  “That can all wait a few more moments.”

  Without waiting for her, he headed toward the Craftsman. After a pause, she followed behind him, her sandals slapping on the concrete.

  “Apparently, sometimes my mother does know what she’s talking about,” she muttered, just as they reached the door of the house.

  He smiled at her disgruntled tone. How was it possible that he felt better right now, beer-stained and hungry, than he had all day?

  He intended to drop
off the bags on the porch and return to his place across the street but the door opened before Wyn could even ring the bell. A cute kid stood there with freckles, big eyes and curly reddish hair. The kid looked like he belonged on a Norman Rockwell painting, carrying a flag and pulling a wagon filled with puppies or something.

  “You’re a police,” the boy announced.

  “I am. Hi there. I’m Chief Emmett. I live across the street from you.”

  The kid looked out at Cade’s log home and the patrol vehicle in the driveway then back at the two of them.

  “I’m Will. When I grow up, I’m going to be a police, just like my dad.”

  Cade exchanged a look with Wyn. “Your dad is a police officer?”

  “He was. He died,” the little kid said, his eyes filled with sudden shadows.

  Okay, that caught Cade’s curiosity. Apparently his new neighbor was a police officer’s widow. Was that the reason Wyn thought something was wrong here?

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Will. I bet you miss him a lot.”

  “A ton,” the boy agreed. “I don’t remember him very much but Chloe and my mom do.”

  He shifted his attention from Cade to Wynona. “Hey, where’s your dog? I liked him. He was friendly and licked my hand and it tickled. He’s the nicest dog I ever met.”

  “I’m afraid he’s home,” Wyn answered. “You know what? I like him too. He’s a pretty great dog. He belonged to my dad, who was also a police officer. He died too. I still miss him a ton, just like you miss your dad.”

  Cade’s throat tightened up. His own father had died six years earlier and he rarely even thought about him but he missed John Bailey every single day.

  Wyn started to say something else but before she could even start the sentence, a young girl a few years older than Will with her brother’s reddish hair came to the door.

  “Will! What are you doing? You know you’re not supposed to open the door for anybody, ever. Mom told you like a million times!”

  “I didn’t!” Will said. “It’s not strangers. It’s the lady from yesterday on our hike, only she has a police and not her dog named Pete.”

  Cade decided not to take offense at the boy’s clear disappointment in Wyn’s choice of companion. He was more interested in the girl’s reaction, anyway. She seemed happy to see Wynona but he didn’t miss the nervousness in her expression when she looked at him.

  He couldn’t tell if she was truly frightened but she clearly didn’t want him there. Wyn’s theory of a domestic-abuse situation didn’t seem very likely, considering their father was dead, but what else might be making this girl look apprehensive?

  “Hi,” she said to Wynona. “Sorry, but my mom doesn’t feel good and she can’t talk right now. ’Bye.”

  She started to close the door but the fast-thinking Officer Bailey shoved her foot in before she could. That was a neat trick when a person was wearing standard-issue patrol boots but likely not so comfortable when wearing cute sandals like Wyn had on, the kind that showed toenail polish the same color as her skirt.

  Wynona winced a little but held her ground. “I’m sure she’ll talk to me if you let her know I’m here.”

  “She’s on the couch and can’t get up. The doctor said she has to rest her ankle with some ice. It hurts a lot. She won’t say it does but I can tell.”

  The boy nodded. “She rested all day, even at lunch, but it was okay. Chloe and me made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by ourselves and we hardly even made a mess.”

  Somehow Cade doubted the veracity of that particular statement but decided not to call the boy out in front of his sister.

  “Will you please tell her we’re here?” Wyn said, using that calm yet determined voice of concern he always admired. “We can come talk to her on the sofa and she won’t even have to move. If you want to, you can tell her I have a gift from some of my friends to welcome your family to Haven Point.”

  “I bet it’s in those bags,” the boy said with a gleeful sort of grin. What a cute kid.

  Chloe looked toward a hallway leading through the house then back at the two of them, nibbling on her lip. “I don’t know. We’re not supposed to let anybody in, ever, ever. Even if we know them.”

  Cade was all about teaching children a healthy degree of caution but this seemed excessive. He should have trusted Wyn’s instincts, as usual. Something was definitely up with his new neighbors.

  “How about this?” Wyn said. “We’ll wait right here on the porch while you tell your mom we’re here and ask her if it’s okay if we come in to see her.”

  Chloe appeared to consider that and finally nodded. “I’ll ask her. I don’t know if she’ll say yes, but I’ll ask her.”

  She turned away and closed the door in their faces. If she hadn’t left her brother out on the porch with them, Cade might have wondered if she had any intention of returning.

  The boy stood next to Cade, gazing up at him from about waist level.

  “You stink,” he said after a minute, with the stark, completely unfettered honesty of children.

  He glanced down at the stains on his shirt, which he had completely forgotten about.

  “You know what? You’re right. I had a little accident at work and somebody spilled something on me.”

  The boy nodded sagely. “I spill orange juice all the time. Mom always says I don’t need to cry, that it’s okay, I just need to help her clean it up.”

  “Sounds like good advice.”

  He was filthy and smelled like a brewery—probably not the best state to be in when meeting a woman already averse to strangers.

  “Maybe I’d better meet your mom another day, when I’m not such a mess.”

  “That might be a good idea,” Will agreed, with such seriousness that Cade almost smiled. Instead, he forced his features into the same sort of solemn look.

  “Listen, Will, if you ever need help from the police, I just live across the street from you, in that house right there. See it?”

  Will’s gaze followed the direction he pointed and he nodded. “Where your police car is.”

  “That’s right. And Officer Bailey is just down the street, in the house made of stone with the green door, right down there.”

  “Okay.”

  “We can be here in a minute, got it?”

  “I got it,” Will said. “I know how to dial 911 if I have to, and I know it’s only for ’mergencies.”

  Cade could only wish half of the adults in town understood that concept, especially the older ladies who seemed to want to call him out for everything from a mysterious noise to a missing heirloom vase they misplaced during spring cleaning.

  “That’s right. You help take care of your mom, especially if she has a sore ankle.”

  “I will,” the boy promised.

  “Good man.”

  He smiled at Will, then glanced at Wyn, who was staring at him with a warm approval that made him feel ridiculously pleased with himself.

  “I’ll see you later,” he said.

  “You don’t want to meet Andrea?” she asked.

  “Another day,” he promised. “I’m drenched in beer, not my best look for meeting the good citizens of Haven Point. And I wouldn’t want to make her more nervous.”

  “Good point. Well, thanks for helping me carry the bags, Chief.”

  “You got it. Let me know how things go.”

  “I will.”

  She opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something else but appeared to think better of it and closed it again.

  He headed down the steps of the porch and then across the street. Now his spidey sense was tingling. Wynona was right. Something seemed off at the Montgomery household. He had no idea what, but had to trust that Wyn would be able to get to the bottom of it and ascertain somehow if the
woman needed their help.

  As usual, Wynona’s instincts were spot-on. A good officer intuitively picked up on subtle clues in a situation and Wyn was one of the best.

  His town needed her and he couldn’t afford to lose sight of that.

  Even if he was beginning to suspect he might need her too.

  * * *

  WYN INDULGED HERSELF for just a moment to watch Cade walk back to his house with that lean-hipped stride, sunlight gleaming off his dark hair.

  True to his word, he acted like nothing had happened between them the night before. Okay, there might have been a moment there when he first joined her on the street, when she thought she had seen something raw and wild and hungry flash in his gaze. It might have been a trick of the sunlight or a figment of her entirely-too-active imagination.

  She sighed. Why did he have to be so very hard to resist? He had been terribly sweet to help her carry her bags, even though they weren’t heavy and she had been handling them fine. She had no problem taking care of herself most of the time, but once in a while it was nice to let someone else do it.

  Cade had also struck exactly the right tone with Will, nonthreatening, interested, man-to-man. For a dude who didn’t have children, Cade was remarkably good with them. She’d noticed it before, that children tended to gravitate toward him. Every year she went with him to the elementary school to give the obligatory safety talk at the beginning of the school year. Every year it was the same, with the children hanging on his every word.

  Most of the teachers did the same, but that probably went without saying. This was Cade Emmett, after all.

  He also went to the school once a month to read to the kids on his lunch hour, so they wouldn’t be afraid of the badge or the uniform. She found that unbearably sweet.

  The door suddenly opened and Andrea Montgomery balanced in the doorway on crutches, her hair flattened a little on one side where she had been resting on it.

  Her skin was a shade paler than the day before and she had the tight set to her features of someone in pain.

  “Oh,” she exclaimed softly. “I thought... Chloe said a policeman was here with you.”