by Gayle Kaye
He crossed his arms over his chest “They insisted.”
“Cam!”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t handcuff them to the cell or anything. I released them—pending further investigation.” He didn’t know what he wanted to do with this case. Other than maybe make it go away.
She was still giving him a wary glance. He knew the look, the look that said he was an ogre. Like he’d thought—Simon Legree.
“The ladies are determined to stand with Pearl in this. They feel a certain...loyalty to her,” he said.
“Yeah, well, Cam—maybe, just maybe, that’s what I was feeling when I didn’t rat on my grandmother.”
He nodded. “And maybe I asked too much from you, Hallie. I know how you feel about Pearl.”
He studied her, his gaze raking over her, slowly, thoroughly, as if trying to decide something in his mind. Was loyalty so wrong? Hallie wondered.
Was she so wrong?
Just then Cam checked his watch. “I’m late,” he said. “I have a baseball game to coach.”
Their conversation was over. Cam turned to leave and Hallie watched him head off for the vacant lot just past the square and the group of boys playing there, looking forward, she knew, to his expertise that he so generously shared.
There was a lot of good in Cam. He cared about this adopted town of his. He gave of himself to the residents and especially the kids. He coached their team, taught them fly-fishing, worried when they couldn’t stay in school—yet when it came to a personal life of his own, a family, children... He didn’t seem to want any of those things.
With a final glance at the man, and a deep sigh that rose up from her heart, she went back to reading her magazine—but she didn’t see a thing on the page. There were too many tears in her eyes.
“You had words with the man,” Granny said on the long drive home.
Hallie had felt her watchful gaze on her for the past few miles and suspected something like this was coming.
“We...we had a conversation. I wouldn’t call it...words.”
“I would.”
“Granny, please...I’m fine.”
“Don’t look fine to me.”
She never gave up, Hallie thought, but Granny remained quiet the rest of the trip, and for that, Hallie was grateful.
That evening she washed up the supper dishes while Granny rested in her favorite old rocker. Sometimes Hallie forgot the woman didn’t have the energy of a twenty-year-old.
“You’re a good granddaughter, Hallie,” Granny said as soon as Hallie had put away the last dish and draped Granny’s embroidered dish towel over the rack to dry.
Hallie glanced at her grandmother, that lively face she had loved for years, those bony old arms that had hugged her as a child and made her feel secure, that wiry little body that had the strength of ten men. She hardly looked like the town’s number-one public enemy tonight. She looked soft and wistful—and maybe a little vulnerable.
Hallie knew about vulnerable; she knew how much it could hurt. “I just did a few dishes,” she replied.
Granny’s gaze fixed on her fiercely. “I don’t mean about the dishes. I mean about everything you done for me, Hallie. I might be cranky and crotchety sometimes, but I do ’preciate it all.”
“Oh, Granny.” She went to give her a hug. “I do it because I love you.”
“I know that, child,” she said, allowing the hug, then drew back and studied Hallie intently. “I made a fine mess of things here in this town,” she said. “And I caused you pain, as well.”
Hallie gave a small smile. “Only some worry, Granny. Worry about one little grandmother who’s very special to me.”
That didn’t seem to satisfy Granny. Her gaze remained on Hallie’s face. “And Cam Osborne,” she said. “I caused you grief with him, too—and don’t tell me I didn’t. I saw you with him today. I couldn’t hear what the two of you was sayin’, but I didn’t have to. I saw the way you was each lookin’ at the other.”
Hallie dropped her hands from her grandmother’s shoulders. Did she think she could hide her feelings from this woman? Granny saw everything. But this time she was sticking her nose in where it wasn’t needed.
“Granny, I told you my problems with Cam were my own folly. They had nothing to do with you.”
Granny considered that for a long moment, but didn’t look convinced. “All the same, I made a mess o’ things around here when I didn’t mean nobody any harm.”
“I know you didn’t, Granny Pearl.”
Granny rocked quietly in her chair for another hour, a pensive crease added to the other fine wrinkles in her forehead, thinking her own thoughts, fretting in her own way, trying to find her own peace.
Cam heard Pearl’s old clunker long before the woman bustled through the front door of his jail. Now what did the old bird want? he wondered.
He shoved aside his paperwork and offered her a chair.
She didn’t take it.
“I won’t be here that long, Sheriff. I just came to tell you I ain’t got hard feelings. I know you was just doin’ your duty, upholdin’ the law, and I s’pose I can respect that. After all you’re the sheriff around here.”
Cam sat back down, a little surprised at the woman. He’d have expected her to come after him with one of her old iron skillets, rather than this offering of peace.
“I appreciate that, Pearl.”
“I’m sorry, too, for all those mean things I said about you. You’re a fine man, Cam Osborne—maybe a little hardheaded, but that trait you ain’t got no lock on. You’re good with the little ones ’round here, too, and that goes a long way in my book.”
“Thanks, Pearl. Coming from you that means a lot.”
He meant it. He liked the old gal—he always had. She could be a trial—and he was certain she gave Hallie more than a few cares—but she meant well.
“I don’t know what went on between you and my Hallie—the girl won’t talk about it But she’s determined to leave here when my case is settled and take me with her. An’ if that’s what she wants to do, I won’t balk about goin’. My Hallie is a good person, and I know she’s just got my good interests at heart.”
Cam couldn’t answer. His heart had dropped to the pit of his stomach—and he wasn’t sure he could breathe, much less get words out.
Hallie was going to leave here—and Pearl had agreed to go with her. There’d be nothing to keep her here now, not if Pearl wasn’t offering resistance.
Cam had never felt so blasted miserable in his life.
Not even back in Chicago when all his belief systems had crashed into shards. Hallie had the ability to hurt him more than anything he’d gone through then, he realized—and he didn’t know what the hell to do about it.
When he recovered his aplomb, Pearl had sashayed out. She’d muttered something more to him—but what it was, he hadn’t heard.
All he knew was that his life was disintegrating, and it was all his own fault.
Chapter Eleven
Why was it a man had to lose something before he realized what he’d lost was what he most wanted in the world?
Cam had lost Hallie—truly lost her.
She’d be leaving here soon—and with Granny going with her, there’d be no reason for her to return. Without Hallie around, the little town he’d grown to love would lose its sparkle.
So would his life, he realized even more glumly.
And all because he was a muleheaded idiot. All because he hadn’t seen Hallie’s side in this. All he’d seen was his own.
He needed to talk to her, he needed to apologize before it was too late.
He didn’t have too high a hope of getting her to stick around this little burg. She’d made it clear from the start that she’d be going home to Fort Worth, to her teaching job at that school with all the advantages. He didn’t have a prayer’s hope of convincing her to stay and offer a few of those advantages to the kids around here.
He didn’t have a prayer’s hope of convincing her
to marry him.
But he could apologize—he owed her that.
That night after he’d showered and shaved and rehearsed forty versions of an apology to his bathroom mirror, he jerked on a pair of chino slacks and a good shirt and rode off to tilt at windmills.
The little cabin in Pearl’s neck of the woods gleamed like a soft beacon in the night, warm and secure. Would Pearl really pack up the past seventy-nine years of her life and leave here with Hallie?
If it was what Hallie wanted she would, he realized. Hadn’t Pearl told him just that this afternoon?
He climbed out of the Cherokee, feeling his palms sweat and his throat grow tight. In two days Judge McBain would be hearing Pearl’s case, and soon after that, Hallie would leave.
But he didn’t want to think about that, didn’t want to think how that would affect him, how empty his life would suddenly be.
Alone—that was what he’d wanted when he first came here to Greens Hollow. Now it was the last thing he thought he could endure.
Hallie came to the door when he knocked. The light from the room beyond backlit her small frame, her cloud of red hair, her fragile shoulders. He couldn’t read her face, her eyes, know whether she was glad to see him or wanted him to leave. At least she didn’t invite him to do the latter.
He felt a certain relief in that.
“Hallie...” The knot in his throat tightened. “Can we talk for a few minutes?” An hour. A lifetime.
How could he let her walk out of his life? But if her life in Fort Worth was what she wanted, really wanted...
He couldn’t let himself think about that.
She stepped out onto the porch, into the spill of moonlight and took a seat on one of the chairs. Cam found the porch railing and rested one hip against it.
She was dressed in a pair of soft-washed white jeans and a pale peach top that hugged her breasts. The peach hue, mingled with the moonlight from above, gave a delicate glow to her face. Her green eyes were wide and solemn.
What he’d rehearsed earlier had fled his mind. He didn’t know what to say, except to let her know he’d been a lunkhead.
“I came to tell you I was wrong the other day. I shouldn’t have blasted you about...withholding facts. I didn’t look at your side of it, didn’t realize you were only doing what you felt you needed to do—protect your grandmother.” From the mean, bad sheriff, he thought to himself. The uncompromising sheriff. “I’d asked too much of you, Hallie, asked the impossible—and I shouldn’t have.”
“Apology accepted,” she said softly, graciously—more graciously than he deserved. “I didn’t mean to hold out on you about...anything, Cam. Not really. I thought I could handle it myself. Then...the men got drunk and landed in your jail, and I knew I hadn’t done a very good job of it.”
“Yeah, well, that’s a night to forget. But everybody lived through it and the men got their punishment—they ended up with roaring hangovers. They won’t do that again soon.”
She smiled. “Now that Granny’s shut down,” she said.
He studied her for a long moment, thinking how very beautiful she looked, how soft, how...tempting. “Pearl’s lucky she has you, lucky she has someone who’d fight tooth and nail for her, who’s loyal to a fault.”
He realized it was what he loved about her. He wondered what it would be like to have her fight that way for him.
“Cam, Granny’s agreed to go back with me after her court appearance—providing the judge will allow it.”
Cam felt the knife turn in him the way it had earlier today when Pearl had broken the news. It wasn’t any less painful the second time. In fact, it was worse. This time it was from Hallie’s own lips.
“Then I hope the judge refuses to let her leave the county.”
One eyebrow shot up in surprise.
“So you won’t leave here and never come back,” he explained.
“Carn, I have school to teach. And the change will be good for Granny.”
But not for him—and he’d bet not good for Pearl, either. As for Hallie, he wished she could be happy here, wished he could make her happy.
“There’s a need for a teacher right here, Hallie,” he said. “If you’d consider it.”
She studied him, her eyes wide, curious, then she glanced down at her hands, tangling them in her lap. “I can’t stay here.” Her voice was low, soft. He could barely hear her. “I can’t stay here any more than you could have stayed in Chicago, Cam.”
“What do you mean?”
She stood up and walked to the end of the porch, hugging her arms as if the warm night air had suddenly turned frigid.
“I was hurt by this town once before,” she said quietly. “I’d come to stay with Granny Pearl for the summer and fell in love—or what I thought was love.” She drew a breath. “I was seventeen; he was nineteen. When...when I found I was pregnant I foolishly thought we’d marry. I...knew I wanted children, lots of them.”
“What happened, Hallie?”
“He didn’t share the dreams I had. I—I left here and—” her voice broke “—I lost the baby.”
He went to her then, took her in his arms and held her, just held her.
He whispered soft things to her, inane things—it didn’t matter what. As long as she knew he was there, that he cared.
When her crying turned to soft snuffles, she drew away from him. “It was a long time ago. But coming back here—”
She wouldn’t want to stay here; he understood that now. This was just a town—and a town couldn’t hurt you, but he knew Hallie didn’t see it that way. Wouldn’t.
“I’m glad you told me,” he said.
She tried to brush aside her tears, but failed miserably. “It seems we’ve both had a few bruises along the way,” she remarked.
“Yeah.”
He drew her to him and planted one chaste kiss on her lips. With the flat of his thumb he dried the tears she’d missed.
“That’s why you teach, isn’t it?” he said. Hallie loved children—and she hadn’t been able to have the child she wanted very much.
She nodded. “We all find ways to compensate for our losses,” she said quietly.
And Cam would soon have his loss. Hallie.
A woman who’d come to mean more to him than life itself.
He leaned his head down and kissed her, really kissed her this time, drinking her in, fearing it would be the last time, the last taste of her he’d ever sample.
She was liquid in his arms, soft and fluid as the night that surrounded them. And he wanted the moment to go on forever.
But Hallie was leaving here. And right or wrong, it was what she wanted. He couldn’t propose to her, ask her to stay and marry him. What if he, too, ended up smashing her dreams? That he couldn’t bear.
From somewhere in the far reaches of his mind he thought he heard a door open, heard Pearl clear her throat. Then the door closed again.
Slowly, reluctantly, Hallie drew away. “I think that was Granny Pearl,” she said.
“Did she go for a shotgun?”
He saw her smile, a small wistful one. “I’m going to miss you, Cam Osborne,” she said.
That wasn’t half of what Cam knew he had to endure.
Hallie had Granny Pearl to think about and Granny’s appearance before Judge McBain. She had no time to give to thoughts of Cam and their talk last night, no time to give to how much she’d miss him when she got back to Fort Worth.
He’d wanted her to stay here—but how could she do that? This town reminded her of too much—he’d understood that. He didn’t want marriage, children. She recalled there’d been no proposal laced through their conversation. Only an apology and a plea for her to stay and open the school. Though that was a noble thought, Hallie had kids to teach back home.
And Granny would be going with her—if the judge was lenient.
Hallie was worried about that, worried that her spirited grandmother might turn the courtroom on its ear. Granny needed to appear civil, sedate and,
above all, contrite. No reminders she’d once powdered the eminent judge’s bottom. No mumbo jumbo that her squeezins were a cure-all for “rheumatiz” or anything else. The judge wouldn’t buy any of it.
Hallie’s own needs, her jumbled feelings about Cam, were secondary right now. She needed to keep her mind on Granny until after the court hearing, until Granny’s fate was decided.
Cam was seated in the section of McBain’s courtroom reserved for witnesses. He was pretty much it—except for a character witness or two that Ward Buchanan had tucked away should he need them, someone who’d say that Pearl Cates was a model citizen, an asset to the community.
Since he was the arresting officer it was his duty to give the details of the arrest and the charges against Granny Pearl—not something he was looking forward to doing, even though the woman had broken the law.
He glanced up at the sound of the courtroom door opening. Pearl had arrived, flanked on one side by Hallie, appearing in control and ready for battle, and on the other by Pearl’s five cohorts-in-crime, appearing equally determined. Only Pearl looked defeated. She’d lost her starch, her rancor, her churlishness—and Cam wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
In the two years he’d lived here, he’d never seen her like this. What was the matter, was she afraid of the judge? He scoffed. The woman could face a grizzly and not be afraid.
He’d bet his badge she was in the doldrums because Hallie intended to take her to Fort Worth with her, take her from this world she loved and knew.
Couldn’t Hallie see what she was doing to Granny Pearl? She’d be ripping the woman’s heart out if they left here. She’d be ripping his heart out, as well.
And Cam had done very little to stop her.
Oh, he’d suggested she stay and reopen the school, but he’d held back on making any big declarations of love.
What’s the matter, Cam? Afraid to make that final commitment? To trust in someone again?
To run a risk again?
He’d refused to consider falling in love a second time—afraid it wouldn’t last. Afraid that when it didn’t, he’d hurt like before. But Hallie wasn’t Elise, he knew. She was different. Neither was she like his partner. She hadn’t betrayed him with Pearl; she’d only done what she’d had to do—protect her own.