No Ordinary Sheriff

by Mary Sullivan

  “Twenty-seven, but I started taking care of myself real early.”

  “Why?”

  “My mom died when I was six and Janey raised me, but she got pregnant and had Cheryl and moved out. After that, I raised myself.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Nine.”

  “Where was your dad?”

  “Dad was around. He was just pretty useless at anything outside of bringing home a paycheck. So…” She shrugged her shoulders. “I took care of myself and him and sometimes my older siblings, and I’ve been doing it ever since.”

  “I get that you’re capable, I really do, but those guys—” he nodded toward Sassy’s “—are real bad news.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t go back.”

  She didn’t answer him, just watched him coolly, and he might as well have been talking to the dashboard.

  “Where’s your car?” he asked.

  “Around back.”

  He drove along the side of the bar. One small red Fiesta sat in the far corner of the dirt lot, isolated and forlorn, at least a dozen yards away from the closest light standard.

  He raised one recriminating eyebrow.

  “The parking lot was packed,” she said. “I knew the cops were half a block away.”

  She got out of the truck.

  He waited until she started her car and pulled out of the parking lot, then followed her back to the Wright ranch. She turned in and he kept on until he reached his own place on the other side of Ordinary, the entire time wondering whether he should cancel his date with Danielle to cover Shannon at the bar tonight. But that was a foolish idea.

  She wouldn’t appreciate his interference. When all was said and done, she was her own person, and he had absolutely no control over her.

  * * *

  SHANNON DECIDED ON a different approach to Sassy’s tonight.

  Cash had been right. She’d taken too great a chance despite her precautions. She’d do a whole lot more for her brother, but she had to do it smartly.

  Dressed more conservatively than usual in jeans, a pink sweater—neither of them tight—and a long black jacket, she got into her car and drove to Monroe. No way was she giving men there the impression she was interested in anything other than her job.

  The same cops waited down the road from Sassy’s. Good.

  She’d never call them, but if things went south too quickly, she could discharge her weapon. That would bring them running.

  Shannon carried a notebook and a bunch of pens. Tonight, she was an investigative journalist researching an article about the biker culture. None of the men would recognize her. The lighting had been dim and they’d probably looked at her breasts more than her face. This time she wore minimal makeup and her hair was up in a ponytail.

  She patted the holster under her loose jacket. She had her gun on board. She didn’t plan to take off her coat tonight so no one would see it. Contrary to what Cash Kavenagh might think of her, she was neither stupid nor careless.

  The same men greeted her at the door. She was right in her assumption. None of them recognized her.

  Inside, the same stripper gyrated onstage.

  Her gaze flew around the room, checking everything before finding an empty stool at the bar. She ordered a bottle of beer then kept it close so none of the men could tamper with it. She drank little, preferring her senses to remain on high alert.

  She told them why she was here, and asked who she should interview.

  Shannon was still sitting on that bar stool an hour later, waiting for the leader of this pack of bikers to show.

  They swore he’d be in tonight and would let her interview him about being a biker. While she waited she grilled the bikers as subtly as she could, but got absolutely nothing about drugs out of them.

  She threw her pen onto the bar and shoved her writing tablet into her pocket. This was taking too long.

  “Listen,” one of the bikers said. “He isn’t coming. Let’s go. I’ll take you out to the farm. You can interview me.”

  Not on your life, Shannon thought. The man had a lot more on his mind than “interviewing.”

  “You know Cole won’t like that, Chris,” the big biker named Rogers said. “He don’t like nobody being interviewed by reporters but him.”

  “He isn’t here, is he?”

  “She’s not going anywhere with you.” Rogers pushed Chris.

  “Who says?” Chris shoved Rogers back.

  Not again.

  “Stop,” she shouted. They turned to stare at her. “Can one of you call him? Find out for sure whether he’s coming in?”

  Chris whipped out a cell and punched in a number. “Man, I can’t hear a thing. Come outside.”

  He headed toward the back door but turned around when she didn’t follow.

  “Out front,” she said, her voice hard-edged. The lighting was better in the front.

  He frowned but followed her.

  In the parking lot, she had trouble hearing him speaking into the phone. Too many men crowded her, trying to get her attention.

  She’d seen plenty of women in the bar, but guessed there was something to be said for fresh blood.

  Chris hung up. “Cole ain’t coming tonight. He and his old lady are busy. He’ll call you tomorrow afternoon, though.”

  “I don’t give out my number. Give me his.”

  Chris rattled off a number that Shannon wrote down.

  “Tell him I’ll call.”

  She walked off, hating to wait until tomorrow. She knew police investigation inside out, knew how long everything took, despite how quickly things got done on the cop shows on TV. In general she was a patient person, but this was about Tom, not a faceless stranger.

  She’d always been compassionate, but understood now why the relatives of victims wanted answers yesterday.

  What if someone else overdosed?

  That’s the woman in you talking, Shannon, she could almost hear her boss say. When you’re on the job, you’re a cop. Think like one.

  Okay, forget the personal connection and consider your next step.

  Good advice, but even so, as she got into her car, started it up and pulled out onto the small highway to head home, she still wrestled with frustration.

  She’d gone only about a mile when she noticed a biker on her tail. Her understanding was that the biker farm was in the opposite direction of Ordinary. So why was he behind her heading toward town?

  When she increased her speed, so did he. He was following her.

  Damned if she’d lead him to Janey’s house. She cursed again. She shouldn’t be staying at Janey’s. She should have anticipated that something like this could happen.

  Freaking fabulous. Adrenaline spiked through her. How was she going to lose him? His hog was powerful and her car average. She couldn’t outrun him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THROUGHOUT CASH’S DATE with Danielle, despite how much he’d enjoyed her company and Timm and Angel’s, he’d worried about Shannon.

  At the end of the night, determinedly putting Shannon out of his mind, Cash drove Danielle to her door and turned off the engine. Dinner at Chester’s had been fun. Danielle was fun.

  Now it was time to call it a night.

  “I had a great time, Cash,” Danielle said.

  Danielle always had a good time, wherever she was, whoever she was with. He knew lots about the townspeople. Most everyone’s business in a small town was an open book.

  There’d been no missing the appreciative glances she had cast him all night. Or the look she was giving him now, with the unmistakable message of desire in her eyes.

  He liked her, liked her laugh, liked the way she looked, but something held him back, something th
at he didn’t want to look at too closely.

  His mind flashed to Shannon, but why? She was off-limits. He’d already established that. He’d gone on this date with Danielle to take his mind off Shannon.

  And that was the problem. It hadn’t been fair to Danielle to date her just to distract him from thoughts of another woman. He should have seen that before he asked her out.

  She leaned forward to kiss him, but he pulled back, stopping her with a hand on her shoulder. When push came to shove, he had to be honest with her.

  “Danielle,” he started, and she stopped. A small sarcastic smile turned up her lips.

  “Don’t tell me,” she said. “It’s you, not me.”

  “Basically, yeah, only I don’t want it to sound so lame. I don’t know how to say this… You’re a fabulous girl and I had a great time tonight…”

  “But?”

  “Yeah, there is a but.”

  “Is there another woman?”

  “No!” Maybe. I wish. No, he wished there wasn’t a beautiful woman named Shannon tempting him away from the kinds of women he should be getting to know better. Like Danielle, who’d returned to Ordinary just a few months ago after years away. He should have tried to get to know her weeks ago, before Shannon had shown up. Maybe tonight could have ended differently.

  But you didn’t. What does that tell you?

  That there just wasn’t enough attraction there.

  He shouldn’t have asked her out. She was good-looking, fun and had a smart head on her shoulders. Why wasn’t that enough?

  She didn’t heat his blood like Shannon did.

  That was it? He lusted after another woman too much to enjoy the woman here willing to be in his arms, and maybe in his bed?

  No, it was about more than just sex, passion. Passion could fade. On the other hand, friendship could grow.

  So why wouldn’t he give Danielle a chance? He didn’t know. At one time, fun sex would have been enough. With age, he’d changed. He wanted more.

  There was a spark missing here, a spark that had nothing to do with lust.

  “Hmm,” Danielle murmured. “Sounds like there might be another woman.”

  Damn. He’d been too strong in his protest.

  “Danielle, I—”

  “Don’t worry about it, Cash. It happens.”

  Man, she was a great girl. Too bad he couldn’t make himself feel what he just didn’t feel.

  Danielle slid out of her seat, closed the truck door and walked to her house.

  He watched until she was safely inside then drove away, heading for home.

  Just before he turned into his long driveway, a car sped down the road toward him with a big Harley hard on its tail. The car zoomed past.

  So did the biker.

  Cash’s cop instincts kicked in. He swore and took the flashing light out of his glove compartment. He stuck it on the roof of the truck, then he pulled a U-turn.

  * * *

  A BLACK PICKUP in the oncoming lane slowed down to turn into a driveway. Shannon shot past.

  Seconds later, she saw the pickup do a U-turn.

  The truck, with a light flashing on his roof, came roaring up behind the biker.

  A cop. Thank God.

  Shannon pulled over and the biker shot past. She watched until his red taillight disappeared into the distance.

  The truck’s headlights flared in her rearview mirror and the pickup stopped behind her. A man stepped out.

  Cash!

  He walked to her door and she rolled down the window.

  “What’s happening?” he asked. “Why the speeding?”

  “That biker was following me.” She tried to catch her breath. “I’m trying to get home in one piece, without leading him to C.J.’s house.”

  He shook his head. “You went to Sassy’s again, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” If her tone was a little hard, so be it. This was what she did for a living. She probably had more experience in her baby finger than he had in his whole body. She’d worked all kinds of drug cases in all kinds of situations.

  She’d looked up Cash Kavenagh on the internet earlier. His entire career had been spent in Ordinary.

  She wasn’t accountable to him. In fact, because she was on vacation, she was accountable to no one but herself.

  “Follow me back to my place,” he said. “That bozo could be waiting at the next side road to take up the chase again.”

  Because she worried about that herself, she agreed.

  He strode back to his truck, started it up and pulled a U-turn. Shannon did the same and followed his truck as he turned right into the nearby driveway.

  Poplars lined the long drive like sentinels. She pulled into a private clearing and parked behind his truck.

  The moon cast a glow over trees running along the side of a stream.

  When she got out of the car, she studied his house. The front porch light was on. The house was small and decorated with gingerbread. Why on earth had the man painted everything in shades of mauve and purple? Not very manly, but…nice.

  Late yellow asters in clay pots led up the steps to the porch. A Halloween pumpkin sat on a wicker table, its carved face dried out and wrinkling, like an oversize apple doll’s head. They were feminine touches and yet, the man waiting for her at the front door was anything but effeminate. His big sheepskin coat emphasized broad shoulders and a black cowboy hat shaded his eyes.

  She remembered that last night, when he’d covered her with his coat, it had smelled like him, masculine and soapy. Clean.

  Boy, he was a sexy man.

  “I’ve got dogs,” he said. “A couple of them. They’ll be all over you. You okay or do you want me to take them out back?”

  “I love dogs.”

  He opened the door, reached to turn on a hall light and moved aside.

  Two dogs ran out, crazy excited to see Cash, until they noticed Shannon. Then they just about turned themselves inside out for her attention.

  One was a tall, tanned greyhound, leggy and narrow-chested. The other was a Heinz 57 mutt with wiry gray-black hair and a snub nose. About half the height of the greyhound, he still managed to get his fair share of attention.

  Shannon laughed and asked over their barking, “What are their names?”

  “Danny and Paddy. Danny’s the greyhound.”

  “A rescue?”

  “Yep. When he grew too old to win races, his owners were going to euthanize him.”

  “Bastards.”

  “My sentiments exactly.”

  “How about Paddy? Where’d he come from?”

  “The pound.”

  “They’re great. They’re so fun and affectionate.”

  Done with Shannon, they surrounded Cash. Oh, his hands on those dogs… That affection. He stroked Danny’s back and the dog loved it, turned around for more.

  Cash sank his fingers into Paddy’s fur and massaged. Paddy closed his eyes and growled low in his throat, obviously transported to another plane.

  Cash loved his dogs.

  “Okay,” he ordered. “Scoot. Go have a run.”

  The dogs leapt from the veranda to the clearing, watered a few bushes then took off into the woods.

  “They won’t get into trouble on their own out there?”

  One side of Cash’s mouth kicked up. “They were both skunked once. It hasn’t happened since. They’re fast learners.”

  “I heard that scent’s hard to clean out of dogs.”

  “Yeah, I used tomato juice. By the time I finished, the bathroom looked like a remake of Psycho. Come on in.”

  Crazy curious to see how the sheriff lived, Shannon stepped into the house. The interior was as unlikely for the man as the exterior had been—wa
lls painted in bright but tasteful colors, furniture smaller than she would have expected for a man of his size.

  She looked at him with a question.

  “It came furnished,” he said, hanging his coat on a hook by the door.

  “Ah. I see. And the colors outside?”

  “It came that way.”

  “And the flowers? The pumpkin?”

  “Mine.” His hard countenance dared her to comment, to cast aspersions on his masculinity, but how could she while sexual awareness rolled from him in waves?

  “It’s odd for a man like you to have a house like this.”

  “A man like me?”

  “Single.”

  “Single men can’t buy houses?”

  “Yes, but usually as an investment in the future.”

  “This is an investment.”

  She cocked her head and studied him. “Yes. I can see that, but not a financial investment. Not out here in the back of nowhere.”

  She touched a lamp, ran her finger along a side table. It came away clean.

  “It’s an emotional investment,” he said.

  His face grew stony. Her curiosity doubled.

  “What does this house represent for you?”

  “The future.”

  He didn’t say more and didn’t look like he would. So if this wasn’t financial, if it was emotional, did that mean he bought it for whatever family he might have in the future? Odd. A man with nesting instincts?

  He stood in front of her like an immovable enigma. Whatever this meant to him, it ran deeply.

  And countered everything she knew about men, contradicted all of her own experience. The men she knew didn’t like responsibility, certainly never sought it out or planned for it. At least, not in their personal lives. Dad had never shirked his duties at work. He’d just been useless at home with his family.

  Dave Dunlop had turned out to be a good cop. His personal life, though? She’d heard he already had one divorce under his belt.

  “Can I use your washroom?” she asked.

  “It’s straight down the hall, last door on the left.” He stepped ahead of her and reached into a room to flip a switch. The kitchen lit up. By the bright spill into the hallway, she found the bathroom.