No Ordinary Sheriff

by Mary Sullivan

  Afterward, she stepped back into the hall, but stopped, arrested by the sight of Cash’s massive bed in a small bedroom across the way. A faint glow of moonlight illuminated the room.

  Okay, this was more like it—a huge bed for a big man—heavy and dark, carved out of oak or some other worthy wood. A dark burgundy duvet covered it and half a dozen pillows lay scattered against the head.

  Images of her and Cash flash-mobbed her mind, images of them naked and embraced in passion, those pillows strategically placed for pleasure, that duvet in a dark heap on the floor, she and Cash covered only by moonlight and each other.

  She saw his strong back and muscled arms tremble as he held himself above her, the image so puissant, so real, it unnerved her. She didn’t do passion. She did controlled sex. She had fun, but always kept the passion under control. Sex was physical. She left the emotion for others.

  She remembered the first time she’d seen Cash at Janey’s wedding. She’d been only sixteen, but pretty sure of her own mind. She’d wanted him then.

  She wanted him now.

  She felt his gaze on her. He leaned against the kitchen doorjamb watching her, arms crossed over his chest, his biceps stretching his white dress shirt.

  “Need help with anything?” he asked, as though he knew what she’d been thinking as she stared at his bed.

  A gold buckle shone on the black belt that held up his dark jeans. She saw herself unbuckling it.

  To prove that she was unmoved by these images, that she could meet this man just as she had every other lover in her past, with the control she needed, she stepped forward and rested her hands on his chest.

  She rose on tiptoe to reach his lips, to brush hers across his in the cool measured way she preferred.

  She could have fun with this man, yes, for sure, but never more.

  She licked his lips. When he opened for her, she slipped her tongue inside his mouth, tasting sweet cinnamon.

  He stood still while she played with him. Thank goodness. If he’d responded with too much heat, she might have lost her precious control.

  She pulled away and stared at him. His moisture cooled on her lips.

  “What game are you playing?” he asked.

  “I’ve liked you since the first time we met at Janey’s wedding. I want to go to bed with you.”

  “No.”

  She would be offended if she didn’t know in her bones that he fought an attraction to her.

  “Why not?”

  “I got a strong feeling we want two different things in life.”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  “Believe it or not, I want a relationship.”

  Odd. A man talking about relationships while a woman propositioned him.

  “I’ve rolled around in the hay with enough women. I want kids and a family now.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Yeah, I figured.”

  “We can’t just have fun together?”

  “We’d have fun together, but I want more.”

  With his talk of taking on responsibility, he was turning things upside down, making a hash of her assumptions of what men were. She didn’t know what to make of it.

  Shannon shivered. Her independence had been hard-won.

  Now this man was talking about taking on responsibility, but she knew better. If she became involved with him, she would end up shouldering the burden if anything went wrong. Men didn’t handle adversity well. Women did. Would it be her job to make sure their relationship was successful? To keep Cash happy?

  She stepped away, putting valuable distance between them. “That biker is probably long gone by now.”

  “Probably. It’s a cold night for a bike. He’s given up by now.”

  “I should head home.”

  “Unless you’re offering more than just a quick tumble, yeah, you should leave.”

  He walked her out to her car and opened her door, but before she could get in, he wrapped an arm around her back and pulled her against his chest. He kissed her. It was hot and impassioned and, laden as it was with emotion, too much.

  When he released her he nudged her gently and she fell into her car.

  He swung her legs in then leaned forward. “Now you know where I live, you come around when you’re ready for more.”

  Just before he closed her door, he said, “Let me call in the dogs before you move the car.”

  Whistling, he walked back to the house, his white shirt blue in the moonlight. The dogs came running and Cash took them inside with him.

  She turned on the engine, swung around in the yard and headed home. Fast.

  She asked the empty car, “What the hell just happened?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ON SUNDAY MORNING, Cash entered Reverend Wright’s church and sat in the back row to catch the end of the service.

  The Reverend boomed the Lord’s message into the quiet hush of the interior. For a thin man, Walter’s voice sure packed a punch.

  His wife, Gladys, sat in the front row beside her daughter, Amy, her son-in-law, Hank, and her grandchildren.

  Many of the town’s citizens were here, including Brad McCloskey in the second row with his four children. No Mary Lou today. Strange.

  Cash studied his townspeople. He wasn’t sure what he expected to see, especially here in church, but it didn’t hurt to watch Brad. To watch everyone, and to listen.

  There wasn’t much that could be kept secret in a small town.

  So why hadn’t he heard a whisper about methamphetamines in Ordinary before Shannon came to town?

  After the last word was spoken, everyone stood to leave. He watched their faces as they filed down the center aisle, nodding to those who nodded to him. How could he possibly believe that one of these people was capable of manufacturing a drug as addictive as crystal meth? It boggled his mind.

  When he’d chosen to live in a small town, he thought there would be fewer temptations for the citizens, fewer opportunities for crime. That the citizens would pull together to take care of their own.

  That wasn’t to say that he’d had a Pollyanna view. He’d known there would be crime, but thought it would be…smaller…more contained in a place where everyone knew everyone else’s business.

  That had turned out to be true for the most part, but now there was evidence that a scary drug like meth was not only in Ordinary, but was being manufactured here.

  It shook Cash, played havoc with his assumptions. It also spurred him to make sure he found the culprit and wiped drugs out of his town.

  Brad walked by with his children. He glanced at Cash and smiled. There was something about that handsome smile that caught Cash’s attention, something that hovered on the edge of his mind. He recognized that smile.

  Well, of course he did. He’d known Brad since he’d moved here to work as Deputy ten years ago. Still, something bothered him. But what?

  The crowd thinned and Danielle walked down the aisle. She raised one eyebrow and he nodded.

  In the light of a new morning, he couldn’t believe he’d turned down two willing women in one night. Two incredibly attractive women. His friends would never let him live it down if they knew.

  He couldn’t believe he’d kissed Shannon that second time at her car when it had been all he could do to resist that first kiss so close to his bedroom and his bed. He’d wanted to make a point, maybe to emphasize his masculinity after she’d questioned him about owning the house.

  Or maybe he’d just wanted to kiss her again.

  Why had he tempted fate by telling her to come back if she wanted more than just a roll in bed? When she was ready for a relationship?

  He wasn’t ready for a relationship with her.

  She was a cop, an ambitious cop, and he didn’t
want that in his life. He had already lived through that with his dad.

  Did he harbor some hope that she would give up her career to stay in Ordinary with him? Not likely.

  Against all logic and his better judgment, last night he’d just wanted another kiss.

  * * *

  MARY LOU MCCLOSKEY rushed through cleaning up her mess.

  By the time she finished, the place looked neat and tidy again. A place for everything and everything in its place.

  She locked up her parents’ old RV, trapping the scent of the strong chemicals she’d been messing with inside.

  She picked up the empty brake cleaner, ammonia and soda bottles around her feet and carried them to the trash pile she’d started in the woods out back. No one would ever see them there.

  She threw them on top of empty cold tablet containers, empty iodine jars and old coffee filters.

  Her parents would roll over in their graves to see her dump this kind of thing on their beautiful land, but they hadn’t thought her responsible enough to take care of it, had they? So, they were getting what they deserved.

  She’d been such a good daughter. She should have got this property free and clear.

  At the front door of the farmhouse, she took off the lab coat she wore and tossed it onto a chair, then closed and locked the door. She needed to get home before the family did.

  Today was the second time she’d used the “I’m not feeling well enough to go to church, you go on without me” excuse.

  She prayed her husband had gone straight to the diner for Sunday dinner with the children as usual and hadn’t done anything noble like checking up on her at home first. If so, she would have to be inventive about not being at home in bed where she was supposed to have been.

  Maybe she should scoot over to the family drug store and pick up a cold medication or painkillers or something. Which particular ailment had she used today? Oh, yes, a headache. Painkillers it was, then.

  She still wore the foundation she’d used this morning to make herself pale. She could get away with it. After all, her husband wasn’t exactly swift, was he?

  This was all his fault anyway. Why did he have to be unfaithful? If he hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have started down this road.

  She planned to divorce him, but not until she had money of her own. Lots of it. She checked her hair in her compact mirror and straightened her skirt and blouse before getting into her car.

  No one would guess. She laughed. The poor townsfolk were clueless. They thought she was so sweet. She was. Or had been. She might have remained that way had she not found out about Brad’s other child.

  In town, she unlocked the pharmacy and took a bottle of painkillers from the shelf. She wrote it up in Brad’s book so his records were accurate. There. Alibi covered.

  Her driveway was empty when she made it home. Good. Brad hadn’t returned. If he had and had found her gone, he would have never gone back out to eat with the children. He would have sat in his armchair and worried about her. She wanted to scream. That worry, his incessant solicitude, smothered her.

  She didn’t doubt it was real, but how could he have betrayed her and yet remain so seemingly devoted to her? She didn’t trust him anymore.

  She parked the car with a sigh.

  A minute after she stepped into the house and hung up her jacket, someone knocked. Connie Trumball stood on the doorstep.

  “You,” Mary Lou said, pulling her inside before any of the neighbors saw her. Connie looked like hell. “I was wondering when you’d come sniffing around again. What do you want?”

  “I need more stuff,” Connie mumbled.

  Long before Connie had come around looking for money a month ago, Mary Lou had already guessed there was a potential problem for her in town.

  As soon as Connie’s son, Austin, became a teenager. How could she not? He had Brad’s bright blue eyes, his thatch of straw-colored hair. Brad’s mannerisms.

  When Connie had come around to blackmail Mary Lou, threatening to tell everyone in town who Austin’s father really was, Mary Lou had known then that her suspicions had been correct.

  Had anyone else noticed? Was it as obvious to them as it had suddenly become to her as the boy grew older and reminded Mary Lou so much of Brad as a teenager? Later, when she’d thought about it, she’d realized that she’d spent a good deal of her energy avoiding the boy and her suspicions until she just couldn’t anymore, and she’d had to accept that Brad had impregnated Connie while he was engaged to Mary Lou.

  A month ago, when Mary Lou had asked, “What do you want?” Connie hadn’t been shy in her answer.

  “Money.”

  No way Mary Lou was giving her that. When she left Brad, she would leave as a financially independent woman. She wanted more than half of what Brad had to offer. For the first time in her life, she felt greedy.

  Rather than money, Mary Lou had handed Connie something that gave her control over the woman.

  “I’ve got something better than money.” Mary Lou had held up a small crystal. “Do you know what this is?”

  Connie shook her head.

  “Crystal meth.” Mary Lou smiled. “Speed.”

  Connie stared.

  “It’s yours if you’ll go away.”

  “How do I use it?”

  “Smoke it. Shoot it. Stick it up your ass.” So vulgar.

  She never used to swear. Of course, she’d never before been filled with such rage. “Go look it up on the internet. There are all kinds of things you can do with it.” Mary Lou had handed it to her and Connie, being weak, had taken it.

  “You won’t believe the high,” Mary Lou had said.

  Mary Lou didn’t know from experience. No way would she take a chance on killing brain cells. Her brain was her most valuable asset, even if no one else had figured that out.

  And now, today, Connie was back here looking for more.

  “Here.” Mary Lou handed her a small package. “Next time, don’t come to my door.”

  “You don’t want people to see me here,” Connie said glumly.

  “Of course not,” Mary Lou hissed. “We’re good people. I don’t want the neighbors wondering why I’m socializing with the likes of you.”

  She glanced through the window beside the door. The street was empty.

  “Brad was my boyfriend when you slept with him,” she said with a healthy dose of bitterness. “He was my fiancé. Were you trying to steal him from me?”

  Connie’s bleak gaze slid away and Mary Lou knew it was the truth.

  “What on earth did Brad see in you?” she asked.

  “I was good at loving him. You never gave him anything.”

  “I gave him plenty of love.”

  “Yeah, but no sex.”

  “I was waiting for marriage. It worked. He didn’t marry you, did he, no matter how many times you put out for him?”

  “No, he didn’t.” Connie left the house. A moment later, Austin came out from behind a bush and followed his mom down the street.

  How much did the kid know? Was he going to be a problem, too?

  Mary Lou hid the rest of her stash and washed her hands.

  Her husband was ignorant. Brad didn’t know that she’d figured out he’d slept with Connie. With a little luck, if she fed Connie enough meth it would dull her brain so much she’d forget about Brad, and no one in town need ever know that upstanding Brad McCloskey had sired an illegitimate child.

  How could the man have slept with that tramp? So what if it was before they were married? They were dating. Engaged, for God’s sake.

  The anger that fired her blood felt good. Refreshing.

  She walked through her spotless house and sighed—back to her normal life where the most exciting thing that ever happened was a broken n
ail.

  She undressed, climbed into bed and waited for her husband to come home.

  Sunday afternoon. By now, he would have dropped the children off to his parents for a couple of hours and he would expect to spend that time here, in bed with her.

  She sighed again. He was a nice man, dependable, but so boring. And stupid.

  Everyone saw Mary Lou as his sweet little wife, but she was an important person in her own right. These days, she was a businesswoman, and she was making money hand over fist. Even if no one else could ever know, she did, and she was the only one who mattered.

  When she’d married her husband she had loved him. She’d thought he’d loved her, too, but he’d slept with someone else.

  She stared at the ceiling. She’d liked the sex at first, but missionary position became old quickly and Brad was too dull to try anything else.

  “I’ll bet he did plenty of interesting things with Connie.”

  What was with Brad? Did he have some kind of Madonna/whore complex? She had certainly played the Madonna well over the years. She was tired of it. Bored senseless. She had a body and mind craving to be used.

  Maybe she should have an affair. She closed her eyes and dreamed through local prospects until she’d aroused herself enough to put up with her husband. She heard the front door open and him walking upstairs.

  When he appeared in the bedroom doorway, she threw the bedcovers off her naked body and ordered, “Come here.”

  His eyes widened in his mild-mannered face. She was sick of his tidiness, his gentleness. She wanted more in her life, more stimulation, more money, more control. She meant to take it.

  While he approached the bed, he unbuttoned his shirt. She reached for him and unzipped his pants and all but hauled them off of him. When he lay down beside her, he asked, “Feeling better?”

  Screw that boring, smothering kindness.

  She rose up and straddled him.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, and looked almost afraid.

  She laughed. “Taking control.”

  She took him into her body and rode him, setting the pace for her own enjoyment. She’d never known another man. He’d obviously known at least one other woman. He’d had experience. She wanted more experience from life, to stop settling for what was proper and expected of her. To break out of the role her parents had raised her to take.