One reached him now, invaded out of nowhere.
When only six or seven, when he still adored his dad—before he’d learned not to—Cash would kneel on the floor at the end of Mom and Dad’s bed. Dad would lie so his head was at the foot of the bed, slip Cash a five-dollar bill and wait for Cash to start brushing. It was a game they played.
Cash pocketed the money and brushed Dad’s thick hair until it shone. Dad always fell asleep. Those were peaceful moments. The marital war hadn’t yet started.
“Where did Dad want me to put him?” he asked. “Did he want to be buried somewhere? Or his ashes spread?”
“In Yellowstone Park. He wants you to scatter his ashes there.”
“Why there?”
“Francis used to visit there with his parents every summer. Since it was in Wyoming.”
“What does Wyoming have to do with anything?”
“It’s where your dad was from.”
“Wyoming?” He’d never known. “Where?”
“A little dinky town with a couple of hundred people. I forget the name. Francis hated it. He loved Yellowstone, though.”
Dad was from a small town?
Cash nearly dropped the urn, nearly scattered his ashes on the old floor. He would never have guessed.
How ironic that Dad had started in a small town and had moved to a large city, while Cash had been raised in a city and had moved to a small town as an adult.
Most ironic, though, was the fact that Cash had chosen to live in a town that was only one state and a few hundred miles away.
After Cash had graduated from the police academy, he’d investigated small towns all over the States. He’d finally settled on Ordinary, Montana, when he’d read an article about it somewhere.
It had sounded charming, community-oriented, large enough to be interesting and need a police presence, but still small enough to feel safe.
He’d found nearly every kind of person there, the bad yes, but plenty of good, and that suited him just fine.
In the vast expanse of a country with so much to choose from, Cash had chosen what his father had left behind.
* * *
LATE SUNDAY NIGHT, Shannon was in Cash’s bed with the dogs. She’d been here all day.
She had her laptop in front of her, researching his dad.
At one point, he’d let slip that his dad had been a cop.
What popped up on her screen astounded her.
Wow, Shannon thought, sitting back against the headboard and staring at the screen. Just wow.
Cash’s father had risen high and fast to Commissioner of San Francisco, but had obviously let the power go to his head. The man screwed up, plain and simple. During his tenure, he’d fooled around with just about anything in a skirt, had accepted gifts outside of protocol. Not kickbacks per se, but certainly gifts that rewarded Frank for special consideration. In general, had used the office to get away with everything short of murder.
He’d cost one young female rookie her job and had damaged a female judge’s reputation beyond repair.
No wonder Cash wanted something different for himself. Considering what she’d just learned about his father, she began to see what shaped the man Cash had become.
It was a miracle Cash made such a good cop, that he’d even decided to become one after his father’s terrible example. But he had, and had then carved himself a new road in what must have been an emotional wilderness.
He had carved himself a niche as his own man. A damned good one.
On Friday, she’d been humbled by Austin’s generous spirit and his courage. Tonight she was humbled by Cash’s strength and determination, by his success at rising above the limitations of his childhood.
Shannon stared at her cell phone on the bedside table, struck with an insane urge to talk to him. She understood finally that his need might not be the same as her father’s, or Dave Dunlop’s. That it might be nothing more than the natural consequence of losing a parent.
She picked up the phone and then dropped it onto the bed like an adolescent girl afraid that the boy she really wanted to talk to would actually answer. Then what would she do? What would she say?
His bedroom smelled like him and she wondered whether deciding to sleep here tonight had been a mistake. She’d arrived early and taken the dogs for a walk, only to get caught in a chilly rainstorm with them.
She’d stayed to have a hot shower and dry off, had made a fire in the small fireplace in the living room and had eaten leftover turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy.
After that the house had felt like a home and she hadn’t left.
Now, in his bed, his scent surrounded her. He surrounded her.
Treading dangerous ground—Cash wanted a serious relationship, and she didn’t—and despite her experience with men, despite her not wanting involvement with any man who needed her, she wanted to know that Cash was okay.
Such foreign ground for her.
She picked up the phone yet again, but this time forced herself call. He answered on the second ring.
“Cash?”
For a moment he didn’t speak, but she heard him breathing and knew he was there. Then “Shannon.”
She didn’t know what to say. I’m thinking about you and wondering why I’m reaching out.
“Why are you calling?” he asked.
I don’t know. “I just want to know how you’re doing. Are you okay?”
“As well as can be expected.”
Danny barked beside her.
“Are you at my place?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to stay there tonight?”
“Yeah. I’m already in bed.”
He didn’t say anything and the protracted silence unnerved her. “Cash, are you still there?”
“Yeah,” he answered quietly, “I’m imagining you in my bed.”
Oh, this was very dangerous territory. She needed to change the subject.
“How did the funeral go?”
“There wasn’t one. Only a visitation. My dad was cremated. I have his ashes.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
“He wants them scattered in Yellowstone.”
“Really? Are you going there?”
“I’ll take my scheduled flight home tomorrow and then head out the next day.”
Hmm. Yellowstone. With Cash. Was she really considering…? Before she lost her nerve, she asked, “Do you want company?”
He was silent again and she waited, wondering where that thought had come from, and why it didn’t scare her as much as it should have.
“I could use some.” He sounded low, subdued.
“I could come with you.”
“You could. Do you want to?”
Yes, and I’m shocked by that. “I do.”
“Okay.”
“Which dog barked?” he asked, in a tone that indicated a subject change.
“Danny.”
“Is he close? He isn’t on the bed, is he?”
“Yeah. They both are. Why?”
“They’re not allowed up there and they know it,” he said, his voice hinting at humor.
She matched his tone. “They’re sleeping with me tonight. I want them here.”
Cash chuckled softly and it warmed her. “I’ll see you sometime tomorrow.”
“Okay.” She hung up and turned off the light.
Almost immediately doubts set in. Why are you going with him?
Because she’d made her decision, albeit rapidly and without weighing the consequences. She wasn’t a woman to go back on her word.
She was going to Yellowstone with Cash and that was final.
She scrunched down under the big duvet with D
anny on one side and Paddy on the other.
Surrounded by warmth and Cash’s scent, she fell asleep, but not before wondering as she drifted off what on earth had possessed her to offer to go with him to Yellowstone in the first place.
* * *
ON MONDAY AFTERNOON, Mary Lou made it home from Grand Falls about ten minutes before the boys would get home from school. She’d gone to her bank there to deposit a sizable sum from selling her last batch of meth. Afterward she’d treated herself to a mani-pedi.
She’d considered getting a Brazilian wax, but her small-town “good girl” values wouldn’t let her.
Brad was going to love the new stuff she’d bought, though. She couldn’t wait to show him. Somehow, she would have to get the children into bed early tonight.
She felt like a new woman, a modern woman, taking control of her life, and she wondered why she hadn’t done it sooner.
She ran upstairs to unpack the items she’d bought. She’d found a small sex shop and had bought things she’d never thought she would dare to wear.
Mary Lou rearranged panties and bras in her lingerie drawer, clearing a corner for her new items—a pretty pink-and-black-striped bustier and tiny black satin panties with pink bows on them. She’d also bought black stockings with pink lacy garters.
My goodness, it had been like shopping in the best candy store on earth.
She covered the items with her old conservative underwear.
She placed the scented candles she’d purchased around the room artfully then sat on the bed, her mind swirling with awareness of an irony that had been bothering her for the entire weekend.
She finally had money, her own money earned through her own labor, to purchase pretty things that she loved, and a husband that pleased her—a husband she was slowly forgiving for a thirteen-year-old indiscretion.
She was making money to leave him and, yet, life without him tempted her less and less.
Even though the hurt of that indiscretion was fresh, she was coming around, slowly, and it all had to do with Brad, with his willingness to embrace her new desires.
If only she’d known all of these years that he would have been open to this, she wouldn’t have started her business.
Had Brad been as bored with their sex life as she’d been and she’d just never known?
“If onlys” were a waste of time. She’d been raised to be practical and she would be.
Giving up her business was not an option. Right now, she had it all—a job that brought in good money, and a loving husband who was pleasing her every night.
Shortly after nine that evening, with the children in bed and sound asleep, Mary Lou took a bath in the new scented oil she’d bought.
When she finished, she donned her pretty new lingerie. She caught herself in the full-length mirror. A beautiful and sexy woman stood there, a brand new Mary Lou.
She lit the candles around the room.
She covered up with a thick white spa robe, cinched the belt around her waist and went downstairs in search of her husband.
The sight in the dining room stopped her dead.
Seated at the table, Brad was looking through the store’s books.
Lord, no. What if he saw? What if he noticed the extra merchandise she’d been ordering from different sources, which hadn’t shown up in the store? That she’d been having delivered straight to her parents’ farm, and some to her grandparents’ farm, and even some to the biker farm?
Her blood beat loudly in her ears.
“Brad,” she said, too stridently.
He looked up with a smile. “Ready for bed so early?”
“I thought we could both go to bed now.” Please, come. Leave those damn books alone.
“I can’t. I have so much to catch up on with the books.”
“I told you I’d do those.”
Her tone must have been too strained. This time, he noticed.
“I mean,” she rushed on, “you’re so busy at work. Why don’t you let me do that? Now that the children are in school full-time, I need something to occupy my mind.”
“We-e-e-ell, if you’re sure.”
“Oh, honey, I am so sure. Leave those books there. I’ll take care of them tomorrow. Come to bed.”
“But it’s so early. I can’t sleep yet.”
Oh, you poor clueless boy.
“Who said anything about sleep?” She opened her robe and placed her hands on her hips. “What do you think? Do you like?”
Brad stared at the bustier that plumped up her breasts. His eyes widened as his gaze followed the curves of the corset down to her cinched waist, down farther to the scrap of satin covering her private parts, then farther still to her silk-clad legs and her new frivolous pink furry mules.
His mouth fell open.
“You’re so pretty,” he breathed, reaching out with one hand to touch her knee tenderly. She’d noticed lately that he did that a lot, touched her with reverence and respect, even when she was asking him to try new things in the bedroom. Really naughty things.
What she had seen too long as her husband being dull had perhaps been something more—a deeply ingrained respect for her.
Had he not wanted to offend her by asking too much from her in bed? Had he been waiting for her to express her desires?
Oh! The time they’d wasted waiting for the other to make the first move.
She returned her husband’s smile and grabbed his hand to take him upstairs.
She closed and locked the bedroom door behind her.
Brad’s hands traveled her body, landing on her bare bottom.
She laughed. “It’s a thong.”
“I love you,” he said, fervently, and Mary Lou’s heart soared.
“What do you want to try first?” she asked.
He laughed. “Everything.”
Her husband was changing.
At last.
They played for hours.
In the morning, Brad crawled out of bed and showered, biting her neck before he got up.
“You stay in bed. I’ll get the boys ready for school.”
With a chuckle low in his throat, he said, “You worked hard last night.”
So had he. Her body hummed.
Mary Lou stretched. Muscles she hadn’t known she’d owned ached. They’d had four children, but last night she’d learned more about sex than in the past dozen years altogether.
Brad had been aggressive and fun, but also the sweet boy she’d originally fallen for.
He was changing in ways she liked, but keeping those parts she’d first adored.
Startled by a revelation, she rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.
Dear goodness.
She was falling back in love with her husband.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHANNON CALLED CASH on Monday evening from her sister’s house. He’d made it home safely. They made plans to drive the six hours to Yellowstone tomorrow and find accommodations once they arrived. At this time of year, he said, it should be easy.
Early Tuesday morning, he showed up in the front yard. She’d been watching for him.
Jitters messed with her stomach despite her commitment to this trip as she climbed into Cash’s pickup truck.
He looked as good as always, his dirty-blond hair a contrast against his blue denim shirt. His eyes were tired, though, and the skin around them dry and lined.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Good.”
He pulled out of the yard in silence and that seemed to set the tone for the drive.
She wasn’t usually nervous with men, and hadn’t been so far with Cash.
So, what’s up today, Shannon?
I don’t know.
You reached out to him. That’s new for you.
It sure is.
So, why’d you do it?
I don’t know. Quit asking.
The silence in the cab continued, lengthened with every mile.
Cash seemed unfazed by her presence while she noticed everything about him, from the light soapy scent of his cologne to the way his hands looked on the steering wheel, capable and square with strong fingers that could probably handle anything needed of him.
He turned on the radio to a country station. He drummed the fingers of his right hand on his thigh. She stared at that hand, couldn’t seem to make herself stop.
She studied his strong profile.
Why reach out to him, Shannon?
Because he isn’t crazy in his need. He isn’t neurotic, like Dad is.
He turned to her and caught her staring. Still, even though embarrassment flared at being caught, even though her chest tightened with feelings she couldn’t name, she couldn’t look away.
What are you doing to me, Cash?
He smiled, sadly, and she remembered what he carried on the backseat. His father’s ashes.
She couldn’t imagine what he was feeling but struggled to relate. She’d spent a lot of years burying feelings so she could take care of everyone else. So…how did she relate to Cash’s grief?
Janey had said he hadn’t seen his father in twenty years, that they were estranged. How did that feel?
Even though she was fully aware of her own father’s faults, of him never having been the strong man she wanted him to be, she would grieve when he died.
He had a sweetness that she used to criticize when she wanted him to be stronger, but that sweetness charmed everyone who knew him. At Easter, the man still brought her chocolate Easter eggs even though she was a grown woman. He knew how much she still loved sweets—as much as she had when she was a little girl.
So, although she was a grown woman and hardened by her job, by the evil ways of man, she ate those Easter eggs he brought to her every year and she enjoyed them. Dad never left his Easter visit without getting a hug from her.
Yes, she would grieve for him. Most definitely.
No Ordinary Sheriff Page 15