Rodeo Sheriff

by Mary Sullivan

  A long brown skirt trailed to her ankles, and silver sandals covered her feet. Her toenails, he noted, were pink.

  A belt hung low on her hips.

  God, she was amazing. She’d had no time for makeup, but didn’t need it. He thought she was beautiful when she wore it, but she was gorgeous without...and she’d saved him from spending more time alone with his parents than he wanted to.

  Madeline ran to Honey and raised her arms. Honey picked her up.

  Madeline whispered in her ear. Honey broke out one of her sunshine smiles. She really needed to bottle, trademark and sell them.

  “Why, thank you,” she said to Madeline. “You look so pretty, too.”

  To Cole, Honey said, “Why don’t you go wash up while I feed the children?”

  “You sure?” He hated to leave her alone with his hostile parents, hated the disdain on Ada’s face when she looked at Honey.

  “I’ve dealt with worse, haven’t I?” Honey said, directing a hostile glance of her own toward his mother. “Being a bar owner and all.”

  Cole couldn’t help but smile. He could trust her to stand up to his parents.

  In the spare bedroom, he rummaged in his backpack for a clean T-shirt and underwear then snagged his jeans from the back of a wooden chair.

  As he entered the bathroom, he heard Honey say, “You are welcome to sit. Coffee’s almost ready.”

  He heard cupboard doors opening and closing and cutlery hitting the counter.

  During it all, she kept up a running commentary for the children. “Evan, do you want cereal for breakfast?”

  “Yeah! The one with the brown sugar on it.”

  Hot oatmeal.

  “Maddy, what will you have, darling?”

  “Her name is Madeline.” The palpable outrage in his mother’s voice carried to where Cole stood in the bathroom doorway.

  What would Honey do?

  Next he heard her quiet “Madeline?” followed by, “Maddy?” and then a bubbly “Maddy it is!”

  Madeline must have shaken her head no to one and yes to the other.

  Cole grinned.

  He closed the door and showered.

  Ten minutes later, he returned to the living room to find his parents seated, Ada on the sofa and Frank in the only armchair not being used for the fort, with a cup of coffee in his hands and his eyes on Honey.

  Unless Cole missed his guess, Frank might already be halfway toward falling in love with her. Cole understood the impulse.

  The children ate oatmeal while Honey sipped coffee.

  “I wasn’t sure what you would want for breakfast,” Honey said.

  “Let’s straighten matters out first.” Cole couldn’t begin to consider eating while his mother watched like a sourpuss.

  “What can I do to convince you that the children are safe here?” Cole directed the question toward his mother. Dad would most likely not be here except for Ada insisting on it. He’d watched his dad be controlled throughout his entire childhood. Was it any wonder Cole resisted marriage in his own life? He’d been controlled too much in childhood and then as a young adult had been the victim of a free spirit who lacked principles.

  A human ping-pong ball, he still hadn’t sorted out who he was.

  Unfortunately, when he’d fallen in love for the first time, it was with a woman as far from his mother in temperament as possible. Now he loved Honey, but didn’t know how to reconcile his love for her with his past and his fears. Or how to reconcile the two different parts of her personality.

  “There’s nothing you can do to convince me the children are safe here,” his mother responded to his question. “They don’t belong in an apartment above a tavern.”

  Cole let out a sound of exasperation. “They won’t be staying here! I’ll be getting a house.”

  “Why haven’t you already? Don’t answer. You enjoy spending time here with this tart.”

  Cole flew, flew across the living room to yank his mother to her feet and guide her out of the apartment, but Honey jumped in front of him before he reached Ada. She held him back.

  Frank and Ada and the children stared at him with wide eyes.

  “She isn’t worth it,” Honey ground out. “She absolutely is not worth getting into trouble for.”

  Cole breathed hard. He struggled to pull himself under control. Criminals didn’t enrage him as much as his own mother just had. God, it was right that he and Sandy had gotten away from this woman.

  Only when he could speak without cursing did he say, “I’ve been back for only four days. My real estate agent has set up appointments for me. I’m not a miracle worker.”

  “If you’d stayed at home and married Amber, you and the children would all be where you belong. The children would have a good role model in Amber.”

  Cole’s face heated. How dare she insult Honey in her own living room?

  His mother opened her mouth to say more, but Cole forestalled her with one step forward. She compressed her lips and crossed her arms over her perfect little white suit jacket.

  He couldn’t allow her to get away with insulting Honey, who’d done so much for the children. And for him.

  Tart.

  Cole chewed and swallowed his outrage, but not his sense that he had to do something for Honey, to make up for all of this grief he was causing her.

  Cole racked his brain for a solution.

  The town loved this woman, and yet his mother thought it was okay to sit in Honey’s apartment and call her names.

  It didn’t take long for Cole to come up with an idea. The townspeople loved Honey. His parents would just have to be shown that.

  “Honey, excuse me for a couple of minutes? Please? I have to take care of town business. I won’t be long.”

  “You’re leaving? But we haven’t resolved anything.”

  Cole answered his mother. “I have to. I’ll only be a couple of minutes.”

  He shouldn’t leave Honey alone with Ada, but he telegraphed a look to her that he hoped she would interpret as trust me.

  Cole watched her surf through a whole slew of emotions before his pleading look worked and she said, “Okay.”

  “Could you get the children washed up and get their teeth brushed?”

  “Sure.” For a split second, a flash of insecurity clouded her features. He didn’t blame her. Ada was hostile and the children damaged. Used to having her space to herself, Honey must find this a terrible imposition.

  But now Madeline’s affection was engaged, and Cole would have to follow through. So was Evan’s. Unless Cole missed his guess, the boy adored Honey.

  Why couldn’t his parents see that? Why couldn’t they see what a great person she was?

  He turned to his parents. “Don’t say a single thing to upset Honey while I’m gone. Not one word.”

  Across the street in his own apartment, he got on the phone to Travis and described the situation, explaining what he needed.

  “I’ll get Rachel and the revival committee right on it. How soon?”

  “Half an hour? Less? Do you think it can be done?”

  “Are you kidding? I swear those women can move mountains.”

  Cole changed into his sheriff’s uniform. Let his parents get a taste of who he really was here.

  They still thought of him as the malleable young boy they used to know, but that boy had run away and grown up. He’d rejected their plans and had made a successful life here.

  They didn’t know him as a man.

  His parents should witness his pride in his career...and his respected position among this town’s citizens.

  Satisfied, Cole returned to Honey’s apartment.

  His mother flicked her eyes over him then looked away. Unimpressed. Surprise, surprise.

  Honey sat at the table waiting for him. The dishes had been
washed.

  The children were out of sight.

  Cole peeked into the cave. There they were. Evan’s eyes widened when he saw Cole’s uniform, which was more of a reaction than it had elicited from his parents.

  What had he expected?

  A thick layer of tension suffocated all of the good feelings Honey had built up in the apartment with the children.

  Cole couldn’t breathe. The old claustrophobia threatened. Damned if he would let it! Damned if he would let them control his life again.

  “Honey, can you get Madeline dressed?” Cole asked. “I’ll take care of Evan.”

  She reacted to the authority in his voice with a frown but took Madeline to her room without complaint. He understood why. She might not like to take orders, but she would keep the peace in front of his parents for the children’s sake.

  “Did you think that uniform would impress us?” his mother asked. “You could have been a lawyer. You could have been making decent money, enough to support these children far better than you can now.”

  “I can support them just fine. Tell me, did Amber marry a lawyer?”

  “Of course.”

  “Who?”

  “Gerald Tranchette.”

  “How long after I left?”

  When his mother hesitated to respond, Cole knew it hadn’t been long.

  “She didn’t even wait a year, did she?”

  “Eight months,” his father said.

  “I’m not surprised. She kept pushing me to set a date. She couldn’t have cared much for me.”

  “What do you expect?” his mother asked. “You humiliated her.”

  “Nothing, and no one, was capable of humiliating Amber LeBlanc. She just substituted one lawyer for another. I assume she got the big house and luxury vehicle she wanted?”

  His father nodded.

  Honey emerged with Madeline in a pretty white dress and pink sweater.

  “We’re ready,” she said.

  She directed her attention to Cole. “Where to?”

  “Downstairs.”

  Surprised, she asked, “To the bar?”

  “Yes.” Again, he tried to tell her with his eyes that he needed trust.

  She got it. “Okay,” she said, leading them to the stairs that descended to the street. They could have gone straight from the apartment to the bar by the back staircase, without having to go outside and unlock the front door of the bar, but Cole understood the action. She didn’t want to take his parents any farther into her apartment, and her life, than was necessary.

  Downstairs, Honey opened up and turned on the lights.

  She settled the children into a booth and gave them a bag of chips.

  “Potato chips? Really?” His mother frowned.

  “They just had a healthy breakfast of oatmeal and orange juice upstairs. Whatever is about to happen down here will probably bore them. They are allowed this small treat.”

  “Who are you to decide what they are allowed?”

  “Let’s ask their guardian.” Honey’s gaze shifted from Ada to Cole. “What do you think, Cole? Are they allowed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are we here?” his father asked.

  The question was repeated on the faces of his mother and Honey.

  “You’ll find out in a minute.”

  A knock on the door followed quickly.

  When Cole opened it, Travis Read and his family entered. Tori ran to the booth at the back and climbed in beside Madeline.

  “Chips!” Tori squealed. “Can I have some?”

  Madeline slid the bag to her.

  Honey opened another bag and put it on the table, raising her eyebrows at Rachel. Why are you here? Rachel shrugged and pulled a bottle of lemonade out of a bag. Honey got some plastic cups from the kitchen and filled them only half-full.

  A minute later, Michael Moreno and Samantha Read entered the bar. Sammy kissed her brother Travis’s cheek.

  “Where are the children?” Honey asked.

  “With my neighbor,” Michael said. “Figured this was important. Didn’t want any distractions.”

  Violet, Sam Carmichael and his daughter, Chelsea, arrived. Sam leaned against the bar, pulled Vy back against him and rested his hand on her slightly bulging stomach.

  Nadine showed up and then Maxine.

  Zach Brandt came in quietly, the same way he did everything. Shop owners from all up and down the street arrived. Cole could only guess that they’d closed up for the twenty minutes or so this would take, not that they would miss a lot of sales at nine thirty in the morning.

  Udall and Uma Weber from the Double U showed up.

  More ranchers came in over the next ten minutes, overwhelming Cole with their generosity of spirit. June was a busy time for a rancher, and leaving to come into town midweek unheard-of.

  They talked quietly among themselves. Lester Voile came in chewing on a toothpick, fresh from breakfast at the diner, no doubt.

  Cole’s parents, a separate dark entity, a vacuum sucking the life out of the room, looked bewildered. Maybe his father more than his mother. Maybe she already had an idea where this was going. She had a sharp mind.

  Cole pulled out a couple of chairs from a table in the middle of the room. Frank and Ada sat down.

  Jamie and Clint came in with fresh grease under their nails and leaned against the far wall. They must have closed the car repair shop.

  One of Cole’s deputies, Dane Prescott, in uniform, entered and leaned inside the door against the wall.

  Before long, the hooks lining the walls on each side of the door groaned under a surfeit of cowboy hats.

  Ranchers who wore those hats more hours of the day than not stood with flattened hair and white foreheads, tanned from the nose down.

  At one point, Nadine nodded to Travis. “That’s everyone I called.”

  Maxine and Vy nodded, too, as did Travis and Rachel.

  “Now that we’re all here,” Cole started, but the door burst open and Chet entered. He was probably as tired as Cole, since he’d shut everything down and had locked up after Cole went upstairs last night, yet here he was...

  Cole acknowledged him with a nod and started again.

  “Thank you all for coming.” He felt Honey’s eyes on him, curious, and he appreciated her trust in allowing him to use her bar.

  “I’d like to introduce my parents to you—Ada and Frank Payette.”

  Even though they sat stone-faced in the middle of the crowd, there were murmurs of welcome from the crowd.

  “I know the rumor mill in Rodeo is as healthy as in any other small town, but I don’t know how accurate it is. I want to make sure everyone understands the truth of what’s going on.” He pointed to himself. “Straight from the horse’s mouth.”

  He glanced at the children. Chet hovered over them. He’d just tied towels around their necks as bibs again and refilled their lemonade glasses.

  They played Go Fish with a deck Cole assumed Tori had brought with her, but now they watched the proceedings, their small faces solemn.

  Cole caught Chet’s eye and nodded toward the kitchen.

  Chet said, “You kids know how to make cookies? I need someone to teach me.”

  Tori dropped her cards onto the table and jumped out of the booth. “I can cook real good, Chet. I hep you.”

  Cole suspected her quick response had less to do with excitement and more with her desire to escape the tension in the room.

  Chet picked up Madeline and held his hand out to Evan. Cole smiled. Madeline was allowing one more person in town to hold her. Slowly, slowly she would get better.

  Once Cole heard them murmuring in the kitchen, he continued. “I inherited Evan and Maddy from my sister. She and her husband—”

  Without warning, a furious swell of grief g
rabbed hold of him, shutting down his vocal cords and choking him.

  He pressed his lips together, holding in the anger that threatened to spew from him. Life was so goddamned unfair. He counted his breaths to calm himself. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty.

  No one said a word. They waited patiently. A man couldn’t ask for better friends.

  “They were killed in a car accident. I’m the children’s guardian now. In their will, Sandy and Dennis left their care to me.” His voice broke. He hated to show this weakness. He guessed his friends would find it reasonable given the circumstances, but his mother would use it against him.

  “My parents and I are in a legal battle for custody.”

  Unhappy grumblings flew through the crowd. Cole held up a hand.

  “I haven’t asked you here to criticize them.”

  “Why are we here?” Michael Moreno asked, his deep voice and solid air calming.

  “The children, especially Madeline, have taken a liking to Honey.”

  “As they should,” hardware store owner Cal Frazer said. “All the kids in town love her.”

  “Yes. What’s amazing about this situation in particular is that Madeline hasn’t let any woman touch her since her mother died. Not even my mother.”

  He heard Ada gasp but went on. He had an important point to make and Maddy’s feelings were more important than Ada’s.

  “Maddy will let Honey not only touch her, but hold her and kiss and tuck her into bed at night. Last night Honey let the child share her bed because Madeline was inconsolable in her loss.”

  Plenty of people nodded, as though it was the least they would expect from Honey.

  “Since coming to town, my parents have called Honey’s character into question because she owns a bar and has allowed me to sleep on her sofa for the children’s sake. A short while ago, in Honey’s own apartment, in her home—” Cole’s voice shook, but he yanked his rage under control and went on “—my mother called Honey Armstrong a tart.”

  Gasps echoed through the room. Outrage swelled to fly to the wooden rafters of the ceiling.

  “I need all of you to share what you know about Honey, and about how decent she is.” He stared at his mother. “Not that it will make a damn bit of difference to my parents, but I need to defend Honey. It makes a difference to me.”