Chet offered to cook for them, if Honey didn’t mind him using the bar’s kitchen.
Of course she didn’t mind, and she told him to use the bar’s food supplies, too. She ordered Cole to not buy food.
Will offered to make enough pies for everyone as long as Violet didn’t mind if he used the kitchen in the diner.
She didn’t, of course.
Cole walked away from the diner thinking he was the most blessed man on earth.
If only he could figure out what was wrong with Honey.
Only two more nights of being too close to the terrible temptation of Honey and her beautiful body and spirit. Two more nights to lie on the sofa and know that she was only a hallway away, but as unavailable as a woman could be.
While Honey watched the children, Cole visited a lawyer’s office to start the purchase, contingent on a home inspection, and the bank to apply for a mortgage. He arranged for insurance on the house.
A home inspector would do a walk-through first thing tomorrow morning. If he approved, the sale would proceed.
Feeling a little buzzed, like he’d drunk too much coffee, he returned to Honey’s apartment.
Whoo. In a few days, he would be a homeowner.
Honey went down to the bar at three.
Cole took the children to the Summertime Diner for dinner before returning to the apartment.
When the music was turned on downstairs, the children didn’t seem to mind. They were in bed asleep by eight.
Cole picked up a book, but he couldn’t concentrate. Strange to not be downstairs occupying his bar stool on a Friday evening. He wouldn’t be able to help at the bar tomorrow night, either.
His life had been altered permanently, and he couldn’t imagine how his weekends would look from now on. Not that they’d ever been exciting, but he’d liked his Friday and Saturday nights helping Honey.
In the future, he would see less of her. Already, on this first weekend, he felt the loss.
At the sound of angry raised voices, Cole rushed downstairs to find three men seated on stools on the stage.
A woman sat on a stool off to the side.
Damn. He’d forgotten about matchmaking night. The last Friday of every month, Honey held this special night, her chance to try to match up a man and woman in town.
Two of the male participants were getting rowdy, yelling at each other. He understood why. The woman seated off to the side with a list of questions for the bachelors was Eva Cantrell, and the two men fighting over her both had a crush on her.
What had Honey been thinking, putting those two onstage together?
Cole stalked the length of the room to stand in front of them. When they noticed him, they stopped fighting.
“We got a problem here?” he asked.
“No, sir, Sheriff.”
“Do I need to call out the deputies?”
“Nope.”
“Good.”
He felt a tug on his arm. Honey, dragging him away. In the hallway behind the bar, he confronted her.
“Damn it, Honey, this happens every single month. Why do you keep holding these stupid matchmaking nights?”
“They aren’t stupid, Cole. They’re fun. It’s only once a month, for Pete’s sake.”
“There’s always a fight.”
“It wasn’t a fight. It was an argument. Did you see anyone throw a punch?”
No, he hadn’t.
She pointed to the crowd. “Does anyone look seriously angry? No. They’re having fun.”
After her gloom of the past couple of days, Honey looked sunny and all smiles. “I like bringing couples together and so do my customers. They find my questions for the bachelors fun and entertaining. I love these nights.”
“You’re too sentimental.”
“No such thing, Cole.”
“You’re too romantic.”
“Again, no such thing.”
“Honey, this has got to stop. It makes my job hard.”
“You’re off duty. Get your deputies to handle it, but only when there’s a real fight. Otherwise, Chet and I can take care of things. These are my people, Cole. Your deputies are only one phone call away, if needed.”
She had him there, but he rallied.
“How can I have a moment’s peace when there’s the possibility of a fight?”
Honey shrugged before returning to pulling pitchers of draft beer. “I don’t know, Cole. Maybe go back upstairs and try to ignore this?”
This was a side of Honey he wasn’t crazy about. Was she being irresponsible? Or was he overreacting?
He stomped upstairs, his thoughts keeping time with his steps.
A loud burst of laughter from the crowd swept up the stairs.
Okay, maybe Honey wasn’t being unreasonable. Maybe it was a good business decision. The crowd sure did appreciate matchmaking night.
He couldn’t think straight where Honey was concerned. She turned him inside out, making him dream of things that didn’t have much chance of success.
* * *
ON SATURDAY AFTER breakfast at the diner, while Honey slept in, he and the children walked to the house and found a beehive of activity.
Apparently, the kids he’d hired had done a good job of cleaning up, because Lester had just finished mowing the entire lot without problems.
Four teenagers moved in to rake up while Lester rode his mower onto his trailer.
Cole shook his hand. “Thanks, Lester. You did a great job.”
“My pleasure, Sheriff. You need anything else, let me know.”
Inside the house, the army of cleaners had done a great job, as well. The floors shone and the appliances were spotless.
The following morning after breakfast and church services, Cole’s friends would get together and deliver his furniture, plus what he’d selected from Lester’s attic. Since Lester’s children were fully grown and living in different states, he had single beds to spare for Evan and Madeline.
Cole took the kids to the grocery store, where they picked up lunch to share with Honey.
“It’s our last day with her, so let’s give her a special lunch, okay?”
When Maddy started to object to them moving out of Honey’s, he pointed to the baked goods in one of the cases to distract her and said, “What would Honey like for dessert today?”
“Cake,” Maddy said.
“What do you think, Evan?”
“Cake.”
“Okay, we just have to decide which one.” He vetoed a sheet cake that could feed a dozen and suggested instead a chocolate layer cake on which they all agreed. Evan liked the puffs of chocolate icing around the edges and Maddy liked the pink and blue sprinkles.
Back at Honey’s, they found her vacuuming.
“I should do that,” Cole said.
“Why?”
“Because we’ve been here all week. A lot of that dust was tracked in by us.”
“Cole, I vacuum every Saturday morning. If you want to help, you can strip the beds and throw the sheets in the washing machine with the towels we’ve all used this week.”
She directed him to a small room at the back of the apartment, where a stacked washer and dryer set stood neatly against one wall.
Making a game of it, he had the children gather their washcloths and towels while he tore apart their beds.
In the doorway of Honey’s bedroom, he halted. “Um... Honey?”
She’d finished vacuuming and was putting away groceries. “Yeah?”
“Can you come here for a sec?”
She approached down the hallway. “What is it?”
“Can you get your sheets for me?”
She looked at him and then at her bed. A small smile curved up the corners of her pretty lips. Yeah, he was too shy to touch her bed linens, only b
ecause he’d seen her lying in them with his children. He’d seen how beautiful she looked amid all of that icing-sugar lace.
A few minutes later, she joined him in the small laundry room and started up the washer.
“Let’s have lunch. Then we’ll put the children’s dirty clothes in. They’ll go to the new house with clean outfits.”
Good idea. Maddy and Evan were on their last pairs of clean underwear.
Honey made a big deal out of dessert. “This is beautiful. Which one of you children chose this lovely cake?”
Both of them raised their hands.
“Well, you did an amazing job.”
While she dished it out, Cole changed the load to the dryer and put in the children’s clothes to wash.
When he returned to the kitchen, the table had plates of cake in four spots. The children had glasses of milk, while Honey had put out blue mugs of coffee for the adults.
“Cheers,” she said.
They raised their half-full plastic cups and clicked them against the adults’ coffee mugs and giggled.
Cole couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss—tomorrow he would be alone in that house without Honey’s help with the children.
He would miss this feeling of belonging, this perfect camaraderie.
Following fast on the heels of that was panic.
God. He would have to do it all alone.
Honey watched him, maybe guessing what was going through his mind.
She covered his hand with hers. “It will work out, Cole.”
He wished from the bottom of his heart that he could give in to his desire for her and tell her how he felt. Could they make it work?
Old betrayals—his parents in town raising memories he wished would stay buried—held him back.
He dropped her hand and ate his cake, but it tasted like sawdust. It must have been only his taste buds not working. Everyone else loved it.
* * *
THAT EVENING AFTER putting the children to bed, Cole played games on Honey’s computer.
When he tired of that, he changed into his sweats and watched TV.
The night was hot, summer having hit with a vengeance. Despite air-conditioning, humidity seemed to seep in through the walls.
He pulled off his T-shirt, turned off the TV and leaned back onto his pillow. He didn’t notice what time he fell asleep on the sofa.
His cell phone buzzed.
He glanced out the window, dark save for the streetlamp. Silence downstairs alerted him to the lateness of the hour.
The bar was closed for the night. The noise up here wasn’t as bad as he would have thought it would be. He’d slept through the Saturday night crowd.
Something had awakened him, though.
As sheriff, he’d grown used to being called at all hours. But it hadn’t been a call. He scrubbed the sleep out of his eyes and checked the time. Two a.m.
He recognized Honey’s number. What did she need? He opened the text.
The lone word on his screen angered him.
Hel
C’mon, Honey. Hello at two in the morning?
With no small amount of impatience, he scrubbed his eyes again, more forcefully this time. He texted, What do you need? and waited.
No response.
It’s late. Why did you text?
Still no response.
That’s when it hit. It wasn’t Hello! It was Help.
Chapter Eleven
He took the back stairs two at a time, bare feet slipping, and hit the bottom at a run. He pulled up, the place dark save for a couple of dim lights at the front end of the hallway in the bar proper.
He noted silence in the kitchen. Darkness. Chet was gone.
Cole reached for his gun, an automatic gesture. He didn’t have it. He’d refused to bring it into Honey’s apartment. Why would he need it? He wasn’t back at work until Monday.
He tiptoed down the hallway and peeked around the corner into the bar.
There, behind the bar, a man he’d never seen before had Honey up against the wall trying to kiss her. Rage filled him.
Honey’s hand in his hair pulled the stranger’s head away from her. Her other hand between them tried to push him away.
The guy was huge. He leaned away from her and tried to catch her wrists. She fought hard.
“Give in.” The guy had the nerve to laugh. “You know you want it. You been teasing me all night.”
“I said no.”
Cole’s vision misted, narrowed to a single hot target.
Tease was the last word the man spoke before Cole grabbed him by the back of his jacket and the seat of his pants and tossed him over the bar.
The guy landed on the floor with a loud thud. The floor shook.
“Are you all right?” Cole asked Honey, but she wasn’t. He could see in her wide eyes terror had a hold of her.
Cole rounded the bar just as the stranger stood and came at him swinging.
Cole veered away and the punch glanced off his cheek. He coldcocked the guy who went down with the solid thump of dead weight.
Fear and adrenaline arcing through him, lost to reason or sense, Cole picked him up by the shirtfront to deliver another blow when his arm was grasped and held from behind.
“Goddamn it,” he roared and turned to give whoever it was a piece of his mind. Honey, hair wild, had both arms wrapped around his forearm.
“Don’t, Cole.” For someone who had recently been attacked, and whose eyes were still scared, her voice came out surprisingly steady. “He’s unconscious. If you hit him again, it will be assault.”
It took a minute for the red clouds of anger to clear.
“He’s out,” Honey said, hair quivering with the tremors that ran through her. “He’s harmless now, Cole.”
Panic released its hold. He’d saved Honey.
“I was terrified. When I saw him mauling you—”
She touched his cheek where the guy’s fist had grazed it before Cole had knocked him out. He winced.
“You’re going to be bruised.”
He shook his head, impatient. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It does.” She kissed it gently. “I was terrified, Cole.”
“Honey.” His voice broke. “Jesus, Honey.”
She was in his arms and he was kissing her, holding her tightly enough for them to become one, passion fueled by the horror of what might have been if he hadn’t been upstairs.
He pulled back to stroke her cheek, her hair, to breathe in the fragrance of her neck, then arched her against him again with an arm around her waist.
“I won’t lose you, Honey. I won’t see you harmed.” He’d lost too much. He refused to lose another loved one. He squeezed her until she whimpered, letting go so quickly she almost fell.
Grasping her arms, he whispered, “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”
“Cole, I know that.” Stepping away from him, she pushed her hair away from her face. Her hands shook. “We have to deal with him.”
“Where’s your phone?”
She retrieved it from the floor behind the bar. God, she’d probably had only a second to send him that text.
“How did you manage to text me?”
“I’ll explain it all when the deputy gets here. You’d better call him before that idiot comes around.”
Before Cole had the chance, he took a direct hit to his left temple.
Honey screamed.
The guy had lunged up from the floor. Cole turned before the guy could hit him again, but he reeled, dizzy. He managed to dodge a huge fist but went down on one knee. Before the guy could haul off and punch him again, Cole pulled his feet out from under him then stood in front of him, fists raised and ready.
A big guy, he hit hard. The floor vibrated under t
he bare soles of Cole’s feet.
The man lashed out with a boot and Cole jumped away but came back swinging, managing to land a punch that had nose bones crunching under his fist.
The stranger leaped to his feet and grabbed him around the ribs, squeezing hard. Cole hit the guy in the side of the head. Cole’s breath went shallow. Stars danced in his vision.
Still he hit and hit, then heard a loud smash and was sprayed by liquid.
Honey stood with a broken vodka bottle in her hand. The man had blood and vodka pouring from a scalp wound.
Someone hammered on the front door.
“Who’s that?” Cole spun around.
“Chris Mortimer,” Honey said. The deputy on duty tonight. “I called as soon as he hit you the second time.” She opened the door, and Chris burst inside.
“What happened?”
Honey started to tell him. Her knees buckled. Cole caught her.
“I can’t breathe,” she whispered.
She didn’t lose consciousness, but Cole had seen this reaction to shock plenty of times.
When she could stand on her own two feet again, he put his hands on her waist and lifted her onto the bar.
She protested. “What are you doing?”
“Checking you out.” Fingers gentle, he pushed her hair back and studied her face for bruising. A red mark marred one cheek. “Did he hit you?”
“He slapped me.”
Fury arose in Cole again, but he controlled it.
He probed her scalp. “He was pushing you hard against the wall. Did he hurt your head?”
“A bit. My back hurts, but I don’t think I’m bruised.”
Cole’s thumb brushed her bottom lip and held it down. There, on the tender flesh inside, was blood. He realized he’d tasted it when he kissed her. She’d been cut by her own teeth.
“Bastard.” That one word was only the start. His pungent swearing lasted until Chris cleared his throat. He stood over the prone stranger.
Chris had already rolled the man over and cuffed him.
“Better get the paramedics out to check on him,” Cole said. “If he gets the all clear, book him and put him in a cell. If not, follow him to the hospital.”
Chris called for help and then said, “Fill me in on what happened.”
Rodeo Sheriff Page 14