It all became clear.
“You think I’m as irresponsible as that woman.”
“No. Maybe. Sort of. You’re responsible at work, with your business, but the rest of the time, you have too much fun.”
“There’s such a thing?”
“Yes! You dance in the street. You put on those matchmaking nights that only invite trouble. You dance too close to the edge of the stream. You go skinny-dipping alone.”
You dance too close to the edge of the stream. There was a powerful metaphor in there somewhere.
“Those are my moments of joy,” Honey said. “I work hard. I need to let loose.”
“But—”
“I’m not frivolous.” She tossed the pillow aside. “How do you think I run the bar so well?”
“The bar, yes, but the rest...”
“I like to have fun. The deaths of my loved ones taught me that life is short and that I need to make my own joy.”
“You do know how to do that.” His admiration sounded grudging.
“You’re so full of fear.”
“Me? What about you?”
“What do you mean what about me?”
“Daniel.”
One word, a name that filled her with so much pain.
“I’m not Daniel,” he said. “Sure, I’m a lawman like he was, but I’m not young like him. I have experience. Plus, I’m smart. I don’t try to stop speeding bullets or trains with my body.”
Afraid to ask, nonetheless she put her question into words. She’d ignored a resolution to her loss for too long. “What happened that night, Cole? What really happened? You’ve never told me. You’ve always been careful to change the subject. Was Daniel’s death his own fault?”
“I haven’t wanted you to know.”
She squeezed her eyes shut then opened them wide. “I need to hear the truth.”
He sighed. “Yeah, I guess you do. Daniel was too new. He’d only been a deputy a month.”
“I remember.”
“When that guy came screaming through town in that stolen truck, Daniel shouldn’t have gone after him alone. He should have called for backup and waited to take him down, but he called and then took off after the guy.”
“Daniel was keen. Too excited about the job. He wouldn’t have waited.”
Cole looked surprised.
“I knew him well, Cole.”
“Yeah, you did.” He tucked one fist inside the other. “Anyway, the guy crashed just outside town. Daniel got out of the squad car to make sure he hadn’t killed himself. Another thing he shouldn’t have done.”
Honey nodded. “He should have waited in the car even if the guy was dying.” Daniel’s life or a criminal’s life? No comparison. Pain cut through Honey’s chest. Life was so unfair.
“But the guy wasn’t dead,” Cole said. “He reversed his truck and hit Daniel, pinning him against his squad car.”
Cole stared at the floor between his feet. What wasn’t he telling her?
“I know most of this,” Honey said, “but I’ve always felt like there was more.”
“There was.”
When Cole hesitated, Honey asked, “Who found him?”
“Me.” When he spoke again, his voice shook. “I wanted to call you so you could say goodbye.”
Honey’s spine stiffened. “But...but how? He died instantly.”
“No. That’s the story the sheriff wanted you to know. I was only a deputy back then and did as I was told. I lied to you, Honey. He was alive for a while.”
“Then why didn’t you call me? I would have come. I would have held him.”
“He told me not to. He thought it would hurt you more to watch him die than to learn of his death later. He could barely talk, but that much he told me clearly enough.”
Silent tears streamed down Honey’s cheeks. Daniel, you dear sweet fool. “I would have put up with the pain just to say goodbye.”
“That’s what I told him, but he was adamant. How could I go against a dying man’s wishes?”
Honey bent forward and struggled to draw air into her lungs. A flash of anger shot through her. Cole should have called her. A reasoning voice brushed the anger aside. No, he should have respected Daniel’s wishes, Honey, exactly as he did.
Minutes later, Honey pulled herself together. Cole had done the right thing. “I don’t blame you, Cole.”
He sighed, long and loud. “I thought you would.”
“It was better to give a dying man what he wanted than to care about my feelings at that moment.”
Cole made a noncommittal sound, perhaps not as convinced as she that he’d done the right thing.
Honey hadn’t talked about Daniel in years. She felt the need now, with Cole. “Daniel was it, Cole. I was young, but I knew my own mind. I loved him.”
“You seemed so together after his death. Everyone wanted to help, but you were kind of in this sturdy, independent world all to yourself.”
“I had to be. I was barely hanging on, but I couldn’t stand a repeat of what happened after my dad died.”
“What happened then?”
“I was six. It was a heart attack. He was too young, but it happens.”
She was silent for a while, remembering too many adults bending over her, petting her hair, kissing her cheek. She had just wanted to be alone with her mom, curled up in her lap. She had wanted her daddy back.
“Everyone was nice, but they felt sorry for me,” she said. “They pitied me. All I heard everywhere I went was poor Honey. It was unbearable. I hated it.”
She swiped at her cheeks. “I’d been robbed of so much, and to top it off I was being robbed of my identity. Even as a little girl, I sensed it. For a long time afterward I was nothing but that poor girl, and I wouldn’t let that happen again.”
“So you handled Daniel’s death alone. You suffered in silence.”
“Yeah. Even with my mom I was strong.”
“And then, a year later, your mom died.”
“Yeah.” Honey eased back into the sofa and wrapped her arms around herself.
After a thoughtful silence, she said, “Cole?”
“Hmm?”
“After my mom died, I really appreciated how you started coming around on the weekends and helping in the bar.”
She picked at a loose thread on the arm of the sofa.
“I was capable and I had a good staff, but it was reassuring that this big solid guy was there in case I needed him. I’ve never thought until this moment how much that meant to me. I guess I kind of took you for granted.”
“I wanted to do it.”
Cole broke yet another long silence. “As long as I wear a uniform, you won’t have anything to do with me, will you?”
“Your job can be dangerous. I can’t lose another man I care about to a violent end.”
Honey stood to leave but had to ask one last thing.
“Cole, what’s wrong with us? We’re both so afraid, yet we have a huge capacity for love. How do we get past our fears?”
“I don’t know, Honey.” He sighed and it sounded like he dredged it up from the soles of his feet. “I wish I did.”
* * *
IT WAS THE last contact Honey had with Cole for a while. Over the next week, she didn’t see him or the children much. Her life returned to normal.
She should have been grateful. Instead, she wandered her apartment at a loss. Her life didn’t feel normal.
Too much had changed.
She hadn’t even been able to dismantle the children’s cave. The living room felt bare enough with them gone, without removing all traces of their presence.
Her entire week seemed to consist of crowds in the bar and an empty, lonely apartment.
The following Sunday, she rattled around with nothing to do.
/> Just when she most needed her sense of contentment, of having her life arranged exactly as she wanted it, her sense of well-being deserted her.
Lost, she phoned Rachel.
“Can I come over?” she asked when Rachel answered.
“Feeling lonely?” How like Rachel to know. How like her to hit the nail on the head on the first try.
A lie wouldn’t work. She couldn’t fool her best friend. “Yes,” she admitted. There. She’d said aloud what she’d tried to deny to herself.
Loneliness swamped her.
She wanted to live with the children.
She wanted to share her bed with Cole.
At Rachel’s house, she allowed the balm of Travis and Rachel’s affection and Tori’s enthusiasm for life wash over her.
For the first time, envy stirred in her.
She wanted what Travis and Rachel had, the love and tenderness, and the family.
She wanted children.
When Travis cleared the dinner table, he brushed his hand across Rachel’s neck. Sure, their love was still new, but it went far beyond infatuation.
Probably twenty years from now Travis would still find ways and opportunities to touch his wife...and Rachel would return his affection.
Cole Payette had interrupted what Honey had thought of as a good life.
He’d shattered her happiness. No, be more accurate. Call it what it really was. Contentment.
Her life hadn’t been about happiness, no matter how hard she’d tried to find her joy wherever she could.
But since Cole had brought the children to town, to her apartment, and had made himself a part of her daily routine, he’d shattered her illusions.
She wanted more. She wanted more, dammit.
Their problems were twofold. His fear. Her fear.
What a pair of cowards.
* * *
OVER THE FOLLOWING two weeks, Honey saw them around town—Cole and the children in the diner, Cole in his uniform on his beat, Maria and the children walking down the street toward the playground.
Maddy even held Maria’s hand when they crossed the street. Progress. Nice.
Cole’s stool had sat empty in the bar for two weekends.
Honey ached.
She missed them. She missed him.
One day, on her way into the diner for lunch, she passed Cole’s parents coming out.
She’d seen them around town, of course, but never as closely as this. What had they found to do with themselves over the past three weeks?
Frank smiled at her.
Ada frowned.
She couldn’t possibly be as cold as she looked, could she?
Cole thought so, and his opinion was good enough for Honey. He should know. He’d been raised by the woman.
Honey stood back to let them pass and said, “Hello. Lovely day.”
Frank said, “Yes. Beautiful.”
Ada said nothing.
They walked away down the street.
“Strange, cold people.” Vy’s voice behind Honey caught her attention.
“Why do you think they’re staying in town?” Honey asked.
“Because she’s still taking Cole to court. Apparently, tomorrow.”
Honey’s blood went cold. She hadn’t heard. How could she not have? Why hadn’t Cole shared that with her?
Because he’d been avoiding her.
Tomorrow. She would be there.
“With all of the hostility toward them in town,” Vy started, “why come to the diner? They could eat at the restaurant in the next town.”
Honey frowned. “Good question. And why have their lunch here? Has anyone talked to them?”
“Not really. Everyone’s been decent. They don’t get snubbed, but no one strikes up a conversation, either.”
“So, again, why stay in town?”
“Know what I think?” Vy rested a hand on her hip.
“What?”
“They’re keeping an eye on Cole.”
“But he’s no longer in my apartment. He’s got a house and Maria Tripoli as a nanny. What on earth is wrong with any of that?”
“I don’t know, Honey, but they spend a lot of time in one of the front booths staring at the cop shop across the street. Every so often, Frank takes out a little notebook and writes something.”
A coldness that had nothing to do with the temperature ran through Honey.
Cole’s parents were spying on him and the children. “What can they hope to find?” she asked.
“I think they want to prove that his job is dangerous and that he shouldn’t be a parent or a guardian.”
“For God’s sake, that’s ludicrous. He’s smart. He’s careful. He’s mature. He takes precautions.”
Honey stopped, stared at Vy and realized the full import of her words. She’d just repeated Cole’s arguments for why he wasn’t a risk as a lover.
If he was safe enough to be a guardian, surely he was safe enough to be a partner?
While she ate lunch, she sat in a window booth and watched the cop shop, thinking. Thinking about her own cowardice and willingness to let love escape because one of them might not live into old age.
Whey deny love because of fear? She was a fool.
She watched Cole come and go about his usual sheriff’s business. Today, that business looked innocuous, except for the effect just seeing Cole had on Honey.
Good thing he wasn’t here beside her, or she would have trouble not touching him.
When Vy brought her bill, she said, “I’m scared. What have they got on Cole that they can use against him?”
“I don’t know, Honey. I wish I did.”
Honey left the diner and marched to her bar.
Once inside, she found Chet in the kitchen.
“If I double tomorrow afternoon’s staff, can you cover for me while I go to Cole’s court date? For all I know, it could take all day tomorrow.”
“Of course. You can leave early tonight and sleep in.”
On impulse, she hugged him. “You’re the best, Chet. Thanks.”
Honey did leave the bar early that night to go to bed at a good time, but she hardly slept.
She got up early and dressed with care.
She tried to eat breakfast, but nerves fluttered through her stomach. Halfway through her bowl of cereal, she gave up. Her tummy wasn’t going to take any more.
She had a plan.
Cole would kill her, but it needed to be done.
She’d come to realize she’d do just about anything to make sure those children stayed with him where they belonged.
Chapter Thirteen
Two hours later, Honey sat in a courtroom with many of her friends and townspeople from Rodeo. With no small separate family court available, they’d all settled into the largest courtroom in the county.
The judge heard a statement from Ada, all of it the kind of stuff Honey expected—about their wealth, their position in their hometown, their ability to send the children to the best schools and blah, blah, blah.
When she started in on Cole’s job, Honey’s heart filled with icy rage.
“My son is a violent man, Your Honor. He could have had a good career as a lawyer, but instead he is punching people and throwing them across barrooms.”
She went on to describe the incident with the stranger who had nearly raped Honey.
Her interpretation—that Honey had welcomed the man’s advances, that Cole had caught them making out and had been jealous and consequently behaved violently—sent spears of anger flaring through Honey. Panic followed that. What if the judge believed the woman?
Honey’s optimism sank to the soles of her shoes.
They had money. They had prestige. They had standing in their town.
And they were bad-mo
uthing Cole, the best man on the face of the earth.
Cole had standing in his community, too, but did it compare? Could he compete?
Honey just didn’t know.
When Ada finished speaking and it looked like the judge was taking her seriously, Honey panicked.
No.
Cole couldn’t possibly lose those children.
It would break his heart.
While the judge read papers in front of him, Honey made up her mind. This called for desperate measures.
“Your Honor,” she blurted before she even knew she was going to open her mouth.
He glanced up, eyebrows raised.
“Who just spoke?”
Never in her life had Honey been timid, but worry for Cole, and fear that she might make a mistake, turned her weak.
She stood and raised her hand.
“I did, Your Honor.”
Desperate times. Desperate measures.
The judge cut her with a laser glare. “You can’t just speak out in court without permission.”
“Your Honor, may I have permission?”
The judge stared at Honey for so long she started to squirm. She wasn’t a squirmer by nature, but what she was about to do would take every scrap of courage she had.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I’m Honey Armstrong, the woman about whom Mrs. Payette was telling lies.”
“The woman from the bar incident?”
Honey shivered. “It was far more than an incident, Your Honor.”
“Okay, step forward and stand there beside Sheriff Payette. Tell me what happened.”
She did, in detail, including outlining her terror.
When she finished, the judge considered what she’d said. He took too long.
“There’s one more thing, Your Honor.”
* * *
COLE STARED DOWN at Honey. What on earth was she doing? It was great that she’d set the record straight on that night, but what else was there that she could add?
“This is highly irregular,” the judge said. “Whatever else you have to say—Okay, how germane is it to the case?”
“It’s essential that you hear this one last thing.”
Honey shifted beside Cole. She refused to meet his eye, he noted.
What mischief was she up to?
“Go ahead,” the judge ordered. “Speak.”
Rodeo Sheriff Page 17