Honey twisted her fingers together. Odd to see her nervous when she could handle just about anything.
“I noticed that Mrs. Payette, in her petition, left out one very important point. A crucial point, Your Honor. She stated that Cole shouldn’t be allowed to raise the children because he’s a single guy. First, that’s hogwash. There are so many different forms of parenting these days that are successful. The old pattern of a father and a mother no longer has to exist. Single parents can do an amazing job, too.”
The judge waited patiently, so Honey went on. “Cole’s a good, decent, smart guy. He can raise those children on his own with one hand tied behind his back.”
She wasn’t sounding as articulate as usual, though her words warmed his heart. Her hands, he noted—when she wasn’t twisting them together—shook. She was nervous.
So was he. A lot rode on the results of today’s hearing. Cole had testified before in front of Judge Bailey and had always found the man enigmatic and unpredictable. “Secondly,” she said, “he won’t be single much longer. What Mrs. Payette failed to mention, perhaps because her spying on Cole hasn’t uncovered it, is that Cole and I are engaged.”
What? Once Cole started coughing, he couldn’t stop. What the hell was she talking about? Yet again, Honey’s impulses overrode common sense.
Fingering the sealed letter in his hand, he hoped it was a secret weapon he could use to win this case without Honey’s well-meaning interference.
“Honey,” he said, taking her firmly by the elbow. “This isn’t necessary.”
She rounded on him. “Oh, yes, it is, Cole. You should have shared our plans with Frank and Ada. Maybe then they wouldn’t have thought to take you to court. They wouldn’t have thought they could be successful.”
“Your Honor, Ms. Armstrong has been premature with her pronouncement.”
“You mean you aren’t engaged?” A frown developed between the judge’s formidable eyebrows.
Cole froze.
He couldn’t call Honey a liar.
“Please, Cole,” she whispered beside him. “I’m terrified for you and the children.”
Her concern warmed him. Her heart was in the right place.
“Honey and I,” he said carefully to evaluate the judge’s response, “have an understanding.”
The frown eased.
His bachelorhood wasn’t a detriment to raising the children, but he’d worried anyway even though he was young with a secure future and a strong standing in the community. Despite it all, had Honey just saved the day? His mother had dressed as the wealthy high-society matron she was. She had pulled out all of the stops in her statement. Her lawyer stood beside her in expensive sartorial splendor. The judge understood exactly how healthy her resources were. She’d made him aware of the extent of her wealth.
By contrast, Cole had decided to represent himself. He’d spoken in court often enough.
He had a steady job and a lot of love, more information about the guy who’d attacked Honey, not to mention a letter from his sister that he’d never read.
Was it enough?
Cole, a man who never made snap decisions, made one now.
“We are engaged, yes. We were just waiting until the end of the summer, until after the work on the fair has settled down.”
The judge hummed and nodded.
At the defendant’s table, Cole and Honey stood side by side but worlds apart as the judge said, “Sheriff Payette, you said you had evidence to present?”
Finally. Why had he waited so long to ask for it?
“First, Your Honor, I’d like to add an update about the criminal who tried to rape Honey. He confessed that he’d been hired by my parents to harass her, perhaps with the purpose of scaring her so she would remove her support for me.”
His mother gasped. Furious whispering erupted between her and his father. Rumblings ran through the spectators.
Cole thought he heard his father say, “I told you so.”
“The prisoner has been found guilty,” Cole continued. “He’s awaiting sentencing.”
“Is this true?” the judge asked of the Payettes.
“How could you—” Ada started, but Frank grasped her arm to cut her off.
“Yes, Your Honor, but he was never supposed to become violent.”
Frank turned to Honey and said, “I deeply regret his actions and ours.”
Cole stared at this stronger version of his father, and finally saw a glimpse of who the man might have been without Ada.
They’d just suffered a setback, but there was more.
“I have a letter from my sister, Your Honor, left with her lawyer and the will, to be used if my parents sued for custody.”
“What does it say?” the judge asked.
“I don’t know. It’s sealed.”
Cole handed the letter to the bailiff to pass along to the judge.
The judge acknowledged that the envelope was sealed. He opened it and read the letter.
When he finished, he appraised Cole and stared down Ada and Frank.
“This ought to be read aloud.” He did just that.
To whom it may concern,
If you are reading this letter, I’m assuming you are a lawyer or a judge and my brother and the children are in trouble.
For years, my brother was the most important person in my life. He gave me comfort and love when they were missing from my parents.
He protected his baby sister from the day of my birth. When I cried, he held me. When I hurt, he soothed me. When I needed his help to leave a loveless home, he sent me money.
After my marriage, my husband took over Cole’s protective role. We have two beautiful children.
If you are reading this, I am deceased and so is my husband. I, and my husband, have left the care of our children to Cole.
For all intents and purposes, he raised me, not my parents. Cole is the kind of man I want to parent my children if Dennis and I aren’t here.
I know my parents well. They will try to take Evan and Madeline in any way that they can, using any means. They will throw their money around. Cole does not have the same resources.
So I am here today, present in this letter, to say, don’t. Do not, under any circumstances, give the care of my children to my parents.
They failed to offer a loving home to Cole and me as we grew up. I don’t know how Cole turned out to be as strong and kind as he is. It must be strength of character and backbone, because he sure knew how to make me feel loved and protected in a house without love.
Leave my children with Cole and they will grow up to be as wonderful as he is.
All my love to my children and to my brother.
Alexandra Payette Engel
Cole held on by a thread, shaking with the force of the emotions coursing through him.
Sandy.
His sister’s love for him took his breath away.
He wanted her here.
A letter was a poor substitute.
If he had her with him, he would hold her and never let go so nothing bad would happen to her.
But he had let her go, and she had married a good man and the two of them had died together, because of a moment of inattention or exhaustion, a deer running across a slippery road and a swerve into a tree.
He wiped his eyes.
He didn’t care if his mother thought his tears a weakness. He didn’t care if she saw them as a point of vulnerability she could use.
Sandy.
Aw, Sandy, come back.
Honey reached for his hand and held on.
The judge cleared his throat.
“Well. I guess that says it all, doesn’t it? Mr. and Mrs. Payette, I see nothing to warrant the removal of the children from their uncle’s care into yours.
“Your daughter loved him
. She was of sound mind. She feared that you would bring this kind of action against your son, with good reason. We’re here today because you didn’t respect your daughter’s wishes. I’m not sure I understand why.
“You have resorted to underhanded techniques to scare these people and to try to win your case. You have tried to make the sheriff appear unsafe for the children merely because of his profession.
“Sir and Madam, many people in dangerous professions enjoy long lives and successful marriages and meet their parental responsibilities.
“This court has seen Cole Payette’s bank records and his pay stubs and has reviewed his work record. His sister confessed her deep love for him. She professed her trust in his ability to love the children. This court deems him eminently capable of raising them.”
Ada gasped.
“Besides,” the judge went on, a twinkle in his eye, “he’s about to get married. This court rules in his favor.”
His mother emitted a cry of outrage. She surged to her feet and then swayed.
“No. That’s not possible.”
“Ma’am, you will sit down and behave with decorum or I will find you guilty of contempt.”
The judge folded the letter and sent it back to Cole. “My advice to you, Mrs. Payette, is to abide by your daughter’s wishes, and mine, and let this issue rest. Don’t pursue this in the future. Don’t take it to a higher court. I guarantee you will lose.”
Cole left the courtroom walking on a cloud.
It was done.
He could breathe again. Since the day his parents had come to town, his old neuroses had suffocated him.
They fell from him like water from the top of a cliff, a waterfall of fears and regrets cascading away.
When Sandy and Dennis died, he’d been afraid of the burden. Today, all he knew was joy.
The children were his.
Ada stormed past without a glance in his direction. His father walked by, nodded and offered a tentative smile.
Free at last of their influence, Cole’s life would be perfect except for one pesky detail.
Honey Armstrong had declared in court in front of their friends and townspeople that they were getting married.
What was a man to do when all of his dreams were about to come true, but for all of the wrong reasons?
Chapter Fourteen
“Not one word.”
That brief sentence spoken by Cole so harshly cut off Honey’s explanation and silenced her effectively.
A slab of granite looked soft compared to Cole’s jaw.
He must have understood her panic.
He must have felt it himself after his mother spoke, with her money and powerful clothing and her persuasion...and her unfair accusations!
But then there had been that revelation about the attacker and the letter.
It would have been enough.
So why hadn’t Cole told her about it?
Because she should have trusted him, should have had faith that he was smart enough to convince the judge one way or another to grant him custody.
And Honey had ruined it. Maybe Cole was right. Maybe she was too impulsive, but in that courtroom, she had known real terror.
But what was the problem, really? The buzz would go around that they were engaged, they would say that they had changed their minds, and life would go on.
Except that she didn’t want life to go on, not the way it had been. Not any longer.
In that courtroom, she had seen endless days stretching into eternity for Cole alone with the children.
And she had seen her life stretching into loneliness without either the children or Cole. How much was her fear worth? Why did she hold on to it so tenaciously?
With Cole in her future, there might come the phone call that every loved one of a lawman feared, the one she’d endured when she’d loved Daniel... Or it might never come.
They could live into ripe old age together.
Cole was strong and smart, a hell of lot less likely to go off half-cocked than Daniel had been.
They arrived at his house, and Honey hugged the children.
Maria went home and Cole sat the children down.
“You’re going to stay with me. The judge said so.”
“For real?” Evan shouted. “For ever and ever?”
“Yes. You are never going away from me, ever.”
Madeline burst into tears. Honey understood why. She wanted to cry, too, overwhelmed by strong emotions.
Cole settled Madeline on his lap and soothed her while Evan whooped and raced around the living room. He took off his shoes and sock-skated down the hallway.
Honey felt the weight of her interference and intrusion into Cole’s life. Sure, when he’d first arrived in town with the children, he’d asked for her help, but he had never asked for her to do so much, to go so far as to lie in court.
“I’d better go.”
Madeline wriggled out of Cole’s arms and rushed to Honey, throwing her arms around her.
Honey picked her up. “Are you happy?”
Maddy smiled, but her lower lip wobbled.
“Sometimes it feels too strong, doesn’t it?”
Maddy nodded.
“Sometimes happiness hurts as much as sadness, but it’s always better. Okay?”
Maddy nodded again.
“You will have a wonderful, absolutely fabuloso life with your amazing uncle Cole. Okay?”
Maddy said, “I love Uncle Cole.”
She heard him clear his throat before saying, “Don’t go, Honey. Stay for supper.”
She watched him over Maddy’s head and asked, “Are you sure?”
She really wanted to ask, Why?
She couldn’t resist temptation. She wanted to stay and to spend time with three people who had become more important to her than anyone else in her life.
In a perfect world, she would live here with them. After dinner she would help ready the children for bed and then she would take their strong, wonderful uncle into her arms and love him silly.
Supper was a noisy affair because of Evan, who didn’t sense the tension between Honey and his uncle.
As hard as Honey tried to keep a smile on her face, she thought Madeline might have known.
Cole asked her to help get the children ready for bed, just as she had imagined doing, and it was so bittersweet she nearly came undone.
She wouldn’t be able to do this again. While it felt like heaven to her, it was also too painful.
After the children went to bed, she and Cole went downstairs.
They finished the dishes, and then he stalked to the living room, where he stood staring out the front window, back rigid.
“Don’t shut me out, Cole. Talk to me.”
He didn’t respond.
“Rant at me if you want to.”
Still, he kept his own counsel, but glared at her over his shoulder.
Enough, already. Her remorse morphed into anger.
“Yes, I was impulsive today. I tried to control what went on in that courtroom. My employees classify me as a benevolent dictator.”
Cole didn’t smile.
“You can be angry with me as much as you like, but I was terrified. And it’s not the end of the world. For God’s sake, we’ll tell the town that we’ve decided we don’t suit and we’ll call it off.”
“We can’t.”
Honey frowned. “Why not?”
“The children will hear about it through the grapevine.”
“The children,” she breathed and covered her mouth with her hand. In trying to save them, she would end up hurting them.
“Those kids would like nothing more than for you and me to be together, to be married and raising them as a family. You know that, don’t you?”
“You�
��re right. I didn’t think ahead.”
“You never do.” He sounded bitter.
Anger curdled Honey’s blood. “Okay, stop right there. I have my faults, but you don’t get to stand there and pretend that you’re perfect.”
Cole glared at her. “This I’ve got to hear. What’s wrong with me?”
“You’re a controller. You control your deputies and everyone around you. You control this entire town, for that matter, Sheriff.”
“So what? I’m tasked with keeping law and order.”
“It spills over into the rest of your life. Sometimes it’s your way or the highway. Today I took a tiny bit of control away from you in that courtroom and you’re freaking out.”
Cole’s brow furrowed and he thought. In his deep, quiet way, Cole thought some more. And more.
His shoulders slumped.
“God, you’re right.”
He collapsed into an armchair and breathed heavily into his hands.
“Cole, don’t beat yourself up. You’re not saying anything, but I can see you doing it. It’s written all over your face. That wasn’t my intention. I just need you to see that my flaws are not gigantic and they aren’t unreasonable. Everyone has them. Even you.”
“This is bad, though.” He dropped his hands. He looked like she’d punched him. “Honey, sit. Please. I have things I need to tell you.”
At the regret and sorrow on his face, her anger dissipated. She sat on the sofa opposite him.
“You saw my mother. You’ve met my father. You know the dynamic there.”
She made a sound to indicate she wanted to know more.
“You know what’s appalling about what you said? It’s true. I tried so hard to walk away from the very thing I’ve been doing. You’re right. I need to be sheriff. I need to control. I need the town to be safe.”
“But see, Cole, I don’t want you beating yourself up, because what you exercise in town is a different kind of dominance than you experienced in your childhood. There isn’t a person in this town—other than me just now, because I needed to defend myself—who thinks that what you do is wrong. They are happy that you keep the peace, and law and order, and make them feel safe.
“For that, the town is eternally grateful.”
Rodeo Sheriff Page 18