This Hero for Hire

by Cynthia Thomason

  He didn’t want to insult the governor, so he stalled. “Let me think this over, sir. I’ll get back to you.”

  Rhodes repeated his self-deprecating chuckle. “I don’t know how to put this exactly, Boone, but there isn’t much to think over. Stickler suggested you. He praised your abilities on the force. And when he brought up your name, I recognized it right off. You’re a hometown boy, and that’s what I want—someone who knows the Rhodes family and how important this election is and will do his best to see that Susie’s homecoming is as smooth as glass.”

  Boone stood and stared into the squad room. Chief Stickler was pretending to go over some reports, but he looked up when Boone let out a deep sigh. He cut a sheepish grin at Boone and raised his hands as if to say, “Nothing I could do.” Stickler then raised two fingers in the air and mouthed the words, “Two months, that’s all.” He followed the gesture with another one—the universal sign of greed, thumb rubbing against fingertips.

  No doubt, Boone could use the money. His grandfather had left a modest bank balance to keep his small farm running, but eventually the financial responsibility would fall on Boone’s shoulders. Chickens would still have to be fed, two horses would have to be cared for and fences would have to be mended. The election would be in early November. Could he be a nanny for two months?

  “Boone? You there, son?”

  The governor’s voice brought him back. “Yes, sir. When did you say Susannah would arrive?”

  “Couple of days probably. But you never know with her.”

  “I won’t be able to be out at your place twenty-four hours a day. I have chores, things I have to do...”

  “I know about your duties at your grandpa’s place, and that’s okay. Stickler said when you can’t be there, that nice young Officer Menendez in your department can fill in for you. Important thing is for you to be there at night and to guarantee that Susie won’t be caught off guard by someone who doesn’t have the family’s best interests at heart.”

  The governor’s plan had underlying ramifications that Boone didn’t want to think about. How the heck was he supposed to dictate behavior to a member of Georgia’s first family? How was he supposed to keep her from saying the wrong thing if a person from the media showed up? Boone thought of his partner, Lila Menendez. He knew she’d hate this detail, too. Lila was a good cop, honest and hard working. But she wouldn’t want to take care of a Georgia peach who probably had never even had a bruise on her delicate skin.

  After getting a few more details, Boone disconnected and walked into the squad room. He promptly thanked his chief for being part of an ambush that Boone was going to live to regret.

  “Sorry, kid, but it was the governor,” Stickler said. “What was I to say?”

  “Anything but yes,” Boone answered.

  At least, if the governor’s timetable were correct, he had a couple of days before his duties would commence. Because there didn’t appear to be anything he could do to avoid this assignment, maybe he could at least put himself in the proper mindset.

  Two hours later a call came into the station. A citizen was reporting that a truck had gone off the pavement on High River Road. Boone was dispatched to investigate.

  Calls to High River were rare and usually involved a couple of old-time farmers bickering over whose cow was whose, or occasionally it was a minor vandalism report from one of the mini mansions belonging to Mount Union’s elite population. Of course, the governor’s personal residence was out there, too, and right now, that’s all Boone could think about.

  When he reached the scene, he saw a truck on its side in a ditch. An older model Suburban was parked on the shoulder, perhaps a Good Samaritan who’d stopped to help. The lady who’d phoned in the report, a longtime High River Road resident, had called both the police and EMTs. Boone arrived before an ambulance, but he quickly deduced that one was not going to be necessary. The driver of the truck, a man Boone recognized, was outside the vehicle stomping around in the dust, waving his arms and shouting.

  “Anybody need an ambulance?” Boone called to the driver.

  “Not yet,” the middle-aged man hollered back. “But if I catch her, she darn well might!”

  Who was he referring to? One of the hens he just noticed running around? The truck had been carrying chickens to slaughter, a common sight on Georgia roads. But these lucky broilers had postponed certain death by an odd quirk of fate that had sent their truck off the road. A few crates remained in the bed of the truck, the panicked poultry prisoners squawking and trying to flap their wings in the confined space. This was not how they thought their day would end up.

  Not all the birds faced such a frightening scenario. Dozens of the doomed cluckers were right now scurrying over the meadow bordering Route 213. Free as...well, birds, Boone thought, hiding a smile. He watched the scattered hens run in circles in the bright sun.

  The truck driver, a Mount Union citizen named Hank Simpson, darted among his escaped birds, trying to nab as many as he could. Grabbing a wild chicken by one leg wasn’t a pleasant job at any time, but it was fairly easy if the birds were packed into row houses. Trying to wrap your hand around the spindly appendage in an open meadow was nearly impossible. Boone had no interest in trying to help in a situation that would only make him look considerably less intelligent than a broiler. And necessitate him covering his peck marks with iodine when he got home.

  “Give it up, Hank!” Boone hollered. “You’ll be lucky to round up a dozen.”

  The driver, who’d obviously eaten too much fried chicken in his life, stopped long enough to pant and point a trembling finger at a figure bent down beside the ditch. “Arrest her!” he shouted. “She’s releasing hens faster than I can round them up.”

  Oh, boy. This wasn’t just about Hank’s careless driving. The accident had another witness. Crouched in the dirt was a lady whose sole purpose was opening crate doors to let the birds escape.

  “Hey, you there! Stop that,” he called.

  The truck driver raced toward the woman, but she quickly outmaneuvered him and began working furiously on another set of crates. More chickens ran into the sweet late summer afternoon.

  She wasn’t so lucky avoiding Boone. He grasped her arm and hauled her upright. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  She breathed heavily as she struggled against his grip. She looked familiar. She was about five foot five, slim, dressed in jeans and a pink T-shirt. Well, it might have been pink, just like her hair might have been blond, if the woman hadn’t been covered head to toe in chicken feathers. A noxious odor that any boy raised in the chicken farming area of Georgia would know rose from her clothes and clogged his nose. He jerked his head away from her. “Phew!”

  She made a half-hearted effort to pick a few feathers off her shirt. “You could offer to help, you know. Think how these birds must feel. They have to breathe this rotten air every day of their lives.”

  That voice! He remembered it from high school. I just wanted to do that. No. This couldn’t be happening. Boone didn’t have time to contemplate the identity of this chicken savior, not with flashing lights from an approaching ambulance demanding his attention and the huffing, shouting Hank Simpson bearing down on them. “You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “What did you think you were doing letting all these birds out of the crates.”

  “Are you gonna arrest her, Boone?” Simpson demanded.

  Boone held up his hand, an attempt to calm the man long enough to get the facts. He continued staring at the woman. Maybe he was wrong, and she wasn’t Susannah. “Well?”

  “I was saving their lives,” she said. “This truck practically rolled over. Most of the crates have fallen out and some slipped into the creek bed. If I hadn’t opened the doors, the birds would have drowned.”

  “That’s hogwash,” the driver said. “I would have gotten the crates o
ut of the water in time, and they would still have been full of chickens!”

  “I don’t see how, Hank,” Boone said, taking in the number of crates that had landed in the creek. “I think the lady might be right about the chickens dying.”

  “Of course, I’m right,” she said. “Now will you let go of me?”

  “Don’t take off,” he warned. “What you did is still illegal.” He let go of her arm. “You can’t just go around tampering with other people’s property.”

  “Even if that property consists of living, breathing creatures that can’t take care of themselves?” She stared with disgust at the old truck, which had obviously made many trips to the slaughterhouse in its years on the road. “What you see here, Sheriff...”

  “Officer,” he corrected.

  “Whatever. What you see is abusive treatment of the worst kind.”

  “Ma’am, this is the way all broilers are taken to slaughter. Hank wasn’t doing anything that isn’t done on a weekly basis around these parts.”

  “That, Officer, does not make it right. The way those poor poultry were stuffed into the boxes is abominable. Did you know that a quarter of them would have been dead by the time they reached Augusta? And many of those still alive would have suffered severe injuries.”

  Boone scratched the back of his neck. “I’m really not up on my chicken statistics, ma’am, but I feel the need to point out the most relevant detail here. These chickens were destined for a fate much worse than being injured anyway.”

  She stared off into the distance, where hens were scampering over the meadow. And she smiled. “There’s a right way and a wrong way to do a job,” she said.

  “And a legal and illegal way,” Boone replied.

  The ambulance came to a stop. Boone asked the woman if she had been in the accident and if she needed medical attention.

  “No. I’m fine. And I had nothing to do with the truck ending up in the creek. Your buddy here...” She pointed to the driver. “He took that last curve with a bit too much enthusiasm.”

  Boone dismissed the ambulance and went to his vehicle to get the standard incident report and a clipboard. When he returned, he said, “These birds are the property of Mr. Sam Jonas, and his driver here, Hank, was just doing his job.”

  Hank pounded his fist into his opposite hand. “And someone’s got to pay for the loss of income this crazy woman caused today.”

  “Maybe you should start by explaining to your employer that you can’t drive a truck!” she said.

  Hank stepped forward, and Boone placed his palm on the man’s chest. “Let’s all calm down now. We’re obviously not going to get those chickens back.”

  “Then do your job and arrest this woman,” Hank said.

  “I intend to.”

  “What?” The woman crossed her feather-covered arms over her chest and glared at him. “This would have been a massacre if I hadn’t come along when I did.”

  Boone didn’t quite consider the loss of a few chickens going to slaughter as a definitive example of a massacre, but he knew better than to say that out loud.

  “You caused a loss to one of our citizens, ma’am,” he said. “Hank’s right that someone’s got to pay, either for the loss of his chickens or by spending some time in jail—or both.” He swept his arm toward his squad car. “Sooo...if you’ll just follow me.”

  “You’re taking me to jail?”

  “For now, yes, I am.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” She looked across the road, where the large, weathered SUV was parked. “What about my car?”

  “I’ll make sure it’s towed into town,” Boone said. “And I’ll call another tow to get you out of the ditch, Hank.”

  He scratched the SUV’s license plate number on his report and stopped short. He hadn’t been wrong. The blond hair, the voice, the governor’s mention of Oregon. This day was only getting worse. “You’re from Oregon?” he said.

  “Yes, so?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Susannah Rhodes. Does the name Rhodes mean anything to you, Officer?”

  Did it ever. It meant he had to tell this woman’s father that he’d put his worrisome little princess, covered in chicken dung, in jail. But on the other hand, it also meant he might have found a way out of this ridiculous assignment. Surely Albee wouldn’t want him for this detail now.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THIS WAS INCREDIBLY not good. Sitting in the police cruiser with the so far nice but ultra lawful police officer, Susannah could almost hear her father’s voice. “In town less than an hour and already you’re in the back of a police car.”

  It would be impossible to keep him from hearing about this incident. The Chief of Police would call him even if she didn’t. And there was no way to keep him from being disappointed in her—again. She was going to jail for destruction of property! Whereas she believed she deserved a medal for humanitarian actions. Well maybe not that exactly, but the simple truth was, she didn’t have time for jail.

  She stared out the window at the Georgia farmland. Green, lush meadows and fields, animals grazing peacefully on hillsides under towering oaks and fragrant magnolias. Seventeen years ago she couldn’t wait to leave a place where no one seemed to want her. In the past few days, though, she’d actually been looking forward to coming back.

  Not that she expected her relationship with her dad to be a quick fix. During her infrequent weekend visits over the years she and her father had been like strangers, each frightened of saying the wrong thing. They had too much history between them, too many times in her youth when he’d confronted her with that scowl on his face.

  But helping on his campaign could be the start of healing old resentments. As long as he didn’t find out her other motive for returning to Georgia. And as long as he realized she wasn’t the same girl who’d left all those years ago.

  “Are you okay?”

  She snapped her attention to the back of the officer’s head. So he’d decided to speak to her in a tone far more mellow than his official one. Okay. Perhaps conversation would make the man feel more lenient toward her.

  “I’d like to put the window down if that’s all right,” she said.

  His alert eyes, so mesmerizingly green that she could see the color in the rearview mirror, stared at her. “Sorry. Those windows must be kept locked at all times. Safety regulations.”

  “For whom? If you’re concerned for my safety, then roll them down. As you pointed out, I’m giving off a rather noxious odor, and I’m about to asphyxiate.”

  He considered his answer for a moment. “Okay, I guess I can roll one of them down, the one opposite from where you’re sitting. By the way, those chickens were escaping at top speed, so how did you manage to get so covered by feathers and...other things?”

  “Chickens molt when they’re scared, and these were terrified. They didn’t know I was letting them loose. They just reacted to a human.”

  Blessed fresh air rushed in the open window, and Susannah took a deep breath. “That’s better. Thanks. And, by the way, in case I didn’t say it, thank you for not handcuffing my wrists together. I feel a bit anxious in situations of confinement.”

  “No problem. You’ve been handcuffed before?” he asked.

  Well, there was that one time back in college during the sit-in, but she didn’t need to tell him that. “I just know I wouldn’t like it.”

  He smiled. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

  “A girl’s got to have her secrets,” she said. “And I appreciate you letting me get my purse from the Suburban and locking the vehicle. I have lots of supplies in the back and it would be a shame if they were stolen.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, it’s not good to steal someone else’s property.”

  Another jab at the chicken incident. She b
egan plucking feathers off her clothes, careful not to get crusty bits of chicken poop under her fingernails. When she tried blowing the feathers out the window, they only sailed back at her face. So she began making a pile of down next to her on the seat. “Are you going to put me in a cell?” she asked after a moment.

  “We have paperwork to do first. And I’ll give you a chance to clean up in the ladies’ room. After that, it’s a real possibility. You might want to contact an attorney. I know Sam Jonas, and I’m betting he will file criminal charges.”

  “Great. You should know I’m not a habitual lawbreaker.”

  “I didn’t think you were. And if you don’t have a criminal record, you should be able to post bail pretty quickly, I imagine.”

  “I just have a hard time not reacting when I see unethical treatment of animals.”

  His eyes cut to her again. “You one of those animal activists?”

  “I believe in the fair treatment of all animals, yes. But I don’t consider it my life’s mission. I’m a nonviolent person. I don’t throw paint on fur coats or anything.”

  He didn’t comment, so she tried a different subject. “I used to live here, you know.”

  “Yes, I remember you. We were in high school at the same time.”

  She leaned forward and slipped her fingertips through the metal mesh separating the front seat from the back. “Really? I only went to Mount Union High my sophomore year. I went away to school after that.”

  She studied what she could see of his face in the mirror; she hadn’t gotten a really good look at his features at the accident site. Maybe they’d been friends. She hoped his memories of her weren’t negative.

  He’d removed his ball cap, giving her a view of medium-length, slightly mussed, light brown hair. His eyebrows, darker than his hair, were thick and even. And those eyes, so serious, so intense. He’d smiled at her a couple of times, once back by the truck, when she’d sneezed, releasing feathers into the air. She’d found his smile so charming, she thought she might make an ally of him. So far, other than a couple of minor kindnesses, there was no sign that this guy was anything but by-the-book. But he did look familiar. She wished he would turn toward her so she could see his entire face. Even so, she was certain they’d had brief contact at one time.