A Sheriff in Tennessee

by Lori Handeland

  Belle slapped her hat against her thigh, annoyed herself. Having the man she needed in her corner pissed off at her—and the world, it appeared—was not a good way to start. But how was she going to change his attitude? She didn’t think smiling and flipping her hair would carry much weight with Gabriel Klein.

  What would? Perhaps the honesty her mama had always preached—the honesty that had never done Belle a lick of good in L.A.

  “What have you got against me? You don’t even know me.”

  He raised his eyebrows at her demanding tone. “Nothing personal. I just don’t think all the attention, all the people will be good for this town.”

  “From what I understand, Pleasant Ridge needs the money.”

  “Money can’t fix everything, Ms. Ash.”

  Something she understood to be true better than anyone.

  “Call me Isabelle.” She hated that “Ms.” crap, and only her family called her Belle.

  “I don’t think—”

  “Good. Don’t think. Just call me Isabelle. And I’ll call you Gabriel.” He grimaced. “Or not.”

  “You can call me Sheriff, or Klein if you like, even Gabe if you must.”

  “Just don’t call you late for dinner.” She made the motions of a silent drumroll. “Ba-dump-bump.”

  Klein’s mouth twitched. She could really like this guy—if he let her.

  Belle didn’t know how long they stood in the office staring at each other, trying not to smile, but before they could continue their conversation, the sound of running footsteps drifted in the half-open window. Klein looked out, groaned and banged his head once against the wall.

  The door opened and a tall, very well-dressed man stepped inside. He was clearly agitated. His eyes searched the room. When he saw Klein, he frowned, then strode over to Belle and, without leave, took her hands.

  “Ms. Ash, I apologize. I just heard what happened. Please forgive us. We’re small. Yokels, practically. This mistake will never be repeated. You have my word.”

  He was handsome, most likely the handsomest man in town, and he knew it. But the way his gaze swept her face, touched on her bare shoulders, skittered over, then away from, then back to her breasts—

  Belle resisted the urge to growl as his thumbs rubbed lightly, suggestively along the sensitive skin between her thumb and forefinger. As her mama always said, handsome is as handsome does, and in that vein this man was very unattractive. She glanced at his hands on hers—just as white, just as smooth, just as slim and pretty. Yuck. Regardless, he was obviously someone with clout in Pleasant Ridge or he wouldn’t be giving her his word.

  So she unclenched her teeth, smiled sweetly, and as he stood dazzled, she removed herself from his grasp and his reach. “And you would be…?”

  “Malachai Smith. Mayor of Pleasant Ridge.”

  The mayor. Well, she was glad she’d resisted the age-old urge to kick him in the shins.

  Belle hadn’t realized she’d moved closer to Klein until he spoke right above her left shoulder.

  “What do you want, Chai?”

  The mayor scowled at the sheriff, and the expression made his pretty face sour. “You’re fired.”

  “See ya.” Klein strode toward the door.

  “Wait!” Belle shouted. The mayor froze; Klein kept going. “Please?”

  The sheriff stopped with his hand on the door, but he didn’t turn around. For some reason Klein didn’t like looking at her, and Belle wasn’t sure what to do with a man like that.

  So she dealt with the one she did know what to do with. “I need him, Mr. Mayor.” She smiled again, and the mayor’s jaw went slack. “I’ve only got two weeks to learn how to be a small-town sheriff. From what I’ve observed of the deputy, he won’t be much help.”

  “He’s fired, too.”

  Belle shrugged, but Klein was suddenly right there. “No. If I stay, so does he.”

  “Just this morning you were complaining about him.” The mayor sounded exasperated.

  Belle glanced back and forth between the two men, who seemed to have forgotten all about her.

  “I can complain, but no one else had better try it. Besides, I’m going to need him.”

  “What for? To arrest folks like poor Ms. Ash?”

  Poor Ms. Ash? She’d never been described just that way before. She’d been poor Belle, the fat girl. And the poor little Ash gal—as in dirt poor and ignorant. But since she’d become Ms. Ash, no one had called her poor. She found she liked it no more when it was just a figure of speech than when it had been the truth.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “No harm done. In fact, experiencing an arrest has been very helpful.”

  “But you weren’t—”

  She glared at Klein, and he snapped his mouth shut. He didn’t need to blab that she hadn’t actually been arrested, merely incarcerated.

  “If Gabe says he needs his deputy—”

  “Gabe?” The mayor scowled at the sheriff, who shrugged.

  Belle resisted the urge to point out the mayor’s rudeness in interrupting her. Men like him did not appreciate being corrected, especially by a woman. Besides, it had felt funny to call Sheriff Klein “Gabe.” From the mayor’s reaction, no one else did. Maybe she’d just stick to calling him late for dinner.

  “I need Virgil,” Klein reiterated. “He knows the rules.”

  “Too well.”

  “Which will come in handy with the increase in population.” At Mayor Smith’s confused look, he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck as if it ached. “The more people in an area, the more the rules need to be enforced. What might be silly today won’t be tomorrow if a hundred people are doing it.”

  “Like littering,” Belle put in.

  Klein smiled at her, and Belle tried not to preen. She had a feeling Klein didn’t smile much. “Or jaywalking. If it’s just us folks, such arrests are silly. But if you’ve got fifty people throwing trash on the street and twenty walking against the light…” He lifted, then lowered one massive shoulder and spread his incredible hands.

  “You’ve got trouble,” Belle finished.

  “And how.”

  The mayor cleared his throat, and they glanced his way. He looked annoyed. Klein seemed to have that effect on him, and the feeling appeared to be mutual.

  “Fine. You’re not fired. And neither is Virgil. But try to refrain from arresting the bread-and-butter, would you? Tell your deputy the same.”

  The bread-and-butter? How flattering. At least he hadn’t called her the T and A. Although it wouldn’t be the first time, nor the last time, she would have to ignore it.

  “Ms. Ash.”

  The mayor took her hands again. He was really quite smooth at the maneuver. She’d bet her first month’s salary that Malachai Smith had pledged a fraternity and spent some time squiring Southern sorority sisters to cotillions. With that face and body, she’d bet her second month’s salary he’d often charmed those same girls out of their panties in the back of his overly large luxury vehicle. Men like the mayor always drove big cars. She’d discovered it was a compensation for other, smaller things.

  “Anything you need, you just call me.”

  He handed her a card with one hand while still holding on to one of hers with the other. Too smooth by far.

  “Anything, y’ hear?”

  I hear you loud and clear, Belle thought, and I won’t be calling you. Ever.

  She took the card and put it in the front pocket of her overalls, then patted the pocket with a smile and a wink. The mayor grinned and released her.

  “Back to work,” he said, and exited with a wave.

  Belle kept her smile fixed until the door closed behind him.

  “You do that well.”

  Her gaze flicked to Klein. He’d retreated to the chair behind his desk. He no longer smiled at her with approval; instead, his face was expressionless again. She was coming to understand that meant he disapproved. Since leaving home at seventeen, Belle had rarely been disapproved of. She ha
dn’t missed the feeling it gave her.

  “I do what well?” she asked, though she was pretty sure she didn’t want to know.

  “I’m sure you’ve had a lot of practice.”

  She crossed the short distance to the desk, put her palms on his blotter and leaned forward. “Practice at what?” she said in a deceptively quiet voice.

  “Getting your way by batting your eyelashes and flashing those teeth. Tell me, Isabelle, if that doesn’t work, do you always lean over and give us foolish men a view down the front of your shirt?”

  Pointedly he lowered his gaze. Belle followed his direction and discovered that her overalls and shirt were loose enough to flash half the town with a choice view of her unadorned, white cotton brassiere. Belle straightened as heat rose up her chest, spread across her neck and settled in her cheeks.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I’m sure you do it unconsciously.”

  “I do not!” Or did she? Belle wasn’t so certain anymore. And she wasn’t sure which was worse—consciously using her looks to get her way, or using them without even knowing she did it.

  What she didn’t like was being judged by a man who had no idea what she’d been through, or what she still had to go through before all was said and done.

  Belle lashed out. “If a man’s dumb enough to give me my way because I’m pretty, he deserves it.”

  “Maybe the man isn’t the one who’s dumb.”

  She stared at Klein. How could he know? Did everyone know? It wasn’t as if her education, or lack of it, was a secret. But so far the tabloids hadn’t shrieked that Isabelle Ash was a high school dropout.

  “Y-you think I’m dumb?”

  His eyes went shrewd, and Belle wanted to curse the neediness in her wavering voice. She lifted her chin, stared him straight in the eye. What did she care what some small-town sheriff thought of her?

  Except she did. Much, much more than she ought to, though she couldn’t say why.

  “On the contrary, I think you’re a lot smarter than anyone, including you yourself, gives you credit for. Who told you that you weren’t?”

  Your face is gonna get you out of here and save us all. There are hundreds of smart girls, but how many look like you do? Use what the good Lord gave you, Belle, and forget about school—

  “Isabelle—?”

  She blinked as Klein’s voice overrode that of her mama.

  “Why don’t you use your brain instead of your body? It’ll last longer.”

  He continued to judge when he had no idea what drove her. Even if she hadn’t used all the money she’d made to help her family, even if she’d saved it and gone to college, a doctor couldn’t earn near what she earned modeling. Pathetic but true. And the fact was, the fact had always been, she needed the money now, not ten years from now.

  “Why don’t you mind your own business,” she snapped.

  He shrugged, unfazed. “Just trying to help.”

  “Just trying to get me to quit and leave your precious town. But the contracts are signed. Both you and Pleasant Ridge are bought and paid for.”

  Anger flashed, turning his eyes from sky blue to midnight storm, but she was too mad to stop now.

  “We’d better try to get along, because for the next two weeks, you and I are going to be closer than honey on bread.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “PEACHY,” Klein muttered, as Isabelle Ash slammed the front door behind her.

  Two weeks in the company of that woman? He wouldn’t live that long. Or she wouldn’t.

  Beautiful girls rubbed him wrong. So why did this one call forth every protective instinct he had?

  Isabelle could take care of herself. She’d shown that already. It was no skin off his nose if she chose to manipulate with her face, her body, that voice—as long as she didn’t try it with him. He’d been manipulated that way before, and he would never let himself fall for such a lie again.

  Once, he had loved a pretty woman, and he had believed she loved him. He’d learned then, and never forgotten since, that beauty of the flesh rarely went any deeper, and that beauty of the soul was far too difficult to find.

  So why was he drawn to Isabelle? Why did he imagine he saw insecurity lurking in the depths of her cinnamon-brown eyes? Why did he hear vulnerability in that voice that shouted Yankee one moment, then whispered Mississippi the next?

  Because he was a fool. Isabelle needed no one, nothing. She already had it all.

  Klein had become a cop because helping people was what he did best. His father had taken flight long before Klein knew what a father was; as a result, he still didn’t know. His mother was a woman in need of a man—always. Pretty, flighty, not the brightest light, she could charm anyone with a wink and a smile, even her son.

  At fifty-five, Luanne Chalmer Klein Delaney Seaver Johnson Duffy Krakopolis could still tempt the pants off any man, and often did. Thankfully she was mid-husband these days and had no use for her son. If number six went the way of numbers one through five, Klein would find his mother on the doorstep within a day of the next funeral, disappearance or divorce. And he’d be unable to refuse her.

  Because as a child, the only time she’d loved him was between men. Klein had come to cherish when it was just the two of them, when she needed him and no one else.

  As a teen he’d even done his best to get rid of the husbands and the men friends. He smiled as he remembered a few of his pranks. He was lucky they’d been decent guys, or that he’d grown mighty big by the time he was thirteen; otherwise, his life could have turned out completely different.

  Older and wiser now, Klein knew his mother loved him as best she could and that it was silly to feel whole and important only when he was helping others. But knowing something intellectually and knowing it emotionally were two different things, and being able to change who you were at this late date was nigh onto impossible.

  He’d been a caretaker practically from the day of his birth, and he’d no doubt be one until the day he died. Duty, first to his mother and later to his country and those in need, had defined both his life and himself—

  His deputy chose that moment to slam into the police station. Virgil did everything at top speed, rarely thinking about the consequences, only concerned with what was wrong and how quickly he could make it right again.

  “Hello, Chief.”

  Virgil refused to call him Sheriff, Klein, Gabe or anything but Chief. Klein had given up correcting him.

  Why bang his head against that particular wall?

  “How’s the cow?” he inquired.

  “Hamburger.”

  “Thank you for that image. And the semi?”

  “Dented.” Virgil crossed the room and poured himself a cup of coffee.

  One thing the hyper old man didn’t need was coffee. But tell him that.

  “Lucky it wasn’t a car or we’d have more than a cow fatality. You don’t want to go head to head with a cow when you’re in a car.”

  “I know I wouldn’t.”

  “Now, a deer’s another matter entirely.” Virgil sipped long and hard from his foam cup. “Deer and a car—car wins.” He frowned. “Mostly.”

  Realizing that if he let this line of conversation continue, he’d get a lecture on roadkill that he really didn’t need, Klein changed the subject. “Is there anything you forgot to tell me when you went out on that call?”

  Virgil scrunched his face and thought. Then he crunched the coffee cup in one heavily veined hand. “4-25.”

  He started for the jail, but Klein waved him back. “Never mind.”

  The deputy’s shoulders sagged. “Again, Chief? If you’re just gonna release ’em all, why should I even fill out the paperwork?”

  “What paperwork?”

  The old man scowled harder. “No? I must have been too excited about—”

  “The suicide cow.” Klein smirked.

  “I don’t think she tried to get hit.” Virgil’s voice was deadpan. “Do you? Should I write it up as
a suicide?”

  All amusement fled. No one got his jokes in this town. Except—

  Klein stood. He needed another walk. “No. Just write the report the way you’d planned to, and forget about the 4-25. I took care of it.”

  “You always do,” Virgil grumbled.

  Klein ignored that. “Next time remember—arrest, charge, rights, paperwork. Okay?”

  “I always remember. Just sometimes I remember things later than others.”

  “And someday we’re gonna get sued for that.”

  “Everyone’s sue-happy these days. There oughta be a law.”

  “There is. It includes arrest, charge, rights and paperwork.”

  Klein stepped outside. The day was fine—sunshine, not a trace of rain. The sky was so blue his eyes hurt to look at it. But if the sky had gone dark with a storm, his eyes would hurt from the beauty of that, as well. Because when a storm rolled over the mountains, the trees and the grass became so intensely green as to be surreal, and when lightning split the midnight sky and thunder rocked the farmhouse he’d bought just outside town, Klein would stand on his wraparound porch and partake of the Tennessee hills.

  He might not be handsome, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate beauty and long for it. Perhaps he longed for beauty more because of the lack of beauty in himself, or the lack of beauty he’d discovered in the world at large. Klein had a soft spot for pretty things—bright colors and lights, fabric and flowers. His favorite pastime—heck, his only pastime—was redecorating his house. Lucky he was so big and scary. No one dared call him a sissy—to his face.

  He walked down Longstreet Avenue, which would be Main Street in most other small towns. He knew; he’d lived in enough of them. As a boy he’d been dragged from town to town on the whim of his mother’s man of the month. Then Klein had always been the biggest kid, the ugliest kid, forever the new kid.

  But he had high hopes for Pleasant Ridge. He could grow to love this place. He could belong here in a way he’d never belonged anywhere else.

  Each day he walked the streets, making his rounds on foot rather than in his car. During his years in law enforcement he’d discovered the personal touch worked better, no matter where you went. If he could say, Joey Farquardt, quit throwin’ stones at that garbage can or I’ll tell your mama, he got a far sight better response than if he had to say, Hey you, kid, knock that off.