Support Your Local Sheriff

by Melinda Curtis

  She’d been pushed too far. Doris narrowed her eyes and took a small step forward, leaning toward Nate over the four-foot counter. “You’re going down.”

  Nate cleared his throat. “Just to be clear, because threatening an officer of the law is classified as a criminal threat, are you speaking metaphorically or physically?”

  Doris drew back slowly, like a snake pulling back to strike. “Polish your résumé. You’re going to need it.” She stomped out the door, giving Flynn a wide berth on her way out.

  “Do women make a habit of threatening you?” Rutgar said in a subdued voice. “If so, I need to hang out here more often.”

  “Why?”

  “I like strong women and I might want to date one.” He blew out a breath. “Just not that one.”

  * * *

  JULIE WASN’T DREAMING of anything.

  The nothingness was blissful.

  And then there was a knock on the door. “Miss Smith.” Leona’s voice. She sounded like she was in the room.

  “Shhh.” Julie sat up groggily, squinting against the bright afternoon sunlight coming through the window. “The baby’s sleeping.”

  The baby wasn’t sleeping. Leona stood in the doorway holding Duke’s hand.

  When Duke saw Julie, he ran to the bed, extending his arms out to her. She lifted him into her lap.

  He hid his face against her good shoulder with a fearful, if guilty, “Juju.”

  Regardless of who was at fault, mama bear came out of hibernation with a scowl. “What happened?”

  If looks could kill, Julie might not have survived another bullet. “Your child was in my kitchen.”

  “Oh.” She’d slept through Duke leaving the room? Julie was the worst caregiver ever. Still, she managed to muster a weak retort. “That wouldn’t be a problem if there was a lock on the door.”

  “He was looking in my refrigerator.” From the horrified expression on Leona’s face, she might just as well have said he’d been looking under her skirt.

  “I’m sorry,” Julie said because the situation seemed to require it. Who knew Leona would be so proprietary about her fridge?

  “What if the boy ate something and was allergic? What if he climbed into the refrigerator and suffocated?” Leona’s agitation was palpable. Where normally she stood still, her hands shook and rolled and crested midair. “What if...” She left her question unanswered.

  “I bad,” Duke said miserably.

  Duke’s admission seemed to calm the older woman. Her sharp features resumed their normal position in disapproval. “Yes, you were.”

  “I sorry.” He buried his head in Julie’s good shoulder.

  “He won’t wander again.” How easily reassurances slipped through Julie’s lips. Duke was an explorer by nature. Just last week he’d used her kitchen cupboards as a jungle gym while she was in the shower.

  Given her raised eyebrows, Leona didn’t believe Julie either. She closed the door with a near-silent click.

  Julie fell back on the bed with Duke on top of her. “Not good, little man.”

  Duke scooted to the edge of the bed, turned on his stomach and slipped to the floor. “Want go, Juju.”

  “Okay. We’ll go see Nate.” And administer phase one of the Daddy Test.

  The Daddy Test. April had been adamant that Julie administer it, not their mother.

  “This is important,” April had said, eyes closed as she lay in bed looking nothing like the April who’d glowed on the morning of her wedding day. Where she’d once been optimistic, now there was a desperate air about her. “It has to be you. Face-to-face. Nate will be honest with you.”

  Julie doubted that. April’s questions were unorthodox and personal. Nate was the most impersonal man she knew.

  And yet, he’d surprised her with his treatment of Duke. He may not have embraced fatherhood, but he hadn’t rejected Duke outright. He was warm and kind to him, which wasn’t helpful when it came to keeping her hatred of him alive. Here in Harmony Valley, he was the quiet, sensitive Nate, the man she’d called friend at the academy.

  They’d tackled the obstacle course on the same day. With her shorter legs, Julie had been struggling to pass under the time limit.

  “You gonna do this thing?” Nate had looked down at her with that half smile of his and a challenge in his eyes.

  “You’d like to see me fail, wouldn’t you?” That was Julie’s MO. If she put everyone in the column against her, she didn’t let anyone get close enough to make her weak.

  “Nope. I’d like to see you beat me.” He gave her a tight grin. “Or at least go down trying.”

  The instructor had called them to the starting line.

  “Why would you want to see me succeed?” She crouched at the starting line, unable to hide her curiosity when she should have been clearing her head.

  “Because you can take what people here dish out, which means you’d take it on the streets, too. And give back in good measure.”

  She might not have believed Nate if she hadn’t looked beyond the contained challenging. There was warmth and respect in his gaze.

  It was her dad all over again. Someone was rooting for her. Someone had her back. Nate may have six inches on her and a wider stride, but she wasn’t facing the course as if she’d already failed. Nate had said she could give as good as she got. She had to prepare to attack the course the same way.

  Julie removed her sweatshirt and Duke’s. She brushed her hair, but it was a lost cause. She still looked as gaunt and washed-out as she had this morning, just minus the tangles. She didn’t look strong enough to handle a two-year-old. No wonder Nate had thought she had cancer.

  It was going to be hard to hate Nate when he acted supportive, like the Nate she’d entrusted with her sister. But just because Nate was perceptive and kind now, didn’t mean he wouldn’t betray a trust again.

  Forgive, April’s voice said.

  Julie didn’t want to hear it.

  “Petty you.” Duke stood at the door with his fingers opening and closing as if waiting for her hand to clasp his.

  She knew Duke meant it as a compliment, telling her she was pretty, but she felt more petty than pretty. And she’d felt that way since she’d woken up in the hospital. Mom had been there holding Julie’s cold hand, Duke asleep in her lap.

  “You could have died. You still look like you could.” A tear slid down Mom’s cheek. “The three of us. That’s all we’ve got left of this family.”

  Sobering thought, that.

  “SWAT, Julie?” Mom’s voice had cracked. “Does Duke mean so little to you that you’d choose SWAT? Do I mean so little to you?”

  She hadn’t told her mother that she’d been granted a transfer to SWAT. She’d applied for the assignment because it was another hurdle to push past. And when she’d tried to defend herself that day in the hospital room—her throat raw from the breathing tube they’d removed, and raw from the emotion of making her mother cry—Julie had been unable to defend her choice and her selfish, petty self.

  “You’re going to tell Nate about his son.” Mom had wiped her eyes with a crumpled tissue. “With our luck, I’ll drop dead from a heart attack, you’ll get hit by a bus and it’ll take months for them to link Duke to Nate.”

  Still unable to speak, Julie had shaken her head. She didn’t feel strong enough to face Nate.

  “It’s time,” her mother had said. “As soon as you recover.”

  The hospital had released Julie three days after the shooting. Not one to procrastinate once she’d made up her mind, she went home and packed a bag for Harmony Valley. She’d taken the custody papers April had had her draft months ago out of the fire safe and stared at them. She didn’t want to let Nate back into her life, but she knew he wasn’t the type of man to deal with a lawyer. He’d want to de
al with this kind of thing in person.

  She stopped the stroller outside the sheriff’s office, now, not quite ready to face Nate.

  The shades were drawn over the plate glass window as if it was a business closed for the day. Julie tried the door and was surprised to find it open.

  “Must be my day for visitors.” Nate sat at his desk, which was behind the counter separating the office from the jail cell. He’d shed the sleeveless jacket. His gaze was friendly. His attitude relaxed.

  Julie felt warm. Not uncomfortably warm as she had earlier when they’d been together, but cozy warm, welcome warm. Must be the fact that she stood in a jail.

  “Nay!” Duke burst out of the stroller the moment his belt was unbuckled, running for Nate.

  “Who is it this time?” a voice boomed from the cell, although the door stood wide open.

  “It’s Julie and my son, Duke.”

  Duke gasped, slowing down. “Who dat?” He stopped at the corner of the counter, pointing at the jail cell bars. “What dat?”

  “Bars.” Nate stood, looking strong and rested, every black hair in place. He walked to the cell bars and grabbed hold of one. “You can touch it.”

  Duke ran the last few feet to the bars, tentatively stretching out his hand without making contact. “Tree?”

  “No. It’s a bar.”

  Nate’s kindness for Julie’s most precious person touched her.

  Duke touched several black bars with one finger. “Bar. Bar. Bar.”

  “And that’s Rutgar.” Nate pointed to the large man on the cot. “He fell down and hurt himself.”

  “He fell down?” Julie leaned on the counter, trying to act casual. “Is that against the law in this town, too?”

  “Yep.” Nate’s gaze bounced briefly from Duke to her and back to Duke.

  In that moment when their eyes met—between one breath and the next—the feeling of welcome expanded in Julie’s chest to a feeling of belonging. Of belonging here. With Nate.

  She rejected the feeling, of course. She didn’t belong with Nate or to this town. But the feeling hung on, like a persistent taste lingering on her tongue.

  Duke shook the bars with both hands, and then tried to squeeze his body between them.

  Nate gently drew him back. “One thing you never want to do is break into prison.”

  “Because you’ll never get out,” Rutgar said. The man was large, both in length and in girth. He barely fit on the cot. He had one leg propped on a small red pillow and a red handkerchief draped over his eyes. His long gray-blond locks spilled over his shoulder and his gray-blond beard held up one end of the handkerchief. “Come here, boy. What was his name? Duke? As in Marmaduke? Strange name for a boy.”

  “He’s named after John Wayne,” Nate surprised Julie by saying. “His mother and I used to enjoy watching the Duke’s Western movies.” His voice grew as soft as his memory might have been, as tender as Julie’s memories of watching those same films with her father. “April appreciated an honorable man willing to give his life for what was right.”

  Julie’s throat strained to close. He’d left April. He shouldn’t have known why April had named her son Duke. He shouldn’t have talked about honor as if he had some.

  Duke went inside the cell. He patted Rutgar’s shoulder. “Hi.”

  “You’ve got some big britches to live up to,” Rutgar said, his voice as dry as a desert plain. “Wouldn’t catch the Duke stealing a girl’s lunch money.”

  “You might catch him stealing a kiss.” There was laughter in Nate’s dark brown eyes and a tease at the corner of his mouth. He returned to his chair behind the desk, leaving Duke with Rutgar. “How do you like Harmony Valley’s hub of law enforcement?”

  “It makes me want to nap.” Of course, breathing made her want to nap since she’d been shot. Julie glanced around, taking in the picture on the wall of their class at the academy, keys hanging on a hook to the right of the desk and an empty gun case on the back wall. “What? No weapons?”

  “Not anymore.” He patted his chest in different places. Only those who’d been in law enforcement would know he was telling her he didn’t carry concealed in any hidden shirt pockets. “I don’t need a gun in Harmony Valley to keep the peace. I’ve got my Taser in my glove box, but I’ve never used it.”

  Julie was envious of his ability to keep the bad guys at bay with nothing more than a bolt of electricity. She used to be so proud of her marksmanship. She used to feel comforted carrying a weapon.

  “I’m ready for your Daddy Test.” Nate indicated she sit in a boxy office chair across from him. His desk was tidy. A laptop, a blotter with scribbled notes in black ink, a phone charger, a small lamp and a small wooden bowl filled with smooth stones.

  She hadn’t expected her plan to veer this far off course—to her actually administering April’s Daddy Test. Her heart pounded.

  She grabbed her backpack, sat and pulled out April’s small notebook. She paused. The last time the notebook had been opened, April had done it.

  “Is there a problem?” Nate asked.

  “No.” She spread the notebook in her lap. “There are a few questions.”

  “This should be quick.” Nate sat back in his chair, confident yet wary. Everything the Academy taught them to be when interrogating subjects.

  She’d be doing the interrogation today. Anger worked its way beneath the thin layer of her composure. Anger that he’d put her in this position. Anger that she’d been unable to crack his veneer yet. She embraced the anger and let it bleed through her words. “I’d take your time. They’re more like essay questions.”

  He frowned. “This test was designed by April? I have to write a paper?”

  “Yes and no. She wrote them in the notebook as if you’d get a take-home test.” She flipped the page to the first section, suppressing a pang of grief at seeing April’s looping handwriting, those i’s she dotted with hearts. “Here’s the first question. A good father is honest. Honest about his feelings, about the world and about how to be a good man. My father knew that honesty was a double-edged sword. Give two examples of honesty in your life—one you experienced with your dad, and one you experienced with someone you loved.”

  Nate’s expression changed. Or not so much changed as perhaps hardened like the granite face of Parish Hill. “What?” His words dropped to a place filled with darkness and danger. “You’re grading me? On answers to questions like that?”

  “You don’t have to answer anything.” Her heart continued its pounding, but it felt more like an urgent, repetitive warning—Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!

  “You’re asking me about my past.” His jaw set in rejection mode. “Are you asking these questions for yourself or for April?”

  Julie was shocked to discover she wasn’t as sure as she should have been. Or was she feeling a gut response to the raw emotion in Nate’s voice? Whatever it was, she couldn’t weaken. “I’m asking for Duke. And for April. It was one of her last wishes.”

  “But April isn’t here to listen to my answers.” His tone was as hard as his expression.

  A wall seemed to go up between them. There would be no compromise, no Daddy Test, no lengthy stays in Harmony Valley.

  Julie’s heart pounded in a different gear—slower, more certain. He was going to veto the process. She was that much closer to having Duke all to herself. She’d choose someone from the force to be his guardian, just in case. “You don’t have to answer anything for either one of us.” Julie closed the notebook and tucked it into the backpack’s zippered pocket. She withdrew a sheaf of papers from another compartment. “We can stop this here. By you signing over custody of Duke to me.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WHEN NATE HAD served overseas, there’d been days when nothing went right. When the wind whipped dirt and grit, and hurled it in
his face. When bullets flew and rockets exploded and when the very air seemed to make him want to give in and walk away.

  April and Julie’s dad had believed the truth cut both ways. Nate felt sliced and diced.

  What happens in this family stays in this family.

  Nate stared at Julie, but he didn’t see her limp golden hair or her steely gray eyes. He saw his father, leaning over him, shaking a finger in his face. Mom crying softly in the corner. Molly in her arms. Dad’s knuckles red.

  Since Nate had turned around last night and seen Julie, his thoughts and emotions were in turmoil. Nothing felt right. Not his past. Not his present. Not his future.

  The goal of not rejecting Duke outright had been to help Julie gain perspective on the life she’d taken with a bullet, not dig up the skeletons that used to haunt Nate’s nights. What was to be gained by taking the Daddy Test when he didn’t plan on being a full-time dad? April was dead and Julie wouldn’t think better of him if he answered honestly.

  What happens in this family stays in this family.

  Nate stopped staring at Julie and searched his desk for a blue-ink pen.

  And then Duke laughed. More like a giggle. A melodious sound that said this was a safe place. This town. These four walls. Julie.

  His hand came up empty. “I don’t talk about my personal history.” Nate’s voice sounded gruffer than a trained dog with a prowler in his sights.

  “I know.” Julie’s expression turned smug. It was the face of the smug walking dead, but it was smug nonetheless.

  Her face might not have looked so stark if she’d worn a pastel shirt. She’d chosen a muted gray button-down. Its drab color matched her skin tone.

  He washed a hand over his face. “How many questions did you say are in this test?”

  “Eight sections. A couple of questions in each section.”

  “I’ll answer one section a day.” She wouldn’t give Harmony Valley a month, but she could spare eight days. And maybe that much would help her. It’d be torture for him. Even now, he wanted to put an arm around her, and tell her everything would be all right. Instead, he laced his fingers together and set his hands on his desk.