Who's the Boss

by Linda Turner

  Trapped in his gaze, she wanted to believe it was a' trick. He'd been elected sheriff time and time again, usually in uncontested races. He obviously knew what to say to win votes and keep his constituents happy.

  The thought should have stiffened her backbone and rekindled her anger—and on the surface, it did. But deep inside a dark, hidden corner of her heart, she couldn't help but wonder if he was what he appeared to be—an honest, candid man who could step out from behind his ego and publicly admit he'd made a mistake.

  Rattled by the thought, confused by the ambivalent emotions he stirred in her so easily, she studied him unblinkingly.

  "I don't mean to be cynical, Sheriff, but I find that a little hard to believe. Oh, I know you didn't intend to offend anyone," she added quickly when he started to scowl.

  "But I still think you meant exactly what you said. You don't think a woman can handle your job."

  Unable to sit still, she jumped up, only to have the rocker swing forward and sharply strike the backs of her knees.

  The blow seemed to jar her thinking. Suddenly she remembered something her grandmother had said to her long ago. I don't have much to leave you, sweetheart. Just the house and these old antiques that my mother handed down to me.

  Blinking as if coming out of a fog, Becca looked around at the well-preserved furniture that had been a part of her grandmother's house for as long as she could remember. She'd never thought of selling the antiques. Had never given them a second thought, in fact.

  Steadying the rocker, she felt the smoothness of the beautiful cherry wood under her fingertips, noting the graceful sturdiness that had withstood over a century of use. Becca didn't have a clue as to its value, but surely it had to be worth at least as much as a new one. And then there was the walnut breakfront, the pine library table, the Victorian hall tree with its delicate carvings and brass fixtures. And that was just in the living room. The rest of the house was full of pieces that were just as old, just as beautiful, just as valuable.

  But could she sell them? Could she part with the things that her grandmother had dearly loved? That was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. And the answer was so simple it hurt. How could she not, if it meant saving the house?

  The decision made, she pushed away the painful rag that accompanied it and got down to the business of planning the sale. The next two weekends would he filled with activities for the election, but the weekend after that was free. That would give her plenty of time to get everything ready and put an ad in the paper.

  After that, all she could do was sit back and hope that people would show up with their checkbooks. If she was lucky, she'd make enough to appease the tax office for a while and, as Mrs. Franklin at the bank had suggested, buy herself some time.

  Then all she had to do was beat Riley Whittaker. After her confrontation with him at the diner, that didn't seem nearly as impossible as it had yesterday. Buoyed by the thought, she slowly made her way from room to room, making a list of the pieces she planned to sell and what she thought each one would bring.

  By the time she finished and retired to the kitchen, the list was two pages long, back and front, and included just about every functional piece of furniture in the house. If she somehow managed to sell them all, the house would be stripped to the bare bones.

  She was frowning down at the list, trying to decide if she and Chloe had to part with everything, when there was a knock at the back door.

  "Oh, there you are, dear," Clara said, rushing into the kitchen like a small whirlwind, smelling softly of perfume and powder. As usual, every hair was in place, her makeup carefully applied, her glasses hanging forgotten from a chain around her neck. Today her cheeks were flushed like a young girl's, and she was fairly dancing with excitement.

  "I hope I'm not intruding—I know it's your day off and you have a lot to do—but I just heard the most amazing thing and had to come over and see if it was true. I just got a call from Tallulah Gardner, who heard it straight from Elizabeth Carlisle that you gave Riley Whitaker what for at the City Diner. Did you really challenge him to some type of competition?"

  Becca nodded, her smile rueful.

  "That pretty much sums it up."

  "Well, darn!" the woman grumbled, pulling out a chair across the table from her.

  "And I missed it!"

  Not surprised by her disappointment, Beeca laughed. As far as Clara was concerned, gossip made the world go round, and she made no apologies for it.

  "If I hadn't been so mad, I probably wouldn't have done it, but I'm glad I did," she confided, after giving her the details of her encounter with Riley.

  "I've got to win the election, Clara."

  Reaching across the table to pat her hand, the older woman gave her an encouraging smile.

  "I think you'll make a wonderful sheriff, dear. And so do Margaret and Lucille. You have our vote, if that will help.'

  Affection squeezed Becca's heart, bringing the sting of tears to her eyes.

  "The three of you have been such a big help to Chloe and me since Gran died."

  Suddenly needing someone to talk to, Becca knew she didn't have to worry about Clara talking out of turn to other. She might love to gossip, but she also knew when to keep her mouth shut. Reaching for her purse, Beeca pulled out the letter from the tax assessor's office and slid it across the table.

  "I don't mean I just want to win," 'she said quietly.

  "I have to."

  With a frown wrinkling the parchment skin of her forehead, Clara fumbled for her glasses and pushed them onto her nose. The minute her eyes focused on the letter, she gasped.

  "Oh my!"

  The ticking of the old register clock in the living room was the only sound in the house as Clara read the entire letter, then carefully folded it and slipped it into the envelope.

  When she looked up, her usually dancing blue eyes were dark with concern. She didn't have to ask if Becca had the money—she knew she didn't.

  "Maybe the bank will loan" — Already shaking her head, Becca told her about her meeting with Mrs. Franklin.

  "She wasn't totally negative.

  If I can somehow manage to win the election, she was sure she could get the loan approved. But that'll be too little too late if I can't scrape together enough cash to get the tax office off my back for a while. So I'm going to sell Gran's antiques. "

  She dropped the announcement like a bomb and didn't have to' wait long for the explosion.

  "Oh, Becca, no!

  Surely there must be another way."

  "If there is, I haven't been able to come up with one."

  "But your grandmother was so proud of her antiques and the fact that she was able to leave them to you. It would break her heart if she knew you had to sell them."

  "I know," Beeca said, sighing heavily.

  "I don't want to do it, either, but I don't have much choice. I'll lose the house for sure if I don't."

  "But what if you don't make enough?"

  That was something she didn't even want to think about.

  "I will," she said confidently.

  "Otherwise, the whole sale would be for nothing, and I refuse to accept that."

  "We won't let that happen," Clara assured her.

  "I'll talk to Margaret and Lucille. Between the three of us, we're bound to come up with some things we can contribute to help."

  The offer was so like Clara—spontaneous, generous— that Becca again found herself blinking back tears.

  "I appreciate the offer, but you know I can't let you do that. "

  "I don't know why not," the woman retorted, letting her breath out in a huff.

  "We should be able to help you if we want to."

  "But your things mean as much to you as Gran's did to her. You haven't kept them all these years just to sell them to help me."

  "You've helped us often enough," the older lady reminded her.

  "Now it's our time to return the favor."

  "Taking you to the doctor or ru
nning errands doesn't compare to sacrificing something you love," Becca pointed out. Squeezing her old friend's hand, she shook her head.

  "There are some things you just can't let anyone help you with. This is one of them."

  Chapter 4

  Given his druthers, Riley would have rather eaten dirt than give a speech of any kind.

  As far as he was concerned, speeches were for slick-haired politicians who were full of hot air, men who liked to hear themselves make fantastic promises that they never intended to keep.

  He'd never had much of a stomach for those kind of shenanigans.

  But unfortunately, he didn't have the luxury of avoiding he spotlight.

  Not in an election year.

  And especially not after Becca Prescott had publicly challenged him two days ago.

  People had been talking of nothing else since.

  So he was stuck. Every election year, the county sponsored Civic Awareness Day at the rodeo grounds, and all candidates running for office were invited to give speeches. Nine times out of ten, the organizers were lucky if a hundred people showed up, which was one reason Riley was able to get by with just a few words about his dedication to keeping the peace in Hidalgo County.

  But not this year, he thought grimly as he turned into the rodeo grounds and saw the cars that already filled the parking' lot, half the town had to be there, and it was still a full thirty minutes until the speeches started. And he didn't even know what he wanted to say.

  Hell. Finding a parking space in the area reserved for candidates, he saw Becca's Jeep parked farther down the line. So she was here. He'd known she would be, of course.

  Every candidate running, from school-board member to mayor had been invited to talk to the voters, and only a fool would have turned down the invitation. Whatever else Beam Prescott was, she was nobody's fool.

  "Hey, Sheriff, hang in there. We're rooting for you."

  "You'll beat that Prescott woman with one hand tied behind your back.

  Like you said, she just ain't got what it takes."

  As he strode toward the bleachers, comments flew at him from all sides, words of encouragement from men he hardly knew. After two days of such support, it still amazed him that the whole county seemed to have taken an interest in the sheriff's race. From the calls he'd gotten, husbands had taken sides against wives, sweethearts against lovers, with each heatedly arguing the merits of their chosen candidates. It was crazy.

  Shouldering his way through the crowd milling around the entrance to the stands, he knew the exact minute people realized that both he and Becca were there.

  Anticipation seemed to hum in the air like static electricity before a storm, and then the whispers started. Without warning, the crowd parted, and suddenly, there she was.

  Her daughter was with her, along with her three elderly neighbors who were fussing over her like mother hens: But the only one Riley saw was Becca. She looked, to put it quite simply, downright elegant. She was dressed conservatively in an unpretentious black knit dress, pearls, dark stockings and heels, with not so much as a smidgen of bare skin showing from her neck to her toes.

  But there was something about that dress, Riley decided, that should have been outlawed. With a will of their own, his eyes took a leisurely tour of her curves, lifting to her hair and the intricate braid she'd confined it in, and he found himself comparing the woman before him to the furious female who had taken him to task at the diner the other day, her green eyes pitching darts at him and her reddish brown curls flying. Both, he discovered to his annoyance, had the power to entrance him. And he didn't like it. He didn't like it at all.

  Nodding shortly to her, he touched a finger to the front of his Stetson in an abbreviated salute. All eyes were on them, including Sydney’s, he noted, spying the reporter in the crowd.

  But he had no intention of giving the gossips anything more to babble over.

  "Mrs. Prescott," he said tersely.

  "Glad to see you made it."

  Her smile was as cool and distant as his.

  "Oh, I wouldn't have missed it. It's not every day you get to make a speech in front of the whole town."

  "I don't know about that," a male voice grumbled from the packed crowd in the nearby stands.

  "If you ask me, she seems to just step up on that soapbox of hers wherever the mood strikes her. A hardworking man can't even enjoy a decent meal without her railing at him."

  "Well, nobody asked you, Cyrus Bentwood," Lucille retorted bluntly, recognizing the voice of the town's biggest grocer.

  "So reserve your comments for the peanut gallery. The rest of us aren't interested."

  The women in the crowd tittered, drawing more than a few hostile looks from their husbands and boyfriends.

  Fighting a grin, Riley made a concentrated effort to keep a straight face and thought he had the battle won. Then he made the mistake of glancing at Beeca.

  Hastily biting her lip, she didn't smile, but she might as well have.

  Her dimples deepening with ill-concealed amusement, she made a strangled sound that could have been a quickly stifled giggle, and her green eyes all but danced as they met his.

  Suddenly just breathing was difficult.

  Intimacy. Between one heartbeat and the next, it was there in the shared laughter that silently passed between them. Transfixed, Riley felt a fist close around his heart even as he told himself this was nuts. Attraction was one thing, but intimacy was a whole new kettle of fish. It implied a closeness, a shared understanding—dammit—that he wanted no part of.

  Walk away. The temptation pulled at him, but even as he considered it, he knew it was too late. Trapped in the warmth of her eyes, he wanted to kiss her. Right there in front of half the town. And he wasn't talking about any simple peck on the cheek, either. No, by God, when he got the lady in his arms, he was going to lay a kiss on her that would knock them both out of their socks.

  When he kissed her, not if.

  Not liking the direction of his thoughts, he scowled, motioning for her and her party to precede him into the arena.

  "We'd better find our seats. Everyone's supposed to be in their places before the speeches start."

  The sudden coolness in his eyes hit Becca like a splash of ice water.

  Unaccountably hurt, she reached blindly for her daughter's hand.

  "Then we'd better get moving. Come on, Chloe.

  You're going to sit down front with the grannies in the section reserved for family.

  "She swept past him without another word, her jutting chin leading the way, and found a seat for Chloe, then made her way to the stage that had been erected in-the middle of the rodeo arena. The organizers, the local branch of the League of Women Voters, had outdone themselves with the decorating in a frenzy of democratic fervor, they'd strung red-white-and-blue bunting everywhere and even hired a band to play patriotic music to liven things up. The crowd, buzzing with excitement, clapped enthusiastically, waiting for the speeches to begin.

  Feeling like she'd stumbled into a Fourth of July celebration by mistake, Beeca took her designated seat at the far end of the front row and told herself she wasn't going to let Riley get to her. Insufferable man. For a second there, when she'd seen the laughter glinting in his eyes, she'd actually found herself—God help her—liking him.

  She must have been out of her mind.

  Trying not to fidget as her nerves slowly began to hum she couldn't, unfortunately, stop her eyes from eating to where Riley sat three chairs down from her. Things would have been so much easier if he'd been a Barney life type, she thought, piqued. But with his height and sinewy strength, no one would ever mistake Riley for the nervous, jittery Mayheny character who couldn't even be trusted with more than one bullet for his gun. Rugged as native stone, his tanned skin stretched tight across his chiselled cheekbones as if he'd been baked in the New Mexican heat, Riley Whitaker was tough and hard and weathered.

  Confidence rolled off him in waves.

  Her thro
at as dry as the dust stirring on the dirt floor of the rodeo arena, Beeca tried' to elicit to her irritation with him, but she found it impossible as the emcee for the evening began to introduce him. To maintain impartiality, only the basics of each candidate's background were given, but given Riley's former employment with the DEA and his nine-year tenure as sheriff, the basics were impressive. You never would have known it, however, from Riley's face. He didn't bat an eye.

  Then it was his turn to speak. After his slam against her in his interview with Sydney, Becca half expected another attack on what he perceived as her shortcomings. But she braced herself for an assault that never came. Taking his place at the podium, he didn't even mention his opponent for most of his speech.

  He had no notes and, in fact, didn't even seem to have a speech prepared. Instead, he talked to the people in the stands like they were old friends, practically family, immediately making the outdoor setting seem more intimate.

  As if he had all the time in the world instead of the ten minutes each speaker was allowed, he told the crowd how he had moved to Lordsburg seeking peace, and he had found it. As sheriff, he'd made it his personal goal to see that the low crime rate they all enjoyed stayed that way. He thought he'd done pretty well, but he gruffly admitted that there was still room for improvement. Fascinated, Becca couldn't take her eyes from him.

  With words alone, he wove a spell around everyone there, herself included. She could have listened to him for hours.

  Then he brought up her name.

  "As you all know, the sheriff's race isn't uncontested this year. My opponent, Becca Prescott, is hoping to convince a large majority of you to vote for her." Sparing a glance at her, he turned back to his audience with a boyish grin.

  "Now, I know what some of you ladies are thinking—that I ought to be shot for what I said about her in the paper and that you can't wait for her to teach me a thing or two."

  "Shooting's too good for you.," Denise Allan, the high school librarian, surprised everyone by grumbling from the second row of the stands. A mild-mannered woman who normally appeared to be afraid of her own shadow, she glared at Riley in flustered annoyance.