by Tina Leonard
“Hello, Sheriff,” they answered politely, not caring to be disturbed from their movie.
Cameron waved the sheriff into the kitchen to roost at the table with her and Harper. She put a teakettle on to boil. “This is a pleasant surprise, Sheriff.”
He grinned. “No one ever says that to the sheriff and means it.”
“Oh, goody. I assume that means deputies, too.”
“People will be happy to see you when you’re wearing the badge. Have you filled out the paperwork? I thought I might pick it up from you.”
She swallowed. “Not quite yet. I’m getting to it.”
He nodded. “There’s plenty of time. No need to make a rush decision if you’re not sure.”
“I’m thinking about doing my training in Houston,” she said quietly as Harper got out teacups and the sugar bowl, along with some napkins.
Steel perched comfortably on his stool. “It’s always nice to be near family,” he said jovially.
She relaxed a little over his apparent lack of disappointment. “I’m glad you suggested law enforcement. I really am.”
“You’re suited for it. Of course, it got me in a lot of trouble with my girl. She thinks I poached you.” He grinned. “It’s good for Judy to get her feathers ruffled on occasion. In fact, I’m preparing to ruffle her feathers some more.”
Harper set a big cup in front of Steel. “You are?”
“I’m going to pay her a call in Austin. I can’t live without my mayor any longer,” Steel said, taking a cookie when Cameron set a dish of Hattie’s homemade best in front of him. “Mmm, butterscotch chip cookies. Nothing like Hattie’s cookies.”
Cameron and Harper glanced at each other, worry plainly etched on both their faces. Harper raised a brow, and Cameron looked back at the sheriff, thinking fast. It was clear the big man had made up his mind; this was basically a social call to inform Judy’s team of his decision. He sat on the stool in his blue-checked western shirt, white buttons marching in orderly fashion down the front. He’d removed his gray hat and set it aside politely, showcasing a head of steely gray curls he kept fairly short to his scalp. Unlike Saint and Declan, who’d pretty much eschewed the barber after their SEAL days of tightly shorn scalps.
“Sheriff,” Cameron said slowly, “I’m not sure Judy wants company right now.”
He looked at her. “See, that’s the funny thing. I’ve developed a pretty good sixth sense as sheriff over the years, and that sense has been telling me that you two knew more about Judy than you were letting on.”
Great. He’d come here to ferret information, which he clearly knew they had; had, in fact, suspected all along. Judy was holding him off with small details and light chatter on the infrequent occasions that they spoke, and Steel had obviously come to the conclusion that he’d given her sufficient time for her retreat. Anyway, it was unfair that Steel had been suffering under the illusion that Judy had “gone off” him, when Cameron knew full well Judy loved her sheriff madly.
Judy just wanted to suffer alone, and she wanted whatever loss of beauty she might be experiencing to be kept from Steel. One because she loved him, and two because like any woman, Judy wanted her man to think she was beautiful. Judy was stubborn that way. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Steel to love her under any condition; Cameron thought it was probably more an old-school desire baked deep in the beauty queen to always be seen at her best, to keep herself attractive for her man, and to not be viewed in Hell as a mayor who might be falling apart in some form or fashion.
“Okay, ladies, give it up,” Steel said, his blue eyes deep and sincere. “Cameron, I’d sneak you out to Saint’s private lair if you wanted to talk to him. I deserve the same courtesy.”
Cameron hesitated. “Steel, we can’t talk about Judy. She’s our boss, and our friend. You know that.”
He nodded. “Very honorable and loyal of you. Go ahead and tell me.” He bit into his cookie. “You of all people know that my girl isn’t always guided by the best ideas.”
Cameron glanced at Harper. She thought she saw a little mistiness swimming in Harper’s eyes. Cameron was feeling it herself. It was hard to see the sheriff suffer, especially when she knew Judy was suffering too.
“Steel, we love you, you know we do,” Cameron said. “But Judy’s situation is private. We couldn’t tell you if you locked us in your jail without food or Hattie’s cookies.”
He shook his head. “So I’m going there with no information.”
“That’s what you’ll have to do, if you decide to.” Cameron glanced out at Anna and Michael, who were still totally engrossed in the Disney movie. She could hear the wonderful music of Frozen spiraling around the den and into the kitchen. “Tell me something, Steel. Would you really advise anyone to infringe on Saint’s private time?”
He pondered that for a moment. “She’s been gone over a month. Six Saturdays. Forty-three days. I won’t tell you how many hours.” His tanned face bore a stoic, yet somehow devastated, cast. “I have to know what’s going on. Why did she leave me?”
Harper flew to get a tissue, surreptitiously wiping at her eyes in the corner of the kitchen. Cameron sighed. “How about if I call and ask her when she might be coming back?”
“I’ve asked her. She says soon. That was two weeks ago,” he said, steeped in misery, which was a hard thing to see in the usually jovial, stouthearted sheriff.
Cameron fixed his tea the way she knew he liked it and set it before him. “I’m going to take Anna home tomorrow. When you talk to Judy again, tell her that things are changing pretty fast in Hell and that we need her back.”
He blinked. “That would bring her running back in a hurry. She’d hate the idea that her team is breaking up.”
“She shouldn’t be pressured,” Cameron said quickly. “That’s not my intent. Nor is it what I think you want.” She wasn’t about to pressure Saint, or herself for that matter, to try to figure out what they’d had between them, and if there was anything between them that hinted at more to come. “But if Judy needs a reason to fight, a reason to realize that Hell needs her, her team is probably the best excuse you could give her.”
He nodded. “Unless it was Ivy, which would bring her back in a heartbeat just to butt heads with her.”
“I don’t think you need an Ivy card. I think the actual truth is fine. If she can come home, she will. If she can’t yet, you may have to be patient a little while longer,” she said gently. “You’ve always known there was a lot of weather in loving Judy. And any relationship goes through patches where things change and require adjustments.”
“I know,” Steel said, “but I want to be with her through whatever she’s going through.” He looked at Harper, who’d finished drying her eyes in the corner. Then he met Cameron’s gaze again. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
Cameron swallowed. “I honestly don’t know that. All I know is what Ivy’s told us, and I don’t know that Ivy’s told us the truth.”
His brows lowered. “Are you saying that even you don’t actually know why Judy left and has been gone so long?”
“Only what Ivy’s told us.”
Steel jumped to his feet. “Ivy would say anything to hurt Judy. You have to look out the window if Ivy says it’s raining, because it’s likely a hundred degrees and sunny as hell!”
“Hang on, Steel,” Harper said. “We’re only telling you what we know. Which is that we don’t really know anything.”
He sighed, drawing himself inward. “You know, after all these years, I feel like Judy should have trusted me with whatever’s bothering her.”
“People are funny about some things,” Cameron said, slipping him another splash of tea. “And Judy’s got a lot on her mind.” She wondered if Steel knew that Ivy and Judy shared a great deal of property, even the Honky-tonk; surely there were records around somewhere that Steel might have seen in the courthouse. A sudden thought occurred to her. “Steel, as I recall, there was some kind of litigation between Judy and Ivy, with the result
being that Judy wasn’t to go to the Honky-tonk for a year.”
He shrugged. “The year was up a while back.”
“What was the fracas all about?”
“Oh.” He sipped his tea. “Ivy was threatening to tell something Judy didn’t want known, and Judy took a little bit of renegade vengeance into her own hands.”
“How?” Harper asked, settling onto a stool, her fascination getting the best of her.
“I don’t know what Ivy was going to reveal, but Judy sent a few busloads of Holy Rollers out there to preach the end times on the Honky-tonk property.” Steel laughed. “As you might imagine, folks who came out there to carouse were mighty startled to be hearing a lecture on how they were going to hell if they didn’t change their ways. Ivy couldn’t complain about her visitors, because it’s a public establishment, and besides, she’s too far out in the county for city ordinances to apply. It was the funniest thing. Wrecked the Honky-tonk’s business for some good time. That is not the kind of reputation Ivy’s been cultivating all these years.”
Cameron took that in. If Judy and Ivy co-owned the Honky-tonk, Judy’s message was basically that if Ivy revealed whatever Judy didn’t want known, Judy would destroy the business. At that point, the Honky-tonk would likely go bankrupt, and that would negate the terms of the sisters’ will, which stated that none of their joint property was ever to be sold. It would also ease the mayor’s fears that somebody might one day learn that she co-owned property on which an illegal and undesirable business was being run.
“But that wasn’t all,” Steel said, reminiscing as he set his cup back down. “You know that huge chandelier that hangs in the main room in front of the bar?”
Cameron nodded. She’d admired it several times. It was a stunning, many-branched chandelier from which crystal pendants hung like diamonds. “I do.”
“Judy went into the Honky-tonk, armed with black spray paint and a ladder, before anyone could stop her. My girl stands six feet in her boots, sometimes taller—depending on the heel, you know,” he said proudly. “It’s kind of hard to stop her when she’s in forward motion.”
Harper glanced at Cameron, no doubt thinking the same thought. “Did she spray it?”
“No, but Ivy got the message. Whatever was being negotiated between the two ladies was renegotiated in a hurry. Ivy was silenced, in return for Judy agreeing to stay away from the Honky-tonk for a year.”
No wonder Ivy had been so quick to spill Judy’s newest information, if it was true. Ivy finally had golden payback that would make people wonder if Judy was physically fit to be mayor at the next election. And Ivy had known full well that Judy wouldn’t want Steel to know about her health, any more than she wanted it known that she and Ivy were cousins. “How far do the records in the courthouse go back, Steel?”
“Well, at one time they went back pretty far.” Steel shrugged. “Unfortunately, this was in the days before computerized records, and our original courthouse burned in”—he wrinkled his brow—“1952.”
“The year you were born,” Cameron said, and he nodded.
“Yes. Cotton Carmichael and Jimmy Merrill did a fine job of running down paperwork and talking to the old-timers, most of whom have since passed to the next life. However, as you might expect, most of those records have been lost to time.”
Including any records that might have linked the two sisters who’d owned the lands and buildings. But Judy had come to town just fifteen years ago—changing it forever, according to anyone you talked to. She was always focused on building it up, making it better, which riled Ivy no end, as she liked the man-friendly focus of Hell. “Obviously, Ivy’s mother was from here.”
“Yes, and strangely, so was Judy’s. But she went away in 1953 and met a man she fell in love with, though never married. Judy was born in 1973, in Nashville.”
“Nashville!” Harper exclaimed.
He nodded. “I think that’s where the Dolly Parton look-alike thing comes from.”
“So why did Judy come back here?” Cameron asked.
He grinned. “That was a fine day. I remember it well, when she rolled into town in her brand-spanking-new silver Lincoln.”
“That doesn’t sound like Judy,” Harper observed.
“Naw. She sold that right away once she realized she was home to stay. Bought her first big-ass truck, as she likes to say, and has owned two more since.”
“Where did she get the Lincoln?” Cameron asked.
“I assumed from her country-star daddy.” Steel angled for one more cookie, his paw closing over it with impish deviltry. “She’s never told me who her daddy is, so don’t ask. I only know her mother never married.”
Did Steel know Judy and Ivy were cousins? Cameron couldn’t ask, and he wouldn’t say even if he did know. The fact that she and Harper had happened upon those papers indicating the relationship was an accident they could never reveal, if for no other reason than that it would be an admission they’d been snooping.
“Judy’s the only person Eli Larson ever really related to,” Steel said slowly. “He just hasn’t been right since she’s been gone. Mind you, he’s never right, not really. The Vietnam War really goofed up his head.” Steel looked sad. “But he adores Judy. Will do anything she wants him to. It’s been tough trying to explain to him that Judy’s away visiting family. He just keeps searching for her.” The sheriff sighed heavily. “So I can tell you don’t think it’s a good idea for me to pay a call on my girl.”
“Ask her, Steel,” Cameron said urgently. “Just ask her. Maybe she’ll say yes. Then you don’t run the risk of showing up and embarrassing her.”
“ ‘Embarrassing her’?” He crooked a brow at her, and Cameron drew in a sharp breath. “How in the world could I embarrass her?”
“Because women are always embarrassed when someone catches them in their rollers or without makeup or something,” Harper said smoothly. Cameron sent her a grateful glance.
“I’ve seen Judy in her rollers,” Steel said, and they both gazed at him quizzically.
“Okay, once I went over to her house because I thought I saw a burglar. I saw her in her rollers then,” he said reluctantly. “But it was just Eli looking for her. To be honest, she really doesn’t let me see her without the full rigmarole. Says her mother taught her that a lady is never without her makeup and ready to greet the day. One never knows who might call on her,” he said, clearly repeating Judy’s words.
“So there’s your answer,” Harper said. “Just ask her if you can come out to see her.”
“I guess I will, now that I know she hasn’t left Hell because of me.” He looked at Cameron narrowly. “I do know you’re not telling all you know.”
“I only know what Ivy’s told us, and I wouldn’t repeat that if you jailed me because I don’t know if it’s true,” Cameron said honestly, though it seemed to her that the news was too awful and scary for even Ivy to have made up.
“In the meantime, before you leave for Houston, how about if I take you to say goodbye to Saint?” Steel asked.
“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Cameron said. “Didn’t we just discuss not surprising people?”
He nodded. “I think it’ll be a bigger surprise if Saint comes back and finds you didn’t say goodbye.”
It didn’t matter. She wasn’t coming back. And they didn’t have some great love like the sheriff and the mayor did.
“Go, Cameron,” Harper said. “There’s no harm in saying goodbye to a friend. I’ll watch Anna.”
Anna came into the kitchen. “ ‘Watch Anna’? Anna’s watching Michael. And we’re watching Disney movies.” She grinned, looking like a happy teen again, which Cameron was glad to see. “In fact, we’re just in here to grab snacks, and then we’re putting The Little Mermaid on. Michael says he’s never seen that one.”
Harper glanced at Cameron. “So go. Apparently in Hell it’s important to say thank you and goodbye.”
“All right.” She looked at the sheriff. “I’
ll do it.”
“Good.” He rose. “How are you at using a paddleboard?”
Chapter 18
Saint heard the faint footsteps long before they reached his hammock. He heard the caution, and the wary footfall of one who isn’t sure of their surroundings. Lucky stirred, let out an excited flurry of barks before bounding off. Saint remained in his hammock, his hat over his face to keep out the fading sun dappling through the pines to which he’d attached his hammock.
So much for peace and quiet.
And yet, he admitted he wasn’t unhappy to have this visitor, because his hearing was trained to pick up on nuances, and he’d known immediately who was paying him this unexpected call.
She, on the other hand, wasn’t at all certain of how she’d be welcomed.
“What brings you to my island, Cameron?” he asked without removing his hat.
She got in the hammock beside him, a squirming Lucky delighted to be included in this communion of his two favorite humans. Saint heard her kick off her sandals, which landed with soft thuds on the needle-and-dirt floor below. “The excellent company you provide,” she said.
He grunted. No doubt sarcasm, if he knew his redhead at all, which he did.
“How’d you know where to find me?”
“Because Steel has a soft heart, and a bit of the meddling soul of the love of his life, our mayor.”
She leaned back companionably beside him, pulled Lucky up on her stomach. Lucky flopped his tail wildly, slashing the air with delight. Saint grunted again, not entirely displeased with this interruption of his sabbatical. “Why’d he send you?”
“Because smoke signals just don’t communicate the same thing,” Cameron said. “What is this, the happy exile for ornery cowboys?”
“Maybe.” He shoved his hat back, turned to look at her because he could no longer resist it. Her brandywine hair wasn’t tied back, as he thought it might be for a trip into the wilderness on a hot day. Instead, it rambled about her face in its usual explosion of curls. The funny thing about Cameron’s hair was that it looked like it might smell like cinnamon, but instead it smelled like strawberries, a delicious scent that had enveloped him the moment she lay down next to him, punching him in the gut with sweet memories. He girded himself against them and checked out the white-eyelet sleeveless blouse. Freckles danced in a delicate V between her breasts, hinting at sexy delights if one could get past the white-eyelet protection her blouse provided. The blouse tied at her waist, begging to be undone, the buttons calling out to be tugged open so that he could shower kisses on a flat belly with which he was very familiar, but not as much as he wished to be. Jean shorts, short and sweet, adorned legs that went on for miles, each leg blessed with a slight smattering of those freckles he found so enticing.