Just West of Heaven

by Maureen Child

“’Accuse’ is a harsh word,” he said, pulling his hands free of his pockets only to fold his arms across his chest.

  “But fair,” she snapped, watching his features tighten. Maybe a part of her couldn’t blame him for the things he’d said the night before. After all, it wasn’t every day a strange child stepped up to you and called you “daddy.” But then again, should a sheriff, of all people, be so willing to jump to conclusions?

  As if reading her mind, he said quietly, “About last night… maybe I was a little quick to—”

  “Accuse?” she provided.

  “Suggest,” he corrected.

  Sophie snorted at the term.

  “All right,” he said, holding both hands up in mock surrender. “I’m, uh…”

  “Sorry?”

  He frowned and changed course. “Let’s just say I wish I hadn’t been so quick on the trigger.”

  Not much of an apology, she told herself. But still, it was better than nothing, she supposed. And it would be pointless to rehash last night’s entire argument. Besides, she had other things to think about now. Drawing in a deep breath, she called up every ounce of patience she possessed and said calmly, “Apology accepted.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, apparently thought better of it and slammed his mouth shut again. She smiled to herself. It’s a wise man who knows when he’s beaten. “Sheriff Hawkins.”

  “Ridge,” he corrected, staring into her eyes with a kind of heated stare she’d never seen directed at herself before. The kind a man might give to a woman he was interested in.

  But that was ridiculous. The only interest he had in her was in his professional capacity. And that thought was enough to give her cold chills. And no matter how he might affect her, she had no business even contemplating a relationship with this man. For heaven’s sake, he was the one person who had the power to lock her up and take Jenna away from her.

  “Sheriff Hawkins,” she said again, more firmly this time, letting him know in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t interested in his interest. At least she had the satisfaction of seeing his full lips thin into a grim line of frustration. “I’d rather not redress last night’s... conversation.”

  “If that means you don’t want to argue anymore, I’m glad to hear it,” he said and gave her a slight smile that produced a small dimple in his left cheek.

  A fluttering sensation rippled through her and, caught off guard, she swallowed hard and tried to explain it. When she couldn’t, Sophie put it down to not having had any breakfast this morning. She’d been in such a hurry to examine her school and get ready for classes.

  Classes. There wouldn’t be any classes held here until she could be sure the building wouldn’t fall down on her students. And no classes meant no teaching, and no teaching meant no pay. A dark hole opened up inside her as she briefly considered the small stash of money she had to live on until she was paid.

  Oh, she’d better inquire about the financial situation right away. Hattie, she thought. Hattie would know.

  But first, she was going into that death trap to see everything there was to see. If she was going to fix it, she needed to know exactly how much fixing was going to be required.

  The fluttering disappeared, to be replaced by a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  She looked the schoolhouse over again as she mentally prepared a list of supplies. Thinking out loud, she murmured, “A little elbow grease, a broom, paint... lumber.”

  “So,” the man beside her said suddenly, “where do we start?”

  We? She looked up at him and saw that he was serious. He meant to stay and work with her on this place. Though she was tempted by his offer of help, Sophie couldn’t afford to become any more closely acquainted with the town sheriff. Despite that dimple in his cheek and the gleam in his eye when he looked at her, he wore a badge pinned to his chest. A badge that put her at odds with him. How infuriating, that she, a woman who’d done nothing wrong, would find herself in the position of having to go into hiding.

  Charles should have been the one forced to give up the familiar, the comfortable. He should have had to change his name and look over his shoulder. But, she thought with an inward sigh, what should have been was a far cry from what was. And the simple truth was, Sophie Dolan—Ryan—was a woman on the run from a law that would hand an innocent child over to a man who sought only to use her.

  And the man standing in front of her now was a representative of the very law she was trying to avoid. She needed to keep a polite distance between them­-which shouldn’t be difficult. After all, hadn’t she been told time and time again that her razor-sharp tongue sent every man for miles around into a dead run?

  So, all she had to do to be rid of the man was to be herself. Simple enough. And no time like the present to start.

  She looked directly at him so there would be no mistake when she said, “I start by inspecting my school. You start by leaving.”

  He blinked, and in that second she called out to the little girl drawing pictures in the dirt. “Jenna, do not move from that spot. I’ll be right inside.”

  “But I wanna see,” the child said.

  “No, honey,” she answered, “it’s not safe.”

  “Damn right,” Ridge said and reached out to grab the darn woman before she could take a single step. “Don’t you be foolish about this,” he told her. “Just a minute or two ago, you looked like you were gonna faint.”

  Her eyes went wide. “I do not faint,” she assured him.

  “Whatever you say, Red,” he said with a sharp nod. “But either way, you’re not goin’ in there.”

  “Let go of my arm,” she told him and gave him a look that would have sent a lesser man running for cover.

  “Not likely,” Ridge told her with a shake of his head. What was it about this female, anyway? One minute she was flaying him alive and the next, she was dismissing him as if he didn’t exist.

  Now, standing there in her fine dress and ridiculous hat, she tells him she’s planning a stroll into a building that looked as if it were about to fall down. All right, so it was a shameful thing to admit. The town had let their schoolhouse fall to hell, but he’d be damned if he’d let the schoolteacher fall along with it. He’d keep her out of that place if he had to lock her up to do it.

  And judging by the stubborn look in her eyes, he just might have to. “What kind of a man would I be if I let a woman go into that building?”

  She stared up at him, and just for a moment Ridge was almost positive he actually saw sparks flash in her eyes.

  “If you let me, did you say?” she asked in that quiet, purely female tone that every man recognized as dangerous.

  Sophie Ryan was turning into a real piece of work. Hell, he hadn’t had to work this hard just to talk to a woman in years. She was more prickly than ten porcupines sittin’ in a cactus and damned if he wasn’t enjoying it. He kind of liked never knowing which way Sophie’s wind would blow. And the fact that her red hair shone in the sun and the wash of freckles across her nose looked like gold dust in a pail of cream was just a bonus. Females like this one were few and far between and she could get as snippy as she damn well pleased, he told himself. No way in hell was he going to stand here and watch her get crushed by a falling-down schoolhouse.

  “Red,” he said, “you aren’t going in there until it’s safe.”

  She straightened up to her full height, which put her frown just below kiss level, narrowed her gaze, and said flatly, “Sheriff Hawkins.”

  “Ridge,” he said, more to irritate her than anything else. Damned if he didn’t enjoy watching those green eyes narrow into battle slits.

  She skimmed right past it. “I am a grown woman.”

  “Amen to that,” he said, letting his gaze slide over her, noting her rounded hips, the lush curve of her breasts, her narrow waist

  Her frown deepen
ed. “I make my own decisions.”

  “I can see that.”

  “And no one lets me do anything.”

  “That’s just what I said, Sophie,” Ridge told her, bending down so that their locked gazes were only inches apart. “I’m not letting you into that schoolhouse, so get used to it.”

  The toe of her shoe tapped against the dirt in a brisk, no-nonsense rhythm. A chill wind swept in off the desert, tugging at the full skirt of her dress and loosening a few stray curls to dance about the sides of her face. Impatiently, she pushed them back behind her ears.

  “Don’t you have work to do somewhere?” she asked.

  “Nothin’ that can’t wait.”

  “I can wait too, Sheriff.”

  And she would too, he told himself with an inward smile. She was just stubborn enough to plant herself right here and wait until he’d left before going into that blasted school. Why in the hell hadn’t they fixed that place up? How had they expected her to teach classes in a room that most folks wouldn’t consider a fit stable?

  “Sophie,” he warned, “don’t you push me into doing something I don’t want to do.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as,” he said, pushing his face even closer to hers, “plopping you into a jail cell and closing the door on you.”

  Just hearing him threaten the thing she feared most was enough to dry up her mouth and send her heart into a quick-step beat that pumped her blood through her veins at a ridiculous rate. Fear, pure and simple, washed over her and Sophie had to fight to keep her voice even. Calm.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “You just try me,” he said with a slow smile.

  A battle of wills simmered in the air between them. Green eyes locked with blue, neither of them blinking, neither of them willing to give an inch. They might have stayed like that for hours if a sudden crash and a small, terrified yelp hadn’t broken the spell.

  Sophie turned to the spot where Jenna had been only a moment or two ago. The child was gone. “Oh, my God,” she said slowly, quietly, as she swiveled to look at the school. “Jenna?”

  Ridge was already moving. He shouted, “Stay there!” over his shoulder as he raced for the building and the little girl inside.

  ●

  CHAPTER Six

  In a few long strides, Ridge was at the foot of the steps, and though he wanted nothing more than to rush inside and grab that kid, his instincts forced him to go slow.

  He could hear her crying, so he knew she was all right At least for the moment. His gaze swept across the rotted-out planks that served as a porch and he muttered another vicious curse. The damn town council should have fixed this place up long ago. But they hadn’t wanted to spend the money on it until they were sure they actually had found a teacher.

  Sophie came up behind him and tried to push past. He held out one arm to keep her back. Turning his head to glance at her, he muttered, “We both go charging in there and we’re liable to bring the whole damn place down.”

  That stopped her cold, and though he saw fear tighten her features and glitter in her eyes, she nodded and quit trying to muscle him out of the way.

  Satisfied, he called out, “Jenna? Can you hear me, honey?”

  “Yes,” she said and sniffed pitifully.

  “Good, that’s good,” Ridge said, then added, “you stay right where you are, all right? Don’t move.”

  “I won’t,” the little girl said quietly, her voice wavering. “Daddy,” she added a heartbeat later, “I’m stuck.”

  “Stuck?” Sophie repeated, her voice rising.

  “It’s all right, honey,” he said, grinding his back teeth together at the fear in the child’s voice. “We’ll get you out.”

  Sophie’s fingers tightened on his forearm, each of her short, rounded nails digging through the fabric of his shirt to tear at his skin. And he didn’t blame her one damn bit. He felt her fear and shared it. Hell, there was more than just the dilapidated state of the place to worry about He hadn’t said so before, but with the weather so cool lately, there was a good chance that snakes had moved into the schoolhouse, looking for a nice warm spot to curl up in.

  And now wasn’t a good time to mention that. He glanced over his shoulder at Sophie again. Those freckles of hers stood out starkly against the pallor of her cheeks. The wind had tipped her hat to the back of her head and a riot of red curls had escaped her tidy knot to fly about her face. But her gaze was locked on the darkened doorway to the schoolhouse. She saw nothing, felt nothing but the fear for her daughter.

  His heart twisted in his chest and in a few quickly passing seconds he wondered what it must be like to be loved so much—to know that no matter what else happened in your life, love would always be there. And a part of him envied the lost child.

  He’d never known a love like that and Ridge felt the emptiness of that thought echo inside him like a single shout in a canyon. A hell of a thing for a man his age to admit to. That he had no one and nothing beyond a tin star and a fast horse.

  He covered her hand with his and squeezed hard. Sophie’s gaze flicked to his and Ridge said, “I’m going in after her. You stay put.”

  She opened her mouth but he spoke again quickly to cut her off.

  “Arguing will only waste time.”

  Her gaze locked with his, her jaw worked, she swallowed hard, then nodded. “Go. Just, go,” she muttered thickly.

  Prying her hand off his arm, he turned back for the schoolhouse and, taking one long step, skipped over the missing pieces of wood before carefully easing his weight down onto the remaining planks. The floor groaned beneath him but held, and he kept going, wanting to get that child and get out while his luck held.

  He stepped through the doorway and gave himself a moment to let his eyes adjust to the shadowy interior. Though he ached to find the girl and ease her fears, blundering around in the dark could do more harm than good.

  Upended desks and benches lay scattered around the room as if tossed aside by a bored giant. Cobwebs hung in ghostly tatters from the ceiling and twisted and danced in the wind darting through the shattered, grimy window glass. Sunshine fought its way through the dirty panes, struggling to bring light into the tiny building, but it was like trying to illuminate a cavern with a single match.

  And from somewhere in the shadows came the soft, sniffling sound of a child crying.

  Sophie practically vibrated in her impatience as she watched Ridge ease carefully into the building. Logically, she knew he had to go slowly. But logic had no part in what she was feeling at the moment. All she wanted was for Jenna to be safe. And in her arms. Now. She bit down hard on her bottom lip to keep from shouting, “Hurry.”

  The wind kicked up again, blowing a long, red curl across her eyes and distractedly she plucked it free. She heard the plop of shingles as several more fell from the roof and dropped to the dirt. She shivered and sent up a prayer that nothing else would tumble down.

  Half turning toward the town just behind her, she wondered if she should go for help, then discounted it. By the time she got back, Ridge would be out with Jenna and it would all be over.

  Blast and damnation, why hadn’t she been watching? How could she have become so involved with talking and arguing with the sheriff that she failed to notice the girl wandering into that building?

  A watery film blurred her vision, and she viciously rubbed at her eyes. Tears were useless. As useless as she felt at the moment. She could hear Jenna crying and everything inside her screamed to go inside. To find her. Instead, she stood here, waiting, depending on a stranger, a man she hardly knew, to rescue the child who meant everything to her. Stuck, Jenna’d said. What if Ridge needed help to free her? What if by waiting where he’d told her to, she was wasting time Jenna needed?

  Brain racing, heart pounding, she wondered why she wasn’t getting one of those blasted visions
now. When she could actually use it. Closing her eyes, she tried, for the first time in years, to summon the images she usually tried to bury. But there was nothing. No mind-numbing headache. No swirling pictures twisting through her brain.

  A huge, heavy hand came down on her shoulder and Sophie jumped, whirled around, and eyes wide, stared up at Toby Crow. She hadn’t even heard him approach, but now she grabbed at him as if he were a life rope tossed to her in an angry sea.

  “Somethin’ wrong?” he asked, his gaze already sliding past her to the darkened interior of the schoolhouse.

  “Jenna,” Sophie managed to say, curling her fingers around the big man’s forearm. “She’s hurt. Ridge went in to get her.”

  “Then he will,” Toby assured her.

  “I have to help,” Sophie said, knowing she had to do something. Anything.

  He patted her shoulder heavily. “You will, when she comes out.”

  “Everything all right?” someone shouted and they both turned to look.

  A small crowd of people were hurrying toward the school, answering a call for help that hadn’t even been sounded.

  ●

  Scowling to himself again over the town council’s stupidity, Ridge narrowed his gaze and swept the interior of the school slowly, looking for a flash of blond hair or a snatch of color from her little red dress. “Jenna?” he called quietly, treating the place as gingerly as he would a snowbound mountainside in danger of avalanche. “Where are ya, honey?”

  “Here,” the little voice came softly on a choked off sob.

  Instantly, Ridge moved off to his right, toward a darkened corner. Stepping gingerly, carefully, he winced at every creak and groan of wood as he crossed the room, keeping one wary eye open for snakes.

  Then she was there, such a tiny thing, lying on the dirty floor, her soft blond hair haloed out around her head, a tipped-over desk lying atop her legs. She looked up at him and gave him a teary smile. A stray beam of sunlight crossed her face, making the solitary tear on her cheek glitter like a diamond. And when she held her arms up to him, something inside Ridge tightened painfully.