His face was tanned as if he spent a lot of time outdoors rather than inside at a desk or seated in a patrol car. He had nice features, a no-nonsense slight jut to his chin, a straight nose and lips that looked soft and very kissable.
There was no question that she was curious about his sister, felt a tinge of empathy as she imagined what it must be like to have a family member missing.
Edie didn’t know about missing family members, but she was intimate with grief, knew the sharp stab of loss, the ache that never quite went away.
She could only assume that Benjamin wasn’t married and she questioned why a handsome man like him would choose to spend a couple nights a week playing chess with an old man.
“How long are you planning to visit?” he asked.
With those gorgeous, long-lashed eyes focused intently on her, a small burst of unwanted heat ignited in the very pit of her stomach.
“Just a couple days or so,” she replied, grateful her voice sounded remarkably normal. “I need to get back home and take care of some things.” And he knew exactly what those things were because she’d spewed them out in a mist of tears when he’d pulled her over.
“You still managing that restaurant?” Poppy asked.
She hesitated and then shook her head. “Unfortunately a couple weeks ago I showed up at the restaurant and found a padlock on the door and a note that said the place was out of business.” She tamped down the residual anger that rose up inside her each time she thought of that day. There had been no warning to any of the employees, no hint that the place was in trouble.
“So, have you found a new job?” Poppy eyed her worriedly.
“Not yet, but when I get back home I’m sure I won’t have any problems finding something,” she assured him with a quick smile. The last thing she wanted was for him to worry about her.
Thankfully dinner went quickly and as Poppy stood to clear the table, Edie shooed him away. “You two go on and play your chess. I’ll take care of the cleanup.”
“I won’t argue with you. I like the cooking but hate the cleanup,” Poppy said.
“I could help. It would only take a minute,” Benjamin said.
Edie shook her head. “I’ve got it under control.” The last thing she wanted was to be butting elbows with him over the sink. He was too big and too sexy for her and she didn’t want him close enough that she could smell him, feel his body heat.
She breathed a sigh of relief as the two men left the kitchen and disappeared into the living room. It took her only minutes to store the leftovers in the refrigerator and then stack the plates for washing.
There was no dishwasher and as she got the dish drainer rack from the cabinet, she remembered all the times she’d stood at this sink and helped her grandmother wash dishes.
It hadn’t been a chore; it had been a chance to talk about the day, about the weather, about life with a woman Edie had considered wise and loving.
The last time Edie had been here she’d been thirteen years old and madly in love with a boy named Darrin. It had been a case of unrequited love. Darrin had preferred video games to girls.
“It’s not a mistake to love,” her grandmother had told her. “But you need to love smart. Choose a man who has the capacity to love you back, a man who can make you feel as if you’re the most important person in the world.”
As Edie washed and rinsed the dishes, she wondered what her grandmother would say about the mess Edie had made of her life. She had definitely loved stupid, choosing to give her heart to a man who not only didn’t have the capacity to love her back, but also had all the character of a rock. The price she’d paid for loving stupidly had been enormous and she’d been left with the determination to never put her heart in jeopardy again.
A burst of deep male laughter came from the living room as she placed the last dish in the drainer. It sounded like the two of them were enjoying their game.
Darkness had fallen outside and Edie realized she hadn’t brought in her suitcase from the car. As she entered the living room both men looked up from the chessboard. “What are you doing, girl?” Poppy asked. “Come sit and watch a master at work.” He gave her a grin that twinkled in his eyes.
She returned his smile. “I gather from the smug look on your face that you’re winning.”
“I’ve been playing him a couple nights a week for the past six months and I have yet to win a game,” Benjamin said.
His gaze slid down the length of her, the quick once-over that a man might give a woman he found attractive.
She felt the heat of his gaze and quickly moved toward the front door. “I’m just going to get my suitcase from the car.”
“Need any help?” Benjamin asked.
She quickly shook her head. “Thanks, but I can get it.” She scooted out the front door and into the cool September evening air.
For a moment she stood on the porch and stared up at the night sky. Here in Black Rock the stars seemed brighter, closer than they did in Topeka.
“Make a wish, sugar,” her grandmother would tell her whenever the two of them had sat on the porch and gazed upward.
Edie reached up and grabbed the small charm that hung on the gold chain around her neck. The gold was cool in her fingers but warmed quickly as she held it tight.
There was only one wish she’d like to make and she knew it was one that could never come true. She released her hold on the charm and headed to her car in the driveway.
Behind her car was parked a large black pickup she knew must belong to Benjamin. Funny, she would assume he was more the sweet little sports car type than the big, bruising truck.
She’d packed light and grabbed the small suitcase and overnight bag from her backseat, then headed inside the house. She heard no sound from the living room. Apparently the current chess game was intense enough that both men were concentrating.
She carried the suitcase up the stairs, the third and seventh steps creaking beneath her weight as they had when she’d been a child. She entered the last bedroom at the end of the hall, the room where she’d always stayed when she and her mother had come for a visit. The dusty pink paint on the wall and the pink floral spread covering the double bed brought another wave of memories.
Every night that she’d slept here she’d been tucked into bed lovingly not only by her mother, but also by her grandmother. And often Poppy would come upstairs to sneak her a cookie or a little bowl of popcorn. In this house, she’d always felt loved like nowhere else on earth.
It took her only minutes to stow her items in the dresser and closet, then she headed back downstairs where it sounded like the chess game had ended.
As she entered the living room, Benjamin and Poppy got up from the small game table. “He beat me both games,” Benjamin said. He smiled at Edie, a warm, sexy smile that once again fluttered a faint heat through her veins.
“Maybe you and Edie could play a few games together, you know, practice so eventually you can beat the master.” Poppy grinned.
Benjamin laughed. “I’d love to hang around and play a game of chess with Edie, but unfortunately I’ve got some reports that need to be written before morning.”
The twinkle in Poppy’s eyes faded as he looked at Benjamin seriously. “You know how to find those girls. Find the aliens and you’ll find out what happened to that Hightower young woman and your sister.”
“Aliens?” Edie looked from her grandfather to Benjamin with curiosity.
Poppy nodded. “Space aliens. I keep telling Benjamin and his brothers that they’ve landed here in Black Rock and until we get them rounded up, nobody is safe.”
A sick feeling swept through Edie as she stared at her grandfather, hoping to see the familiar twinkle of a joke in his eyes. But there was no twinkle—only a faint tinge of fear coupled with the determination of an intergalactic warrior. And then she knew why somebody had called her to check on her Poppy. It was because he was losing his mind.
Chapter 2
Benjamin saw the
dismay that swept over Edie’s features at Walt’s words. She was a pretty woman and he knew her statistics from looking at her license. She was five foot four and weighed 117 pounds. Her hair was auburn and her eyes were green.
But those statistics didn’t begin to really describe the woman who stood before him. Yes, her short curly hair was auburn, but it shone with a luster that made his fingers itch with the need to touch. Green was too ordinary a word to describe her eyes, which sparkled with tiny shards of glittering gold.
The orange sweater she wore complemented the burnished highlights in her hair and intensified the color of her eyes. Something about her stirred him in a way he hadn’t been stirred in a very long time.
“I’ll walk you out,” she said, casting a meaningful look at him.
“Walt, as always, thanks for the meal and the chess game,” Benjamin said.
“Thanks for the company,” Walt replied, obviously unaware that his previous words had upset his granddaughter. “Edie, you can pull your car into the garage. I sold my car a year ago. I got tired of paying for insurance.”
Edie nodded. “Thanks, Poppy, I’ll do that.”
As Benjamin walked out with Edie, he caught a whiff of her perfume, something subtle and spicy that reminded him of tangy fall air and cinnamon.
“I’m the one who called you,” he said when they were far enough away from the front door that Walt wouldn’t hear. “I’ve been worried about him.”
In the illumination from a nearby streetlight, he could see the confusion on her pretty face. “I didn’t catch the name of the person who’d called me and once I got here I thought maybe it was just a cranky neighbor upset because the yard needs some work. He seemed so normal.”
“He appears to be normal in every way except for the little issue that he thinks space aliens are trying to take over Black Rock. It wouldn’t be a big problem but he’s often out in the middle of the night alien hunting and I’m afraid he’ll get hit by a car or fall down someplace where nobody will be able to help him.”
“How long has this been going on?” she asked. She still looked overwhelmed by this news and as he remembered the things she’d told him when he’d pulled her over for speeding, he had a crazy desire to take her into his arms and assure her that everything was going to be all right.
Instead he rocked back on his heels and frowned thoughtfully. “About six months. My brothers and I have tried to assure him that there are no space aliens in town, but he’s adamant in his belief and gets downright cranky when you try to tell him different. Look, I’d recommend you take him into his doctor and get a full checkup done. Maybe this is some sort of a medical issue.”
“I guess that’s as good a place to start as anywhere,” she replied. “Well, thanks for all your help with him. I guess I’ll see you around over the next couple of days, but hopefully not in my rearview mirror with your lights spinning.”
He grinned at her. “As long as you’re not a fast woman, we won’t have any problems in that area. But I can’t promise I won’t follow you just because I think you’re pretty.” Someplace deep inside he recognized he was flirting a little bit.
She must have realized it, too. But her eyes cooled and she took a step back from him. “I am a fast woman, probably way too fast for a small-town deputy.”
He wasn’t sure who was more surprised by her response, him or her. Her lush lips compressed as she frowned once again. “Thanks again for you help. See you around.”
She turned and headed back to the house in short quick steps that swayed her shapely hips. Benjamin watched until she disappeared behind the front door and then released a sigh as he got into his truck.
He had no idea what had possessed him to attempt a little flirt with her. It was obvious by her response he wasn’t very good at it. Still, her cool response had surprised him.
Since his brothers Tom and Caleb had hooked up with their soul mates, Benjamin had become the toast of the town when it came to the single women. But all the women who were interested in him left him cold.
He’d been cold since his sister, Brittany, had disappeared over two months ago. Tom, his oldest brother and the sheriff of Black Rock, still held out hope that she would be found alive and well, but even though Benjamin never said anything out loud, as each day had passed with no word from her, he’d lost hope of ever seeing his little sister again.
As he backed out of Walt’s driveway, he tried to ignore the stab of grief that always pierced his heart when he thought of his missing sister.
And now they had another one missing. Tom was reluctant to tie the two disappearances together, but Benjamin had a bad feeling about the whole thing. He was afraid Black Rock was in for dark days, and the darkness had nothing to do with Walt’s imaginary space aliens.
As he headed for the ranch his thoughts returned to Edie Burnett. For a minute as he’d seen her tears after he’d pulled her over, he’d thought she was faking them to get out of a ticket.
Old Mabel Tredway did it on a regular basis. The eighty-two-year-old woman shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car and whenever Benjamin pulled her over for crossing the center line or going a little too fast, she wept like a baby. But the one time he’d given her a ticket, the fake tears had stopped on a dime and she’d cussed him, his dead mama and all the cattle on his ranch.
However, Edie’s tears had been real and as she’d burped up the details of her life with each sob, he had decided not to write the ticket.
She had enough to deal with in deciding what to do with Walt. Benjamin and his lawmen brothers had come to the end of their rope with the old man. Nobody wanted to see anything bad happen to him, but they all felt it was just a matter of time before he got hurt.
As he pulled into the gates that led to the family homestead, he felt the familiar sense of peace the place always brought to him. The house itself was an architectural anomaly. What had started as a simple two-bedroom ranch had become a sprawling complex as rooms were added with each birth of a child.
There was also a small cottage just behind the house where Margaret Kintell, a sixty-eight-year-old widow, lived. Margaret had worked as a housekeeper for the Grayson family for as long as Benjamin could remember. Her husband, John, had worked as a ranch hand until he’d passed away several years ago, and even though Benjamin had encouraged Margaret to retire she insisted that her job was still taking care of the Grayson children.
Unfortunately Benjamin was the only Grayson child still living in the family home and he wasn’t exactly a child at thirty years old. His brothers Tom and Caleb lived in town. Brittany had been living in town at the time of her disappearance and Jacob was holed up in a small cabin nestled in a grove of trees on the ranch property.
The porch light was on so he knew Margaret was probably still in the house rather than in her little cottage. As he walked through the front door, the scent of apples and cinnamon filled his nose and Tiny came running toward him, barking a happy greeting.
“Hi, Tiny.” He bent down on his haunches to pet the mixed-breed mutt who had stolen his heart six months ago. “Margaret?” he called as he stood. As he walked through the living room toward the kitchen, Tiny followed close at his feet.
She greeted him in the doorway and gestured him into a chair at the table. “Go on, now, sit down. I made fresh apple cobbler and I know that nutcase Walt probably didn’t feed you good and proper.”
Benjamin smiled and eased down at the table. “Actually, he had a very nice roast and potatoes for dinner.” Margaret had been mad at Walt since last year’s fall festival when his apple pie had beaten out hers for a blue ribbon.
She harrumphed as she scooped up a healthy serving of the cobbler into a bowl. “Probably got the recipe from one of those space aliens of his. I don’t know why you have taken that man under your wing. You’re too soft, Benjamin. That’s always been your problem. All Walt Tolliver needs is a stern talking-to.” She placed the bowl in front of him and then went to the refrigerator and pulled out the
jug of milk.
“Maybe his granddaughter can talk some sense into him. She arrived in town today.”
“Really?” Margaret placed a glass of milk in front of him and then sat across from him. “That would be Julie’s girl.”
“Edie,” Benjamin replied. “Her name is Edie Burnett.”
“That’s right. Julie married that no-account Kevin Burnett. He was a drinker, that one, and a womanizer. The marriage lasted just long enough for Julie to get pregnant. It was a shame, her dying like that in a car accident. So, what’s Edie like?”
Hot. With tantalizing eyes and a body that could make a man weak in the knees. He spooned some of the apple cobbler in his mouth in an effort to think of a more reasonable response.
“She didn’t seem to know what’s been going on with Walt and when she realized he thought Black Rock was being invaded by space aliens, she seemed a little overwhelmed by it all,” he finally replied.
“She in town to stay?”
“No. I imagine she’ll just be here long enough to figure out what needs to be done with Walt and then she’ll go back home.”
“What’s she like? Julie was a pretty woman and sweet as that cobbler.”
“She’s nice-looking,” Benjamin conceded, “but I think she might have a little bite to her.” He thought about how her gaze had frosted over when he’d attempted a little light flirtation.
If he were a man who liked a challenge, he might have pursued a little more flirting just to see if he could melt that frost. But Benjamin was a man who’d never felt enough passion to work too hard for anything. Except this ranch.
“She’s got her work cut out for her in straightening out that old man,” Margaret said as she rose from the table. “I’m going to head to my place. It’s time for this old broad to call it a night.”
Benjamin smiled. “Good night, Margaret.” The old woman had the heart of an angel and the saltiness of a sailor, but she helped to keep the ranch and Benjamin’s life running smoothly.
Cowboy Deputy Page 2