River's Bend

by JoAnn Ross

  “For someone supposedly on official town business, your behavior isn’t exactly businesslike,” Rachel said as her pulse spiked.

  “We’ve already gotten the business part of this visit out of the way. And for the record, Rachel, that kiss was entirely personal. You might want to keep that in mind, next time.”

  The hint of amusement in his tone had her lifting her chin. “What makes you think there’s going to be a next time?” But there would be. Until Cooper had kissed her, Rachel had forgotten how glorious kissing could be.

  “If I didn’t believe there was going to be a next time, I wouldn’t be so willing to leave things unfinished this time.” He brushed his lips teasingly against hers, creating another flare of heat. “I’ll be seeing you.”

  As he left the kitchen, Rachel sank down onto a stool, closed her eyes and pressed a hand against her still pounding heart. Oh, yes. Despite his laconic, easygoing attitude, Sheriff Cooper Murphy was definitely going to prove a problem.

  16

  As the days grew shorter, and September sped with lightning speed into mid-October, work on the New Chance continued practically around the clock, during which time Rachel couldn’t stop thinking about Cooper. Despite instructions to the contrary, her rebellious mind continued to replay their shared kiss in riveting, sensual detail.

  She’d almost forgotten how good it felt to have a man kiss her. Hold her. Touch her. Want her.

  Cooper had taken to dropping into the café each day on his foot patrols around town, but they were seldom alone, which, while frustrating, was also a relief because Rachel was so confused.

  Part of her wanted to jump his bones whenever he walked in the door. If she’d been alone, living in a more anonymous city, she might seriously consider having a fling.

  But she wasn’t alone and was all too aware that life wasn’t solely about her wants or needs. She was the mother of a young child whom she’d moved to this small town where not only did everyone know your name, gossip provided a major form of entertainment. The last thing Scott needed was to go to school and hear about his mother sleeping with the sheriff.

  So, despite the fact that Cooper’s visits had become the high point of her work-filled days, she struggled to keep her emotional distance. And, seeming to sense her ambivalence, he’d backed off a bit, keeping the New Chance a seduction-free zone, even as the shared attraction arced between and around them.

  Scott was no help at all as he continued to tell her stories of life around the sheriff’s office. Then there was the day he showed up with a law-enforcement recruiting poster.

  “It’s really neat, isn’t it, Mom?” he asked that evening for the umpteenth time.

  The poster depicted a scrubbed and polished young man and woman clad in starched khaki uniforms standing beside a patrol car looking like the last bastion between the bad guys and the general public.

  Bearing the title Exploring Law Enforcement, it had immediately been assigned the spot of honor on Scott’s bedroom wall.

  “Neat,” she agreed as she pressed the ground beef into patties. Cheeseburgers might not win her a pedestal on Iron Chef, but they were her son’s favorite and didn’t take much time or effort to prepare.

  “Warren offered me all his Transformer figures for my poster,” he divulged. “But I told him I wouldn’t trade for anything.”

  “I hope you thanked Cooper.”

  “Sure. What kind of kid do you think you raised?” he complained with a grin.

  Rachel returned the smile. “A dynamite kid.”

  “I think you’re great, too,” Scott said as he went to the refrigerator and took out a carton of milk. He poured it into a glass emblazoned with X-Men’s Wolverine they’d bought at a truck stop/gas station/restaurant/souvenir shop in Wyoming on their drive across the country, then climbed up onto the bar stool. “Can we invite Cooper to dinner?”

  “I suppose. Sometime,” she answered vaguely as she turned on the burner.

  “When?”

  “I don’t know, honey. Cooper is a very busy man.”

  “But he doesn’t work nights unless there’s an emergency. He told me.”

  “Still, he undoubtedly has his own plans.”

  “No, he doesn’t. Most nights he and Hummer just eat frozen dinners.”

  “I take it you’ve met Hummer.” Rachel sliced cheese from a block of cheddar onto a wooden cutting board.

  “Yeah.” Scott picked up a piece of cheese and popped it into his mouth. “He mostly hangs around the sheriff’s office. He’s really neat. Can we get a dog, Mom? There’s plenty of room in the backyard.”

  “I don’t know, Scott.” Alan had been allergic, so a pet had been out of the question. “A dog might get lonely, with you at school all day and me at work.”

  “I could take him to play with Hummer.”

  “I don’t believe a law-enforcement office is any place for boys and dogs to be playing.”

  “But—”

  “Let me think about it,” Rachel said, interrupting what she knew was going to be a long drawn-out plea.

  “Sure.” Surprising her with such easy acquiescence, he took a long drink of milk. “Maybe if you came down to Cooper’s office and saw what a neat dog Hummer is—”

  Rachel held up her hand as he wiped a milk mustache off his top lip with the back of his sleeve. “I said, let me think about it.”

  The doorbell rang before Scott could answer.

  “I’ll get it,” he said, sliding off the stool. He was out of the room in a flash, and a moment later Rachel heard the low murmur of voices, one youthful, one deep and compelling.

  She instinctively lifted a hand to her hair, remembering the meat on her palm just in time.

  “It’s Cooper!” Scott shouted as he raced into the room. “And look what he brought me!” Breathless with excitement, he held up a sheet of paper, looking as if he’d just been given the golden ticket to his own private candy factory. “Fingerprints. From a real live stage coach robber!”

  At least the man had original taste in gifts. Rachel hadn’t seen Scott so excited since . . .

  Actually, she wasn’t certain she’d ever seen him that excited.

  “Hello, Sheriff,” she said with measured calm as Cooper strolled into her kitchen carrying a brown paper bag. He wasn’t wearing his gun, which she took to mean he was officially off duty. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve come for dinner.”

  “Dinner?” Rachel glanced over at her son, who was busy matching his fingertips to the smudged ink stains.

  Picking up on the situation, Cooper turned to Scott. “I thought you said your mother wanted me to come to dinner.”

  “She does,” the boy insisted. “Don’t you, Mom?”

  “I believe my exact words were ‘perhaps sometime.’”

  Scott’s anxious, coaxing gaze went back and forth between his mother and his new friend. “Well, this is sometime,” he pointed out. “I think I’ll go next door and show my fingerprints to Warren. He’ll be really jealous.”

  He escaped through the kitchen door before Rachel had a chance to object.

  “You have fifteen minutes,” she called out to his back. “If you’re not home by then, your burger will end up in a doggie bag for Hummer.”

  “I think that kid might have a great future as a politician,” Cooper said.

  “If he lives that long,” Rachel muttered.

  17

  Despite having worked as hard as the guys all day, the woman Cooper had not been able to get out of his mind looked good. Damn good. Rachel Hathaway had been so slender when she’d first arrived in town she’d looked as if a stiff mountain wind could have blown her over. Even working as physically hard as she had been at the New Chance, she’d begun to put on much-needed weight. As he took in the curves beneath her oversized sweater and the way those skinny jeans showcased her long, shapely legs, a bolt of lust shot through him.

  Knowing how many changes Rachel had been through since her husband’
s death, he’d resisted the almost overwhelming urge to touch. To taste. Instead of dragging her off to bed to act out those hot dreams that had had him waking up with major wood every morning, he’d physically backed away so she’d have time to adjust to the idea of a new man in her life.

  When Scott had asked him to dinner this afternoon, he’d mistakenly assumed the invitation had come from the mother, not her son.

  “You’re welcome to stay if you don’t mind cheeseburgers and fries,” she said.

  “Love ’em. Need any help?”

  “Thanks, but I have everything under control.”

  He certainly couldn’t argue with that. If she were any more cool, calm, and collected, Cooper would begin to think he’d imagined that kiss they’d shared in the kitchen of the New Chance.

  “I brought some wine,” he offered, pulling the bottle out of the bag. Not trusting George Masterson’s inventory of jug wine, Cooper had driven to a newly opened wine and cheese shop in Klamath Falls. The proprietor of the Cork and Cleaver had assured him that Rachel would approve of the vintage cabernet Sauvignon.

  Rachel’s brows rose as she studied the label. “Goodness, I feel as if I should dump the hamburgers in the disposal and whip up some fillet of beef Périgourdine.”

  “Does that mean I did okay?”

  “Better than okay. But you needn’t have spent so much money.”

  Cooper shrugged. “It wasn’t that much.” Okay, he’d admittedly been stunned by the price, but had immediately decided that Rachel was worth every dollar. “Do you have a corkscrew?”

  “In the top right-hand drawer, next to the refrigerator. And don’t forget, I’m in the business. I know how expensive that vintage is.”

  “Hey, lady, for your information, this happens to be my favorite adult beverage to drink with burgers.”

  She studied him curiously for a moment before forming a third hamburger patty. “Well, you certainly needn’t have bothered on my account.”

  “I didn’t,” he lied blithely as he uncorked the wine. “Glasses?”

  “In the upper cupboard to the left of the sink.”

  Cooper found the glasses and was prepared to pour the ruby wine into them when something from a Bond flick popped into his mind. “I suppose we ought to let this breathe for a while.”

  “I suppose so,” Rachel agreed. “Not that I’d be able to tell the difference, having never managed to develop a discriminating wine palate. Don’t tell anyone, but my teachers used to call me the class Philistine.”

  “Teachers?” Deciding that the wine had breathed long enough, Cooper poured it into the stemmed glasses.

  “At the New York Restaurant School.”

  “So, that’s where you learned to cook?”

  “Among other things. We studied everything from boiling eggs to restaurant design. The final thesis was a restaurant proposal including everything from menus and tableware to negotiating your way through New York City’s building codes.”

  “No wonder Mitzi wasn’t any match for you.”

  Rachel shrugged off his compliment. “I picked up a lot about financing, even though I nearly flunked wine.”

  “That’s handy to know. The Mercantile carries a Muscatel that’s just one step above antifreeze.”

  “What year?”

  “Last week. And I have it on good authority that it’s spent all that time aging in mason jars.”

  She laughed. “I think even I could spot that. Would you really like to help?”

  “I never say anything I don’t mean, Rachel.” His tone made it clear that he wasn’t talking about fixing dinner.

  “Well.” She met his gaze. Message received. “If you wouldn’t mind, you can peel those potatoes.”

  “You’re in luck.” Cooper picked up one of the brown Klamath Russets. “Peeling is one of my few culinary skills. That and taking the plastic wrap off microwave dinners.”

  “You’re certainly fast,” she murmured as he covered the bottom of the sink with curling brown potato skins.

  “It’s not that different from whittling. Fortunately, by the time I joined the Marines, KP duty wasn’t part of boot camp, like in Dad’s time.”

  “You were in the Marines?” She filled the deep fryer with cooking oil, then plugged it in.

  “My younger brother, Sawyer, and I both followed in Dad’s boot steps. Sawyer’s currently deployed. I did two tours, then opted out.” While his youngest brother was still in harm’s way.

  Daniel Murphy was typically western rancher stoic, and didn’t share his feelings all that much, but just because they didn’t discuss Sawyer 24/7, there wasn’t a day that went by Cooper didn’t think about his brother and worry. He figured it was probably even harder on his dad. And also difficult on his grandparents who’d lost a Marine son of their own, Cooper’s Uncle James, whom he’d never met, in Vietnam.

  “My other brother, Ryan, who’s in the middle, joined the Navy, which put him through med school. After he left the military a few months ago, he went into partnership with a Nurse Practitioner who’d opened her practice after old Doc Willard retired last year. We consider ourselves real lucky to have them. Especially since not that many medical professionals are willing to work for quarters of beef.”

  “Surely you’re kidding.”

  “Mostly. Though it does happen from time to time. But family practice isn’t at the top of the pay scale even in larger markets. By the time you get down to a place the size of River’s Bend, you’re definitely not in it for the bucks.”

  “I imagine not. I was relieved to see that the town had a local family physician, though when I met you I had other things on my mind, so the sheriff and the doctor both having the same last name didn’t click.

  “What did you do?” she asked as the burgers sizzled in a cast-iron pan. “When you were in the Marines?”

  “I was an M.P.”

  “So, you were in law enforcement even then.”

  “My dad was sheriff of River’s Bend, so I guess, growing up with a cop, military police seemed a natural choice.”

  “Did you become sheriff once you left the Marines?”

  “No. I spent a few years working for the Portland Police Bureau.” He began slicing the now-peeled potatoes. “Then five years ago Dad had a heart attack which put him out of commission for a while, so I came home to finish up his term as sheriff. By that time, he’d started crossbreeding his Angus with Japanese Wagyu, blending Wagyu’s sweet buttery taste with the flavor of grass fed Angus. Which is probably more information than you were asking for.”

  “I cook for a living,” Rachel reminded him. “I love talking food and remember, I tasted your father’s beef. It’s amazing.” She also hadn’t been at all surprised that Chef Madeline, who was known for her farm-to-table cooking, was a customer.

  “Yeah. It is, and the demand for it is growing exponentially. Which is why he decided he’d rather concentrate on ranching. So, I stayed on, got myself elected to the job, and since it suits me, I figure I’ll probably stick around until they vote me out.”

  “If what I’ve heard is any indication, you could continue being sheriff for as long as you live,” she said, making Cooper wonder if she’d been asking around about him. He liked the idea that she might be as interested in him as he was in her.

  “Do you miss the city?” she asked.

  “Not at all. Actually, I’d been thinking about coming home for a long time. Dad’s situation simply pushed me to make up my mind a little sooner, and although I sure as hell wouldn’t have thought it when I was eighteen and looking to get out of River’s Bend and see the world, I’ve found it to be a good fit.”

  “I’d think being a city policeman would be exciting. Though dangerous.”

  He shrugged as he dumped the raw potato slices into the stainless steel fryer basket. “Sometimes.” They sizzled as he lowered the basket into the hot oil. “Although it’s not at all like on TV, where the good guys have exactly sixty minutes, minus commercials to catch the
bad guys and put them behind bars.

  “Mostly it’s boring detail work. Patrolling the streets, filling out reports, stuff like that. And there are days when being sheriff of River County is about as exciting as watching two guys fish.”

  “Don’t tell Scott it’s boring. He’d be heartbroken.” Rachel turned the burgers. “If it’s so boring, why do you do it?”

  “Because I love this town. And the people. Also, looking back on the sequence of events that brought me home, I think it might’ve been predestined. My great-great grandfather was the first sheriff of River’s Bend. He was followed by my great-grandfather, Gramps, then Dad, and now me.”

  “That’s quite a family legacy.”

  “Yeah. It seems to have become the Murphy business. Probably because no one else is all that eager to take the job.”

  “So, between all the lawmen and your Navy doctor and Marine brothers, it sounds as if service is woven into the Murphy DNA.”

  “I guess you could put it that way. Maybe when you come from a small place, where everyone knows everyone else, the world just seems more personal, so you try to do what you can to make it better . . .

  “The potatoes are ready. Want me to set the table?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind. There are paper napkins in that drawer to your right and the plates are there on the shelf. Is that the only reason you’re sheriff? Predestination?”

  “Not really.” Damn. She would have to ask that.

  “Well?” her tone invited elaboration.

  “It’ll sound corny,” he warned.

  “Corny?”

  “Like something from an old John Wayne movie. You know, all that red, white, and blue stuff about honor and integrity.”

  “I like those old John Wayne movies. And there’s certainly a great deal to be said for honor and integrity.”

  Cooper had Googled Rachel. He’d read her advertising executive husband’s obituary, which consisted of pages and pages of achievements and accolades from names even he recognized.

  Digging deeper, he’d unearthed the website for her now defunct catering business still lingering out there in cyberspace and checked out the menus, none of which featured cheeseburgers and fries. The glowing reviews from her obviously wealthy clients had pointed out exactly how different a life she’d come from.