by Nora Roberts
“Seemed to me somebody was holding up the bank.”
“Excuse me?”
“Seemed to me,” Mr. Grant repeated, in his ponderous way, “somebody was holding up the bank. Had a gun, sure enough. Looked to me to be a .45. Could be I’m wrong about that. Might be a .38.”
Before either boy could comment, Devin slapped a hand on each of their shoulders. “Go on up to Ed’s. Stay there.”
“But, Devin—”
“Do it, Bryan. Go on now, both of you. Stay there, and don’t say anything.” He stared hard at Connor. “Don’t say anything,” he repeated. “We don’t want people getting upset and getting in the way.”
“What are you going to do?” Connor said in an awed voice.
“I’m going to take care of it. Get up to Ed’s. Move. Now.”
When they ran off, Devin kept one eye on them, to be sure they obeyed. “Mr. Grant, I wonder if you’d come along with me. Let’s just take a look at this.”
“Fine by me.”
The bank was across the street and another half a block up. An old brick building with elaborate ironwork, it sat catty-corner from Ed’s Café. A quick look showed Devin that the boys had indeed gone in. They had their faces pressed up to the window.
Devin scanned the street. It was Saturday, and there was considerable traffic. Enough, in any case, to cause a problem if there was trouble. He didn’t intend to have any of his people hurt.
“Did you get a look at the man, Mr. Grant?”
“Some. Young, ’bout your age, I expect. Can’t say as I recognized him. Looked a little like the Harris boy, but wasn’t.”
Devin nodded. He spotted a dirty white compact with Delaware tags at the curb in front of the bank. “Recognize that car there?”
Mr. Grant thought it over. “Can’t say as I do. Never seen it around here.”
“Stay here a minute.” Unsnapping the flap covering his weapon, Devin sidestepped up to the bank. The door was festooned with curvy ironwork. Through it, he could make out one teller behind the wide counter. And the man across from her, nervously waving a gun.
It was a .45, he noted. Grant had been dead-on.
He slipped away from the door. “Mr. Grant, I’d like you to get on down to the office, tell Donnie I need some backup here at the bank. We’ve got an armed robbery in progress. I want you to tell him that, straight out. And that I don’t want him coming up here blaring sirens or coming into the bank. I don’t want him coming into the bank. Have you got that?”
“Why, sure I do, Sheriff. Be happy to oblige.”
“And stay down there yourself, Mr. Grant. Don’t come back up here.”
He’d just started to move again when he saw Rafe approaching. Before his brother could lift a hand in greeting, Devin snagged him. “You’re deputized.”
“Hell, Devin, Regan just send me out for more diapers. I haven’t time to play deputy.”
“See that car? White compact, Delaware plates?”
“Sure. I got eyes.”
“Put it out of commission.”
Now Rafe’s brows lifted, and his grin flashed. “Gee, Devin, I don’t know as I remember how.”
“Do it,” Devin said, and the sharp impatience got through.
“What’s going on?”
“Somebody’s robbing the bank. Put the car out of commission in case he gets past me. And do what you can to keep people out of the way without getting them stirred up.”
“You’re not going in there alone.”
“I’ve got the gun, you don’t,” Devin pointed out. “And I’ve got the badge. Be a pal, Rafe, and deal with the car. As far as I can tell, there’s only one perp. I’m going in. If he comes out waving that damn gun, don’t be a jerk. Get out of the way.”
The hell he would, Rafe thought, but he crouched down to move around to the driver’s side of the car while Devin took out his weapon.
Devin wanted to keep it simple, and safe. He tucked his gun into the back of his belt, slipped his badge off and into his pocket. He strolled into the bank, smiled at the teller.
“Hey there, Nancy. Thought I’d be too late to make my deposit. Lucky for me you’re still open.”
Though her face was frozen in fear, she managed to gape at him. “But— But—”
“The wife’ll have my hide if I forget to put the money in. We got that automatic withdrawal on our insurance, you know.” He strolled up to the counter, one hand reaching down.
“Are you crazy?” the man with the gun shrieked out, nerves in every syllable. “Are you out of your mind? Get down on the floor! Down! Now!”
“Hey, I’m not butting in line,” Devin said reasonably. “Just trying to do some business.” He kept his eyes on the man’s face, his hand still going down and back, where a man kept his wallet.
“I’ll show you some business!”
To Devin’s relief, the man shifted the gun from Nancy and toward him. “Put your damn money on the counter. I’ll take that, too.”
As if he’d just noticed the weapon, Devin held up a hand in peace. “Holy hell, you robbing the bank?”
“What does it look like I’m doing, Einstein? Let’s have the money.”
“Okay, okay. I don’t want any trouble here. You can have it.” But instead of his wallet, Devin came out with his gun. “Now, are we going to stand here and shoot each other, or what?”
The man’s eyes went wild. “I’ll kill you! I swear I’ll kill you!”
“That’s a possibility.” A remote one, since the idiot was waving the gun like a flag on the Fourth of July. “It’s just as likely I’ll kill you. You drop that gun on the floor and step back from it. You’ve already got armed robbery, you don’t want to add shooting a police officer.”
“A cop, a damn cop! Then I’ll just shoot her!” Furious, he swung the gun back toward the teller.
Devin didn’t hesitate, he didn’t even bother to curse. Nancy was just where she should be. On the floor, out of the line of fire. And since he was close enough, Devin used his fist instead of his gun.
“Damn idiot.”
The man managed to get off one shot at the ceiling before the gun flew out of his hand. Ignoring it, Devin put his own between the man’s eyes.
“What you want to do now,” he said calmly, “is roll yourself over and put your hands behind your head. If you don’t, I’m going to have to blow your head right off, and this carpet’s only a year old.”
“Damn cop. Damn lousy one-horse town.”
“You got that right.” With a bit more force than was strictly necessary, Devin jerked the man’s hands down, cuffed them. “You shouldn’t mess with small towns. We’re real careful about them. Anybody hurt back there? You all right, Nancy?”
As a chorus of breathless, excited voices exploded from behind the counter, he glanced back, knowing Rafe was behind him. And grinned at the crowbar his brother was slapping against his palm.
“I told you I’d handle it.”
“This was just in case. What did you do, Dev, scalp him?”
Idly Devin picked up the wig that had been dislodged during the scuffle. “Looks that way. Might as well give him a shave while I’m at it.” None too gently, he pulled the man’s head back and ripped off the fake moustache. “In case you haven’t figured it out, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent…” he began as he hauled the man to his feet.
He finished Mirandizing him on the way to the door. “Y’all get up from behind there now. I’m going to send Donnie in to get your statements.”
From their station at the diner window, both boys watched Devin come out, dragging a balding man with a bloody lip.
“He got him,” Bryan said, awed. “Devin got an honest-to-God bank robber.”
“Of course he did.” Connor beamed. “He’s the sheriff.”
There was talk of little else but the attempted bank robbery. In the way of small towns, unofficial reports leaped over the wires far ahead of official ones. In many of the phone and ba
ckyard-fence conversations, it was said that Devin had burst into the bank, gun drawn, eyes blazing. In others, he had taken out the robber, who’d been armed to the teeth with automatic weapons, bare-handed.
By the end of the day, Devin found himself the recipient of enough homemade baked goods that he could have opened his own restaurant. They made up for the endless official reports he had to type and file. They nearly made up for the phone calls he was forced to field, from concerned citizens, the mayor, the bank manager, and a number of women who thought he might need a bit of comfort after his ordeal.
He was deflecting one of the offers when his brothers walked in.
“No, Annie, I wasn’t wounded.” He rolled his eyes as all three of his visitors grinned at him. “No, he didn’t shoot me. Sharilyn’s exaggerating. Ah…” A little baffled by the offer presented to him, he cleared his throat. “That’s nice of you, Annie, and I appreciate the thought, but— No, I don’t think I’m going to suffer from delayed stress syndrome. Yeah, I’ve heard of it, but— No, no, really, I’m just fine. And I’m a little tied up right now. Yeah, official business. That’s right. You take care now. Uh-huh. You bet. Bye.”
He let out a long breath, shaking his head briskly as he replaced the receiver. “Holy hell.”
“Was that Annie ‘The Body’ Linstrom?” Shane wanted to know.
“She was hitting on me,” Devin said with a snort of laughter. “Women are a puzzle. There’s no way around it.”
Jared sat on the corner of Devin’s desk. “The way I heard it, bullets bounce off your chest.”
“Nah.” Shane sniffed at one of the pies sitting on a crowded shelf. “I heard he eats bullets. Betty Malloy bake this lemon meringue?”
“Yeah.” Devin winced when the phone rang again. “Where the hell is Donnie?”
“Last I saw, he was strutting down Main Street trying to look like Supercop.” Rafe cocked his head. “Aren’t you going to answer it—Sheriff?”
Devin swore and picked up the phone. “Sheriff’s office. MacKade.”
He leaned back, closed his eyes. It was the press again. Every small paper and news bureau within fifty miles had picked up on the botched robbery. By rote, he gave the official line, danced around the demand for a more in-depth interview, and hung up.
“You’re good at that,” Jared decided. “Real stern and authoritative.”
“I’m beginning to wish I’d kicked that jerk in the head,” Devin muttered. “He’s caused me a lot of trouble. Now I’m stuck here, answering the damn phone, typing reports, with some out-of-town idiot who couldn’t hold up a lemonade stand in the back. He whines all the time.”
“At least you won’t starve,” Shane said, and helped himself to one of the cookies on a plate by the pie. “We thought we’d take you down to Duff’s, buy you a drink.”
“Can’t leave the prisoner unattended.”
“Rough,” Jared said, without sympathy. “You know, Bryan was about to jump out of his socks when he got home. You’re better than Rambo.”
Amused, Devin scratched his cheek. “Don’t tell him the last robbery I had to deal with was when a couple of kids stole underwear off Mrs. Metz’s clothesline.” He shuffled papers on his desk. “Have you been by the inn, Rafe? Everything okay there?”
“Everything’s fine. Cassie was a little upset. Word travels,” he added unnecessarily. “But I told her it was all blown out of proportion, and you didn’t do anything much.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“No problem. Connor was already writing a story about you.”
“No kidding?” The grin all but split his face.
“‘A Day in the Life of Sheriff MacKade.’” Rafe helped himself to coffee. “The boy’s nuts about you.”
“Good thing.” Shane took another cookie. “Since Devin’s going to marry his mama.”
Rafe bobbled the coffee, spilled it on his hand and swore. “Cassie? Little Cassie?”
“Shane’s getting ahead of himself,” Devin said, in a mild tone that belied the gleam in his eye. “As usual.”
“Hey, you’re the one who said it. Me, I figure you’ve just lost your mind. Like these two.”
“Shut up, Shane.” Jared kept his eyes on Devin’s face. “You and Cassie?”
“So what?”
“So…that’s interesting.”
“Are you speaking as her attorney?” Devin pushed back from the desk. If the phone rang again, he thought he might just rip it out of the wall. To get himself back under control, he went to the coffee.
“He’s got it bad,” Rafe observed. “Didn’t you have a thing for her about ten, twelve years ago?” When Devin didn’t answer, merely poured the coffee, sipped it steely-eyed, Rafe grinned. “Never got over it, did you? Son of a gun. Why, that’s practically poetic, bro. It gets me, right here.” He thumped a hand on his chest.
“Keep ragging me, it’ll get you somewhere else.”
“It’s getting so every day’s Valentine’s Day in Antietam.” In disgust, Shane shoved another cookie in his mouth. “A man’s not safe.”
“Cassie’s a sweetheart,” Rafe said pointedly.
“Sure she is.” Gamely, Shane swallowed, so that he could make his point. “She’s as good as they come, and pretty with it. But why does that mean he has to marry her? You see all this stuff?” With a sweep of his hand, he indicated all the pies, cakes, tarts, cookies. “Women are going to fall all over him, and he’s tossing them off because he’s gone cross-eyed over one woman. It’s not only stupid, it’s…well, it’s selfish.”
Rafe gave Shane a thump on the back of the head that would have felled a grizzly. “Man, I love this guy. He’s going to carry the MacKade legend into the next millennium.”
“Damn right,” Shane agreed. “No woman’s going to tie me down. I mean, with all the flowers out there, why pick one when you can have a bouquet?”
“Now that’s poetry.” Rafe thumped him again. “Let’s go get that beer.”
“You two go on.” Jared stayed where he was. “I need to talk to Devin a minute.”
They left, arguing about who was buying. When the room was quiet again, Devin took his coffee back to his desk. “You got a problem?”
“No.” Jared shifted so that they were face-to-face. “But you might. Have you talked to Cassie about marriage?”
“A little. Why?”
“Joe Dolin.”
“They’re divorced. It’s done.”
“They’re divorced.” Eyes steady, Jared rested a hand on his knee. “But done’s another thing. He’ll get out eventually, Devin. He’ll come back.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“Yeah, I figure you can handle Joe, one-on-one. But there’s the law.”
Unconsciously Devin brushed a finger over his badge. “He tries to touch Cassie again, just tries, and I’ll have him back behind bars before he can blink.”
“And that’s part of the problem. You’re the sheriff, but you won’t be objective. You can’t be.”
Devin set his coffee aside, leaned forward. “I’ve been in love with her most of my life. At least it seems that way. And I had to stand back and do little more than nothing while he hurt her. While I knew what he was doing to her inside that house. She wouldn’t let me help, so the law tied my hands. Things are different now, and nothing’s going to stop me from taking care of her. He lifts his hand to her again, and he’s dead. Problem solved.”
Jared nodded. He didn’t take the statement lightly. He knew what it was to need to protect the woman you loved from any sort of harm. And he knew Devin was a man who said exactly what he meant.
“I’m talking about a situation that could develop if he’s smart enough not to lift his hand to her. What if, after he serves his time, he moves back here, stays clean. How are you going to handle that?”
“One step at a time, Jared, like always. Of course, the first thing I’d have to do is keep Rafe from going after him because of what he tried to do to Regan.”
T
hat was true enough, Jared thought. And Rafe wouldn’t be the only one who wouldn’t welcome Joe Dolin back into the community. “Dev, I know what Cassie’s been through. Exactly. I know because I’m her lawyer, I handled the divorce. We’re talking about a textbook case of spousal abuse. A pitiful phrase, textbook case, for that kind of horror. Therapy’s helped her, the town’s helped her, and her own backbone’s helped her. But she’s got scars she’s never going to get rid of.”
“I’m being careful,” Devin said slowly. “For God’s sake, Jared, I’ve given her time—even after the divorce, I waited and gave her time. I’m trying to give her more.”
“Devin, I’m just trying to show you the whole package. Believe me, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather see you with than Cassie. Anyone I’d rather see her with than you. God knows she deserves somebody decent. But it’s not just the two of you. There are two kids here. Joe Dolin’s kids.”
Devin’s eyes darkened, narrowed. “You can say that to me, when you’ve got Bryan? Are you going to tell me it matters they’re another man’s blood, when I know damn well Bryan’s as much yours as Layla?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” Jared’s voice was low and calm. “I’ve seen you with them. I didn’t have a clue how you felt about Cassie. You kept that covered well. But anybody with eyes can see you’re crazy about those kids, that you’ve been good for both of them. They deserve you,” he added, and nipped Devin’s temper before it could bloom. “They deserve a father who loves them, and a home where they can just be kids.”
“Fine. That’s what I’m going to see they have.”
“But it’s not like Bryan, Dev. His biological father isn’t around, isn’t an issue. Dolin is.”
“He doesn’t give a damn about those kids, never has.”
“No, but he’ll have a right to them.” Knowing that the frustration he felt didn’t help, Jared spread his hands and took a deep breath. “The law says he does. And if he can’t get to Cassie, he may just come up with the notion to get to her through them. Once he’s out, he’ll have a legal right to see them, to have visitation, to be part of their lives. You won’t be able to block that.”
Devin hadn’t thought of it. Maybe he hadn’t let himself. Now that it was there, right in the front of his mind, his blood went cold. “You’re the lawyer. You block it.”
“Parental rights are a sticky business, Dev. You know that. Until and unless he does something to put them in jeopardy, until and unless we can prove he’s not just unfit, but dangerous to them, he’ll have the law on his side.”
Already Jared was thinking it through, working it out. “We may be able to put the pressure on for supervised visitations only, but blood still counts heavy in court.”
“He beat Connor.”
Jared’s brows drew together. “I didn’t know anything about that.”
“Connor didn’t tell Cassie, didn’t want to make it worse on her.”
“I might be able to use that, if the time comes. But once he’s considered rehabilitated, a lot of the slate gets erased. He’s going to be in for a long time yet, but I want you to know what you’re up against here.”
“I’ve got a clear picture of what I’m up against. Nothing’s going to stop me from making Cassie and the kids mine. Not Joe Dolin, not the law, not anything.”
“Well, then.” Jared rose. “I’ll state the obvious. I’m behind you. Rafe and Shane are behind you.”
“I appreciate it.”
“If you get yourself out from behind that desk for an hour, come down to Duff’s. I’ll buy you a beer.” Satisfied, Jared headed for the door, then paused. “She’s a terrific woman, Dev. Sweet, like Shane says, but tougher than you might think. Tougher than she thinks. If you convince her she wants you as much as you want her, you’ll handle whatever comes down. I’ve got one piece of advice.”
“You always do,” Devin said dryly.
“For Cassie, it’s not enough to let her know you love her, you want her. You let her know you need her. That’s a woman who’d go to the wall for a man who needed her.”
He did need her, Devin thought when Jared had shut the door behind him. But he didn’t know how to show her, and wasn’t entirely sure he should. Wasn’t that just the kind of pressure he was struggling not to put on her?