by Leigh Bale
When a football sailed over the hood of his patrol vehicle, Mitch’s foot automatically hit the brake. He glanced left and then right. A dark-haired boy about eight years old stood off to the right, eyes rounded, and a girl of similar age and coloring stood to the left, her expression wary.
Mitch turned off the engine and unfolded himself from the vehicle. He closed the door and scanned the perimeter a little more closely. Two more children, boys he’d guess to be around four and six, played on the grass beneath a big oak tree.
“Morning,” he said to the oldest children. “I’m Chief Rainbolt.”
“I...I...I’m Seth and this is my sister Grace.”
“Pleased to meet you. Are your parents here?”
The children exchanged looks that Mitch couldn’t decipher before the boy spoke up.
“Aunt D is inside.”
“Aunt D. Got it.”
Crossing the yard, Mitch stopped to further assess the house. Though the old place held a special spot in his heart, plenty had changed in twenty years. The reliability of the porch steps for starters. They seemed dubious at best. He tapped his boot on each step before putting his weight on them. When he got to the landing, a scream echoed out to him from inside the house. The screen door flew open, banged against the clapboard and a whirlwind of strawberry-blond hair and blue jeans burst across the porch and straight into his arms.
“Whoa, there.” Mitch stumbled back down the steps to the concrete walk, managing to keep both himself and the woman upright as he grabbed the rail with one hand while his other wrapped around her waist. She smelled like sunshine, cinnamon and apples, an alluring scent that had him captivated.
“I’m so sorry,” she breathed. “I saw a mouse.” The woman blinked and disentangled herself from his arms. She blinked again, her jaw sagging and her face paling. “Chief Rainbolt?” she sputtered, blue eyes wide. Red splotches of embarrassment covered her cheeks as she stepped back.
Mitch did a double take. “Officer Anderson?” She looked the same as in the Skype interview except...well, different. During the interview, her hair had been tamed and pulled back severely. Now it floated long, loose and curly around an oval face. A scattering of freckles stretched across her cheeks.
He found himself staring at the beauty before him.
“Are you here on official business?” she asked.
“Your neighbor up the road called in a report of trespassers.”
“What?” Daisy’s blue eyes rounded. “I bought this house.”
“No worries. Mrs. Shupe doesn’t see too well.” Mitch raised a hand. “She uses a set of fancy binoculars, but it can’t be easy looking across the field with those redbud trees in her line of sight.”
Daisy’s mouth dropped open, and then she began to laugh. It was a sweet sound that warmed him from the inside out.
“Everything okay out there, Daisy?” a female voice called.
A mature, gray-haired version of Daisy Anderson appeared from around the other side of the house with a watering can in her hand and a redheaded baby on her hip. The woman’s steel-colored curls framed her face in a short bob.
“Gran, this is my new boss. Chief Rainbolt, this is my grandmother, Alice Anderson.”
“Ma’am.” Mitch offered the woman a polite nod.
“Pleased to meet you, Chief.” She placed the watering can on the ground and offered him her free hand. “I rarely go by ma’am. Alice will do.”
He took her hand. “Yes, ma’am. I mean Miss Alice.”
“Gran, would you please keep an eye on the kids while I chat with the chief?” Daisy asked.
“Of course. That apple pie has cooled. We’ll have a little snack.” Alice turned to Mitch. “Care for a slice of caramel apple pie, Chief? Daisy made it just today.”
He looked at Daisy. “Pretty ambitious, baking a pie while you’re still in the process of moving in,” Mitch said.
Alice laughed. “Daisy’s always ambitious. And she bakes when she’s stressed.”
“Gran!” Daisy’s face was rosy with embarrassment when she turned to Mitch. “Baking is a constant in an often chaotic world. I’m sure the chief gets that.”
Mitch nodded, silently enjoying the exchange between the women.
“About that pie?” Alice continued.
“No, thank you, but I do appreciate the offer.”
A moment later all four children filed quietly into the house, followed by their great-grandmother who held the baby.
Mitch’s eyes went to Daisy Anderson’s left hand. No ring. When he looked up, the blue eyes were assessing.
“Welcome to Rebel,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“So you bought the Kendall place.”
“Sight unseen, which explains quite a bit,” she said. “Like the mouse who thinks I’m invading his territory.”
“Where there’s one, there’s a dozen. A cat or two will eliminate your mouse problem.”
“Good idea.” She met his gaze. “Right about now, you’re probably wondering how you managed to hire an officer who’s afraid of mice.”
“No judging here. We all have our issues.”
She narrowed her eyes as though pondering his words, but said nothing.
“Looks like the place needs some work.” Mitch nodded toward the house. “It passed inspection?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?” He raised his brows.
Her gaze met his and she shrugged. “I waived a few things to lower the price.”
Mitch’s glance skipped from the weathered railing of the porch to the questionable steps. “Not important things, I hope.”
“I’ve got a carpenter coming out to fix the necessary items.”
He nodded and gave the house another slow assessment. “House has sad central air and a few ceiling fans, as I recall.”
“We’re putting our hopes on that sad central air.”
“Ever spent a summer in Oklahoma?”
“No. I guess this will be a trial by fire, won’t it?”
“Oh, nothing that bad. The good news is everything grows here. Accidentally drop watermelon seeds on the ground, and they’ll have produced enough for a harvest before you realize it.”
“That is good news since we have plans for a garden.” She beamed. “My first garden.”
Mitch couldn’t help smiling at her response. “The kids called you Aunt D.”
Daisy took a step away from the house, concern shadowing her face. “I’m their legal guardian,” she said quietly.
Mitch did a mental recap. His new officer had five children.
“All of them?” The words escaped before he could stop them. Mitch knew he was doing a lousy job remaining impassive. Still, there was no denying that five kids were more than a handful. He knew firsthand as he had been the designated adult in a family of five children himself.
“Yes. All of them. Their parents...” She kicked at a stone on the ground with a dusty sneaker, and then met his gaze. “We lost my sister and her husband six months ago.”
The pain he glimpsed in her eyes sucker punched Mitch and he swallowed hard, averting his gaze. It was too bad they had so much in common.
“I’m really sorry,” he finally said, knowing the words were insufficient.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
The silence stretched for a moment, broken by the giggles of children that spilled out from inside the house. The joyous sounds seemed to snap them both from their reverie.
“You’re going to raise them by yourself?” Once again the words were out there before he could rein them back in.
“Don’t look so horrified, Chief Rainbolt. I’m a law-enforcement officer with crowd management experience. I’m confident I can control a handful of children.” She offered a little smile. “However, my grandmother is stayin
g with us...for the summer, maybe longer.” Her smile widened, and she shrugged. “Everything will work out. It always does.”
Spoken with the bright optimism of youth. As he recalled from her job application, she was nine years younger than him. Which made him an old realist. Looking at Daisy Anderson, he felt even older than usual.
“Why Rebel?” he asked.
“Why not?” she returned with another shrug of her slim shoulders.
Why not, indeed? Mitch couldn’t resist a look around the yard. Plenty of space for kids to be kids. Yeah, Rebel was a fine town to raise children. Her passel seemed well behaved. Maybe she had worked out all the details.
Perhaps everything would be just fine.
A moment later he couldn’t help but nix that thought. Mitch knew only too well how raising a family could mess up the most carefully intended plans, which explained why he was still in Rebel. Yeah, it explained a lot of things.
“The children won’t interfere with the job, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Mitch turned back to Daisy and offered a slight nod. Did the woman really understand the big picture? In the days when he played both mother and father to his siblings, it seemed each dawn brought a new crisis, and sometimes no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t avoid disaster.
He tucked away his thoughts, instead focusing on the here and now. All that really mattered was that thanks to the county funding, he had a new officer. A new officer his department needed badly.
“You can still start on Monday morning?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Great. I’d like your transition to be as seamless as possible. The county has recently approved additional funding for the Rebel Police Department. I don’t want to give them any reason to change their minds. My plan is for those folks up at the county offices to fondly refer to Rebel as a well-oiled machine.”
“And is it?”
“Is it what?” he returned.
“Is the Rebel Police Department a well-oiled machine?”
Mitch could only stare, surprised at the gutsy question. No use skirting the truth. “Not at the moment.”
“The population here is about seventeen hundred?” she asked.
“About is a relative word in these parts. The transient summer tourist population headed to Rebel Lake and Keystone Lake down the road is around ten thousand. It’s a long time from May to September. Memorial Day was a week ago, and the fun has already begun.”
“What sort of fun? I’m not familiar with tourist towns.”
“Everything from noise to other ordinance violations on the lake. And where there are summer folks, there are summer teenagers. Not that I have anything against teens. There’s talk that I used to be one.”
Daisy’s lips twitched at the comment.
“Teenagers seem to find new and unusual ways to bend, twist and otherwise manipulate the law without quite breaking it.”
“Yes, they do.” She looked up at him, her gaze thoughtful and once again, assessing. “When was your last day off?”
“I’m on call 24-7.”
“That can’t be good for your disposition.”
Mitch jerked back slightly at the words. He found himself unreasonably annoyed at the astute observation.
Crossing his arms, he pushed back his shoulders before answering. A good offense was always the best route.
“Point of the matter is, Ms. Anderson, Rebel is growing. We’ve had a developer take an interest in our town and, this autumn, a big-box store is going in between here and Hominy. I need funding and I need the manpower... I mean, personnel. We’ve been short on both for too long.”
“Then I guess I showed up right on time.”
Mitch stared her up and down. For a little thing, she certainly could hold her own. And yeah, she was right. She had shown up at the right time.
That should be a good thing, but it sure didn’t explain why his brain was waving a red flag between his eyes, fast and furious, while his gut answered that it was much too late for warnings.
* * *
Daisy opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. Her grandmother sat at the farmhouse table next to ten-month-old PJ who laughed with abandon as she slapped the tray top of her high chair with chubby little hands, causing her plastic plate to jump.
“I never get tired of her laughter,” Daisy said. She smoothed the wispy red curls and pressed a kiss to the baby’s cheek.
“Were you out there talking to your boss all that time?” Alice asked.
“No. I went for a walk around the property. It turns out we have blackberry bushes behind that shed,” Daisy said. “A pecan tree, as well.”
“Pecan pie and blackberry cobbler,” her grandmother said. “I am so loving this place.”
“And it looks like there’s what used to be a small orchard of apple and peach trees farther down. Though the entire area is so overgrown that it will take forever to clean things up.”
“We can handle weeds and grass, can’t we?”
Daisy sighed. “Yes. Perhaps I should hire someone. My to-do list is out of control.”
“Probably a good idea. No telling what else might be hiding in that long grass. Snakes and mice and such.”
“Ew.” Daisy shivered. “Good point.”
Alice placed a bit of mashed apple on PJ’s plate and then turned to Daisy. “I like your boss.”
Her boss. The reason she went for a walk. Daisy cut herself a sliver of pie and slipped into a chair. She was emotionally exhausted after talking to Mitch Rainbolt. Yes, he was her boss. That alone was a reason to be tense. The man held her future in his hands.
On a more basic level, she’d seen honest compassion and understanding in his calm brown eyes. More than she’d expected from a jaded law-enforcement officer. But there was something more. Something she couldn’t begin to define that left her flustered and tongue-tied.
Daisy wrapped her arms around herself.
“He’s quite handsome, isn’t he?” Alice asked.
“Huh?” Daisy looked up.
“You were off in another place, weren’t you?” Her grandmother grinned like she had a secret, and Daisy immediately recognized the smile.
“I was, but nowhere near the location of your line of thought.”
Alice laughed. “I wonder if there’s more where he came from?” she asked. “I’ve been widowed a very long time.” A thoughtful expression crossed her face. “Who knows? Maybe Rebel has more to offer than either you or I expected.”
“Gran, seriously?” Daisy put her hands on her hips and assumed the role of the responsible adult in the family. “I have five children. The answer to my problems lies in prayer, not in tall, dark and handsome.”
“Oh, so you did notice,” Alice said with a chuckle.
“I’d have to be blind not to,” Daisy muttered. “However, let me repeat. He’s my boss and I need my job, including the health and dental coverage.”
“The important thing is that you have peace about this move,” her grandmother said.
“I do.” Daisy nodded. “I have perfect peace about the decision.”
At least she had before talking to Mitch Rainbolt. She’d put on a confident front, but self-doubt began to creep in when she saw the concern in his brown eyes. Would everything work out?
Daisy sighed and glanced out the kitchen window toward the yard that stretched all the way to their nosy neighbor’s fence in the distance. This was what her sister’s children deserved. Green grass as far as they could see. Trees to climb. Adventures to be had. Maybe, just maybe, living in Oklahoma would help them remember the good times, ease their pain and remind them all that God had His hand on their tomorrows.
“I have peace about it as well, Daisy.” Her grandmother touched her arm. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t stepped in.�
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Daisy blinked back emotion. The loss of her twin sister was still too raw. “Deb was more than my sister. She was my other half. There wasn’t a choice.”
“You gave up everything,” Alice continued.
“We’re family. That’s what family does.” She wrapped her fingers around her grandmother’s soft hand. “You’re in this too, so clearly, you get that.”
“No big deal for me. My place is now a vacation rental, and I’ll probably make a fortune.”
“Gran, you left all your friends in Colorado.”
“As you said, it’s what family does. It’s unfortunate that your mother doesn’t understand that. Nor your boyfriend. You could have used the help.”
“Ex-boyfriend.” As for her mother, Daisy would neither defend nor accuse her. It was pointless and wouldn’t change a thing. Besides, Gran had her own opinions of her daughter-in-law and always had, long before Daisy’s father died. It was a topic that was best left alone.
“I have you.” Daisy smiled at the woman who had all but raised her. “That’s all I need. That’s all Deb and I have ever needed.”
When PJ began to fuss, Daisy took the baby from the high chair. She kissed PJ’s soft forehead and snuggled the child in her arms. PJ smelled like all that was good in the world, mixed up with an undefinable innocence and purity.
“So, how was the pie?” Daisy asked, doing her best to lighten the mood. “I tweaked the recipe. Is it an improvement?”
Her grandmother raised a knowing brow. “Your apple pie is better than usual, and that’s saying a lot because you are the best baker I know. Hard to believe you had any room for improvement.”
“It’s better than your pies?”
“Oh, my, yes! There was never a doubt that Daisy Anderson is the best baker in the family.”
Accolades from her grandmother meant everything. Daisy broke off a tiny bit of golden crust and warm apple and popped it into her mouth, savoring the light buttery pastry. Yes, it was good. Good enough to open her own shop? Maybe. She released a small sigh.
That dream was on hold for now. The kids needed her steady paycheck, health benefits and the five-bedroom house that Rebel’s lower cost of living afforded them. Someday, she’d chase her dreams again.
