Hometown Sheriff

by Cheryl St. John

  She was showing them the engine.

  Boy, he’d love to look under that hood, hear the motor run. Maybe if he raised the window, he could catch the sound. Nah. Probably not from this distance. That baby probably purred like a kitten. He turned determinedly back to his pancakes.

  * * *

  RYANNE SWIPED THE enormous sponge over the grill, scrubbing hard at the layer of insects that had committed suicide between here and the coast. Her car had never been this dirty. She wrinkled her nose at the mess and directed the hose to rinse away the worst. The morning sun combined with her exertions to make her start to sweat. She sprayed cold water on her legs and feet, enjoying the refreshing chill.

  “I didn’t know you were home!” The voice from behind surprised her, and she turned to see a gray-haired man and a young boy approaching from the Sinclair house. Home? The word sounded strange. “When did you get here?”

  “Mel. Mel Sinclair!” Oh, my, Ryanne thought. He’d aged since she’d last seen him. How long had it been? “I got here just yesterday,” she replied, smiling.

  “This is my grandson, Jamie. Jamie, this is Ryanne Whitaker. Oh, it’s not Whitaker anymore, is it?” Mel gave her a sheepish look.

  “That’s okay. It’s Davidson.”

  The dark-haired boy waved to acknowledge the introduction, but his attention was focused on the car behind her. “Wow,” he said. “That’s an awesome car.”

  A grandson. Since Mel had only one son left, the boy had to belong to Nick. She looked the handsome young fellow over, recognizing the deep-set blue eyes, the thick black hair. That cleft in his chin wasn’t Nick’s, however. Other than that, looking at the boy was like going back twenty-odd years and looking at Nick.

  “Thanks. Are you visiting your grandfather today?” she asked to make conversation.

  He brought his gaze from the car to her, then shot it to Mel.

  “Jamie lives with me. With us. We live together.”

  “Oh.” She hadn’t kept up on the Sinclairs, though surely her mother had mentioned them. Ryanne remembered the news about Nick’s wedding, years ago. He’d married the girl that his brother, Justin, had dated in high school. She’d thought it odd at the time, but then she hadn’t been around to see a new romance blossom. What was her name? Haley? Hattie? Something like that.

  “She’s so cool,” Jamie said, back to staring at the car. He walked around the front, Mel following, then stood on tiptoe and peered through the driver’s side window. “Bet she purrs like a kitten.”

  Ryanne couldn’t help a smile. She exchanged a look with Mel. “Sounds just like someone else I used to know.”

  “He’s his father’s son, through and through, no gettin’ around that.”

  “Would you like to look under the hood?” she asked, knowing that looking at engines was a guy thing. “It’s a six speed.”

  “Cool!” was his reply.

  She opened the door and popped the latch. Walking to the front of the car, she found the lever and raised the hood.

  Both Mel and Jamie stared reverently. “Awesome,” Jamie whispered, as though he were in church. “Dad’s gonna be sorry he missed this,” he said, turning to look up at her, finally giving her more attention than the car. “Are you and my dad still friends?”

  She thought about the scene last night, when Nick had crashed into her bedroom and waved a gun in her face. Okay, so he’d been looking out for the house—for her mother’s property—and doing what he thought should be done. Ryanne had had a really bad week, a really bad several months, actually—well, maybe more like a year—and she hadn’t been in any mood to be stormed by the local sheriff on a SWAT mission.

  Nick was an old friend and she hadn’t been very nice, even though she’d had cause for taking offense. “We grew up together,” she said now. “Best buddies.”

  “I know,” Jamie stated. “My dad told me.” His face lit with enthusiasm, and he turned to his grandfather. “Can she come eat breakfast with us, Grampa? Dad always makes plenty.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to impose on your family...” she began.

  “You are part of our family,” Mel said earnestly. “Why, you used to be at our table as often as my boys. And if you weren’t, then they were over here eating your mama’s cooking.” He gave her a smile that deepened the wrinkles around his kind eyes. “Come share breakfast with us. Please.”

  Ryanne didn’t especially want to see Nick or his wife. Did they have other children besides Jamie? But neither did she want to hurt Mel’s feelings. He’d been so good to her mom after her father had left. He and Nick both. And apparently Nick watched over the house for her. “All right. Just for a little while.”

  “Great!” Jamie shouted. “Dad’s gonna be surprised!”

  Not any more surprised than Ryanne was that she had agreed to join them. She wasn’t good company, and she really didn’t want to face Nick after the night before. She went to the back steps to get her tennis shoes and followed her neighbors across the yard with dread.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE BACK DOOR opened. “Could have told you,” Nick said.

  Ryanne glanced around the remodeled kitchen. The room looked nothing like the way she remembered it. “Told me what?”

  Nick’s head shot around. He met her eyes with a look of total surprise.

  Mel and Jamie entered the kitchen behind her.

  “Your dad invited me to breakfast,” she explained.

  Mel had always been kind to her, had always seemed like the kind of parent a kid would want. He’d taken time to play ball with her and Nick and Justin, drive them to the community pool and drop them off at movies. She had no beef with Mel Sinclair. Mel hadn’t seemed like the type of person her father had always warned her was looking to judge their family. She liked Mel Sinclair, so she was here for his sake.

  Nick jumped out of his seat and went to the cupboard for another plate.

  “Ryanne’s gonna eat with us, Dad,” Jamie said cheerfully. “Ain’t that cool?”

  “That’s definitely cool.” Nick nodded to the bright, sunlit breakfast nook with its padded benches. “Have a seat.”

  “It’s good to see you,” Mel said, sitting across from her and next to Jamie, leaving Nick the space beside Ryanne. Nick had picked up his plate and carried it away already. “You’ve been such a stranger,” Mel continued. “I want to hear all about your life.”

  “Thank you.” She accepted the glass of orange juice Nick placed in front of her. “Not much to tell, really.”

  “What do you mean? Your mother told us about your company and how successful you’ve been. That’s just great.”

  She managed a weak smile. Just great. “Yeah.”

  “And your husband,” the older man added. “The two of you run the company together?”

  Nick held a cup and a glass coffeepot toward her, with a questioning lift of one dark brow.

  “Yes, thanks. I’d love a cup.”

  “It’s decaf,” Mel said with a note of displeasure. “Nick has decaffeinated us.”

  “That’s okay.” She watched Nick’s strong, steady hand pour a mugful and set it before her.

  “How come you didn’t take your vacation in Arizona with your mother?” Mel asked.

  “Vacation?”

  The old man nodded. “Seems you picked the time of year to come here when most people are heading other directions.”

  “Oh, well, I, um, I needed...”

  All three of them gazed at her expectantly, Nick awaiting her reply from in front of the stove.

  “I needed...” A place to run? Somewhere to stay that wouldn’t cost her anything? “A change,” she said finally.

  Nick resumed dishing up her food.

  “I’ll bet an important job like that gets stressful,” Mel said with a sympathetic cluck.

  A minute later, Nick set down a plate holding a complete breakfast. She raised her gaze. “You fixed this?”

  Nick nodded and sat beside her. He wore a navy-blue T-shir
t that fit his muscular body like a second skin, and she couldn’t help stealing an appreciative glance. He was so much...bigger than she remembered. Muscular arms, strong hands... How weird of her to take notice. Of course he’d developed into a man.

  “Dad always makes us breakfast on Saturday,” Jamie told her. “Sometimes on Sunday, too. But sometimes we go to the Waggin’ Tongue and Miss Rumford makes me pancakes shaped like animals. Dad tried it, but they all looked like blobs.”

  Nick shrugged and picked up his mug. “We all have our talents. Shirley Rumford’s is buffalo pancakes.”

  “Does Harry Ulrich still run the place with her?” Ryanne asked, tasting her pancakes and finding them delicious.

  Nick affirmed that he did. The couple had run the bar and grill as partners and friends for thirty years.

  “Still just the one grocery store in town?” she asked.

  “Turner Foods. Norm owns it now. His dad is in the nursing home.”

  “I’d better make a trip over there today and get a few items. I really appreciate you inviting me to breakfast. All I found were a few canned things, and none of them appealed this morning.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Boy, you kids practically ate all your meals together at one time,” Mel said. “Made it easier on your mothers, I think.” His expression took on a sadness that touched Ryanne, and he gazed out the window. “I sure do miss those days. Sometimes I can still see us all in this place the way it used to be, Florence at the stove in her apron, you and Nick and Justin thundering in to wash up.”

  Ryanne’s mother and Florence Sinclair had been best friends. Ryanne couldn’t remember a summer without a family vacation together. She and Nick, with his younger brother tagging along, had been a combo ever since she could remember.

  Mel had lost his wife to cancer and a year later his youngest son to a car accident. Both deaths had occurred after Ryanne had started college. She’d come back for both funerals, and she remembered the Sinclairs’ grief vividly. She had shared it. “I adored Florence,” she told the older man. “She was a special person.”

  He nodded, blinking.

  Without forethought, she reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. “She used to take us to the library once a week,” she told him, remembering happier days.

  Mel smiled wistfully and turned his hand over to hold hers.

  “There was a book I checked out over and over, so many times, in fact, that the librarian finally said I could only have it once a month, because no one else was getting to read it.”

  “What was the book?” Jamie asked.

  “It was a story about a girl and a pet falcon. And do you know what?” she said to the boy. “Your grandma bought me a copy of that book and gave it to me so I’d have my very own.”

  “She did?”

  Ryanne nodded. “I still have it.” She’d seen it last night when she’d been rearranging things in her closet. She made a mental note to get it out and share it with Jamie.

  “I don’t have any grammas,” Jamie told her.

  Mel’s hold on her hand tightened to a gentle squeeze. She met his somber eyes for a moment, then turned her attention to Jamie.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and she and Mel broke the contact.

  “Don’t have a mom, neither,” he said, his voice small and his expression serious.

  Her heart hitched in her chest. She remembered then, hearing her mother mention something a long time ago about Nick’s wife, but Ryanne couldn’t remember what it had been. She couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Dad says Miss Lottie and Miss Kris are my female role models,” Jamie told her seriously.

  Ryanne glanced at Nick, and he gave her a sideways smile. “His day-care providers.”

  “It’s not day care, Dad! I’m too big for that!”

  “Right. Sorry. Summer day camp.”

  Knowledge of role models seemed far too astute for a young boy. “How old are you?” Ryanne asked.

  “Seven.”

  “Going on thirty,” Nick said wryly.

  “He always says that.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll get some new material one of these days.”

  “Where’s your kids?” Jamie asked her.

  “I don’t have any.”

  “How come?”

  “Jamie, that’s none of your business,” his father reprimanded.

  “Well, I was wonderin’, is all. Be cool if I had a kid next door to play with like you guys did when you was little.”

  “You have Wade,” Nick reminded him.

  “Yeah,” Jamie agreed, and said to Ryanne, “Wade is my bestest friend. We do stuff together.”

  “Do you remember Forrest Perry?” Nick asked her. “Wade is one of Forrest and Natalie’s kids.”

  “I remember,” she said. “The quarterback.”

  Nick grinned. “That was a long time ago.”

  “Natalie. Wasn’t she the girl who used to set up a lemonade stand on the curb and charge us a quarter a cup?” Ryanne held up her thumb and forefinger barely two inches apart. “A really little cup.”

  Nick chuckled. “Same one. Forrest has the car dealership on the highway now. Natalie is president of the PTA. They’re Scout leaders.”

  Mel and Jamie had finished their meal, and Ryanne, too, laid down her fork. “That was great.”

  “You need any help washing that car?” Jamie asked.

  “Thanks, but I think I’m done.”

  “Okay. Well, ask me next time you need help, and I’ll come on over.”

  “Will do.”

  “Me ’n’ Grampa are gonna go fishin’!”

  “We’d better go see if the night crawlers in the fridge in the garage are still squirmin’,” Mel said.

  “Want I should help you with the dishes?” Jamie asked his dad.

  “Nope. You two go on.” Nick crouched down and Jamie gave him a bear hug. He tousled his son’s hair. “I love you, little mister.”

  “I love you, big mister. See ya, Ryanne!”

  She waved. “Have fun.”

  Seeing the interaction between father and son touched her unexpectedly. Nick gathered dishes to rinse and load into the dishwasher. She carried two glasses and he took them.

  Feeling awkward now that they were alone, she leaned back against a counter and surveyed the room. The breakfast nook bay was a new addition, as well as the center island. Appliances in stainless steel had replaced the old ones. The sink had been moved to a different wall, and louvered white folding doors closed over what was probably a laundry area. A built-in desk near the doorway to the dining room housed a computer and a phone. The bulletin board behind it was covered with notes and childish drawings—mostly of cars.

  “Doesn’t even look like the same room,” she commented.

  He straightened from the dishwasher. “I’d forgotten you’d never seen it. We did this about six years ago. We spend a lot of time in here, and the place was out of date. Dad has a couple of rooms and a bathroom down here now, too.”

  In contrast, her mother’s house hadn’t changed a bit. Even the furnishings were the same as they’d been for as long as Ryanne could recall. The difference between the two homes was like night and day.

  “Care for another cup of coffee?” Nick asked.

  “No thanks, I have to be going.”

  He nodded and turned to pick up a skillet.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” she told him, forcing the words out before she lost her nerve.

  He paused, touching the handle of the pan. “Me, too.”

  “No, really. You were looking out for the place and I was being a jerk.”

  “I embarrassed you. I’m sorry about that.”

  She picked up a damp dish towel and folded it into a square. “Think we can forget about that?”

  He turned his head and looked her in the eye.

  She’d looked into those eyes a thousand times, whether sharing a joke, planning mischief or seeing empathy as
he listened to her share a problem. But this was different. She recognized the same change she’d noticed last night, the difference that had made her uncomfortable then. He shouldn’t have been looking at her that way.

  His gaze slid to give her the once-over, in a completely assessing and direct manner. Her cheeks grew uncomfortably warm. Even though his air-conditioned home was at least ten degrees cooler than the air outside, her whole body seemed too warm. “Probably not.”

  That was wrong. He’d seen her in her pajamas before. Her mother had home movies of them growing up. Even though Ryanne was two years older than Nick, she’d considered him a friend and a confidant all through high school.

  Never in all those times had their relationship waded into these unfamiliar waters. She didn’t think she liked the turn it had taken. “Probably not? What does that mean?”

  He turned back to his task. “You figure it out.”

  “What kind of cop-out comment is that?”

  “Let it go, Rye,” he said.

  His words angered her, but at the same time the vulnerability in them touched her. She forced her mind to release the questions she’d formed. She’d come over here for Mel’s sake, not for a heart-to-heart or to make amends with Nick, and it was past time to leave. His apology had been unexpected.

  But strangely welcome, she admitted to herself.

  She hung the towel on a hook. Her head was too messed up to get into anything like this, and all she wanted was to be left to herself, anyway. “Thanks again.”

  “Anytime.”

  “’Bye.” She was out the door before he could reply. All the way across the yard that separated their houses, she felt like she was being watched. Maybe he was standing at the back door, watching her go. Maybe the neighbors were on full alert, garnering news for the rumor mill. She glanced at the houses that had been built across the alley behind their yards in the last ten or so years.

  When she reached her driveway, she looked toward the west at the house on the other side, and saw Audrey Milligan in blue polyester pants and Reebok running shoes, watering her rose bushes. At least some things never changed. The blue-haired woman waved. “Hi, sweetie! I didn’t know you were home!”