Erin's Way

by Laura Browning

  It had happened that same summer after he’d seen her in the pond. She’d sneaked out on a hot night several evenings later. He’d still been drinking then—far more than the occasional social drink he now consumed. That night, Sam had swallowed enough bourbon to give him a buzz before he finally stumbled into his bedroom, stripped, and crawled between the sheets. When he awoke in the middle of the night, it was to feel a warm, naked female pressed against him.

  He closed his eyes at the memory. He had nearly made love to a child. As soon as she’d whispered “Sammy” in that soft, shy voice, it had been like a bucket of ice water to his face and his groin. With a curse, he’d leaped out of bed, yanking on his boxers as he hopped toward the door of his room. Fear sweat, worse than anything he’d experienced in Afghanistan, trickled down his back.

  He’d called Stoner. While a tearful Erin ranted and raged at him, Sam had pulled on his jeans and yelled over the phone at a furious Stoner to come get his daughter…to do something to control her.

  Well, they had. Stoner had taken Catherine and Erin and moved to Washington, D.C.—making that their primary residence and leaving the farm in the care of a foreman. That had been the last time he’d seen Erin in person until last fall. Finding her in his bed today had brought it all back. She had been such a passionate little thing all those years ago, he wondered how many other men she’d pulled the same trick on. Then there were the birth control pills. She wouldn’t need them if she wasn’t having sex.

  When his phone rang, he was somehow not surprised to find it was Stoner. A disappointing sense of déjà vu tightened his jaw. What did surprise him was that Erin hadn’t had the gumption to call herself and quit. He was sure that’s what this must be about. He was also sure he would get an earful from Stoner, but as he listened to the older man, his brow furrowed.

  The tale Stoner was sharing was just short of unbelievable, and exactly what Erin had jokingly told him as to why she had returned. Someone was trying to kill her. She had told him the truth, but he hadn’t believed her. Sam’s gut hurt.

  “I think she’ll be safer at your place, safer than even here at the guesthouse.”

  “Whoa!” Sam snapped. “You want me to let her move in here? No! Stoner… That’s a bad idea.”

  “Because of what happened today?”

  “She told you?” Sam’s heart pounded. He had hoped their exchange would be private, and he was somewhat disappointed Erin would be vindictive.

  There was a pause on the other end of the line, and Sam swore silently. He’d just been taken in by a master.

  “No. She denied anything happened, but you’ve now confirmed something occurred. I just saw her when she came back from your place. Erin wouldn’t talk about it.” Stoner’s voice took on a harsh tone, “So help me, Sam, if you hurt her…”

  Sam grabbed the back of his neck, “You think I hurt her, but you think it would be advisable for her to move in with me? What kind of crazy, screwed up logic is that?”

  “Just think about it, okay? No one’s likely to look for her on your farm. It will be easier for us to honestly say she’s not here. I’ve already talked to everyone else locally who might have been on her laptop address book in case anyone calls looking for her… None of us knows where she is.”

  “Stoner…”

  “Consider it. I’m letting her use my truck to get around, and she’ll be over there tomorrow.”

  “She’s coming back?”

  “As far as I know. Think about it, Sam,” Stoner said again. The line went dead.

  Sam shook his head as he hung up the phone. He was amazed Erin would even set foot on his farm after what he’d said to her. But then if it was the simple truth, why should it bother her? He glowered as he sat in front of the TV. Sam had no idea what he watched. All he could see was Erin Richardson’s luscious body wrapped in someone else’s arms. And the idea made him growl in frustration.

  * * * *

  The last thing Erin wanted to see the following morning was Sam’s cruiser still parked in the driveway. She realized as soon as she pulled up in her dad’s truck that Sam had waited for her. Turning around and leaving was a real temptation, but a chicken wasn’t what she was.

  Sam strode down the steps dressed in his uniform and carrying his hat. Erin jumped from the truck and stood next to it, stomach churning. He looked even bigger and more intimidating in the tan and brown shirt and pants. Since the weather was still cold, he also wore a heavy brown wool uniform jacket that added more bulk to shoulders already impossibly broad. The duty belt around his waist included a side arm, an obvious reminder of the fact this wasn’t Mayberry and he wasn’t Andy Taylor. She’d be damned if she’d admit just how freaking intimidating he looked. And hot. Lick your chops hot.

  As he approached the truck, Erin forced herself to stand her ground. “I thought you’d be gone already,” she stated half accusingly, chin stuck out.

  “That would have suited you, no doubt,” he snapped. “Still smarting from having a man actually say no?”

  “Go to hell.” Her response was quick, but inside, the pain that spread through her was anything but quick. It seeped like a slow, insidious poison of uncertainty.

  “Your father called me last night about your situation in the Virgin Islands. I left you copies of forms I need you to fill out so we can get information circulated about who we should watch for. You can get that done after you feed and ride fences. I’ll be back to pick it up around lunchtime. Oh and there’s a note in the barn about switching stalls around.”

  “But…” Before Erin could fabricate some excuse for why she couldn’t fill out the paperwork and get him to tell her what the note in the barn said, he’d climbed into his cruiser and headed down the drive. As soon as he was out of sight, she ran inside the house to see what he’d left. Erin sagged against the table when she saw several pages of forms with instructions in small print. She could no more fill that out than she could fly to the moon.

  As she moved through her chores of feeding, cleaning, and riding the farm, her mind worked frantically to come up with a way around the forms Sam had left. She thought about calling Tabby or Jenny for help, but was too embarrassed. Besides, there was no way she would have enough time to get them to read it to her. As for the note in the barn, she took one look at it and decided she could simply say she couldn’t read his handwriting—which was partly true. It was hard enough to read typed print, but handwriting turned into one big confusing swirl.

  If she had a laptop already set up, she could have just asked him to e-mail them. With her text-to-speech and voice-recognition programs in place, it would have been a simple matter to get it filled out, but paper forms were a major problem. You could just tell Sam the truth. She cringed from that idea as if it were a rattlesnake getting ready to strike. Right. Give them all one more reason to laugh at her.

  Erin returned to the kitchen about eleven and sat. She had to try. Sam was trying to help. She spread the forms out in front of her and stared at them, but the harder she tried to read and understand what was in front of her, the more jumbled all the words looked. Erin’s temper simmered along with her frustration. She had learned a long time ago not to cry. People made fun of you then and called you names, but they couldn’t make fun of you if you just got mad or got even. Feeling like a complete idiot, but frustrated to the point of anger, she stood next to the table staring ambivalently at the papers with their empty, mocking white spaces. After setting her full coffee cup next to them, she deliberately knocked it over.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Sam snapped from right behind her.

  Erin spun around, stumbling back from the table in surprise, and hiding her guilt behind anger. “I’m not filling out your damn paperwork,” she blustered. “Fill it out yourself, Sheriff!”

  She started to brush past him, to escape, but he grabbed her arm. “You can darn well stay here and fill them out. I’ll print new ones.”

  Erin panicked. Thi
s wasn’t working out at all. She couldn’t fill out what she couldn’t read. Deciding hauteur was a better course, she responded coolly. “No, I can’t stay here, Sheriff. I finished my work, and I have things to do. Bring them with you this evening. I believe my father has invited you for dinner.”

  “It would be a whole lot easier if you…”

  Erin jerked her arm away from his grasp. “I have plans. You’ll have to excuse me.”

  “Well la-ti-da…” He mimicked her haughty tone. “Excuse me, princess. Where did you pull that spoiled rich girl act from?”

  She raised her brows. “It’s no act. It’s what you always thought I was anyway. I’m just trying to live down to your expectations.”

  Erin turned and fled. She had to get out of there. She knew she’d only put off the inevitable. There had to be some way she could avoid reading or filling out anything.

  “Hey!” Sam shouted after her. “You need to go straight back to Richardson Homestead. You hear me, Erin?”

  Erin flipped him a bird, hopped in her dad’s truck, and drove to the computer store in Mountain Meadow. She’d been without her link to the rest of the world for long enough. The computer store, just off the main square, was a new addition, but otherwise, Mountain Meadow’s business district looked the same as it had when she was a kid. She jammed the truck into park and leaped to the pavement.

  Still clad in overalls and muddy boots, she glanced up to see a trio of older ladies eyeing her as though she’d just crawled out from under a rock. Busybody church ladies at ten o’clock. Lord, she remembered them from when she was a kid, still with those same pinched expressions. Times like these she wished she’d left all her earrings and the eyebrow ring in. That would give them something to talk about. Instead, she smiled and waved, nearly laughing when they turned their backs in unison. Good to know her reputation was intact.

  When Erin entered the small store just off the square, she was relieved to find that they not only had the same kind of laptop she’d left behind, but also had the same reading and writing software she knew how to use. She looked at the kid behind the counter. He had computer geek written all over him.

  She wanted more than just the same setup she’d had aboard the Sprite. Even though she’d had little luck in the past, she was determined to try again to get help to improve her reading. “I’m working with a little girl who’s having trouble reading,” she lied smoothly. “Do you have any suitable programs to help with that?”

  “Oh yeah! There’s a great one here. My little brother’s dyslexic, and he does super with it.”

  “So he’s made progress?” When the clerk nodded, Erin smiled charmingly, trying hard to keep the complete and utter relief from showing through. “That sounds just perfect.”

  “If you’re working with someone having reading problems, you should talk to Ms. Hastings. She teaches at the high school and helps out with the reading program at the library. I bet she could help if you run into any problems.”

  Erin smiled. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Without enough cash to cover it, Erin pulled out her credit card, looked at it for an instant, and shrugged. She’d just have to take the risk. Surely Andre’s reach didn’t extend this far. She avoided using the card after her arrival at Dulles, so Florida would have been the last place he could trace her, but she just didn’t have this much in cash.

  Once she paid for everything, she drove straight to the guesthouse to set up the system and load the software. When she logged into her e-mail, she was surprised to find a message from Captain Rick. Erin frowned as she laboriously read what he had written, unwilling to wait until she’d loaded the text to speech software.

  Sprite blown up. Stan and Roger missing.

  Erin gasped and blinked in shock. This was worse than she feared.

  Matty and I are looking for a place to lay low so we’re headed your way. Call me on your cell.—Rick.

  Rick was coming here. Erin grinned. He and Matty were her friends. They knew things about her she’d never told other people. It was unavoidable living so close together on board a boat. Maybe they could run interference between her and Sam. They’d certainly helped her out before when men had tried to get close. The other plus was they knew Andre. They could help keep an eye out for him.

  While Erin installed her voice recognition software, she pulled her phone from her bag and punched the symbol she’d programmed for Rick.

  It rang only once before a husky baritone drawled, “Erin, sweet girl!”

  Erin giggled. “You sound like every girl’s dream on the phone, Rick. How can you be so cruel as to like men?”

  He laughed. “I’ve told you before, honey girl, any time you want to convince me I’m playing for the wrong team, I’m willing to listen.”

  Erin chose to ignore him. “What’s this about the Sprite? Is it Andre?”

  “I think. Matty and I would have been on board too, but we accepted a last minute invitation to play strip poker with some cute college guys taking a semester off. Girl, you should have seen the…”

  “Rick!” Erin cut him off with a grin. “TMI. Where are you and Matty?”

  “In a hotel in Miami. We may stay for a few more days before we head your way. Matty is doing a lot to restore my good humor over losing both my boat and my partner.”

  Erin closed her eyes. “I just don’t want to know, Rick. You and Matty are going to have to play heterosexual around here.”

  “Do we get to be your beards again? You know how I love feeling you up.”

  “We can talk about it when you get here. There are only two bedrooms in the guesthouse…”

  “That will be just perfect.”

  Erin sighed. “You don’t understand. My parents are conventional, like Ward and June Cleaver conventional. In fact, I don’t think they even share a room. I doubt they’ll go for you staying with me, but we’ll worry about that after you’re already here.”

  After she hung up, Erin wondered what she was doing. She had tried to fit in, but it didn’t seem to get her anywhere, certainly not with Sam, so what the hell? Maybe it was time the old Erin returned. Rick and Matty knew her and loved her, warts and all. She could be herself with them when she couldn’t with anyone else. Sometimes she thought she was half in love with Rick, but then she’d shake herself out of it and realize it was just gratitude. He’d taken a big chance on her.

  She finished installing her software and decided to try the reading program. After working on it for an hour, she quit with a tired sigh, rubbing her head. It just never seemed to get any better. Maybe it wasn’t dyslexia. Maybe this was as good as it got.

  She scanned the Internet with her text-to-speech application and found an article in the St. Thomas paper about the explosion. Two bodies were recovered and two more were missing and presumed dead. Rick, Erin was sure, would prefer things stayed that way for the time being. Pouring herself a stiff bourbon, she decided it was time to get plastered. After all, she’d been drug and alcohol free for nearly three days. That had to be a freaking record.

  She raced upstairs, showered, and put on her baggy pants, but this time she added a tight cropped T-shirt, then returned to her laptop. She surfed the net again, returning to her favorite news…financial and stock analyses. With a few clicks, she was able to check on her own investments and saw that a company she had decided to invest in finally was showing the profit she had projected. Erin shoved the bourbon aside and asked the computer for additional information.

  She was so lost in monitoring her finances she forgot the time until she heard a knock on the door. She jumped up, bumped the half-consumed glass of bourbon, which splashed onto her hand, and swore as she wiped it off. With the computer voice still speaking behind her, Erin rose and answered the door, rubbing the tiredness from her eyes.

  Sam got one whiff of her and shoved his way in. “Darn it, Erin. You’re drunk. Don’t you realize what time it is? Everyone’s been waiting on you for
a quarter of an hour and you’re over here three sheets to the wind and half-dressed.” With scarcely a glance at the talking computer, Sam dragged her upstairs and pushed her into the room in front of him.

  “I’m not…turn me loose!” she spluttered. “Get the hell off me.”

  Sam swung around. His angry gaze raked hotly up and down her, lingering on her breasts beneath the tight T-shirt. She’d opted for comfort and ditched her bra. Now she wondered about that choice. When his stare dropped to the waistband of her pants, his hand touched the drawstring as well as the bare skin of her midriff and he muttered, “You obviously have nothing on under the shirt… Just what do you have on under these?”

  Erin curled her lip. His touch made her skin tingle and that just made her more angry. “Curious? I thought maybe you were old enough you couldn’t…”

  His eyes flared with fury, and he jerked her against his lean hips. “Does that feel like I can’t Erin? There’s a big difference between can’t and won’t.”

  She felt his erection press against her belly and saw the absolute disdain in his eyes. Unaccustomed and unwanted tears blurred her vision and she twisted away. Nobody made her tear up, dammit. He already had such a low opinion of her. Erin suddenly wanted to shock him even more. She turned her back on him, untied the drawstring on her pants, and let them fall around her ankles.

  Over her shoulder she spat, “Kiss my ass, Sheriff!” She had the satisfaction of seeing his eyes widen at the small rose tattoo on one rounded cheek. “Oh, if you like that, Sammy, you’ll really like this.” And with one quick movement she whipped off her T-shirt and turned around to face him. His gaze darted straight to the small broken heart on the curve of her left breast.

  “Sweet Heaven, Erin!” He swore and turned away. “Cover yourself.”