by Katie Lane
“I thought you could come out to the Tender Heart Ranch under the pretense of helping me with the new addition to the cabin.”
“You’re adding onto the cabin?”
“I decided to enlarge the kitchen and main living spaces.” Raff paused. “And add a nursery.” When Waylon’s eyebrows lifted, he nodded. “Savannah’s pregnant.”
The words were lacking the kind of excitement they should hold, but Waylon understood why. A few months back, Raff had confided in Waylon about all the miscarriages his mother had suffered and how each loss had affected his family. It had explained a lot about Raff’s volatile mood swings as a kid. And his delinquent behavior. He had gotten into a lot of trouble growing up. He’d also been a good friend who was always there when Waylon needed him.
Waylon got up from his chair and walked around his desk to place a hand on Raff’s shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. Savannah is not your mom.”
“I know that.” Raff released a long sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “It’s just hard to forget. Hard to act like I’m not worried sick.”
Waylon wished he had some advice to give, but he knew nothing about women and babies. “When do you want me to come out to the ranch?”
“Whenever you can. I do want you to look at the plans for the cabin and tell me what you think. It would be easier to build a completely different house, but Savannah loves the cabin.” He smiled. “For looking so high maintenance, she’s a simple girl.”
Waylon narrowed his eyes. “And I’m still pissed about you stealing her away from me.” It was ongoing joke between them. Waylon had only gone out with Savannah once. And she’d made it perfectly clear that she wasn’t interested in him.
“Yeah, well, to the victor go the spoils.” Raff got up and slapped Waylon on the shoulder before he headed out the door. “See you on Saturday—and bring some balls and a mitt.”
When he was gone, Waylon finished up the questionnaire before he tackled emails and the pile of paperwork. He missed his assistant something fierce. Gail was not only organized and efficient, she took care of him without putting her nose in his personal business. The temp agency he’d contacted had yet to send someone to take her place. And even if they did, he was sure they wouldn’t be as proficient as Gail.
It was close to eight o’clock by the time he glanced at the time. He was starving and thought about stopping by the diner to eat, but then decided he needed to get home to Sherlock. Joanna Daily and Ms. Marble were his neighbors and took turns keeping an eye on the dog for him during the day. Still, Waylon felt guilty if he got home too late. Sherlock was afraid of the dark.
He shut down his computer, then got up and grabbed his hat from the hook. Before he locked up, he read the sheriff’s code of ethics that hung on the wall. It was something he did every night before he left. Something his father had taught him.
“As a law enforcement officer of the great state of Texas, my fundamental duty is to serve the community, to safeguard lives and property, to protect the innocent against deception, and the weak against oppression and intimidation. To keep the peace and—”
His work cellphone rang. It was his other deputy.
“Hey, Jonas.”
While Tucker was young and gung-ho, Jonas was old and jaded. He’d planned to retire with Waylon’s father, but his wife had passed away a few months before and Jonas had needed the routine of his job to get through his grief. Waylon understood this, but it was still hard to deal with a crotchety, depressed old guy who liked to call him out on all the things he didn’t do right.
“Your father always answered the phone with his name,” Jonas said. “It gave the caller a sense of his authority.”
Waylon rolled his eyes. “I knew it was you, Jonas. I have caller ID.”
“Still, it sounds official and appropriate for a sheriff.”
He took a deep breath and slowly released it. “Sheriff Kendall here. What’s going on?”
“Someone broke into the Tender Heart museum. I was doing my usual patrol when I noticed someone slipping in the back door.”
“It’s probably one of the Arrington women or Joanna Daily.”
“That’s what I thought, but I don’t think those women would leave the lights off and break things. And I definitely heard glass breaking.”
“Did you go inside and see what was going on?”
Jonas released an exasperated sigh. “That’s not how your father taught me to deal with a suspected burglary. I was to call him first and get backup.”
Waylon gritted his teeth. “Fine. I’m on my way.”
When he pulled into the back alleyway behind the museum, he found Jonas waiting in his patrol car. Or not waiting as much as napping. His deputy was sound asleep and snoring as loudly as Sherlock. The man really needed to retire so he could take catnaps whenever he wanted. Of course, he seemed to be getting away with that on the job.
Instead of waking him, Waylon left him sleeping and headed to the back door of the museum. Once inside, he realized Jonas was right. The lights were off, and it sounded like someone was moving around in the dark.
He reached for the light switch by the door. It was already flipped up, which meant that the power was out . . . or had been purposely shut off. He unsnapped the safety on his holster and moved closer to the wall of the storage room. He peeked around the doorway that led into the main museum. A pinpoint flash of light caught his attention. It bounced along the floor and over the antiques.
With adrenaline pumping through his veins, Waylon drew his gun and slipped into the room. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he was able to make out a form moving through the rows of antiques. He maneuvered until he was behind the intruder. He was about to say halt when the intruder ran into something.
“Shit!”
Waylon immediately recognized the voice. The tension left his shoulders, and he holstered his gun. “I should’ve known it was you.”
There was a clatter of something hitting the floor, and the light went out as Spring released a scream. Not a little shriek, but a bloodcurdling scream that made the hairs on Waylon’s neck stand on end. He had to yell to be heard over the din.
“Calm down! It’s me. Sheriff Kendall.”
The screaming cut off and was followed by a release of breath. “You scared the crap out of me. What are you doing sneaking up on a person like that?”
“What are you doing sneaking around the museum in the dark?”
Before she could answer, Jonas came huffing in. “Sheriff Kendall!”
“I’m okay, Jonas.”
“What was that scream?”
“I accidentally surprised an Arrington.”
Jonas snorted. “So it was one of them girls. What was she doing sneaking around in the dark?”
“It seems that the power is out. Why don’t you call Mick at the electric company and let him know? Then you can go home and get some sleep. I got this handled.”
“Fool woman,” Jonas muttered on his way out.
When the backdoor slammed shut, Waylon pulled out his flashlight and clicked it on. Spring squinted back at him. Or maybe glared was a better word. She held up a cellphone with a cracked screen.
“You’ll have to pay for this.”
Chapter Five
“I wasn’t the one who dropped it.” Sheriff Kendall didn’t seem the least bit remorseful about breaking her cellphone.
“No, you were just the one who scared the living daylights out of me.” She squinted at the light. “And could you get that out of my eyes?”
The flashlight lowered. She blinked until the dots of light disappeared and she could see the outline of the sheriff’s cowboy hat and broad shoulders. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
Since she was getting pretty sick and tired of being interrogated by the sheriff, she was a little confrontational. “I don’t think I need a reason to be at my great-grandmother’s museum.”
“The museum might be named for your great-grandmother’s series, but
you don’t own the building or any of the antiques. Most of the antiques belong to Raff Arrington. And the building belongs to Zane.”
“And both men happen to be my cousins and could care less if I’m here.”
“Then you won’t mind if I call them and ask.”
Before he could reach for his phone and bother her cousins, she told him the truth. “If you must know, I stopped by to get Gracie’s diaper bag. She left it here this morning when we were helping sell tickets, and she needed Lucinda’s pacifier or my niece won’t sleep tonight.” She held up the key ring and jangled it. “So I have permission to be here, Sheriff Kendall.”
“Do you also have permission to break things?”
She cringed. Obviously, the sheriff had stepped on the broken glass on his way in. “It was an accident. One I’ll be happy to pay for.” She sincerely hoped that the lamp she knocked off the dresser hadn’t been expensive or she’d have to ask for a bigger loan from her brother. “Now if you’ll excuse me, my niece is waiting for her passie.” She tapped the flashlight app on her cellphone, but nothing happened. It looked like she’d have to add the cost of a new phone to the loan.
The sheriff took her elbow. “Come on. I’ll help you look.”
As much as she wanted to decline, she didn’t have much choice. She followed beside the sheriff as he flashed his light over the antiques. They finally found the diaper bag in the back room on a shelf right by the door. It was just another thing that pointed to Spring’s incompetence. If she’d been more observant, she wouldn’t have had to go into the museum and she wouldn’t have broken a lamp and her phone . . . or had another run in with the sheriff.
Sheriff Kendall pulled the huge bag off the shelf. “Damn, this is heavy. What does Gracie have in here?”
“All the things you need to keep three babies happy.” She went to take the bag, but he held onto it.
“I’ll carry it out for you. Where’s your car?”
“At Emmett’s garage being fixed. I drove Gracie’s. I parked on the street thinking that the key was to the front door, but it turned out to be to the back.”
He shut off the flashlight and slipped it in the holder on his belt before he held open the door for her. “So how’s the museum doing? It looks like more and more tourists are showing up every day to go through it.”
“Gracie said it’s going great, and Joanna Daily’s idea of using volunteers to sell tickets means that the town gets a bigger share of the profits.”
He waited for her to lock the door. “Mrs. Daily is one smart, competent woman. I tried to hire her to help me out at the office for the next couple weeks while my assistant is on leave, but she’s too busy with everything else she does.” He nodded at the sheriff’s SUV parked in the alleyway. “I’ll drive you around to your car.” Before she could decline, he herded her over to the passenger side like a sheep and opened her door.
Once inside, she took note of the immaculate interior. There were no empty Starbucks’ cups or fast food trash like there were in her Jeep. The dash didn’t have a speck of dust or the carpeted floors one stain. It looked like the sheriff ran a tight ship. She watched as he walked over and double-checked the door she’d locked.
Tonight, he was wearing his sheriff’s uniform—tan felt cowboy hat, tan button-down shirt, creased jeans, and polished black boots that matched his belt and holster. As he turned and strode back to the SUV, once again, she felt a ping of sexual awareness. It confused her. She wasn’t a girl who went for men in uniforms. She preferred bad boys in rock and roll t-shirts and tattered jeans. Guys who were interested in a good time and a few laughs. She didn’t go for serious stuffed shirts.
While she was trying to figure out her body’s reaction to Sheriff Kendall, he got in the car and glanced at her.
“What has you so puzzled?” He handed her the diaper bag. “Don’t tell me you left something else inside.”
“No. I was just thinking.” She glanced around for anything to get her mind off sex and the sheriff. She noticed the gadgets on the dash. “Can I turn on the siren?”
He cocked an eyebrow at her as he started the engine. “This vehicle is not a toy. And the siren is only used in emergencies.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you haven’t used the siren before when there wasn’t an emergency.” She shot him a wide-eyed look. “Not even to impress a pretty girl?”
“Not even then.” He put the SUV in reverse. “My daddy would’ve tanned my hide. That, and you’re the first woman who’s ever asked.”
“I bet there were women who wanted to. They were just too chicken to ask.”
He glanced at his rearview screen on the dash and backed up. “And I guess you’re not scared of anything.”
“No, that’s Summer. I’m scared of a lot of things.”
He expertly wheeled the car out into the side street, then put it in drive and headed for Main Street. “Like what? What’s your biggest fear?”
She thought for a moment before she answered. “Disappointing my family.” She hadn’t intended to be so brutally honest, and he seemed as surprised by her answer as she was. He stopped at the corner and turned to her. She expected more questions. The man loved to interrogate her. But instead, he just nodded.
“Funny. That’s mine too.” Before she could get over her surprise, he pointed to a switch on the dash. “Flip it, and then push the button next to it. And if you tell anyone, I’ll say the crazy Hadley triplet did it without my permission.”
“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” she teased before she did as he’d instructed. The lights flashed as the siren whined. She got to enjoy the thrill for only a few second before Sheriff Kendall removed her finger from the button and turned off the lights. She laughed. “Party pooper. I bet it’s a kick in the pants to do it while going ninety miles an hour down the highway.”
He flashed her an impish grin that said he wasn’t as straight-laced as she thought. “Which is one of the reasons I wanted to be a lawman.” He drove around the block and parked behind Gracie’s car. When he turned to her, all the impish boyishness was gone, and the stern sheriff was back. “Now do you think you could stay out of trouble until you leave?”
She shrugged as she opened the door. “I’ll try. But I can’t make any promises.”
Spring got Lucinda’s favorite pacifier home in the knick of time. Gracie and Dirk were just putting the babies to bed. She helped by taking Luella to her room and rocking her. Once her niece was asleep, she didn’t place her back in her crib. Instead, she cuddled Luella close and thought about what a shame it was that her mother would never get to rock her granddaughters.
Dotty Hadley had loved rocking her children. Granny Bon had a big old rocker recliner that was perfect for a slim woman and her four small kids. As they rocked, Dotty would sing all the popular songs from the radio, some country and some pop, until Spring and her siblings fell asleep. Spring didn’t know how her mother got them all to bed. Granny Bon probably came in and helped. All Spring remembered was the contented feeling of being squeezed tight in her mother’s arms with her siblings.
On the night her mother died, Spring had rocked in that old rocker and cried her heart out. Around midnight, Summer had joined her. She hadn’t cried. Summer wasn’t one for tears. She’d just held Spring and taken over the rocking. Autumn had joined them an hour later, and then Dirk. The following morning, Granny Bon had found them all sleeping in the chair like a litter of motherless kittens.
The thought of her grandmother had Spring getting up and tucking Luella in for the night. Once in the guest room, she called Granny Bon. Just hearing her grandmother’s voice brought tears to her eyes.
“It’s about time you called me back, Spring Leigh Hadley.”
Spring started to use the excuse of her phone being broken, but then stopped. Granny didn’t care for excuses. Besides, Spring had been ignoring her grandmother’s calls. Like Dirk, Granny Bon was not going to be happy that Spring had left her sisters to run the business while she we
nt camping. Granny Bon didn’t believe in vacations. She believed in family and hard work. She should be retired, but she still worked every day at a transitional home for orphaned children. Having been an orphan herself, she knew how important it was to make the children in her care feel loved. She was a little tougher on her grandkids. And Spring figured she was going to get a stern lecture, so she jumped in first.
“Before you get after me, I want you to know that Summer said some horribly hurtful things. She can’t treat people like that and get away with it. I’ve worked just as hard as she has to make that business successful. And yes, I made a mistake. But it’s not like she’s never made mistakes in her life. And I know you’ve been calling me to try and get me to go back to Houston, but I just can’t do it, Granny. I’m not going back until Summer apologizes.”
There was a pause before Granny Bon spoke. “I couldn’t agree more.”
Spring glanced at her phone to make sure she was still talking to her grandmother before pressing it back to her ear. “Excuse me?”
“I agree. Summer shouldn’t talk to you the way she does. That girl is way too controlling for her own good. And I have to take responsibility for some of it. After your mama died, I had my hands full. I was grieving and I had to work and take care of four children. Summer has always been responsible and mature. So I relied on her to help me keep an eye on the rest of you kids and keep you out of trouble. I didn’t realize she’d take the job to heart. Or that you would allow her to continue bossing you around long after you became full-grown women. I’ve been waiting for the day you’d get the gumption to stand up to Summer and say ‘enough is enough.’”
Spring was almost too shocked to speak. “So you’re not mad at me for leaving Houston? You don’t mind if I take a couple weeks off to go camping?”
“I think camping is pure foolishness. You need to get a job and start making your own way.”
“A job? I have a job. I’m just taking some time off from it.”
“You don’t have a job. You and your sisters are playing store with Dirk’s money, and it’s time you stopped playing and grew up.” Spring cringed. She’d forgotten how direct her grandmother could be. And Granny Bon wasn’t finished yet. “I hated Holt getting custody of Dirk and taking him away from us, but now I have to wonder if it wasn’t the best thing that could’ve happened to that boy. He’s the only one of you kids who has his own life.”
