A Sweet Life-kindle

by Andre, Bella

  She peered around him to where Mr. Whiskers was nibbling the grass along the west fence.

  "Corrupting the morals of a goat. Shame on you, Sheriff."

  His deep laugh surprised both of them. It rumbled out of him, and she rewarded him with a winsome smile, then grabbed his hand. Somehow they made it inside the house and up the steep wooden stairs, stopping on each one to discard more of their clothing and share another long, drugging kiss.

  By the time they reached her bedroom, he was shaking with need. So was she, he realized, and a primitive satisfaction swept through him. She wanted him as badly as he burned for her.

  He barely made it to the bed before he had to be inside her. Bodies entwined, they fell onto the soft quilt.

  ***

  He watched her sleep for a long time, the little soughing breaths she took, the delicate tracery of veins in her eyelids. It would be so hard to leave her. He felt his chest grow tight at the thought of it, yet he also could feel his time there slipping away. Hank had already stopped by the jail that week to tell Will he'd be ready to resume his duties any day now.

  He should have been relieved, should have been so eager to return to Phoenix and what waited for him there. But he had to admit that beyond the ache he felt at leaving Andie, a few of his pangs were for the job, for something that had once held about the same attraction to him as sitting on a saguaro cactus. Surprisingly, he'd found himself actually enjoying his time there as sheriff. There was something so gratifying about being needed and respected by the people he served.

  In Phoenix, he was lucky if his sources remembered his name, but here everybody wanted to stop and chat. He had little boys following him around town with admiration in their eyes, had weather-beaten ranchers stop him in the street to shake his hand and ask him how his shoulder was feeling. Just the other day, Betsy Jacobs had dropped by the jail with an extra strawberry pie she'd baked just because she wanted him to know he was doing a good job.

  Will suddenly stiffened at the reminder of his job. Damn. He'd left his cell phone in his jacket, slung over the passenger seat of the Jeep. His deputies would have no idea he was here, he realized. As unwilling as he was to leave the haven of Andie's bed, he knew he'd have to go out into the cold to grab the phone.

  He had a responsibility to all those good folks who remembered his name and brought him strawberry pie.

  Feeling his way in the dark, he slid into his jeans.

  He decided not to risk waking Andie up by fumbling around for his shirt and he walked quietly out into the hallway. And smack into some kind of table.

  He swore as pain radiated from his stubbed toe, then quickly clamped his lips together. A quick glance back to the darkened bedroom showed Andie hadn't awakened, so Will hobbled down the stairs as quietly as he could.

  A cold wind grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him as soon as he walked out the door. He'd forgotten how quickly fall came in the mountains. Seemed like one night you were sleeping with just the screens, the next you have to hurry to find the storm windows.

  He grabbed his jacket with the phone in the pocket and walked quickly back to the house. He was just easing open the door when a loud ringing vibrated through the dark house.

  He fumbled in the jacket pocket to find his phone, then punched the talk button before the ringing could wake Andie.

  "Yeah?" he said, only to be met by a dial tone and another ring.

  Must be her phone. By the time he found the kitchen light switch so he could figure out where it was, it had rung one more time. He glanced at the daisy clock above her stove. Who would be calling her at eleven-thirty at night?

  He picked up the receiver, prepared to give an earful to whoever was on the line. Andie must have already picked up the extension upstairs, though, because someone was already talking.

  He started to hang up, not wanting to listen in on her private conversation, but then the words he'd heard registered and he jerked the phone back to his ear.

  "I'm coming for you, little schoolteacher," an oddly distorted voice said, chortling. "You knew I would, didn't you? I've told you just what I was going to do to you, and how much you're going to suffer. Won't be long now, and nobody, especially not that stupid new sheriff you like so much, will be able to find what's left of you when I'm done."

  Chapter 10

  Rage, fierce and hot, swept through Will with the wildness of a wind-whipped brush fire. He listened to the call, to the threats and obscene promises, for a few more shocked seconds. He was just about ready to tell the son of a bitch where to go when he heard a soft click, followed by the buzz of a dial tone.

  He slammed the phone down and thundered up the stairs two at a time.

  When he shoved open the bedroom door, he found Andie sitting on the bed in her nightgown, her arms folded tightly around herself, staring at the phone as if it had just grown fangs.

  "What that all about?"

  She avoided his gaze. "What's what all about?"

  "Don't play games with me. That vicious phone call. He's called you before, hasn't he?"

  "A few times." She shrugged. "It's just a sicko who gets some weird thrill out of terrorizing people. I'm not going to let it get to me."

  "Well, I am. Those things can escalate faster than you can hang up the phone. How long has this been going on?"

  "Most—most of the summer," she admitted, and for the first time he realized she was shaking. He crossed the room and pulled her from the bed into his arms, berating himself for yelling at her. That was absolutely the last thing she needed after the vitriol that had just spewed out of her phone.

  She felt slight and fragile in his arms. Her hands fluttered at his sides, then gripped his back tightly. He held her for a long time while tiny tremors shook her body, consumed with the need to protect her, to comfort her.

  When was the last time he'd felt this way about anyone but Emily? he wondered, as he stroked the delicate curve of her spine, the gossamer silk of her hair.

  Whatever he was doing seemed to be working because gradually he felt her shaking slow as she calmed down. Finally she pulled away, her features once again composed, and his lawman's instincts forced their way out.

  "I need to ask you some questions, Andie. Do you feel up to it?"

  "Will, I really don't want to talk about it." She reached for a robe from the window seat.

  "I'm sorry, sweetheart, but I need to know a few things so we can catch the guy. I'll try to make it short."

  She nodded. "Okay. Go ahead."

  "How often does he call?"

  "It... it depends." Her voice faltered, then grew stronger. "Sometimes a few nights in a row, sometimes a week apart. There doesn't seem to be any kind of pattern."

  "Have all the calls been more of the same?"

  "I don't know. He seems to be getting worse." Her hands tightened on the lapels of her robe. "He's never made such blatant threats before. It's always been sort of vague. The number has always been blocked on the caller ID."

  Will muttered a long string of oaths. It definitely sounded like the guy's fixation was escalating. "Have you seen anybody suspicious in the area? Do you have any enemies, anybody you've pissed off in the last few weeks?"

  They stared at each other. He could read the same realization dawning in her eyes that had just occurred to him. "Jessop," he growled. "It has to be Jessop."

  Was it? Andie couldn't say for sure. The drawl was the same, but most of the men in the county had the same speech cadence. Whoever it was had disguised his voice so much she just didn't know.

  "Remember his threats at the softball game?" Will continued. "He didn't sound like he was messing around. It has to be him."

  Andie felt a chill sweep over her again.

  "We'll put a tracer on the phone," Will went on, "and add extra patrols near the house and the school. Until we catch him, under no circumstances will you be on your own. You'll have to have somebody with you at all times."

  How did he do it, she wondered, switch s
o abruptly from caring and gentle lover to rough and alert soldier?

  "No, I won't," she said.

  "Yes. You will." He looked startled but unwavering. "Don't argue with me on this, Andie."

  "I'm not so sure it's Jessop. But even if it is—really, whoever it is—he's just talking big, trying to scare me off."

  "Yeah, well, we can't know that for sure, can we?"

  "I am not going to hide this time."

  "What do you mean, 'this time'?"

  She cinched the tie tightly on her robe. "I ran away once, like a spoiled little girl, when life didn't go the way I wanted it to. I thought I could escape the failure of my marriage, but I learned after I came here that you have to confront your problems or they will dog you for the rest of your life. I refuse to hide again!"

  "And I refuse to let anything happen to you. Argue all you want, but I'm going to be on you like mean on a rattler."

  "I'm a grown woman who can take care of herself. You don't have anything to say about it."

  "Wrong. I'm still the sheriff around here, at least for a few more weeks. Besides that minor little detail, this"—he gestured at the bed—"and what we have together gives me the right to do whatever it takes to keep you safe."

  She opened her mouth to argue with him, to make some scathing observation about how he wasn't her father or her brother or her husband.

  Just her lover.

  But as she looked at him, his brown hair mussed, a worried furrow between his gray wolf eyes, that beautiful mouth tight with concern, she couldn't form the words. They choked in her throat as she stared at him.

  He was more than that. So much more. The truth of it swept over her, engulfing her like a tsunami, and she could do nothing but stand there, her bare feet cold on the hardwood floor of her bedroom.

  She loved him.

  It burned within her, fierce and strong and so clear, she wondered how she possibly could have missed it. All this time when she'd thought she just wanted to heal him, to bring a little laughter to him, she had been fooling herself. He had been the healer here, had filled the empty, cold place inside her.

  How on earth could she have let it happen?

  Since coming to Whiskey Creek, she had been guarding her heart so closely, resolute in her solitude. She'd let a few people into her life—Beth, Carly, the children at the center. But never anyone who had the power to devastate her again. And now Will had slipped inside when she wasn't looking with that rare crooked smile and his wounded eyes.

  She loved him.

  And he was leaving, just as soon as he could shake the Wyoming dirt from his boots.

  "Andie? Sweetheart?"

  The worry in his voice dragged her back to the reality of the moment. To her bedroom and the cold wood beneath her feet. To the sudden icy coldness in her heart.

  "I—I'm sorry. What did you say?"

  "I'm going to keep Emily at the Bar W until this thing cools down so she'll be safe and out of the way. I'll move a few of my things over here and sleep on the couch until we catch this guy. I will not let him hurt you."

  His words—spoken with all the intensity of a sacred vow—barely registered. The shock of realizing how she felt about him crowded everything else out.

  The wise course, the prudent one, would be for her to pull away from him. As it was, she would be shattered when he left. Maybe by drawing her defenses tightly around her now, she could keep from being completely destroyed.

  But she was very much afraid it was too late.

  ***

  Five days later, Will had lost much of his optimism that this would be a quick, easy collar. He had round-the-clock watches at both Andie's and Jessop's ranches, but so far they'd unearthed absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

  If something didn't go down soon, he'd have to reduce the patrols near the Limber Pine, as much as he hated the idea. He just didn't have the manpower in a four-deputy department for this constant watch on Andie.

  At least the official patrols would have to be reduced, he amended. With the frighteningly effective grapevine in Whiskey Creek, word must have gotten around that Andie was in danger. All week Shirley had been taking calls at the station house from ranchers offering to help watch the place. Ryder Shaw had offered every one of his ranch hands if Will needed them, and even Ryder’s grandfather, Jake—eighty if he was a day—had volunteered to take a shift.

  If it hadn't been so frustrating to all his instincts as a lawman, he would have found it touching that everybody in town wanted to take care of her. Heartwarming. But with every person who called, his anxiety level accelerated. If word made it to Jessop about the increased vigilance—and there was no question it was only a matter of time until it would—they would probably never catch the bastard.

  Summer seemed to have blown away with the first of October, Will thought as he drove through the drizzling rain to the Limber Pine. Already he could see a sprinkling of snow dusting the mountains. Here in the valley, real snow was probably a month or more away, but the nights regularly reached nearly to freezing.

  He parked in front of the ranch house and got out. Joey Whitehorse stepped from the shadows on the porch as he approached. His deputy pulled the brim of his Stetson down against the elements.

  "It's been real slow, Sheriff," he said. "Only one call—your sister."

  "What are you doing out here in the cold, Joe? I hope you haven't been here all afternoon. You can keep watch just as well from inside."

  Joey cleared his throat. "I, uh, told Miz McPhee I needed a smoke."

  "I didn't know you smoked, Joe."

  His deputy shook his head and looked shamefaced in the dim light. "I don't, sir. I just needed a break and that was the only excuse I could think of. I swear that woman's worse than a drill sergeant. Before it started to rain, she made me haul rocks in her garden, shovel out the chicken coop, and stack what felt like a whole winter's worth of firewood. Said as long as I was wastin' my time baby-sittin' her, she'd get some work out of me. I thought I'd get a rest when the sun went down and it started to rain, but she just put me to work inside. Making spaghetti sauce, of all the fool things."

  Will chuckled. "At least you can't say it was just another boring stakeout."

  "I don't know how much more of this I can take, sir," Joe said emphatically. "I sure hope we catch this guy soon."

  "So do I, Joe."

  He started up the steps when his deputy called after him. "Hope you don't mind me saying, sir, but Miz McPhee doesn't seem too happy about all this."

  "That's too damn bad," Will replied.

  Joe grinned. "Yeah, that's what I figured you'd say. Still, you might want to take up smokin', too, so you can stay out of her way. Miz McPhee's bein' pretty easygoin' about us being here, but I don't think it's gonna last long, and she's got one heck of a temper when she's riled."

  "Really?" Will asked, intrigued. "When have you ever seen her temper?"

  His deputy looked discomfited. "I didn't see it, just heard about it," he mumbled.

  "About what, Joe?"

  The younger man shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. "You know my little sister Janice?"

  Will vaguely recalled a pretty teenager with shy dark eyes and a sweet smile. "Yeah, I think I met her once at R.J.'s Cafe."

  "Well, she told me about it. One day after school last spring, a few of the older boys were givin' her a hard time. Callin' her squaw and stuff like that. Fact, one of 'em was Jessop's boy, Marty. Guess it's true what they say about the fruit not fallin' far from the tree."

  Joey paused. "Anyway, things started gettin' ugly, and I don't know what might have happened if Miz McPhee hadn't been drivin' by. Janice was bawlin', tryin' to walk faster, and these three boys just kept goin' after her and wouldn't let up. Miz McPhee, she stopped that big truck of hers right there in the middle of the road and jumped out and started yellin' to beat the band. Getting right in their faces even though she's such a little thing and these were big cowboys. She told 'em, shame on them fo
r picking on somebody smaller than they were, that it was a cowardly thing to do, and that if she ever so much as heard a whisper about 'em doin' it again, she was gonna horsewhip the lot of 'em."

  At the idea of her taking on a bunch of burly young men, a warmth uncoiled inside Will, and he wanted to shake her and kiss her senseless for doing something so foolishly, stupidly brave.

  "Well, I guess I'd best head home, sir," Joey said, heading for his patrol car.

  "Get some rest, why don't you?" Will called after him.

  He stood outside while the rain coated his clothing with a fine mist and watched his deputy drive down the road, then he walked into the ranch house without bothering to knock. If he did, she probably wouldn't let him in, she was so put out by this whole investigation.

  Andie must have started a fire in the living room woodstove to take the chill off the autumn evening. A comforting, welcoming warmth embraced him as soon as he walked through the door, and he could hear the fire snap and pop.

  Something rich and spicy wafted from the kitchen, and his stomach growled. Must be that spaghetti sauce Joey had tried to get out of making.

  Big band music was playing loudly on the stereo, and he could hear her singing along. Smiling, he followed the sound to the kitchen and leaned against the doorjamb to watch her bustle about. She looked breathtakingly vibrant and alive, with her luscious dark hair held away from her face with a rolled-up bandanna and her skin flushed from working.

  It was a seductive thing to come home to, especially in the middle of a cold rain—a house that smelled like woodsmoke and other heady, delicious things, and a woman who managed to look both sexy and sweet while she was wearing an apron.

  He must have made some sound because without turning around, she spoke. "Joey, I'm glad you're back. Would you mind running to the root cellar for more onions? This batch is not quite spicy enough for me."

  He couldn't resist. "How spicy do you want it, Miz McPhee?"

  She whirled around, nearly dropping her spoon. "Will! I didn't hear you come in. Where's Joey?"