Her rental car window down, she shivered in the crisp September morning air and reached in the backseat for her leather jacket.
“It’s time, Leia. Quit stalling,” she coached herself. She awkwardly shrugged into the jacket and gripped her black Louis Vuitton purse to her chest.
Leia opened the car door and swung out before she could change her mind. She’d be disgusted with herself if she ended up back in Beverly Hills without having done this. A white Suburban pulled into one of the parking slots on the end and two men got out. They gave her an interested stare. Gads, she didn’t need to be recognized and bring the media down on this small town again. She’d done enough damage the first time. The Sheriff had paid for her thoughtless behavior and her conscience wouldn’t let her rest.
She reached back in the car and slid her sunglasses on her face, then forced herself to lock the car and walk to the building. She sang in front of thousands. She was featured on television shows where millions watched. Apologizing to one handsome, tough, straight-talking sheriff shouldn’t be this damn hard. Darn hard. “Oh brother,” she breathed.
She took a deep breath, then another, and opened the door. The place smelled of coffee, layered over gun oil, over some kind of cleaner. Her stomach tossed again. She hustled to the reception window.
The woman at the counter had short spiky red hair around a thin face, black eyeliner circling tired gray eyes, and bright red lipstick on a mouth that was currently sucking on the edge of a yellow pencil, her hands flying across the keyboard, a black headset squashing her hair. She didn’t look up.
“How can I help you?” Her gravelly voice scraped over nerve endings and stung like falling on gravel.
She cleared her throat, hoping for strength in her vocal chords. “I’d like to see Sheriff Murphy.”
The woman looked up at her, gawked, and the pencil fell out of her mouth.
“You’re her.” She half rose from her seat, the headset pulling her back. “Oh my gosh, you’re her! You’re Leia Shae.”
Leia looked around and then leaned forward enough to suggest privacy and lowered her voice. “Could I see the Sheriff?”
“He may not be happy to see you,” the woman said, squinting at her.
She pulled back, stung at the thought. “Can you tell him I’m here?”
Blanche, according to her nameplate, stared at her for a moment. “All right. Hold your horses a second.” She unfastened the headset this time and limped from the chair around the corner and out of view. Five foot nothing of attitude. Lord.
Leia waited. Wondering for the umpteenth time why she felt so compelled to apologize to the man who’d arrested her, exposing her life for the mess it was. She probed around the tender feelings again, but the same hard-core need rose up to straighten her spine.
One thing about Zach’s desk, he could see pretty much everyone who came in and hear parts of almost every conversation. Sometimes that was informative and sometimes damn annoying. When he got overwhelmed, he shut his door, but the blinds on the windows that looked over the squad room still gave him a straight view. He rarely closed them, not wanting to feel trapped in the small office.
This morning, he wished he had closed them. He had budget requests to get to the County Commissioner, plus a report to write on an accident he’d investigated last night when he and Carlee came home from Fiona’s farm. His concentration was non-existent, stomach acid burned at the back of his throat and his coffee was cold. He rubbed the back of his neck, the makings of a doozy of a headache tightening the muscles there.
Carlee wanted to wear a mini-scrap of black material and a metallic see-through shirt to school this morning, which had necessitated a battle to get her in jeans and a plain T-shirt with no obnoxious sayings. He’d even had to covertly search her backpack to make sure she hadn’t stuffed the offensive clothing in the bag to change into at school—which would have put her out of dress code and force him to make a trip to the junior high where the sheriff’s daughter’s outfit would have been the talk of the school.
His sweet daughter was morphing into a rebellious wild child and he was so far out of his element, he preferred to write budget requests rather than think about what she was going to challenge him with next. Shipping her to her mother had never been an option, not since the day when Carlee was eight months old and Denise had dropped her on him like a heat-seeking missile. Denise was covering the latest news from the middle-east anyway and hadn’t seen Carlee for three months. His sweet, good-natured daughter had disappeared after her mother had blown out of town, promising to return and then not.
He rose to get another gallon of coffee in his I Love Colorado mug and caught Blanche moving faster than she rightly ought to on her sprained ankle heading straight for his office. He groaned. She reached his door all out of breath. It took her a moment of huffing before she could get words out.
“She’s here.”
He raised a brow. “Carlee?”
“Carlee? No, no.” Blanche took a deep breath, her eyes gleaming. “Leia Shae.”
“Leia Shae?” He shook his head sure he hadn’t heard her right.
“Leia Shae,” she huffed, frustration stamped in her brow. “You know. You arrested her four months ago, remember?”
“Yes, I remember.” He rolled his hand at her to indicate for her to keep talking. “What about her?”
Blanched sighed. “Leia Shae is out front and would like to speak to you,” she repeated in her best receptionist voice.
“What’s she want?” He put down his coffee mug and searched in his drawer for an antacid instead.
“She says she wants to talk to you.” Blanche limped along side of him as he walked into the reception area to look over the counter. Step by step, his headache pounded right behind his eyes.
A slender woman stood near the door, her reddish-brown hair neatly brushed into a pony tail, her jeans and leather jacket emphasizing her curves. Her sunglasses were perched on her head and a black purse was slung over her shoulder. Her perfume wafted over his nostrils, something light and unpretentious which made him want to sit a spell and smell her.
She turned and walked to the counter and he got a good look at her eyes. The same sad, melancholy desperation dulled the blue. There was the same tiny scar above the left side of her pouty lips. The same throb of heartbeat at the base of her throat.
“Sheriff Murphy, may I speak with you?”
The same silk-like, melodic voice he’d heard on the radio this morning melted over him like butter over warm noodles. He’d never admit to anyone that after he’d survived three weeks of media hounding his every step, he’d jacked Carlee’s CD collection and listened to every one of her songs.
She waited for his reply, a hopeful look at odds with the ill-at-ease stance of her body. She flushed slightly when he didn’t answer. He shook himself, cursing his wandering thoughts.
“Why don’t you come back to my office.” He stepped forward to let her into the squad room and indicated she should follow him. “Would you like some coffee?’
“No thank you,” she said in quiet, measured words.
“Nice to see you again, Ms. Shae,” Blanche called after them.
She gave Blanche a little wave and preceded him into his office. This time he shut the blinds to stop any wandering deputies from breaking their necks to get a view. He pushed the door part-ways closed so she could take a seat opposite his desk.
He sat back into his leather chair and frowned. “I’m not sure I’m happy to see you.” His Johnson was skippy happy, but his pride, his professionalism, his feelings were still bruised from the beating he’d taken for arresting her and then releasing her, as if her star status had gotten her a pass on the DUI, not her illness or the lack of evidence.
She tensed, and gave him a contrite look. “I don’t blame you. I wanted to apologize.”
He couldn’t have heard correctly. The rock diva he followed in the press since that day never apologized.
He kept his voi
ce even. “A few comments while the situation was ongoing would have been of more value to me.”
She frowned, a look of utter frustration passing over her face. “Yes, Cale wouldn’t let me. Dammit, I argued. Then he brought in the lawyers who told me to keep my mouth shut. I took flak, too. But you never signed on for anything like that. It comes with my territory and I’m sorry.” Her hands twisted together until her knuckles whitened.
“I handled it, not as well as I would have liked, but I hope to not get any more experience.” He gazed over her, stopping at eyes and lips, then skimming her body. He could see why she was on the covers of magazines. She was a beauty—simple elegance and sweet curves were a part of a more complex package.
She squirmed in her chair at his perusal. “Nobody followed me this time.”
“Oh, you mean your crack security team that lost you last time isn’t going to break to the press that you’re visiting the sheriff that arrested you?”
She grimaced, then blushed. “I hired a new security chief. I have an understanding with him.”
“I’ll bet your manager didn’t like that very much.”
She straightened in her chair. “He didn’t have a choice.”
“Still I’ll bet that was one hell of an argument.” He forced himself to relax, to accept this for what it was. A peace seeking mission.
She fidgeted in the chair, shifting long legs from one side to the other. “This whole thing let me see how much I’d let my life slide out of my control and I didn’t like it. I needed to apologize.” She stood.
He gave her an easy smile. “Anything else left to say?”
She studied his lips for a moment and parts of him stood up and took notice. Then she sagged back in her chair, her purse hit the floor, and she laughed under her breath. “No, I’m finished now. I was pretty nervous about coming here.”
“Why did you? It wasn’t necessary.”
“Yes. It was.” She gazed at him and the connection eye-to-eye jolted.
Curious, he studied her face and saw determination, sincerity and anxiety. “Ms. Shae, I appreciate the sentiment. I know it couldn’t have been easy to come here, but you don’t owe me anything.”
“Leia, Sheriff. Let’s state facts here.” She shrugged out of her jacket, drawing his eyes to the tight, long sleeve white T-shirt and the way it molded her breasts. She cleared her throat, drawing his eyes back to her face. Her expression told him she knew exactly where he was looking and it was something she was used to from men. Jealousy streaked through him for some crazy reason and plain damn pissed him off.
She licked her lips. “I took off from Denver because I was frustrated with everyone around me. Unfortunate timing, wrong place, bad circumstances and then my entire crew bails and leaves you to make all the explanations. It was reprehensible. I was sick, but I should have handled it better.” Her mouth snapped shut, her pouty lips firmed into a tight line. For some unbidden reason, he wanted to rub his fingertip over that line, coax her to relax.
“Look, I did my job.” Ryder took a chunk out of him for being too honest with the press in the whole situation, for taking the blame for the mistake of arresting her, but what could he say. That’s why he got elected—his honesty. He’d made the best decision he could at the time.
“Regardless, I appreciate that you followed the facts and took care of me.” She hesitated for a moment, chewing her lower lip. “Did you know who I was?”
He dropped the casual stance and leaned forward to put his elbows on his desk. “No. Not until later.” That seemed to reassure her.
“So you would have done the same thing with anyone?”
“Circumstances vary in stops like this, but I’d like to think so, yes.” Media storm and his daughter’s temper tantrum notwithstanding.
“And you wonder why I wanted to thank you.” She leaned forward in earnest, the firm line gone, but her face serious and sad. “Nobody thinks to stand up for me anymore. They think I don’t need it. Couldn’t possibly need it, being who I am. But I did. I do. So thanks.”
He sat silent for a moment, feasting on the vision of her—from the sweep of her hair against her jaw, the pert nose, the smooth ivory skin. Something shifted inside him, something male to a pretty female or maybe something deeper that he refused to look at, let alone claim. Finally, he cleared his throat. “You’re welcome.”
Her smile lit up her face and stopped his breath in the depth of his gut. God, she was beautiful. But he wouldn’t pant over her. He didn’t want to be one in a line of men and she wouldn’t fit here. He didn’t do one-night stands anymore. In the relationship arena, he’d learned his lesson with Denise. And he sure as hell didn’t want his picture in the tabloids.
She rose from her chair and picked up the jacket. “I appreciate your time.”
He didn’t know where the thought came from, but he went against character and let it slip from his mouth before his brain examined it from all angles. “You could do something for me.”
She blessed him with another smile. “Name it.”
“My daughter, Carlee, uh, she’s twelve. She was pretty ticked at me that I wouldn’t bring her up to the hospital and introduce you.” He grimaced. This wasn’t one of his better ideas.
She gave him a knowing look. “I appreciate that.”
“Yeah, well I’m in the doghouse. I have been now for four months. Every time we get in an argument that flaw in my actions gets listed as a grievance. You’re my only hope of being forgiven.”
Her eyes lit up. “I’d be happy to help you with that. What do you need me to do?”
He checked his watch. School was dismissing at noon today for teacher meetings, so he needed to kill thirty minutes before Carlee would be free.
“Let me make a phone call. Then we can go over to my house and you can meet Carlee. Autograph a CD and I’m off the hook.” He grinned, anticipating the look on his daughter’s face.
“I can do that.”
He picked up his cell phone and dialed his brother. Beau answered on the first ring. “I need a favor. Can you pick up Carlee at school at noon and drop her at the house?”
Beau grumbled. “If it gets me out of shoveling flower beds and you come on Saturday and do it for Aunt Fiona, then I have no problem picking up your lovely daughter. Why?”
Zach groaned. Aunt Fiona’s flower beds took a good month to prep for winter the way she liked them. He mentally rearranged his schedule. “I’ve got a surprise for her and she’ll figure it out if you don’t pick her up.”
“Thought you were grounding her until her fortieth birthday for sneaking out Saturday. Why the surprise?”
“Something came up. Something special that I couldn’t resist.” Zach looked over at Leia, calmly waiting by the door and smiling slightly at his conversation. For a moment, it was easier to believe that she wasn’t a superstar, but was an ordinary hometown girl.
No wonder they called her America’s Little Beauty. She’d been in the spotlight since nine-years-old, had grown into a lovely, graceful young woman. He hadn’t known much about her before he arrested her, but afterwards he’d done some extensive research. She was seven years younger than he was, but a hefty dose of attraction washed over him, not fiery and blasting like lust for a gorgeous woman would have been—that he could have ignored.
No, this had been subtly building for four months—from her sad eyes to her music, from her perfume and her smile, from her husky voice and her lush curves. It eased through his resistance, slithered over his reluctance, and forced him to relinquish that empty space inside—one he hadn’t intended to ever let a woman in again.
He’d lusted after a few women since Denise, had sex with a few others, but he never let anyone inside anymore, was careful not to. Until now. And that was an utterly ridiculous notion because she was who she was and he was who he was and the two had no common ground. He wanted to find some, though, and it took all he could muster to shove the warmth rising inside back in the little spot inside and trap
it there.
He barely heard his brother agree, and unconsciously clicked the off on his cell phone.
“Are we set?” Her voice washed over him, causing more than a few tremors. His jeans felt impossibly tight. He alternately wished he could back up their conversation and get out of this or that he could delay the inevitable flow of time and keep her in his presence.
“Sheriff?”
For a thirty-two year old man, he was being incredibly stupid, and suddenly he was annoyed with himself. “My name is Zach.”
He watched the debate play out on her face before she used his name. “Zach, are we set?”
His name on her lips was better than if she’d touched him, almost.
“Yeah, we’re set. My brother will take her home. Why don’t we get out of here?” He clipped his cell phone on his belt and opened his desk drawer, pulled out his gun and put it in the holster at his waist. He’d come to work in jeans because he was only scheduled to work half a day and now he was glad, else he would have had to change out of his uniform.
The building was quiet for a change. Everyone was out on patrol and he wanted to get Leia outside before anyone saw her and waylaid them. Four months ago, he’d brought her in mid-night. He’d transported her to the hospital himself. He’d guarded the secret pretty closely of who she was until she’d stepped into the waiting limousine. Carlee hadn’t been the only one who’d been put out that they hadn’t gotten to meet the rock star.
He grabbed his jacket and followed her out the door, only pausing to tell Blanche that he was out for the rest of the day. She didn’t raise her eyebrows or grin in any way, but he could see her mind churning and he could imagine what she’d be saying behind his back. And for once he didn’t care.
This wasn’t one of her better ideas.
She hadn’t intended to hang around, only offer her apologies and get back to LA. But when Zach had grinned at her after her stumbled apology, she’d felt surrounded by warmth and understanding. She was painting fairy castles with that feeling, so she’d been determined to get out of town.
Pumpkins, Cowboys & Guitars Page 49
