Lassoing the Deputy

by Marie Ferrarella

  It was his secret hope that watching the world he’d once known go through its paces—would somehow heal him.

  Or, if not heal at least help him not to feel as if he’d already died and just hadn’t the good sense to lie down. The hollowness he had been feeling was slowly eating him up alive. A man could survive only so long feeling the way he did.

  That was when he’d decided to come back earlier. Because he needed to be here. Needed help just in getting through the day. Being in familiar surroundings ever so subtly provided that help.

  “Then we’ll see you at the ranch tomorrow,” Eli said with a wide smile. “Say about nine?”

  Cash thought a second, then requested, “Make it ten. I’m helping my grandfather clean out the stalls. If I back out on that after one day, I have a feeling I’d be disappointing him.”

  “Then you don’t know your grandfather,” Alma interjected. “Trust me. Nothing you could do would make him be disappointed in you. You’re the center of his universe.”

  Even after all the distancing he’d done, Cash silently marveled, the old man still greeted him with open arms. Still made him feel welcomed. In a way, it made him feel worse because he’d neglected the old man so much, sending money regularly, but not giving him nearly enough of his time or attention.

  “And I’m about to be replaced by Miss Joan,” he pointed out with a forced smile.

  He realized he’d felt a salvo of what oddly felt like a smattering of jealousy.

  This was ridiculous. He couldn’t possibly be jealous of a woman who had often described herself as being older than dirt, and while she wasn’t that old, Miss Joan wasn’t exactly younger than springtime, either. He was glad his grandfather had someone in his life. The man deserved to be happy.

  He supposed his feelings arose from the fact that he desperately didn’t want to find that things had changed here. Not in the place that he realized he thought of as his haven.

  Grow up, Taylor, he ordered silently. You’re acting like a naive kid.

  Just as Eli was about to get up and take his leave, Miss Joan approached their table, her attention focused entirely on him.

  “Can I do anything for you, handsome?” the woman asked.

  Eli grinned at her. “Yes, you can call off your wedding to Harry and run away with me.”

  Miss Joan shook her head as if taking his words seriously. “Oh, Eli, if only you’d asked a little sooner—I’m afraid that it’s too late now. If I run away with you, it would break Harry’s heart. Besides, you’re too young for me.”

  “Only by a couple of years,” Eli answered, keeping a straight face. “And truth be told, you’re almost too much woman for me.”

  “As if that was possible.” Miss Joan laughed. And then she patted Eli’s shoulder. “You’re good for me, Eli. You make me feel young.”

  “You are young, Miss Joan,” Alma chimed in, and she was serious. There was no one quite like Miss Joan. The woman was definitely one of a kind. “You know you’re younger than all of us.”

  “No, not younger,” Miss Joan contradicted. “But I am experienced. I just know that whatever’s wrong isn’t going to stay wrong. And if it does, you still find a way to move on. Moving targets are harder to hit,” she said, taking in all three of them as she winked.

  And then she sashayed away, back to her place behind the counter.

  Watching her leave, Cash shook his head in amazement. “I think my grandfather’s going to have his hands full,” he commented.

  “I’m still kind of surprised that he got her to say yes,” Eli confided. “No offense to your grandfather, but Miss Joan’s always been cagey about commitments, at least for as long as I’ve known her.”

  “Which is so much longer than the rest of us have known her,” Alma teased. “You’re only three years older than I am and two years older than Cash.”

  “Older is older,” Eli maintained.

  Alma rolled her eyes. “Very profound, Eli,” she deadpanned. “Remind me to have that put on a T-shirt sometime.”

  Rather than respond, Eli looked at Cash instead. “If she gets on your nerves—and I can’t see how she can’t—you know where to find me.”

  “Actually,” Cash told him, a little chagrined, “I don’t.”

  Eli took his friend’s confession in stride. “I’m still living on the family ranch. Makes it easier to work the place,” he explained.

  “How about you?” Cash asked Alma. “Are you still living at the ranch, too?”

  “No, I moved out three years ago when I started working full-time. I’m living in town now,” she told him. “So I can be close by if the sheriff needs me.”

  “Don’t let her fool you,” Eli told his friend. “She just doesn’t want to get roped into helping out at the ranch, not after putting in a hard day keeping the peace. Right, Alma?”

  Alma looked at her brother pointedly. “I thought you said you were leaving.”

  “And so I am,” Eli told her. He turned to look at Cash. “Nice seeing you again, Cash. I’ll be watching for you tomorrow.”

  “You’re smiling,” Alma observed after her brother left the diner.

  Her remark caught Cash by surprise. For a second, he’d let his mind drift back to when he and Eli had hung out together as boys. Back to the present, he looked at Alma, puzzled. “What?”

  “I said you’re smiling. No, don’t stop,” Alma cried when she saw the smile fade away again. “That was an observation, not a criticism. I was starting to worry that maybe you forgot how to smile.”

  “It isn’t a matter of forgetting,” he told her honestly, thinking of the twists his life had taken in the past five months. “It’s a matter of not being able to.”

  The hell with biding her time and waiting. This had to be put out into the open now.

  “Okay, I can’t keep this in anymore,” she said with feeling. “What happened to you, Cash?” When he made no attempt to answer her question, she put her hand over his on the table and pleaded, “Talk to me.”

  The entreaty coaxed forward a sliver of a smile, but Cash had no intention of answering her question. Still, rather than just brush it off, the way he had earlier, he told her, “Maybe someday, Alma. But not now.”

  It was obvious to him that the good people of Forever didn’t pay much, if any, attention to news stories that occurred outside of their county, much less outside the state. That, too, hadn’t changed. The only news they listened to was local news. Otherwise, he was certain, someone within Forever would have brought the news story to his grandfather’s attention. After all, his name had been mentioned in all the major articles covering the story.

  No one had actually come out and said that he was responsible for what had happened, but in the end, that didn’t really matter. He felt he was responsible and there was no way he could atone for it.

  No way except to give up being an attorney.

  But then, if he did that, what did he do with the rest of his life? After these two weeks were over, after his grandfather was happily married and on his way to a new chapter in his life, just what did he do? How was he going to earn a living if he gave up the only career he knew?

  And yet, if he went back to the law, went back to working for the firm, could he live with himself? Could he survive the day-to-day reminders?

  “Earth to Cash, Earth to Cash.”

  It wasn’t until Alma waved her hand in front of his face that he realized he’d let his mind drift off again and that Alma was trying, in a broadly exaggerated manner, to get his attention.

  He focused on her and not his thoughts. “Sorry,” he apologized.

  “No reason to be sorry,” Alma insisted, absolving him of any transgression he thought he’d committed. After all, she wasn’t that thin-skinned. But she couldn’t resist adding, “But if you do want to make it up to me, you can do it by telling me what the hell is going on in your head.”

  He laughed softly, shaking his head. Why had he ever walked away from her? She was more real t
han the entire office of people he’d worked with every day up until a week ago.

  “Nice try.”

  “But obviously not good enough to loosen that tongue of yours,” she said with a resigned sigh. “You always could be so closemouthed when you wanted to be.”

  Back then, she knew he did it to bait her and drive her crazy. But he always relented in the end and came clean. This, however, was different. And—she had a growing, uneasy hunch—extremely serious.

  “Believe me,” Cash said slowly, “you don’t want to know.”

  It was her turn to laugh. There was a tinge of disbelief in her eyes when she looked at him.

  “I guess you don’t remember me at all, do you?” she asked him. “Because if you did, you would remember that I always want to know.”

  Cash looked at her for a long moment. The growing noise all around them as more and more customers came into the diner faded into the background as he debated with himself.

  He had to admit that there was a small but urgent need within him to share, to unburden himself and perhaps even cleave, if only for a second, to someone’s words of absolution. But that wouldn’t last, he knew. His feelings of guilt were just too great.

  Besides, what if there were no words of absolution, even perfunctory ones? What if she looked at him with horror and revulsion? He knew he wouldn’t be able to bear that.

  “No,” he finally replied firmly, “you don’t.” Then, trying to bridge the gap that had opened up between them, he sought some neutral ground. “But you can fill me in on what’s been going on here since I left,” he told her.

  Just like that, huh? Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. You’re trying to divert my attention. I don’t get distracted that easily, Cash.

  Out loud, she asked, “Chronologically, alphabetically or just the highlights?”

  That was Alma, all right, he thought, ready to accommodate in any way that suited a person. He’d forgotten about that trait, and how much it endeared her to him.

  Mesmerized by the seductive promise of a future beyond his wildest imagining, he’d completely forgotten what he’d been blessed with right here in his own backyard, Cash thought.

  “Any way you want to do it,” he told her. “I’ll leave it up to you.”

  Alma nodded, settling back in the booth. “Okay, I’ll give you the highlights, then.”

  She spent the next half hour filling Cash in on some of the more pertinent events of the past ten years that she thought he might find interesting. She told him that Rick Santiago had gotten married to a lawyer named Olivia who had come into town, tracking down her runaway younger sister. Olivia now had a practice in town, as well as a brand-new baby girl.

  Rick’s sister, Ramona, meanwhile, had married Joe Lone Wolf, who along with Larry—and her—comprised the sheriff’s deputies. Oh, and the town had gotten their very own doctor, Dr. Daniel Davenport, after doing without one for more than thirty years. And the sheriff’s sister-in-law, Tina, the same woman who was indirectly responsible for the sheriff finding a wife, wound up marrying that doctor. She was also the town bookkeeper.

  Alma mentioned the babies who had been born, sticking only to people she was certain he still remembered.

  As Alma went on with her annotated summary, Miss Joan came by and refilled their coffee mugs twice. The second time she brought them each a large piece of apple-caramel pie, as well.

  There was whipped cream all but obliterating the piece she placed in front of Cash.

  She’d remembered how he liked it, Cash thought, surprised.

  As Alma continued filling him in, Cash listened and couldn’t help thinking that a great deal of life had gone by while he’d been out on the West Coast, defending people the rest of the world regarded as criminals, searching for the one loophole or elusive piece of evidence that would set them free.

  Whether or not those clients he represented were innocent was another story, one he couldn’t allow himself to hear. Because if he knew for a fact that his client was guilty, then he wouldn’t have been able to defend them. It went against his code.

  But you knew, deep down in your gut, you knew Harper was guilty, a voice in his head taunted him. Knew it even as you pounded away at that one so-called piece of evidence until you got the judge to see things your way and rule it as inadmissible.

  And got Harper to walk away scot-free.

  If you just hadn’t been as good as you were, as clever as you were, Harper would have gone to jail for his crimes.

  And that family of five would have still been alive today.

  The thought haunted his every waking moment. Sleeping was even worse.

  “Have I bored you into a coma?” Alma finally asked when Cash didn’t say anything, or even make any response, for several minutes. She peered at him, waiting for him to answer.

  He was doing it again, he thought. Letting his mind wander—or maybe torture would be a better word. He was letting his mind torture him.

  But then, he deserved it.

  Out loud, Cash addressed her question. “No, sorry, I was just thinking.”

  “About?” she pressed.

  The smile she saw on his lips was small, as if he couldn’t muster the energy to allow anything larger to exist. Just like the look in his eyes, it echoed of sadness.

  “About how many things have happened here while I was out on the coast, working,” he lied.

  He’d delivered the lie smoothly, Alma thought, granting him that. But she was still unconvinced, positive there was more to it than just that. His eyes told her there was.

  Somehow, she thought, feeling frustrated, she had to get Cash to trust her enough to open up.

  But how?

  Chapter Eight

  She held out for a little more than two days.

  Summoning all the inner strength she had to tap into, reserved or otherwise, Alma did not pick up a phone or drive by the family ranch to see how Cash was doing, or find out if he so much as even showed up, or if he’d decided to back out at the last moment.

  But when she accepted that all her thoughts congregated around the question of whether or not Cash had joined her brothers on the project, she finally surrendered and told Rick that she was taking one of her personal days.

  “I’ve got to get things ready for Miss Joan’s shower,” was the official excuse she gave him, hoping that he didn’t remember she was but one of the women involved in this and that for the most part, Rick’s wife, sister and sister-in-law were the movers and shakers behind that little get-together.

  To her relief, Rick didn’t question her excuse in any way.

  All he said was, “It’s your personal day, Alma. You don’t have to give me a reason you’re taking it—not that I don’t appreciate being kept in the loop,” he added with a smile.

  And then she saw the look in his eyes. It told her that he was onto her.

  Or maybe that was just her guilty conscience, making her paranoid. She really didn’t like to lie, but somehow, admitting that she wanted to see how things were going with the building of Miss Joan’s wedding arch—specifically, how Cash was coming along with it—made her feel as if she was just leaving herself open for unsolicited advice.

  She didn’t need anyone telling her that she shouldn’t become so vulnerable around Cash. That rekindling so much as a spark of what they’d once had was asking for trouble, not to mention heartache.

  Alma didn’t need anyone saying that to her. She knew that, and didn’t intend to let any of it happen. She was just worried about Cash—as a friend, nothing more.

  Nothing more, she silently insisted with feeling as she drove to the family ranch.

  She could hear them working long before she could see them as she approached the ranch house. The sound of hammering, laced with intermittent cursing coming from behind the barn, left no question as to where all the action was taking place.

  Leaving her vehicle parked in front of the house, she made her way behind the barn, hoping to be able to
observe everyone for a moment or two before anyone noticed she was there.

  For all the noise she’d heard, she was surprised to see that only two of her brothers, Gabe and Rafe, were there, working alongside Cash.

  Cash was the first to see her. He paused, taking the opportunity to wipe away the sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist.

  “Where’s your deputy uniform?” he asked, mildly surprised to see her. He’d just assumed that she had no time to pitch in and if she had, that she would have said something.

  It surprised him, too, to discover just how happy he was to see her. The next moment, he banked that feeling, afraid of what it might ultimately do to him. Feeling anything could very well open the Pandora’s box he’d worked so hard at keeping closed.

  Prepared for another mercilessly hot day, Alma was wearing jeans that were threadbare in more than a couple of places, allowing for its share of ventilation to pass through the material, and a light tank top the same color as her eyes.

  What she wasn’t prepared for was the sight of Cash with his shirt tied around his waist like an afterthought, his upper torso bare and gleaming with sweat spread out over rock-hard pectorals and an abdomen that could have doubled as a rock quarry.

  When had he gotten those abdominal muscles?

  He’d always been muscular, but this was an entirely new plateau.

  It didn’t seem fair that he had only gotten better looking. Being a lawyer was supposed to make you soft. The only thing that was soft right now were her knees.

  “Home, on a hanger,” she answered when she finally located her tongue. Clearing her throat, she nodded at his bare chest. “Where’s your shirt?”

  He picked up one of the sleeves and held it up for her to see in case it escaped her. “Right here.” He dropped the sleeve again. It dropped, all but reaching down to his calf. “Don’t they frown on you being out of uniform?” he asked.