“So he did or didn’t say anything about it?” Jared didn’t want to leave without the answer.
Lindsey opened the front door letting in a blast of cold air. “He didn’t say anything. Now can you please go? I don’t want my husband upset.”
Jared stood to leave. “Thank you for your time. I do appreciate it.” He pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to her. “If Boyd, Dale, or anyone from the Hicks family tries to contact you, please let me know.”
She nodded and Jared pulled on his coat and exited the house. A large muscular man was getting out of a black pick up truck in the driveway – the kind with oversized tires and fancy multi-colored pin striping on the side and tailgate.
“Honey, is everything okay?” the man asked, his gaze darting back and forth between his wife and Jared.
“It’s nothing. Come in out of the cold and I’ll tell you all about it.” Lindsey slid her arm through her husband’s and tugged him toward the front door but the man wouldn’t be hurried. Jared stuck out his hand and introduced himself.
“I’m Sheriff Jared Monroe of Fielding.”
With one arm draped protectively around his wife’s shoulders, the husband shook Jared’s hand. “Dave Jackson. Are you here about Boyd Hicks? We heard he was out.”
“I am. I just had a few questions. I do appreciate your wife’s time. If you hear from him please let me know.”
“Will do.” Dave Jackson nodded, his expression solemn. “I don’t want him anywhere near Lindsey.”
“That makes two of us. Thank you again.”
“Thank you for stopping by, Officer.”
The couple walked into the house and closed the door behind them while Jared headed to his vehicle. Swinging into his SUV, he pulled out his phone to see who had called earlier. He cursed a blue streak as he listened to the voicemail. As was becoming the norm, the shit had hit the fan at home and he needed to go put it right before things got worse.
Right now Jared needed to have a serious talk with his father.
Chapter Eight
“Don’t treat me like a child, boy.” Gerald Monroe’s voice held a tone of warning but Jared had come too far to heed it now.
“Then stop acting like one,” Jared retorted. He didn’t have time for this shit. Gerald Monroe was a grown man who knew better than to act like this. “You had a doctor’s appointment today. An appointment you apparently decided not to go to, so when you didn’t show up they called me. Why didn’t you go?”
Gerald scowled and sat up straight in the rocking chair. With the sunlight streaming through the living room windows, the older man still looked pale and drawn from his time in the hospital. He needed to get out and about but stubbornly stayed in the house and watched television.
“Didn’t want to. All those doctors do is poke and prod at a body, then write them a prescription. Well, I’ve got plenty of medicines already. Don’t need no more. Besides, they’re all full of crap anyway. I’m fine. Don’t you have criminals to catch or something?”
Jared could be doing several “or somethings” right now, every one of them more pleasant than arguing with his father but here he was doing it anyway. Since finding out about his Alzheimer’s Gerald had taken to sitting in his rocking chair and staring out the large front windows of the house. He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to tell Ty how to run the ranch. He didn’t want to do anything.
And that worried Jared most of all.
Gerald Monroe had always been a man full of energy and purpose. Not so anymore.
“We’re still talking about you. You can’t just decide not to go to doctor’s appointments. Mrs. Gaston was supposed to drive you. Where is she?”
Gerald’s face turned red but his chin lifted in defiance. “I fired her. She was always fussing and she’s the worst cook ever. Can’t a man be left in peace in his old age?”
Jared made a mental note to call the nurse after this discussion and beg the woman to come back. They needed someone here at the house to make sure his father took his medications on time, ate his meals, and all those other things they’d always taken for granted before.
“Then I’ll just call and rehire her, Dad. You can’t be here all day by yourself. You forget to take your medicine.”
“Medicine is for sick people,” Gerald snorted. “I’m just getting old. When did that become a disease?”
That was a good question. His father was getting older, seventy on his next birthday. Still strong and fit, his hair was silver and his face lined. You couldn’t tell by just looking at him that he sometimes became confused and disoriented.
“Dad,” Jared began carefully, knowing how stubborn his father could be when he wanted to be. “Maybe Royce can take you to the doctor.”
Royce seemed to be the only one who could get a smile or laugh out of the old man these days. Gerald might not approve of his older son’s exploits but that didn’t stop him from enjoying Royce’s company.
Gerald shifted in the chair, a wool throw over his knees. “That’d be a sight better than that woman. She’s always nattering on about things. At least Royce knows when to keep his mouth shut.”
“Fine. I’ll talk to Royce. I rescheduled your appointment for Tuesday at two.”
Jared could simply add talking to his brother to his ever-growing list of crap he needed to do that no one else wanted to. And that’s if he could find Royce. He had a way of disappearing whenever work needed to be done.
Gerald grumbled under his breath but didn’t – to Jared’s relief – object. That was one issue taken care of today.
“I need to get back to the station. Becky’s around here somewhere if you need anything.”
She was probably on the back porch with her cell phone glued to her ear. She seemed to spend almost every moment of every day on that thing.
“You worry like a woman. Get out of here and get back to work,” Gerald growled, his face still red and scowling.
Jared didn’t take his father’s bait and continue to argue. Instead he turned and headed out the door and into his truck. He had a mountain of work waiting for him and this side trip hadn’t helped his schedule in the least.
As he drove he mentally ticked through his list as to whether it was something he needed to do personally or if he could delegate. By the time he entered Fielding and was driving down Main Street, he’d managed to move a few to-do items elsewhere.
Passing the diner, he saw Misty get into a car with another woman. He hadn’t seen her for over a week, the last time at the pizza place on Maple. They’d agreed to just be friends after the one night of passion they’d shared but his libido hadn’t received the message. One glimpse of her pale blonde hair and he was imagining how her bare skin had looked in the low light. In fact, he’d been visited by those images pretty much every damn night. There was something about her that he couldn’t seem to get over. Maybe it was her shy smile or the way her fingers had touched him – tentatively at first, and then bolder as her confidence grew. Whatever it was, she’d burrowed into his subconscious and damn if she wasn’t impossible to shake.
And she was leaving.
There was no future in mooning over a woman who wanted nothing to do with Fielding. This was his home and he couldn’t imagine any circumstances that would compel him to leave. Misty Foster would have to be one of those women who left a pleasant memory in their wake. Nothing more.
Pulling in front of the station, he parked the truck and headed inside. Despite the load of work ahead of him he felt himself relax, his shoulders loosening. With everything going on at the ranch these days the station held less stress and hassle. Here he knew what and how things needed to be done. Everyone had a job and he expected his deputies to pull their weight.
“Talk to me,” Jared said to Knox before heading straight to the coffeemaker. “What did I miss?”
“That’s a good question. I’m trying to figure that out right now.”
Jared didn’t like the sound of that. “Maybe I ca
n help.”
Knox leaned back in his chair while Jared settled on the edge of the desk with a hot cup of coffee. “Right after you left we got a flurry of calls. Domestic violence. Vandalism. Possible break-in. Suspected drunk driver.” Knox scratched his chin. “Funny thing. None of them turned out to be true. Everyone was running all over the place like chickens with their heads cut off. All for nothing. In the meantime, real reports had to wait in line.”
“Tell me about the real crime first.” Jared’s brain was already whirring with possibilities, although one seemed more likely than the others.
“A house burglarized just east of town. Perp took the television, a laptop, a cell phone, and two hundred in cash.” Knox peered at another piece of paper on his desk. “And this one completely unrelated. A woman’s purse was snatched but not in town. It happened in her own driveway as she was getting out of the car. Weird.”
Jared gulped at the hot coffee, angry that he’d missed so much. “Do we have deputies on those scenes now?”
Knox nodded. “We do. They’ll be filing their report before they go off-duty.”
Too antsy to stay still, Jared stood and paced the small area between the desks. “Are you sure the other reports were fake?”
“Positive.” Knox smacked the top of his desk in obvious frustration. “I had deputies spread to every corner of our jurisdiction and nothing. When they got there…not a damn thing. Maybe a bunch of kids were playing pranks on us.”
Shaking his head, Jared sank into the chair behind his desk. “I don’t think so. I think this might just be the first shot fired by Boyd Hicks. He’s telling us that he can scatter and control us. He likes to play games and this would be right up his alley. Get in touch with the 911 operator and get the originating phone numbers for those calls. Also, I’ll want to see the addresses the deputies were sent to. If it’s Boyd, he’ll want to make sure we know it’s him.”
Knox handed Jared a stack of papers. “I’ll get those phone numbers right now.”
“Good. I’ll see if there’s any connection between these addresses and Boyd Hicks. I have a feeling this was no kiddie prank.”
Jared had caught Hicks once, and if he needed to he would do it again. No one was going to terrorize the town of Fielding while he was in charge.
He couldn’t fix the situation with his dad or Royce or even Misty. But there was one thing he could do – keep his town safe.
Misty grabbed the instructions, her tense fingers crumpling the paper. She couldn’t see straight and the room was spinning. This simply couldn’t be right.
“Two blue lines,” Rayne pronounced, plucking the stick from Misty’s nerveless fingers. “Positive.”
Somehow Misty managed to sit on her daybed, the lunch she’d had hours ago churning in her stomach. They’d used a condom. People didn’t get pregnant with condoms. Or did they? She had to admit she knew little about birth control. It had never been a factor in her life before.
Until today, that is.
“I can’t be.” Still in denial, Misty shook her head. “It must be a mistake.”
Rayne sat down next to her and patted her knee. “Is there something you want to tell me? It appears that you are pregnant, Mist, and unless this is something miraculous I think you need to start talking.”
Misty buried her head in her hands, panicked beyond rational thought. She’d made her plans so carefully. “We used a condom. I cannot be pregnant. This thing is wrong.”
“Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere. You said we, which means there is a man, then. I don’t have to alert the media about a virgin birth or anything.”
Groaning and falling back on the bed, Misty wrapped her arms around her torso as if in comfort. “I had a one night stand. I thought it would be okay. Just one night and then I’d be off to Seattle, just like you said. This has to be wrong,” she repeated, but she had an idea it wasn’t. She simply hadn’t been feeling like herself these last three weeks.
“You had a one night stand. Maybe I should alert the media after all. I never thought that would happen.”
Misty lifted one hand from her eyes and glared at her best friend. The same friend who had encouraged her to let loose a little. Now look what had happened.
“You’re not helping, Rayne.”
“I’m sorry, you’re right. Listen, people do get pregnant even when using a condom. They’re not a hundred percent.”
Misty slapped her hands down on the mattress, feeling helpless and not liking it in the least. “They ought to tell people that then. Oh God, how am I going to tell him?”
Rolling over, she buried her head in the comforter. She had no idea how she was going to tell Jared. What would he say? Would he want the baby? Did she?
Yes. Yes, she did.
Already she was feeling protective of the life deep inside of her. If Jared didn’t want it, she would love it enough for both of them.
“And whom might you be telling about this pregnancy?” Rayne queried.
Misty levered up to her elbows and sighed. “You want to know who the father is, don’t you?”
“That would be a helpful tidbit of information. Are you going to tell me?”
Rayne fell silent leaving the decision in Misty’s lap. She’d already kept so much from Rayne so couldn’t keep this from her any longer.
Burying her face again, Misty braced herself for Rayne’s reaction. “Jared Monroe is the father.”
Rayne’s mouth gaped open, her brows almost to her hairline in astonishment. “Sheriff Jared Monroe? The town hunk? Christ on a unicycle, you don’t do anything halfway, do you? Holy shit.”
Misty nodded miserably. She had no idea what she was supposed to do now.
“And you’re going to tell him, right?” Rayne prompted. “He deserves to know.”
“I’ll tell him. I’m just not sure how or when,” Misty admitted, still reeling from the news herself. She needed time to get used to it before talking to Jared. “After that one time we said we would just be friends.”
“About that one time…I need details, girl. I can’t believe you kept this a secret. There’s no way I could have kept something like this under wraps.”
Misty leaned back against the pillows, grabbing one to hug to her middle. “I’ll give you details but I’m kind of in the middle of a crisis here, you know? Rayne, I’m pregnant.”
Just saying the words shook her to the core. She was going to be a mother. The only thing she knew at this moment was that she wanted to be the very best mother she possibly could.
Rayne threw her arm around Misty and pulled her into a fierce hug. “It will all be okay. I’m your friend and I’m here for you. Always. If Sheriff Gorgeous doesn’t want this baby, I’ll be right by your side. I promise.”
Sniffling, Misty wiped a few stray tears of gratitude that had trickled down her cheeks. She might not have had friends growing up but she’d hit the jackpot with Rayne.
“I think I’m going to need all the help I can get. I don’t know a thing about babies.”
“We’ll learn together. I’ll steal some of my sister’s pregnancy books.” Rayne pressed her forehead to Misty’s. “You’ll be okay. You’re going to be a great mom.”
Misty could only hope and pray that was true.
Chapter Nine
Jared tipped his hat to the lady behind the counter of the Springwood diner when she told him to take any table he liked. Driving here today, he’d been intrigued by the call from Misty. She wanted to talk to him, which was good in and of itself. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind since that night weeks ago. Maybe she’d changed her mind about leaving Fielding.
Of course her request to meet out of town had caught him by surprise, although it shouldn’t have. Misty had some scars from the gossips in town, and somehow they’d both escaped being grist for that mill after the night he’d spent at her apartment.
Settling into a booth back in a corner, he ordered a coffee for him and a hot chocolate for her. For some reas
on he was nervous, which was unusual. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had made him feel like this, but then Misty was different than the women he usually dated.
Sweet. Giving but strong. And definitely more innocent.
The bell over the diner door rang and Misty entered, bundled up in her long black wool coat that made a stark contrast to the paleness of her hair. She’d left it down today and it curled at the ends, making him want to reach out and pluck at a silky strand.
Standing as she settled across from him, he took her coat and hung it on the hooks provided outside the booth. She was wearing blue jeans and another cream colored sweater that completely swamped what he now knew were the sweetest curves imaginable. It ought to be against the law to cover up a body that perfectly beautiful.
“I ordered you some hot chocolate,” he said after they greeted each other. It had been slightly awkward but he’d managed a kiss on her cheek before she pulled away. “I hope that’s okay.”
“That’s perfect, although it’s not too cold today. Spring is right around the corner.”
The waitress put their two mugs on the table with a smile before bustling away to help other customers.
“I think it’s supposed to get to forty today,” he replied, not sure what else to say. This was Misty’s meeting.
Clearly out of weather conversation, she dipped her spoon into the whipped cream and licked it off. She had no idea how sensual it appeared to him and how his groin tightened in response. He cleared his throat and mustered up an easy smile.
“So you wanted to see me. And all the way out here in Springwood.”
He didn’t say that he’d wanted to see her as well.
Misty set her spoon down and picked up the paper napkin, scrunching it between her fingers. “I apologize for the subterfuge but I wanted to talk to you without the prying eyes of Fielding on us.”
“It’s not a problem. I have a buddy in town I can visit while I’m here.”
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