The Sheriff’s Proposal

by Karen Rose Smith

  Meg looked at the baby, not at him. “Manuel feels he has to keep his commitment to his brother.”

  Logan nodded, feeling awkward at best, like a heel at the worst. “Doc has given them the okay to travel?”

  “Yes, Carmen is getting her energy back, and the baby is gaining weight beautifully.”

  “And you’re giving her a respite?”

  Meg glanced up from the bundle in her arms. “Carmen wanted to help with supper, and I couldn’t resist.”

  Couldn’t resist. So unlike Shelley. Shelley had disliked all the aspects of taking care of an infant. She’d been much more comfortable as Travis had gotten older. Logan watched as Meg gently caressed the baby’s cheek. So natural. The half smile on her lips hinted at her pleasure in simply holding the child.

  Silence wrapped around them until Logan knew he had to bring what was bothering them both out into the open. “I’m sorry I took my frustration out on you yesterday.”

  “Frustration? It sounded more like anger. But you had a right. Your personal life is none of my business.”

  He’d expected her to just accept his apology and they’d go on from there. But not Meg. She was an all-or-nothing type of person. “I was angry at Travis.”

  She smoothed the baby’s light blanket. “For visiting me?”

  As soon as Meg’s car had pulled away, he’d realized where the anger originated. “No. For scaring me again. All I could think about was him hitchhiking to God-knows-where.”

  Touching the front of her sandals to the porch floor, she swung slowly back and forth. “You’re going to have to trust him.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  “He feels your anger and your disapproval, and he’s trying to get away from both.”

  “Look, I already know he ran away because of me….”

  She stopped swinging and met his gaze squarely. “You don’t know for sure why he ran away. Stop blaming yourself and look at the situation for what it is. He doesn’t know how to get your attention, so he’s doing it any way he can.” Meg snapped her lips shut. Then she murmured, “I told myself I wasn’t going to do that. You don’t want me to be involved.”

  Logan climbed up the three wooden steps and sat beside her on the swing. “No, I didn’t think I did. But it’s obvious I’m not getting anywhere with Travis.”

  “He told me you made a deal with him.”

  Logan could smell baby powder and Meg’s perfume. The combination was unsettling and damnably arousing. “You disapprove.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “He has to motivate himself, Logan. He has to want a future as much as you want a future for him.”

  Just as Meg had caressed the baby’s face, he couldn’t keep himself from caressing hers. “You’re a wise woman.”

  After a moment, she responded in a husky voice, “All those years I traveled with my parents, I felt as if there was some invisible wall between us. I tried to break it down. I tried being the best I could be. I studied hard. I tried to give them whatever they wanted. If they wanted me to be quiet, I occupied myself. If they wanted me to make friends in a new place, learn a new language, I did. Whatever they wanted. But I could never please them. At least, that’s the way I saw it because I never felt their love.”

  Logan could see the hurt and sadness in Meg’s eyes. He wanted to take her in his arms and erase all of it.

  “Logan, I’m only telling you this so that you’ll realize Travis might have some of those same feelings.”

  He pulled his hand away from her. “I didn’t desert him or abandon him!”

  “No, you didn’t. And I know you love him. But he doesn’t know that.”

  Logan stared straight ahead, into the fields and peace that had brought him here. “He can’t quit school. Getting him a car will give him a reason to at least finish this year.”

  “What are you going to offer him his senior year?”

  Logan couldn’t get angry with Meg when she was only asking what he’d asked himself. “I’m hoping by then we’ll straighten everything out.”

  Meg tilted her head and gave him a look that said she thought he was hoping for the impossible.

  “Usually I’m a realist. But with Travis…” He shook his head. “Tell me something. I’d imagine you have to stay optimistic each time you go into a new situation. How do you do it? How do you keep past prejudices, past difficulties, from bogging you down?”

  “How do you know I do?”

  “Because you love what you do. You couldn’t keep doing it if you didn’t have hope that what you were doing would solve problems and help.”

  “I think you’ve gotten to know me a little too well.”

  Putting his finger under her chin, he turned her face toward his and realized exactly why he was here—despite logic and reason and timing. “I’d like to get to know you better.”

  Her eyes sparkled for a moment, and then he saw the sadness. “This isn’t a good time for either of us.”

  “Time doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “I’ll be leaving after Thanksgiving.”

  “That’s over two months away.”

  “Logan, I don’t want to get hurt again.”

  “Again?”

  She ducked her head and fidgeted with the baby’s blanket. “It’s not important.”

  “Everything about you is important.”

  Meg kept her head bowed, but Logan wasn’t going to let her evade him this time. He had been angry yesterday…with himself, with Travis, with her. With her because her opinion of him counted, and he didn’t want it to. But he respected her. And what she’d said yesterday had stung—a little too much. He’d thought about it last night. He’d thought about changing his tactics with Travis. He’d thought about Meg. And he knew he wanted to kiss her again. Now.

  When he slipped his hand under her hair, she gazed up at him. He saw the same desire, the same need. He brushed her lips lightly, teasing them both. As his tongue slid between her lips, he heard her catch her breath. He was about to take advantage of her yielding when the screen door opened.

  “Uh, supper’s ready, you two. Unless you’d rather stay out here…”

  Logan lifted his head and caught the sly smile on Lily’s face. He felt like smiling himself—for the first time in a long time.

  Logan watched from the barn door as Meg and Carmen strapped the infant seat into the truck. Manuel checked the oil as Ned looked on. The couple planned to leave in the early hours of the morning. He ducked into the barn to look for rope. Manuel could use it to tie down whatever they put in the bed of the truck. Lily, Ned and Meg had given the couple the cradle for the baby plus a few other things.

  The late sun’s rays danced through the open door, and the heat of the day lingered in the hay stacked along one wall. Logan found the rope coiled on a hook above buckets, a pitchfork and a broom. He heard footsteps but didn’t turn.

  “Did you find it?”

  Aware of Meg the way he’d never been aware of another woman, Logan knew she was there before she spoke. During dinner, he’d caught her watching him as often as she’d caught him watching her. Her soft footsteps on the hay and old wood created an expectancy in him.

  “Right over here.”

  She seemed to bring the sunlight inside with her. She definitely brought warmth. Her yellow T-shirt lay gently over her breasts, the material gathering at her slim waist. Her jeans weren’t tight, but snug enough to hint at the curves underneath.

  She stopped a foot from him and looked around the barn. “When I’m in D.C., I miss the smell of hay and barn timber. I miss the meadows and streams and woods to walk in. There’s a peace here I haven’t found anywhere else.”

  “That’s why I wanted to move here. But I’m not going back. You are.”

  She stooped to the bales of hay and picked up a handful. “I fill up when I’m here. When I’m in D.C. or traveling, the work makes me forget about the necess
ity of time alone in the country.”

  “We haven’t talked about Costa Rica.”

  “I told you….”

  He took the hay from her hand and let it flutter to the floor. “I know what you told me. But whenever you talk about going back to work, I see fear and confusion in your eyes, not anticipation.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…because already I feel some kind of connection with you.”

  A connection that was gaining strength any time they were together. “And you don’t want to make it any stronger.”

  She shook her head.

  “Because you were hurt once?” he asked gently.

  “It’s more complicated than that.”

  Her wide eyes spoke the messages he felt inside. Neither of them was putting them into words. “Then let’s do something very simple. Something we both want.”

  Meg’s warmth and light came with her as he drew her closer. She came willingly as if she knew he needed both unconditionally, with no restrictions.

  He didn’t even remember his arms surrounding her. But he knew the first moment his lips touched hers, everything in him came alive. When they’d returned from Richmond and he’d kissed her, he’d blamed the intensity on overreaction after an exhausting day. But this kiss had nothing to do with overreaction or fatigue. And there was nothing simple about it or the desire and needs that came with it.

  Sex had ceased being a need for him. After Shelley’s death, he’d found the energy necessary to find a satisfactory partner was better spent elsewhere. He’d denied physical needs before—often during his marriage. But now he couldn’t deny yearnings that were more potent than any he’d ever experienced.

  When Meg parted her lips, he took full advantage of her yielding, pulling her tighter against him and sweeping her mouth with his tongue. Her sweetness, her softness, made his heart pound. He longed for more—her delicate hands on his body, her satin skin against his, her heat surrounding him. Just the thought stoked the fire already primed to burn out of control.

  He pulled her T-shirt out of her jeans, and she didn’t protest. As his hand skimmed up her back, he felt her shiver of response. Her tongue danced with his until he knew she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He unhooked her bra, longing to touch more of her, longing to touch her intimately.

  Her hands stroked the muscles of his back and restlessly moved to his backside. Logan felt ready to explode. He didn’t need Meg’s language skills to interpret what was happening between them. Their bodies cried out for each other, and they both understood. Meg’s soft moans and his groan of excruciatingly sweet arousal didn’t need any interpretation.

  He slipped his hand between them, even though that meant unwanted space between their bodies. But their tongues continued to mate as if to make up for the deprivation. When his fingertips touched her breast, she made a noise in her throat, a sound of approval and encouragement. She was so soft, so responsive, so wonderfully a woman. His thumb found her nipple, and the feel of it gave him so much pleasure, he forgot to breathe.

  But air didn’t matter, and the shadows dimming the barn didn’t matter; only he and Meg and the pleasure they could give each other mattered. When he took her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, she yanked his shirt from his jeans and nestled her fingers in the hair on his chest. Nothing had ever felt so right.

  The slam of the tailgate of Manuel’s truck shattered the fall of night, the momentum of their passion.

  Meg went still, then abruptly pulled away as if everything about Logan burned her. She stumbled. Shaking himself loose from the haze of desire, he realized he didn’t want her to regret any part of what had happened. He enfolded her in his arms and, even when she tried to pull away, he held tight.

  But she wouldn’t let him keep her there. She stepped away, murmuring, “Someone might come in.”

  He didn’t argue with her. “Meg, don’t be embarrassed.”

  She hooked her bra and, as best she could, tucked her T-shirt into her jeans. “I’m not embarrassed, I’m sorry. We’ll only get hurt, Logan. You know it and I know it.”

  All he knew was that not kissing her, touching her and talking to her hurt. “So you can just dismiss whatever’s happening?”

  “No, of course I can’t. But I should know better than to let it go too far.”

  “It’s already gone too far.”

  Her gaze met his. “What do you want, Logan?”

  “You.”

  She blushed. “Sex.”

  “For a talented interpreter, you’ve got that wrong. And I think you know it.” He tucked his shirt into his jeans. “You think about it, Meg. And you ask yourself the question if all you wanted just then was sex.” Angry because she wasn’t facing up to what was happening between them, he took the rope from the hook on the wall and headed for the door. If he stayed, he’d take her in his arms again.

  Until she was sure that was what she wanted, too, he’d have to keep his distance. Or one of them would get hurt.

  Chapter 6

  Gibson’s Grocery had stood on the corner of Main and First Avenue ever since Meg could remember. It had seen few changes. Green siding now covered the weatherboard for maintenance reasons, and the refrigerated cases in the back of the grocery had been modernized. Olan Gibson had lengthened his store hours to nine in the evening, as well as afternoons on Sundays, and his brown hair had thinned, turning salt-and-pepper. But the twinkle in his eyes and the quirk of his smile remained the same, constants in a changing world.

  Lily needed a few groceries and preferred shopping at Gibson’s rather than at the sparkling but sterile supermarket in the strip shopping center on the west end of town, where new housing developments had overtaken the landscape for the past five years. Meg stood beside her aunt as she reached into the produce case for a head of lettuce.

  Meg picked up a bag of carrots and, when she put them in the cart, she noticed the pallor on her aunt’s face. “Aunt Lily, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, dear. Just some indigestion.”

  “You had indigestion earlier this week. Maybe you should call Doc Jacobs.”

  “I’ll think about it. I wonder where Ned disappeared to. He said something about the hardware store but…speak of the devil.” Lily nodded to the door. “Look who he has with him.”

  Ned clapped Logan on the back and said to the women, “This man said he was coming in for a fresh turkey sub. I thought maybe we could all get one and go over to the park. We can pick up the groceries later.”

  Lily and Ned exchanged a look that told Meg better than words that the two were matchmaking. She even wondered if this little trip had been planned. She couldn’t think about Logan, definitely not look at him, without remembering their last kiss. When he’d left the barn, she’d composed herself as best she could and gone outside. Not long afterward, Logan had shaken Manuel’s hand, said goodbye to Carmen and the baby and left…without another look at her, without another word just for her.

  “Yes, why don’t we do that?” Lily agreed, and went to the deli case. “Four turkey subs, Olan,” she said to the grocer behind the case. And four of those bottles of juice.”

  Neither Meg nor Logan protested. Logan’s gaze met hers as he held the door for her. She felt the fire from the kiss all over again.

  With school back in session, only a few people strolled through the park. No one else sat at the weatherworn picnic tables sequestered under a canopy of maples and elms. Lily acted as hostess, spreading napkins for place mats. She and Ned kept up a constant run of conversation as the four of them ate, though Meg did notice that her aunt barely touched her sandwich. Logan commented on the warm weather and the chances of the high-school football team this season. Meg contributed what she knew about Manuel and Carmen’s departure, confirming that the couple had promised to stop back in Willow Valley when they drove through to Florida. She didn’t admit how much she missed them, how much she missed rocking Tomás in
her arms.

  She couldn’t finish her sub. She wasn’t hungry to begin with. Logan didn’t have any trouble with his. But after he’d finished, he said, “I have to get back to the office.”

  Lily and Ned exchanged another one of those looks. “Stay a few more minutes until Meg finishes and keep her company. Ned and I will go get the groceries.”

  And before either Logan or Meg could comment, the older couple walked away from them.

  “They’re not very subtle,” Meg said with a grimace.

  “I thought about calling you,” Logan informed her with his usual honesty. But his frown told her he’d thought better of it.

  “I’ve been thinking about you, too,” she admitted. Between worrying about Logan and going back to D.C., she hadn’t thought of much else.

  “But not enough to call.”

  “I didn’t know what to say.” She felt her cheeks grow hot, remembering the barn, remembering her response to him.

  “So you think if you ignore me I’ll go away? Just as your fears of going back to work will go away?”

  His words stabbed her, but when her gaze confronted his, she knew he didn’t intend to be mean. His expression softened, and he came around to her side of the table. Instead of sitting beside her, he sat on the table, his long legs propped on the bench. “Talk to me, Meg.”

  “I thought you had to go back to work.”

  He brushed his hand along her cheek, then slowly ran his thumb along her bottom lip. She closed her eyes and willed the trembling to stop.

  “Is that what you want?”

  The timbre of his voice urged her to open her eyes and look at him. “No. But I’m not sure I can trust my decisions right now.”

  “What are you doubting? What’s bothering you?”

  “I am afraid to go back to my job. I’m afraid I’ll make another mistake.”

  “What mistake did you make?”

  “It’s my fault the terrorist went off the deep end and started shooting. It’s my fault. I said the wrong thing. What if I do it again?”

  “Meg…”