A Sheriff in Tennessee

by Lori Handeland

“He isn’t going to greet you properly? Run down here, knock you over, drool on you a little?”

  “Knock me over?” Klein slid a glance her way. “I don’t think so.”

  Belle let her gaze wander over Klein. “I see your point.”

  Klein grunted and stalked toward the house, presenting her with his back—and a very nice back it was. The uniform hugged him in all the right places. He certainly was a big man. When had she become attracted to tall, strong, broad, undoubtedly hard bodies like his? She couldn’t quite recall when she hadn’t been.

  The dog kept his eyes on the bandanna and not on Klein. As soon as Klein’s foot hit the bottom step, the animal leaped up and ran to hide behind the nearest rocking chair, where he peeked around the corner, trembling.

  Klein sighed. “Relax, Clint. It’s not loaded.”

  Confused, charmed, amazed, Belle hung back and watched as Gabe Klein hid his bandanna-shrouded gun in an old milk bucket next to the front door, then went down on one knee and beckoned to the dog.

  Clint crept out from behind the chair and meandered over to Klein. Belle’s lips twitched. What was that saying about people resembling their dogs? These two were quite a pair—sad eyes, relaxed manner, steady and sure, trustworthy.

  Klein rubbed behind the dog’s ears, and the animal lifted his nose and laid his cheek along Klein’s. Closing his eyes, Clint sighed. Belle’s heart did a slow roll. She knew love when she saw it.

  After a single quiet moment, Klein stood. “Take off, boy,” he ordered. With a dubious glance in Belle’s direction, the dog wandered over to the cool shade beneath the eaves, circled once and collapsed in a heap of loose skin and russet fur.

  Belle looked at Klein. Eyes wary, he shrugged.

  “Let me guess,” Belle said. “He’s gun-shy.”

  “Big-time.”

  Her father and brothers had a pack of dogs for hunting. She’d been around them all her life. “You know, some dogs have to be eased into hunting, not forced.”

  “Really? I’ll have to remember that the next time I take a puppy out and blast my shotgun over his head until he cries and hides under the truck.”

  Belle frowned. She couldn’t imagine Klein doing any such thing. But, then how—?

  Klein opened the front door, and Belle forgot about the dog for a moment. “You don’t lock your door?”

  Klein, halfway in and halfway out of the house, paused. “Not in Pleasant Ridge, Ms. Ash. That would be an offense against myself. Besides, Clint’s here all day.”

  “Oh, I bet he’s a lot of help. They pull a gun—he hides behind the rocking chair.”

  Klein winced, then glanced at Clint as if he expected the dog to understand. Unable to help herself, Belle looked that way, too, and was immediately contrite when she met the sad, sad eyes of the hound dog. He seemed to have understood her words and been crushed by them.

  Foolishness. The dog didn’t understand her. All hound dogs appeared sad all the time. Sad was what they did best.

  “Lesson number one.” Klein held up a finger. “Any thief who knows his business knows it doesn’t pay to carry a gun on a job like this. You get a lot more years if you’re caught with a weapon. And any burglar worth his salt would pass on by a house with a braying hound dog and rob the one without. It’s not worth the noise or the trouble. Besides—” he swept his arm out in a “be my guest” gesture “—I have nothing worth stealing.”

  Belle raised her eyebrows as she entered the cool, dark interior of his home. He was right. There was very little inside worth stealing. No stereo, no VCR, no television, not even a CD player graced the living room, and there was no computer in sight. Maybe he kept his electronics upstairs.

  But she had to say, the lack of ultramodern conveniences did not detract from the beauty of the place. Though the outside looked untidy, the inside was fresh, clean and remodeled.

  The walls of the living room were a muted white, the furniture navy-blue leather, the coffee tables chrome and glass. They definitely had not come with the house.

  The entryway had been painted to resemble fading redbrick. She reached out and touched the walls. They were even rough like brick. That must have taken hours—she followed the design all the way up along the curving oak banister to the second level—make that days to accomplish.

  Unaware that Belle stood in the hall with her mouth hanging open, Klein strode ahead of her toward the back of the house. The place was quiet; it felt deserted.

  “You live alone?” she called.

  “Nope.” Klein kept on walking. “I live with Clint.”

  Relief washed over her. No wife, no girlfriend, no kids—just the gun-shy hound dog and the sad-eyed man. Belle told herself her relief merely stemmed from knowing that a wife or a girlfriend, even kids, would not be happy to let Gabe Klein spend two weeks in her company, but deep down she knew better. Belle hurried to keep up with him, glancing into rooms along the way.

  The kitchen had a Formica table, which might have been left from older days, except that the entire room had been remodeled like a fifties diner. Across the hall was a library—all four walls covered with black chrome bookcases filled with books. In the center sat a giant bean bag chair and a funky reading lamp.

  She’d never seen so many books together outside of a public library. Had Klein read them all? The possibility only made her feel more inadequate.

  Belle glanced away from the books just as Klein disappeared through a door at the end of the hall. She hurried after him, nearly slamming into his back when she came through the door. Leaning over a sink, he peered into the medicine cabinet behind the mirror, then glanced over his shoulder.

  “Take a seat.”

  Belle looked around. They stood together in a half bath, and the only seat was one she didn’t plan to take with Klein in the room.

  “I’ll stand.”

  He shrugged, and the movement of his wide shoulders so close to her nose made Belle realize how small the room was. She stepped away, and her back bumped the door casing. The place just wasn’t made for a man of his size and anyone else, let alone a woman who might be slim but had never been small.

  “Suit yourself.” He returned his attention to the medicine cabinet and snatched out a white tube. “The only antiseptic I’ve got is going to sting.”

  “I’ll live.”

  He muttered something she couldn’t quite catch, but she didn’t ask him to repeat himself. She had an idea that anything he muttered she really didn’t want to hear.

  “Scoot up on this.” He patted the smooth expanse of ceramic around the sink.

  Avocado green and gold, this room obviously had not been visited by the remodeling fairy—unless of course she had a penchant for seventies chic. Belle really couldn’t see anyone purposely decorating a room with avocado velvet wallpaper. She shuddered.

  Klein’s sharp blue eyes pinned her. “Cold?”

  “No.”

  She didn’t want to insult him, just in case he planned on leaving the room like this, so she didn’t elaborate. Inching past his large body to get to the chipped gold vanity, she was unable to prevent her breasts from brushing his wide chest. Belle gritted her teeth to keep another shudder, of a completely different type, from racking her body. Damn, this room really was too small for the two of them. She hiked her butt onto the sink’s edge and lifted her gaze, to find him scowling at her again.

  “What?” she growled. She had not done that on purpose, even if she had enjoyed it.

  He shook his head and reached for a washcloth on the towel rack to her right. The movement brought his chest close to her face. For an instant she imagined what it would be like to have him in the same position, minus the sheriff’s shirt. It was a very nice image.

  What had gotten into her? She was not the type of woman who indulged in sexual fantasies about strangers. She certainly didn’t indulge in sex of any kind—real or imagined—with men she had to work with. That made for very bad business and a tackier reputation than the gossips had a
lready given her.

  Bummer, because Belle had a feeling Klein might be worth all the trouble he would cause. She expelled a breath on an irritated sigh, and he leaped away from her as if she’d slapped him. The scowl still in place, he jabbed the cloth at her.

  “Here. Wash it off first.”

  She did as he ordered, fumbling a bit since the scrape was on her right elbow and she was right-handed. Her left hand had never been good for much more than balance.

  Additional muttering erupted from Klein, and he snatched the cloth away. Grabbing her wrist, he twisted her arm so he could do what she’d been playing at.

  Belle braced herself for the onslaught, but instead of scrubbing the cloth over her wound, he dabbed and pressed, patient, gentle and sure, until the blood had disappeared.

  When he reached for the antiseptic, then squeezed a dollop onto the callused tip of one finger, she tensed.

  “Why Clint?” she blurted, hoping that if she talked about the dog, she’d forget about that long, elegant finger smoothing over her quivering, injured skin.

  He glanced up, and she could have sworn he blushed, but it was hard to tell in the dim light of the room. He grasped her wrist, squinted at her arm. “He doesn’t seem like a Clint to you?”

  Belle resisted his ministrations until he looked at her once more. “I’d really like to know.”

  Their gazes warred, then he shrugged and tugged on her arm again. This time she let him twist her until she was positioned like half a pretzel.

  “Somebody dumped him.” He dabbed the antiseptic on her raw elbow. Belle hissed and he stopped. “Sorry.”

  She tried to blow on the sting as her mama always had, but couldn’t reach the affected area. Klein leaned over and did it for her. The sting faded as goose bumps rose across her skin, and a buzz started low and deep in her belly. What was it about this man that made her feel like a woman and behave like a hormone-crazed teenager?

  She pulled on her arm, then inched away from his mouth before she gave in to the temptation to press her own to his. “I’m okay.” She sounded hoarse, with a trace of the twang she’d worked so hard to lose, and not okay at all. Belle cleared her throat. “Go on.”

  That was better, crisp and clear, down to business. No trace of an accent, no more of that lingerie-model huskiness.

  Seemingly unaffected by the intimacy of their situation and the too-close quarters of the room, Klein went on with the first aid and his story. “Virgil brought him in. Poor thing was shaking and staring at Virgil’s gun like it was going to bite him. I was new here, had this big place, and I always wanted a dog.”

  “So you took him home.”

  “Someone had to.”

  That single sentence said more about Klein than any FBI profile. He’d adopted a gun-shy hound dog because he thought someone had to—probably because he knew what would happen to the dog if no one did. He wrapped his gun in a bandanna and hid it in a milk pail to soothe a poor beast’s fear.

  And she’d accused him of wrecking the animal. Belle—who ought to know better than to judge folks based on how they appeared. She’d met enough people who saw Blond, Busty Model and assumed brain dead followed. Just because Klein looked big and strong and macho didn’t mean that he was a puppy-kicking son of a bitch.

  “So, why Clint?”

  He glanced up from his frowning perusal of the bandage box. Belle reached over and plucked out two. “This should do it.”

  Slow and sure, he accepted the offering and picked at the ends to open them. For such a large man he had nimble fingers, and he was able to pull the annoying tabs on the wrappers much more easily than Belle ever could have. His dexterity made her wonder just how talented he would be with other tasks—like unbuttoning buttons, unzipping zippers, unsnapping snaps.

  Her hormones were getting out of hand here, so she offered her arm before he could reach for her again. As he positioned the bandages over her scrape, she stared at the top of his shorn head and resisted the urge to run her free hand over the dark stubble. She’d never seen such short hair. Would it be soft like the hair on his chest, or bristly like the hair on his chin the morning after?

  “You remember The Beverly Hillbillies, don’t you?” He glanced up, eyebrows drawn together.

  Belle blinked, hoping her lustful thoughts did not show on her face.

  “Maybe you’re too young,” he said.

  She snorted her opinion of that. He returned his attention to her arm, but not before she caught the glimmer of a beautiful smile. Belle never would have considered that she of all people would lust after someone on the basis of appearance alone. It was embarrassing.

  “The hound dog was named Duke,” he continued.

  “I remember. But he wasn’t gun-shy.”

  “No. He was movement challenged. Did you ever see that dog move any faster than slow motion in reverse?”

  Belle searched her memory. “Not that I recall. I don’t see how that applies to Clint, though.”

  “It doesn’t. But when I got him I thought he could use a tough-guy name. Couldn’t hurt, right? So I came up with Duke, which made me think of John Wayne, and then—”

  “Clint Eastwood!”

  “Exactly.” He patted her bandaged arm as if she were a child, and stepped back.

  “Why didn’t you name him Dirty Harry? He’d be tough enough then.”

  “No self-respecting, small-town law enforcement officer would own a dog named Dirty Harry. That would give folks the wrong idea.”

  “‘Go ahead, make my day’?”

  “Yeah. We frown on that kind of attitude in tiny-town Tennessee.”

  “Is that lesson number two?”

  He shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to help me?”

  His warm blue eyes cooled. “Did I ever have any choice?”

  Belle stifled a sigh. “I want you to want to help me.”

  “We don’t always get what we want, Ms. Ash.”

  “We’re back to ‘Ms. Ash’? I thought you were going to call me Isabelle.”

  “That name doesn’t fit you.”

  She blinked. She’d always thought the same thing. “Uh, well, my family calls me Belle.”

  As had everyone else who “knew her when.” Though she, too, thought of herself as Belle, she’d never liked the nickname, especially when big preceded it, as it so often had.

  He shook his head. “You’re not a Belle, either.”

  Their eyes met, and she felt a camaraderie with Klein she couldn’t recall having felt with anyone else. What was his name? Gabriel. He certainly didn’t seem like an angel. “Klein” fit him better. Strong, succinct, with a soft center. Yes, Klein was the perfect name for Klein.

  They were still staring into each other’s eyes, and suddenly the moment became something more than a mere look. The air seemed difficult to breathe—hot, almost steamy.

  She was being silly. She might be attracted to him, but he considered her an annoyance, nothing more. Belle had spent most of her life as an annoyance to virtually all the men she cared about. First to her three younger brothers, who were mortified to have a sister like her, then to any boy she might have a crush on. Big Belle liking him was an embarrassment to any teenaged boy, as if her affection somehow made him less instead of more.

  Of course, things were different now, but Belle had never forgotten how it felt to be rejected, and she didn’t ever want to be again. Since Klein appeared to care for brains more than beauty and he thought she was a dim decoration, not the brightest light on the Christmas tree, she would not make a fool of herself by believing a look was anything more than a look.

  Belle jumped down from the sink just as Klein pushed away from the wall. She bumped into him. He stumbled back, hands coming up to catch her and clasping her elbows.

  “Ouch!” she squeaked as his palm slapped against her scraped, though bandaged, skin.

  Immediately his hold gentled, but he didn’t let her go. Her nose practically pressed to t
he firm wall of his chest, she raised her head to find him staring at her with his familiar scowl.

  “Izzy,” he muttered.

  “Huh?”

  “You look like an Izzy.”

  Klein’s mellow Georgia drawl caused a resurgence of goose bumps on her skin. When his gaze lowered to her mouth, she caught her breath.

  “You can call me Izzy if you like,” she whispered.

  Something flickered in his eyes, then was gone so fast she couldn’t identify the emotion. He released her with a little shove, then slipped from the bathroom far too quickly for a man of his size.

  Belle stared at the ugly-as-sin velvet wallpaper while the pain of rejection washed over her. A long time might have gone by since a man had turned away, but the feelings were as familiar as her favorite shade of lip gloss. One touch had made her forget all her good intentions.

  Tears pricked her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She had learned the hard way that showing people they’d hurt her only made them hurt her all the more.

  WHAT IN HELL had come over him?

  Klein stalked down the hall and out the front door, putting as much distance as he could between Isabelle and him. He would not, could not, think of her as Izzy. In that direction lay far too much danger.

  Because Izzy was the name of the tousled, bleeding, vulnerable woman in his bathroom, the woman he’d rescued, the one who’d needed him. For Izzy he’d felt far too strong a liking, far too intense a physical longing.

  No. Better to think of her as Isabelle, as she’d asked. Isabelle, he could resist. Isabelle, he could work with and not want.

  Klein always got into trouble when he thought a woman needed him.

  He sank down on the top porch step, and Clint heaved himself to his feet with a groan. The dog’s youthful body housed an ancient soul.

  Clint padded the short distance across the porch and laid his snout on Klein’s shoulder. His sigh of commiseration blew bubbles of drool into Klein’s ear, which was the most action Klein had seen since long before moving to Pleasant Ridge.

  He sat up straighter at the thought. That was why he’d responded to Isabelle as he had, not because he’d lost his ever-lovin’ mind.