Support Your Local Sheriff

by Melinda Curtis

  Nate shook his head. Growing up, there hadn’t been much laughter in his house.

  “You have to make Julie laugh,” Terrance went on. “She looks like she could use some laughter.” He gave Nate a quick once-over. “Now, I know you’re not big on words or jokes, but that smile you gave her back at the bakery was a good start.”

  That smile. It had burst out of Nate like a firecracker. That’s what Duke did to him. He reached inside Nate with his innocence and his trusting nature and he found things Nate had buried deep.

  Logically, Nate knew there was no harm in smiles. Not now. Not like there’d been when he was a child and showing any kind of happiness around his father had been a risk. But the way he displayed emotion was as deeply entrenched inside him as his early memories of what a father was.

  Oblivious to Nate’s train of thought, Terrance continued reciting his mantra of how to be a man. “You have to enjoy silences together and plan for a future.”

  “And have kids.” Might just as well get that out in the open. It seemed like Terrance was leading up to that.

  “Don’t roll your eyes.” Terrance gave Nate’s shoulder a gentle backhanded swipe with his hand. “You could have this.” He pointed at Duke. “Every day. Doesn’t looking at your son fill your heart with joy?”

  Nate held his tongue.

  Terrance lowered his salt-and-pepper eyebrows. “And I thought my youngest son was stubborn.” He crossed his arms and increased the stern tone of his lecture. “Start with dinner. Maybe a little romantic music. Some impromptu dancing.”

  Nate could’ve argued away his attraction to Julie, but what was the point? Terrance had already called him on it yesterday. “I made dinner for Julie last night.”

  “And? What did you do wrong? When she came in this morning she looked at you as if you’d tried to steal second base.”

  “She would’ve broken my nose if I’d tried to steal any base.” Of that, he was certain. “And we had chaperones. Duke was there. And Rutgar.” Snoring. “Julie would be shocked to realize I was interested in any bases.”

  “Do you think love appears out of thin air without any work?” Terrance shook his head. “Why, if Robin were alive we’d be laughing about this.”

  Nate bit back a retort, because it was the first time he’d heard Terrance speak of his wife in such positive terms since she’d died.

  The old man’s gaze shifted to the tree-lined horizon. “We were friends first, you see. And I very foolishly waited for her to realize we could be more than that. Wasted time, that’s what it was.” His voice drifted away like a wisp of cloud on a windy day.

  The boys slowed down, airplane motors stalling.

  If Nate didn’t do something, things in the park would drift toward unhappiness. “How do you know if it’s...”

  Terrance pulled himself out of his reverie. “How do you know if it’s love?”

  Nate nodded.

  “There are signals. You smile more. She smiles more. There are tender touches and long gazes. And then...somebody steals a base.” Terrance was on a roll.

  Nate had held Julie’s hand last night after dinner. She’d only allowed him to do so because he’d broached the subject of the torment she’d been feeling from the shooting. “Well, it can’t be that.” That being the l word.

  “Love grows. It isn’t just not there one day and there the next.”

  “Love isn’t going to grow. Julie’s grieving over her sister and dealing with the fallout from a situation at work.” Nate stood, drawing the attention of the toddlers. He raised his hands to the claw position at his shoulders and growled at the boys. “I’m gonna get you!” That was Camille’s favorite game, being chased by her uncle.

  The boys squealed and circled the tree as Nate followed with slow, stilted steps. They climbed onto the bench and into Terrance’s lap, wrapping their arms around him like love nooses.

  “There’s no perfect time to fall in love.” Terrance reveled in being caught. He gathered them close and blew raspberries on each cheek, increasing their giggles tenfold. “I don’t care if your father never taught you anything about women.” The older man had to raise his voice to be heard over the glee. “This is worth all the awkward moments of getting to know a woman.”

  There was no harm in sweeping one boy in each arm. No harm in laughing along with their chortled shouts of joy. There was no harm in living in the moment.

  As long as Nate remembered that moments like this didn’t last.

  * * *

  IT FELT ODD not to have Duke in her arms, not pushing him in his stroller.

  Could this be my life soon?

  Julie didn’t want to think about it.

  “Juju!” Duke shouted from Nate’s arms as they crossed the street toward her.

  Nate pushed the stroller and carried her nephew. She envied his stamina.

  And then Duke looked at Nate with complete adoration. “Ba-con!”

  Nate smiled back. No half measure there, although it wasn’t the showstopper from the bakery.

  With the same dark hair color and broad grins, no one could mistake them for anything but father and son. No one could look at the pair and think they didn’t belong together. No one could feel the warmth of their smiles and not want to be in their happy circle. Even Julie felt its magnetic pull.

  Nate glanced up. Their gazes connected. For a moment, it was as if she’d never seen his tight half smile. For a moment, she never wanted to see it again. This was Nate. Openly happy and sharing that happiness with her.

  Her breath caught. She smiled back. She smiled as if she and Nate exchanged cheerful salutations every morning over coffee.

  And then the power of Nate’s grin caught and held her.

  Unsteady, she had to hold on to the railing around El Rosal’s dining patio.

  He was... She felt... This couldn’t be...

  That smile. Nate was handsome. Obviously, she knew that. She knew he was intelligent and had a good sense of humor. She admired his approach to law enforcement and his shooting skill. If she was seeing him for the first time... If they’d just met... She might have considered dating him.

  Her butt sagged against the railing. She stared at the toes of her sneakers.

  Date Nate?

  She couldn’t... He wasn’t... He’d left April in a lurch. She couldn’t look at him and see...

  A man she might consider a future with. A man she could lean on and lean into.

  She snuck a glance at Nate again from mere feet away. Broad shoulders. Patient demeanor. A steady presence.

  Her heart gave a pounding vote of confidence.

  Julie demanded a recount, forcing her knees to lock and her legs to hold. She would not make the same mistake April had. She stood tall and smiled at Duke, ignoring Nate completely. “Hey, little man. Are you ready to go?”

  “No.” Grumpy morning Duke was back after having been spoiled by his father. “Want ba-con.”

  “No.” She had to go. There would soon be toddler tears because Julie couldn’t sit across from Nate feeling an attraction for him. She needed breathing room or someone to shake some sense into her.

  “Juju.” Her nephew’s tone was a reprimand.

  Arturo set a plate of bacon on a table nearby along with two mugs of coffee and received a glare from Julie for his efforts. Didn’t faze him. He smiled.

  “I’ll take Gregory back to the bakery.” Terrance strolled past.

  She hadn’t noticed him beside Nate. She’d only seen Nate. She was a cop. She was supposed to see everything. Julie traced the edge of her shoulder’s bandage.

  “That’ll leave you three some time together,” Terrance said in falsely innocent matchmaking tones that did nothing to settle Julie’s nerves.

  Time together? As if they were family? As if N
ate hadn’t broken April’s heart? As if he couldn’t break hers?

  Julie dragged in a breath and snuck a glance at Nate.

  The tight half grin was back. It filled her with relief.

  “You can ask me another question on the Daddy Test.” Nate didn’t move inside the dining patio. He waited on the sidewalk for her to make a decision.

  Stay or go?

  There were too many decisions for her tired brain to deal with. And that was it, wasn’t it? She was tired. That’s why she was looking at Nate as if seeing him for the first time. Her exhaustion was coloring her world. She didn’t want to date Nate.

  Julie glanced to the corner patio table where the mayor sat. He had a wiry frame beneath a red tie-dyed sweatshirt. He smiled at her, creating a network of wrinkles across every inch of his face. He was datable...in a take-a-grandfather-to-coffee-as-a-nice-gesture kind of way.

  Now she looked at a man objectively? Julie huffed and pulled her gaze away. There had to be someone else at El Rosal she found attractive. Where was Arturo?

  “Come on.” Nate left the stroller on the sidewalk and took her left hand.

  And Julie let herself be led. She let herself take a seat across from him. She let herself look at him. At Nate. She let herself feel a longing she hadn’t known existed. It confounded her, this longing. It muted her, this longing. It made her feel feminine and fragile and nothing like the loud brash cop she knew herself to be.

  Two days ago, life had seemed so simple. Get Nate’s signature and get out of town. He’d know he was in a backup position to care for Duke if anything happened to Julie, but he wouldn’t want custody. She hadn’t planned on him showing an interest in Duke. She hadn’t planned on this feeling of attraction. Her awareness of Nate as a man energized. It made her heart thud in her chest. It made her feel like she was dancing on the ledge between happiness and heartbreak.

  “Jules,” Nate said softly.

  “What?” She blinked at him the way Eunice had blinked at her earlier.

  “The test?”

  Oh, right, the test. She’d been staring at Nate like a lovesick teenager. Julie found the small notebook in her backpack, opened it to the appropriate page and stared at April’s words, which blurred, but then came into sharp focus. “A good dad is willing to make sacrifices for those he loves. Give an example of how your father sacrificed for you. Then give an example of a time you sacrificed for someone else.”

  Nate stared into his coffee cup for so long Duke had time to eat one whole piece of bacon.

  He lifted his gaze to Julie’s. There was pain in the slant to his eyes and uncertainty in the way his fingers roamed his mug.

  Last night he’d said he didn’t talk to his father anymore. She’d been so lost in the revelation that April had cancelled the wedding that she hadn’t registered its significance. “Every question in the test is about your father.”

  His jaw shifted to the side and he gave a curt nod.

  She wouldn’t feel sorry for him. She locked her fingers around her mug.

  Nate ran a hand through his hair, over his face, under his chin. “My dad worked long hours so my mom could stay at home.” Was that his voice? It sounded so rough, so dark, so pained.

  “It was nice that he helped your mom stay at home.”

  Nate’s lips pressed together. He glanced at Duke, who was busy eating bacon. The slant on his eyes changed, softening to sadness. But it wasn’t the pity-me kind of sad. It was the outside-looking-in sad. The resigned-to-loneliness sad. The never-have-that sad.

  Julie’s heart panged and she wished April had never come up with the Daddy Test.

  Finally, Nate looked over at her, but the sadness was gone. “I’m assuming you want an honest answer.”

  Despite being curious, she wanted to say no. She’d heard enough heartrending tales while on patrol that she was sure she’d regret hearing Nate’s. She nodded her head anyway.

  “There was nothing nice about my dad. He was manipulative and abusive.” Nate’s dark gaze flared with anger, his voice with injustice. “Letting Mom out of the house would have meant she had a chance at a life of her own, that she’d realize what a rotten home life she had, that she’d find happiness.”

  Nate had no visible scars. But his voice. It told of deeper pain. It told of raw and open wounds. It made Julie’s nightmares seem trivial by comparison.

  Nate cleared his throat and continued, no less angry. “I suppose the one thing my father did that was a sacrifice was when the police arrested him, he pled guilty.” Nate’s hard gaze banked across the street. “Or maybe he thought by pleading guilty he’d save himself time in county lockup and get out that much quicker.”

  “Is that why you didn’t want to have kids? Because children of abuse are more likely to abuse their own spouses and children?” Julie resisted the urge to drag Duke’s high chair closer.

  “I could never do the kind of things he did to us.” He cloaked his anger, locking it behind that tight half smile. The veneer was back in place. “You and April had happy holidays. You played soccer and joined clubs. You had freedom and fun.” His gaze drifted back to Duke. “When you think of your childhood, what do you remember?”

  That was easy. April. She remembered April. And then came other memories. “Family traditions, like baking cookies at the holidays, road trips to my grandparents’ house or playing poker with my dad when we went camping.” There was more—holding April as a baby and rocking her to sleep, decorating Christmas trees, staying in her pajamas all day on New Year’s. But Julie didn’t want to rub her normal upbringing into his scars.

  “When I think of my childhood, my stomach turns. The memories...are hard.” He looked across the street once more. “That’s why I refused to imagine myself as a dad.”

  “But now you have no choice.” The words fell from her lips before she realized what she was saying—that Nate had a right to parent, a right to a say in how Duke was raised, first dibs on custody.

  “But now there’s the Daddy Test.” Nate stood. “I’ll be right back.” He walked across the street, cautious but confident.

  “Nay!” Duke yelled in a demanding tone, but Nate kept going.

  A sedan backed up and drove away, revealing a large cardboard box on the sidewalk. Nate circled the box. And then he bent to open it.

  “No.” Julie hadn’t realized she’d stood and shielded Duke with her body.

  “Juju.” Duke pushed at her injured shoulder.

  She flinched backward. How did the boy always find her tender spot?

  Nate carried the box back to them. “It’s kittens.”

  Julie sat with a bone-jarring thud. “I thought it was something bad.”

  “You’ve been working in the big city too long.” Nate set the box at his feet. “It wasn’t ticking. It was mewing.” He took out his cell phone and called someone named Felix, telling him about the kittens.

  He’d watched the street. He’d seen something wasn’t right. She hadn’t seen anything.

  Exhaustion. She blamed exhaustion.

  The kittens were crying, a muted sound.

  “What dat?” Duke leaned over to peer at the box.

  Nate plucked Duke from his seat, set him in his lap and then gently picked up a small fluff of fur. It was orange and white, its eyes still closed. “This is a kitten. A baby cat. Do you know how you have to be with babies? You have to be gentle.” Nate cradled the kitten to Duke’s chest. “Pet it gently so it doesn’t break.”

  Duke made lovey noises, touching the kitten with his hands and snuggling it with his face.

  Julie was struck again by the rightness of the pair, by the vast emptiness in her chest.

  “You wanted to know about a time when I sacrificed for someone else?” The breeze ruffled Nate’s black hair, but he was otherwise composed. “Afte
r the wedding, I left the force because I thought it’d be easier on you if I was gone.”

  And just like that, she was angry with Nate all over again. Blood rushed in her ears and filled all her empty places. He considered running away after behaving poorly a sacrifice? “You left because you were embarrassed.”

  Nate shook his head. “Our friends would’ve had to pick sides. You would’ve had to be civil to me or look like a fool in front of the department.”

  He was wrong. Annoyingly wrong. She leaned in and lowered her voice. “You think I couldn’t be civil?”

  “Juju, shhh.” Duke put his finger to his lips. “No mad words.”

  Nate arched a brow. He had no need to say a word.

  Julie gnashed her teeth. She’d proved his point.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” Doris stood guard on the top porch step of the bed-and-breakfast with a well-dressed elderly woman when Julie approached. “I got a coffee refill at Martin’s and you were gone.”

  Julie’s already-slow stroller pace slowed to snail speed. Birds sang in the big pine tree by the driveway, happy for the spring breeze and the warm sunshine. They sang despite Doris and her vinegary attitude. Despite threats from cats and hawks.

  “Birdy.” Duke angled his face up until he met Julie’s gaze. He grinned.

  As long as he was fed and rested, Duke smiled at everyone. Julie didn’t feel like smiling. How dare Nate say he’d left the force because of her. How dare he imply she couldn’t work with him and conduct herself with dignity. She didn’t feel like smiling, but she lifted her lips toward Doris anyway, waiting to answer until she was closer.

  Julie reached the bed-and-breakfast porch steps, her hands shaking so hard it took her three tries to release Duke from the stroller. Darn you, Nate. “We went to El Rosal.”

  “We? We?” At Julie’s nod, Doris sharpened her tone. “As in you and the boy? Or you and the enemy?” Doris’s attitude was the caustic kind that earned drivers speeding tickets, not warnings. “Leona serves coffee and breakfast here, you know.”