Support Your Local Sheriff

by Melinda Curtis

  Nate had no idea what the Big R was. Confusion must have shown on his face.

  “Never underestimate the power of intimidation, boy.” Dad’s smile created a sickening churn in Nate’s belly. “If I leave now, you won’t know where I’m coming from next or when you’ll see me. This’ll keep you and your mother on edge the rest of your lives.” He’d started to double back. “The Big Revenge.” He laughed again. “I’ve turned you into me.”

  Nate dropped his arms to his sides, the gun loose in his grip and shook his head.

  Julie squeezed his hands. “I lost you for a minute there. What happened? Did you win?”

  “He couldn’t outshoot me.” Not with those swollen knuckles. “But I wouldn’t call it a win.” The truth of who he was welled up inside Nate’s throat. “I drew a bead on him, Jules. I wanted to kill him. What kind of man does that?” Not the kind of man entrusted to raise children.

  “He left, didn’t he?” Her gaze had become fierce. Her hands left his and sat flat on the table.

  “He left, but my mom and Molly left, too.” The sun had risen high enough that his side of the table was thrown in shadow. He wished he’d made this confession in darkness. “My mom was horrified.” Not proud. Not appreciative. “She told me I was lucky to be alive—”

  “You were.”

  “—and that risks like that would get her and Molly killed.” She’d been unwilling to see the young warrior her brother had trained. To his mother, he’d always be the boy who’d hid in the bathtub.

  Julie frowned. “That’s a bit extreme.”

  “She left that weekend.” Saying the words out loud didn’t make them hurt any less. His mother had left him.

  “What?” Julie’s frown deepened to a scowl. “She left without you?”

  Nate nodded. “She took Molly and disappeared. They changed their names and...they were gone.”

  “But you...” Julie rubbed her forehead as if trying to erase her scowl or his painful past. “You were just a kid.”

  Nate hadn’t been a kid, not when he was eight. Probably not ever. Kids played and laughed with abandon. That’s what he wanted for Duke. “My Uncle Paul stood by me as they drove away.”

  “It’s a thankless job,” Uncle Paul had said.

  “What is?” Nate had sucked back the tears, trying to act like the man Uncle Paul expected him to be.

  His uncle set a hand on his shoulder. “Protecting people.”

  For the next six years, Nate had one purpose—stay sharp in case his father returned. He’d kept to himself, making few friends—those who didn’t mind his silences, especially when it came to questions about his past or his family. And then he’d enlisted. In the military, he’d discovered there were people who appreciated his talents, who were thankful that he helped keep them alive and safe, who didn’t care that he wasn’t much of a talker.

  Julie’s hands covered his again. “Your mother should never have abandoned you.”

  He flipped his palms up and curled his fingers around her wrists. “She was afraid. Having me around didn’t make her feel safe. I know she loved me, but that love couldn’t stand up to her fear.”

  “What a cop-out. You were a kid. You stood up to that piece of garbage—no offense—”

  “None taken.”

  “—and you did it for love.” Julie was in her element. Her eyes blazed. Her cheeks fired with color. If he said the word, she’d hunt down his mother and tell her what for.

  “It’s in the past, Jules. Let it go.”

  “Let it go? Let it... You’re not disposable.” Julie tugged on his arms as if having him agree with her would somehow make his mother’s leaving less painful. “You’re not.”

  “And neither was April,” he said gently. “I loved her. And she loved both of us. She knew you needed to confront me to move on.” As he said the words, he realized they were true. “That’s why April created the Daddy Test.”

  “You’re forgetting one thing.” Julie’s fingers dug into his skin. “You’re forgetting Duke. This doesn’t end with me understanding you better and you helping me move past the shooting. We have to decide what’s right for him. Together.”

  “We?” After all he’d told her the past few days, she could still say we?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  JULIE PUSHED THE stroller out of the sheriff’s office. “You can’t just go dark on me when I want to talk about custody.”

  “I can.” Nate set a brisk pace toward the corner.

  “Go, Juju.” After that brief command, Duke slurped on the milk in his sippy cup.

  Julie obeyed, happy to find she’d regained some of her stamina. She kept up with Nate.

  The morning was clear and bright. Gentle breeze, gentle birdsong, gentle clouds in the sky. All that gentleness couldn’t make up for Nate’s father abusing him and his mother abandoning him. But Julie could. If she ignored the magnetic pull of the pain in Nate’s eyes and her corresponding need to shelter him in her arms.

  Julie wanted to make things right for Nate. And the only way she knew how to help him was to show him how enriching raising a child was.

  “We’re going to parent Duke together.” She didn’t phrase it as a question, because she didn’t want to hear his answer. If they co-parented, she could be Nate’s emotional rock, a place he could seek shelter when his memories became too much for him. “You don’t have to be afraid you’ll be like your father. You’re nothing like that man.”

  Nate was two strides ahead of her.

  “Did you hear me?” She had to work to keep annoyance from her voice, if only for Duke’s sake.

  Nate didn’t answer.

  “Truck,” Duke said, pointing back to Nate’s vehicle. He swiveled his arm to a new target. “Tree.”

  “That’s right, little man.” At her lowest moment, she’d wanted to drop out of the sheriff’s race, but not now. Not when Nate was acting so foolishly. She’d stick with it for the week she’d promised to be here and make him see what she did—that he could be a good father.

  If he’d stop walking away from her.

  “I’m learning to live with the fact that April deserved better than you could give her. And I’m beginning to understand how you think you don’t know how to love someone deeply, including your own child.” She picked up the pace when he did, ignoring how each deep breath strained her stitches. “But loving Duke is easy. And you’re good at it.” Anyone could see he cared for Duke.

  It was like someone was propping Nate up, pushing him away from her. He walked so tall, he seemed to have added an inch to his height.

  A blond man jogged past them with a woman riding a bike beside him.

  “Morning, Nate,” the man said, nodding to Julie.

  Nate grunted.

  Nate was as tangled and tied up as the strand of holiday lights in Julie’s crawl space.

  “Listen, Einstein.” She was getting annoyed now. “Love may be risky, but not with Duke. You’ll have years to build a foundation of love and respect before he becomes a teenager and tests both of us.”

  “Cork it, Jules. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He looked over his shoulder, catching her reflection in the glass of an empty store window. The warmth she’d seen in his eyes just this morning was missing. He looked trapped and panicky. “I’m not going to parent Duke with you.”

  A brick facade broke the connection.

  Julie nearly stumbled on an uneven crack in the sidewalk. “Not with me.” She almost couldn’t say the words. He didn’t want to parent with her. Rejection clamped around her throat and gave it a good squeeze. She wouldn’t be wrapping her arms around him. Not now. Not ever.

  “No.”

  “Is it because of the election?” Because she’d selfishly agreed to run?

  “No!”
The street was empty and that one word ping-ponged off the buildings.

  Duke stopped drinking milk and made a disapproving noise.

  “Is it because Duke reminds you of April?” Because he’d been able to walk away from her sister.

  “No.” Nate’s response this time was more contained, as if he, too, realized that he had to be civil to avoid upsetting Duke. He rounded the corner.

  Julie was hot on his heels when all she wanted to do was drag hers. She was running out of reasons Nate didn’t want to talk and out of gas. “Is it because of me?”

  Nate stopped in the middle of the alley and turned. “No.” But he couldn’t quite meet her gaze and he headed for El Rosal, determined to get there in record time.

  They reached the back of the restaurant and approached the outdoor dining patio corner that opened to the town square.

  “Tree,” Duke said gleefully, pointing at the lone oak.

  “It is because of me,” Julie said, unable to praise Duke in her sudden misery. “Because of the things I said when I first came here, because I haven’t fully recovered, and I’m your competition.”

  His shoulders bunched.

  Julie swallowed back every lecture Dad had ever given about not being a quitter. “I’ll drop out of the race if you want me to, just...just don’t send us away. Duke needs you.” But she had a feeling that Nate needed Duke more.

  Nate stopped, turning slower this time. He closed the distance between them, which wasn’t much, and came to stand in front of the stroller.

  “Nay.” Duke raised his head and grinned at them in turn. “Juju.”

  Julie mustered a smile. “Even a toddler knows we should do this together.”

  Nate stared at his son and said nothing.

  But Julie knew what Nate was going to say. He was going to reject them the way he’d rejected April. His parents had stripped him of his self-worth, of his ability to trust in love. “Don’t say it.” Don’t say he couldn’t do joint custody with her. Because if he did, then he’d have no qualms saying he didn’t want to help raise Duke period. And then she’d have to...

  She had no idea what she’d have to do. But she’d have to do something.

  Nate raised his gaze slowly to Julie’s.

  Time slowed. She breathed in. She breathed out. She sent up a silent prayer to April. She willed Duke to keep grinning and look adorable. She sucked in her gut, squared her shoulders and continued to smile.

  “It is because of you,” Nate said, deflating her hopes and her smile in one fell swoop.

  “But...” Her voice sounded very small. “We used to get along.”

  Nate blew out a deep breath. “A week from now, I’m still going to be the sheriff. You’ll go back to Sacramento and pass your psych eval.”

  Her head rotated from side to side. “And Duke?”

  Nate stared down at his child once more, his detached expression softening.

  Julie needed to give Nate time so he could think before he blew his chance at a good thing. But she had no idea what to say.

  “Julie! Come to the bakery.” Doris waved from down the block. She wore a pair of worn blue jeans, a sweatshirt with Chihuahuas prancing through a poppy patch and a scowl for Nate.

  Julie had never been happier to see Doris in her life.

  “We’ve got flyers for your campaign,” Doris singsonged.

  “Flyers?” Julie singsonged back, pushing the stroller past Nate.

  “Nate! Nate!” Rutgar waved him over from a table on El Rosal’s patio. He sat with Terrance and several elderly gentlemen, including the mayor. “We’ve got some slogans for you.”

  “Slogans?” Nate said mulishly, trudging behind Julie.

  “We’ll continue this conversation tonight,” Julie promised, wheeling Duke past El Rosal with the speed of a woman grateful to have dodged an argument.

  “Ba-con?” Duke said craning his neck to look for Arturo as they passed the fenced dining area.

  “Not today, little man.”

  Main Street was the main thoroughfare through town. Cars drove past. All the parking spaces were nearly full. People hustled in and out of El Rosal and the bakery.

  “I wanted to talk to you alone.” Doris met Julie halfway down the sidewalk. “Without the rest of the campaign committee.”

  “Go for it.” Nothing Doris said could be as heavy as what she’d heard this morning from Nate.

  “It’s about me.” Doris slowed to a crawl. “I used to work at the school cafeteria in town. Thirty-five years. That cafeteria was my kingdom.”

  Julie could easily imagine how Doris had wielded her command.

  “And then the mill exploded.” Doris downshifted to a pace slower than a reluctant bride. “Businesses shut down. The school shut down. And the closest place I could find a position was hours away at a school in Dixon.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it. Work changes can be upsetting.” Wasn’t that an understatement?

  Doris put a hand on the stroller, bringing it and Julie to a halt.

  “Hey,” Duke said, a pout in his voice. He pushed Doris’s hand away. “Go, Juju.”

  “Just a minute, little man.” Julie patted his head. “If you’re good, Tracy has cake pops and hot chocolate.”

  “Pop. Pop. Pop.” Duke bounced in his seat, momentarily placated.

  “It wasn’t the same in Dixon,” Doris continued. “They did things their way.”

  And Doris had been unhappy.

  “When I retired from the school system and returned home, Sheriff Landry had a new way of doing things. No one used to care that I left my bass boat on the street. And I used to have neighbors in their eighties. They couldn’t hear if my dogs barked.”

  “What you’re saying is—” Julie felt a crease form in her brow “—you want a sheriff who’ll look the other way.”

  Doris nodded, smiling the smile of a woman expecting great things. “One who’ll look at things the way Sheriff Borelli used to.”

  “That won’t be me.” Julie pushed the stroller forward at speed.

  Doris trotted beside her. “But if you win, it’ll be because of me. I got you in the race. I deserve preferential treatment.”

  “If I win—” and that seemed like a long shot “—I’m more of a stickler for the law than Nate.”

  Doris hurried ahead and opened the bakery door for Julie. “But—”

  “No buts. I would’ve towed your boat to impound by now. And if I was sheriff, I would give out tickets every time I pulled someone over.” Julie paused in the doorway. “And no one in my town is going to carry concealed without a permit, including you.”

  For the first time since they’d met, Doris was speechless.

  “I became a cop because life should be fair for everyone. No matter their race, their culture or how difficult their past.” Julie slanted her head and hit Doris with a hard glance, one that said she’d read between the lines when Terrance had given her a setdown in the bakery the other day. “Think about someone other than yourself for once. This election should be about the bigger picture for Harmony Valley, not how life here can be easier for you.”

  Julie’s words rang with truth. She was afraid it was a truth she needed to look at about herself.

  * * *

  NATE WATCHED JULIE give Doris what looked like a dressing down and leave the woman dumbstruck on the sidewalk.

  Why hadn’t Julie tossed him to the curb? He’d confessed he had no qualms about the decisions he’d had to make on the job, while she couldn’t sleep at night for doing the same. He’d confessed he’d drawn a weapon on his father. Julie should have been doing the math, adding up his deficits and coming up with an answer: he wasn’t father material.

  Typical Julie. She’d figured Nate needed a champion, and had taken the role up
on herself, along with the assumption that she was the unacceptable part of a parenting bargain to Nate, not parenting itself.

  Nate pulled up a chair next to Rutgar, letting his supporters’ excitement about slogans flow over him and glide past.

  “Let’s get down to business,” Rutgar interrupted Nate’s thoughts. His gray-blond bushy brows were jumping in excitement. His cane hung off the back of his chair. “Here’s my slogan. Vote for Nate. He does good things.”

  Nate didn’t know what to say. Rutgar’s slogan was a stinker.

  “How about this?” Phil Lambridge’s tremulous hands moved more than an orchestra conductor’s. Leona’s ex-husband was no longer allowed to cut hair at the barbershop-turned-salon, but he was booked six weeks out with color and highlight appointments. “Vote for Nate. He’s good enough for me.”

  Nate raised his gaze skyward. Phil’s slogan wasn’t much better than Rutgar’s.

  “Mine’s the winner.” When the mayor wasn’t being neutral, he was nearly as competitive as Julie. He and his buddies were regular contenders in their bowling league in Cloverdale. He tossed his slim gray ponytail over his shoulder and read. “‘Vote for Nate. Coooool, man.’” The mayor grinned.

  Everyone at the table groaned.

  Nate ruled the mayor out. “Although I appreciate the enthusiasm, we don’t have time for T-shirts.”

  “Not to mention it’s a conflict of interest,” Rutgar muttered. The mayor made a good living selling tie-dyed T-shirts and merchandise.

  Arturo placed a coffee cup in front of Nate and tilted his head, the unspoken question being breakfast. Nate shook his head, but he did consider asking the waiter to spike his coffee.

  “Mine makes the most sense.” Terrance sported a grin the likes of which Nate hadn’t seen on him since before Robin had died. “The headline will say I’m Running for Sheriff.” He slapped the notepad in front of him and sat back. “And then we’ll have a picture of Nate jogging. Brilliant, right?”

  The assembled gave it a thumbs-down.