Montana Sheriff

by Marie Ferrarella

  Then, weaving, she retreated.

  Despite the fact that the noise around them continued as loudly as before, a silence descended on Ronnie, Cole and his mother.

  Midge recovered first. “Can I get anyone anything to drink?” she asked brightly.

  Ronnie hadn’t realized that her father, seeing Cyndy gesturing and looking angry, had made his way over to lend his support.

  “I’d like some iced tea if you don’t mind, Midge,” he requested. And then he thought better of it. “I didn’t mean to act like I expect you to wait on me. I can still get around,” he told the older woman. “Just point me in the right direction.”

  Midge looked uncertainly at her son, as if she was hesitant to leave him alone with Ronnie after what had just happened without the benefit of her support.

  “It’s okay, Ma,” Cole said. “Why don’t you take Christopher with you and go show Amos where the iced tea is.” Without waiting for her to answer him, he turned toward Ronnie. “Can I see you for a second?”

  There was absolutely no emotion in his voice and his expression was stony. Ronnie’s hands went cold.

  Rather than answer, Ronnie glanced toward where her brother was sitting. She wasn’t about to leave him if she couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t exert himself.

  But her brother appeared well taken care of. Several of the women who had visited him in the hospital were keeping him company.

  You’re out of excuses, Ronnie. It was bound to happen someday.

  It was time to finally face the music. Ronnie braced herself, hoping it wouldn’t be as bad as she anticipated.

  Without another word to Ronnie, Cole walked away from the gathering and the focal point of the celebration, the newly erected barn. He kept on walking until he had gone around the front of the house to where all the various vehicles had been parked. He was hoping that the walk would help him get the anger, the growing fury he was feeling, under control.

  It didn’t.

  The only thing he could hope for was that Cyndy had just been trying to create trouble and that her assumption wasn’t true.

  He knew he was grasping at paper straws.

  When he finally reached his own vehicle and turned around, the wary expression in Ronnie’s eyes destroyed the last shred of any hope he had. For a moment, he went numb.

  “It’s true, isn’t it?” he asked her. “What Cyndy was implying, it’s true. Christopher’s mine.”

  Ronnie remained silent for a long, agonizing moment. If she lied to him, if she said no, that Christopher wasn’t his, he’d believe her, she knew that, sensed that. She instinctively knew that, although the words remained unspoken, a part of Cole was actually asking her to lie to him.

  But she couldn’t.

  She could be evasive, she could be silent and thus lie to him by omission. But when confronted with the question, Ronnie just couldn’t bring herself to lie to Cole.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Who else knows?” he demanded. “Your father?”

  She shook her head. “He suspects, but no, I never said anything and he never came right out and asked.”

  “Then no one knows?” He saw the wary look in her eyes and had his answer. Partially. “Who?”

  “Your mother.”

  “My mother? You told her?” he demanded, his temper cracking his voice.

  “No, but she guessed,” Ronnie told him. Regret warred with anger for being put on the spot like this. She hated it. “I couldn’t lie when she asked me point-blank. Just like I couldn’t lie to you just now.”

  A rage the likes of which he had never felt before—not even when he discovered her gone that awful morning—completely filled him, threatening to overflow with a force he knew he wouldn’t be able to control.

  Struggling now to somehow contain all the churning emotions, he ground out, “Is there any reason—any reason in the world—why you could tell my mother but you couldn’t—wouldn’t—tell me that I had a son? Any conceivable reason why you would let so much time go by keeping this from me?” Cole demanded, his voice rising with each word.

  When she didn’t answer, Cole took hold of her arms, fighting hard to restrain himself, to keep from letting loose the fury that had suddenly mushroomed inside of him and just shake her.

  He clamped down his jaw hard to keep the harsh words at bay. “Well, is there?” he shouted.

  “Cole, please, keep your voice down. People will hear you,” she implored.

  “I don’t give a damn. Is there a reason, or did you just not care at all?”

  “I cared,” she insisted. How could he think she didn’t? “And yes, there was a reason,” she whispered again.

  Cole stared at her, fury in his eyes. “What was it?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Well?” Cole demanded when several seconds had passed and Ronnie still hadn’t said anything.

  It was obvious that he was prepared to wait her out until she did say something. So, taking a breath to steady herself, Ronnie gave him the reason behind her actions—or lack of actions.

  “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering if you married me because you loved me or because you felt you had to give the baby a name.”

  “And you didn’t think it was possible that it could be both?” he wanted to know. “That I could want to give the baby—my baby,” he emphasized, “a name and love you at the same time?”

  It was easy enough for him to toss that all-important word around as if it was nothing—but he’d never uttered it in earnest when it mattered. He’d never actually told her that he loved her.

  Why should she believe him now?

  Ronnie raised her head up proudly. “You never told me you loved me.”

  He’d taken it for granted that she knew. Why would he have hung around her so much if he hadn’t loved her? If she hadn’t meant the world to him?

  “I thought that was understood,” he growled out.

  There were truths a woman might intuit, but there were others that she had to be told. Needed to be told.

  “Well, it wasn’t,” she shot back.

  She was trying to make him feel guilty, Cole thought. Well, that wasn’t a one-way street. It ran both ways as far as he was concerned. “You never told me, either,” he reminded her.

  There was a reason for that, too. One he could have easily guessed if he’d been the slightest bit into her the way he was now claiming.

  Her chin was out pugnaciously and her eyes were blazing. Damn, but he wanted to make her forget about this squabble—and everything else, as well. Everything in his entire being wanted her. He reminded himself that he was more than just a mass of desires and physical urges.

  “Because I didn’t want you parroting it back after I said it to you—or worse, not saying it at all.” She pressed her lips together as a sob came out of nowhere and threatened to undo her. Very carefully, she took in a breath and then blew it out again. “And besides, I didn’t want to stay here, and if you knew I was pregnant, you would have married me and made me stay here.”

  There it was again, that wall he kept crashing into. The one she’d placed between them.

  “That’s it really, isn’t it?” he challenged. “You wouldn’t let anything get in your way, wouldn’t let any thing keep you here a second longer than was absolutely necessary.”

  There was no point in denying it. She’d felt like that. Like she was fleeing for her life, for her peace of mind. Fleeing a stifling way of life. Funny how things changed. She no longer felt trapped being here. This was where her roots were, where her heart was.

  “No, not then.”

  Enraged though he was, Cole caught the minute inflection in her voice. “And now?” he asked.

  And now I realize that this isn’t a trap, it’s a haven. But it’s too late for that.

  She shrugged her shoulders and looked away. “Doesn’t matter.”

  Cole stared at her profile for a long moment, unable to come
to grips with everything going on inside of him. But like it or not, he would have to.

  “No, I guess you’re right,” he told Ronnie stonily, his expression never changing. “It doesn’t. It doesn’t matter that you lied to me, that you kept my son—my son—away from me, that you stole that time away from me, time I can’t get back. Time with him, time with you. None of that matters.”

  “Cole, I’m sorry,” Ronnie began.

  He continued as if she hadn’t said anything. “Give my mother a ride home,” he requested. And with that, he started to get into the cab of his truck.

  “Why?” she asked. “Where’re you going?” A cold chill ran up and down the length of her spine. Suddenly afraid, she tried to grab his arm, but he pulled it away from her so hard, she wound up stumbling backward. She caught herself at the last moment, avoiding falling down in front of him. “Cole, please, don’t do anything stupid,” she entreated.

  His eyes all but burned holes into her. He’d gone way past the point where a mere warning would do him some good, he thought darkly.

  “Too late,” he told her, his voice giving absolutely nothing away.

  And with that, he started up his vehicle and drove away as if it was all one fluid movement, leaving Ronnie to try to figure out exactly what he meant by his glib comment.

  All she managed to do was go around in circles in her head.

  Ronnie drew in a ragged breath and turned on her heel, intent on going into the house and getting something for her very parched throat. Instead, she caught herself stifling a shriek when she all but walked into her brother.

  Wayne shook his head, as if reassessing what was before him. “And here I always thought you were the smart one.”

  This was no time to argue about intelligence and the difference between their IQs and brain power. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest and had yet to settle down.

  “How long have you been standing there?” she asked.

  “Long enough,” was Wayne’s vague response as he continued studying his sister. “You know, Cole’s right. You should have told him about Christopher.”

  This would wind up spreading like wildfire during a drought. Maybe it was a good thing that they were leaving. She didn’t want Christopher finding out about his father from anyone but her.

  “Water under the bridge,” she informed her brother crisply.

  “Ronnie,” he began.

  “I don’t want to discuss it, Wayne,” she retorted firmly, doing her best not to snap out the words because as far as she was concerned, Wayne’s recovery was still in the fragile stages. “And you’re not supposed to be wandering around, remember? You promised to take it easy if we agreed to let you come along,” she reminded him.

  “I guess you’re not the only McCloud who stretched the truth.”

  She’d had just about enough. Christopher was her son and this had been her choice to make, not anyone else’s. “I didn’t stretch the truth,” she informed her brother coldly as she began to lead the way back. “I never said anything at all.”

  “Sins of omission are still sins,” Wayne told her as he followed her to the back of the house where everyone was still gathered, enjoying what had turned into a barbecue.

  “Very profound,” she dismissed. “Maybe I’ll get that embroidered on a pillow for you,” she added crisply. There was a finality to her tone.

  Obviously, Wayne knew better than to push the subject.

  “DO WE HAFTA LEAVE, MOM?” Christopher asked, clearly unhappy about their leaving the ranch for the more con fined life in Seattle. There were no horses to ride there and he was just another kid in his class. “I like it here.”

  Ronnie and Christopher were sitting on the back porch for what she assumed was the last time before they got into her car and drove back.

  There was nothing to keep them here any longer.

  Mr. Walker had come up to pay for his horses and arrange for their transport down to his ranch himself. With the agreed upon fee safely banked, her father’s outstanding accounts could now be paid off and the ranch would be back in good standing again. Wayne was getting stronger every day and had been chomping at the bit to get back to work. All the reasons that had forced her to take a leave of absence and come out here to Redemption were now gone.

  She and Christopher had a life to get back to. Such as it was, she thought without a flicker of joy.

  “I know you do, sweetie. But we’ll come back and visit, I promise,” she told him, hugging her son to her. “Christmas isn’t all that far away.”

  “We don’t hafta come back for a visit if we stay,” the boy pointed out. “We can stay here and take care of Grandpa.”

  “I think Mrs. James has her eye on that job,” she told her son with a fond smile. Things had heated up rather quickly in the last few days since the barn raising. She’d even caught the two of them embracing. At least someone was happy, she thought. “Who knows? She might even be your new grandma,” Ronnie told him. Actually, she thought to herself, as your dad’s mother, she already is your grandma.

  “Then we gotta stay here,” Christopher insisted with new conviction. “I don’t have a grandpa and a grandma in Seattle.”

  “I know, honey.” She fully empathized with her son. “But I have a job there and we need to eat.”

  “You can find a job here,” the boy pleaded. And then he hit her with a question she hadn’t anticipated. “If we go, who’s going to take care of the sheriff?”

  The question had come out of the blue. They hadn’t even mentioned Cole for the last couple of days. It was as if her son sensed that talking about the man would upset her. But now, apparently, the rules seemed to have changed.

  “He doesn’t need anyone taking care of him,” Ronnie told her son. Cole hadn’t been by since the barn raising and his distance had said it all. He’d made his decision. He wanted nothing to do with her. With them.

  “Yes, he does,” Christopher insisted, jumping off the two-seated swing and suddenly becoming a pint-sized advocate for the absent sheriff. “He’s all alone. You always said that everybody should have somebody taking care of them.”

  This was one time she didn’t appreciate her son’s rather remarkable ability to remember things. “The sheriff’s the exception.”

  Christopher scrunched up his face as he tried to puzzle out what his mother had just said to him. “Why?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Is it because he’s my dad?”

  Ronnie’s world came to a skidding halt. He knew. Oh, God, Christopher knew. She searched his face, looking for some telltale sign that the news upset him. She saw nothing apart from his reluctance to leave. “Who told you that?” she asked, keeping her voice as level as she could.

  “Nobody,” Christopher answered solemnly. “I heard Mrs. James talking to Grandpa about it. It’s okay, Mom,” he said quickly, as if he could somehow sense his mother’s uneasy feelings. “I like the sheriff. I like that he’s my dad.” He smiled brightly at her, mercifully devoid of a single devious bone in his body. “He’s fun and nice. I never had a dad before. Can’t we stay?” Christopher pleaded, then played his ace card, hoping to tip the scale in his favor. “I’ll eat broccoli if we stay. Every day. Honest.” To seal the bargain, the boy crossed his heart. Twice.

  Ronnie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The one thing that she knew was that she was out from beneath the burden of that very large, weighty secret. And her son had taken it in stride like a trooper.

  “Boy, that is a really big sacrifice for you,” she acknowledged, doing her best to keep a straight face. “You hate broccoli.”

  The small head bobbed up and down with enthusiasm. “But I’ll eat it,” he promised again. “Just please, can’t we stay? Please, please, please, Mom? I’ll go to work, too, to help out.”

  Ronnie closed her eyes and sighed. She hadn’t thought it would be this hard. But it didn’t change anything. They still had to leave. “You’re not making this any easier on me.”
<
br />   Christopher was almost jumping up and down with joy. How could she have ever guessed he could grow so attached so very quickly?

  But he was still very much her son, which meant he could be enthusiastic, but he was still cautious and that meant taking nothing for granted and assuming nothing. “Then we can stay?”

  Saying no outright to that face was not an option. She chickened out. “Let me think about it.”

  “Okay. You think about it,” Christopher echoed cheerfully. “Real hard,” he added as if that was the answer to winning her over to his side.

  With that, he ran off to share this hopeful possibility with his beloved grandfather—and anyone else he encountered.

  Ronnie continued sitting where she’d been, on the two-seated swing she’d spent so many summer evenings on, dreaming of her life away from Redemption. But right now she wasn’t dreaming. She was feeling hopeless and rather lost.

  With a pronounced sigh, she shut her eyes, as if that could somehow help her see things more clearly.

  But it didn’t.

  Her head told her to move on, her heart wanted to please her son. The result was that the sum total of her felt so terribly confused that it was almost more than she could stand.

  If only there was some way, some magical way, that—

  “I’ve loved you ever since I was born, did you know that?”

  Her eyes flew open, positive that she had somehow conjured up the deep voice with its solemn declaration. Positive that she would be looking at no one, only the same scenery that had been there when she’d shut her eyes a few moments ago.

  For a moment, she was right. All she saw was the same scenery.

  And then Cole shifted, coming into her line of vision.

  Her heart stopped, holding its breath. Or maybe that was her.

  “Maybe even longer than that,” Cole speculated. “I guess I never said it before because I didn’t want to be standing here like this, looking at you looking at me and not speaking. Making me feel like some village idiot.” He took a breath, pushing on. “I’m not saying this to keep you here. I know you want to go back to Seattle and your life and I understand that, I really do. I’m just hoping that somewhere in that life, you can find a place for me because I haven’t stopped loving you, not for one day, not for one hour. I wanted to. Damn, but I wanted to,” he confessed with feeling. “Even tried to talk myself into loving someone else, but I knew I was lying.”