The Sheriff of Heartbreak County

by Kathleen Creighton

  Her heart tripped, her insides twittered, and her legs felt as though they might disconnect at the knees. And in spite of all her resolutions and warnings, her mutinous mind sighed, Yes…this…forever this.

  She stirred sugar substitute into her coffee, tasted it, and thus fortified, turned to face him. Leaned against the counter as she sipped, and raised defiant eyes to his.

  “You okay?” he asked softly. Kindly.

  She lifted her eyebrows and replied in a tone of mild surprise, “Of course.” Pretending she wasn’t quivering inside.

  “Feel like talking?”

  A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Would it matter if I said no?”

  He drank coffee and regarded her steadily across the rim of the cup, eyes slightly narrowed, but in a thoughtful way, not hard. He lowered his cup, paused a moment, then said in the same quiet rumbling voice, “I’ll put it another way. Are you ready to tell me what I’m gonna need to know so I can protect you?”

  She made an automatic gesture of protest and managed to choke out, “I don’t need-” before he stopped her with a firm but patient, “Now, that’s just stupid.” As if she were Susie Grace talking nonsense.

  Anger stung her, threatening the delicate web of self-control she’d woven around her emotions. She didn’t want to talk, didn’t know if she could talk without feeling it all over again. And she didn’t want to feel any more, not today. Not right now. Not while he was anywhere near her. Because it would be too hard to keep from crawling right back into his arms, where every shred of sense told her she had no business being.

  Far too easy to accept the comfort and kindness he offered and pretend it was something more.

  But Roan was at the table, pulling a chair out for her, waiting for her. She went reluctantly, set her coffee on the table and let him seat her-and she thought again, as she had when he’d first given her a ride in his car, what irony it was-as if they were on a date, having dinner together.

  “Besides which,” he continued as he took the chair opposite her, “it’s just not true. You sure as hell do need protecting. Look at this place. Look at where you work. If somebody wants to get to you, you’d be a sitting duck, and I’m responsible for your safety whether you like it or not. So let’s quit wasting time. I want you to tell me everything you can about how you got into this mess, and maybe we can figure how to get you out.”

  Mary studied her hands wrapped around the coffee mug. She nodded, cleared her throat, using all her willpower to put her anger-and all the less definable emotions-on slow simmer. “Where do you want me to start?”

  “You told me about your parents…you were a preacher’s kid.”

  She had to use both hands to hold her coffee steady as she lifted it to her lips. “And you asked me how I got from there to being a…what was it you called it?” There was a rasp of resentment in her voice she couldn’t hide, and she allowed her mouth to tilt in a sardonic little smile. “A mobster’s…girlfriend? But you leapfrogged right over the part where I ran away to the wicked city at seventeen to be a model.”

  “All right, let’s start there.” His eyes were resting on her again, narrowed in appraisal, keen as ever, but once again without that all-seeing cop look she’d come to dread.

  Relaxing a little, she stared into her coffee for a moment, then took a deep breath and began. Though not where she’d expected to.

  “You’ll probably find this hard to believe, the way I am now,” she said lightly, even laughing, “but when I was a little girl I was in love with pretty clothes. My own were hand-me-downs, ill-fitting, years out of style, and I hated having to wear them when I knew what beautiful clothes could look like. And I did know, because I used to steal catalogs from people’s mailboxes-” she threw him a glance “-probably a felony, I know-and I’d sneak fashion magazines wherever I could find them and look at them at night under my blankets with a flashlight. I had to be careful-my father would have punished me if he’d known.”

  “He’d what-make you kneel in the church and pray for your sins?” Roan’s voice was tight.

  “Or worse.” She smiled; it was getting easier, she could suppress the memories even while she spoke of them, now. She felt only a faint chill, like a frosty breath on the back of her neck. “But he could have done just about anything to me, it wouldn’t have made any difference. I wanted the world I saw in those magazines, and I was determined to have it.

  “Anyway, I was in my last year of high school when I answered this ad-some sort of model search-in a magazine. I nearly died when I was accepted. Then it was completely crazy, trying to keep the secret. I had to ditch school to go have pictures made. Borrow money from classmates to pay for them. But in the end it was worth it, because I was offered a scholarship to a modeling school in New York City-room and board and everything.”

  Roan pursed his lips in a silent whistle. “Wow.”

  “Yeah,” she said flatly, “I was thrilled. Then I had to break the news to my parents.”

  “How’d that go?” he prompted when she didn’t continue.

  Her hands had gone clammy. She drew them slowly from the tabletop and into her lap, and began to rub them methodically on her thighs. Shielding herself, she said evenly, “I don’t think it matters, does it? It doesn’t have anything to do with what happened after.” She tightened her lips, clamping down on the pain. “Suffice to say, I left home that night and haven’t been back.”

  “What’d you use for money?”

  She gave a brittle laugh and shifted in her chair. “Oh, well, now that I’m not proud of.”

  He put a hand over his eyes. “Lord-don’t tell me-you robbed the church poor box.”

  “Something like that, yeah.” She picked up her coffee cup, discovered it was empty and set it down again. “Anyway,” she added, a surge of righteousness bubbling up inside her, “I paid it back-and then some-out of my first modeling check. It’s not one of the things I still lose sleep over, that’s for sure.”

  Without comment, Roan got up from the table and went for the coffeepot. He refilled her mug and his and brought her two packets of a sugar substitute and a spoon-a man who was comfortable in the kitchen, she noticed-then sat back down, picked up his coffee and blew on it. “So-you were a success at it? The modeling?”

  “Oh, yeah.” She managed a smile, but it slipped awry. “It happened pretty quickly. In fact, after the sheltered life I’d led, everything in the city came at me hard and fast.” She lifted her coffee, frowned at him through the steam and said darkly, “And in case you were thinking about asking, I’m not going to elaborate on that, either. It was a tough time, and it’s got nothing to do with anything now.” She paused, looked down at her coffee cup and blinked. “I’m not sure I’d have survived it, though, if it hadn’t been for…Joy.” She clamped a hand over her mouth as the tears welled.

  He didn’t crowd her, she gave him credit for that. Just waited a moment to give her time to regain control, then said quietly, “The two of you were roommates?”

  Mary gulped a swallow and nodded. “She advertised, I answered, we hit it off right away. She was…” She paused once more, cleared her throat. “She was the big sister I’d never had. There were times she seemed more like the mother I’d never had.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Again, giving her time, she thought. But she’d given up trying to stop the tears.

  “Because,” she whispered, blotting them with her fingers, “she loved me. Unconditionally. Nobody had ever given me that-unconditional love. Nobody.” She touched her nose with the back of her hand, then scrubbed angrily at her cheeks. “God knows, my parents never did. I’d had friends, growing up, but I always felt like I had to put up a front for them-be somebody I wasn’t. Same with the people I met, working in the city. But not with Joy. She knew I wasn’t perfect and loved me anyway. She’d have given her life for me-she almost did.”

  “Ah,” said Roan. “Tell me about that.”

  She gave her head a fierce little sh
ake. “Not yet. That comes later. That was after I met Diego DelRey.”

  “So, tell me about that.”

  “Uh-uh-that comes later, too. First I have to tell you how I got to there. You have to understand…why.”

  “Okay-make me understand.” He said it gently. She was smiling at him now, winsomely through her tears, like a child hoping for a stranger’s approval. And at the same time she seemed calmer…stronger, he thought, as if even the memory, the thought of her friend’s love nurtured her.

  “It’s hard to explain,” she said, intently studying her hands and the coffee mug they cradled. “The modeling career was going well, I had the job I’d always wanted, but I wasn’t happy. I found out I really hated modeling, if you want the truth. I always felt like a…a product, rather than a person.

  “Anyway, Joy was trying to become a writer, and she got me started writing, too. First it was just a journal-personal stuff. Then, one day during a break on a photo shoot for this huge fashion magazine, I was off in a corner writing in my journal, and one of the photographers saw me and wanted to know what I was writing. I told him it was just stuff about the shoot, and he asked if he could read it. I felt really shy about giving him my personal writings, but he was pretty persuasive. Then, after he’d read some of it, he asked if I’d mind if he showed it to his editor at the magazine. At this point, I figured, how much difference could it make?

  “Well…as it turned out, a lot.” She answered her own question with a dazed laugh. “The editor liked my stuff so much she decided to make an article out of it to go with the photo layout-kind of a model’s diary of what a photo shoot was like.” She shrugged…drew a hitching breath.

  “That was it-the beginning of Yancy Lavigne, fashion reporter. Again, it came at me faster than I knew how to deal with it. Before I knew it, I’d entered this…this whole new world, filled with beautiful, glamorous, rich, exciting, famous people. I was talking to people whose faces everyone in the world knows-and getting paid for it. Me-poor, homely, awkward Mary Yancy from Nowheresville. It was like some kind of drug, I guess. Intoxicating. And, like drugs do, it really messed up my head. Because the more I was around that world, the more I wanted it for myself-not just to report on, but to belong to.”

  She jumped up from the table and paced restlessly to the window, rubbing at her upper arms. Roan shoved back his chair so he could watch her, his belly clenching with the urge to jump up, drag her away from those windows. Using all his self-control to keep his butt in his chair, he told himself to relax. The news just broke a couple of hours ago-if they come for her, it won’t be this morning. Not yet.

  Her soft voice drifted back to him; he had to strain to hear it. “I’m not proud of this. But…I knew I’d never be able to enter that world on my own, so I thought-I decided I could marry into it.” She gave her head a little toss that almost…almost made him smile. “I’d never had any trouble attracting men-I just figured I needed to go where I could attract the right kind of man. Someone rich. Maybe even famous.”

  “Didn’t you meet enough of that kind on the job?”

  She threw him another one of her lopsided little smiles. “Oh, sure, but I was the press, the media. In that world, that’s kind of the equivalent of the hired help-you’re necessary, they treat you with courtesy, maybe even kindness…sometimes even what passes for friendship. But they don’t make you part of the family. Like…they might have an affair, but they don’t marry you.” She didn’t sound bitter about it, just matter-of-fact.

  “Anyway, I decided on this resort down in Florida-new, very hip, very posh, a very hot destination for the rich and famous. I saved every penny I could scrape up, then I took a couple of weeks vacation time, and off I went-chasing the rainbow. Or a fairy tale, I guess. You know-Prince Charming.”

  She turned and came back to the table. Sat down and faced him again, back straight, no longer smiling, the way she’d faced him in his interrogation room…face pale, eyes cold and bleak. It was hard, seeing her that way. Remembering that evening left him with a sour, heavy feeling in his belly.

  “And, I found him,” she said. “At least, I thought I had. Diego DelRey was…everything I’d hoped for…dreamed of. He was handsome and charming, of course-very sweet, really, like a little boy, sometimes. A spoiled little boy. He was incredibly rich-or his family was. They actually owned the resort, and Diego managed it for the family. At the time, that’s all I knew about Diego-that he was from some South American country, well-known and liked in the world of the rich, famous and beautiful people. And very, very rich. That, and the fact that he was crazy in love with me.” She paused to glare at him. “And I don’t care who you are, Sheriff, you don’t need details about that, either.”

  “Fine with me,” Roan growled, in complete agreement with her on that point, for reasons that had nothing to do with him being sheriff. He cleared his throat-not that it helped much. “Just one question, though. Were you in love with him?”

  She smiled, a little sadly. “I wanted to be. You have no idea how much I wanted to be. At the end of my two weeks, when he begged me to stay, asked me to marry him, I said yes. He gave me a hugely expensive ring, and took me to his family’s estate, on this private island.” Her smile vanished-as suddenly as if she’d put her foot down and discovered the ground wasn’t there. So suddenly, Roan had to fight an urge to reach for her. She gulped coffee. “Then…things changed.”

  “Changed? How so?” He leaned forward, focused on her, his hands clasped on the table in front of him. Heart quickening.

  She waved a hand…frowned. “Oh…it’s hard to remember now. Hard to put my finger on what it was, at first. The atmosphere just felt…wrong. Diego’s father-they called him Señor-and his uncle…they were nice enough to me, I guess, but for some reason they scared me. Maybe it was their eyes…they seemed so hard. The fact that they never smiled. And there were all these dangerous-looking men around-I know they carried guns, I’d seen them-and everywhere I went, one of them seemed to be right there, watching me. I wasn’t allowed to leave the island unless Diego was with me-I didn’t mind that so much; after all, he was my fiancé, I didn’t have any reason to go places without him. But then…they wouldn’t let me use the phone, not even to call Joy. I didn’t understand that. I knew she’d be worried about me when I didn’t come home after my vacation. She’d even given me a prepaid phone card to use to call her.” A smile flickered. “That was the way she was.

  “Anyway, I began to realize I was pretty much a prisoner on that island. Diego tried to tell me it was just temporary, that the family was getting ready to close down the estate and leave for their home country-just for the summer, he said, and so I’d have a chance to meet the rest of his family. He told me we’d be married down there. I told him I wanted Joy to be there-to be my maid of honor. He promised me that once we got to his family home, I could call Joy and have her come for a visit. I really missed her-and that was another thing; there weren’t any other women on the island-except Anita, the housekeeper.” Her throat rippled, and she continued in a whisper, “She was nice to me. I liked her. She-”

  “She was the one they killed-the DelReys?”

  Mary nodded. She spoke rapidly, trying to get through it. Her voice shook. “And her husband, Eduardo. He took care of the grounds. They-I think they killed them just to cover their tracks. As if they were nothing-loose ends to be tied up, trash to be thrown away. Because the feds were closing in on them and they didn’t want to leave any witnesses behind. Or maybe they thought they knew things. They-” she swallowed again “-the DelReys-they’d rigged the whole island with explosives, probably to take out as many of the federal agents as possible when they came for them.

  “I didn’t know any of that at the time, of course, except…I knew Anita and Eduardo were unconscious, because I’d seen them-or maybe they were already dead. Anyway, that was when I understood, finally, who-and what-the DelReys were. All I could think about was how I was going to get away from them. How to keep them
from getting suspicious of me. I knew they wouldn’t hesitate to kill me too, no matter how Diego felt about me.”

  Her eyes focused on something far away, she picked up her coffee cup and took another thoughtless gulp. He could hear her swallow. “That evening a helicopter came for us-all of us. We were flying away in it when the house blew up-the whole island was exploding. It looked like a movie. Señor DelRey said the feds were responsible for it. Meanwhile, I was trying to act like I was so crazy in love with Diego I didn’t care about anything else. Flying away in that helicopter…watching the fire, and the explosions…knowing Anita and Eduardo were down there-” Her voice rose to a squeak. “I didn’t know Joy was there, too-on the island. She’d come looking for me. She was there-she almost got killed-because of me.”

  “Easy…” Roan gave up fighting it and reached for her hand.

  Chapter 12

  His hand might have been the head of a rattlesnake, from the way she shied back from it.

  “Mary,” he said in a gravelly voice, “You weren’t responsible for your friend-”

  “Yes-yes, I was.” She was on her feet again, pacing the small sunlit room and throwing back quick, furious glances. “Joy came looking for me. She came because I hadn’t called, and then I wasn’t on the plane, and she was worried about me. She came because she loved me. And when she knew I was in trouble, she risked her life for me. Not just then, on the island, but later.” She paused, one hand gripping the back of a chair, the other brushing at her cheeks and nose. “See, the helicopter took us first to one of the DelReys’ manufacturing plants-there was an air strip there, and they were waiting for their plane to come and fly us out of the country. They didn’t know the feds had them under surveillance all the time, that they were just waiting for the plane to land before moving in and arresting everybody. But what the feds didn’t know was that I was there, too. They thought-”