She smiled. “Of course, that’s okay with me.”
“Well, before I forget, what do I owe you?”
She waved her hand. “Don’t even think of it. After all the help you gave me, consider it my treat.”
Tanner frowned. “You’re not charging folks for your pecan loaf.”
A statement, not a question. He sounded ticked at the idea, besides. “No, not this time. But, yes, that’s the plan.”
He shook his head. “Uh-uh.”
Would his meddling ever end?
She could feel her blood pressure spiking. Her patience fled, along with her good sense. “Deputy Jones, I don’t need your permission.”
With that, Logan rose, picked up their empty plates and sidled toward the stairs. She was too upset to protest—and too glad of the chance to have Tanner to herself so she could set him straight once and for all.
The minute Logan stepped through the open doorway, she whirled to face Tanner. “If you care to know, I’ve survived all these years without adding your stamp of approval to every move I make. So please keep your advice to yourself.”
“And let you get carted off to jail?”
“What are you talking about?”
“No permit, no selling on the street. Town ordinance.”
“Oh, there’s no such thing.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“What about the Founder’s Day Festival every year?” she demanded. “They sell all kinds of bakery and jellies and crafts and…and…everything else.”
“And they get the permits every year to do it.”
She rolled her eyes. “All right, I’ll look into it.” Another expense she couldn’t afford. “What are you doing here, anyhow? We’ve got the rosters set through the beginning of the week. You told me today’s your day off.”
“Hey, you’re open for business, aren’t you?”
He rose from his seat and grabbed his Stetson. Not looking at her, he stomped down the steps and into the bookstore.
She planted her fists on her hips and growled. Good riddance.
But now what could she do about her sidewalk café?
Try moving indoors? How much would that help, when the bookstore didn’t bring in enough trade to get by? She’d planned the tables outside to attract customers. She would need a billboard to direct them into the store.
Tanner and Logan each could buy a book or twenty, and it wouldn’t put a dent in her debt.
If nothing else, she had to make enough money to cover this month’s electric bill. She had applied for every credit she could, had taken the lowest payment plan possible, and still they had called earlier in the week, warning that one more late payment would force them to cut her off.
Desperation had set her mind to work, and she’d put her plan about the sidewalk café into motion. But she’d need more money than that could provide. Eyeing the bookstore doorway, she thought furiously, tapping her forefinger against her mouth. Maybe…
She hurried down the steps. Tanner had gravitated toward the shelves of Louis L’Amour novels, but as she entered the store, he looked up expectantly, his lips curved in a smile.
Did he think she’d come to apologize? To give in?
When she raised her chin and glared at him, the smile slid away.
Looking beyond him, she saw Logan in the business section, his back to them. Obviously, he didn’t want any part of their conversation. Smart man.
“Hey, Logan,” she called.
He turned.
Smiling, she started down the aisle toward him. “Didn’t you say you’re needing a room while you’re in town?”
TANNER LEFT SARAH in the bookstore arranging to rent an extra bedroom upstairs to Logan Kincaid. Somehow, the idea made him want to snarl at anybody who crossed paths with him. Not his usual good old boy self, by a long shot.
He tried not to slam the door after him.
He’d been off-kilter since the day before, and he owed it all to Sarah. Sarah, who stood in that damned bookstore answering every damned question Logan put to her, but who turned closemouthed as an army intelligence officer when he was the one asking the questions.
Look how she acted with him today, too. And on his day off, when he’d come here thinking maybe she could use some company. See where his good intentions had gotten him.
Out on the sidewalk, that’s where.
He took in a slow, deep breath and looked around, squinting against the bright sunshine before he had the presence of mind to put on his sunglasses.
Luckily, the good folks of Dillon had steered clear of this particular street at this particular time, and he had the place to himself.
“Hey, Deputy Jones!”
Maybe not. He turned in the direction of the voice.
Kevin stood on the crossbar of the bookstore’s wooden side gate. He’d anchored himself in place with an elbow, held a straight stick gripped in one hand and a sorry-looking excuse for a softball clutched in the other.
“Wanna play catch?”
Seeing his gap-toothed smile, Tanner felt his normal, easygoing nature slide back into place. The boy couldn’t help that he had an infuriating mom.
It did cross his mind that Kevin seemed awfully happy, considering what he’d gotten up to the day before. Confining him to quarters didn’t seem like much of a punishment, when he got to play outside. Was Sarah leaving the real disciplining of her son to the principal? He shook his head.
Well, why not play ball with the kid? He needed to keep his trust.
To use him, as Sarah’d been so quick to accuse.
“That all you have in the way of equipment?”
“I got a mitt over here in the yard. Only one, though.” Kevin frowned, as if that might lose him a pitching partner.
“No problem.” He went to the back of his pickup and rummaged around a minute, then pulled out his own mitt, a brand-new baseball and a couple of lightweight bats.
“Wow, real stuff.” Kevin jumped down and swung the gate open.
“Yeah. My department’s got a team, and—lucky for you—I get to carry the extra equipment.”
His eyes widened. “You can be a deputy and play ball, too?”
“Sure can.” He entered the narrow yard beside the house and followed the kid around back. There, the space opened up into a wide, deep lot filled with areas of dry grass and ankle-high weeds. In one far corner sat a wooden storage shed with a busted window and a badly sagging roof.
“Perfect for baseball practice.” He tossed the bats onto the ground near the house and worked his fingers into the familiar tunnels inside his mitt. “Let’s just toss the ball around awhile.”
“Yes, sir!” Kevin threw his stick and softball beside Tanner’s equipment and trotted to one side of the yard.
Tanner lobbed an easy one at him.
The kid managed to miss it. His underhand aim on the return sent Tanner running wide. Kevin’s face crumpled as if someone had gut-punched him.
“Always takes a few to get warmed up,” Tanner called.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
After a few lobs back and forth, he caught on. Tanner grabbed one of the bats and bunted to him awhile. He grinned now, himself, watching how eagerly the kid raced around the yard.
“Okay, take a look at how I’m angling the bat, and try to figure where the ball’s likely to go.”
That idea required more brainpower. And more patience on Tanner’s part. But he worked the concept, over and over, until Kevin had more catches than misses. He’d just about gotten the hang of it, when two other kids came into the yard, then promptly ran home for their own mitts.
“C’mon, Deputy,” Kevin urged. “I want to be good by the time they get back.”
He swallowed a smile. “You’re good already, kid. Look how much you’ve improved since we started.”
“Yeah?” Kevin resettled his cap and jogged out to where he’d left the ball.
They tossed it back and forth until the other two returned.
Then, the lessons went on. Pitching, catching, bunting, sliding into invisible bases.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Kevin yelled. He tore off toward the shed in the corner of the yard and quickly returned with a handful of loose tiles. “Mom won’t care if we use these. That old building’s falling down, anyways.”
So they roughed out a baseball diamond.
Tanner settled onto the shaded back steps to focus more on coaching. The sun had shifted, filling the entire backyard, telling him how much time had gone by.
And he’d enjoyed every minute of it.
Elbows propped behind him, he stretched out his legs and eyed the game going on. Comfortable and content.
He could imagine lots of Saturdays like this, with the yard full of kids and a barbecue smoking over in one corner.
He could imagine Kevin as his own son.
Maybe it was more than just imagination. Maybe he and Sarah—No. He managed to push the thought away.
But another thought—of Sarah and her attitude—stuck with him, setting his anger to smoking again, as hot as that barbecue he’d envisioned a minute ago.
No matter what he said, no matter what he did, she didn’t pay a bit of attention to him. Except to get mad at him for one thing or another. She’d brushed away his warning about her sick-sounding vehicle. His attempts to get closer to her kid had gotten her attitude into an uproar.
Hell, just hours ago, she’d taken him to task. And all he’d wanted was to keep from having to run her in to jail on a violation.
That’d make the first mark on her record, too. So far as he could tell.
Maybe that’s what burned him most—he hadn’t found out a damned thing about her.
The day before, he’d done some checking into her background, looking at records for both here and California, where she’d gone when she left town, then widening his search. And he hadn’t found a thing. Not a parking ticket. Not a job application. Not a known address other than this one right here in Dillon.
And, most curious of all, not even a marriage license.
Across the yard, one of Kevin’s pitches went wild.
“Keep it low,” Tanner called.
The boy tugged his cap down over his eyes and nodded.
Tanner shook his head. Sarah might not want his counsel, but no reason he couldn’t try some of his own advice.
He’d told her he’d take his talks with Kevin one step at a time, get the boy to trust him. Maybe that strategy would help him gain the information he wanted—straight from Sarah. Get her a little closer, a little more comfortable and she might ease up with him, too.
It couldn’t hurt.
Could it?
A LITTLE BACKYARD baseball game couldn’t hurt.
Could it?
By the time she’d finished talking with Logan, Sarah felt sure the game had gone too far for her to call it off. Besides, Kevin had promised he’d stay in the yard, and there he was. With Tanner.
She didn’t know what to do about it.
Maybe Mrs. Gannett was right and Kevin needed more than his mother’s influence. Maybe Tanner had been right—much as she hated to admit it—and having him get closer to Kevin would help them get to the bottom of the trouble in Dillon.
She ought to encourage the idea. It should be all right, now that Tanner seemed willing to look in other directions and not focus solely on Kevin.
But at what cost?
One thing for certain, she didn’t want her son alone for too long with Tanner.
She turned away from the window and lifted the same tray she had carried outside that morning. Now, a plateful of fresh sticky buns rested on one side, and a platter full of cut sandwiches balanced out the other. In between sat a stack of plastic cups and a pile of napkins.
On her way to the kitchen door, she grabbed the handle of the large carrier she had filled with lemonade.
Reinforcements in place, she went down the stairs, into the bookstore and across to the rear of the room. The wooden inside door was propped open, the storm door still on the latch.
Through the screen, she could see that Tanner had gone back to the boys, who clustered around to watch him demonstrate some kind of pitch.
How many times had she sat in the bleachers at the grade school or the high school, and watched Tanner toss a ball? Run down the football field? Race around a track? More times than she could count. But he’d never looked as he did now as, in slow motion, he mimed raising the ball and then throwing it.
Back then he’d been only a boy with some growing to do yet. Now, he was definitely a fully grown man, with well-honed muscles flexing in his arms and shoulders and across his back, and the cutest tush in Texas filling his snug-fitting jeans.
Hot. Very hot.
If she’d had a hand free, she’d have used it to fan herself.
Chapter Eight
As Sarah fought to keep from drooling in admiration, Tanner finished his demo pitch. He crossed the yard, climbed the steps and looked back at her from the other side of the door.
He stood so close, she would only have to inhale gently to let his aftershave consume her. Only have to raise her hand to touch his chest. Only have to lean forward to kiss him.
Except for the screen that created an almost-unseen barrier between them. And the secret that kept them apart.
The thought broke her spell. “You might make yourself useful, Deputy.”
“My pleasure, ma’am.” He swung the door open and took the tray from her.
“Set it on the top step, please.”
He did as she asked, putting the tray down but staying beside her. Deliberately moving away a few paces, she lifted the lemonade carrier to the wide porch railing.
Tanner’s arms came around her, and he rested a hand on either side of the cooler. She swallowed a gasp and turned her head. He smiled down at her, his face only inches from hers.
“Just making sure everything’s steady here, ma’am.”
“Everything’s fine,” she retorted. To her dismay, her anything-but-steady voice gave her away. To make up for her weakness, she glared at him.
He grinned. “I’ll get the glasses.”
“You do that.” When he turned from her, she wiped her forearm across her damp forehead.
The boys came racing toward them. In seconds, she and Tanner were surrounded by the swarm.
“Hands first!” she yelled.
“Aw, Mom.” But Kevin led his friends to the outside faucet. Tanner saluted her, turned on his heel and joined the line.
Not nearly far enough away.
By the time she and Tanner finished distributing the lemonade, the boys had eaten most of the sandwiches and made serious inroads into the pile of sticky buns.
Tanner snagged one, then seated himself on the top step beside the tray.
“Uh-oh.” Kevin gulped down the rest of his lemonade and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Better eat a sandwich first, or Mom will get you. C’mon, guys, let’s go.”
The three of them ran off.
Sarah sat on a lower step and reached toward the tray.
Tanner grabbed her hand. “Are you going to get me, Sarah?”
Not anymore. She shook her hand free, tried not to notice her racing pulse. She didn’t know what game he had in mind—Well…actually, she did, but she had no intention of playing. “Don’t worry about me, Tanner. You’re old enough to make your own decisions.” Old enough, but not wise enough. Or at least, he hadn’t been, a few years ago, when he’d made the wrong choice and left her. And now, it was too late.
She took a half sandwich from the plate and bit into it.
“You sure haven’t lost your touch.” He licked frosting from his fingers, running his tongue slowly over each tip.
She looked away. They had stolen their first awkward kiss out behind his daddy’s barn. Then, they hadn’t known what to do with their tongues. But it hadn’t taken them long to find out. And it looked like Tanner hadn’t lost his touch, either.
; Her bite of sandwich thudded into her stomach.
“This has been fun.”
For you, maybe.
He took another sandwich. “Except for sports, what other kinds of entertainment have these kids got in Dillon?”
She shrugged. “There’s a play at one of the schools every so often.”
“What about the dance hall?”
No. They’d held the prom at Paradise, just a few short days before her life had fallen to pieces. “The dance hall’s closed down now. Jeb Carter didn’t have much call for it and couldn’t afford to keep the place up, I guess.”
“Sad.”
“Hey, Deputy Jones,” Billy yelled, “we need an outfielder.”
“Coming up,” Tanner called back. He drank the rest of his lemonade, set the cup down on the tray and rose to his feet. Then he leaned over and reached a hand toward her cheek.
Nerves already on edge, she couldn’t stop herself from jumping. Lemonade splashed from her cup onto the front of her dress. Quickly, he reached for a napkin and brushed at the spots.
To her dismay, her insides threatened to melt on the spot. And to her shame, she reveled in the long-forgotten sensations.
Thank heaven, he stood between her and the boys, blocking their view.
“All better now,” he said, dropping the napkin onto the tray. “Thanks for lunch, Sarah.”
And, just like that, he left, while she sat there trembling with desire—and cursing her body for it.
Was she still so attracted to Tanner, still so lost in fantasies that would never come true, that she had read way too much into his perfectly innocent actions?
Or was Tanner’s behavior today anything but innocent?
BY MONDAY, SARAH still couldn’t decide whether to call Tanner “angel” or “devil.” A dilemma she faced all too often with Kevin lately.
Though she and Tanner had their citizen’s watch schedules set through midweek, she had thought he might stop by to check the teams’ reports. But, during those two days, neither she nor Kevin had seen a sign of him. A fact she couldn’t forget, as her son brought up the man’s name at least once an hour.
“Mom, do you think he’ll come by after church?” he asked as they had walked home on Sunday.
“I don’t know, honey,” she replied, wondering—and fearing—the same thing. But when they arrived, she saw no brown sedan or black pickup truck anywhere near the bookstore.
The Sheriff's Son Page 7
