The Sheriff's Son

by Barbara White Daille

  Sarah blinked. She’d forgotten about that.

  Johnny shook his head wildly. “Uh-uh. None of us would do a thing like that. Would we?” He turned to his friends.

  “No way,” Joe Ray said.

  Even Lyle, attempting a sneer at the idea, shook his head.

  “We’ll see,” Tanner said. “All right, what are y’all up to now? And let’s not say making repairs for Jeb.”

  “We weren’t doing nothing wrong, mister.” Joe Ray’s voice broke. He twisted the toe of his boot in the dirt, reminding her of Kevin.

  Was this where her son would be in a few years?

  “Tell me more.”

  “We was just looking around, dude.” Lyle, with his deeper voice, managed to sound a bit tougher.

  So did Tanner. “On private property, dude. Unless you got permission slips from the owner?” His face had turned as hard as the stones on the ground around them. The coldness in his tone made her wince.

  Johnny gulped, his eyes wide. “We were just hanging out, that’s all.”

  Tanner swung the flashlight beam in an arc around their feet, picking up a rusty coffee tin filled with cigarette butts, a couple of beer cans and a tattered magazine the likes of which Sarah wouldn’t stock in her bookstore.

  Tanner snorted and trained the light on Johnny again. “Charlie’s gonna love it when he hears about this, isn’t he?”

  Johnny gulped.

  The light went to Joe Ray. “I’d imagine your family’s not gonna like it, either.”

  Over to Lyle. “How about yours, dude?”

  Even Lyle looked wary. He turned his gaze to her. “Miss Sarah—”

  Tanner’s laugh cut him off. “Whimpering to a woman for help? Now there’s a desperado for you.”

  She winced again.

  He swung the flashlight beam across the back of the building. On the sill of a half-open window sat two small kerosene lamps.

  “All the comforts of home, huh?” He stared hard at each of the boys. “Tell you what. Miss Sarah and I will take a turn around the premises. Check things out. Now, I’m betting y’all will stay here till we get back.”

  After one more look at them, he strode away.

  Sarah hesitated, blinking in the sudden loss of bright light from the flash. Wishing she could say something reassuring to the boys. Not wanting to interfere with his authority as the sheriff, she followed him.

  He ran the light over doors, windows, walls, foundations. And found nothing.

  She couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “It looks like they only opened that one window to set up their lanterns,” she whispered.

  He grunted.

  Why was she trying to sway him?

  Because she couldn’t stop thinking of Kevin, comparing him to these boys. Realizing how she would feel if, a few years from now, her child was caught as they had been. She tried again. “You and Gabe Miller and the rest of them went through the beer and cigarette stage, too. The boys haven’t done anything that terrible.”

  “Trespassing’s against the law.”

  Still hard as rock. So cold. So different from the boy she’d once loved.

  “But they’re not our vandals, Tanner.”

  “Correction. We didn’t catch them in the act of vandalism.”

  She gave up.

  In silence, they finished their walk around the building.

  They found the boys where they had left them, though standing shoulder to shoulder now, as if closing ranks. Or seeking comfort.

  Tanner flashed the light on each pale face again.

  “All right. Here’s what we’re looking at. Carrying kerosene and matches in this dry area’s just plain stupid. We don’t even need to discuss that. But trespassing’s illegal. So’s underage purchase of alcohol.”

  Now, all three boys scuffed their boots in the dirt.

  “I run you in, you could do time.” He shrugged. “With some luck, you might get off with community service. Or…”

  They froze.

  “…we maybe can make a deal.”

  Furtive glances darted among them.

  “Voluntary service,” Tanner announced.

  They looked puzzled.

  Sarah let herself relax. Just a bit.

  “Show up at the grade school tomorrow morning and paint fence rails.”

  Inwardly, she gave a sigh of relief. This was the Tanner she’d grown up with. Fallen in love with.

  She’d known he couldn’t be as hard as he’d pretended. Should’ve known he would be fair in his treatment of the boys. And, faced with the comparisons, had to admit he’d been fair with Kevin all along.

  The boys looked at each other, then back at Tanner, nodding eagerly.

  “Sounds good.”

  “Right, dude.”

  “We’ll be there.”

  “Eight sharp,” he snapped. “Wear old clothes, and bring paintbrushes. Now, get the hell out of here.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sarah stole a quick glance across the front seat of the sedan.

  They had reached the business section of town again, and Tanner cruised up and down the side streets. His path seemed aimless, but she noted he covered every inch of the area, and his eyes constantly scanned their surroundings. On the job. All business.

  But she couldn’t forget the glimpse she’d caught of a younger, less hardened Tanner. The Tanner she used to love.

  “That was nice of you to give the boys a chance.”

  He shrugged. “We’ll see if they show up tomorrow.”

  “I think they will.”

  “Or you’ll tell their daddies?” He chuckled. “Well, why not? The fear of a thrashing has made a man out of many a boy.”

  She turned to stare at him. “That’s not the answer to problems, Tanner. My daddy never took a switch to me. And yours didn’t to you, either.”

  “True enough.” Static came from the dashboard radio, and he turned the knob, lowering the noise.

  She settled back in her seat.

  “The U.S. Army made a man out of me. No switches there, either. They don’t need ’em.” He laughed. “They just yell orders at you and let you beat yourself into shape.”

  And the U.S. Army took you away from me, Tanner.

  We’d just made love, but that didn’t matter.

  He’d told her the news while they lay in each other’s arms. She stared out the window, upset by the reminder of why he had left town.

  “It was worth it, too,” he continued. “The army gave me an education and a career.”

  While I stayed home to run a bookstore and raise a baby.

  “Before I got out, I was an MP—Military Policeman. Who would’ve guessed I’d have liked it. But I did, enough to know I wanted to stay in law enforcement. Never thought I’d be so close to Dillon again, though.”

  That makes two of us.

  “Figured I’d wind up in Oklahoma near my folks. But County had the job opening, and I walked right into it.”

  And into my life again.

  She kept her gaze glued to the window. Delia’s passed before her eyes in a blur.

  “I had a hell of a good time in the service, though, gotta admit it. Every leave, I made sure to visit someplace new.”

  While I juggled bills and changed diapers.

  Oh, she couldn’t resent the diapers. She loved Kevin more than life itself. But doing everything, all alone—

  “Germany. Switzerland. Korea. Japan.” Tanner went on, twisting her emotions with each new word. “All those places from our geography books, all those years in school, Sarah.”

  All those years together, Tanner. I read those books, too. But I stayed here, while you saw all those places, for real.

  “Some unbelievable sights.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said stiffly, unable to hold her tongue any longer. Unable to look at him, either, though she could see he’d turned his head her way. She stared straight through the windshield, seeing nothing. “I hadn’t planned to go anywhere. We had
plans to stay here.”

  “I tried to tell you the night of graduation.” He exhaled through his teeth. “I was eighteen years old, Sarah, and I felt like life was closing in around me here. Like I needed to get out in the open, to spread my wings.” He slid his hands up and down on the steering wheel. “We did talk about this.”

  “You talked about this. After we talked about our plans. We were going to get married, buy a house, raise a family. We promised each other a future together, Tanner.”

  He stopped in front of the bookstore.

  “That’s just it,” he said. “Yeah, we made promises. And I planned to keep every one of them. But, to me, the future was later. Down the road. When I got back home.” He sighed and shook his head. “To you, the future was tomorrow.”

  A chill shivered through her.

  She climbed from the car. Paused. Turned back.

  “Well.” Her voice cracked, and she tried again. “Well, it doesn’t make a difference now what the future meant to either of us. Because now our future’s in the past.”

  After slamming the door with more force than necessary, she rushed through the darkness and into the safety of her own home—a home that might soon be taken from her, no matter how she struggled to save it.

  She fully understood Tanner’s feeling of life closing in.

  And she’d been completely right about him. He had gone off to see the world. And now he’d come home again.

  But, in more ways than one, she had just shut the door on any hope of anything happening between them.

  “CAN I HAVE my glove, now, Tanner, huh?”

  The way the boy bounced around him, he and Kevin might’ve had a trampoline under their feet instead of Dillon High’s baseball field.

  “Sure, kid.” Tanner grinned.

  Ticked off as he’d felt the evening before, a long day of labor on a sunny Saturday had calmed him. Working beside Kevin and the rest of the kids had restored his good humor.

  He set his canvas bag of sports equipment down on the home team bench, yanked out the small mitt and tossed it over to Kevin. “Here you go.”

  “Hey!” the boy shrieked. “There’s Mom!”

  Tanner’s gaze shot across the baseball field to the parking lot. Sarah and Mrs. G had just climbed out of the same Oldsmobile their schoolteacher had driven years ago. Sarah waved to Kevin.

  Tanner watched as Sarah flipped her heavy braid behind her shoulders. Stared as she shook out her long dress and smoothed it down, running her hands over her hips. The movement set up an ache inside him.

  He thought about having her in his arms the other evening.

  About her walking out on him last night, slamming the door of the cruiser behind her. He hadn’t tried to stop her, didn’t attempt to say anything more. She wouldn’t understand. Hell, she wouldn’t even listen.

  Because she’d never forgiven him for leaving her all those years ago.

  He was probably the last person she wanted to see now.

  She might as well get used to seeing him around.

  Because, no matter how much she denied it, he knew she felt something for him still. He could see it in the way her face got all soft when she didn’t know he was watching. Could feel it in the way her lips responded to his mouth, her body yielded to his hands. Yeah, she still felt a lot for him.

  That would work into his plans just fine. If he could get her to admit those feelings, he’d have no trouble convincing her he wanted to take care of her.

  Pumped up by the challenge, he loped across the field.

  He reached the Olds in time to help lug a cooler the size of his old footlocker out of the trunk. “Whoa! Planning on feeding a platoon, are you, ladies?”

  “We don’t like anyone going hungry,” Mrs. G answered.

  Sarah said nothing.

  “Oh, there’s Ella.” Mrs. G waved. “I’ll be just a minute, Sarah. You two take the food into the lunchroom, if you don’t mind.” Before they could answer, she moved off.

  Tanner waited while Sarah lifted a sack and a plastic cake carrier out of the trunk, then slammed the lid down. “Watch it there, Sarah. Mrs. G’s pride and joy’s a lot older than my County car.”

  She glared at him, then strode off.

  He hoisted the cooler onto one shoulder and matched her stride. “Hope you got something sweet in that cake box.”

  “Blueberry crumble.”

  “Oh, yeah. You know I love your crumbles almost as much as your pecan loaf.” When she didn’t reply, he changed the subject. “You should’ve seen that boy of yours this morning.”

  “He behaved himself, I hope?” She held the school’s front door open for him.

  “Sure did. And worked like a trooper, too. Along with the desperadoes.”

  She hung a right into the hallway leading to the lunchroom. “So they showed up. I knew they would.”

  A tiny smile curved her lips. He wanted to lean over for a taste.

  “Behave,” she said.

  “Huh?” How’d she know his thoughts?

  “I said, and how did they behave?”

  “Oh.” He shook his head. “Had to hand it to them. A few minutes of awkwardness at first. Till they found some of the other high school boys—and girls—had come to help out. You know how it is.” He leered at her.

  “Yes, I do. The boys stand around flexing their undeveloped muscles, and the girls do all the work.”

  “Funny, Sarah. Anyhow, all the boys pitched in, no problem.”

  “I’m glad.”

  They entered the sunny lunchroom and went up front, where other coolers covered the first row of connected cafeteria tables, and dishes sat in a line on the counter. She waved through the opening at the women working in the kitchen, then directed where he should set the cooler.

  “That’s fine. Thank you,” she said when he’d put it in place.

  A dismissal if ever he’d heard one. He leaned against the wall while she unloaded her sack onto the pass-through.

  “Baseball game’s starting up soon. Kevin and the three older boys are on my team. You coming out to cheer us on?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.” She turned around and eyed him. “Kevin wants me there.”

  Damn. How could he resist an opening like that one? How could he use it to get to her feelings?

  He stepped closer. They were nose to nose—and aligned in a few other places. He’d have liked to make full frontal contact.

  And would’ve gotten himself slapped.

  Here at least, an arm’s length away, he could keep things civil. Sort of. “What if I said I wanted you there, Sarah?”

  Her green eyes glittered. That’d gotten a reaction out of her, all right.

  Then he saw how hard she struggled to keep her expression blank, saw the tears gather on her lower lids before she blinked them away.

  “You had me once, Tanner,” she said, her voice low and unsteady. “And you left me.” She pushed past him and stalked from the room.

  He let her get away. One more temporary measure.

  Shaking his head, he walked slowly toward the door. He’d sure picked a lousy way to go about things. Not exactly part of his plan.

  He had spent half his day thinking about Sarah and how much she turned him on. She’d always been the only one for him. Always been his girl.

  He’d spent the other half going over the conversation they’d had last night.

  She had her points, all right. They had made promises to each other.

  He had his points, too. He’d had to get away, had to spread his wings. Joining the army, seeing places all over the world, had broadened him. Made him free.

  He couldn’t regret his decision. But, after a while, he’d had his fill of traveling and only wanted to get grounded again. To go home.

  Dillon had nothing to offer him anymore, not with the only job that interested him already filled by a man so comfortably settled, he’d never give it up. Not when his girl had left town herself, married someone else, and shut him out of h
er life.

  But County had come to him about the job, and he’d learned Sarah had come back years ago.

  So he had returned to his hometown, where he’d found his girl raising her boy on her own, no man attached.

  No strings attached. For either of them.

  She was a free woman again. And he’d broken free of the feeling of being closed in. Of needing to escape Dillon.

  He’d found Texas was home to him, after all.

  No reason now, far as he could see, that he and Sarah couldn’t get together.

  SARAH MADE IT through the baseball game. Somehow. She even managed to cheer when Kevin made his first base hit ever. During the rest of the game, she couldn’t have described a single play. She didn’t see one.

  Earlier that morning, she had talked to her mechanic, only to find the situation with the station wagon worse than she had feared. It needed a new engine, and many minor repairs. Even with used parts and a generous discount, it would cost her hundreds of dollars.

  The crowd around her jumped up and broke into loud cheers. For who or what, she didn’t know. She couldn’t concentrate on the game. Couldn’t think straight, for all the questions flying around in her head.

  Had the attention Tanner paid her since his return really meant something? Or had she just let her imagination take over—again?

  And, if by some slim chance he still did have feelings for her, what would happen to those feelings when he found out she had hidden the truth from him all these years?

  When the game ended, she followed the crowd out of the bleachers and into the school. She greeted folks and stood in line and filled her plate, almost automatically.

  She hadn’t even realized that she’d settled at one of the lunchroom tables—until Tanner slid into the seat beside hers, the last in their row. The cafeteria stools didn’t allow much legroom, and with the seats bolted to the tables and a very sturdy rancher on her other side, she couldn’t shift away from Tanner. Couldn’t avoid the press of his shoulder and thigh against hers.

  To her relief, Mrs. Gannett and Kevin soon joined them, her former teacher claiming the seat across from her, and Kevin sitting opposite Tanner.

  “They having a special on potato salad?” Tanner asked, looking down at the plate in front of Sarah.