Her Valentine Sheriff

by Deb Kastner

  A collective groan came from the teens.

  “You can always go back home to mommy and daddy, and pick up trash along the highway for your community service,” Alexis suggested wryly.

  That got their attention.

  “One other thing,” she continued, gesturing toward one of the girls, who once again had her eyes glued to the phone in her hand.

  Alexis bent her elbows and clasped one fist under her chin in a thoughtful pose. “There will be no cell phones during working hours. Calls and texts are allowed during your free time, but if I spot a cell phone when you’re on my time, I will confiscate it, and you won’t see it again until your month is up. Are we clear?”

  The girl with the phone in her hand sniffed audibly. “Seriously?”

  Alexis met the girl’s gaze and arched one of her brows. The teen grumbled and reluctantly slid her phone into her back pocket.

  “Don’t worry about it. You’ll be far too busy learning new things to have time to update your friends online.”

  “I don’t like this,” one of the boys grumbled. Like all of the teenagers present, he was wearing expensive preppy clothes—designer jeans and a pricey leather jacket. He had carefully spiked his gelled black hair and was sporting peach fuzz on his upper lip and around his sideburns. He’d clearly meant his comment for his friends, but Alexis picked up on it.

  “You,” she said, pointing right at the boy. “Have you ever been on a horse before today?”

  The boy scoffed and toed the dirt like a bull getting ready to charge. “Not a chance, lady.”

  “That would be, ‘No, ma’am,’ to you,” Eli corrected in a rich, no-nonsense rumble.

  “No, ma’am,” the boy responded in a broody mumble, not meeting any of the adults’ eyes.

  “Consider yourself blessed,” Mary informed the boy. If she intended to be of any use to Alexis and the teens, she needed to jump into this conversation. “Alexis rounded up the best staff in Texas to teach y’all how to ride. Genuine cowboys.”

  To Mary’s surprise, the loudmouthed boy raised his gaze, his eyes alight with reluctant interest.

  “Real cowboys? Like roping cows and everything?”

  “Just exactly like that,” Mary assured him. “And if you cooperate with Alexis and work really hard, you might even get to try your hand at roping, too.”

  The boy nodded, though his posture remained reserved and his shoulders slouched.

  “You’ll get your mounts assigned to you tomorrow,” Alexis promised them. “Before you can ride, you’ll learn how to care for your horse.”

  All three of the teenage girls wrinkled their noses in unison. Mary chuckled under her breath. They had little idea what they were in for. Born and raised in Serendipity, she was intimately familiar with the unpleasant parts of caring for horses. Livestock were the warp and woof of the small ranching town.

  “However,” Alexis continued, holding up her hands to contain the groans of complaint. “I’ve brought along someone really cool for you to meet today. This,” she said, gesturing toward Eli, “is Deputy Eli Bishop of the Serendipity Police Department and his K-9 partner, Bullet.”

  “You’re a cop?” a young man with messy blond hair covered by a backward-facing baseball cap asked dubiously, sweeping his hat off and flicking his head to swish his hair out of his eyes.

  “Better than that. A K-9 unit,” Mary corrected proudly.

  “In training.” Eli grinned and winked at her.

  The boys drew nearer to Eli, clearly interested in his career and his work with the dog, but the girls still hung back. Mary noticed that their gazes tended to rest more on Eli than on Bullet, though she couldn’t really blame them for that. How many times had her own gaze drifted to Eli when she was supposed to be watching the interactions between him and his K-9? It wasn’t every day a girl got to meet a real live hunky cop who looked like he just stepped off of the pages of a magazine.

  Eli stepped into the proverbial limelight with gusto. “So this is my partner, Bullet. He’s a Dutch shepherd. I even use Dutch commands with him. Bullet, volg.”

  To Mary’s delight, the dog obeyed immediately, circling around Eli and then sitting at his left heel, his attention focused on Eli, waiting for his next command. Eli beamed.

  He pulled an orange tennis ball out of the pocket of his black leather jacket. He displayed it at arm’s length, shoulder high. Bullet’s attention was immediately caught by the ball, but so were the teenagers’. The guys snickered. The girls giggled.

  “This is Toby,” Eli said, as if introducing them to a person.

  Mary sputtered. “You named Bullet’s tennis ball?”

  “Better,” Eli informed her with a comic grin. He turned to face her so she could take a gander at what the teenagers had already seen.

  He’d drawn a funny face on the ball in permanent blue felt-tip pen, complete with eyebrows and a toothy jack-o’-lantern grin.

  “Mary, this is Toby. Toby, meet Mary.” He bounced the ball against the pavement and caught it again without changing the angle of the face on the ball. Mary wondered how long it had taken him to master that particular trick.

  “Glad to meet you, Toby.” Mary gave Toby an imaginary handshake and rolled her eyes at Alexis. “Eli—you felt inclined to name the tennis ball.... Why?”

  Eli shrugged and bobbed his dark eyebrows. “I figured the four of us were going to be spending a lot of time together. It seemed only fitting that we named him.”

  “Bullet helped you choose a name, did he?”

  “Well, sure. Bullet likes the name Toby, don’t you, boy?”

  Bullet assented with a wag of his tail. His front feet were fidgeting in excitement as he anticipated Eli throwing the ball for him.

  “Wait. What do you mean, the four of you?”

  “You, me, Bullet and Toby, of course.”

  “Right. Why didn’t I know that?”

  Mary took a seat on the porch, and for the next half hour, Eli and Bullet entertained the kids with various obedience exercises and games, getting the teens personally involved and teaching them a few things about how the K-9 program was connected to the police force.

  After a few minutes, the girls had warmed up to Bullet, petting him and fawning over him. The dog loved the attention and seemed to preen for the ladies, showing off his skills. Mary was surprised to see that the teen girls appeared unexpectedly shy and reserved around Eli, especially given the attitude they’d presented earlier. Mary suspected a lot of it was guff, and that underneath it all, the girls were intimidated by their new surroundings.

  This must be how Alexis worked—chipping away at the teenagers’ bad attitudes and resentments one loving minute at a time to find who they really were underneath. She was tough with the kids, but it was evident that she cared for them, and she suspected the teens saw it, too. There was already a shade of respect building between her and the kids. The pigs in a blanket and cookies she shared only helped her cause.

  Eli was a natural when it came to working with the youth. He moved among them effortlessly, except for the occasional wrench when he had to take the ball from Bullet’s mouth. There was still something off about their interaction.

  “I think we should all get settled in before suppertime,” Alexis finally announced. “You’ll be eating your evening meal with me at the main house, and breakfast and lunch at the ranch hands’ chow house located next to the bunkhouses. Just think of it. You’ll get to experience how real cowboys eat. Cook is especially fond of beans and franks cooked over an open fire.”

  “Eww,” exclaimed Allison, whom Mary had privately nicknamed Red due to her Irish coloring.

  Alexis chuckled joyfully, and Mary and Eli joined in.

  “You’ll be meeting your overnight counselors at supper,” Alexis informed the teens. “In the meantime, g
rab your bags. The bunkhouses are located out back.”

  The black-haired boy introduced as Matthew, but whom Mary privately thought of as Spike, crossed his arms and shook his head. “Maybe you don’t know who we are. Get one of your old cowhands to take the bags for us. We’re not gonna do it.”

  Uncomfortable with the disrespect Alexis was being shown, Mary adjusted her glasses and glanced first at Eli, and then at Alexis, wondering which one of them was going to handle the standoff.

  Alexis merely arched a brow, the corner of her lip twitching as if something were amusing. “No? Well, then, your bags are going to stay exactly where they are right now. It’s entirely up to you. I will say that I’ve heard there might be rain in the forecast for tonight. It gets a little muddy around here when the ground gets wet.”

  There was a tense moment where the teens stared openmouthed, first at Alexis, and then at each other, silently communicating between themselves.

  Was she serious?

  Mary could feel the tension in the air almost palpably, like static electricity, as the boy with the cap then turned and picked up his duffel bag. One by one, each of the teenagers took up their suitcases, until only Spike was left.

  Mary almost felt sorry for the kid, now alone in his standoff. Something must have happened to the young man for him to be here in the first place, and since she couldn’t walk in his shoes, she couldn’t possibly know the truth of what lay behind his motivations. Compassion flooded her as she realized that this was how Alexis saw these teenagers—not as spoiled rich kids, but as God’s special creations, each with a story of their own, in need of help and guidance to get on the right path.

  Alexis ignored Spike and spoke to the rest of the group. “Fellas, if you’ll follow Eli, he’ll set you up in your bunkhouse. Ladies, Mary will show you to where you’ll be settling in. I’m going to head back inside and get supper on the table for you all. I imagine you’re hungry after that long trip.”

  The girls crowded around Mary, who offered to carry a couple of the smaller bags. To her surprise, the girls refused, as if they had something to prove to Alexis, or perhaps to themselves.

  Maybe they did.

  Red set her pace with Mary. “So that Eli guy,” she said, trying too hard to sound casual and off the cuff and ending up sounding strained, unable to contain her curiosity. “He seems pretty cool, for a cop.”

  “He is.” Mary grinned and nodded at the young woman’s assessment. And so much more, she added silently.

  “Is he married?” Red continued. No way to make that question sound casual.

  Before Mary could answer, bleach-blonde Trish piped in from Mary’s other side.

  “Who cares, you idiot? He’s old.”

  Air hissed from between Mary’s teeth as she attempted to contain her laughter. “Hey, now. Not that old.”

  Trish gazed at her speculatively, then smiled—a real smile that softened the edges of her face and transported her from pretty to beautiful.

  “Sorry,” Trish apologized. “No offense meant. It’s nothing personal. I’m just saying the cop is too old for Allison. I mean, come on. Really?”

  “No offense taken,” Mary assured her. “And I agree that Eli is much too old for Allison.”

  “My mom is twelve years younger than my dad,” Allison informed Trish with a scoff.

  “Yeah, and how is that working out for them? How many years have they been divorced now?” Trish shot back.

  “Trish,” Mary warned softly.

  “Humph,” Allison responded, dropping back to walk with Jemma, the third girl, who’d been lagging behind.

  “What about you?” Trish queried, her voice more thoughtful than teasing.

  Mary blanched and pretended not to know what Trish was asking. She didn’t want to enter this territory at all. “What about me?”

  “Do you like Eli? Are you two an item? He’s not married, is he? I didn’t see a ring.” She rattled off the questions in rapid succession, not allowing Mary the time to answer even one of them.

  When Trish finally paused, Mary didn’t even know where to start. “Yes, I like Eli, although I suspect not in the way you mean.” She wouldn’t let herself, plain and simple. “No, he’s not married. And what on earth made you ask if the two of us were an item?” Alexis was far closer to the type of woman Eli dated. Mary would think the teens would pair those two faster than they would think anything of her.

  “I dunno,” Trish admitted with a wry smile. “It was a feeling more than anything. Didn’t you notice the way he was flirting with you and showing off for you with Toby, the tennis ball?”

  Heat rushed to Mary’s face, and she knew Trish would have no problem reading her reaction.

  Eli? Flirting with her?

  True, Eli liked to tease her by acting flirtatious, but it was clear he didn’t mean anything by it. No. No way. If he’d been truly flirting with anyone today, it had been with Alexis—even going so far as to kiss her cheek. A friendly buss? Maybe. Or was it something else?

  “You’re mistaken,” Mary rebutted, a bit harsher than she would have liked. She consciously softened and modulated her tone. “There’s nothing between Eli and me. We work together, that’s all.” She pushed her glasses up her nose. She didn’t want to talk about Eli anymore. She didn’t even want to think about him. Shaking her head, she pointed to a long, rectangular cabin. Not terribly pretty, but functional, like an army barrack. “That’s your new home for the next month. Come on in, and I’ll show you around.”

  * * *

  Eli showed the teenage boys—including the kid with the jacket, who did eventually back down and grab his own bag—to their bunks and instructed them when and where to go for supper. Leaving them to unpack and process their new surroundings, he headed back up to the house with Bullet darting to and fro through the dry brush, chasing his ball. Eli thought he might drop in on Alexis and see if she needed a hand serving the food.

  In truth, he was hoping to get a few moments alone with Alexis. He needed some guidance, and Alexis was the logical one to give it to him. She might be a little overanimated at times, and had been known to be a bit of a gossip around town, but she was also something of a matchmaker, and he knew she would never betray a confidence between friends. They’d known each other for years, and right now he could really use a friend’s input. He’d have to be fast, though, to make sure he had a chance to speak his piece, before they were interrupted. The last thing he wanted was for Mary to overhear him requesting advice on how to ask her out! Especially since he wasn’t at all certain how Alexis would respond to the news that he was interested in his trainer.

  That Alexis counted Mary among her closest friends would either help him or hurt him. If she didn’t turn all mama tiger on him, trying to protect Mary from a man who was a known failure in the romance department, maybe she could help him figure out what to do. He knew he was attracted to Mary, and he wanted to get to know her better, but he wasn’t positive his heart was ready for another roller coaster ride.

  He’d been so completely devastated when Natalie had walked out on him. Now, though, when he thought about the life he would have had with her—always trying to please her and never living up to her expectations—he felt more relief than heartbreak. Natalie didn’t know it, but she had saved Eli from making a terrible mistake that he would have regretted for the rest of his life. But even though he was glad the wedding had never taken place, the whole disaster had still had a lasting impact on his confidence. He was more cautious now, less willing to trust—especially when it came to his heart.

  Was it fair to Mary to ask her to take a chance on a man who still wasn’t truly whole? Could he ask her to take a chance on a relationship he wasn’t sure he was ready to handle? He hated the thought of losing his shot to win someone as special as Mary...but he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he dov
e into a relationship too soon and ended up hurting her.

  And that was why he needed guidance.

  “Can I help you set the table or anything?” he asked Alexis as he came through the back door. It didn’t even occur to him to knock first to announce his presence.

  Alexis was standing in front of the oven stirring something in an iron skillet. She was dancing in place and humming along to what must have been a peppy tune playing through the headphones from her MP3 player. She was completely unaware of his presence, and when he touched her shoulder, she swung around with a start, nearly hitting him with her spatula. The iron skillet she’d been holding clattered back onto the stovetop.

  She laid a hand to her heart. “My word, Eli. You frightened me half to death. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I can see that. You were completely lost in whatever music you were listening to.”

  “How do you know it was music? I could have been listening to an audiobook to stretch and improve my mind.”

  “You were dancing,” he reminded her. “And humming.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing you came by, then, isn’t it? I might have danced off into the sunset and burned the potatoes.”

  “Mmm. Country-fried potatoes. My favorite.”

  “I thought T-bone steaks were your favorite. You’re welcome to stay for supper, if you’d like.”

  “Country-fried is my favorite way to eat potatoes,” he clarified. “And thank you for the invite, but I’ve got a few things I need to take care of at home.” Could he bring up Mary now? No, it would be too awkward to throw it into the conversation. Reaching for something else to talk about, he said, “I’m glad I came today. Bullet liked showing off for the teenagers, but he certainly got dusty doing it. He’s going to need a serious bath, or he’s gonna trail dirt all over my nice, clean apartment.”

  The dog whined and cocked his head when he heard his name.