“So you’re not flustered with all that silverware?”
“Well, that’s another story.” They halted at the drawing room, where Nell and Gertie sat.
“I’ll drop in to see them,” Sarah told him.
“Would you like something to drink?”
“No . . . maybe a glass of wine with dinner. Thanks.”
Gertie launched herself off the overstuffed, flowery fabric Edwardian chair. Nell wasn’t far behind her. Gertie opened her arms as she approached Sarah. It was warming to Dawson to see such love existing between the two grandmothers, who literally encircled Sarah. Smiling, he aimed himself toward the kitchen to ask if Cece needed some help. He briefly cataloged a look in Sarah’s eyes when he’d mentioned Toby’s name. It told him her compassion for others was a major component of her personality because he’d seen sadness in them for him. Dawson wondered how she traded off those emotions during a crisis, which law enforcement had to do all the time. How did she handle her emotions? Did she stuff them in a mental box like he did? Was she able to cry at some point later and get relief from what she saw or had to deal with earlier in some human crisis? He didn’t know, and he wanted to find out. Blame it on his paramedic’s curiosity.
As he rounded the corner into the kitchen, he wondered how Sarah was dealing with damn near being trapped by that drug lord’s ambush. They hadn’t talked much about it. Still, he wanted the time to discuss it with her and would somehow find it, one way or another. The fact that he knew for sure that Sarah wasn’t going out with someone meant the door was open for a man to walk through. If she wanted him to walk through it at all. That was the real question, but Dawson sensed she liked him, and that was special. She didn’t seem to be the type of woman who revealed her personal side too much to anyone. And of course, she’d been in the military, where emotions were encouraged to be shut down, not turned on. How had she survived in that environment being the way she really was? And what had given her the shield or internal strength to put them into a box so she could react to life-and-death situations? Did it come from childhood? From her father’s molding of her? He’d been in law enforcement, so he would have been a role model for Sarah.
Dawson’s mother’s psychology had stuck with him ever since he was seven years old and those were questions she had asked her own clients. Now, as a mature adult, he was more than grateful for her training. And he’d backed it up by attaining a minor in psychology with his paramedic college degree.
* * *
Sarah tried to fight the comforting warmth of Dawson sitting next to her at the dinner table. They faced her mother and father, Emily and David, with the two grandmothers at either end of the table. Cece had served small cups of butternut squash soup, sprinkled with bacon bits and a dollop of sour cream. Her father doted on Dawson, and that didn’t surprise her. And her mother gave her a look that signaled hope that she was interested in Gertie’s new assistant for a possible relationship. There was nothing hidden by her mother, who yearned for her to settle down and have a partner in her life who could support her dreams and career. They wanted grandchildren.
Sarah loved her mother so much because she had always told her to go after her dreams. Emily was a worrywart, and Sarah tried to downplay the unexpected ambush by Gonzalez’s drug soldiers to her, as did her father, who remained pretty much closemouthed about it. But he would text her or they’d talk on the phone about the ongoing investigation to find the perps who had tried to kill them that morning.
There was a lot of laughter, telling of stories and some serious talk in between the courses. A lot of questions were aimed at Dawson, who took them in good-natured stride. Nothing seemed to upset this man, and Sarah liked that rock-solid core about him. She was sure it was in part due to the military training and experiences he’d had. Now she wanted time to explore the other parts of his personality, one-on-one. How she longed for that! Everyone seemed to like Dawson, and he had a wry sense of humor, just like her father. Those two got along together, and that tickled Sarah’s heart.
After dinner, Cece served the strawberry parfait, and it was the perfect light dessert after such a heavy, delicious meal of prime rib. She’d had a glass of burgundy wine and, because she rarely drank much, there was a bit of a buzz afterward. In her job, she couldn’t afford to be inebriated or have alcohol in her bloodstream. Emergencies came in twenty-four-hours a day, and Sarah had lost count of the times she’d been awakened in the middle of the night with a call from the deputy on duty about an escalating crisis. Sometimes, she had to climb out of bed and into her uniform, going to the scene to direct it. At other times, her very capable crew could handle it. And she got more sleep, which she always knew was so important.
“Tell you what,” Gertie said, aiming her gaze to Dawson and Sarah, “why don’t you two young’uns go out and enjoy your coffee on the porch swing?”
“Good idea!” Nell chimed in, giving them her permission, too, her eyes alight with mischief.
Sarah glanced over at Dawson. “Want to?” She saw a gleam in Dawson’s gray eyes, that wry hook upward of one corner of his mouth as he smoothly pushed back from the table and stood up. He placed his hands on the back of her chair. Well, that answered that.
“Sure sounds like a good idea,” he said, giving the grandmothers an amused look that told them he knew what they were up to.
Sarah heard the cackle from the grandmothers as she rose. “Come on,” she told him, “let’s go to the kitchen. Cece will give us our coffee.”
In no time, they were out on the front porch and sitting on the swing, coffee cups in hand. She noticed Dawson gave her plenty of room. There were soft yellow fabric pillows at each end, and he’d taken his to the corner, placed it behind his back and relaxed. It was nearly five p.m. and the June evening was coming upon them. She had borrowed one of Gertie’s hand-knitted small afghans and thrown it around her shoulders before sitting down. It would get cool real fast when the sun set behind the Wilson Range.
“You’ve really been thrown into a pot of stew,” she told him, balancing the cup and saucer in her lap. “Hired yesterday and twelve hours later you’re probably thinking you’ve been turned into a butler in a 1900s’ Victorian house.” She saw the corners of Dawson’s eyes crinkle.
“Gertie said the job wouldn’t let me get bored, that there were so many things, all the time, that had to be dealt with. I don’t mind it. I’d rather be busy than bored out of my skull.”
“She’ll keep you on your toes.”
Chuckling, he said, “She warned me that she would. I think I can handle it. I like jobs where I’m learning something. This afternoon, I learned to lay out a trail of silverware in a particular hierarchy.”
“When I was a kid, I used to do that for her.”
She saw him become serious. “What’s the latest on that ambush that was set for you?”
“The Teton Black Hawk helicopter crew located the van that was used, about two miles up a dirt road that led toward the Salt River Range. From there, once my deputies and forensics’ team got there, they could see a second vehicle had arrived, more than likely picked up the crew, turned around and took off. We found fingerprints and we’re running them through several federal and state databases right now. I don’t think we’ll get a hit. I think Gonzalez has what I call roving packs of soldiers who are all over the state, doing his bidding.”
“All Hispanic?”
“No, all colors, countries and races. Central and South American drug lords learned a long time ago to mix and match. That way, they can’t be profiled.”
“I guess if you’re a drug lord, that’s a wise move. Camouflage and disrupting the expected for the unexpected.”
“Yes,” she muttered, shaking her head. “How are you doing after that incident? Any PTSD symptoms flare up? I know they did in me.”
“Yes,” Dawson said. “I have PTSD, so going through that firefight on Highway 89 brought it all back. I didn’t sleep hardly at all that night.”
�
�We were lucky,” she said, giving him a sympathetic look.
“Don’t we both know it?”
“One thing for sure, being in military combat makes you less susceptible in some ways to stuff like this when it happens in the civilian world.”
“That’s one way of looking at it. You seem like you caught up on your sleep.”
She grimaced and touched below her eye. “Makeup. Subtle, but it’s there if you look close enough.”
“I didn’t see it.”
“I don’t normally wear it. But my parents, Gertie and Nell, are all shocked by the close call. I didn’t want them to worry, so I covered up any shadows beneath my eyes. If I hadn’t? They’d have climbed all over me and given me twenty questions.”
“Because they love you and want you safe.”
“Yes, but my job description doesn’t guarantee that.”
“Did they worry about your father when he was sheriff?”
“My mom did, and so did I. But Gertie and Nell are from a time when men were seen as strong, impervious and could dodge bullets, unlike nowadays. They don’t hold such with women, though. It’s a generational challenge. I try to low-key anything that happens because they worry too much already.”
“David Carter is a man, so they expected him to be able to take care of whatever came up and live to come home to dinner that night?”
“Precisely. They just can’t seem to see me in the same light.”
“Are you in this job because of your father? Or because you, personally, wanted to make a difference?”
Sarah liked his insightful question. Not much was missed by this man. “Honestly? I grew up with my dad serving our county. Both he and my mom believe we owe back to the community that surrounds us. That everyone should contribute what they can, and in their own way. My mom works with Delos Charity in Wind River because she feels guilty that she has so much compared to so many who live in the county who are below the economic poverty line.”
“Duty and community service, then?”
“Sure. We joined the military, and that was about duty, honor and country. I don’t see them as being different, but from the same cut of cloth. Service is service.”
“Do most folks in the county think having a woman as a sheriff is a good thing?”
“I won eighty-five percent of the vote, Dawson. I think that answers your question.” She sipped her coffee. “I don’t think people care what your gender is as long as you can handle the job. Don’t you?”
“I think there’s a male part of this country who would continue to want to keep women down.”
Snorting, Sarah muttered, “I’ll be so glad when that assumption dies a hard, final death. I’m sick and tired of men like that. We’ve got more than our fair share in Wyoming, in case you don’t know it. They believe women should be barefoot and pregnant, stay home, raise the kids and let the man of the house earn the money. Such crap.”
“I like it when you’re more yourself than your game face lets on. I know you have to remain unemotional outwardly as a law-enforcement officer.”
He was teasing her again, but gently, because she could see he meant it in his eyes and the tone of his voice. “Who are you, Dawson? Really?”
His lips twisted. “Was that an insult or a compliment?”
“A compliment.”
“Why do you see me as anything other than the guy sitting here with you? Do you think I’m hiding something from you? Not being myself?”
Shaking her head, Sarah said, “I find you refreshing in a way I’ve never seen in a man before. I guess I’m trying to figure out how you got to be who you are.”
“Whew,” and he wiped his brow, “that was a close call.”
Laughing, Sarah saw the playfulness in his expression. “Come on!”
“I am who I am. Nothing more or less. You know all about me. You did more deep-diving background investigation on me than you probably do on a perp because I would be working directly with Gertie, whom you love and dote on.”
“I’m a lot like Gertie; I don’t beat around the bush, Dawson. I’m interested in you. Who you are. What makes you tick. And I don’t know if you have a similar need to know that about me or not. It could be a one-way street.”
“Oh,” he murmured, “you interest me. I like the woman in the swing with me. She’s intriguing.”
“So? How do we do this? Find some quality time away from our day jobs to find that out?”
“I’m open to whatever you suggest.”
“I try, at least one day a week, to work over at the Bar C. It’s a military vet–owned ranch. I ride fence, repair it and do what I can to help them out. I work sunup to sundown. I pack a lunch, bring my fence fixing gear, a good set of elkskin gloves, a hat and they loan me one of their horses for the day.”
“Sounds good to me, Sarah. I’d like to meet some more vets. They’re our kind.”
“Shaylene Lockhart is the owner. Her husband, Reese, was a captain in the Marine Corps. Right now, they have three other vets, Harper Sutton, Garret Fleming and Noah Mabry. The women vets are Dair Wilson, Kira Duval-Fleming and Tara Dalton. Shay’s dream was to have a place where vets with PTSD could heal, and she’d done that and more. Her father, a drunk, Ray Crawford, let the ranch go when Shay was in the Marine Corps. He had a stroke and she had to leave the military to come home and run the broken-down place. He used to have grass leases available for out-of-state ranchers who wanted to truck their cattle in and feed all summer on the rich grass of Wyoming. But Ray let the place go, and in three hard winters, all the many pasture’s fences were broken down and in serious need of replacement. Without grass leases, the ranch would have been in foreclosure if not for Shay’s efforts and vision. When I could, I spent a day repairing fence for her. Every little bit helps.”
“It’s vets helping vets. I’ll ride with you, if Shay and Reese want a second wrangler working on those fences. Gertie is giving me next Saturday off. What’s your schedule look like?”
“I’m off for the weekend unless all hell breaks loose somewhere in the county.”
“Good; then you choose the time and I’ll meet you.”
“I can pick you up here next Saturday at 0800.”
“Do you want Gertie to know about this?”
She managed to squelch a laugh. “Oh, it’s better to do it in front of her; Gertie has her ear to the ground and gossip would tell her faster than I could if we tried to sneak off without her knowing we were working together over at the Bar C.”
“Busted.”
She joined his laugher. “Yes. Totally.”
“Call me with the details when you know them. I need to go buy a good pair of fence gloves, but that’s going to be easy enough to do over at Charlie Becker’s store.”
Sarah felt her heart inflating with such joy that it startled her. What was it about Dawson that drew her so effortlessly to him?
Chapter Seven
June 16
“You look preoccupied, Sarah,” Dawson said as he rode a gray horse named Ghost beside her chestnut gelding, Socks. It was eight a.m., the morning chilly, the sky a crystalline blue and the sun’s rays shooting across the valley toward the Wilson Range in the west. Dawson had met her at the Bar C Ranch an hour earlier. There, he’d been introduced to Shay and Reese Lockhart, shook hands and found them to be warm and welcoming. After that, Reese walked with them to one of the two barns, pulled out Ghost and Socks for them.
He was busy with another issue, so Sarah promised him that she’d show Dawson where the tack room and equipment was located. Dawson had sensed strain in Reese, but it was merely an observation. And that was what led him, once they were out along a lease fence area to repair rotted posts they discovered as they rode the line, to bring up the subject. Sarah was wearing her black baseball cap, and she pushed it up a bit on her brow over his question.
“Two things,” she said. “First, Reese and Shay just got hit with a lawsuit from Ray Crawford to take the Bar C away from them.”
&n
bsp; “I thought you said the property was in Shay’s hands, not her father’s?”
“Yep.” She sighed, leaning down, stroking Socks’s neck and pulling a few flaxen strands of mane out of a snarl. “That’s right. But that doesn’t mean he won’t cause them years of legal stress, thousands, maybe over a hundred thousand dollars, in legal bills, as well. They may win the case but be so financially devastated by it, they could lose the Bar C to foreclosure. It’s not a pretty picture. You’ve not run into Ray yet, have you?” and she narrowed her gaze upon him.
“No.” Pulling the heavy denim jacket closed after dropping the reins on Ghost’s neck, he added, “And I don’t think I want to. I met Garret Fleming, who lives here on the Bar C, up at Charlie Becker’s last Wednesday. I was there putting in an order for Gertie on hen food when he came in. We introduced ourselves, and Garret had already heard I was hired as Gertie’s assistant. When he found out I was a vet like himself, afterward, we went over to Kassie’s Café and sat down to chat over a cup of coffee.”
“Military people are good like that,” Sarah said. “Garret’s a stand-up guy, too. He’s a tall, big dude, and you know not to mess with him.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Dawson said wryly, smiling a little as the horse swayed beneath him. “He’s black ops, so you’d never see him coming.”
“Not until he wanted you to,” Sarah added with a sour grin. “So? Did you have time to find out more about the Bar C?”
“Yeah, we talked for about an hour before we both had to get back to other business. Garret said nothing about a pending lawsuit against Shay and Reese, though.”
“That’s because it was delivered Friday by one of my deputies to their doorstep, so he didn’t know about it when he met you,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking. Shay has struggled so hard to bring her family ranch back from the brink of foreclosure and her father does nothing but throw monkey wrenches into all her efforts. No love lost there, for sure.”
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