Jack Murray, Sheriff

by Janice Kay Johnson

  She forgot Will and even his father the moment she stepped through the front door. Rays of sunlight fragmented by beveled glass made intriguing patterns on gleaming inlaid wood floors. A wonderful steep staircase with a Persian runner and glossy banisters led to an upper landing. Her wondering gaze lingered on the chandelier above, until she realized she was falling behind.

  Through open French doors was a living room—no, a parlor. Several rugs in deep shades of ruby and teal and rose defined sitting areas. The couches and chairs were modern, deep and relaxed, but so simple the eye passed on to the wonderful woodwork and the turned-leg tables and the Tiffany lamp. Oh, and the fireplace, with marble hearth and white-painted, carved mantel.

  Dazzled, she passed through the next opening into a library with leaded-glass-fronted oak bookcases, a huge desk and two leather chairs. Through more French doors was a brick patio with wrought-iron Parisian style furniture and huge terracotta and stone pots full of late annuals. Not even her peripheral awareness that Jack stood beside a mundane kettle grill from which smoke and wonderful smells emanated kept her from gaping at the view. The backyard beyond didn’t have to be landscaped; smooth lawn led down to the river, low at this season and overhung by an ancient weeping willow.

  “Hey.”

  She blinked and turned to Jack, who was smiling crookedly at her.

  “I’m in love,” Beth said simply.

  His dark brows quirked. “With my son?”

  “Son?” She blushed at her vague tone, which suggested that Will was a nonentity. “I’m sorry! Will was wonderful. But…no. It’s your house. Why didn’t you say?”

  “I figured you’d been inside. Didn’t you know the Fullers, who I bought it from?”

  “No. And, if the outside is any example, I’ll bet the inside has changed anyway.”

  The handsome young man beside him grinned. “Oh, yeah. You can say that again. Dad shanghaied me into helping strip woodwork.” He made a face. “Gee, that was fun.”

  Jack lightly cuffed his son’s shoulder. “What are kids for?”

  Beth was charmed by the easy camaraderie between the two, by the smile in their eyes when they looked at each other. And, oh, yes, if she was to be honest, by the sight of two such handsome men.

  “Hey,” Will said suddenly. “You haven’t met Gillian yet.” A pretty young woman with pale, boyishly short hair and spectacular green eyes had been hovering to one side. When he held out a hand, she stepped forward. “Gilly, this is Dad’s friend Beth Sommers and her daughters, Lauren and Stephanie.” He laid an arm across his girlfriend’s slender shoulders. “Everybody, Gillian Pappas.”

  This time, Beth was proud of her daughters’ manners as adults and kids said all that was polite once again. When Jack announced that the steaks and chicken were almost done, Gillian and Will took Steph up on her offer to help bring the rest of the food out. Lauren wandered toward the river as if drawn by the song of a siren. Beth didn’t blame her. If she’d been a child, the hidden depths inside the overhanging branches of the willow tree would have called to her, too, the secrets and the shifting green colors and the murmur of river currents somehow magical.

  “You must have spent a fortune remodeling this place!” She felt gauche the minute the words were out. Jack was the Butte County sheriff. Of course he had money!

  “More elbow grease than bucks.” He nodded toward the table. “Would you hand me that plate?”

  “You should have let me bring something.” Their fingers touched briefly; their eyes met, and goose bumps galloped down her spine at the expression in his.

  First comes love…. Beth shook off the recollection of her daughter’s ditty, as if it were a taunt that made her shiver. Not love. Not yet.

  “I wanted to feed you.” Jack’s voice was a shade huskier than usual. “Besides, believe it or not, Will likes to cook. He makes a mean potato salad.”

  “And wait’ll you taste Dad’s lemon meringue pie,” his son said, setting bowls down on the table and turning to head back into the house.

  “Oooh.” She smiled at Jack. “I’m impressed.”

  “Don’t give me a hard time.” His grin speeded her pulse. “I’ve been a bachelor for lo these many years. Whaddaya think, I had fast food every night?”

  “I…hadn’t gotten so far as to speculate about your diet,” Beth admitted. Only about his former girlfriends, his reasons for never marrying, what he had done—or not done—that brought that grim set to his mouth when he talked about Will’s mother not being able to depend on him.

  Just a few little things like that.

  “I’ll bet you’re a good cook.” He heaped meat onto the plate. “Even a little adventurous.”

  She risked touching him again and took the plate. “Now how would you know that?”

  “I saw your kitchen.” His mouth had a wicked curl. “I’d swear that was a crepe pan hanging above the stove.” His tone changed as he took a bowl of fruit salad from Steph. “Thanks.”

  “Um…you’re welcome. Gillian is bringing lemonade, but she said to ask: do you want beer?”

  “Nah. Unless?” He lifted his brows.

  Beth shook her head. “Lemonade sounds good.”

  They all ate at the long, wrought-iron table. Steph hugged Beth’s one side while Jack was on her other. Lauren cheerfully sat between Gillian and Will, who treated her like a little sister.

  Conversation was light and general. Will grumbled about a professor who seemed to think his students had no other classes; Gillian talked about a field trip in Oregon’s John Day country hunting for fossils with other paleontology students. Lauren, wide-eyed, asked if they’d found dinosaur bones.

  “No, but I found the imprint of a fish. It’s really cool.”

  Beth told stories about the oddball things people wanted to have run off on the color copier, and Jack grumbled about the makeup of the county council, which was resisting the necessity of hiring more deputies.

  She was having fun, she realized as she finished her slice of pie and helped carry dirty dishes into the kitchen.

  “We’ll clean up,” Will insisted, making shooing gestures. “Get. Gilly and I can do this.”

  Outside, Lauren dragged Stephanie off to the riverbank, where they shortly disappeared through the canopy of willow branches.

  “This was nice, Jack,” Beth said contentedly, from her lazy position on a redwood chaise longue. “Thank you for having us.”

  Sitting only a few feet away on one of the wrought-iron chairs, he stretched out his legs. The denim pulled over powerful muscles. “You know I wanted to see you again.”

  She was not a shy woman by nature, but he made her feel that way. “I…I’m glad.”

  He nodded toward the river. “How do your girls feel about you dating me?”

  First comes love….

  She brushed off the memory of her daughter’s teasing as if it were an insistent mosquito. “I think Stephanie understands. Lauren still thinks her father and I might get back together, a notion he encourages.”

  Jack shook his head, his gaze pinning her. “You’re open with her?”

  “Of course I am! It’s just…difficult.”

  He grunted his agreement. “Does he know you’re seeing me socially?”

  “If he didn’t guess, he knows now.” The reminder edged a knife blade of tension into her peaceful afternoon. “Right before we left, I overheard Lauren telling Ray all about how we were going to the sheriff’s house for a barbecue.”

  A frown gathered between Jack’s dark brows. “Do you expect trouble?”

  “I don’t know,” Beth said slowly. “Did I ever tell you about the phone calls?”

  Expression arrested, he leaned forward. “Phone calls?”

  “We’d pick up, and hear someone breathing. Usually when the kids answered, he’d hang up.” Catching herself, she gestured. “Listen to me. I don’t know that it was Ray, but I assume. And yet, it was so petty.”

  “Past tense?”

  “I add
ed Caller ID. With the block on anonymous calls.”

  “You should have told me.” Jack sounded perturbed. “If your ex-husband was making those calls, it suggests he’s waging a real campaign to scare the hell out of you.”

  With some indignation, she asked, “You didn’t believe me when I said that’s why he was keeping Steph and Lauren late?”

  “Sure I did.”

  Had he spoken too hastily and therefore insincerely? She didn’t have a chance to ask, because her daughters were coming. Lauren, Beth saw immediately, had managed to get her shoes and jeans up to her knees soaking wet.

  “I slipped,” she explained.

  “So I see,” her mother said dryly. “It’s going to be a squishy walk home. One we’d better start.” Why she was suddenly anxious to leave, Beth couldn’t have said. All she knew was that her mood had been shattered by talking about Ray.

  “You don’t have to go.” Jack sounded merely polite, but the frown still lingered on his brow.

  “Yes, I think we do. The girls have homework, and I have laundry to get done to be ready for the week.” Beth stood.

  He towered over her as he did the same. “I’ll walk you out.”

  “Let me say goodbye to Will and Gillian.”

  They didn’t have to detour into the kitchen; the tall young man and his girlfriend were just coming out of the house.

  When told Beth and the girls were leaving, Will said, “Yeah, we have to hit the road, too, Dad. Gil has an eight o’clock class tomorrow morning.”

  His father said, “You, of course, never sign up for one that starts before ten.”

  Will’s grin was more lighthearted than any expression Beth had seen on Jack’s face. “You got it. I figure, I wouldn’t learn anything anyway. Now, by ten, the old brain is in gear. You know?”

  Beth didn’t. At Will’s age, she’d been married, pregnant the next year. Not until the girls were three and six did she start taking evening classes at the community college in accounting and business. Ray had liked the idea, but his enthusiasm quickly cooled. He didn’t want to baby-sit evening after evening. He didn’t want to hear about what she’d learned. “Come on, we don’t really need the money,” he’d wheedled. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “But I want to,” she had said quietly, really standing up to him for one of the first times ever.

  Beth knew that if she had quit school then, she would likely still be married.

  Shaking off the memory, she said her goodbyes, poked Lauren who piped up, “Thank you for dinner,” and ushered them ahead of her down a brick path that led through a side yard with a mature maple surrounded by a bed of glossy green ivy. Jack was just behind her.

  On the front walk, Beth turned. “I really enjoyed this afternoon. I mean it. Thanks.”

  “Hey!” a girl’s voice yelled from the street.

  Beth waved at their teenage baby-sitter, who sat on the handlebar of a boy’s mountain bike. She was laughing, but her gaze was avid.

  “Hi, Tiffany,” Steph and Lauren called, then, “Watch out!”

  Jack made an abortive step toward the street as a car passed. The bike wobbled and righted itself. Both adults winced.

  “Damn fool kids,” he muttered.

  “Steph has given up riding her bike,” Beth said in an undertone, “because I won’t let her unless she wears a helmet. Nobody wears a helmet, she says.”

  “She’s right. They don’t.” He shook his head in disgust, looking up the street after the zigzagging bicycle.

  “Do you see many head injuries?”

  “Constantly. If as many children died or were permanently disabled from a disease, the government would be pouring money into research and treatment. Bike helmets aren’t glamorous enough, apparently.”

  She liked him when he talked that way, with passion and caring. It gave her hope that he hadn’t become a cop because he craved the adrenaline rush or the sense of power over others, that in fact he despised violence as much as she did.

  As though he read the softening in her, he took a step closer and said in a low, intimate voice, “How about if I stroll over later and meet you on the front porch for a good-night kiss?”

  The idea was deliciously provocative. In a rush she saw herself opening the front door quietly, slipping out into the cool night, leaning against the big square porch pillar as Jack threaded his fingers through her hair and bent his head slowly…. His face was in darkness, his heartbeat heavy under her palms….

  After a quick glance to be sure Steph and Lauren were out of earshot, Beth said breathlessly, “Are you suggesting I sneak out after my kids are in bed and neck with you?”

  His grin was wicked. “Something like that.”

  “Well.” She tried to sound shocked and failed. “Are you serious?”

  “Oh, yeah.” His tone held something unreadable. “I’m serious.”

  “What if one of the girls came looking for me?” Oh, how tempted she was. “Or Ray were watching the house?”

  Jack swore. “Does he?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’d say no, except somebody did ring the doorbell a few times, too. At the same time as we were having trouble with the anonymous phone calls. I’d open the door, and no one would be there. It was…creepy.”

  “Did you accuse him?”

  “No.” She searched Jack’s suddenly tense face. “What if I’m wrong? Think how terrible that would be. It could be a teenage prank.” She sounded so hopeful. “You know how many kids there are in the neighborhood. I even thought of a boy I had to fire at the store a few months ago. He was always late to work, and he kept forgetting to sign in or out, so I wasn’t sure how much he really had worked. At the time, I didn’t think he was that mad. He seemed more ashamed, but who knows?”

  Jack scowled. “If you have even one more incident like that, you’ll let me know. I don’t like it.”

  “Surely this county has enough crime to keep you occupied.”

  “I have time,” he said tersely. “Call me. Immediately. You got it?”

  Rebellion swelled in her chest like a hot air balloon, then soundlessly deflated. He was offering help out of the goodness of his heart. If he sounded a little autocratic, well, that was hardly surprising from a man who’d been in law enforcement for ten plus years. And it wasn’t as if she didn’t want to call him the next time something scary happened. She remembered how overwhelming the relief had been last Sunday, when he’d dropped everything and come the moment she asked.

  “Okay,” she agreed. “I’ll call.”

  The grimness left his face, but she felt pinned by his intense dark eyes.

  “Do we have a date tonight?”

  “Can I, um, take a rain check?” She felt like an idiot—no, what she felt was very young and naive, a Goody Two-shoes who didn’t dare sneak out at night the way all her friends claimed they did. “Until the girls are more used to the idea of my dating,” she added, knowing how feeble that was as an explanation.

  Jack just looked at her for a moment, but at last he nodded as if he understood more than she’d said. “Deal,” he murmured, then raised his voice. “Hey, girls, thanks for bringing your mom.”

  “You’re welcome,” Lauren said impudently.

  Steph thanked him again.

  Beth smiled one more time, blushed at the way his eyes narrowed and focused on her mouth, then turned away.

  “Did you get sunburned?” her youngest asked, as she joined them on the sidewalk.

  “I don’t know. Am I red?” she asked, and was horrified at how easily—and often—she seemed to be lying today.

  But then, how did you tell your children: A man just looked at me as if he wanted to rip my clothes off, and I would very much like it if he would?

  No. Some little white lies were a good thing.

  She just wished an almost twelve-year-old was as innocent these days as she’d been at that age. Steph’s knowing expression was enough to deepen Beth’s blush.

  A week ag
o, she hadn’t even thought about conducting a romance. Now, she was wondering how a woman did it when she had almost-teenage children.

  Ah, well. There were worse problems. She just wouldn’t think about those today.

  RAY TOOK a deep swill of his beer. He was parked in front of the Blue Moon Tavern. Music and bright lights spilled into the dark parking lot, packed with pickup trucks and Harleys. Windows blinked with neon signs advertising beer. Beyond them he could see men clustered around a pool table and a few couples shuffling to Garth Brooks on the small dance floor.

  He’d meant to go in and have a good time. Why not? His bitch of a wife apparently was. Hell, maybe he’d cut in on one of those cowboys in tight jeans and take the floor with the pretty blond girlfriend. About time he had a pretty blond girlfriend of his own.

  Ray slapped his hands onto the steering wheel so hard his palms stung. He wanted his wife, not some blond slut! He didn’t plan to start all over and then find out his sweet blue-eyed bride wanted to wear the pants in their marriage.

  Ray still didn’t know how it had happened. One day, she was meeting him at the door with soft kisses, cooking his favorite dinner, sewing cute dresses for the girls when she had time from being a wife and mother. The next day, she was talking about going back to school.

  What he should have done was put his foot down right then, but he’d thought she just wanted to get out of the house a little bit, maybe pick up a skill that would let her get a decent part-time job once the girls were in school all day. Extra bucks would be nice. He’d been thinking maybe they could get a boat for fishing and waterskiing. Something nice.

  Before he knew it, Beth was never home. When he saw her in passing as she slapped microwaved food down in front of him and waved goodbye, her eyes were glowing as she talked about small business administration or taking over his books. She did have a head for figures, so he indulged her. She’d get her degree in just another semester or two, she promised. Only, when she finally finished school she didn’t take a regular part-time job, as he’d expected; instead, she became the manager of a stationery store. She didn’t want to buy a boat, she wanted to have her own business.