by Katie Lane
He nodded. “Nice to see you again, Mrs. Riddell. How is the bracelet-making business?”
“It’s slowed down a bit since Christmas, but I figure it will pick back up around Easter. And I’m thinking about making some bracelets with X-Meat spelled out in letter beads for those folks participating in Lent.”
Dixie almost laughed out loud at Lincoln’s stunned expression. Instead of answering, he turned to Raynelle. “Nice to see you again as well, Ms. Coffman. Do you have the day off from the Simple Market?”
Raynelle’s eyes widened as she glanced at her watch. “Shoot! I need to get back to work. Thanks for meeting me for lunch, Lulu. Hope you find your murderer, Deputy Meriwether.” She waved a hand before she hurried into the grocery store.
Dixie couldn’t help but cringe at the dark cloud that crossed over Lincoln’s face. He had not been happy about her showing up at the Double Diamond ranch and making accusations. If he thought she was spreading rumors around town about Sam Sweeney being murdered, he would implode. She figured the only reason he wasn’t going off on her was because Luanne was there.
“I probably should go too,” Luanne said. “I have to make up the goodies bags for my Mary Kay party I’m having at Devlin Holden’s new house. You’re coming, aren’t you, Deputy Meriwether? All the women are looking forward to getting makeup tips from an almost-Miss Texas.”
Dixie hadn’t planned to go. She was trying to keep her distance from the townsfolk—not only because she didn’t want them getting comfortable with her and start coming to her with their problems, but also because she didn’t want to get close to people when she was just planning to leave. But if she wanted to keep Luanne there as long as possible so she could avoid a lecture from Lincoln, Texas Ranger, she couldn’t decline.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she said. “Now what can I bring? I know! I’ll bring Heavenly Hanover Peach Pie. The recipe has been in my mama’s family for years. We don’t usually share the secret to its deliciousness, but since you were sweet enough to invite me to your party, I’ll tell you all about how to make it.” She glanced at Lincoln. “I’m sure you have more important things to do than listen to two women talk about peach pie, Officer Hayes.”
He studied her for a long moment before he put on his cowboy hat and tipped it. “Ladies.” As he headed toward the door of the pharmacy, Dixie couldn’t help but check out his butt. He didn’t have much of one, but what he had looked dang good covered in buttery soft Wrangler jeans.
Luanne released her breath and voiced Dixie’s exact thoughts. “Wow. That is some hot cowboy eye candy.”
“Technically, he’s not a cowboy. He’s a Texas Ranger.”
“And that makes him less hot?” Luanne squinted at her. “Are you sure you’re from Texas, honey? ‘Cause here in the Lone Star State, there is nothin’ hotter than a Texas Ranger. Not to mention that he was a Double Diamond boy. Which means he’s a bad boy wrapped up in a whole lot of good man.” She held the fan to her face. “And that would give any woman hot flashes.”
Chapter Four
Lincoln knew an avoidance tactic when he saw one, but he wasn’t about to give Deputy Dixie Meriwether a piece of his mind in front of one of the biggest gossips in Simple, Texas. The deputy had obviously already given Luanne and Raynelle enough to gossip about. Had she really told the two women that she thought Sam Sweeney had been murdered?
He jerked off his hat and slapped it against his leg in frustration as he strode down the aisles of the pharmacy. And here he thought the ditzy woman wouldn’t make any trouble. She had just unwittingly let loose a whole shit pot full of trouble. By evening, everyone in town would be talking about murder. Since the Double Diamond boys hadn’t exactly been angels the summer they spent in Simple, all fingers would point to them as somehow being involved. Which could cause problems for his friends and their wives.
Lincoln wasn’t about to let Dixie Meriwether get away with stirring up the pot. He’d been willing to overlook her spa day, but not anymore. As soon as he got Chester’s high-blood pressure medicine, he planned to stop by the mayor’s office to see what could be done about the deputy. He wasn’t just recommending she get help. He was recommending she get her butt fired.
He headed to the pharmacy window. While he was waiting for the pharmacist to get Chester’s medication, he glanced up at the security mirror. The wide-angled mirror displayed the aisles behind Lincoln. There was a woman pushing a basket with a toddler, an older man in the next aisle reading the label of a medicine bottle, and a kid in a ball cap on the last aisle who was glancing around like he was up to no good. This was verified when he grabbed a box and stuffed it beneath his jean jacket.
Lincoln blew out his breath. Damn. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about. For a second, he thought about just letting the kid slide. But the lawman in him wouldn’t let him. When the pharmacist walked back over and handed him Chester’s prescription, Lincoln nodded at the mirror.
“That kid in the Texas Longhorns cap and jean jacket just shoplifted.”
The pharmacist glanced at the mirror and then grabbed the phone. Lincoln thought he was going to call the cashier up front and have him stop the kid on his way out. Instead, the pharmacist’s voice rang out over the loudspeaker.
“Emergency alert! Shoplifter on aisle one!” The pharmacist hung up and hurried out from behind the counter toward aisle one.
Lincoln shook his head. Small towns and their security systems. He turned and headed for the door. When he got to the front, he saw that the employees had formed a linked-arm circle around the boy. Or not a boy, but a young girl about twelve or thirteen. She looked terrified and completely embarrassed. Tears glistened in her eyes and her cheeks were bright red.
Lincoln instantly regretted squealing on the poor kid, but breaking the law was breaking the law. And maybe a little humiliation would keep the kid from a life of crime. He started for the door when Deputy Meriwether was herded in by the young man Lincoln had seen working the pharmacy soda fountain.
“I got the deputy,” the young man said.
As much as Lincoln didn’t want to get involved, he couldn’t help waiting to see how Deputy Meriwether was going to deal with the situation. Especially when she looked like she would rather be anywhere else but there. As the young man led her over to the linked group, she looked as scared as the perpetrator.
“Umm . . . hey, y’all. It looks like we have a game of ring around the rosy going on.” When no one smiled or laughed, she sobered. “I guess we have a shoplifter on our hands?”
Two of the employees unlinked arms and let her into the circle with the girl, who was clutching her jacket closed to hide what she’d taken.
Deputy Meriwether looked at the girl and cleared her throat. “So you shoplifted, did you? Well, that is . . . naughty. If my mama were here, she would give you a lecture and a half on how a young lady should act. And young ladies do not take things without paying for them.” Lincoln rolled his eyes. How had the woman become a deputy? “Now I’m sure if you paid for what you stole,” she continued, “these good folks might overlook—”
“I’m not overlooking anything,” an older gentleman said. “I’m not having trailer trash thieves, like Cheyenne Daily here, think they can just waltz into my store and steal and get away with it.” Lincoln suddenly remembered the man. He was the grumpy guy who owned the pharmacy and had caught Cru shoplifting condoms when he was fifteen.
Is that what the girl was shoplifting? She looked a little young to be sexually active. But why else would she look so embarrassed? He moved over to the aisle she had been standing in and looked at the shelf she’d pulled the box from.
Shit.
It looked like he was going to have to get involved after all.
He slipped Chester’s prescription in his front shirt pocket and pulled his badge out of his jeans pocket before flashing it. “Lincoln Hayes, Texas Ranger. What’s going on here?”
All the employees dropped arms and Deputy Me
riwether looked thoroughly relieved. “Thank goodness you’re here, Officer Hayes. I’m sure you’re much better at dealing with shoplifters than I am. I’ll just leave this in your capable hands and continue to make my rounds.” She started to leave, but he stepped in front of her.
“No you won’t. You’ll take this young lady to the sheriff’s office.”
“You want me to arrest her? But she’s just a kid.”
“Who committed a crime.”
“But a lot of young kids shoplift. It doesn’t make them criminals. I shoplifted lipstick one time. It turned out to be a horrible color on me. Which was punishment enough, believe me.” She looked at the girl. “Just give me what you took, honey, so we can put it back on the shelf.”
The girl glanced at the young boy who worked the soda fountain and her arms tightened as she shook her head. Which confirmed Lincoln’s theory.
He stepped up. “Are you going to give Deputy Meriwether problems? Or does she need to handcuff you?”
She lowered her gaze. “I won’t give her any problems.”
“Alright then.” He looked at the deputy. “Are you going to give me any more problems?”
Those cat-like eyes narrowed. “No.” When he lifted his eyebrows, she added a surly “sir.” She took the girl’s arm. “Come on, honey. Don’t say I didn’t try to save you.”
Lincoln turned to the crowd. “Everyone can go back to work.”
“And what about what she stole?” the owner whined.
“I’ll make sure you get reimbursed.” He followed Deputy Meriwether.
He wished he could let her take care of the situation. It was more in her wheelhouse than it was in his. But he wouldn’t trust the deputy with a traffic violation, let alone a sensitive young girl. So he hopped in his truck and followed the deputy’s SUV back to the sheriff’s office.
When he pulled into the space next to her, once again she looked relieved that she wouldn’t have to deal with the young girl by herself. Which proved she had no business taking over for Sheriff Willaby. Or even being a deputy for that matter.
Cheyenne Daily looked even more scared as Deputy Meriwether opened the back door of the SUV and let her out.
“Are you going to throw me in jail?” she asked.
“That will depend.” Lincoln waited for Deputy Meriwether to unlock the door before he herded Cheyenne into the sheriff’s office. The white fluffy cat lying on the desk opened one blue eye and glared at him before closing it again. Obviously, the deputy hadn’t heeded his warning about leaving her pet at home. Something he wasn’t about to let slide, but right now he had another situation he needed to deal with.
“Sit.” He pointed to the chair as he tossed his hat at a hook by the door.
He had been tossing his hats at hooks ever since he was a teenager, so he wasn’t surprised it was a dead ringer. But Deputy Meriwether seemed surprised. She stared at his hat swaying on the hook and her perfect eyebrows popped up. She glanced at him and nonchalantly tossed her hat at the row of hooks. It missed and landed on the floor. With a shrug of indifference, she left it there and took the chair behind the desk.
Lincoln remained standing in front of the girl. “Your name is Cheyenne Daily?”
She nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Where do you live?”
“Lucky Lane trailer park.”
He knew the trailer park. He’d helped bust a meth lab out there a few years back. It wasn’t exactly a country club neighborhood. “You live with your mama and daddy?”
“Just my daddy. My mama’s . . . gone.”
Things were starting to make much more sense. Lincoln knew what Cheyenne was going through. It was no fun to hit puberty when your only parent was the opposite sex. And it had been even worse for Lincoln because he lived with his grandmother. So he’d kept his fears and embarrassing questions to himself. Unfortunately, girls didn’t have it so easy. They needed to buy feminine products. If they didn’t have a mother or a big sister—or a father who was willing—they had no choice but to purchase tampons themselves. And in a town as small as Simple where gossip ran rampant that had to be as embarrassing as hell. He didn’t blame Cheyenne one bit for what she’d done.
Relaxing his badass stance, he leaned against the desk and crossed his arms. “I know what you stole, Cheyenne. And I think I get why you stole them. You were feeling embarrassed and didn’t want to ask your daddy to buy them for you. But stealing is wrong. No matter what your excuse is.”
The kid burst out in tears and dropped the crushed box she held to her chest. The box hit the floor and tampons spilled around Lincoln’s boots. Dammit to hell. This was exactly what he had hoped to avoid. He wasn’t good with female tears. Thankfully, before he had to figure out what to do, Deputy Meriwether finally became useful.
“Oh, honey!” She jumped up and came around the desk and pulled Cheyenne into her arms. But instead of trying to get her to stop crying, she gave her the okay to continue. “You just go right on ahead and let it out, sweetheart. My mama always says that women need to have a good cry every now again to declutter the gutters. And starting your period is something to cry about. I mean why would God punish all women for Eve’s weakness? She’s the one who ate the apple so she should’ve been the only one who had to deal with the cramps, mood swings, and the mess. The only one who should’ve had to go to the drugstore and stand in line with a big box of tampons.”
Lincoln rolled his eyes at the rambling, but Cheyenne released a sobby giggle.
Deputy Meriwether drew back and gave the girl a smile. It wasn’t the bright, full-toothed smile. This smile was much softer. If Lincoln thought she was breathtaking before, he had been wrong. This unpretentious beauty was like a swift kick in the gut.
“Wouldn’t that be a sight for sore eyes?” she said. “Eve standing there in her palm-tree-leaf bikini while Adam tried to pretend he wasn’t with her. Yep, tampons can embarrass men too. Just look at that tough Texas Ranger standing there with his face lit up like Rudolph’s red nose.”
Cheyenne glanced at Lincoln. His face must’ve been red because she laughed even harder. He figured if it stopped the crying, he didn’t mind being the butt of Deputy Meriwether’s jokes. Of course, he felt differently when the deputy joined in.
He gave them a good full minute of laughter before he cut in. “Are y’all about finished? Because I have things to do.”
Deputy Meriwether sobered. “Well, I hope one of the things you have to do isn’t arresting this sweet girl for just being a little shy about buying tampons.”
He had no intentions of arresting Cheyenne, but she did need to learn a lesson. So he played bad cop for just a little while longer. “She broke the law.”
“Yes, but I’m sure she won’t do it again because she won’t have to. I’ll be happy to buy her tampons.”
He sighed. The woman really didn’t have any common sense. “That doesn’t solve the problem. What if you get transferred or get a different job?” If anyone needed a different job, it was Deputy Meriwether. “What will she do then? Go back to stealing?” He expected her to argue with him. She had certainly argued when he’d caught her having a spa day. But this time she didn’t.
She glanced at Cheyenne and shrugged. “He’s right. You need to overcome your fear, honey. My mama always says that the only thing to fear is lack of courage. Tomorrow, we are going to walk into that pharmacy together with our heads held high and you’re going to apologize to that sourpuss owner, and then you’re going to buy the biggest box of tampons they have.”
“But . . . Joey Mac works there,” Cheyenne said. “He’s the hottest guy in high school. I know I’m only a stupid seventh grader and he probably doesn’t even know I exist, but I’d die if he knew what I’d stolen.”
Having been a boy, Lincoln decided to step back in. “Believe me, when you walk into that store tomorrow, all Joey Mac is going to see is a strong young woman owning up to her mistakes.” He glanced down at the floor. “Now why don’t you get these th
ings collected so Deputy Meriwether can drive you home.”
“Yes, sir,” Cheyenne said as she knelt to put all the tampons back in the box.
Figuring the deputy could handle things from there, Lincoln grabbed his hat from the hook and headed out of the office. But before he reached the outside door, Deputy Meriwether stopped him.
“Officer Hayes.”
He turned to see her standing there smiling the soft smile that made him feel extremely uncomfortable.
“You didn’t want her arrested, did you? You just wanted to get her out of the pharmacy so she wouldn’t be embarrassed in front of all those people.” She studied him, her green eyes twinkling with something that looked a lot like admiration. “So maybe you aren’t such a big badass.”
“I’m still a badass. If anyone needs to remember that, you do, Deputy Meriwether.”
“Dixie.”
He ignored her olive branch. “You’ll have to tell Cheyenne’s father. Nothing remains a secret in a town this small.” Like Sam Sweeney’s disappearance. Which was why he wasn’t going to start calling Deputy Meriwether by her first name. First names were reserved for friends and family. Deputy Meriwether was neither. She was just a burr in his butt that he needed to get rid of.
And the sooner the better.
“Goodbye, Deputy Meriwether.” He hoped the goodbye would be their last.
Unfortunately, on the way to the mayor’s office, he got a call from his immediate superior Major Macky. He quickly answered the call.
“Hello, sir.”
“Hey, Lincoln. How’s the vacation going?”
“It’s going well, sir. But if you have a job for me, I can cut it short.”
There was a long pause. “Actually, I do have a job for you. But it doesn’t mean you have to cut your vacation short. In fact, it might add another week or so to your stay in Simple. And I don’t think this job will be that difficult so you should still be able to enjoy your time in the country.”
