Buch lesen: «Rodeo Sheriff»

Chapter One

Honey Armstrong wouldn’t have thought Rodeo’s sheriff, being the predictable sort, could do much to surprise her.

Except show up with children.

Cole Payette, in civilian clothes instead of his uniform, stood just inside the open doorway of Honey’s empty bar with two kids.

The cloudless June day cast Cole and the children into silhouette.

Sunlight limned Cole’s muscular frame and lightened his thatch of dirty-blond hair.

His broad shoulders dwarfed the silent, delicate girl about three or four years old sitting on his forearm. A boy of about six held Cole’s other hand, but not quietly. His slim body percolated in motion.

Honey’s spirits lifted, and she laughed. “I was just thinking I need a distraction this afternoon.”

For Honey, a child was a luminous slice of life, the perfect soft golden yolk of a sunny-side-up egg.

Cole wasn’t a father, nor did he babysit that she knew of, even though the children of town liked him.

So whose kids were they?

“Who do you have with you today, Cole?”

He sighed and Honey cocked her head, alerted by a strange intensity emanating from him.

While Cole might have lived in town for more than a dozen years, his presence on his favorite bar stool at Honey’s Place every Friday and Saturday night accounted for most of Honey’s exposure to him. He poured drinks while she took her breaks or relieved her waiters. Cole didn’t visit any other time unless on official business.

So why was he here with children on Sunday when he knew the bar was closed? Had something happened to someone in town?

“Come in,” she urged again. “Close the door.” Eager to recognize the children, she gestured for them to step closer. “Who did you bring to visit?”

“They’re mine,” Cole said, his voice a hollowed-out shell of its normal deep timbre.

Honey frowned.

Mine?

As owner of the only bar in town, Honey knew all that went on in Rodeo. Cole had no children and no significant other. Unless maybe he lived a double life he kept secret... Ha. In Rodeo? Where everyone knew everything about everyone? Laughable.

“Shut the door,” she said, quietly this time. She knew trouble when it walked into her bar.

He did so, blocking out the sunshine. He stepped closer to the lamps, a ravaged man who looked as though he’d been on a bender last night. If so, it hadn’t been here. He’d been missing from town all week, his bar stool empty last night and Friday night.

Deep brackets framed his well-defined mouth, harsher than usual.

Honey was certain he wasn’t yet thirty-five, but permanent frown lines had already started to develop on his forehead, and today every faint line that marred his attractive face was deeper than usual.

He watched her with a dim, weary gaze, as did the boy and girl, all three seeming past their power to endure.

The boy shifted from foot to foot.

“Do you need to go to the bathroom?” Honey asked the child.

“Nope,” he said loudly.

Cole stared down at him. “He moves a lot.”

Okay. But— They’re mine?

“What do you mean, they’re yours?” Honey asked.

“They were my sister’s kids.”

Honey gasped. Were.

Grief rolled from Cole in dark waves.

After staring at Honey with wide eyes for unrelieved moments, the girl closed her eyes, rested her head on Cole’s shoulder and stuck her tiny thumb into her mouth.

Honey’s heart went out to her.

Help, Cole mouthed. One word. So much said.

She started to rush forward, but he stiffened, resisting her sympathy.

Okay. As always with Cole, she got mixed messages. He would help her out at the bar on the weekends, but outside of that, hands off.

You got it, Cole. Message received.

And yet here he was in her empty bar with a pair of children.

Okay. Today he needed her, but no physical displays of sympathy. Maybe he was too close to the edge. Given her experience with her mother’s and Daniel’s deaths, she understood.

“What can I do?” she asked briskly.

“The kids will need someone to take care of them. I have to get organized. I—Maybe I have to get them... I don’t know. What? A nanny?”

Ordinarily, Cole would know that kind of thing, but shock had a firm hold on him. “A nanny, yes,” she confirmed. “What do you need from me?”

“Can you take care of the children while I interview people?”

“Today? Now? That’s so soon. You just brought them to town.”

He didn’t respond, but his hard jaw flexed.

Honey went on, “Can you take time off work to get them settled in? If you give them over to a nanny too soon, won’t that be hard on them?”

He shrugged helplessly, this normally rock-solid guy. “I’m taking this week off, but I need to get as much as possible settled right away.”

Maybe a gradual transition was a good idea, kind of acclimating the children to the new nanny before Cole left them with her full-time.

“Okay.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m in over my head.” A massive admission from a man most often in control. “I can’t do this alone.”

“I’ll help, of course, but I don’t understand. Why come to the bar? Why come to me?”

“You’re good with kids,” he said. “You love them and they love you.”

Yes, true. She was crazy about kids. No secret there. Everyone in the surrounding Montana countryside knew that. Children gathered around wherever Honey went, drawn like bees to...well, honey.

“Can I do the interviews here?” he asked.

“Cole, this is a bar. I know I’m closed today and tomorrow, but still. It’s hardly an appropriate spot.”

Cole released the boy’s hand. A couple of backpacks fell from his shoulder to the floor. Given half a chance, maybe he would follow suit.

“There’s room here for me to ask questions without anyone hearing.”

Anyone. The children.

“You know my place,” he said. “It’s dim and dismal.”

“Actually, I don’t.” She’d never been in the apartment above the sheriff’s office. “But I’ll take your word for it.”

She glanced around her bar. “While it’s spacious, I would hardly say this is a suitable spot for entertaining children.”

He stared around, but Honey had the sense he wasn’t seeing much. Oh, my lord, he looks so lost.

Right. Let’s get on with it.

“Upstairs.” Brisk in her movements, she locked the front door of the bar. “We’ll use my apartment.”

He nodded. “Makes sense. Yeah. Thanks.”

Cole Payette, as predictable as a finely wound clock, as handsome and rugged as the Rocky Mountains—and as quiet as a monk when in her presence—had reached the end of his rope.

No problem. Honey had enough coping skills for both of them.

“Follow me,” she said.

She led them to the interior stairs at the back of the building.

A sudden tug on a huge hank of her hair had her pulling up short.

“Ow!”

“I’m sorry!” Cole sounded distressed.

Someone hung onto her hair with a strong grip. Honey turned around as far as she could. It was the girl in Cole’s arms. He was trying to loosen her grip, but the child wouldn’t let go.

Cole stared at the child in his arms. “Madeline, let go.”

The child’s deep, hollow gaze broke Honey’s heart.

“What’s going on?” she asked Cole.

“Her mother had long blond hair. I guess... I don’t know... Maybe she sees a bit of her mother in you?”

Tentatively, Honey held out her hands. The child practically jumped into her arms, where she clung like a monkey.

She drew hanks of Honey’s waist-length, curly hair around her shoulders as though donning a protective cape.

Honey’s heart broke a little more. She raised her eyebrows at Cole, but he shook his head, also confused by the girl’s behavior.

If this was what she needed, this was what Honey would give. She carried the child up to her apartment, leading Cole and the boy down the hallway to her living room.

Honey liked big comfy furniture—big comfy everything—and her space reflected that, with plenty of generous pieces for seating and lots of colorful afghans thrown around. The apartment as large as the bar below, Honey had all kinds of living space.

While Cole conducted his interviews in privacy by the windows, Honey could play with the children at the opposite end of the room.

Cole led the boy to the sofa, where he sat obediently and hugged one of her puffy pillows. When Honey tried to put down the girl, she clung hard, her tiny fingernails digging into Honey’s shoulders.

Honey straightened. The girl wrapped Honey’s hair more tightly about herself. Okay, this could be a problem.

She indicated the girl and boy. “Is this why you’ve been missing from town the past week?”

Cole nodded.

“No one knew where you went.”

“Didn’t tell them.” His voice rasped as drily as day-old bread without a trace of butter.

The children made not a peep. The girl still had her thumb in her mouth, even though she was too old for it.

The boy played an imaginary game walking his fingers along the seams of the pillow on his lap.

This was silly. She couldn’t keep calling them the boy and the girl.

“What are their names?”

“I’m Evan Engel,” the boy piped up.

“Evan, I’m Honey.”

“Like the stuff you put on toast?”

She smiled. “Exactly like that.”

The girl didn’t make a sound.

“That’s Madeline,” Cole said. Oh, yes, he’d used the girl’s name when she’d grabbed Honey’s hair.

Honey placed a hand on Cole’s arm. Tension ran along his muscles.

His body reacted when she touched him with not quite a jerk, but more like—Well, she didn’t know.

She dropped her hand and motioned him toward the far end of the room, to her small home office set up with desk, chair, her computer and a printer.

She ran Honey’s Place from her office downstairs, but she’d designed this corner up here strictly for pleasure. Well...to be honest...to play her computer games.

Voice pitched low, she asked, “What happened to their parents?”

Stark vulnerability clouded his handsome face. His gaze flickered to Madeline.

“My sister—Her husband—” His voice broke. He hissed in a breath. “In their will, they left guardianship of the children to me.”

Before she could ask for more, he rushed on, “Can we leave it at that for now?” A pain-laden plea if she’d ever heard one.

She’d always wanted a sister.

“Was she your only sibling?” she asked.

He tightened his lips and nodded.

God. To have only one sister and to lose her so early in life, and then to have an instant family. How was he to deal with this?

And Evan and Madeline, poor children.

No! She would not use that awful, inadequate, destructive word poor.

From personal experience, starting with her father’s death when she was only six, she knew too well the damage a word like that could do to a child...and how dangerous pity was. She would not treat Madeline or Evan with that most useless of emotions, pity.

They should never think of themselves as poor.

How could she help them?

Perhaps by making the day as normal as possible.

“Before you use the phone to set up your interviews, I need to call Rachel to come over.”

“Go ahead and use your phone,” Cole said. “I’ll use my cell. Why Rachel?”

“We need to make the children comfortable. Rachel will bring Tori. If anyone can put them at ease it’s that little girl.”

The tension in Cole’s shoulders eased a fraction. “Yeah. Good idea.” He stretched his neck to one side and then to the other. Bones popped. “Who should I call in town?”

“To hire as a nanny?”

He nodded.

Honey tapped her lips with her forefinger. “Of the women who would suit, there are Ellen Clarkson, Tanya Mayhall and Maria Tripoli.”

“All older women. Why?”

“They’ve been stay-at-home moms, and their chicks have flown the nest. They’re helping to organize the teenagers for the food and beverage stands at the revival fair. They love children and are good with them.”

Cole nodded and collapsed into her office chair. “Sounds good.”

He pulled his cell phone out of his shirt pocket and stared at it as if it were alien to him.

Honey touched his hand, surprising him. He glanced up with wide blue eyes. Something odd touched their depths. Maybe hope? Or...what? Honey couldn’t identify what she saw, but again tension arced under her fingers.

She dropped her hand. “Do you need me to make the calls?”

A split second of temptation lit the darkness in his eyes, replaced at once by determination.

“My job. Just please take care of them this afternoon. Make them happy.”

“Cole, no one can do that right now.”

“You can, Honey. If anyone can, it’s you.”

Tightening her hold on Madeline, she huffed out a frustrated sigh. What a burden he was placing on her. She might be a favorite with the children of Rodeo, Montana, but she wasn’t a miracle worker.

His intensity, while understandable given the situation, unnerved her. He wasn’t thinking rationally.

“Oh, Cole.” Her voice eased out of her on a breath of soft air. “It’s too early. There’s nothing that will make them happy. All I can do is make them comfortable.”

“Do that? Please?” The rawness in his voice held her still.

How could she resist a plea so sweetly asked?

“Okay. You make the calls and get those women in here to interview. I’ll take care of the children.”

She squeezed his hand, meaning to move on quickly, but he turned his palm up and grasped her like he never meant to let go. His grip became painful.

He closed his eyes. Misery etched deeper those brackets of character on his face.

When he looked at her again, moisture shimmered on his pale lashes.

Tenderness welled inside Honey.

She did affection really well, especially with children and friends, but affection toward men? Not so much. She had her reasons, all balled up in an amalgam of passionate love and too much loss...as well as being a female bar owner.

She straightened and put distance between herself and that dangerous tenderness.

He dropped her hand.

All business, she offered, “Would you like coffee? Food?”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to put you out.”

Used to dealing with recalcitrant drunks, she slammed her fist onto her unoccupied hip. “When did you last eat?”

He turned inward but couldn’t seem to come up with an answer. “I don’t remember.”

“And the children?”

“Breakfast this morning.”

“It’s two o’clock. I’ll put on the coffeepot and get food in here.” She pointed a finger at his face. “When the children sit down to eat, so will you.”

She snagged the phone and walked to her bedroom at the back of the apartment, hitching Madeline a little higher on her hip.

Rachel answered on the second ring. “Hi, Honey. What’s up?”

“Are you and the children available this afternoon?”

“Sure. Travis is out checking on the herd. What do you need?”

“Come over.”

“Now? Beth is napping.”

Aware of Madeline listening in, Honey said, “Can you come anyway? Right away? There are a couple of children here who need someone to play with. They need Tori. I’ll explain when you arrive.”

Despite how little Honey was actually telling her, Rachel responded with an immediate, “Okay, we’ll be right over. I’ll have to wake Beth, so she might be grumpy.”

Honey considered baby Beth’s discomfort a small price to pay for providing Evan and Madeline with small-fry company.

“See you soon.”

Next, Honey called Violet Summer, who owned the Summertime Diner.

After a few rings, Vy answered. “Hey, Honey. To what do I owe the annoyance of this call interrupting a perfectly fine Sunday afternoon with my man?”

Honey laughed. God, she loved Vy’s irreverent sense of humor. On the other hand, Vy might be serious considering how recently her relationship with newcomer Sam Carmichael had begun.

Honey explained that she had children and a couple of adults who needed to be fed, and that it was an emergency. She could almost feel Vy coming alert like a bird dog sensing prey.

“I’ll head over to the diner and see what Will has left over from yesterday. It might not be much. We were busy. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

Once Vy arrived with food, Honey would assess what was needed and call in her cook, Chet, to make up burgers and fries if necessary. Honey didn’t have enough food in the apartment for everyone. She didn’t think Madeline would let go of her long enough for Honey to buy food, let alone cook it. A good guy who liked children, Chet wouldn’t mind cooking for them.

Honey had forgotten to ask Cole whether she could share his story, but it would be naive of him to think he could hold on to this forever. The second he’d brought the children home with him to Rodeo, they’d become part of the community.

Hold up, Honey. You don’t even know if this is permanent. But Cole mentioned guardianship and a will, so probably?

She would just have to get the full story at some point.

Back in the living room, she replaced the phone in its cradle. Cole sat staring at his cell, but at least there’d been some progress. He’d made a list of the women with their contact information.

Honey picked up the sheet of paper. “You know their phone numbers?”

Cole’s eyebrows shot up. “I contacted the office. The deputy on duty accessed the town’s database.”

“Oh. Of course.” She pointed to Tanya’s name and said, “Call her first. Tell her to be here in an hour if she can.”

“Not right away?”

“No. You’re going to eat first.”

She tried to put Madeline down on the sofa again, but the little girl still clung.

Honey hitched her a bit higher. Good thing she was strong from running her bar and hauling around cases of liquor and beer.

One-handed, she put on a pot of coffee to brew and got out mugs, cream and sugar.

She poured a cup of coffee for Cole and brought it to him.

“You look numb,” she said.

Cole stared at her.

Frowning, she returned to the kitchen to pour a mug for herself.

The front doorbell tinkled. Company. Honey ran down the stairs to let in Rachel, Beth and Tori.

Thank God. The cavalry had arrived.

Four-year-old Tori threw herself against Honey’s legs. “Mommy said you gots kids here. Who’s that girl you’re holding? Can I meet her?”

“You sure can.” This, Tori’s boundless excitement, was exactly what these two waifs needed, but Madeline burrowed into Honey’s hair. “You can meet her upstairs.”

In the living room, Tori ran to the sofa and stared at Evan. “I’m Tori. I live in Rodeo. Who are you?”

“I’m Evan. That’s my sister, Madeline.”

“I like your names.” She pointed to the sofa. “Can I sit here?”

From behind the curtain of Honey’s hair, Madeline studied Tori, not emitting a sound.

Tori wasn’t bossy by nature, but she was friendly and exuberant. As far as Honey could tell, she had decided to take control.

“You look nice,” she said to Madeline. “Sit here.” She curled up beside Evan and patted the sofa beside herself.

Madeline merely stared.

“We be friends,” Tori said. “I brought games. We can play.”

The tiniest of smiles hovered on Evan’s lips. Madeline rested her head on Honey’s shoulder and stayed where she was.

Tori frowned, not used to resistance.

Honey frowned, too. If Tori couldn’t break through Madeline’s shell, who could?