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“Deputy Fulton will do.” She gestured at Clarissa, who stepped forward with a wide smile. “Clarissa Dodd, our dispatcher.”
He reached for Clarissa’s hand. “I’m not a rookie and I don’t need a wrangler. I do know what I’m doing.”
After reclaiming her hand, Clarissa smoothed both palms over curvy hips. “I’m sure you do.”
“All right, that’s enough.” Lily clapped once and shooed Clarissa back to her desk. “We’re a government office, not a singles’ bar.” She did wish she could let Clarissa have her fun, since the dispatcher was still reeling from a nasty divorce. But though Clarissa had sworn off romance, she remained a big fan of sex, and Lily didn’t need any casual hookups complicating the dynamics of her department.
She turned to Fulton. He didn’t look fresh out of the academy, but it was close.
He also looked exceedingly fine in his jeans. Something you have no business noticing, Lily Anne. Especially when she suspected he was much younger than she was.
“How long have you been on the force?” she asked, speaking more harshly than she’d intended.
“Six years.”
Six years to her eighteen. Damn, she felt old.
He studied her, and one corner of his mouth slanted up. “You plotting revenge against me, or the mayor?”
Both, she wanted to blurt. Instead she said, “What’s done is done,” and waved him over to the office that had remained empty since Sam Weems had retired the year Lily won the election. “This is yours,” she said, and backed away, eyeing his T-shirt. “You’ll need a uniform shirt. JD’s office is the next one over. You can borrow his spare until you get one of your own.”
“JD. He’s out on a call?”
“Out sick.” She exhaled. “Guess that means you’ll be riding with me.”
* * *
OUCH. VAUGHN PUSHED a breath through his nose. The sheriff couldn’t have made it any clearer that she was less than thrilled to have him around. Not that he’d expected any different, but damn, she’d smacked his ego hard enough to make it sting.
Fine with him. Not like he was thrilled to be working with a woman who would arrest a dying man.
With a curt nod, Vaughn maneuvered around the sheriff and let himself into the office belonging to the absent JD. He glanced around the cramped space—battered metal desk, overcrowded bookshelf, spare chair with a faded cloth seat—but didn’t see a coatrack or anything resembling a closet door.
Door. He peered behind the office door. Bingo. A uniform shirt hung on a self-stick hook. Vaughn plucked the shirt free and gave it a sniff. It would do.
He had second thoughts after he’d peeled off his T-shirt and shoved his arms through the sleeves of the borrowed shirt. To say it was a tight fit would be like saying Clarissa Dodd was a little friendly.
Or Sheriff Lily Tate a little hostile.
Outside the door, Clarissa belted out a laugh, and Vaughn’s lips twitched at the sound. An odd pair, those two, but the affection between them was obvious. Had they worked together long? Did Clarissa know the reason her boss was such a hard-ass?
Vaughn fumbled a button and swore. Why do you care? Damn it, he didn’t want to be here in the first place. But after tallying the cost of repairs to the house, and to a cat whose owner was nowhere to be found, he’d realized any kind of income would come in handy. The clincher had been his mother ordering him not to take the job.
A paycheck and payback. Childish, yeah, but he hadn’t been able to resist.
And he was already regretting it.
He finally managed to button up the shirt, but only just. Shit. If he wore this for long, he’d lose all feeling in his arms. He considered putting his T-shirt back on and letting the uniform shirt hang loose, but he’d never fit the second set of sleeves over top of the first.
“Having difficulties, Deputy Fulton?” The sheriff’s long-suffering tone seemed to convey that a mere six years on the force wasn’t enough to qualify Vaughn to get into a uniform, let alone wear it.
To hell with it.
He yanked open the door and stepped out. The dispatcher’s eyes went wide and she bounced in her high heels when she saw him. Vaughn was proud of himself for not letting his gaze linger on her...bouncy parts.
A throat cleared.
His eyes met those of the sheriff, who was regarding him in a decidedly non-Clarissa kind of way. Then again, pretty much everything about her was non-Clarissa. Her dark hair was short and tousled, her mouth an unfriendly line, and the energy her slim figure radiated was more impatience than cheerfulness.
But the promise of softness was there, in her big hazel eyes and her pale pink lips. With her pointed chin and wide eyes, she looked like a too-tall elf.
An elf with a tendency to bite, he’d do well to remember.
His eyes dropped to the weapon at her hip. Too bad he never had been able to resist a woman in uniform.
Now was probably a good time to start.
Sheriff Tate shook her head at the fabric stretched over his biceps and muttered something about a waste of a good uniform. “It’ll do for now,” she said.
“I’ll say.”
The sheriff tossed Clarissa a scowl and the dispatcher stopped bouncing. As soon as the sheriff turned her back, Clarissa sent Vaughn a good-natured wink, then dropped into her chair. She scooted in close to her desk and put on her headset.
Vaughn let his shoulders go lax, which improved the fit of the shirt. A little friendly flirting he could deal with. More, he didn’t have time for.
Sheriff Tate was still giving him the evil eye. “Clarissa will give you the grand tour of our offices here,” she said.
“Castle Creek Sheriff’s Department, how may I help you?” the dispatcher lilted into her microphone. When she started tapping at her keyboard, the sheriff shot Vaughn a disgruntled look.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll give you the grand tour of our offices.” She pointed to the left. “My office.” She pointed behind it. “Break room.” She pointed straight ahead, at Clarissa. “Dispatch station.” She pointed to the two offices across from hers. “Deputies’ offices.” She pointed to the short hallway to their right, and the door at the end with the electronic keypad beside it. “Bathrooms and holding cells. Any questions?”
He scratched his jaw. “I feel like I should say no, but...how about a set of keys?”
“I’ll get you a set before the end of the day.”
“Sheriff? That was Mr. Katz.” The dispatcher made a face. “Mona’s being assaulted again.”
“Fudge.” The sheriff turned to Vaughn. “Sounds like the perfect opportunity for our newest employee to show us what he’s got.”
A domestic. Damn, he hated those. He strode toward the exit behind the dispatcher’s station. “I’m ready. Let’s hit it.”
But when he looked over his shoulder, he saw the sheriff hadn’t moved. Instead she watched him with a bemused expression. Meanwhile Clarissa had swiveled in her chair to follow his progress. She batted her eyes.
“Yeah, Deputy Fulton,” she said. “Show us what you’ve got.”
The sheriff made an irritated noise. “What I meant was, we can see him in action.”
Clarissa popped an eyebrow.
“Watch him do his thing.”
The other eyebrow came up.
“Gauge his level of experience.” When Clarissa laughed out loud, the sheriff gave her head a disgusted shake. “Know what? Never mind.”
Vaughn stared at them both in disbelief. “You’re kidding me, right?” His gaze shifted from the sheriff to Clarissa and back again. “There’s an assault in progress.”
The sheriff pulled a set of keys from her pocket, but she hadn’t taken more than two steps when the phone in her office rang. She held up a finger and veered toward her desk.
Vaughn shoved a hand through his hair. For God’s sake, what would they do if someone called in a shooting, stop to take orders for lunch?
The sheriff reappeared. “That was the mayor. He’s calling me in for an emergency conference. You’re on your own, Deputy.”
“Convenient,” Vaughn muttered.
“You said you didn’t need a wrangler. Here’s your chance to prove it.” She turned to Clarissa. “Give him the keys to his cruiser. Mr. Katz’s address, too.”
“Mr. Katz is at Ivy’s. The calendar, remember?” Clarissa bit her lip. “You sure you want to send the new guy out there alone?”
“He can handle it.” Sheriff Tate eyed his borrowed shirt. “As long as his arms don’t go numb.”
* * *
VAUGHN SHOOK HIS head as he steered the patrol car out of the courthouse parking lot. This call had to be some kind of initiation. No way anyone on the force would treat the report of an assault so casually.
The sheriff had it in for him. That much was clear.
Wherever you are, JD, I hope to hell you’re back on the job tomorrow.
Then again, maybe he wouldn’t be so damn touchy if he’d managed to sleep through the night. His foster cat and her brood had kept him up. Some of that insomnia was his fault, though, since he’d hauled his ass out of bed pretty much on the hour to check that everyone was still breathing.
He followed the directions on his phone to the address Clarissa had provided. Twenty minutes after he started out, he pulled into a winding driveway marked by a sign that had him doing a double take. The Dairy in Millbrook Dairy Farm and Riding Stables had been crossed out and replaced with Marry, and in the corner someone had painted a long-lashed Holstein wearing a wedding veil.
He shook his head and pressed on the accelerator.
The right side of the driveway was crowded with cars parked perpendicular to a fence that bordered a small paddock. Behind the paddock stretched an endless expanse of green that hosted the occasional cluster of fawn-colored cows, their noses buried in the grass. Vaughn counted three large barns to the left of the driveway. Straight ahead loomed the house, an elegant A-frame with a sunroom jutting off the side. Beyond the house and barns shimmered a thin strip of blue that had to be the lake.
Damn, it was pretty here.
As Vaughn stepped out of the cruiser, a group of people spilled out of the barn nearest the house. When they caught sight of Vaughn, they started talking.
“You seriously called the cops?”
“About time they got here.”
“You called 911? So help me, Larry, don’t you ever ask me to pick up your gout pills from the pharmacy again. You’re on your own, old man.”
“Since when did we get a new deputy?”
“Cute, isn’t he?”
Four women, a man and a pair of dogs made their way toward him. Three of the women were elderly. Two of them he knew. The Catlett sisters. What the hell did they have to do with this?
The man had to be in his nineties, and the fourth woman, a hot blonde leading the entire pack, looked to be around Vaughn’s age. She wore jeans and muck boots, and behind her trotted the two dogs, side by side, a chubby brown-and-black mix and a gray schnauzer. The dogs’ leashes trailed in the grass. Luckily neither dog seemed interested in taking a bite out of Vaughn.
The Catlett sisters and their friend, he wasn’t so sure. Hazel and June offered him brash smiles while the other lady simply stared at his chest.
When the tall blonde reached him, she held out a hand. “I’m Ivy Walker,” she said, voice friendly, expression curious. “Thank you for coming.”
“Deputy Fulton.” Vaughn started to put his hands on his hips, but his sleeves damn near cut off his circulation, so he let his arms fall to his sides. He nodded at the Catletts. “Ladies. What seems to be the trouble here?”
Ivy Walker’s eyes widened. “You know Hazel and June?”
The lady with the gelled gray hair and plastic T-bones hanging from her ears tapped him on the shoulder. “No offense, dear, but do you need a few laundry pointers?”
Vaughn blinked, and struggled to reconcile that baby-doll voice with its owner, whose shoulders were wider than his. Like Hazel and June, she looked to be in her seventies, but he bet she could kick some serious ass. He looked down at the material stretched across his chest and cleared his throat. “This is a loaner.”
June quirked her lips, which were the color of an avocado. “You’d be better off not wearing a shirt at all.”
Hazel raised a hand and waggled her purple-tipped fingers. “I’ll second that.”
The old man shouldered his way forward, scowling. “You said this calendar would be family-friendly.”
Hazel flapped a hand. “Considering the only photos we have of Mona are of her and Chance getting busy, that ship has sailed.”
Vaughn barely resisted the urge to slap a hand to his face. What the hell was going on here?
Ivy Walker sent him a pitying look and patted the old man’s shoulder. “He’s not here for the calendar, Mr. Katz. He’s here to help you.”
When the old man did nothing but stare and no one else moved, Vaughn clenched his teeth. “Does someone want to tell me where I can find Mona?”
The chorus started up again. Before Vaughn could holler for a time-out, Baby-doll Voice clapped her hands together. “Children, children,” she called out, and surprisingly everyone quieted.
Mooooooo. As a unit, they turned to stare at a sleepy-eyed Holstein that had ambled up to the paddock fence to check them out. The model for the sign out front? When the ladies all waved at the cow, Vaughn rubbed his face.
Shaking down gangbangers on the streets of Erie never looked so good.
Ivy Walker took charge of the introductions. “That’s Priscilla Mae,” she said proudly, and it took Vaughn a moment to realize she meant the cow. “Deputy Fulton, this is Audrey Tweedy—” she pointed at Baby-doll Voice “—and Larry Katz. And apparently you know Hazel and June Catlett.”
Larry Katz. He’d reported the assault. Vaughn pulled out his notebook. “Mr. Katz—”
The old guy frowned. “Any relation to Emerson Fulton?”
“He was my great-uncle.”
“My condolences, Deputy. Your uncle was a good man.” Katz tucked his phone into the pocket of a plaid shirt that looked a lot like one Uncle Em used to wear. “And now I know where to find you if you don’t take care of my Mona.”
Vaughn scratched his jaw. Did the old man realize his words constituted a threat? When Katz’s mouth adopted a Clint Eastwood curl, Vaughn had his answer. But at least they’d gotten around to discussing Mona. Who was she? Katz’s wife? His daughter?
