The Sheriff's 6-year-old Secret

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“I don’t have to tell you nothin’.”

Correcting his grammar never even entered her head. She was too overwhelmed by the injury his disrespectful tone of voice caused her.

“You’re not my boss,” he went on. “I’m old enough to come and go as I please.”

For several seconds Gwen was so shocked she couldn’t get her tongue to work. But then it loosened. Oh, boy! Did it ever loosen.

“You’re thirteen years old. I’m responsible for you. Besides that, we’re a family, Brian. I don’t go off without telling you where I am, what I’m doing, when I’ll be home. I think I deserve the same consideration from you.”

Had that loud and angry lecture really spewed from her throat? What must Nathan think of her? She felt as if her mind and her body were no longer her own. Frustration and impatience had taken her hostage.

“I’m not talkin’ about this!” Brian asserted hotly.

Refusing to meet her gaze, he shouldered his way around her, and Gwen was aware of the stench of cigarette smoke clinging to him. She opened her mouth to call him back, but Nathan’s hand on her shoulder quieted her.

“Let him go,” he quietly suggested.

The gentle pressure of his fingers calmed her, and that idea was comforting to her. Strange. Unexplainable. Definitely out of the ordinary for her. Yet comforting, nonetheless.

Brian’s bedroom door latch clicked closed.

“That boy is going to make me lose my mind,” she whispered.

She turned, her gaze falling on Nathan’s face for the first time since her brother had returned home. Instantly she remembered the churning heat that had surrounded them as he’d held her close, and awkwardness descended on her like a thick, immobilizing fog.

Nathan, on the other hand, didn’t seem the least bit discomfited.

“Continuing this conversation with him now will only escalate the argument,” he said. “At least you know he’s safe.”

Gwen sighed. That much was true.

“Now that I know he’s okay,” she quipped, “how many years would I spend in jail if I strangled him for making me worry so?”

He laughed out loud, and the sound of it broke the tension pent up inside her. She grinned.

“Raising kids these days is tough,” he allowed.

“You don’t know the half of it.”

He looked at her quizzically and she knew he wanted her to elaborate. But she didn’t know him well enough to be laying out her life story for him.

“Let me just say that my brother didn’t have very good role models in his life.” After a moment she softly added, “I just hope he’s not going down the wrong path.”

Nathan’s brow smoothed. “It looked to me as if he was acting just like any other rebellious teen would.”

Oh, if only she could be certain that was true. “You really think so?”

“I do.”

He offered her a half smile, and Gwen was struck with the notion that it was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen in her life.

He continued, “I’ll bet my last dollar that tomorrow morning, he’ll apologize for coming in late. You mark my words.”

His face brightened and he reached around to pull his wallet from his hip pocket.

“One of the first things I did when I came to the rez,” he told her, “was to start a single parents group. We meet at the Community Center.” He handed her a card. “You’re more than welcome to attend the meetings.”

She balked. “But I’m not Brian’s mother, I’m his sister—”

“Doesn’t matter,” he cut her off. “You said it yourself just a moment ago. You’re responsible for him. You’re raising him on your own.”

“Well…”

“Just think about it,” he said. “It’s good to have others to talk to.”

Silence tumbled down around them as they exchanged a long, silent look. The stiffness Gwen had felt before returned full force. She couldn’t keep her gaze on his face.

Her smile seemed plastic-coated. “Well, thank you for stopping by to check on us. I really appreciate it.”

“I’m the sheriff. Checking up on people is what I do.”

However, Gwen couldn’t help but identify the hope swelling in her heart that there was more to his presence here tonight than his merely doing his job.

After he’d said good-night and Gwen was alone in her small living room, she thought about all that had happened. That odd, breathtaking heat she’d felt when Nathan had held her against him. The way his touch had calmed her when she’d felt such frustration at her brother’s refusal to tell her where he’d been.

Nathan stirred something in her. Something amazing, something mysterious…

Then the stern, self-preserving voice in her head turned scolding. You don’t know Nathan Thunder. He’s a stranger. It’s terribly unwise for you to trust a man you don’t know.

She’d been hurt by men she’d loved in the past. Hurt beyond measure. Her father. Her stepfather. Men who hadn’t deserved the trust she’d so innocently placed in their hands.

It would be best for her to stay away from Nathan. He made her feel things she didn’t understand. He made her—

A thump from Brian’s room had Gwen blinking her way out of the foggy haze of her thoughts and looking down the hallway at her brother’s closed bedroom door. Apprehension crept over her. She loved her brother, but acting as Brian’s guardian often overwhelmed her. Sure she taught six-year-olds, but what did she know about raising a teen? And with Brian’s background, she had more than the normal teen problems with which to contend.

It sure would be nice to have somewhere to go for advice. Somewhere to turn for help.

It’s good to have others to talk to. Nathan’s words beamed through her muddled thoughts like a small ray of hope, warming and bright.

Trepidation rose inside her, snuffing out the warmth. Fear of trusting clawed at her. Nathan was a man, and she’d learned over the course of her life that it wasn’t judicious for women to rely on men. It just wasn’t. They’d fail you, again and again.

In the end, she tucked Nathan’s card in the letter box by the phone, firming her resolve. She didn’t need a man solving her problems. She could work them out herself. If she put her mind to it, she could.

Chapter Three

Gwen stood outside the Community Center the following Thursday evening, unable to deny the trepidation that congealed in her stomach like a lump of cold oatmeal. Would she be accepted by the other attendees once it was revealed that she was not a parent, but the sibling of the child she was responsible for? Maybe it wouldn’t make any difference, a calm voice silently crooned. But then she remembered just how judgmental people could be.

She’d told Nathan last week she wouldn’t come to the meeting. She’d told herself she could solve her own problems. So why had she hunted for the card he’d given her to discover the meeting details? Why had she walked across the reservation to the Community Center?

Her steps slowed until they stopped altogether.

As she tarried, refusing to face the honest-to-goodness truth, she couldn’t help but admire the year-old stone-and-wood structure. When Gwen had accepted the job as first-grade teacher here on Smoke Valley Reservation, she’d read all the books she could find on the Kolheek, its culture and its history. She’d been interested in the rez itself, too. The principal of the rez school, Mrs. Halley, was full-blooded Kolheek and had been happy to take Gwen on a tour. Mrs. Halley had explained how there hadn’t been an architect living at Smoke Valley when plans for the Community Center had been first brought up by the tribe’s Council of Elders. But a granddaughter of one of the Elders, a young woman living in the Midwest, was working as an architectural engineer, and she had eagerly agreed to travel to Vermont to design the new building.

The rock had been hewn right from the mountainside, the timber harvested from the thick forests of the reservation. When Gwen had entered the building for the first time, she remembered marveling at how the outside of the structure was circular, yet the meeting rooms inside gave the illusion of being square—or nearly so. Yet at the very center of the building was a huge, round auditorium, a platform at its core, a high, domed ceiling overhead.

There was no doubt that the Community Center was an impressive building. Mrs. Halley had boasted, as only a native of the rez could, about how inexpensively the tribe had built the structure, most of the materials having come from Kolheek land and all the decorations having been donated by local Native American artisans.