Support Your Local Sheriff

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“Do you mind if I use the town phone tree to spread the word?” Agnes tapped Julie’s shoulder with the back of her hand as if sharing a joke. “I’d like to say I’m pulling your leg, but we love gossip as much as we love our sheriff.” She gave Nate a fond smile. “Well, off to my meeting.” She joined Flynn and the mayor, but fiddled with her phone before engaging in conversation.

The phone tree. Julie had no idea what she was in for.

Nate felt compelled to warn her. “By midafternoon, everyone will know your name. But half the population will have gotten the story wrong. They’ll say I jilted you, and that Duke is our son.”

Our son. His gaze stuck on Julie’s gray eyes.

“I’ll gladly correct them.” Julie beamed.

She hadn’t smiled at him like that in years. A feeling long buried in his chest climbed into his throat. He didn’t have a word for that feeling. April had tried to call it love. But... Love for Julie? Love for her mercurial moods and her broad smile? For her dedication to her career, her need for justice and her bighearted, slightly naive view of the world? He appreciated all those things about her. He’d missed all those things about her. But love? If he truly loved her, how could he have lived without her for more than two years?

Arturo appeared with Duke’s sippy cup refill and three plates of food.

“Ooh.” Duke clapped his hands when he saw his pancake and eggs.

Arturo set Julie’s plate down last. “I had the kitchen add cinnamon glaze to your empanada.”

Julie’s eyes lit up. “Arturo, your wife is one lucky woman.”

“I’m not married.” Arturo clucked his tongue and gave her an appreciative once-over. “And neither are you.”

“She’s not interested,” Nate growled, feeling proprietary. He buttered Duke’s pancakes to keep from growling further at his friend.

“Who says I’m not interested?” Julie gave Arturo a calculated smile.

“This is why I’m single. Too many arguments.” Arturo laughed and moved to the next table.

“That’s not why he’s single.” Nate narrowed his eyes. “He thinks of himself as a ladies’ man.”

“The ladies love me,” Arturo tossed over his shoulder.

“Ladies over sixty-five,” Nate said, qualifying and loading his fork. “Ladies who tip well.”

Julie said nothing. Her attention had dropped to her plate. She’d never been much good at multitasking.

There was a lull in both conversation and argument while they dug into their food. Several minutes later, Duke was slowing down on his pancake, eating with his fingers and getting nearly as much in his mouth as on his face, hands and sweatshirt.

Julie was perking up. The empanada was nearly gone. Her coffee cup had been refilled again. But sugar and caffeine couldn’t erase the look of exhaustion on her face. She needed someone to care for her. Fat chance of her letting it be him.

Nate cleared his throat. “What was April’s criteria for my gaining custody?”

Julie pinned him with an intense gaze. “She called it the Daddy Test.”

Just hearing the name made him uneasy. “I take it April made the test up.”

“She did.” Julie nodded, a mix of superiority and satisfaction in her eyes. She didn’t expect him to pass.

The quickest way out of fatherhood was to fail. Little Duke was awesome and deserved a loving home with someone who knew how to provide it for him. Julie had already offered. She’d do an excellent job. So it made no sense that he said, “Your test won’t hold up in a court of law.”

“I know.” Color appeared in her cheeks. Arguing with him seemed to do that to her. “But I also know you won’t push the issue. We were friends once. You’ll wait to hear my evaluation.”

He shouldn’t. And he wouldn’t have. Except, the longer it took Julie to assess him, the longer she’d stay in Harmony Valley. Worst case, she’d have a chance to find some peace from the shooting. “If I agree, you have to stay for a month.”

She frowned. “I don’t have to agree to anything.”

“You can stay until the doctor clears you for duty.” He could make amends to April if he helped her get through this. Troubled and injured as she was, she couldn’t properly care for Duke or herself.

“The doctor will clear me for a desk job sooner if I pass my psych eval.” Her frown deepened to a scowl. She knew she wouldn’t pass anytime soon. “Besides, I can’t afford to stay here a month.”

“You could stay with me for free.” Before she made a decision, Nate’s phone chirped and vibrated.

In the distance, a siren split the spring air.

“I have to go.” Nate stood, hesitating as he looked down at his son, suddenly loathe to leave. He stroked Duke’s unruly black curls and said, “Be good.” And then Nate looked at Julie. “You, too.”

She scoffed.

Men and women of all ages were coming out of Martin’s and El Rosal. The volunteer firefighters were mobilizing, as were the lookie-loos. Nate needed to lead the pack, not trail behind.

“We’ll talk later,” he said to Julie, who looked like she was eager to join in on a good emergency call.

If it was excitement she was missing, she wouldn’t find it in Harmony Valley.

Nate checked his phone for the address, but it was just as easy to follow the volunteers and spectators up the switchbacks to the top of Parish Hill. Having arrived at a thinly graveled, rutted driveway belonging to a crotchety old man, some turned around when they saw the sign—Trespassers Will Be Shot. Rutgar wasn’t known for exaggeration.

Nate parked his truck along the two-lane road. He walked to the rear of the property with Gage, the town vet.

“What’s this I hear about you being a dad?” Gage wasn’t as tall as Nate, but they had the same long-legged stride.

Nate knew gossip in Harmony Valley traveled fast. But this was light speed. “Just found out he existed last night. He’s two.”

“That must have been a shock.” Gage spared Nate a searching glance. “And here I was telling Doc not to spread rumors.”

Nate fought the urge to smile, to preen, to high-five. Those were the responses of a proud and loving dad. Still, he wouldn’t lie about being a father. “Let Doc run with the news. It’s true.”

“Congratulations. I think I’ve still got some cigars from when Mae was born.” Gage slapped Nate soundly on the back. “While I’ve got you here... I’m still learning the emergency codes. What are we responding to? I don’t see smoke.”

“Injury.”

The closest thing they had to a doctor in town was Patti, a retired nurse practitioner. She was currently enjoying an Alaskan cruise. The first responders would stabilize and arrange transport to medical services in nearby Cloverdale, if necessary.

Nate and Gage reached the end of the driveway and a two-story house sitting on stilts. It was painted a dirty brown and surrounded by towering pines that had probably been saplings when it was built. The town’s fire engine was parked in front of the steps leading to the porch, where the home’s owner sat and howled his displeasure.

“No! The last time someone wanted me to be seen by a doctor, I spent days in the hospital.” Rutgar was a bear of a man, with gray-blond hair that swept past his shoulders and a long gray-blond beard that swept up dinner crumbs. His gaze roved around the gathered emergency workers. “Where’s Gage? He can look at my ankle.”

“Although you’re bullheaded, you aren’t a bull.” Gage wound his way through the crowd, followed by Nate, until they reached the two uniformed fire personnel. “And I prefer patients who don’t talk back.”

“What happened?” Nate asked Ben, the fire captain.

“Rutgar missed the top step, fell and slid to the bottom. Tried to catch himself with his foot on the post down here.” Ben turned his back to Rutgar and lowered his voice, although the gathered volunteers had no qualms closing ranks to hear better. “He needs an X-ray of his ankle. He says his head hurts and when Mandy tried to get him to stand, he vomited. He might have a concussion.”

“I’ll take him to the hospital,” Nate offered, despite wanting to get back to Julie and Duke.

“I can drive him.” Flynn joined them. “I know you’ve got things to do.” The new dad raised an eyebrow, daring Nate to contradict him.

Nate did nonetheless. “Are you sure? What about Becca and Ian?”

“How long can it take?” Flynn shrugged.

Hours, but Nate wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Rutgar was more demanding than a toddler in the terrible-two stage. “I’ll send folks back down the hill so you can get your truck in.”

Nate walked toward the road, stopping at each car to convey the basics—that Rutgar had fallen and needed nonemergency medical care. Slowly, cars began to wend their way back downhill.

A classic blue Cadillac convertible swung wide around the switchback, nearly driving the faded green Buick that carried the town council off the road.

Nate flagged down the Caddy driver, who nearly ran him over before stopping in the middle of Rutgar’s driveway. “Lilac, you aren’t supposed to be behind the wheel.”

Lilac blinked behind her large tortoiseshell sunglasses and flung the end of her maroon paisley scarf over one shoulder before answering coyly, “Is that you, Sheriff?”

“If you can’t tell it’s me,” Nate said stiffly, “you shouldn’t be driving.”

“Pfft.” Lilac waved a beringed hand. “No one has twenty-twenty vision anymore.”

“Just those who drive legally,” Nate muttered. And then he added in a loud voice in case Lilac hadn’t put in her hearing aids, “There’s nothing to see here. Go home and park your car in the driveway.” Where he could see it on his rounds and know she wasn’t being a menace on the roads.

Lilac lifted her nose in the air. “Doris says I should be able to drive wherever and whenever I want.”

Annoyance pounded in his temples and threatened to flatten what little patience he had left. “The agreement you made after nearly killing Chad Healy was you’d only drive in an emergency.”

“There’s an emergency here.” Lilac let her foot off the brake and the Caddy lurched forward.

“Stop!” Nate slapped a hand on a blue bubble fender. “They’re going to be taking Rutgar to the hospital any minute. I need the driveway free of vehicles.” He’d cleared it enough to get Flynn’s truck in a few minutes before her arrival.

Lilac pouted. “I didn’t even get to see.”

“There’s nothing to see.” And he doubted she could make out the details if she stood on Rutgar’s steps next to him. “Rutgar may have sprained an ankle. No blood. No bone.”

“How did he fall? And when? And...” She pursed her lips. “Never mind. I’ll find the juice in the phone tree.” She put the car in Reverse, and then stared up at him with renewed interest. “So you’re a father?”

“Yes.” He snapped, as if the fact annoyed him, when it was Lilac who’d gotten under his skin.

After helping Lilac make a ten-point turn, Nate returned to the house to help load Rutgar into Flynn’s truck. It took both Nate and Gage to get him moving with a shoulder under each arm. Even then, when the big man staggered, all three men nearly stumbled.

“Wait,” Rutgar said when Nate tried to shut the truck door.

“I found it!” Ben hurried down the front stairs carrying a small red pillow with a cupcake silk-screened on it. Not exactly what one expected a fireman to rescue.

“Don’t judge a man by his pillow.” Without opening his eyes, Rutgar tucked the pillow beneath his back. “Jessica gave me this.”

“Jessica, who owns Martin’s Bakery?” Nate asked with a straight face. “Recently married?” Forty years or so Rutgar’s junior.

“There’s no other Jessica in town,” Rutgar huffed. “Do you know how hard it is to find a good woman? And then Duffy beat me to the punch. You’ve got to be quick when you find The One.”

Nate thought about Julie. She’d make someone The Perfect One. She was the kind of woman you went slow with. Not that Nate planned on going for Julie at all.

Nate closed the truck door and watched Flynn drive away. Only then did he notice the shot-up cans on the fence posts. It looked like Rutgar was holding target practice. Nate hadn’t seen cans set up like that in a long time.

Dad had driven far on Nate’s eighth birthday.