The Sheriff of Shelter Valley

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She gave up even trying to keep them straight after Grandma described the fifth one. The woman seemed to run the entire town single-handedly.

With a little help from Becca Parsons, apparently. Little Bethany’s mother had been mentioned several times during Grandma’s dissertation. Beth had yet to meet the woman who was not only a prominent member of Shelter Valley’s city council, but wife to the president of Montford University, as well.

“So, you got the time?” Grandma asked.

“I do,” Beth said. She didn’t really, but she’d make time. She really needed to be putting away more for Ryan’s education than she was currently able to allot each month.

If she were anyone else, she could just hire an employee or two. But she wasn’t. She was Beth Allen, nonexistent person. While she was diligently figuring out her taxes and setting aside the money to pay them if she was ever free to do so, she couldn’t actually file. She didn’t even know her social security number.

“I don’t accept checks or credit cards,” she said.

“Smart woman.” Grandma nodded approvingly. “Cuts down on bank fees.”

“You want to do my house, too?” Greg asked. “I could—”

“Forget it, buddy,” Beth interrupted before she was somehow trapped, in front of the sheriff’s family, into doing something she knew would be far too dangerous.

Greg Richards was in her thoughts too much already. She didn’t need to see where or how he lived. Didn’t need to know where his bedroom was, what his sheets looked like.

Didn’t need to know if he kept his refrigerator clean. If it was empty. If he picked up his clothes and left open TV Guides lying around.

But Grandma Neilson’s house was a different matter. Beth had a feeling there was a lot she could learn from Keith’s resilient grandmother.

THERE WASN’T SEATING for everyone in the family room, with Grandma Neilson added to the Sunday party. Conscious of the fact that she was the one who didn’t belong in that house, Beth quickly pulled out the piano bench and sat down after dinner when they all trooped in to watch a movie on Bonnie and Keith’s new LCD flat screen TV.

“Afraid you might have to sit by me?” Greg whispered on his way to the couch.

It was only because he was carrying Katie, who would have overheard, that she refrained from calling him a name she wouldn’t have meant, anyway. But it sure would’ve been good to say it. To at least pretend she wasn’t aware of every move the man made.

If she didn’t get control of her reactions to Greg, she’d have to stop coming to Sunday dinner. She could not be influenced by the woman inside her who wanted to love and be loved. Too much was at stake.

“You know how to play that thing?” Grandma asked, settling herself in the armchair next to the piano. Her wrinkled face was alight with interest as her watery blue eyes rested on Beth.

“Maybe.”

A rush of tears caught Beth by surprise, she blinked them away and turned to face the keyboard. Lifting and pushing back the wooden cover with practiced ease, she wished so badly that she had a mother or grandmother of her own. Someone to love and comfort her, someone who’d counsel and watch over her… She wondered if she’d left either—or both—back home. Wherever home might be.

No, she decided. Surely if she’d had someone like Grandma Neilson to run to, she’d have done so. She certainly wouldn’t have awakened, badly bruised and alone, in that nondescript motel room. Registered under the name of Beth Allen but with nothing to prove who she really was.

Unless she did have a Grandma Neilson someplace, and she’d had to run to protect her, too?

The ivory and black keys did not look strange. Or feel strange, either, as she rested her fingers lightly upon them.

“You know how to play?” Bonnie asked, stopping beside the piano bench. “Keith’s parents bought that for us when Katie was born, but none of us play.”

“A little, I guess,” Beth said, confused. She caressed the smooth white keys with the pads of her fingers, comforted by their coolness.

And their familiarity?

Did she know how to play? Have lessons as a child?

“All I can play is chopsticks,” Keith said, standing beside his wife.

“Mama. Uh. Mama. Uh.” Ryan toddled over to the bench, both hands grabbing hold of it.

“You want to watch Mama play?” Greg asked. Handing Katie to Keith, he picked the boy up.