The Sheriff's Runaway Bride

“We bought him out six, seven years ago.”

“I was long gone by then. Zach Clayton, Deputy Sheriff.” He tipped his hat to the bride and smiled, displaying a single dimple.

Oh, my. Vincent was about to be dethroned as the best-looking Clayton around town. “Kylie Jones.”

“Kylie Jeanne Jones, if I’m not mistaken.”

She nodded, reaching up with both hands to pluck the combs from her hair and sweep off the veil. Her hair had been rolled up on both sides and pinned at the back of her head with a heart-shaped rhinestone clip, leaving the rest to hang down her back in spiral curls.

“Would you really have arrested me?”

“You and Vincent both,” he answered honestly. “If pressed to it.” Grinning, he added, “I think you’d have gotten off. Him too, probably. But the report would’ve gone into the papers just the same.”

“And you knew Vincent wouldn’t want that.”

The lawman nodded and said, “You found A.J. Wesson.”

“That’s right.”

“I’d like to talk to you about that.”

“Now?” Kylie asked, holding out her satin skirts.

“You seem to have something more important to do,” he conceded. “But soon. Next week for sure.”

Dropping her skirts, she sighed. “That’s fine.” She looked to her father, saying, “Right now, I guess one of us better get back to the church and tell everyone that the wedding is off.”

Gene patted his daughter’s shoulder. “I’ll see to it, honey, while you talk to your mother and sister in private.”

“Thank you, Dad.” Leaning in, she kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry about all this.”

“It’s just as well, if you ask me. Better to find out he’s unfaithful now than after you’d married him.”

Kylie nodded, suddenly weary despite the great sense of relief that swept over her. To think that she had very nearly married Vincent Clayton! She felt as if she’d just awakened from a long, confusing dream.

Lifting her skirts, she began making her way back across the grass, but then she remembered that the new deputy wanted to talk to her about how she’d found A.J. that day. She paused and glanced his way. He was one big, handsome man, all right—but he was also a Clayton, and all the Claytons with whom she had dealt had turned out to be trouble. Nevertheless, this one wore a badge.

“Our place is out on Waxwing Road,” she told him.

“I’ll be around.”

“Okay, then. Oh, and thank you.”

He doffed his cap. “My pleasure, Miss Jones.”

She turned to make her way back across the green. She didn’t relish what was to come, but the unspeakable relief that she felt told her that she was doing the right thing. Recalling that she’d recently asked God to settle her doubts for her, she had to smile. Like her mama always said, be careful what you ask for.

Stepping up into the tiny mudroom of the frame house on Bluebird Lane where he had grown up, Zach set down his luggage and hung his cap on a peg. The house had been closed for several years before his sister Brooke had moved in a few weeks earlier. Her silver Toyota Corolla sat beside his Jeep out in the drive, so presumably he’d find her at home and not next door with her fiancé, Gabe. Zach walked into the kitchen, where he paused beside the long, low, narrow island that served as the breakfast table. Five round-backed chairs flanked it on three sides.

At one time, there had been six.

Zach tilted his head, listening. The whir of a hair-dryer came to him from the vicinity of the bathroom off the hallway to his left. Grinning, Zach sauntered in that direction, calling out, “Honey, I’m home!”

The dryer shut off, clattering in the sink. He jumped back as the bathroom door burst open. He’d learned that trick the hard way as a kid when the sudden opening of the door had caught him square in the face and raised a bump the size of a goose egg on his forehead. He no longer had the goose egg, but it had engendered a family nickname that his sisters still used even now.

“Lump! You came!” Wearing a bathrobe over shorts and a tank top, she threw her arms around his neck.

“Hey, Gigglebot.” He returned the greeting by hugging her hard enough to lift her off her feet.

A swatch of her long blond hair clung damply to one side of her face, and she wore not a speck of cosmetics, but the happiness shining in her blue eyes made her utterly beautiful. Zach smiled.

Pulling back, she looked him over. “So you did it,” she said. “You took the job as deputy sheriff. Never thought I’d see it.”

Zach shrugged. “Timing was right.”

Miami had become untenable for Zach, then suddenly Linden Diggers had retired as deputy sheriff, leaving the satellite office in Clayton vacant. Given that, the absurd stipulation in his grandfather’s will, which required each heir to live a year in Clayton, and Vincent starting to stir up trouble again, Zach had decided to step into old Diggers’ boots for a while, just as his late grandfather had proposed. That the old man had been keeping tabs on him galled Zach, but George Sr.’s taped message to his grandson had proved that he had been well aware of all that had happened in Miami, though Zach had not shared that information with anyone in the family. What good would that do? What mattered now was helping his cousins claim their inheritances, five hundred acres and a quarter million dollars each.

“You caught me all a mess,” Brooke said, touching her hair self-consciously.

“I have never seen you looking better,” Zach told her sincerely. “You look … happy.”

She laughed, that tinkling giggle warming his heart all the way through. “I am.”

Zach smiled. Before their baby sister Lucy had died, at only two-and-a-half years of age, Brooke had run around the house laughing and singing all the time. Afterward, he’d had to tickle her to hear anything approximating that little girl giggle, but it had never been the same. She’d blamed herself for Lucy slipping out of the house and going to the creek. All these years later, he was beyond grateful to hear that happy, joyous sound again. It meant that she had forgiven herself at last.

“He must be quite a guy, this Gabe Wesson.”

“Oh, he is. I’m getting ready to go out to dinner with him and A.J. Why don’t you come with us? He’s anxious to meet you.”

I bet he is, Zach thought. Zach had called Gabe for a little man-to-man talk after he’d accused Brooke of being negligent in the disappearance of his young son, who Kylie Jones had found in Vincent’s backyard. Brooke had phoned Zach in tears. In full big-brother mode, Zach had rung up Gabe. Now Brooke and Gabe were engaged, and Zach was prepared to let bygones be bygones, provided Gabe was all he seemed.

“Just let me shower and change out of these clothes. Diggers left the office a mess, and I’ve been working on it all day.”

“Take Mama’s room. I cleaned it out for you. That way Viv and I won’t have to share when she gets here.”

If she gets here, Zach thought, but he didn’t bother saying as much. She would come or she wouldn’t. Same with Mei and Lucas. Still, Brooke had wisely made provision. She and Vivienne had shared a room as girls, but as women they obviously needed a measure of privacy, provided, of course, that Vivienne eventually showed up. But that worry could be left for later.

“I’ll be ready before you will,” Zach taunted, grinning.

“True!” Brooke laughed, spinning back into the bathroom.

Zach smiled to himself. It felt surprisingly good to be home.

Chapter Two

He’d known good times here, but tough ones, too, Zach told himself as he carried his luggage to his room, especially when it came to Lucy and his late father. George Jr. and his twin brother Vern, Zach’s uncle, had died in an auto accident when Zach was twenty, some five years after Lucy’s drowning. Zach’s mother, Marion, had followed only a few years ago. After her funeral, Zach had intended never to return here.

Now, at thirty, he was moving back into the old house. Temporarily. After the required year here, Zach had every intention of heading back to his real life, wherever that might be. He expected that his sister Vivienne and most of his cousins would do the same, especially Lucas, who couldn’t wait to get out of Clayton in the first place and hadn’t even returned for their grandfather’s funeral.