The Lawman's Nanny Op

No wonder he couldn’t get Portia out of his head.

She was the least of his worries. Despite the fact that they shared the same town, he rarely saw her.

Still, there had been a moment yesterday when she’d first stepped into the office when his heart had done a little dance in his chest.

“Indigestion,” he muttered as he pulled up in front of the two-story brick building that was his home away from home. Surely that was all that he’d felt when he’d seen Portia.

It was only a few minutes before seven in the morning but already the sun was warm on his shoulders as he got out of the car.

“Good morning, Sam,” he said as he entered the office.

Deputy Sam McCain gave him a sleepy smile and raised his coffee cup in greeting. “Coffee’s fresh and I brought in some homemade cinnamon rolls that Loretta baked this morning.”

“You’re a lucky man, Sam,” Caleb said. “Not only is your wife gorgeous, but she cooks, as well.”

Sam’s teeth flashed white against his cocoa-colored face as he grinned. “You stay away from my Loretta. You with your legendary charm might turn her head.”

Caleb laughed. “You know I save my charm for the single women in town. Besides, for reasons I can’t understand, Loretta seems to be madly, crazy in love with you.”

Sam chuckled. “Yeah, I can’t explain it, either.”

At that moment the phone rang and Sam answered. Instantly his broad forehead creased in a frown. “Okay, all right. We’ll get somebody right over there.”

He hung up the phone and looked at Caleb. “That was Portia Perez. Somebody broke into her day-care center last night.”

“I’ll go,” Caleb said. “First those flyers and now this. I wonder what’s going on?”

Minutes later he was in his car and headed to Portia’s place. She lived on the north edge of town, not far from the house where she had spent her childhood.

Caleb had spent many nights of his high school years visiting Portia and her mother. In fact, he and Portia had been inseparable all through high school.

On warm summer nights he’d sat on the porch swing with Portia and they’d talked about their future together, made plans for a lifetime of happiness. They’d been best friends, and on the night of their senior prom they had become lovers.

He thought of the dream of her he’d had the night before. It had been hot and wild and when he’d finally awakened he had imagined he could smell the scent of her still lingering in the sheets, on his skin.

Crazy, he thought. Crazy that after all these years she should invade his dreams. And just as crazy that the thought of her could still bring the taste of bitterness to the back of his throat.

Her house was a small ranch, painted the color of cinnamon and with gingerbread trim in beige that gave it a fairy-tale look. Colorful flowers lined the sidewalk leading up to the front door and baskets hanging from the porch ceiling spilled blossoms of red and purple.

He turned in to her driveway and followed it to the detached garage where he knew her day-care facility was housed.

As he pulled up he noticed several things. Melody Markfield, Portia’s assistant, was in a fenced play area next to the building with several toddlers, and Portia stood at the front door, her face unusually pale in the early-morning sunshine.

He parked the car and as he opened his door to get out, she approached him. He couldn’t help but notice the way the sun sparked on her copper-colored hair and that her legs beneath her denim shorts were just as shapely as they’d been when she’d been a cheerleader in high school.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Somebody broke in.” Her voice trembled slightly and her hazel eyes appeared larger than usual. Her chin tilted upward. “And if you tell me this is a civil matter I might just punch you in the stomach.”

“Let’s take a look inside,” Caleb said. As he walked toward the door of the building he was conscious of her just behind him. The floral scent of her perfume eddied in the air and reminded him of his dream of her.

But all thoughts of dreams fled from his head the moment he stepped into the day care. Destruction and vandalism were everywhere.

The mattresses on two of the cribs had been slashed and the stuffing pulled out. Books had been thrown from shelves and toys had been smashed and littered the floor in colorful plastic shards.

“Not civil, definitely criminal,” Caleb murmured as he walked around the room and tried to take it all in.

He checked all the windows looking for a point of entry and finally found it in the small bathroom. The window had been broken inward and pieces of glass glittered on the floor in the sunlight.

He left the bathroom and returned to the main room. A laptop computer sat on the adult-size desk in the corner, along with a stereo system, letting him know that robbery hadn’t been the intent.

It was a malicious crime scene. Whoever had broken in had been hell-bent on causing damage and nothing else. Who would have done this and why?

He turned to look at Portia, who leaned against one wall with her arms wrapped around her waist. Her eyes held the hollow look of someone who had taken a hard hit to the head and wasn’t quite sure where she was or how she had gotten there.

“When was the last time you were out here?” he asked.

She raised a hand to her temple, as if she had a headache. “Last night. I came in around six to make sure everything was ready for this morning and then I went back into the house.” Her voice still held a faint tremor.

“And you didn’t hear anything out here?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Do you have any idea who might be responsible for this? Have you had a fight with somebody? Maybe one of the parents of one of the kids?”

She shook her head again, this time more forcefully. “No, nothing like that. Layla asked me the same thing Saturday morning when I found those flyers, but I can’t imagine who might do something like this.”

Caleb pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “I’ll get some of the boys over here to fingerprint the area around the broken window in the bathroom. Maybe they can lift some prints that will let us know who’s responsible.”

“I hope so,” she said. He turned his back to make the call and then when he had finished turned back around to face her. She looked small, and tears brimmed in her eyes.

He wanted to reach out to her, to take her in his arms and soothe the tears away, but he knew better. He knew he was the last man she’d want to hold her for any reason.

She wrapped her arms around her middle once again, as if trying to warm an insidious chill. “I know it sounds crazy, but I have this awful feeling that this is just the beginning.”

“The beginning of what?” he asked.

“Something terrible,” she replied, her voice a mere whisper.

Chapter 2

It was just after nine when the deputies Caleb had called in finished up what little they had been able to do. There had been no fingerprints around the window, although they’d found a black thread stuck on one of the shards of glass, a thread they assumed was from whatever the intruder had been wearing when he’d broken in.

Portia knew there was no way they’d be able to figure out who had smashed the window and crawled inside by a single thread of cotton.

As Caleb walked with the other men out of the day care, she looked around the room and wanted to weep. She’d worked so hard to make this a place of fun and love for the little ones who were in her care, and now it was all nothing but a big mess.

Melody had all the kids outside in the play area, but she needed to get them inside before the sun grew too hot and at the moment this was no place to bring children.