The Maverick

“Maverick,” she said through her teeth, remembering with a spurt of pain a time when he’d left her scared, alone and, as she’d soon learned, pregnant. She clenched her fist. The last of the coffee gushed from the cup in a hot brown waterfall.

Luke Salinger was back in Treetop, and the town would likely be the worse for it.

There was no question that Sophie’s stable life had just been turned upside down.

It was a minute before she came back to herself with a snap. Briskly she brushed at her stained uniform shirt, disgusted with her stricken reaction. One glimpse of Luke “Maverick” Salinger and her composure had cracked like the flimsy foam cup, releasing such a torrent of memory she’d been rendered mute and motionless. She would have to do better than that if she hoped to protect her family and hard-won reputation from the resurrection of the old scandal.

Nor could she continue to stand idly by while Luke flouted the speed limit. She was the only sheriff’s deputy on patrol this morning, and, speeding ticket aside, there were those fourteen-year-old charges of arson, vandalism and B & E still lingering on the books….

It was up to Sophie to apprehend Luke Salinger. She reached for her fallen keys. How ironic.

Kelsey Carson stepped out of the side door of the True Brew, her cheeks pink and glossy from the steam of the espresso machine. “Whoa. That was so cool,” she said. Her butter-blond ponytail swung as she scanned the empty street. “Who was he? I saw him zoom by from the kitchen window. Sweeet!”

Sophie straightened, keys in hand. Her law enforcement training demanded she give an impromptu lecture reminding the teenager that breaking the speed limit was dangerous, not cool. As she spoke, she couldn’t help remembering the days when she’d been as pretend-tough, rebellious and impressionable as sixteen-year-old Kelsey. She’d thought that Luke was as sweet as apple pie à la mode, and ten times as cool.

Kelsey wasn’t listening anyway. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. But who is that guy?”

Sophie grimaced. “I’m not sure, but I do know that he just broke the law.”

“Hmm.” Kelsey slid her hands into the pockets of her droopy camouflage pants and turned a measuring stare on Sophie. The gold ring that pierced her eyebrow winked in the sunshine. “He seemed familiar. Made me think of the photos of you and my dad and the rest of the Mustangs. From the old days.”

Sophie stiffened. If even Kelsey—who’d been a toddler at the time—could recognize the marauding motorcyclist for what he was, it wouldn’t be long before news of Maverick’s return hit Treetop like an earthquake. Old rumors would rumble. Under the pressure, Sophie’s good reputation would crack wide open. By the end of the day, the gossips would be in cataclysmic ecstasy.

“But he was too buff.” Kelsey frowned. “No way was he my dad’s age.”

“Well, don’t forget I’m nearly your dad’s age,” Sophie said, and Kelsey looked at her with blank incomprehension, making her feel every day of her thirty-one years. “Okay, I’ve got to go.” She handed the teenager the mangled cup.

Kelsey’s eyes sharpened. “Are you gonna arrest him?”

“We’ll see.” Sophie moved brusquely to her patrol car. She gunned the engine, the back tires spitting pebbles and dirt as the car sped out of the lot. From somewhere behind came Kelsey’s excited whoop as she ran back into the coffeehouse to spill the beans.

“Nuts.” Sophie buckled her seat belt one-handed, squinting into the sunshine splashed across the blacktop at the eastern end of Range Street. “Real smooth, Deputy Ryan.” She snatched her sunglasses off the visor, keeping to the speed limit until she reached the outskirts of town, where she stepped up the pace. The motorcycle was long gone, but it wouldn’t take much of an investigation to turn it up. She knew how Luke thought.

Or so she’d once believed.

Don’t think about it. She sandbagged the rush of returning images. You’re on the job. No time for Memory Lane.

She was fairly certain that if he’d just arrived in Treetop he wouldn’t head directly out to the family ranch, where his older brother, sister-in-law and grandmother, Mary Lucas—the matriarch who presided over the conjoined Lucas and Salinger families—still lived. Luke’s mother had died the year before he left; his father, Stephen Salinger, handled the family finances out of Laramie, the state’s capital city. After all this time, Luke’s welcome home might be as turbulent as Sophie’s churning emotions.

She swallowed, aware of a swiftly rising apprehension that had set her nerves on razor edge. Normally she was completely calm and levelheaded on duty, even in the few crisis situations she’d handled. It would be prudent to consider her emotional involvement in this particular case before charging forward like Colonel Custer at the Little Bighorn. The comparison was apt. Her history with Luke was nearly as devastating.

She cast a doubtful glance at the police radio, presently broadcasting the usual soothing static that meant there was nothing happening in Treetop that needed her attention. If she called into the station and requested aid—

Hell, no. Sophie tightened her fingers on the steering wheel, the highway smoothly unreeling beneath the patrol car’s tires. Sheriff Ed Warren would have a good belly laugh at her expense if it turned out that the renegade motorcyclist wasn’t Luke Salinger at all and she’d asked for backup to write a measly speeding citation. She got enough grief from her boss as it was without handing him further ammunition to question her competency.

Sophie gritted her teeth. She’d bring in Maverick on her own. Call it payoff.

The low-slung cedar roof of the Thunderhead Saloon caught her eye. She slammed on the brakes and spun the wheel, making a sloppy turn into the parking lot as the patrol car bumped on and off the crumbling curb. The saloon didn’t open till later, but the Thunderhead’s grill did a brisk morning business serving massive breakfasts of fried eggs, steak and short stacks to truckers and area ranchers. She’d likely find Punch—one of the former Mustangs—behind the griddle, flipping flapjacks and pinching the waitress’s bottoms. If he’d come this way, Luke might have stopped by to say hello.

Wagon wheels framed the walkway into the Thunderhead, the weathered spokes softened by the larkspur, oxeye daisies and purple asters that were among Theresa Fiorelli’s recent improvements to the family business. The interior was dark and masculine, but freshly scented with a lemony polish that had the wooden floors, walls and furnishings gleaming like the burnished hide of a bay quarter horse. More of Theresa’s handiwork. Before she’d swooped in with ideas about spiffy new decor, talent shows and karaoke nights, the business had been strictly utilitarian.

Sophie took off her sunglasses and went directly to the kitchen with a token wave at the bustling waitresses. Theresa was working the griddle, frowning in concentration as she poured precise dollops of batter in ruler-straight rows. She paused briefly to lift an eyebrow at Sophie. “Deputy.”

“Morning,” Sophie said, glancing around the immaculate kitchen. The stainless steel appliances shone like the chrome on Maverick’s bike. “Punch isn’t here?”

Theresa’s frown deepened. “You just missed him. Some hooligan in leather busted in—”

Sophie’s head snapped around.

“—and what with all the hollering and back-slapping you’d think this was a locker room.” Theresa wiped her hands on her apron, most of her attention focused on the problem of a malformed blueberry flapjack. She was a perfectionist who was still adjusting to her recent elevation from waitress to wife of the proprietor. “We’ve got six orders up and Punch decides to take a motorcycle ride, of all things.” The griddle sizzled as she scraped away the imperfect flapjack, pausing briefly to wave the gluey spatula at Sophie. “What is it with men, anyhow?”

“Darned if I know.” Sophie found herself grinning. “I live with two of ’em and don’t have a clue about how their brains work.”

“You tell it, sister,” said Ellen Molitor, a rangy, big-boned waitress with an incongruous snub nose. She dumped a tray full of dirty dishes near the sink with a clatter and ran a hand through her frazzled graying hair. The motion made the third button on her uniform blouse pop open. Ellen looked down into her meager cleavage and shrugged. “Tips,” she explained to Sophie with a wink. “They’re good for tips.” She chuckled. “Men, I mean.”

“Where’s your hair net?” Theresa’s voice was sharp.

“Lookee you.” Ellen grabbed an order of scrambled eggs and a slab of ham so big it hung off the edge of the plate and sashayed out of the kitchen, her flat behind swinging like a cow bell. “Miss Fancypants,” she shot over her shoulder.

Theresa sputtered.

“Which direction did they take?” Sophie asked hastily, not wanting to be caught up in kitchen politics. “Punch and Mav—er, this other guy?”

Biting her lip as she began carefully flipping the flapjacks, Theresa could do no more than bob her head in a vaguely easterly direction. When one of her perfect creations landed on another in a gloppy mess, Sophie slipped out of the kitchen before she took the blame.

Ellen waylaid her near the door. “Maverick’s back, you know, Soph.” She squeezed the deputy’s arm. “I thought I should warn you.”

“I know.” Sophie felt the need to blink. “I already saw him.”

“He still looks good. Real good.”

Sophie blinked again. Must be something in her eye. “He was going too fast for me to tell.”

Ellen peered beneath the brim of Sophie’s taupe trooper hat. They’d once worked together, sharing bad tips, sore feet and tales of woe. “You’re not carrying a torch, are you, hon?”

“Of course not!”

“You can admit it if you are.” Ellen rested the tray on her hip and patted the younger woman’s arm. “We’ve all been there. Even when a man’s no good, it’s awful hard to let go.”

No matter how many times Sophie blinked, moisture continued to well in her eyes. Damn that Maverick, she thought, trying to use the biker-gang nickname as a sobering slap in the face. She had to stay tough and mean, not surrender to misbegotten sentimentality. Think of Joey. Think of what sort of trouble Luke’s return could cause for your son.

“It’s been fourteen years, Ellie. My relationship with Luke was over long ago.” Sophie closed her eyes and swallowed. “Frankly, I’d hoped never to see him again.”

“If it were me, I might be sorta—” Ellen gave her shoulders a little wiggle “—excited that he was back. I reckon that man’s brand lasts a long time. Even longer than fourteen years.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Sophie said, although she knew very well that some brands were permanent. Defiantly she thrust up her naked ring finger. “I’ve never been branded, so to speak.”

“I wasn’t necessarily speaking of wedding rings.” Ignoring a customer’s call for more coffee, Ellen bent slightly to search Sophie’s eyes. The waitress must have seen something Sophie hadn’t wanted to reveal, because she nodded knowingly and said, “Yep, there are brands that last a whole lot longer than church vows.” She snorted. “And since I’ve been divorced twice, who’d know better ’n me? All the same, if my first love came around to visit, I believe I might give it another try. First love goes the deepest, doesn’t it?”