Montana Sheriff

And then he made the mistake of looking directly at her again.

Cole could almost feel her getting under his skin, shaking his world down to its foundations. Just the way she always used to. Searching for some way to distract himself, he asked, “When did you get in?”

What went unsaid was that he was surprised that he hadn’t heard about her arrival. Redemption was a small town and most information became general knowledge within the space of a few hours. Usually less.

“Late last night. My father didn’t even let me know about the accident until just two days ago.” When she’d received the call from her father, she’d known, the moment she heard his voice, that something was terribly, terribly wrong. She vaguely remembered sinking onto the sofa, both hands wrapped around the receiver to keep it from dropping to the floor as she listened to her father tell her about the accident.

He told her about Wayne being in a coma. The moment she’d hung up, she’d galvanized into action. Calling the company where she worked, she cited a family emergency and put in for a leave of absence. Then, packing up everything she thought she would need, she’d strapped Christopher into his car seat and then drove straight from Seattle to Redemption, covering close to six hundred miles in just a little over nine hours.

She’d been too wired to be exhausted until after she’d put Christopher to bed and talked at length to her father who was surprised that she’d driven all the way to Montana to see them.

Ronnie shook her head as remnants of disbelief still clung to her. “A whole two weeks and he didn’t think to call me.” She and her father were closer than this. Or at least she’d thought they were. Now it felt as if she didn’t know anything.

“You know your dad,” Cole told her. “He’s a stubborn son of a gun. Doesn’t want help from anyone.” He looked at her pointedly. “Not even you.”

For a split second, some of the hurt, the anger and especially the fear she’d been harboring since she’d received the phone call—harboring and trying to deal with—surfaced and flashed in her eyes.

“I’m not anyone,” Ronnie retorted. “I’m his daughter,” she emphasized, then struggled to get her temper, her feelings under control. “I’m his family,” she said in a softer, but no less emphatic voice. “He’s supposed to call me when something like this happens. I’m not supposed to learn that he and Wayne were nearly killed because I just happened to call to ask him what he wanted for his birthday.”

He could see why she was upset, but he was having trouble dealing with his own issues, his own hurt feelings, so it was difficult for him to be sympathetic about what she’d gone through.

“Yeah, well, maybe Amos lost that page in the father’s handbook for a while.” And then he told her something he wasn’t sure she was aware of. “Your father’s been busy beating himself up because he was the one behind the wheel, driving the truck, and he feels responsible for what happened to Wayne.”

Cole saw her clench her hand into a fist at her side. He could all but see the tension dancing through her. “Wayne’s going to be all right,” she declared stubbornly. “I called Wayne’s attending surgeon as soon as I got off the phone with my father. Dr. Nichols said all my brother’s reflexes seem to be in working order and that sometimes a coma is just the body’s way of trying to focus on doing nothing but healing itself.”

Cole saw no reason to contradict her or point out that a lot of people never woke up from a coma. She was dealing with enough as it was. Besides, what she thought or felt was no longer any concern of his outside the realm of her being a citizen of Redemption—or a former citizen of Redemption, he amended.

“Have you been to see your brother yet?” he asked as they walked past his truck.

“No. Not yet. But I’m going this afternoon,” she added quickly. She’d wanted to go the second she’d arrived in Montana, but there was more than just herself to take into account. She had Christopher to take care of. No one had ever told her, all those years ago when she had so desperately longed to become an adult, that being a mother required so much patience. “I wanted to get a couple of things squared away for my dad first,” she added.

Ronnie took a deep breath, debating whether or not to continue. The easy thing would be to terminate the conversation here. But in all good conscience she couldn’t ignore the particulars that had been involved in the aftermath of the accident.

She approached the topic cautiously. “Dad said that you were the first one on the scene after the accident.”

His expression gave nothing away, neither telling her to drop the subject nor to pursue it. “I was,” he acknowledged.

He said it without any fanfare. How very typical of Cole just to leave the statement there, she couldn’t help thinking. Another man would have thumped his chest. At the very least, he would have basked in the heroism of what he’d done, risking his very life in order to save someone else.

But this was Cole. Cole, who stoically did what he did and then just went on as if nothing out of the ordinary had taken place. Cole, who wanted no thanks, no elaborate show of gratitude, no real attention brought to him.

But she couldn’t let it go. She had to thank him, to give him credit where credit was so richly deserved.

If not for Cole, the only family she’d have at this very moment would be a five-year-old.

“He also said that if it wasn’t for you practically lifting the cab of the truck single-handedly and dragging Wayne out of the mangled vehicle, my brother—” her throat went dry as she pushed on “—would have been burned to death when that old truck of Dad’s suddenly caught fire.”

Again, Cole shrugged. And this time, he looked away. He found it easier to talk if he wasn’t looking at her face. Wasn’t fighting off feelings that were supposed to be dead by now.

“I didn’t do anything that anyone else wouldn’t do,” he told her.

“Maybe so,” Ronnie allowed, even though she sincerely doubted that many men would have rushed in to do what he’d done when faced with the definite possibility of their own death. Good people though they were in Redemption, not everyone was that brave or that selfless. “But I still want to thank you for saving my brother’s life. And saving my dad.”

Cole shoved his hands into his back pockets and stared at leaves chasing one another in a circle along the street.

“Just part of the job,” he told her.

They’d stopped walking and were standing before what, in his estimation, was undoubtedly a very expensive and utterly impractical vehicle. It was a late-model black sedan, a Mercedes, far more suited to a metropolitan area than a town that still shared its streets with horses from the surrounding ranches on occasion.

She had changed, he thought. The old Ronnie would have been the first to point out how impractical and out of place a car like that was. Was she trying to impress him and show him how very successful she’d become in her new life?

He didn’t measure success the same way she did. Something else they didn’t have in common anymore, he thought.

“You renting that?” he asked her, curious. If so, she had to have gotten it somewhere other than in Redemption. The town’s one rental agency was run by the town car mechanic and he sincerely doubted that Hank Wilson had a car like that in his possession.

“No, it’s mine,” she told him. She suddenly felt self-conscious about owning the car and told herself she was being needlessly uncomfortable. The car was reliable and she liked it. That it was also out of place here wasn’t her concern. She wasn’t about to feel guilty because she’d made something of herself. “I had a few things to bring with me,” she went on to explain, “so I drove here.”

She saw his mouth curve ever so slightly. There was a hint of a smile on his lips that she couldn’t begin to fathom.

It was official, Ronnie decided. She was on the outside, looking in. And it was by her own design.

So why did it feel so lousy?

Chapter Three

“You drove here,” Cole said, repeating what she had just stated.

“Yes.”

Ronnie said she’d just learned about the accident two days ago. That meant she had to have left almost immediately after that. No matter what else she was, the woman still had the ability to amaze him.

“All, what? Six, seven hundred miles from Seattle to here?” he asked.

“Five hundred and ninety three,” Ronnie corrected tersely.

“Oh, five hundred and ninety three,” he echoed, as if enlightened. “Big difference. And I suppose that you drove straight through.”

The tone of his voice hadn’t changed, but she could swear he was mocking her. Ronnie raised her chin, bracing herself. Waiting for a challenge or a careless statement tossed her way, which would, to her, amount to fighting words. “Yes, I did.”

Cole’s eyes held hers, as if he was looking directly into her head. “No breaks?”

Of course there had been breaks. She wasn’t a robot. Besides, she hadn’t taken the trip alone. But then, he didn’t know that, she reminded herself.

“Well, I had to stop to eat a couple of times,” she told him, then decided she wanted to know what he was up to. “Why?”

“No reason,” he said a tad too innocently. “Just guess some things never change.” Ronnie had been stubborn as a kid and she was still just as stubborn now. Maybe even more so.

Don’t go all nostalgic on her now, Cole warned himself. So she drove like a maniac to get to her father. This doesn’t change the fact that she didn’t even try to get in contact with you to say she was sorry. Hell, she’s not even saying it now. Time to give up on this and move on with your life.