Lassoing the Deputy

Alma squared her shoulders. “Well, I’ve got work to do,” she told Cash stiffly. “So if you’ll excuse me—”

They sounded like two strangers who didn’t know how to end an awkward conversation, he thought. And that, too, was his fault.

Just like the Douglas murders were his fault.

“Sure. Sorry,” he apologized. “Didn’t mean to keep you from anything. Maybe we can get together later,” he suggested. If there was a note of hope in his voice, it had slipped out and attached itself to his words without his knowledge or blessings.

Alma’s voice was completely flat and without emotion as she echoed the word he’d used. “Maybe.”

When pigs fly, she added silently.

“Nice seeing you again, Alma,” Cash said by way of parting. “Really nice.”

And then he was gone.

Alma didn’t even look up.

“Well, that was awkward,” Larry announced the moment Cash was no longer in the office.

The last thing she wanted was to have a discussion about this—any of this—with Larry. She was fond of the man, but he had a gift for always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and she wasn’t in the mood to put up with that.

“Larry, I brought brownies in yesterday morning. Why don’t you go and stuff them into your mouth?” she suggested, accompanying her words with a spasmodic smile she didn’t mean. “They’re in the cupboard.”

“No, they’re not,” Larry told her matter-of-factly. There was a touch of sheepishness in his voice when he spoke. Alma eyed him suspiciously and he instantly confessed. “Hey, I was here after hours and I got hungry.”

“You ate them all?” she asked incredulously. Why wasn’t this man fat? Instead, he was as skinny as a rail. “There were sixteen brownies,” she emphasized. She’d brought them in for the others, but then she’d stopped at the diner to see Miss Joan, and Harry had told her about Cash. After that, things were a blur. She’d completely forgotten about the brownies until this moment.

“I know,” Larry answered. “I counted them. They were probably the best brownies I ever had. Thanks,” he added. He had the good grace to look contrite and embarrassed by his apparent gluttony.

“Larry—” She began to complain that he hadn’t left any for the others, but at this point, it was all moot. She just sighed.

“Don’t pick on him, Alma,” Joe said. He scooted his chair to Larry’s desk for a moment. Reaching over, he patted the other man’s stomach. “He’s a growing boy.”

Annoyed, Larry pushed his own chair back, away from Joe. “Cut it out,” he warned.

“All right, kids, knock it off,” Rick ordered, deliberately using the word kids despite the fact that he was only a couple of years older than any of them.

When he glanced at Alma, there was compassion in his eyes. He’d been raised by his grandmother and he’d protectively looked after his little sister during those years. He was more geared in to the workings of a female mind than the average male and he sympathized with what she was going through.

“You want some time off?” he asked her gently.

That caught her by surprise. “What?” Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

Crossing over to her desk, Rick turned so that while he faced her, his back was to Larry. He wanted to block the other deputy’s view. The office was a fishbowl, but he did what he could to give Alma some privacy.

“I know this is all kind of rough for you,” Rick told her.

“It would be,” she conceded, then said with feeling, “if I wasn’t over him, Sheriff. Really, I’m fine.” Rick had always been like another big brother to her. An understanding big brother who didn’t get off on teasing her the way her real brothers did on occasion. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do but it’s not necessary. I don’t need any kid-glove treatment. I’m the same person I’ve always been,” she assured him. “No need to walk on eggshells or tiptoe around me. Really,” she stressed.

“All right. If you want to stay on the job, look into this for me.” Taking a piece of paper out of his breast pocket, he placed it on her desk in front of her. “Sally Ronson just called, said that she saw the Winslow boys horsing around in the field beyond the high school. They were smoking.” There were two things wrong with that. “They’re underage and this is fire season. Get those cigarettes away from them and put the fear of God into them any way you see fit—just remember, we draw the line at flogging.”

He said it so seriously that for a second she actually thought that he was.

And then she saw the glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “Got you. No flogging.”

Joe, who listened unobtrusively to everything that went on in the sheriff’s office, looked up. “The Winslow boys?” Joe repeated, then asked, “Kyle and Ken?”

Rick nodded. “The very same.”

Joe shook his head. The two brothers were a rowdy handful.

“Good luck with that,” he told Alma. “Those two don’t have half a brain between them.” And then he raised his eyes to hers. “Want company?” he offered.

She knew what he was thinking. What all of them were probably thinking. That the sixteen-year-old twins were strong young bucks and she would need help getting them to listen to her.

“Thanks, but no,” she told Joe. “The day I can’t handle two snot-nosed teenage boys is the day I’m handing in my badge.”

Rick nodded, relieved that at least some of Alma’s fighting spirit was still intact. For a minute back there, when Cash had walked in, he’d had his doubts.

“Go get ’em, Deputy Rodriguez. And if they give you any lip,” he said, “bring them back here to me.” His eyes met hers. “Understood?”

“Understood,” she parroted. And then she smiled. “They won’t give me any trouble. Don’t go dusting off the jail cell just yet.”

After folding the paper the sheriff had given her, Alma tucked it into her back pocket. She did it as a formality. Everyone knew where the high school was and she was more than acquainted with the field he’d referred to. She and her brothers used to hang out there.

As had Cash, she remembered.

Even just thinking of his name made something twist deep in her belly. It would be a hell of a long two weeks.

Walking out, she silently blessed Rick. She was glad to leave the office on a pretext. Rick’s initial offer of letting her go home wouldn’t have been any good. She didn’t want to go home. Being alone with her thoughts right now was worse than being subjected to an afternoon laden with Larry’s jokes. She needed to keep busy, but being cooped up in the office with Larry unintentionally saying stupid things wasn’t conducive to having a tranquil afternoon, either.

She thought back to Joe’s offer to come with her. She actually wouldn’t have minded his company, but ever since he’d gotten married, he seemed to be slightly more talkative, slightly more prone to commenting on things. It used to be that he kept mostly to himself and spoke only when he had to. Right now, she would have preferred that version of Joe to the new, improved one. One that didn’t feel compelled to offer sympathy or comfort.

All she wanted to do was go on as if Cash Taylor was still on the West Coast. She didn’t want to talk about him or think about him.

Not exactly an easy matter, she realized a couple of moments later, given that his image popped up in her mind every second and a half.

That was because she was still in shock, she told herself. And why not? He’d come on like an apparition from her past, walking right into the middle of the sheriff’s office. Granted, Larry had propelled him into the room but that still didn’t negate the final effect.

Or the fact that her heart had stopped beating and then launched into triple time.

She hadn’t thought it was humanly possible for someone as good-looking as Cash to grow better looking over time, especially since she assumed that he had had a sedentary life since he’d left Forever.

But he had.

Those were muscles beneath his custom-made jacket. Firm muscles. They went well with his flat stomach and his taut hips.

As for his face, he seemed to have taken on a more chiseled look. Certainly his cheekbones had become prominent. All in all, it gave his profile a somewhat haunting look.