The Sheriff of Shelter Valley

“I’m off duty.”

“I’ve never seen you out of uniform.”

He hadn’t thought about that, but supposed she was right. He’d been on duty the Fourth of July. And just coming off duty each time he’d stopped in at Little Spirits. She hadn’t been there the afternoon he’d spent building the sandbox on the patio of the day care.

“You look different.”

Giving the dryer vent a tug, satisfied that it was securely in place, Greg moved down to the washer. “Good different?” he asked. The jeans were his favorite, washed so many times they were faded and malleable, just the way he liked them.

“Less…official.”

He screwed the washer tubing to the cold-water spigot. “So, you going to tell me where you’re from?”

“You going to tell me why you’re so nosy?”

“I’m a cop. It’s my job to be nosy.”

“I thought you were off duty.”

“Touché.” Leaning around the edge of the washer, he grinned at her.

Beth wasn’t grinning back. Her expression showed both anger and hurt. And defensiveness—again. She hugged Ryan closer, almost knocking the wrench out of the little guy’s hands, but the boy didn’t complain. He just held on tighter.

Ryan Allen was one of the quietest toddlers Greg had ever met.

“You think I’m some kind of threat to the people of Shelter Valley?” she asked.

“Of course not!” Greg would’ve laughed out loud if he wasn’t so surprised by the tension that had suddenly entered the room. “I’m interested, okay?” he said, eager to clarify himself before the evening dived into dismal failure. “As a guy, not as a cop.”

“Interested.” Her hold on the boy loosened, but not much.

“Yeah, you know, interested.” He went back to the job at hand, thinking it was probably his safest move. “Men do that,” he grunted. He could tell the water spigots hadn’t been used in a while. If ever. He was having one helluva time persuading the faucet to turn. “They get interested in women who attract them.”

“I attract you?”

An entirely different note had entered her voice. Though the sound of battle hadn’t left, he was no longer sure he was the target.

“I haven’t made that perfectly obvious by now?”

The room had gone too still. Greg glanced around the washer once more, half thinking he might find he was alone, and his gaze locked with Beth’s.

“I need to be more obvious?” he asked. He’d never worked so hard for a woman in his life. Not that he’d had that many. His life had taken unexpected turns, been filled with unexpected responsibilities, but when he’d wanted a woman, he hadn’t had to work at it.

“No,” she said, looking down. From his silent vantage point, Ryan stared up at her, as though following the conversation with interest. “I, um…guess—” her eyes returned to his “—you have to be looking to see the obvious, don’t you?”

“You’re trying to tell me you aren’t looking. Period.” He couldn’t deny his disappointment.

“No. Yes.” She set her son down. “I’m saying maybe I didn’t notice your, um, interest because I wasn’t looking.”

The woman challenged him at every turn—something he particularly liked about her—and yet she’d never, until that moment, been difficult to follow. Just difficult to get any information from.

Of course, she’d been hurt, was wary. Probably loath to risk letting anyone get close again. Greg could understand that. It had taken him a long time to open up after Shelby left.

“And now that I’ve pointed it out to you?”

“I know.”

“And?”

“I don’t know.” As Ryan toddled toward Greg to see what he was doing, Beth leaned over the washer. “How’s it going back there?”

Greg twisted the faucet again and it gave immediately. Probably because exasperation had added strength to his grip. “Good,” he told her. “Another five minutes and you can throw in your first load.”

“Can I have the wrench, Ryan?” he asked, surprised when he turned his head to see the little guy so close to him, staring him right in the eye. Without blinking, the boy handed over the wrench.

“He’s a man of few words,” Greg said to Beth.

“We’re working on that.”

With his only living relative in the day care business, Greg knew a lot about kids. “He’ll talk when he’s ready.”

“I hope so.”

Greg made one more adjustment. “Here you go, little bud,” he said, handing the wrench back to Beth’s son. “You want to drop that in the toolbox for me?”

Ryan put the tool down on top of the hammer.

“I’ll bet he has more to say when it’s just the two of you,” he said as he slid the appliances in place against the wall.

“Not really.”

She sounded worried. Greg figured it had to be hard for her, a single mother—all alone in the world, as far as he could tell. She had no one to share the worries and heartaches with, to calm the fears, to share the mammoth responsibility of child-rearing.

More than ever, he wanted to change that.

If she’d let him.

“Did you get to the Mathers’?” she asked as he packed up his toolbox.

Greg nodded. It had been just as difficult as he’d expected.

“Bad news?”

“A sheriff rarely gets to deliver good news.”

“Clara told me they lost a daughter.”

Resting a foot on his toolbox, Greg leaned his forearm on his leg. “It’s been almost twenty years,” he told her, nowhere near ready to leave. Ryan was sitting on the floor a few feet away, a toy on his lap, pulled from a neat stack of colorful objects in the bottom drawer of the end table. The boy was obviously occupied, but Greg lowered his voice, anyway. “She and some friends were in a boat on Canyon Lake. They hit a rock. She was thrown and ended up underneath the boat.”