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Sarah And The Sheriff
Allison Leigh


The Hero Returns…And for Sarah Clay, that was bad news – because Max Scalise had rejected her seven years ago. And now Max was back in town, working as a sheriff and everywhere she turned. His slightest touch still caused her traitorous body to quake, but Sarah could keep her cool. Couldn’t she? When it came to Sarah, Max felt the same as ever. But he’d returned home to find that eyes that had once gazed at him with such trust now turned away. Still, he was a wiser man now…a man determined to win back her love. Even if it meant telling secrets that weren’t his to reveal…







“I’m your first lover, Sarah.”

She tossed back her head, pride stiffening her resolve. “Do you really think you’ve been such a…a monument in my life, after just those few weeks we were involved? I could have had dozens of lovers since you. Ones that I tossed aside as easily as you did me.”

“There was no tossing and it sure as hell wasn’t easy.” Max’s brooding gaze met hers. “And I don’t think there have been dozens.” His voice was soft. Impossibly gentle.

“Go to hell.”

“Been there.” He looked pained and his fingers, when they touched her cheek, weren’t steady.

Or maybe that was just because she was shaking. From head to toe.

“You were the one I loved, Sarah.” His fingers smoothed down her cheek. Traced her jaw. “That was never a lie.”

He closed the last few inches between them, covering her mouth with his.



Dear Reader,

I think there is nothing better than a happy ending. The guy gets the girl, and all is right with the world. The bad guy gets caught, and justice is served. The personal struggle is overcome, and the character we’ve come to care about moves on, somehow stronger in the process.

The hard part, as a writer, is that it’s not very interesting if we just magically “arrive” at the happy ending. We can’t get to that point without having to experience all the problems beforehand, can’t fully appreciate the high moments without also having a brush with the low times.

Sarah Clay has yet to learn that those low moments are all a part of her life’s path, and to accept the fact that for her, the highest moments will only come when she opens her heart again. But, as we all know, opening one’s heart to another person can truly be one of the most difficult things to do in life. This is Sarah’s struggle with Max, and it’s also Max’s struggle with his past.

Thank you for joining Sarah and Max and me as we all, once again, visit Weaver to share in a journey to another happy ending.

Sincerely,

Allison Leigh




Sarah and the Sheriff


Allison Leigh








www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


For my parents, who’ve celebrated more

than forty-nine years together.

You are my inspiration.




Prologue


She hadn’t thought things could get any worse.

Twenty-one years old.

Pregnant with no husband in the wings. No fiancе, of course. And a boyfriend? Oh, please.

Sarah wanted to laugh over that one, and might have if she hadn’t felt so horrible.

Laughing might have drawn attention to herself, anyway. And attention was the last thing she wanted, considering she was practically hiding in the thick of an oleander bush that was as tall as she was.

She brushed at the pink blossoms tickling her arm, shifting her position. The bride was handing off her spray of deep red roses to her attendant and Sarah nearly jumped out of her skin when a voice spoke behind her.

“I love weddings.”

She looked at the small, wizened woman who’d toddled up beside her. If she’d noticed anything odd about Sarah’s position, virtually hiding in a bush, she said nothing. “Don’t you, dear?”

Feeling stupid—nothing new there, either—Sarah managed a shrug and a noncommittal smile.

Again, the woman didn’t seem to take any notice. She just peered around the bushes of the Malibu garden in which they stood, toward the bridal couple standing about fifty yards away. “They have weddings at this spot pretty regularly. I can certainly understand why, though, with the Pacific Ocean in the background and the garden here. It’s a lovely setting.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Of course, in my day—” the woman’s voice dropped, confidentially “—choosing to get married out of doors usually meant the bride was going to be having an early baby. Premature, but not really premature.” Her face wrinkled even more as she continued her study. “Times are different nowadays. And the bride obviously has already had her baby. Looks like a tiny mite, being held like that against the daddy’s shoulder. Wonder if it is a boy or a girl?”

Sarah couldn’t manage even a shrug. “Boy.” The word felt raw against her throat. The reality of that boy baby had felt raw in her soul since she’d learned of his existence a few weeks earlier. “And not so tiny. He’s nearly nine months old already.”

“Really? You know the couple? Why aren’t you sitting with the rest of the guests?”

Sarah wished she’d kept quiet. “I didn’t expect to make the wedding,” she murmured.

“Are you a friend of the bride or the groom?”

“Groom,” she said. “Acquaintances.” Which was a lie.

One didn’t make love with acquaintances.

They didn’t fool themselves into thinking they loved an acquaintance.

The explanation was good enough for the woman, though. “Ahh. Well, that baby will probably grow up as handsome as his daddy there,” the woman mused. “My husband was tall and dark like that. Italian.” Her wrinkles deepened again with a surprisingly impish smile. “Passionate.”

Sarah forced her lips to curve.

“Bride’s gown is pretty, too. Nothing I’d want to see my granddaughter wearing, mind you, but still pretty.”

The gown was pretty. Sophisticated. Sleeveless and reaching just past her knees. It wasn’t even white, but a sort of pinkish oyster-like hue that seemed to reflect the glow of the sun as it hung on the horizon over the ocean.

“What do you do, dear?”

Sarah swallowed. “I’m an intern at the L.A. office of Frowley-Hughes.”

The woman looked blank.

“It’s a brokerage firm.”

“Ahh. Financial stuff.” Seemingly satisfied, the woman turned her focus back to the wedding party. “I taught school. Until my own children started coming along.”

Sarah managed not to press her hand against her abdomen. She knew it was still flat beneath her T-shirt and jeans, but she was painfully aware that state would end soon enough. “How many did you have?”

“Four. And now I have eleven grandchildren. They’re scattered all over, though. Don’t come out to see their old grandma here in California too often.”

Sarah felt a swift longing. “My family is mostly in Wyoming.”

“Long way from here.”

“Yes.” Her gaze settled on the groom once more. “A long way.”

“Maybe someday you’ll have a beachside wedding. You’d be a beautiful bride. Such wonderful long hair you have.”

Sarah’s throat tightened. The memory of his hands tangling in her hair taunted her. “Thank you. But I don’t have any plans to get married.”

The woman smiled and waved her hand. “Forgive me, but you’re just young. You wait. You’ll want a husband and children at some point. I can tell. Oh, look.” She nodded toward the wedding party again. “They’re doing the rings now. Such a beautiful couple,” she said again, her voice a satisfied sigh.

The bride did look beautiful.

The groom did look handsome.

And the baby—well, the baby was a baby. Sarah couldn’t blame a baby.

She couldn’t blame that lovely bride, either.

But the groom?

Oh, she could certainly blame him, all right.

But the person she blamed the most?

That would be herself.

She turned away, pushing the oleander branches out of her way, being careful not to let them snap back and hit the other woman.

“Don’t you want to watch the rest of the wedding?”

Sarah shook her head gently. “No. I’ve seen enough.”

More than enough.

Only problem was, she’d seen it all too late. Much too late.

And though Sarah had thought things couldn’t get any worse, it was only a matter of months before she learned that they could.


Chapter One

The first time Sarah saw the name on her class roster, she felt shock unlike anything she’d felt in years roll through her.

Elijah Scalise.

Not that daunting of a name, really. It surely suited the dark-haired eight-year-old boy who’d soon be joining her third-grade class. She had made a point of not looking at the boy’s picture, even though she was perfectly aware that there was one. It was framed in a plain gold frame that sat on his grandmother’s desk in the classroom right next to Sarah’s classroom. Genna Scalise often talked about her grandson, Eli.

Sarah hadn’t expected to ever be the boy’s teacher, though.

She set aside the roster on her desk and went to the window that overlooked the playground. Frost still clung to the exterior corners and she could feel the coolness of the pane radiating from it. Outside, the bell hadn’t yet rung and children were clambering over the swings and jungle gym. Winter scarves flew in the breeze and boots crunched over the crispy skiff of snow scattered across the playground.

Despite the cold, they were enjoying the last few minutes of freedom before they had to settle down into their seats. Until they broke for recess in a few hours, that was.

Nothing like feeling carefree.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt as carefree as they looked.

Which wasn’t strictly true. She could probably pick the exact date on the calendar when she’d stopped feeling carefree.

Her gaze slid to the class roster.

“So, why didn’t you tell me the news?” The chipper female voice drew her attention to the doorway of her classroom.

“Hey, Dee. What news?”

“About the new deputy.” Deirdre Crowder was the sixth-grade teacher and at five-foot-nothing, she was about as big as a minute. Her blue eyes were mischievous. “He works for your uncle, girl, but you could have shared the wealth. A new, single man suddenly in town and all that. If it were the week before Christmas rather than Thanksgiving, I’d consider him to be our very own Christmas present!”

Sarah now had years of practice under her belt at keeping her true thoughts to herself. “Go for it,” she said with a smile. “He’s my new student’s father. And you know I don’t get involved with my kids’ fathers.”

Dee’s eyebrows lifted as she sauntered into the room. Her shoulder-length blond hair seemed to crackle with the energy that kept it curled in loose ringlets. “I may have only come to Weaver a year ago, but as far as I can tell, you don’t get involved with anyone. What’s with you?” She joined Sarah at the window. “If I had your looks I’d be dating every available man in town.”

“There is nothing wrong with your looks,” Sarah countered. She’d heard Dee’s opinion plenty in the months since school had begun in August. “Deputy Tommy Potter thinks they’re about perfect.”

“Oh, Tommy.” Dee shook her head, dismissively. “Unless he was going to arrest me for something, or wants to spread a little gossip, that boy moves about as slow as molasses in winter. He has no gumption.” She pushed up the sleeves of her bright red sweater and pointed out the window. “Since it might as well be winter, with all that snow on the ground, you can just imagine the snail’s pace I’m talking about.”

Sarah’s lips curved. “You’re the one who moved to a small town, Dee. Could have stayed in Cheyenne where the pickings were more varied.”

Dee pressed her nose against the cold windowpane, looking not much older than the children playing outside. “Have you met him? The new deputy, I mean? I heard he comes from Weaver.”

If Sarah hadn’t been prepared to see that name on her class roster, she definitely wasn’t prepared to discuss her new student’s father. “He left Weaver a long time ago.”

“Yeah, but you did know him, right? Most everyone in Weaver seems to know everyone else.”

“Maybe by sight,” Sarah allowed. Though the Clay family had its history with the Scalise family—history that had nothing to do with her experience with him. “Talk to Genna,” she suggested. “She’s his mother. She could tell you everything you ever wanted to know about Max.”

Her throat tightened.

Max.

At the mention of Genna, the most senior teacher at Weaver Elementary, Dee turned her back on the window. “How’s she healing up, anyway?”

“Fine, last I heard.” Sarah felt a little guilty that she didn’t know more. That she hadn’t made a more concerted effort to visit Genna herself. After all, they were coworkers and had been since Sarah began teaching at Weaver Elementary nearly six years ago. Genna was a friend of her mother’s. Her aunts!

“What was she doing skiing at her age, anyway? It’s no wonder she broke some bones.”

“Anyone can have a skiing accident, even someone who’s barely twenty-five,” Sarah said pointedly.

Dee grinned impishly and rolled her eyes. But Sarah was spared her comment when the bell rang, sharp and shrill.

“To the salt mine,” Dee said, heading for the classroom door. “Want to head over to Classic Charms one night this week? See if Tara’s got anything new in?”

Sarah nodded. The children outside had scattered like leaves on the wind when the bell rang, and now she could hear footsteps ringing on the tile floor in the corridor. “Sure.”

Classic Charms was the newest shop to open its doors in Weaver, though it had eschewed the new shopping center area for a location right on Main Street.

Dee swiveled, deftly avoiding a collision with the first trio of kids bolting into Sarah’s classroom.

Sarah began passing out the workbooks she’d corrected over the weekend as the tables slowly filled. She had seventeen kids in her class this year.

Correction.

Eighteen, now.

They sat two to a table, usually, though she had enough room for them to all sit separately if need be. Some years were like that. This year though, had so far been peaceful.

“Thanks, Miz Clay.” Bright-eyed Chrissy Tanner beamed up at her as she accepted her workbook. “Are we having science today?”

“It’s Monday, isn’t it?” she asked lightly and continued passing through the room. Her attention, though, kept straying to the door.

Sooner or later, Eli would be there. Her gaze flicked to the wide-faced clock affixed high on the wall and noted he’d have three minutes before he’d be tardy. Not that she’d enforce that rule with a brand-new student on his very first day. She wasn’t that much a stickler for the rules.

The thought struck her as incredibly ironic.

The last workbook delivered, she walked back through the tables, heading to the front of the classroom where she picked up her chalk and finished writing out the day’s lesson plan on the blackboard. The sound of chatter and laughter and scraping chairs filled the room.

It was familiar and normal.

Ordinarily those sounds, this classroom, felt safe to Sarah.

But not today.

Would he bring Eli?

Between her fingers, the chalk snapped into pieces. Squelching an impatient sound, she picked them off the floor, and rapidly finished writing as the final bell rang.

No Eli Scalise.

As she’d done every morning at the beginning of the school day, she moved across the room and closed the door. Regardless of her feelings about her new student and his presence—or lack of it—she had a class to teach.

She turned back to her students, raising her voice enough to get everyone’s attention. “How many of you saw the double-rainbow yesterday?”

A bunch of hands shot up into the air.

And the lessons of the day began.

“Why do I gotta go to school?”

“Because.”

Eli sighed mightily. “But you said we were going to go back to California.”

“Not for months yet.”

“So?”

Max Scalise pulled open the passenger door of the SUV he’d been assigned by Sawyer Clay, the sheriff. They were already late, thanks to a conference call he’d had to take about a recent case of his. “In.”

His son, Eli, made a face, but tossed his brown-bag lunch and dark blue backpack inside before climbing up on the seat.

“Fasten the belt.”

The request earned Max another pulled face. He shut the door and headed around to the driver’s side. As he went, his eyes automatically scanned the area around them.

But there was nothing out of the ordinary. Just bare-branched trees. Winter-dry lawns not quite covered by snow. A few houses lined neatly along the street, all of them closed up tight against the chill. Only one of them had smoke coming from the chimney—his mother’s house that they’d just left.

Genna was as comfortably situated as she could get in the family room, where Max had lit the fire in the fireplace as she’d requested. She had her heavy cast propped on pillows, a stack of magazines, a pot of her favorite tea, the television remote and a cordless phone.

Outside the houses, though, there were no particular signs of life.

His breath puffed out around his head in white rings and cold air snuck beneath the collar of his dark brown departmental jacket.

God, he hated the cold.

He climbed in the truck.

“I could’a stayed in California with Grandma Helene,” Eli continued the minute Max’s rear hit the seat.

“What’s wrong with your grandmother here?” He made a U-turn and headed down the short hop to Main Street.

Eli hunched his shoulders. The coat he wore was a little too big for him. Max had picked up the cold-weather gear on their way to the airport. There hadn’t been a lot of time for fine fitting. “Nuthin’,” his son muttered. “But she always visited us out there. How come we gotta come here this time?”

“You happen to notice that big old cast on Grandma’s leg?” Max drove past the station house and turned once again, onto the street leading to the school. It took all of three minutes, maybe, given the significant distance.

The closer they got to the brick building that hadn’t changed a helluva lot since the days when Max had run the halls, the more morose Eli became. If his boy slouched any more in his seat, he’d hang himself on the seatbelt.

“Look at the bright side,” Max said. “You won’t be bored.”

Eli’s eyes—as dark blue as Jennifer’s had been—rolled. “Rather be bored back home than bored in there.” He jerked his chin toward the building.

Max pulled into the parking lot and stopped near the main entrance. “Don’t roll your eyes.” Donna, the school secretary, had told him when he’d faxed in the registration forms from California that the office was just inside the main front doors. A different location than he’d remembered from his days there.

“Do they have an after-school program?”

Eli was used to one in California—two supervised hours of sports and games that had never managed to produce completed homework the way it should have.

“No.”

Eli heaved a sigh. “I hate it here.”

Unfortunately, Max couldn’t say much to change his son’s opinion. Not when he remembered all too clearly feeling exactly the same way. He reached over and caught Eli behind the head, tousling his hair. “It’s only for a few months. Until Grandma’s all healed up and can go back to teaching school.” By then, hopefully, Max would have finished the job he’d been assigned. But Max didn’t tell Eli that. He wasn’t about to tell anyone in Weaver what his true purpose was there.

Someone was funneling meth through Weaver. It was coming out of Arizona by way of Colorado and heading north after Weaver, even—occasionally—on a locally contracted semi. But only occasionally.

The transports seemed to be wide and varied and Max’s job was to determine who was organizing the local hub.

It was a job he’d managed to avoid being assigned until his mom broke her leg two weeks earlier. She’d needed help. His boss had been putting on the pressure. So here they were. Father and son and neither one too thrilled about it.

“I’m already late, you know.” Eli dragged his backpack over his shoulder. It rustled against his slick coat. “On my first day. The teacher’ll probably be mad for the rest of the year.”

“I seriously doubt it,” Max drawled. His son had inherited his mother’s dramatic streak, as well.

“Is it a lady? Or a man?”

“Who?”

Eli started to roll his eyes again, but stopped at a look from Max. “The teach. I liked Mr. Frederick. He was cool.”

“I have no idea.”

Eli made a sound. “You didn’t ask?”

Max felt a pang of guilt. He’d been more preoccupied with this unexpected—and unappealing—assignment than with the identity of Eli’s temporary teacher. Max had only had a few days to take care of the school paperwork, as it was. But Eli was right about one thing. They were late. Both of them.

The sheriff had expected Max at the station nearly thirty minutes ago.

Great way to start off, Scalise.

He caught Eli’s jacket and nudged his son around the corner into the office when he spotted the sign.

A young woman he didn’t recognize smiled at them the moment they came into her view. “The new student,” she said cheerfully. “Welcome.”

Max heard the gritty sigh that came out of Eli and hoped he was the only one who heard it. He didn’t need Eli having trouble at this school. He needed everything to go as smoothly as possible. With no distractions, Max could finish his investigation as quickly as possible, and they could get the hell back out of Dodge. As soon as his mother could get back in the classroom.

Weaver held no great memories for him.

He was just as anxious to leave it again as Eli was. Telling his boy that, though, was not going to happen.

“Deputy Scalise—” the girl at the desk had risen “—I’m Donna. It’s nice to meet you in person. You, too, Eli. I’ll just let Principal Gage know you’re here.”

“He already knows.” A balding man approached from behind them, hand outstretched. “Max. Good to see you. Been a long time.”

“Joe.” He shook the principal’s hand. “Still can’t believe you’re head honcho here.” Joe Gage had been a hellion of the highest order back when they’d been kids. “Guess they don’t hold a little thing like blowing up the science room against a man.”

“Guess not. They made you a deputy, and you were in that room with me.”

“Whoa, Dad.” Eli sounded impressed.

The principal chuckled. “Come on. I’ll take you down to Eli’s class.” He looked at the boy as they stepped into the corridor once more. “Miss Clay. You’ll like her.”

Max’s boot heels scraped the hard floor. Clay. Another name from the past.

Well, why not?

The Clay family had plenty of members—seemed to him there’d been a teacher among them.

For a moment, he wished he’d been more inclined to listen to his mother’s talk of Weaver over the years. But she knew his reasons for not wanting to hear about the town well enough. Weaver was where Max’s father betrayed everyone they knew. It was where Tony Scalise had abandoned them. And on her visits to see him and Eli, she barely mentioned details about her life back home. Mostly because it generally led to an argument between them.

Max had wanted Genna to leave a long time ago. To join him in California.

For reasons that still escaped him, she’d been just as determined to stay.

The principal stopped in front of a closed classroom door. Through the big square window that comprised the top half of the door, he could see the rows of tables—situated in a sort of half circle—all occupied by kids about Eli’s size. At the head of the class, he caught a glimpse of the teacher. Slender as a reed, dressed in emerald green from head to toe. A little taller than average and definitely young, he noted. Her arms waved around her as she spun in a circle, almost as if she were acting out some play.

Max started to smile.

Then the teacher stopped, facing the door with its generous window head-on. Through the glass, her sky-blue eyes met his.

He felt the impact like a sucker punch to the kidneys.

He’d only known one woman with eyes that particular shade.

The principal pushed open the door. “Pardon the interruption, Miss Clay,” he said, ushering Eli inside. “This is your new student, Eli Scalise. Eli, this is Miss Clay.”

Max stood rooted to the floor outside the doorway.

Sarah.

She was no longer looking at him with those eyes that were as translucent as the Wyoming winter sky, but at Eli.

Her smile was warm. Slightly crooked. And it made Max wonder if he’d imagined the frigid way she’d looked at him through the window.

“Eli,” she greeted. “Come on in. Take off your coat. Can’t have you roasting to death on your first day here.” She gestured at the line of coats hanging on pegs. “We do our roasting only on Wednesdays.”

Eli shot Max a studiously bored look. But Max still saw the twitch of Eli’s lips.

A good sign. Maybe he wouldn’t have to worry about Eli, after all.

He looked back at Sarah again.

What the hell was she doing here? A teacher of all things. When they’d been involved—

He cut off the thought.

She gave him no more attention than she gave the principal as she showed Eli where to sit, and after assuring herself that he had the usual school supplies, she moved back to the front of the class. Without a glance their way, she picked up right where she’d left off. “Okay, so if the tornado is spinning to the right,” she turned on her heels and the braid she’d woven her hair into swayed out from her spine.

Max started when Joe Gage headed out of the classroom and pulled the door closed, cutting off whatever else Professor Sarah was imparting. “She’s a good teacher,” Joe said. “Strict. But she really cares about her kids.”

Max headed back up the corridor with Joe. “How long has she been here?”

“This will be her sixth year. So, Donna tells me you’ve already completed all the paperwork for Eli. You put your mom down as his caretaker? Is Genna up to that?”

He could have asked a dozen questions about Sarah Clay.

He asked none.

“Eli doesn’t need a lot of care. He’s pretty independent. He’ll do as much taking care of her as she does him.” He didn’t like feeling as though he had to explain himself. “With the job I might not always be available. You know. If Eli got sick or something, my mother can make decisions about him.”

“Fine, fine.” Joe accepted the explanation without a qualm. “I’ll be glad when Genna can make it back to work here. So, I know Eli lost his mother a year or so back. I’m sorry to hear it. Anything else in your personal life that he’s dealing with that we might need to know?”

Max shrugged. “He’s annoyed as hell that I took him out of his regular school to come here.”

Joe smiled. “That’s not too surprising.” He stopped outside the office. “Any questions you have?”

None that he intended to ask Joe Gage. He shook his head and stuck out his hand. “Good to see you again.”

“Deputy.” Donna waved at him from her desk. “The sheriff just called here looking for you.”

Not surprising. “I’m on my way over to the station house.”

“I’ll let him know for you,” she offered.

“Don’t worry about Eli,” Joe told him. “He’s in good hands.”

Sarah Clay’s hands, Max thought, as he headed out to his SUV.

It might have been seven years, but he still remembered the feel of those particular hands.

He climbed in the truck, and started it up, only to notice the brown bag sitting on the floor. Eli’s lunch.

Dammit.

He grabbed it and strode back inside, right on past the office, around two corners, to the third door. He knocked on the window.

Once again, inside the classroom, Sarah stopped and looked at him.

The glass protected him from the fallout of that glacial look. He definitely hadn’t imagined it, then.

She moved across the room and opened the door. “What is it, Deputy?”

He held up the lunch sack. “Eli forgot this.”

Her eyes seemed to focus somewhere around his left ear. She snatched the bag from his fingers and turned away.

He started to say her name. But the door closed in his face.


Chapter Two

By the end of the day, Sarah felt as if she’d been through the wringer. She didn’t have to look hard for the reason why, either.

Not when he sat in the chair next to her desk, a sullen expression on his young face. The rest of the students had already been dismissed for the day.

She pushed aside the stack of papers on her desk and folded her hands together on the surface, leaning toward him. All day, she’d been searching for some physical resemblance between him and his father, and it annoyed her to no end.

Unlike Max, who was as dark as Lucifer, his son was blond-haired and blue-eyed and had the appearance of an angel. But he’d been an absolute terror.

Nevertheless, she was determined to keep her voice calm and friendly. “Eli, you’ve had a lot of changes in your life lately. And I know that starting at a new school can be difficult. Why don’t you tell me what your days were like at your last school?”

“Better ’n here,” he said.

She held back a sigh. She’d be phoning his last school as soon as possible. “Better how?”

“We had real desks, for one thing.”

She looked at the tables. The only difference between a desk and the table was the storage, which was taken care of by cubbies that were affixed to each side of the table. “Do you prefer sitting at your own table?”

He lifted one shoulder, not answering.

“If you do, then all you have to do is say so. We both know that you won’t be sitting next to Jonathan tomorrow.”

“He’s a tool.” His expression indicated what a condemnation that was.

“He’s a student in my class, the same as you are and doesn’t deserve to be picked on all afternoon by anyone.”

“I wasn’t picking on him.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Really?”

“I don’t care what he said.”

“Actually, Jonathan didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Eli, I saw you poking at him. You were messing with his papers. You even hid his lunch from him. And then on the playground after lunch, you deliberately hit him with the ball. So, what gives?”

“He didn’t dodge fast ’nuff or he wouldn’t have got hit.”

“This isn’t the best way to start off here, you know.”

“So call my dad and tell him that.”

She had no desire whatsoever to speak to his father. Just seeing Max in person for a brief five minutes had been more than enough for her. “Let’s make a deal, shall we? Tomorrow is a brand-new day. We’ll all start fresh. Or, we can add your name to the list on the board.” She gestured to the corner of the board where two other names were already written. “You know how that works. The first time, you get your name on the board. The second time, you get a check mark and a visit to the principal. If you get another check mark, you’re out of my class.” Something that had never once occurred, but it was the commonly accepted practice at her school.

Eli looked glum. “That was Mr. Frederick’s rule, too.”

“Mr. Frederick was your last teacher? Did you think that system was unfair?”

The boy lifted his shoulder again, not looking at her.

She propped her chin on her palm. “I want you to enjoy class, Eli. It’s no fun for any of us if one of our class members is miserable. But the fact of it is, if you’re caught trying to deliberately hurt another student, there’s not going to be anything I can do to help you. Principal Gage has very clear rules about behavior. What you did on the playground today was wrong.”

“The ball hardly hit him.”

“Only because he wasn’t standing still. And don’t act as if you were playing a game of dodgeball, because I know you weren’t.”

His face scrunched up, like he’d swallowed something bitter. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“It’s Jonathan who deserves the apology. You can use my phone here to call him, if you’d like.”

His lips parted. “Now?”

She could almost have let herself be amused by his appalled expression. “No time like the present. And I’ll bet that Jonathan is home by now since he lives just around the corner.” She plopped the phone on the corner of her desk in front of Eli and pulled out the phone list. “Ready?”

Eli morosely picked up the phone and dialed the number that she recited.

Deciding to give him at least the illusion of some privacy, she rose and moved away from her desk, crossing the room to straighten the art supplies still scattered across the counter. The students had been painting Thanksgiving turkeys that afternoon.

Behind her, she heard Eli deliver his apology. Short. Brief. About what she’d expected.

But at least he’d offered it.

She hadn’t been sure he would, given his mutinous attitude that afternoon.

She tapped the ends of her handful of paintbrushes on the counter, then dropped them into the canning jar where they fanned out like some arty bouquet. She turned around to face Eli and caught him surreptitiously swiping his cheek.

Tension and irritation drained out of her the same way it always did when it came to working with kids.

Evidently, Eli—son of Max Scalise or not—was no exception.

“Remember that tomorrow is a brand-new day,” she said to him. “All fresh. Right?”

He didn’t exactly jump up and down in agreement. But he didn’t roll his eyes, either.

“Come on. I’ll walk you out. Is—is your dad supposed to pick you up?”

He shook his head. “I gotta walk.”

This time she didn’t hold back the urge to smile slightly. He made walking sound like a fate worse than death. “To your grandmother’s house?”

“To the station house.”

“Well, that’s even closer.” She pushed a mammoth amount of papers and books into her oversized book bag and grabbed her own coat off the hook. “Have you met the sheriff yet?”

Eli shook his head.

“He’s not too scary,” Sarah confided. “He’s my uncle.”

At that, the boy looked slightly interested. He hitched his backpack over his shoulder and followed her into the hallway. “You got relatives here?”

“Lots and lots. Can’t swing a cat without hitting a member of the Clay family.”

“Gross. Who’d wanna swing a cat?”

She chuckled. “Well, nobody, I guess.”

“There you are.”

Her chuckle caught in her throat at the sight of Max standing in the middle of the corridor. His dark, slashing brows were drawn together over his eyes. They varied from brown to green, depending on his mood.

Currently, they looked green and far from happy.

She looked down at Eli beside her. “Guess you won’t have to make that walk after all.”

The corner of his lips turned down. “Think I was better off if I’d’a had to,” he muttered.

She curled her fingers around the webbed strap of her book bag to keep from tousling his hair. Terror or not, there was something about the boy that got to her.

Not that most kids didn’t, she hurriedly reminded herself.

“You’re late,” Max said. His voice hadn’t changed. It was still deep. Still slightly abrupt. As if he spoke only because he had to.

“Only about ten minutes. He had some questions we needed to take care of,” Sarah said, answering before Eli could. The boy shot her a surprised look that she ignored.

Max’s eyes narrowed. He still had the longest lashes she’d ever seen on a man. Long and thick, and as darkly colored as the hair on his head. “What kind of questions?”

She decided to let Eli handle that one.

“About, uh, sports,” he finally said.

Max looked suspicious. “Truck’s in the parking lot,” he said after a moment. “Go wait for me.”

Eli gave that little shrug of his and headed down the hall. “See ya tomorrow, Miz Clay.”

“See you, Eli.” Her hand was strangling the web strap. “Deputy.” She barely looked at Max as she turned on her heel, intending to head out the other way. She could wend her way through the school to a different exit.

“Sarah—”

Every nerve she possessed tightened. She felt it from the prickling in her scalp to the curling in her toes. And though she would have liked to keep walking—no, she would have loved to keep walking—she stopped and looked at him over her shoulder.

After all, he was the parent of her newest student. She would have to deal with him on that level no matter what her personal feelings were.

“Yes?”

His lips compressed for a moment. “I…how are you?”

She didn’t know what she might have expected him to say, but it definitely hadn’t been that. “Busy,” she said evenly. “Did you need to discuss something about Eli?”

“I’m sorry he was late this morning. It won’t happen again.”

“Okay.” When it seemed as if he had nothing further to say, she started to turn again.

“I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Which meant she’d never been a hot topic of conversation between him and his mother, since she’d been working with Genna for some time now. “I can say the same thing about you.”

She felt certain that she imagined the flicker in his eyes at that. Wishful thinking on her part that he might feel something, anything, about what had happened all those years ago. He’d made his feelings then perfectly clear, even though he’d never been perfectly clear about anything else.

And darnitall, that fact still stung even though she’d made herself believe that it was all water beneath the bridge.

She shifted the weight of her book bag to her other shoulder. “Coming down a little in the world, aren’t you? From detective to deputy?”

“The job meets my needs for now.”

She didn’t want to know what his needs might be. “Then you have my congratulations.” Her tone said the contrary, however. “Excuse me. I have things I need to do.” She turned again and strode down the corridor, the click of her shoes sounding brisk and hollow.

Max’s hands curled as he watched the bounce of that long, thick braid as Sarah strode away from him.

He didn’t make the mistake of speaking her name again.

She hated him.

Well, could he blame her?

When it came to Sarah Clay, he pretty much hated himself, too.

God, but he still couldn’t believe she was here. In Weaver.

Aware that Eli was still waiting for him, he headed out to the SUV. His son was fiddling with the scanner when he climbed in the truck.

“She tell ya?” Eli sat back in his seat as Max reset the equipment.

Great. Tell me what? He started driving away from the school. “What do you think?”

His son heaved a sigh, obviously assuming the worst. “Figures. I was only kidding with the guy. How was I supposed to know his glasses would fly off like they did? At least they didn’t break or nothing, though.”

He gave his son a hard look, thinking he was glad Eli was more open than his teacher evidently was. “Did you apologize?”

“Yes. I used Miz Clay’s phone in the classroom.”

“Good. Don’t do it again.”

“How come you came to get me?”

“I told you. You were late. I was worried.”

Eli rolled his eyes. “What for? This place is dinky. I mean, geez, Dad. There’s not even a real mall!”

“Missing those afternoons you liked to spend shopping, is that it?”

His son snorted. They both knew that Eli loathed shopping. That was one trait he had gotten from Max.

He drove past the station where he’d go back on duty after Eli was settled with Genna. He drummed the steering wheel. “So, what’s your teacher like?”

“Besides a rat fink?”

Max let out an impatient breath. “She didn’t tell me anything, pal. You did that all on your own.”

“Geez.” Eli’s head hit the back of the seat. He looked out the window. “She’s all right, I guess.” He was silent for a moment. “She kinda reminds me of Mom.”

Max let that revelation finish rocking. Since Jen had died of cancer almost fourteen months earlier, Eli rarely mentioned her of his own volition. “In what way?”

“I dunno. What’s for supper?”

“Grandma’s cooking.”

“I thought we were here to take care of her.”

“We are. But she’s pretty bored sitting around all day letting her broken leg heal. She’s not used to that much inactivity.”

“Can we go skiing sometime?”

Max wanted to tell his son they could. He didn’t want Eli to be miserable the entire time they were in Weaver. “We’ll see.” Most everything would depend on how well the case went.

“Do ya even know how to ski?”

“Smart aleck. Yeah, I know.”

“Well, you just lived in California all my life.”

“All your life, bud. Not all of mine.”

“What about horses? Can we go riding horses sometime?”

Max suppressed a grimace. He and horses had never particularly gotten along. “We’ll see.”

“Did you know Miz Clay?”

The question, innocence and curiosity combined, burned. “Yeah. I knew her.”

“Did you, like, go to school with her?”

“No. She’s a lot younger than me.”

“Well, yeah.’ Cuz you’re old and she’s still pretty.”

A bark of laughter came out of him. Miz Clay was still pretty. Beautiful, in fact; all that youthful dewiness she’d possessed at twenty-one had given way to the kind of timeless looks that would last all of her life. “That’s why I keep you around, Elijah. To keep me humble.”

His son smiled faintly. “She says you can’t swing a cat without hitting someone from her family. Was she your girlfriend?”

He pulled to a sudden stop in his mother’s driveway and the tires skidded a few inches. He needed to get out the snowblower, and soon. “Just because she’s female doesn’t mean she was my girlfriend. I just told you. She’s a lot younger than me.”

“How much younger?”

God, give him patience. “I don’t know. A lot.” Liar.

“Five years?”

As if a paltry five years mattered. “Twelve.”

“Geez. You are old. Not like Grandma old, but still—”

“Enough. I’m not so old that I can’t beat your butt inside the house.”

Eli grinned and set off at a run, his backpack swaying wildly from his narrow shoulders.

Max jogged along behind him. At least one thing had gone right that day. Eli was smiling.

Just before his son bolted up the front porch, Max put on the speed and flew past him to open the storm door first.

“Dad!”

He shrugged and went inside. “Wipe your boots,” he reminded. He pulled his radio off his belt and set it on the hall table and tossed his jacket on the coatrack. “Hey, Ma.”

Genna Scalise was sixty years old and looked a good ten years less. Her hair was still dark, her face virtually unlined. And she was currently trying to poke one end of an unfolded wire hanger beneath the thigh-high edge of her cast. “Turn the heat off under the pasta.”

“Don’t poke yourself to death.” He went into the kitchen and turned off the stove burner. The churning water in the pot immediately stopped bubbling. The second pot on the stove held his mother’s homemade sauce. “Smells great, but I thought you said you were just going to throw together a casserole or something.” He went back in the family room and took the hanger from her frustrated hands. “Here. Try this.” He handed over the long-handled bamboo back scratcher that he’d picked up at the new supermarket on the far side of town.

Her eyes lit as if he’d just told her she was going to have a second grandchild. She threaded the long piece beneath the edge of her cast and tilted back her head, blissfully. “Oh, you’re a good boy, Max.”

Eli snickered.

“How was school?”

“I got homework,” the boy said by way of answering her. “Vocabulary.”

“Well, horrors.” She smiled. “Get a start on it before we have dinner.” She withdrew the scratcher and set it on the couch, then held up her arms to Max. “Help me up, honey, so I can finish that.”

He lifted her slender form off the couch. From above, he could hear Eli moving around upstairs. Doing his homework, hopefully. “When you said you wanted to cook today, I didn’t think you meant making homemade pasta.”

“What other kind of pasta is there?” She patted his cheek and reached for her crutches.

He followed her slow progress back into the kitchen. He wasn’t used to seeing his mother have to struggle; he didn’t like it. But he knew she didn’t want him constantly helping her, either, considering they’d already had a few skirmishes on that score since his and Eli’s arrival a few days earlier. “Why didn’t you tell me Sarah Clay would be Eli’s teacher?”

Balancing herself, she sat down on the high stool that Max had put in the kitchen for her. She gave him a sidelong look. “I didn’t think about it. I assumed that you knew. Is there something wrong with her? She’s a fine teacher.”

He shook his head. He was hardly going to tell his mother about it.

She sighed and set down her long wooden spoon. “What happened with your father and the Clays was a very long time ago. The only one it still bothers seems to be you.”

What happened with Max and Sarah was a long time ago, too, yet it still felt like yesterday. “Last I heard, she was studying finance. Didn’t expect to find her here teaching third grade.”

“I like her.” Genna pointed the spoon. “Hand me the strainer.”

He shook his head and drained the pasta himself. “You’re supposed to be resting, Ma, not cooking up a storm like this.”

“Consider it good planning. We’ll have leftovers for a week.”

He heard the crackle of his radio and went out to get it. He listened to the dispatch, answered, and stuck his head back in the kitchen. “Gotta go. You okay with Eli?”

She waved her wooden spoon. “Of course. Be careful, now.”

He yelled up the stairs for Eli to mind his grandmother, and hustled out to the SUV.

The drive to the Double-C Ranch wasn’t an unfamiliar one, though it had been a helluva long time since Max had made it. The ranch was the largest and most successful spread in the vicinity. It was owned by the Clays, though as far as Max knew, Sawyer—the sheriff—had never taken an active part in running it. That was the job of Matthew Clay.

Sarah’s father.

He turned in through the gate and a short while later stopped in the curved drive behind Sawyer’s cruiser. He could count on his hands the number of times he’d been to the Double-C. The last time, he’d been barely fifteen and his father had been caught red-handed stealing Double-C cattle.

It was still burned in his memory.

He climbed out of his truck, nodding at Sawyer, who was leaning against one of the stone columns on the front porch. “Matthew,” he greeted the second man.

Sarah’s father ambled down the steps, sticking his hand out. “Max. Good to see you again.”

Max returned the greeting, looking past the man to his new boss. “What’s up?”

“Thought it best to discuss things away from the station.”

Max looked from Sawyer to his brother.

“He’s aware of the situation,” the older man said. “Let’s walk.”

“You’re surprised,” Matthew observed as they headed away from the house, cutting across the drive toward a sweeping, open area unoccupied by anything but a stand of mighty trees.

Max didn’t like feeling out of control. Sawyer might be the sheriff, but the investigation was Max’s. “It was my understanding that nobody but my superior and the sheriff knew what I was really doing here.”

“Matt’s noticed another discrepancy among his trucking records,” Sawyer told him. “This time on a shipment of stock heading to Minnesota.”

“How recent?”

“Couple weeks.” Matt settled his cowboy hat deeper over his forehead. “When I talked to Sawyer about it, he admitted the other thing that’s been going on.” His face was grim. “Bad business. Kind of thing I don’t want to see going on in Weaver.”

“Drug trafficking shouldn’t be going on anywhere,” Max said flatly. For five years, he’d been serving on a special task force investigating distribution cells that were cropping up in small towns. The less traditional locations were highly difficult to pinpoint.

“You’re right about that,” Sawyer agreed. “Seems as if Weaver is just one more small town to become involved lately.” He tilted his head back, studying the sun that hung low on the horizon. It wasn’t quite evening yet, but the temperature was already dropping. “Much as I hate to admit it, we need help. That’s why I didn’t oppose your assignment here.”

It wasn’t exactly news to Max since he’d have done just about anything to get out of this particular assignment. But he was here now. He’d do his job.

He was a special agent with the DEA and it was one thing that he was usually pretty good at.

“I’m going to need the details about your discrepancies,” he told Matthew.

The other man pulled an envelope out of his down vest and handed it over. “Copies and my notes.”

Max didn’t bother opening it now. He shoved it into his own pocket. “Anything else?”

“Matthew!”

All three men turned at the hail from the house.

“Supper’s on!”

For a moment, Max thought the woman on the porch was Sarah. She bore an uncanny resemblance. But when she turned and went back inside, he didn’t see that waist-length braid.

“Care to stay?” Matt offered. “My wife, Jaimie, is a pretty fine cook.”

“Another reason why I’m out here,” Sawyer admitted. “Bec—my wife—is in Boston on some medical symposium all this week. Been getting tired of my own cooking.”

“Appreciate the offer,” Max said. “But I need to get back to town.”

“At least come in and say hello or Jaimie’ll bug me from now until spring. Everyone in the county wants to greet the new deputy.”

“Sure, until they start remembering the days when I lived here,” Max countered. His father, Tony, might have been the criminal, but Max hadn’t exactly been an altar boy. Getting friendly with the folks of Weaver was not in his plan. He was just there to do a job.

In that way, at least, he could make one thing right with the Clay family.

But after that, he and Eli would be gone.

Still, Max could read Sawyer’s expression well enough. The steely-eyed sheriff expected Max to act neighborly.

“I’d be pleased to say hello,” he said, feeling a tinge of what Eli must have been feeling when Max had lectured him on behaving well.

Matthew wasn’t entirely fooled, as far as Max could tell, as they headed toward the house. They skirted the front porch entirely, going around, instead, to the rear of the house. They went in through the mudroom, and then into the cheery, bright kitchen.

“Don’t get excited, Red,’ cause he’s not staying,” Matthew said as they entered. “But this here’s Sawyer’s new right-hand man, Max Scalise.”

Jaimie rubbed her hands down the front of the apron tied around her slender waist. “Of course. I remember you as a boy, Max.” She took his hand in hers, shaking it warmly. “Genna talks of you often. She always has such fun sharing pictures from her trips out to see you and Eli. I know she must be so pleased that you’re back in Weaver. How is her leg coming along?”

“More slowly than she’d like.”

“Mom, I still can’t find the lace—” Sarah entered the kitchen from the doorway opposite Max, and practically skidded to a halt. “Tablecloths,” she finished. “What’re you doing here?”

“Just picking up some paperwork from the sheriff,” Max said into the silence that her abrupt question caused. “Nice to see you again, Miss Clay.” He looked at Jaimie, who was eyeing him and her daughter with curiosity. “And it was nice to see you, too, ma’am.”

“Give your mother my regards,” Jaimie told him as he stepped toward the mudroom again.

“I’ll do that. Sheriff. Matthew. See you later.”

He was almost at his SUV when he heard footsteps on the gravel drive behind him.

“Max.” Her voice was sharp.

The memory of that voice, husky with sleep, with passion, hovered in the back of his mind. He ought to have memories just as clear about Jennifer.

But he didn’t.

He opened the SUV door and tossed the envelope from Matthew inside on the seat. “Don’t worry, Sarah,” he said, his voice flat. “I’m not trying to run into you every time we turn around.”

She’d taken time only long enough to grab a sweater, and she held it wrapped tight around her shoulders. Tendrils of reddish-blond hair had worked loose from her braid and drifted against her neck. “Believe me,” she said, her tone stiff, “I didn’t once think that you were.” She worked her hand out from beneath the sweater. She held an ivory envelope. “It’s an invitation for your mother to my cousin’s wedding.”

He took the envelope, deliberately brushing her fingers with his.

The action was a double-edged sword, though.

She surrendered the envelope as if it burned her, and the jolt he’d felt left more than his fingertips feeling numb. “Ever heard of postage stamps?”

She didn’t look amused. “Most of the invites are being hand-delivered because the wedding is so soon. Friday after Thanksgiving. We’re all helping out with getting them delivered. Since your mom’s in the same quilting group as Leandra’s mother, they wanted her to have an invitation.”

“Leandra?”

“My cousin. She’s marrying Evan Taggart.”

He remembered their names, of course. Taggart had grown up to become the local vet. Leandra was yet another one of the Clays and, he remembered, Sarah’s favorite cousin. If he wasn’t mistaken, he thought the vet had been on some television show Leandra had been involved with. More proof that Weaver wasn’t quite so “small town” as it once was. “I’ll make sure she gets it.” He tapped the envelope against his palm. “Eli told me what he did today.”

She pulled the dark blue sweater more tightly around her shoulders, and said nothing.

He exhaled, feeling impatience swell inside him. “Dammit, Sarah, at least say something.”

Her ivory face could have been carved from ice. “Be careful driving back to Weaver. Road gets slick at night sometimes.”

Then she turned on her heel, and for the third time that day, she walked away from him.


Chapter Three

Despite Sarah’s hopes, days two, three and four of Eli Scalise were just as bad—or worse—than day one.

He didn’t hit another student with a dodge ball, but he was still miles away from the model of behavior. A conversation with his previous school had told her that this was not the norm where Eli was concerned.

By Thursday, she knew she had to speak with Max about it. She hated the fact that several times throughout the day, she put off calling him. It showed her cowardice.

And since she was supposed to be thoroughly over the man, what did she have to be afraid of?

For another ten minutes or so, her students would still be in the cafeteria, practicing their part in the holiday program they’d present in less than a month. And Sarah had done enough dithering.

Nerves all nicely inflated, she snatched up the phone and dialed the sheriff’s office. But Pamela Rasmussen, her uncle’s newest dispatcher, told her that Max was out on a call.

“I can get a message to him if it’s urgent. His son’s okay, isn’t he?”

Okay was a subjective term, Sarah thought. “It’s not urgent. I’d appreciate you asking him to give me a call when he’s free, though.”

“Sure, Sarah. No prob. So, how are Leandra’s wedding plans coming together?”

“Rapidly.” Sarah was Leandra’s maid of honor. “She’s got so much going on with the start-up of Fresh Horizons that we’re all doing as much as we can to take some of the wedding details off her shoulders.” Fresh Horizons was Leandra’s newly planned speech, physical and occupational therapy program. It would be located at her parents’ horse farm, so they could utilize hippo-therapy as a treatment strategy.

“Wouldn’t mind taking the honeymoon off her shoulders,” Pam said with a laugh. “Think Evan Taggart was one of the last hot bachelors around here. Everyone else seems too young for us. Or too old.”

Sarah had an unwanted image of Max shoot into her brain. She knew he’d turned forty that year. His August birthday was just another one of those details about the man that she couldn’t seem to get out of her head. “Hadn’t really thought about it,” Sarah lied. “Thanks for leaving the message, Pam. Gotta run.”

“You betcha.”

She quickly hung up, then nearly jumped out of her skin when the phone rang right beneath her hand where it still rested on the receiver. She snatched it up. “Sarah Clay.”

“Sounding sort of tense there, Sarah.”

Her breath eked out. “Brody. What’s wrong?”

“Nada. Kid’s fine.”

She looked toward the classroom door. She could hear footsteps outside in the corridor. “Then what are you calling me here for?” She made it a point not to blur the lines between her real life and her other job. It’s the reason she’d been as successful at keeping that other duty under wraps as she had been.

Not even her family knew about it.

“Megan needs more schoolwork. She’s already blown through the materials you left.”

She wasn’t surprised. Her few encounters with Megan Paine had told her the girl was exceptionally bright. “Maybe you should just register her for classes.” Her associate, Brody Paine, hadn’t been entirely thrilled with the idea of homeschooling Megan. Presenting the child as his daughter while under his protection was one thing. Trying to keep the girl up on her schoolwork was another. Not even two months of it had made the man more comfortable with the situation.

“My daughter’s not ready for that. She is still adjusting to her mother’s death.”

Sarah’s nerves tightened a little. That was the cover, but she wasn’t used to Brody using it when it was only the two of them. Which probably meant that Brody wasn’t confident the school’s line was secure.

The man was notoriously paranoid when it came to things like that.

“I see. You know best, I’m sure.” Sarah wasn’t so sure Brody was right on the school attendance, but she wasn’t going to argue with him. He was a trained agent.

She was just a…go between.

It was a position she’d sort of fallen into.

The only good thing to have come out of her time in California. When Coleman Black had approached her, she’d been swayed by his passionate explanation of how a person like her was needed by the agency. She’d believed she’d been abandoned by Max and had just lost their child. She’d needed to count. To matter to this world in ways that had nothing to do with her family, with anyone else but her.

She and Brody had already discussed the matter at length. Who would expect Megan to be in Weaver, after all? That’s what made Sarah’s involvement these past years with the agency work so beautifully. Their charges—children who, for one reason or another needed more protection than could be provided through traditional avenues—could be hidden in plain sight. In Megan’s case, her parents, Simon and Debra Devereaux—both mid-level politicians—had been brutally killed earlier that year. Hollins-Winword had become involved when other means to protect Megan—the only witness—had continually failed. The sight line of Weaver was pretty much off the radar unless you were a local rancher or worked for CeeVid, her uncle Tristan’s gaming software design company.

Nine times now, she’d arranged the houses when Hollins-Winword contacted her.

Another agent—never the same one—came in with their assignment for a while, and then moved on when it was time. She never knew where the children went, only that they’d been found a permanent safe haven.

This time, the agent was Brody Paine. And it was his opinion that ruled, whether she considered him paranoid or not.

The footsteps outside in the hall sounded louder. “I’ll pull some more work together for her. Want me to drive it out to you?” The safe house where Brody was staying with Megan was located about fifteen miles out of town. Located midway between nothing and more nothing.

“I’ll pick it up sometime tomorrow.”

She frowned a little, not liking the alarm that was forming inside her. “Brody—”

“Appreciate your help, Sarah. You’re a good teacher.” He severed the connection.

She slowly replaced the receiver. When she lifted her gaze to the doorway, though, Max Scalise stood there. The sight so surprised her that she actually gasped.

“Didn’t mean to startle you.”

Denying she had been would be foolish. She drew her hand back from the telephone and eyed him. “What are you doing here?”

His eyebrows rose a little. He wore the typical uniform of brown jacket and pants, his radio and badge hanging off his heavy belt that could also sport a weapon and a half-dozen other items, but currently didn’t.

She realized her gaze had focused on his lean hips though, and looked back at his face.

“You left me a message, remember?”

“Barely five minutes ago. I didn’t expect you to show up here.”

He closed the remaining distance between them and picked up the gleaming porcelain apple that she’d been given by a student at the end of last year. “What’d you want to see me about?”

She hadn’t wanted to see him at all. “Eli cheated on his math test today.”

His gaze sharpened on her face. “Eli doesn’t cheat.”

She pushed back from her chair and stood. Sitting there while he towered over her desk just put her at too much of a disadvantage. “Well, he did today. And he did yesterday. During the spelling test. He also tried to turn in another student’s homework as his own.”

A muscle flexed in his jaw, making the angular line even more noticeable. It was only one in the afternoon, yet he already had a blur of a five o’clock shadow. “He doesn’t need to cheat,” he said flatly.

According to her conversation with Eli’s last school, that had been the story, too. Eli’s grades hadn’t been as high as they could be, but they’d been solid. “Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.” She pulled out a slightly wrinkled piece of notebook paper and pointed at the corner where pencil marks had clearly been erased and overwritten with Eli’s name.

“Any kid could have done that.”

She exhaled and reminded herself that Max wasn’t the first parent who didn’t want to acknowledge some imperfection about their child. “Any kid didn’t. Eli did.”

He tossed the paper back on the desk. “Look, I know his first day here wasn’t the best. But he’s promised me that every day since he’s been on his best behavior.”

“And you believe him, unquestioningly?”

“He’s my son.”

She pressed her lips together for a moment. How well she knew that. “Yes, and it doesn’t change the facts,” she finally said, and hated that the words sounded husky. She cleared her throat. “Why don’t we three meet together, later. After school. And we can talk about it then.”

“I don’t have time after school.” He replaced the apple on the desk. “Maybe Eli would be better off with a different teacher.”

Her fingers curled. “I’m the only third grade teacher here.”

For the first time, he showed some sign of frustration. He pushed his long fingers through his short hair, leaving the black-brown strands rumpled. “Damn small town,” he muttered.

Defensiveness swelled inside her. “You’re the one who came back here, Max. Lord only knows why, after all this time.” She felt the warmth in her cheeks and knew they probably looked red.

“I came for my mother’s sake.”

The dam of discretion she ordinarily possessed had sprung a leak, though. “How admirable of you. It’s been once in…how long? Twenty years?” The last time he’d been in Weaver, she’d been all of six years old.

His lips tightened. “Twenty-two years, actually.”

“Like I said.” Her lips twisted. “Admirable.”

“I’m not here to argue with you, Sarah. What happened in California between you and me was a long time ago.”

Seven years. Four months. A handful of days. “If you think I’m holding the fact that you dumped me against your son, you’re way off the mark.”

“I didn’t dump you.”

She gave a short, humorless laugh. “That’s exactly what you did. But it doesn’t matter anymore. I never even think about it.” Liar, liar, pants on fire.

“Then why the hell are you so angry?”

Her lips parted, but no answer came. She’d gotten over angry a very, very long time ago. But the hurt?

That was a much harder row to hoe. Chock-full of boulders and stone-hard dirt.

“Maybe I just don’t understand why my uncle thought you’d be a good choice for deputy,” she finally said.

His well-shaped lips thinned. “I am not my father.”

“No, he just rustled Double-C cattle. You rustled—” She broke off, her face flushing again.

“Rustled what?” He planted his hands on the desk that stood between them and leaned over it. “You?”

She would have backed up if there hadn’t been a wall right behind her. “There’s not anything in Weaver that’ll hold your interest for long. I think you’ll get bored stiff catching the occasional speeder and settling disputes between Norma Cleaver and her neighbor over her dog barking at night, and you’ll take off again, leaving my uncle to find yet another deputy.”

“I think your uncle is capable of deciding whether or not that’s a problem for him.”

“I just don’t like knowing my family is going to be disappointed by you.”

He stifled an oath. “Jesus, Sarah. We saw each other for less than a month. Does it occur to you that you might be overreacting?”

Anger wasn’t beyond her, after all. It curled low and deep inside her like a hot ember.

Mirroring his position, she pressed her hands against the edge of the desk and leaned forward. Close enough to see the individual lashes tangling around his green-brown eyes. To see that the faint crow’s-feet beside those eyes had deepened and that an errant strand of silver threaded through his thick, lustrous hair, right above his left temple. “Dumping me was one thing. Lying to me was another.”

“What, exactly, did I lie about?” he asked, his expression suddenly unreadable.

She could hear the roar of kids coming down the hall. Chorus practice was definitely over. “I’m not interested in giving you a list, Max. What would be the point? You know your own lies better than anyone.” She pushed the homework page that Eli had swiped at him. “Talk to your son,” she said evenly, “about his behavior in school. We need to get this straightened out for his sake.”

“Eli never had trouble in a class until now.”

Meaning this was her fault?

She didn’t reply. If she did, she’d lose her temper for certain.

Chrissy Tanner was the first student to round the classroom door, closely followed by several more, and Sarah was heartily glad to see them.

When Eli skidded around the corner, his eyeballs about bulged out of his head at the sight of his father standing there. He gave Sarah a furtive look as he gave his father a “yo” in greeting and headed to his lone table.

Max looked back at Sarah. The radio at his hip was crackling and he reached for it, automatically turning down the volume. “We’ll finish this later.”

It sounded more like a threat than a promise of parental concern.

And the problem was, Sarah didn’t know what they were to finish discussing. The problems with Eli, or the past.

Once Max departed though, Sarah enjoyed one benefit from his unexpected appearance in her classroom. Eli didn’t do one thing to earn a second glance from her for the remainder of the afternoon. He even offered to help clean up the counters after their science experiment.

She handed him the sponge. “Don’t make me regret this,” she murmured.

He gave her an angelic smile that she wanted to trust.

And aside from flicking water at Chrissy when she began telling him that he was sponging all wrong, he behaved.

In the end, as she was driving out to her aunt Emily’s place later that evening, she decided to look on the afternoon as a success.

By the time she arrived at the horse farm that bordered a portion of the Double-C, Sarah was more than ready to put thoughts of both the Scalise men out of her head. And the evening of wedding planning with Leandra would surely provide enough distraction to do just that.

She didn’t bother knocking on the door at the Clay Farm house. She’d grown up running in and out of Leandra’s house just as comfortably as Lee had run in and out of the big house at the Double-C. The kitchen was empty and she headed through to the soaring great room. There, she hit pay dirt.

Leandra was standing on a chair, long folds of delicate fabric flowing around her legs while her fiancе’s mother, Jolie Taggart, crouched around the hem, studying it closely.

“Looks serious,” Sarah said.

Leandra shot her a harried look. “I never should have thought it was a good idea to wear a wedding gown. Who am I kidding? I’ve already done the whole white wedding thing. People are going to think we’re ridiculous.”

“The only thing people are going to think is that they wish they were as lucky as you, getting married to the person you love.”

Leandra had come back to Weaver only a few months ago to shoot a television show featuring their old friend, Evan Taggart, who was the local veterinarian. The show had been a success, but even more successful was the love they’d managed to find along the way.

“And besides, you’re not wearing white,” Sarah pointed out. “You’re wearing yellow.”

“Hint of Buttercup,” Emily Clay corrected blithely. She sat to one side with Sarah’s mother, Jaimie, watching the fitting. “And if you’d wanted to elope with Evan, you’ve had ample time to do so.”

“Well, thanks for the sympathy, Mom.” But Leandra was smiling faintly, even though she was dragging her fingers through her short, wispy hair. She turned her gaze on Sarah. “I’m telling you. When you get married, just pick the shortest route between you and the preacher, and forget all this folderol.”

“I’d need a date with a man first before I could entertain such lofty notions as marriage.” Sarah dropped the box of soft gold bows that she’d picked up in town on the floor beside her mother and aunt. “We just need to attach the flower sprays with hot glue. Glue guns are in the box, too,” she told them, then looked back at Leandra. “And you’re just stressing because you’re trying to do too many things at once. Put together a wedding in about a month’s time and take care of all the details for Fresh Horizons.”

“Speaking of which—” Leandra jumped on the topic “—I wondered if you’d mind helping me look through the resumes of all the therapists that I’ve received.”

Sarah immediately started to nod, only to stop and eye her cousin suspiciously. “How many are there?”

Leandra lifted her shoulders, looking innocent.

Sarah was reminded of Eli’s habit of making that sort of shrug, accompanied by that sort of look. Usually, when she’d pretty much caught him red-handed at something. “That many, huh?”

“Yeah. Nice problem to have, though, right? We figured it would be hard to find a therapist willing to come to Weaver to staff the program. Even though our focus will be the use of hippotherapy—I mean this is a horse farm, and we’ve got the best pick of animals to train for it—there could well be situations when hippo-therapy isn’t the strategy that the therapist will want to use.” Animation lit her cousin’s features as she lifted her arms to her side. “Anyway, we’ve got a huge stack of resumes to go through. It’s great.”

“Keep still, honey,” Jolie said around a mouthful of stickpins.

Leandra lowered her arms. “Sorry.”

“Good thing your future mother-in-law is better with a needle than I am,” Emily observed, grinning. She, like Jaimie, held a margarita glass in her hand.

Jolie carefully placed another pin. “Never fixed a wedding gown that was six inches too long before, though.” She looked up at Leandra, smiling. “And stressful or not, my son will fall in love with you all over again when he sees you in this.”

Sarah sank down in an oversized leather chair and stretched her legs out in front of her. “The sooner you settle on a therapist, the sooner we can get the brochures out to the schools and agencies in the area. I was at a meeting recently and three other teachers had families that they know will be interested in your program.” She glanced around and saw no evidence of a child around. “Where’s Hannah, anyway?” Hannah was Evan’s niece, for whom he had guardianship, and was Leandra’s inspiration for realizing that Weaver and the area surrounding it needed more specialized services available for children with developmental and physical disabilities. She’d felt so strongly about it that she’d even given up her hard-won promotion on the television series.

“With Evan. They went to Braden to see her grandparents for a few hours.”

“I’m glad Sharon stopped fighting Evan on Hannah’s guardianship.” Jolie stuck her unused pins into a red pincushion and sat back to study her efforts with Leandra’s hem. “Poor woman has lost her daughter—poor Darian, too—but neither one of them are up to the task of dealing with Hannah’s autism.”

Sarah was watching Leandra’s face. She’d lost a daughter, too, only Emi had been a toddler. Sharon and Darian’s daughter, Katy, had been serving in the military and up until recently, they’d been caring for Katy’s four-year-old daughter, Hannah. “How’s Hannah adjusted to you moving to Evan’s place?” She was concerned for the little girl, but she was also concerned for her cousin, who’d blamed herself for the loss of Emi.

Leandra’s gaze, when it met Sarah’s, told her she understood exactly what Sarah meant. “We’re all adjusting just fine.” Her lips curved. “And Evan’s learning what it’s like to be outnumbered by females under his own roof.”

“Don’t think he’s suffering too badly,” Jolie observed, looking amused. “You can take off the dress, honey, but watch the pins.”

Leandra gingerly stepped off the chair, holding the long folds up and baring the thick red-and-black argyle socks she was wearing.

“Nice fashion touch there.”

Leandra rolled her eyes. “Give me a break. This is the first winter I’ve spent in Wyoming in a long time. It’s cold!”

The rest of them just laughed.

“Come help me get out of this thing,” Leandra bid as she passed Sarah. Jolie had pushed herself off the floor and was helping herself to the pitcher of margaritas that Emily and Jaimie were already sampling. Sarah rose and followed her cousin out of the great room and up the stairs to Leandra’s childhood bedroom. Little had changed there since they’d been teenagers. Except the posters of Leandra’s favorite rock star were gone.

“So—” Leandra said, the moment they closed the door “—how’s it going with Eli? More to the point, how is it going with Max?”

“There’s nothing going with Max.” Sarah began unfastening the long, long line of pearl-like buttons stretching from Leandra’s nape to below her waist. “I thought these things were just for looks,” she said. “You know, to hide a sensible zipper or something that won’t take a week to unfasten.”

“But you’ve seen him since Eli’s first day at school, right?”

Her cousin knew that she’d run into Max at her folks’ place, because Sarah had told her. And her cousin also knew why it mattered, because Leandra was the only one Sarah had ever told about her ill-fated affair with the man. She was the only one who’d known about Sarah’s pregnancy.

About the miscarriage that followed.

“He came by the school today,” she admitted. “To discuss Eli.”

“And?”

“And nothing.” She slipped a few more buttons free. “I think you can step out of the dress now.”

Her cousin did a little shimmy and pushed the fabric down over her slender hips. Sarah took the dress and held it up while Leandra pulled on a dark brown velvety sweat suit. “This dress is so beautiful,” she murmured.

Leandra took the dress and carefully laid it aside on the foot of the bed. Then she took Sarah’s hands in hers. “Talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. Truly.” She squeezed her cousin’s fingers, then headed for the door. “Come on. Margaritas and glue guns are waiting.”

“You know, you were the one who kept telling me I needed to talk about Emi.”

“You did need to talk about her. But there’s a world of difference between that and what happened between Max and me.”

“You were in love with the man.”

Sarah wrapped her fingers around the doorknob. “I thought I was,” she corrected. “A big difference.”

Leandra just looked concerned. She picked up her wedding gown. “Is it?”

“Look, don’t worry about me. I’m a big girl. Eli is the only challenge I have where the Scalise family is concerned.”

Leandra followed her into the hallway and toward the stairs. Her gown rustled softly as they walked. “Then you won’t be bothered at all by knowing that your mom has invited Genna Scalise and Max and Eli over for Thanksgiving dinner next Thursday.”

Sarah stopped dead at the head of the stairs. “What? How do you know that?”

“Before you got here, your mom and mine and Jolie were all talking about Thanksgiving dinner. The only place with a large enough dining room to seat everyone and still be inside, is at the big house.”

“Which has what to do with Max?”

Leandra looked knowing. “Sounding a little perturbed considering his presence isn’t bugging the life out of you.”

“Leandra—”

Her cousin looked slightly repentant. “Sawyer really likes Max, Sarah.”

“I assumed he must or he wouldn’t have hired him.” She didn’t like the increasingly dry feeling in her mouth.

“Did you know that Sawyer is thinking about retiring? He and Dad were talking about it the other day.”

For as long as Sarah could remember, her uncle had been sheriff of Weaver. He was as popular as he was effective. “No, but it doesn’t seem unreasonable, given how long he’s served. But what does that have—Oh, no. No.” She shook her head. “If Sawyer thinks Max might be a good replacement, he’s way off base.”

They heard a low, melodious chime and Leandra looked down the staircase. The foyer below was empty, but they could hear peals of female laughter coming from the great room, and footsteps heading toward the front door. “You want to go to Sawyer and tell him just why you feel that way?” She lifted her brows, waiting for a moment. “I didn’t think so.”

“And since Sawyer thinks he can groom Max to be his replacement, he invited them all for Thanksgiving dinner. Just one big happy—” Sarah’s throat tightened “—family.”





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