The Sheriff of Heartbreak County

of ice cream and lulled by the sunshine and the quiet and the lazy beat of the music from the car radio Roan had tuned-with apologies to Mary-to a classic country station.

Mary didn’t mind that Roan seemed disinclined toward conversation, or worry about what might be weighing so heavily on his mind as he drove with his elbow resting on the windowsill and his hand covering the lower part of his face, eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses in that way they had of seeming to be focused on something far beyond the road ahead. She didn’t worry about anything, actually, not even her own bleak future, and the silence didn’t seem awkward or burdensome to her.

Perhaps, like Susie Grace, she’d fallen under the spell of a lazy spring Sunday afternoon, and it was only lethargy that made her content to listen to the music-which she’d grown accustomed to if not fond of during the past ten years-and gaze through the car window at the cattle and horses grazing in spring-green pastures, and new foals frisking awkwardly alongside their mothers. And to allow herself, for the first time in many, many years-and only for a little while-to dream…

This. Yes, this life…this man, who makes me feel excited and happy…young and alive…and yet somehow…safe. This child, who makes me feel needed, and makes me laugh. Yes…this.

Like a child glimpsing a forbidden garden beyond a locked gate, she could allow her mind to drink in the fragrance of the flowers, bask in the loveliness…just for a little while.

She couldn’t hold back a sigh when Roan pulled the SUV to a stop and turned off the motor. The smile that hovered on her lips as she turned to him felt fragile and precariously balanced, like a butterfly in a breeze.

“Thank you,” she said softly, mindful of the sleeping child. “It was nice of you to let me do this.”

She couldn’t read his eyes behind the dark lenses, but his smile seemed wry. “I should be thanking you. Susie Grace had a great time. I know that was about the easiest time clothes shopping with her I’ve had in a while.”

“She’s a great little girl. And it was nice to forget…for a time.”

“Yeah.” He looked away for a moment, and she could see a muscle rippling in his jaw.

She stared at it, knowing she mustn’t, while her own jaws grew tight and her throat began to ache, and all her forbidden thoughts and dreams thrummed inside her head like imprisoned bees. That thrumming grew ever more insistent, until it seemed to hang in the air between them…until she couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Yeah, well-” Roan said, at almost the same moment Mary was saying, with a bright little laugh, “Well, I guess I’d better-”

He cleared his throat and slapped the gear lever into Park. “I know some of those bags back there are yours.” He reached for the door handle.

“Don’t get out,” Mary said quickly, nodding toward the back seat. “I’ll get it-there’s just the one.”

Her chest twinged with the guilty knowledge that somewhere in the jumble of shopping bags full of little girls’ clothes in the back of the SUV was a department-store bag with a lovely pale-green silk sweater in it. A woman’s sweater, slinky and sexy and feminine. It was the first becoming thing she’d allowed herself to buy in years-almost certainly a mistake, especially now. But it had been impossible to resist both the sweater and Susie Grace. Mary had just been telling her that redheads look good in green when Susie Grace had spotted this particular sweater. She’d insisted Mary should buy it. “You’d look good in green, too,” she’d declared, “’cause you’ve got green eyes.”

A mistake.

Heart pounding, vision shimmering, she reached for the door handle and yanked it open. And froze, half in and half out of the car as a sleepy voice came from the back seat.

“Mary? What’s goin’ on? Are we home already?”

“We’re just dropping Miss Mary off at her house,” Roan said. “You can go back to sleep, peanut.”

“I don’t want to go back to sleep.” There was the click of a seatbelt and Susie Grace was scrambling out of her seat, struggling to open her door-which Roan, of course, had locked with the master switch for her safety. She pushed on it, frantic and wobbly from interrupted sleep, crying, “Mary, wait-I don’t want you to go. I didn’t get to say good-bye. And who’s gonna help me with-Da-ad!” She gave up on the door and turned to glare at Roan, face flushed, eyes dangerously bright.

Mary gave Roan a look and a gesture of mute appeal; the last thing she wanted was for such a lovely day to end with Susie Grace in tears. Evidently Roan was of the same mind. He capitulated with a shrug and released the door lock. Susie Grace tumbled out of the car and threw her arms around Mary’s waist.

She wasn’t prepared. Not for this. Too many emotions, emotions she didn’t want and didn’t know what to do with. Emotions…feelings…thoughts she hadn’t allowed herself in so many years. Why is this happening? Why now?

She didn’t dare look at Roan. She gazed down at Susie Grace through a shimmering mist, patted her back awkwardly and said with a light laugh, “Well, I’m not going to the moon.”

“I don’t want you to go anywhere,” Susie Grace said fiercely. “Can’t you come home with us? You could have dinner with us. Dad-”

Mary took a deep breath. Reaching deep inside herself for the strength, she put her hand under the little girl’s chin and tilted it so she could look into her face. “Susie Grace, you know I can’t. Not tonight. Maybe we can get together some other time, okay? If it’s all right with your dad.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.” Mary closed her eyes and begged forgiveness for the lie. “And now…if you want, you can help me find-”

But Susie Grace was appeased for the moment, and with moods as mercurial as only a seven-year-old’s can be, was already on to other things.

“Is that your kitty?” She was hopping and skipping her way across the grass to the front porch, where Cat sat on the topmost step, looking down upon them like a statue of an Egyptian god. “What’s her name? Does she bite? Can I pet her?”

“His name is Cat,” Mary said as she went to open the back of the SUV. “He very well may bite-he’s pretty cranky. I doubt he’ll let you pet him…” Having retrieved her shopping bag, she closed the door, turned around, and gave an astonished laugh.

Susie Grace was sprawled on the porch steps, nose-to-nose-literally-with Cat. As Mary watched, the little girl reached out, wrapped her arms around the huge tomcat and hauled him into her lap like a baby doll. To which indignity Cat responded with his usual display of affection-a head-butt to Susie Grace’s chin. Mary could hear the animal’s buzz-saw purring from where she stood. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered, laughing.

The sound of a car door slamming penetrated the edges of her consciousness…then awareness came prowling over her skin, raising goose bumps, quickening breath and heartbeat.

“She’s good with animals,” Roan said, his quiet rumbling voice so close behind her she felt its vibrations in her bones. “Always has been. She’s always the one to find where the barn cats hide their kittens.”

Laughing, she turned her head to look at him, and his eyes were soft as he smiled back at her. The lowering sun was warm and gentle on her face, the breeze flirted with her hair like a lover’s fingers…and Mary knew she had never in her life been happier than she was at this moment.

So lost was she in the sweetness of those moments that when, a short time later and a little way down the street, a car started up and sped away, it never even registered on her consciousness.

Chapter 10

Susie Grace was the only one in Roan’s household watching television Monday morning when the news story broke. Boyd had installed the small set, one of the under-the-counter, fold-down flat-panel kind, so he could keep up with the news and his favorite programs while he was doing the cooking or cleaning up the dishes. Since this was Monday morning, though, he was still digesting Sunday’s newspaper, and Roan was around the corner in the bathroom mopping up after shaving and trying to decide if it was time to drop in at the barber shop or not.

Susie Grace had been keyed up and fidgety all morning, which Roan figured meant she was feeling either excited or apprehensive about the prospect of her first school day sporting her new hairdo. Consequently, she’d been doing more playing with her bowl of cereal than eating. She was picking raisins out with her fingers and