The Sheriff's Nine-Month Surprise

* * *

There was something on her mind.

Something more than concern about the client who’d brought her into his office a few hours earlier. When Luke Ryker told him that she’d shown up at the Sheriff’s Office, he’d hoped it was memories of the nights they’d spent together that inspired Katelyn to track him down. But she certainly wasn’t giving the impression of a woman motivated by carnal desires.

And though she kept up her end of the conversation while they ate, her thoughts were obviously elsewhere.

“Is it convenient or tiresome to live above your office?” he asked, attempting to engage her attention.

Katelyn twirled her fork in her pasta. “It’s convenient,” she said. “Certainly a lot more convenient than driving twenty miles into town from the Circle G Ranch every day.”

He’d heard of the Circle G—reputedly the biggest and most prosperous cattle ranch in all of Haven County. It was also, if he remembered the story correctly, half of the property that was the original source of friction between the Gilmore and Blake families when they settled in the area more than one hundred and fifty years before.

According to local folklore, back in the spring of 1855, a developer sold a 100,000-acre parcel of land in Nevada to Everett Gilmore, a struggling farmer from Plattsmouth, Nebraska. The same developer also sold 100,000 acres to Samuel Blake, a down-on-his-luck businessman from Omaha. Both men subsequently packed up their families and their worldly possessions and headed west for a fresh start.

Everett Gilmore arrived first, and it was only when Samuel Blake showed up with his deed in hand that the two men realized they’d been sold the exact same parcel of land. Since both title deeds were stamped with the same date, there was no way of knowing who was the legitimate owner of the land. Distrustful of the local magistrate’s ability to resolve the situation to anyone’s satisfaction—and not wanting to publicly admit that they’d been duped—the two men agreed to share the property between them, using the natural divide of Eighteen-Mile Creek as the boundary between their lands.

Because the Gilmores had already started to build their home in the valley—on the west side of the creek—the Blakes were relegated to the higher elevation on the east, where the land was mostly comprised of rocky hills and ridges. The Gilmores’ cattle immediately benefitted from grazing on more hospitable terrain, while the Blakes struggled for a lot of years to keep their herd viable—until silver and gold were found in the hills on their side of the creek and they gave up ranching in favor of mining.

“Is there any truth to that story about the ancestors of the Gilmore and Blake families coming to Nevada to settle the same piece of land?” he asked her now.

“It’s all true,” she assured him. “The Gilmores still own the fifty thousand acres on the west side of the creek and the Blakes own the fifty thousand acres, including all the gold and silver, on the east.”

She put her fork down and picked up her glass of water. “You were going to tell me why Trent was given a court date and Aiden was locked up,” she reminded him.

“Because Trent was a passenger in the car that Aiden was driving.”

“Where’d they find the car?” she asked.

“Parked, with the key in the cup holder, in the driveway of the owner’s house on Mountainview Road.”

Katelyn shook her head. “Anyone who leaves, in plain view, the key to a fancy car deserves to have it stolen.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you say that.”

“How mad was Rebecca Blake when she realized her car had been taken?”

“Beyond mad,” he admitted. “And more than a little embarrassed, because she knew that she’d left the key in it.”

“She was at Elsie Hampton’s funeral—and she’s known Aiden since he was in diapers,” Katelyn told him. “As mad and embarrassed as she was, I’m a little surprised that she wanted to press charges.”

“It wasn’t her choice,” he said.

“You do know you’ll never get a conviction on grand larceny, don’t you? It would be a waste of time and resources to even take it to trial.”

“That’s an argument better saved for your discussions with the prosecutor,” he suggested.

“Maybe it’s different in Echo Ridge, but here the prosecutor doesn’t usually make decisions about the disposition of charges without first consulting the Sheriff’s Office.”

“I investigated the complaint of a stolen vehicle and made the appropriate arrests,” he said. “Now it’s up to your pal in the ADA’s office to decide what to do with the defendants.”

“Dustin Perry’s not my pal,” she told him.

“I saw the two of you chatting while waiting for the judge. He seemed...favorably inclined toward you.”

“You know, for a guy who was quick to point out that he’s not a lawyer, you sound an awful lot like one at times.”

He frowned. “Are you trying to spoil my appetite?”

She looked at his almost empty plate. “Not much chance of that.”

“What can I say? This is great pasta,” he said.

And it was. The red sauce had chunks of tomato, pepper and onion and was just a little bit spicy. But while he’d been mopping up sauce with a second slice of crusty bread, he noticed that she’d hardly touched her meal. She had her fork in hand and was pushing the pasta around on her plate, but she’d rarely lifted the utensil to her mouth.

“I didn’t make anything for dessert, but I do have ice cream,” she told him.

“What kind?”

She pushed her chair away from the table and went to open the freezer drawer below the refrigerator. Her appliances were all top of the line—as was everything else that he could see. Whoever had renovated the building had spared no expense in the dark walnut cupboards, natural granite countertops, marble tile and hardwood floors.

“Chocolate, chocolate ’n’ peanut butter or chocolate chip cookie dough,” she offered.

“Nothing with chocolate?” he asked drily.

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she shrugged. “Sorry.”

“Do you have cones?”

“No, but I have waffle bowls,” she told him.

“Even better,” he decided.

“What kind do you want?”

“Cookie dough.”

She took the container out of the freezer and set it on the counter, then opened the cupboard and stood on her toes. “If they were more easily accessible, I’d indulge all the time,” she explained, as she stretched toward the top shelf.

“If you didn’t want to indulge, you wouldn’t buy them,” he commented, easily reaching over her head for the box.

She pulled open a drawer to retrieve an ice-cream scoop. “That’s just the kind of logic I’d expect from a man.”

He set the box on the corner, then lifted his hand to tuck an errant strand of hair behind her ear, his fingertip slowly tracing the outer shell.

The scoop slipped from her grasp, bounced on the counter.

“I don’t remember you being skittish,” he said.