Spring In The Valley

“About what?”

“About Rand Benedict.” Merrilee exchanged a long look with Marion.

“I’ve told you everything I know about the man,” Brynn insisted with a shrug, striving for nonchalance.

Merrilee narrowed her eyes. “You haven’t told us why you’re absolutely glowing when you talk about him.”

“I’m glowing because I just walked two blocks in the snow, not because he asked me to dinner.” Brynn started to push away from the table, but Marion grabbed her wrist.

“Whoa, not so fast,” her aunt said.

Cornered, Brynn sank into her chair. “What?”

“Tell us the rest,” Marion said.

“I told you—”

“—the bare bones,” Merrilee interrupted. “Now fill in the blanks.”

Irritated at their persistence, Brynn ran a finger under the suddenly too-tight collar of her uniform. “There are no blanks.”

Merrilee shook her head. “This is Merrilee June, your old buddy, you’re talking to, your friend who’s taken part in every bit of mischief you’ve ever committed. I know that look, Brynn.”

“The dead-tired-after-working-all-night-and-want-to-go-home-and-sleep look?” Brynn hedged.

“Un-uh.” Merrilee shook her head. “The I’m-hiding-something look.”

“What would I have to hide?” Brynn asked, feigning innocence.

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Aunt Marion said. “What’s this Rand Benedict look like?”

Handsome as sin. Good enough to eat. Pulse-pounding perfect. “He’s nice looking.”

Merrilee rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Brynn. I can tell you’re interested in the guy. You get this soft, misty look when you talk about him.”

“I am not interested. And even if I were, he’s a married Yankee lawyer.” She didn’t know for certain he was married, but claiming the fact would help get her off the hook. She hoped.

“You sure he’s married?” Marion asked. Brynn’s aunt had been trying to find a husband for her only niece since Brynn had turned eighteen. Having gone through all the eligible bachelors in Pleasant Valley and the surrounding counties, Marion obviously viewed Rand Benedict as fresh meat.

“He has a son,” Brynn said, hoping to convince them that Benedict was unavailable. “He’s bought a house too huge for just the two of them. Maybe he’s waiting for his wife to join him.”

“Maybe he’s divorced,” Merrilee countered.

“Well, hot damn,” Brynn said with more sarcasm than she’d intended. “That would make him a real catch. A divorced Yankee lawyer.”

“Maybe the two of you could find something in common,” Aunt Marion, ever the optimist, suggested.

“Maybe the two of you should mind your own business,” Brynn said with a smile to soften her words. “I’m not in the market for a man.”

“Then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t accept his dinner offer,” Marion responded with maddening logic.

“And every reason why you should,” Merrilee added.

“Name one,” Brynn shot back, outflanked and outnumbered.

“He’s new in town.” Merrilee studied her perfect pink fingernails with exasperating calm. “You should make him feel welcome.”

Aunt Marion bent her head toward Brynn, her eyes flashing with curiosity. “And you’d have the perfect opportunity to learn more about him.”

“Why would I want to know?” Brynn refused to admit how much the prospect of discovering more about Rand appealed to her.

“Pffft,” Marion snorted. “This is Pleasant Valley, honeybun. Everyone wants to know everything about everyone else. And it’s particularly important for the police to have all the facts. Think how much trouble Jim and Cat Stratton might have avoided if you had dug up the goods on that Ginger Parker when she first came to town.”

“I’m a police officer,” Brynn said. “If you want someone to dig up dirt on Rand Benedict, hire a private eye.”

“We’re not suggesting the man has skeletons in his closet,” Merrilee said with a shake of her pretty blond curls. “If he really is a single parent with a small son, he needs the help of a supportive community.”

“From what I saw,” Brynn said, “Rand Benedict can afford to pay for all the help he needs.”

“You can’t buy friends,” Merrilee observed quietly.

Brynn winced. Maybe police work had made her cynical, just as Emily had said. “You’re right,” she conceded with a sigh. “If the man asks me again, I’ll consider going to dinner.”

Hope flared in Marion’s eyes, and Brynn was quick to add, “But just because it’s the neighborly thing to do, and I only said I’d consider it. By the way, what did you think of Jodie and Jeff’s cutting their wedding cake with a Marine officer’s saber yesterday? That’s a first for Pleasant Valley.”

With the subject safely shifted, Brynn leaned back in her chair and enjoyed her coffee. Rand Benedict lived out of town and didn’t seem the type to mix with the locals. In a few days, Aunt Marion, Merrilee and Brynn herself, she hoped, would forget all about him. After all, the man had said he was on sabbatical, not a permanent resident. She’d probably never see him again.

Over a week later, Brynn surveyed the eager young faces of Mrs. Shepherd’s third-grade class with a sentimental sense of dеj? vu. It didn’t seem that long ago that she and Jodie had sat next to each other in the rows beside the windows and Merrilee had been in the first grade classroom down the hall.

Outside the tall windows of the ancient brick building, a row of spectacular Bradford pear trees bloomed like stalks of white cotton candy against the brilliant blue sky. Beneath them, beds of cheerful yellow daffodils, hearty survivors of the brief spring storm, nodded in the breeze. Last week’s snow had melted almost immediately, replaced by warm balmy days that had induced an outbreak of spring fever in the school’s population. Needing a diversion from routine, Mrs. Shepherd had asked Brynn to present her Officer Friendly program to the class.

Brynn had completed her standard talk on avoiding strangers and observing traffic and gun-safety rules and was handing out junior officer cards when she noted a newcomer who had just slipped in the rear door and joined the parent volunteers at the back of the class.

Rand Benedict.

What was he doing at the elementary school? Jared wasn’t old enough to enroll. But Rand, dressed with great casual style in khaki chinos and a sage-green knit shirt that brought out the deep brown of his eyes, sat with one hip propped atop a low bookcase, perfectly at ease, as if he had every right to be there.

He’d phoned the station several times over the past week and left Brynn messages, asking her to return his calls, but she hadn’t. In spite of her halfway promise to Merrilee and Marion, she didn’t intend to accept his dinner invitation. Being alone with a man she found both entirely too appealing and at the same time completely wrong for her would be an exercise in frustration. By not responding to his calls, Brynn had hoped to make him realize she wasn’t interested. And until this moment, she’d believed her lack of response had worked.

“Now, class,” Mrs. Shepherd was saying, “before Officer Sawyer leaves, does anyone have questions?”

Brynn dragged her attention from Rand to the class. In the front row, Kenny Fulton, a skinny little hellion whose father owned the town’s only department store, waved his hand. “Have you ever shot anybody?”

Aware of Rand’s gaze, which was making her cheeks flush and her body temperature rise, Brynn answered, “No, Kenny, fortunately, I’ve never had to draw my gun in the line of duty.”

“How come?” the boy demanded.

“Because most people have enough respect for the law to do what an officer says without the need to display deadly force.”