Deputy Defender

“Thank you,” Brenda said again. “Your place is so beautiful.”

“I give Sharon all the credit for the house.” Bud stepped forward and offered a hand. “I see to the cows and horses—though she has her say with them, too. Frankly, we’d probably all be lost without her.”

Sharon beamed at this praise, though Dwight knew she had heard it before—not that it wasn’t true. His mother was the epitome of the iron fist in the velvet glove—gently guiding them all, but not afraid to give them a kick in the rear if they needed it.

“Let me show you to your room,” Sharon said.

“I can do that, Mom,” Dwight said. He had retrieved Brenda’s laptop bag and suitcase from the car and now led the way into the house and up the stairs to the guest suite on the north side of the house. The door to the room was open, and he saw that someone—probably his mother—had put fresh flowers in a cut-glass vase on the bureau opposite the bed. The bright pink and yellow and white blossoms reflected in the mirror over the bureau, and echoed the colors in the quilt on the cherry sleigh bed that had belonged to Dwight’s great-grandmother.

“This is beautiful.” Brenda did a full turn in the middle of the room, taking it all in.

“You should be comfortable up here.” He set both her bags on the rug by the bed. “And you’ll have plenty of privacy. My parents added a master suite downstairs after us kids moved out.”

“Where do you live?” she asked.

“My cabin is on another part of the property. You can see it from the window over here.” He motioned, and she went to the window. He moved in behind her and pointed to the modest cedar cabin he had taken as his bachelor quarters. “Years ago, we had a ranch foreman who lived there, but he moved to a bigger place on another part of the ranch, so I claimed it.”

“Nice.”

The subtle floral fragrance of her perfume tickled his nostrils. It was all he could do not to lean down and inhale the scent of her—a gesture that would no doubt make her think he was a freak.

“I hope you didn’t take what I said wrong—about not wanting to move in with you,” she said. “It’s just—”

He touched her arm. “I know.” She had been the center of so much town gossip over the years, first with her husband’s murder, then with the revelations that he had been blackmailing prominent citizens, that she shied away from that sort of attention.

“I had the biggest crush on you when I was a kid,” he said. “That party here at the ranch—I wanted to ask you to dance so badly, but I could never work up the nerve.”

She searched his face. “Why were you afraid to ask?”

“You were so beautiful, and popular—you were a cheerleader—the prom queen.”

“You were popular, too.”

“I had friends, but not like you. Everyone liked you.”

She turned to look out the window once more. “All that seems so long ago,” she said.

He moved away. “I’ll let you get settled. We usually eat dinner around six.”

He was almost to the door when she called his name. “Dwight?”

“Yes?”

“You should have asked me to dance. I would have said yes.”

* * *

SEEING THE ADULT Dwight with his parents at dinner that evening gave Brenda a new perspective on the solemn, thoughtful sheriff’s deputy she thought she knew. With Bud and Sharon, Dwight was affectionate and teasing, laughing at the story Bud told about a ten-year-old Dwight getting cornered in a pasture by an ornery cow, offering a thoughtful opinion when Sharon asked if they should call in a new vet to look at a horse who was lame, and discussing plans to repair irrigation dikes before spring. Clearly, he still played an important role on the ranch despite his law enforcement duties.

Watching the interaction, Brenda missed her own parents—especially her mother. Her mother’s cancer had been diagnosed the summer before Brenda’s senior year of college. Her parents had insisted she continue her education, so Brenda saw the toll the disease took only on brief visits home.

She had met Andrew Stenson during that awful time, and he had been her strongest supporter and biggest help, a shoulder for her to cry on and someone for her to lean on in the aftermath of her mother’s death. No matter his flaws, she knew Andy had loved her, though she could see now that he had assumed the role of caretaker in their relationship. By the time they married, she had grown used to depending on him and letting him make the decisions.

But she wasn’t that grieving girl anymore. And she didn’t want a man to take care of her. She wanted someone to stand beside her—a partner, not just a protector.

After dinner, she insisted on helping Sharon with the dishes. “That’s my job, you know,” Dwight said as he stacked plates while Brenda collected silverware.

“The two of you can see to cleanup,” Sharon said. “I think I’ll sit out on the porch with your father. It’s such a nice evening.”

“You don’t have to work for your room and board,” Dwight said as he led the way into the kitchen. “I could get this myself.”

“I want to help,” she said. “Besides, we need to talk. I never got around to notifying the paper this afternoon.”

“You can do it in the morning,” he said. “The deadline for the weekly issue is the day after tomorrow.” He squirted dish soap into the sink and began filling it with hot water.

Brenda slid the silverware into the soapy water. “I’ve been racking my brain and I can’t come up with anyone who would want to harm me or the museum.”

“Maybe one of Andy’s blackmail victims has decided to take his anger out on you,” Dwight said as he began to wash dishes. “We don’t know who besides Jan he might have extorted money from, though the records we were able to obtain from his old bank accounts seemed to indicate multiple regular payments from several people.”

“Why focus on the book?” She picked up a towel and began to dry. “Part of me still thinks this is just a sick prank—that we’re getting all worked up for nothing.”

“I hope that’s all it is.” He rinsed a plate, then handed it to her. “I want to dig into Parker Riddell’s background a little more and see if I can trace his movements yesterday.”

“Why would he care about me or a rare book?” Brenda asked. “He’s a kid who made some mistakes, but I can’t see how or why he’d be involved in this.”

“I have to check him out,” Dwight said.

“I know. I just wish there were more I could do. I hate waiting around like this.” She hated being helpless.

“I know.” He handed her another plate. They did the dishes in companionable silence for the next few minutes. The domestic chore, and the easy rhythm they established, soothed her frayed nerves.

Dwight’s phone rang. He dried his hands and looked at the screen. “I’d better take this,” he said. He moved into the other room. She continued to dry, catching snippets of the conversation.

“When did this happen?”

“Who called it in?”

“What’s the extent of the damage?”

“I see. Yes. I’ll tell her.”

She set the plate she had been drying on the counter and turned to face him as he walked back into the room. His face confirmed her fears. “What’s happened?” she asked.

“There was a fire at your house. A neighbor called it in, but apparently there’s a lot of damage.”

She gripped the counter, trying to absorb the impact of his words. “How did it start?” she asked.

“They think it’s probably arson.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “We aren’t dealing with a prankster here. Someone is out to hurt you, and I’m not going to let that happen.”