No Place Like Home

Something about the way she said that, despite her air of humor, made Dottie wonder if there was more to the story. There usually was.

“But—” she beamed “—I love fudge. It’ll be cool learning how to make it. I wonder if Jake likes fudge. He said his boss told him to spend the next three days doing whatever Miss Norma told him to do, so he’ll be around tomorrow.”

“Who’s that?”

“Norma Sue Jenkins. I can’t wait to meet her and Adela and Esther Mae. They’re the ladies who first put out the ad that brought Lacy Brown and Sheri Marsh to town. And then there’s Molly, of course, and Sam. And Clint, and Cort and J.P. and Bob—”

“Whoa Nellie! How many people does this Molly write about?”

“Everyone…I think. I don’t know though, ’cause she never wrote about Jake, and I’ll tell you this—she should have. Although Bob’s probably gonna be my man. Bob’s special—”

“Bob? Who’s Bob, and what do you mean ‘your man’?” Dottie felt queasy.

“Bob Jacobs, he’s been a headliner in Molly’s stories. He’s the main reason I came. He’s the one I’m gonna marry.”

Brady hopped from the cab of his tractor, his boots sending up a plume of dust from the barn floor as he landed. He needed a shower, a tall glass of iced tea and some unwinding time. Striding from the barn, he made his way across the expanse of Saint Augustine grass and flagstone separating the house and the barn. His mom and dad had outdone themselves when they’d built the huge two-story ranch house.

What a waste that he lived here alone.

He was still gnawing on that problem a short while later walking, freshly showered, from the silent house out onto the front porch. The sound of his bare footsteps echoed behind him, reminders that no single guy should have this much house all to himself.

Sinking to the top step, he relaxed against the porch post as he’d done a thousand times in his lifetime and took a sip of his tea. Besides being the sheriff, the only official emergency responder within twenty miles, he also ran his own cattle operation. It made for a very full plate. And that helped him not think so much about how the house was too big for him.

Or about how it would never hear the steps of children…

He inhaled sharply, feeling the warm breeze, smelling the dust and grass, laced with a faint sweetness from the ancient wisteria bush growing up the trellis. It was hard to believe he’d spent most of his youth planning his escape from the quiet of the country, Mule Hollow specifically.

And his parents’ hopes and dreams for him.

His parents, had they lived to see his return, would have been happy…at least in theory. Dreams didn’t always turn out the way they were dreamed, but he’d adapted to the reality of his return home.

Life was about illusions. And overcoming regrets.

Dottie Hart.

The beautiful woman was special. The very essence of her being reached out and expressed the fact, he was certain, to everyone. He couldn’t imagine she had this effect on him alone. It had to be momentary, though, she was just passing through. Here today, gone tomorrow—literally. So where were all these thoughts bombarding him coming from?

He took another drink of his iced tea, then studied a pebble on the porch step as he rubbed his big toe back and forth across it. He’d accepted when he’d come back to Mule Hollow that he was damaged goods and he hadn’t really cared, yet the realization of his past and what it meant to his future had hit him full force today. For the first time in six years he suddenly cared that he was never going to marry and have a family.

It was ridiculous, he’d only just met Dottie and suddenly he was reevaluating his decisions.

He rose and walked to the end of the sidewalk, feeling the cool breeze on his sweat-dampened skin.

A picture of Dottie Hart formed in his mind. He couldn’t believe she had gone that far out of her way to watch out for Cassie. He thought of the Good Samaritan in the Bible. As a kid hearing that story in Sunday school, he hadn’t thought what an unusual thing the man had done. If he had fallen off his bike and skinned his knee, there had always been a herd of people who would stop to help him.

But that had been a kid’s perspective.

As a cop he’d seen firsthand just how unusual it was for someone to stop and help a person on the side of the road. People didn’t want to get involved. People were afraid. With good reason.

He understood all too well how dangerous it was out there. Witnessed it up close and too personal. There was a part of him that wanted to tell Dottie what she’d done had been reckless, most especially for a woman alone in an area she didn’t know. But his admiration for her overruled all his cautions. Again he wondered what her story was. He wondered… Stop wondering, Brady.

Other than helping her figure out if Cassie Bates was a runaway, he didn’t need to be wondering anything about Dottie.

Because the reality was, when each day ended, he would always walk into his house alone.

He’d chosen the life of a cop. He’d seen what happened to a cop’s family when things went wrong in the line of duty. He’d thought watching his partner die in his arms was the hardest thing he’d ever done. But it had been watching Eddie’s wife and two kids at the hospital that had changed his life.

He’d decided he would never put anyone he loved through that anguish.

Life was about choices. Good ones. Bad ones.

Hard ones.

Turning, he strode to the hollow house, yanked open the screen door and stepped inside. Alone.

Chapter Three

Sam’s Pharmaceuticals and Diner. Dottie read the sign splashed across the window. She smiled when she got close enough to read Eat at Your Own Peril, in small print. Sounded like Sam had a sense of humor.

When she awakened at her usual five in the morning she’d decided to check out the town and get a cup of coffee at the café. After working out and writing an e-mail to her brother, filling him in on what was happening, she’d made quick time coming over. She was excited to see the café Cassie had so vividly described to her with its jukebox that got stuck on forty-fives, playing the same song over and over again until it got good and ready to switch to something new.

Now, as she pushed open the door, she was instantly swept back in time. She felt like a child again, holding her granddad’s hand as he bought her a soda pop at the general store just down the road from his house.

She loved those days.

Today the smells were of aged, oiled wood, bacon frying and the sweet scent of five-cent candy…. Inhaling deeply, she knew she could really love this place.

The first person she saw when she stepped into the room was Sheriff Brady. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, the guy was the perfect adornment for any setting. All night she’d tried to tell herself there was no way he could be as handsome as she’d remembered.

Wrong.

He was everything she’d thought and more.

She had no time for this. She had an agenda to accomplish a long way from this small town. She was out of here in just a few days. So maybe she could look at the good sheriff, but that was it. No flirting, not that she was any good at flirting… The man was off-limits.

And you’d better remember it!

“Mornin’, Miss Hart.” His slow, easy drawl drew her to meet his eyes over his coffee cup as he took a sip of the steaming brew.

Dottie rubbed her suddenly clammy hands on the fronts of her workout pants and gave him a puny smile.

She’d had a terrible night after she’d finally turned in, which was strange since she’d had such an interesting day. No way had she been expecting the nightmares to start again. When she’d awakened drenched in sweat, her heart pounding in the darkness, not even the small night-light she kept near her bed helped. The only relief, as always, had been to flee outside to the sweet open space where she could sit and talk to the Lord. Her caring Savior was always there for her.

Everything was fine now. “Good morning to you, Sheriff. Did you sleep well?”

He raised an eyebrow. “How about you?”

She shrugged, noticing the two eavesdropping older men sitting at the window hunched over a game of checkers that they were valiantly pretending to play. Instead, they were covertly listening.