Slow Dance with the Sheriff

The animals seemed to realise there were now many more of them inside the field than outside it and they began to drift back through the fence to the safety of their numbers. It wasn’t quick, but it was movement. And it was in the right direction.

The sheriff whistled and his dog immediately came back to his side. They both stood, panting, by her rental’s tailpipe and watched the dawdling migration.

‘He’s well trained,’ Ellie commented from her position above the sheriff’s shoulder, searching for something to say.

‘It was part of our deal,’ he answered cryptically. Then he turned and thrust his hand up towards her. ‘County Sheriff Jerry Jackson.’

Ellie made herself ignore how many cow rumps that hand had been slapping only moments before. They weren’t vermin, just…living suede. His fingers were warm as they pressed into hers, his shake firm but not crippling. She tried hard not to stiffen.

‘Jed,’ he modified.

‘Sheriff.’ She smiled and nodded as though she was in a top-class restaurant and not perched on the back of a car surrounded by rogue livestock.

‘And you are…?’

Trying not to tell you, she realised, not entirely sure why. For the first time it dawned on her that she’d be a nobody here. Not a socialite. Not a performer. Not a Patterson.

No responsibilities. No expectations.

Opportunity rolled out before her bright and shiny and warmed her from the inside. But then she remembered she’d never be able to escape who she was—even if she wasn’t in fact who she’d thought she was for the past thirty years.

‘Ellie.’ She almost said Eleanor, the name she was known by in Manhattan, but at the last moment she used the name Alex called her. ‘Ellie Patterson.’

‘Where are you staying, Ellie?’

His body language was relaxed and he had the ultimate vouch pinned high on his chest—a big silver star. There was no reason in the world that she should be bristling at his courteous questions and yet…she was.

‘Are you just making conversation or is that professional interest?’

His polite smile died before it formed fully. He turned up to face her front-on. ‘The Calhouns are friends of mine and you’re a friend of theirs…’ Though the speculation in his voice told her he really wasn’t convinced of that yet. ‘It would be wrong of me to send you on your way without extending you some country courtesy in their place.’

It was credible. This was Texas, after all. But trusting had never come easy to her. And neither had admitting she wasn’t fully on top of everything. In New York, that was just assumed.

She was Eleanor.

And she’d assumed she’d be welcomed with open arms at the Calhoun ranch. ‘I’m sure I’ll find a place in town…’

‘Ordinarily I’d agree with you,’ he said. ‘But the Tri-County Chamber of Commerce is having their annual convention in town this week so our motel and bed and breakfasts are pretty maxed out. You might have a bit of trouble.’

Embarrassed heat flooded up her back. Accommodation was a pretty basic thing to overlook. She called on her fundraising persona—the one that had served her so well in the ballrooms of New York—and brushed his warning off. ‘I’m sure I’ll find something.’

‘You could try Nan’s Bunk’n’Grill back on I-38, but it’s a fair haul from here.’ He paused, maybe regretting his hospitality in the face of her bland expression. ‘Or the Alamo, right here in town, can accommodate a single. It’s vacant right now but that could change any time.’

Having someone organise her didn’t sit well, particularly since she’d failed abysmally to organise herself. If she had to, she’d drive all the way to Austin to avoid having to accept the condescension of strangers.

‘Thanks for the concern, Sheriff, but I’ll be fine.’ Her words practically crunched with stiffness.

He studied her from behind reflective sunglasses, until a throat gurgle from Deputy got his attention. He turned and looked back up the dirt road where a dust stream had appeared.

‘That’s Calhoun men,’ he said simply. ‘They’ll deal with the rest of the steer and repair the fence.’

Instant panic hit her. If they were Calhoun employees, then they were her employees. She absolutely didn’t want their first impression of her to be like this, cowering and ridiculous on the rooftop of her car. What if they remembered it when they found out who she was? She started to slide off.

Without asking, he stretched up over the trunk and caught her around the waist to help her dismount. Her bare feet touched softly down onto the cow-compacted earth and she stumbled against him harder than was polite.

Or bearable.

She used the moment of steadying herself as an excuse to push some urgent distance between them but he stayed close, towering over her and keeping the last curious cows back. A moment later, a truck pulled up and a handful of cowboys leapt off the tray and launched into immediate action. That gave her the time she needed to slip her heels back on and slide back into the rental.

She was Eleanor Patterson. Unflappable. Capable. Confident.

Once inside, she lowered her window and smiled her best New York dazzler out at him. ‘Thank you, Sheriff—’

‘Jed.’

‘—for everything. I’ll know better than to get out in the middle of a stampede next time.’

And just as she was feeling supremely on top of things again, he reached through her open window and brushed his fingers against her braided hair and retrieved a single piece of straw.

Her chest sucked in just as all the air in her body puffed out and she couldn’t help the flinch from his large, tanned fingers.

No one touched her hair.

No one.

She faked fumbling for her keys and it effectively brushed his hand away. But it didn’t do a thing to diminish the temporary warmth his brief touch had caused. Its lingering compounded her confusion.

But he didn’t miss her knee-jerk reaction. His lips tightened and Ellie wished he’d take the sunglasses off so she could see his eyes. For just a moment. She swallowed past the lump in her throat and pushed away her hormones’ sudden interest in Sheriff Jerry Jackson.

‘Welcome to Larkville, Ms. Patterson,’ he rumbled, deep and low.

Larkville. Really, shouldn’t a town with a name like that have better news to offer? A town full of levity and pratfalls, not secrets and heartbreak.

But she had to find out.

Either Cedric Patterson was her father…or he wasn’t.

And if he wasn’t—her stomach curled in on itself—what the hell was she going to do?

She cleared her throat. ‘Thank you again, Sheriff.’

‘Remember…the Alamo.’

The timing was too good. Despite all her exhaustion and uncertainty, despite everything that had torn her world wide open this past week, laughter suddenly wanted to tumble out into the midday air.

She resisted it, holding the unfamiliar sensation to herself instead.

She started her rental.