The Lawman's Runaway Bride

“We all know Randy,” he retorted.

“That officer was about to break his arm!”

“Do you really think I’d let a teenager get roughed up on my watch?”

Perhaps not, but he wasn’t listening to what she was saying anyway. She knew this boy—or she had known him—but that didn’t matter right now, at least not to Chance. It had been a knee-jerk reaction, and it hadn’t been her stand to take. Except Chance had been taking his sweet time in intervening—

“Now, if you don’t mind, I have a kid to talk with in the interview room.” Chance turned to the receptionist. “Call his mother at the grocery store. Tell her to come down to the station at her earliest convenience.”

The receptionist nodded and immediately picked up the phone, but not before casting Sadie a sidelong look. She hadn’t made any friends here today, it seemed.

“Chance, I’m—” She swallowed the words and started again. “Chief Morgan...” It wasn’t easy to use his official title. It changed things between them—broadened the gap even more than it already was.

“Yes?” His tone softened.

“I’m sorry for stepping on toes. It won’t happen again.”

Chance gave her a nod. “I appreciate that. Now, I’ve got to deal with this, so we’ll have to reschedule our meeting. I’ll call you.”

He walked off briskly in the direction that Officer Gillespie had taken Randy, and Sadie turned back toward his office to collect her coat and bag. Chance was now police chief, and that changed more than she’d realized. They weren’t equals, and while she used to be able to cajole Chance into good humor or make demands where she saw fit, that wasn’t going to work anymore. There would be no more toes up on the dashboard of his cruiser, no more inside jokes between them. He was no longer her fiancé’s twin brother, and he most certainly wasn’t family. Chance was the commander of the entire force here in Comfort Creek, and he called the shots.

Working with Chance was going to be harder than she’d anticipated, because more than having to apologize for her actions five years ago, she’d also have to swallow her pride. Saying she was sorry was hard enough, but calling her old buddy “sir” would be a whole lot harder. And it looked like Chance wasn’t going to make that any easier for her, either.

She buttoned her coat as she headed out the front doors of the station and didn’t look back. She’d wanted a place to belong in Comfort Creek. She just hadn’t counted on that position being lower than Chance Morgan’s.

Chapter Four (#u8c8bfd10-3f11-5b44-b02e-bbd1ac25ae1f)

Chance headed down the hallway toward interview room B. There were only two interview rooms, and room A was filled with file boxes. Chance paused at the door, looking into the sparse room at the young man sitting behind a bare table. His brown hair was shaggy, hanging down over his eyes in the style the teenagers seemed to like these days. He wore a baggy winter jacket that was unzipped to reveal a shirt with a band’s logo on the front of it. He was slumped down in the chair, the cuffs off now that he was detained, and he rubbed idly at his wrists. Those cuffs had been tight.

Chance opened the door and stepped inside.

“Good morning,” Chance said.

Randy was silent.

“A little early to be drinking, isn’t it?” Chance asked.

“You mean my age, or before noon?” Randy quipped.

Chance wasn’t amused. Killing off brain cells at his young age was nothing to laugh at. He pulled out the chair opposite Randy and sat down.

“Both, actually,” Chance replied.

Randy looked away again. Chance knew Randy Ellison’s family well. His older sister, Lily, had served as temporary foster care provider for the town for a few years, and she’d also married a cop from the sensitivity training program. Randy’s mother was assistant manager at the local grocery store who worked long hours to provide for her kids. The Ellison boys had been getting more and more out of control as the years went by, and not because the town didn’t care, either.

“You’ve got little brothers looking up to you,” Chance said.

“So?”

“They do what you do,” Chance replied. “You know that. Do you want them making your mistakes?”

Silence again. Chance could tell that he wasn’t going to get anywhere this way. Randy was angry—very deeply angry—and appealing to the boy’s honor wasn’t going to suddenly fix that. Chance looked at his watch. It had been about fifteen minutes so far, and the grocery store wasn’t far from the station.

“We’re calling your mom. She’ll be here anytime now, I’m sure.”

Randy winced at that one, and Chance couldn’t help the smile that twitched at the corners of his lips. Iris Ellison might have her hands full with these boys, but she hadn’t given up on them yet.

“So what do we tell her?” Chance asked.

“What do you mean?” Randy frowned.

“I mean, according to Officer Gillespie, you were drinking alcohol and got mouthy. You’re underage, you resisted arrest...” Chance crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Now, we can either tell her that you’ll be facing charges in the youth courts, or we can tell her that we’ve come to another arrangement.”