The Sheriff of Shelter Valley

But then…that meant he was there to see the sweet older couple she’d met in the lobby of the Performing Arts Center at Montford University six weeks before.

“I take it Bob, Sr. and Clara aren’t home?” he asked.

He had the most intense dark green eyes.

Still holding the door, Beth told him, “They went to Phoenix to have lunch and see a movie.” She frowned. “Is something wrong?” Bob, Sr. had lost both his parents during the past few months. Surely they’d had their share of bad news for a while.

Greg shook his head, but Beth had a feeling that it was the “I’m not at liberty to say” kind of gesture rather than the “no” she’d been seeking.

“I just need to ask them a couple of questions,” he added, “but it sounds like they’ll be gone most of the afternoon.” His gaze was warm, personal.

“I got that impression.”

Hands in his pockets, Greg didn’t leave. “I’ll catch them later tonight, then. If you don’t mind, please don’t mention that I’ve been by.”

“Of course not.” Beth never—ever—put her nose in other people’s business. She didn’t know if this was a newly acquired trait or one she’d brought with her into this prison of oblivion. “I won’t be seeing or talking to them, anyway. I just leave their key under the mat when I’m through here.”

“So what time would that be?”

Beth glanced at her watch—not that it was going to tell her what jobs she had left or how long they would take. “Within the hour.” She was due to pick Ryan up from the Willises at five.

Ryan couldn’t be enrolled in the day care in town. Not only was Beth living a lie, without even a social security number, but she couldn’t take a chance on signing any official papers that might allow someone to trace her.

Especially when she had no idea who that someone might be.

So she left the toddler with two elderly sisters, Ethel and Myra Willis, who adored him. And she only accepted cash from her clients.

“How does an early dinner sound?”

That inexplicable headiness hadn’t left her since she’d answered the door. “With you?” she asked, stalling, putting off the moment when she had to refuse.

He nodded, the movement subtly incorporating his entire body. It was one of the things that kept Greg on her mind long after she’d run into him someplace or other—the way he put all of himself into everything he did. You had to be sincere to be able to do that consistently.

“I have to feed Ryan,” she said, only because it was more palatable than an outright no. It still meant no.

Pulling a hand from his pocket, he turned it palm upward. “The diner serves kids.”

Beth’s eyes were automatically drawn to that hand and beyond, to the pocket it had left. And from there to the heavy-looking gun in a black leather holster at his hip.

“Ry’s not good in restaurants.” Her mouth dry, Beth knew she had to stop. Too much was at stake.

Yet she liked to think she was starting a new life. And if she was, she wanted this man in it.

If he weren’t a cop. And if she weren’t afraid she was on the run from something pretty damn horrible. If she were certain she could trust him, no matter who she might turn out to be, no matter what she might have done.

“He’s two,” Greg said. “He’ll learn.”

“I have no doubt he will, but I’d rather get him over the food-throwing stage in private.”

Greg stared down at his feet, shod, as usual, in freshly shined black wing tips. “In all the months I’ve known you, I’ve never done one thing to give you reason to doubt me, but you always brush me off,” he said eventually.

“No, I…” Beth stopped. “Okay, yes, I am.”

“Is it my breath?”

“No!” She chuckled, relaxing for just a second. With the truth out in the open, the immediate danger was gone.

“My hair? You don’t like black hair?” He was grinning at her, and somehow that little bit of humor was more devastating than his earlier intensity.

“I like black just fine. Tom Cruise has black hair.”

“Dark brown. Tom Cruise has dark brown hair. And he’s the reason you’ve come up with an excuse every single time I’ve asked you out?”

“No.”

“It’s the curls, then? You don’t like men with curls?”

“I love your curls.” Oh God. She hadn’t meant to say that. Her throat started to close up again. She couldn’t do this.

And she couldn’t not do this. Beth’s emotional well had been bone-dry for so long she sometimes feared it was beginning to crumble into nothingness. She had no one else sharing her life—her fears and worries and pains; worse, she didn’t really even have herself. She was living with a stranger in her own mind.

“Ryan has curls,” she finished lamely.

Greg’s expression grew serious. “Is it the cop thing? I know a lot of women don’t want to be involved with cops. Understandably so.”

His guess was dead right, but not in the way he meant. “I’m not one of them,” she said, compelled to be honest with him. About this, at least. “I’d consider myself lucky to be involved with a man who’d dedicated his life to helping others. A man who put the safety of others before his own. One who still had enough faith in society to believe it’s worth saving.”

“Even though you’d know, every morning when you kissed him goodbye as he left for work, that you might never see him again?”

“Every woman—and man—faces that danger,” she said. “I’ll bet that far more people die in car accidents than on the job working as a cop.”

“Far more,” he agreed.

“And, anyway,” she said, feeling a sudden urge to close the door, “who said anything about kissing every morning?”

“I was hoping I’d been able to slide that one by you,” he said.

“Nope.”

“So—” his gaze became challenging “—if it’s not the cop thing and it’s not my breath, it must be you that you’re afraid of.”

“I am not afraid.”

He sobered. “If you need more time, Beth, I certainly understand. We could grab a sandwich as friends, maybe see a movie or something.”

More time? She frowned.

“It’s been—what?—less than a year since you were widowed?” he asked, his face softening.