The Sheriff of Shelter Valley

“Bonnie said you’d explain about Grandma Neilson,” she reminded him. His younger sister had begged that Beth stay, insisting they’d only be gone a few minutes and she’d hate it if their day was ruined.

“She refuses Bonnie’s invitation to join us for dinner on a fairly regular basis, insisting she doesn’t want to impose, and then, inevitably, has some kind of mock crisis that’s far more of an imposition than her acceptance of the dinner invitation would’ve been.”

“Mock crisis?” Soothed into an unusual sense of security, Beth leaned back against the oversize leather chair she’d fallen into after lunch.

“Something that seems to need immediate attention, but that she could handle perfectly well by herself—or that turns out to be nothing at all. A toilet that might be clogged, for example. Or a strange noise in the attic, due to a loose shingle.” Greg was smiling.

“But today’s call—a seventy-five-year-old woman who’s lost electricity in half her house, including her refrigerator—sounds pretty legit to me.”

“Most likely a blown fuse.”

“Still, for a woman her age…”

“Baloney,” Greg exclaimed.

Ryan stirred, but settled back against her, his auburn curls growing sweaty where his head lay against her.

“She might be seventy-five years old, but she’s as feisty and as manipulative as they come—and I’ve loved her as long as I can remember.”

“You knew her before Bonnie and Keith got married?”

“She used to be the librarian at the elementary school. Every kid in town knew Mrs. Neilson. And loved her, too, I suppose. She’s been a widow since Keith’s dad was little. She’s also the strongest person I’ve ever met. She’d go to the wall for any one of us if she believed in our cause. Nothing as trivial as a blown fuse is going to get in her way. Lonna Neilson could rewire that whole house if she put her mind to it.”

“Then, why do Bonnie and Keith keep running over there?”

Greg’s shrug drew her attention to the width of his shoulders. Shoulders a woman could lay her head against…

If that woman wasn’t Beth Allen. Or Beth Whoever-she-was.

“In the first place,” he said, “because they never know whether she’s crying wolf or whether it might be the real thing.”

She liked that. A lot. That they didn’t give up on the old woman.

“And more importantly, because what’s really driving her to call is the need to know she’s loved. That’s why Bonnie always goes, as well. It takes both of them to either make her feel good enough to be happy at home, or to convince her to join them here.”

Beth smiled, praying he couldn’t see the trembling of her lips. “So you’re used to being left here with Katie every Sunday?” she asked. Keep talking, don’t think. Don’t envision a vacant future, or, maybe worse, one that isn’t vacant, only intolerable.

“Nah, Grandma Neilson comes over about half the time she’s asked, and then there’s the occasional Sunday when no crisis arises.”

His words were something to focus on. Something to take her thoughts away from the fact that her past held a threat so great she’d taken her baby and run.

“But I’m used to time alone with Katie,” Greg continued lazily. “She’s a big part of my life.”

“Have you ever thought about having kids of your own?”

Beth’s gaze shot down to Ryan as soon as she heard her own words. She’d broken a major Beth Allen rule. Never ask personal questions. Doing so was often taken as an invitation by the recipient to ask questions, too.

Damn. Give her a good meal, a comfortable chair and she lost all sense of herself. Which was scary when one didn’t have much of that to begin with. When one was making things up as one went along…

Lifting an ankle to his knee, Greg slouched down farther. He looked more like a college kid than the head of an entire law enforcement organization. “I used to think I’d have a whole houseful of kids by now,” he said. “You’ve probably noticed that Shelter Valley families tend to be rather large. You don’t have to live here long to figure that out.”

His grin was sardonic, half deprecating, half affectionate, as he spoke about the people he protected day in and day out.

“Especially if you spend any time at Little Spirits,” Beth said, his easy tone allowing her to continue a conversation she’d meant to shut down. “It seems like everyone in Shelter Valley is related.”

“Either by blood or by a closeness of the heart,” Greg agreed. He sounded proud of the fact. “Everyone in Shelter Valley has family of one sort or another.”

It was the perfect opportunity to ask why he didn’t have that houseful of kids he’d envisioned. She badly wanted to know.

Only the very real threats she lived with every second of her life kept her silent. The threat of being found out. And of never finding out. Never learning who she was. What she was hiding from.

And why she hadn’t been strong enough to solve her problems rather than run from them.

The threat that he might ask questions she couldn’t answer. Or find answers she didn’t want him to have.

“Did you and your husband plan to have more children?”

Blank. That was the only way to describe the mental picture his question elicited. But there was nothing blank about the instant panic that accompanied the emptiness. As the dull red haze blotted out her peripheral vision—a reaction she’d long since recognized as her body’s danger signal—Beth again looked down at her son.

She could do this, get through whatever life required, for Ryan. Without a single memory, she knew he was the reason she’d run. And she’d keep running forever, from her memory, her needs, her heart, if that was what it took to keep him safe.

“I’m perfectly happy with Ryan,” she said.

“So you’d planned for him to be an only child?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Did your husband spend a lot of time with the boy?”

I don’t know! “What’s with the inquisition, Sheriff?” Guided by survival instincts, she stared at him, chin raised, as she offered the challenge.

And then turned quickly away. Those dark green eyes scared her with their intensity. When he looked at her, Greg Richards saw more than she could allow. She didn’t know how or why; she only knew it had to stop.

“I’m just trying to get to know you, Beth, but for some reason you make that very difficult. I can’t help wondering why.”

Because if she told him the smallest thing—truth or lie—he’d be able to find out more. Because she couldn’t afford to trust. Not even him. No matter what her heart said.

The red haze was back. “I notice you didn’t answer my earlier question about your own empty house,” she said, making a quick amendment to Beth Allen’s Rules of Survival. Avoiding personal questions was no longer the issue. Sidetracking him was.

“A couple of things happened to change my plans.”

“What things?” The fact that she really wanted to know made the query a dangerous one. But she had to keep him talking—about him. And not her. It wouldn’t be much longer before Bonnie and Keith returned. “You haven’t met the right woman?”

It was a common enough excuse.

“I met her.”

Oh. Beth frowned. “Was she from Shelter Valley?” Had the woman died? Why hadn’t Bonnie told her?