Mack inhaled sharply as an
ugly thought began to dawn

“You were snooping around this afternoon, deliberately creating drama, which you knew would get back to me eventually, because you were ticked I wasn’t giving you my full attention. Maybe you thought you could find something you could use as—I hesitate to use the word blackmail—leverage?”

Chloe stuck her finger in the center of his chest. And pushed. “I’m not that kind of person. I was simply doing my job as best I could—alone—once it became evident you weren’t taking my assignment seriously. An assignment, I might remind you, your boss requested.”

When it looked as if she might poke him again, he took a step backward. “Lady, don’t try to throw your weight around. I’m bigger than you by a good hundred pounds.”

Chloe’s cheeks flamed red, making the freckles across her nose stand out. She pulled herself erect. “I’m not going away, Deputy Whittaker. I’m staying right here in town….”

Dear Reader,

This was a difficult story to write. Quite frankly, my personal life has been in turmoil for the past year. I’d get up every day and face the computer screen, wondering if I could help my hero and heroine with their lives when I was having such a difficult time with my own.

Deputy Sheriff Mack Whittaker is guilt ridden over an event in his past. His reaction is to shut down emotionally and throw himself into his job. Reporter Chloe Atherton harbors her own traumatic touchstone, but she feels confident that by pursuing the truth in the form of facts, she has her life under control. At one point in writing I found myself yelling at the computer screen, “Wake up! Control is merely an illusion!” Harsh. Even if you’re yelling at fictional characters.

So…if I wasn’t going to give these two the comfort of control, what was left to them? (And to me. Because, if you haven’t yet guessed, I was kinda countin’ on Mack and Chloe leading me out of my own personal wilderness.) The answer was as it always is: We survive—and thrive—by first opening our hearts.

As I helped my hero and heroine grasp that particular lifeline, I pulled myself to safety, as well.

Now I wish you love,

Amy Frazier

Falling for the Deputy
Amy Frazier

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Having worked at various times as a teacher, a media specialist, a professional storyteller and a freelance artist, Amy Frazier now writes full-time. She lives in Georgia with her husband, two philosophical cats and one very rascally terrier-mix dog.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

THE TOP OF HIS HEAD was about to blow.

His mother had just called him—for the third time this morning—to ask if the reporter from the Western Carolina Sun had arrived in Applegate yet.

No.

Thank God.

Undeterred by his increasingly testy responses, Lily had insisted Mack bring the man or woman to supper at the farmhouse one night this week. For a nice down-home mix of business and pleasure, she’d said. That wasn’t going to happen. People, his mother chief among them, thought because Mack had joined AA and was back on the force, he was ready to rejoin the human race.

He wasn’t.

He still struggled to stay sober. Doing his job helped. Period.

To that end, Mack pulled his sheriff’s department cruiser to the side of the road behind a battered Yugo. He cast a glance over the wreck of a car. Primer paint in several hues covered all but one fender. The driver’s-side taillight was broken. Bumper stickers, some faded beyond legibility, littered the car’s sorry backside. Two caught his attention. The facts will set you free and Pray for peace; work for justice. Call him cynical, but it wasn’t that easy.

At first he’d thought the car was abandoned. It wasn’t unusual in the mountains, valleys and hollows of Colum County, North Carolina, to find stolen cars stripped and ditched by the side of an out-of-the-way road. But this Yugo—Mack doubted it would have appealed to a thief even in its heyday—had a current registration sticker on the plate. From his cruiser, he began a computer check.

As the door of the Yugo opened and the driver got out, Mack stopped mid-routine. Despite the glare of the midday sun, he instinctively ran a visual of the slender woman, who shaded her eyes with one hand. In the other she clutched a crumpled road map. She wore a button-up sweater that looked as if it had shrunk during washing, a faded ankle-length dress that had “church rummage sale” written all over it and black lace-up boots, the kind his great-granny used to wear. When she finally took her hand from her eyes, Mack saw she was young. And pretty.

He stepped out of the cruiser and approached her. “Can I help you?”

She smiled, and her fresh face framed by tousled strawberry-blond hair, made him think she’d never been disappointed in her entire life. “Is this the road to Applegate?”

“One of them.” He gave her car’s interior a cursory inspection. Books, notebooks and loose papers filled the back seat. She was probably a student at the college over in Brevard, although she looked too young to be even a freshman.

“One of them? Is that local humor?” Cocking her head to the side, she gazed directly at him. Mack blinked and discovered the proverbial shoe on the other foot. Usually he was the one who made other people uncomfortable because of his size and uniform.

But his presence didn’t faze this young woman in the least. She stood almost toe-to-toe with him, so close he could see a dusting of freckles across her nose, and waited patiently, with an air of innocence he found disconcerting.

He scowled. “Humor? No. I’m told I don’t have an ounce left in me.” To prove the point, he added, “Do you know your car has a broken taillight?”

“You should see the other guy.” She grinned wickedly, revealing perfect teeth. “Humor,” she explained.

“It’s not a laughing matter. I could write you up—”

“Oh, please, don’t,” she said as she might say no, thank you to a second helping of cake. “When I get to Applegate, I’ll get it fixed.”

Kids. Not a care in the world. Making it on looks and youth alone. Mack felt a jolt of envy. After what he’d seen and done half a world away, carefree would never be a mood ascribed to him again.

He ran his fingers over the broken plastic of the Yugo’s taillight. “See that you get this fixed. Take it to Mel’s on Main Street.” He turned to go. “And afterward, come to the sheriff’s office with the receipt. To show me you kept your word.”

“Yes, sir. If nothing else, I’m a woman of my word.”

Was he mistaken or was there a hint of sass under the show of respect? He looked back at her. Her gray eyes revealed nothing but a clear, ingenuous light. A kid. That was what she was. A wet-behind-the-ears kid cut loose from her mama’s apron strings.

“And I should ask for whom?” She squinted at his name tag, sounding suspiciously defiant.

“Deputy Sheriff Whittaker.” Without wasting any more time, he walked back to his patrol car.

“Deputy Whittaker?” Her voice, clear, high and musical, sailed through the air like birdsong on the spring breeze.

Reluctantly he turned to look at her again. “Yes?”

“You said this was one of the roads to Applegate, but am I headed in the right direction?”

Had he ever, even as a boy, exuded such a wide-eyed innocence?

“You’re…you’re headed in the right direction.” He took a step backward and bumped into his car’s grille. When she winced, he added hastily, “You can’t miss Mel’s repair shop. Right next to the county courthouse.”

She fluttered her fingers next to her head, a half-wave, half-salute that made him think she might be mocking him.

Settling behind the wheel of the cruiser, he waited for her to be on her way. That was his excuse. Actually he’d have liked to sit on the side of the road indefinitely. Do nothing more than watch the wrens gather materials for their nests. But in an hour he had an appointment back at headquarters with that reporter from the Sun.

Another reason for the headache that originated at the base of his skull and pounded a path to his temples.

In a PR move to show the county residents how far the newly rehabilitated department had come, Sheriff Garrett McQuire had requested the newspaper interview. Mack saw the need. His boss and longtime buddy had worked ceaselessly, cleaning up the mess the former sheriff Easley and his cronies had left behind. What Mack hadn’t foreseen was that Garrett would take off on his honeymoon and leave Mack with the reporter. He suspected the sheriff saw the handover of responsibilities as part of his deputy’s personal rehabilitation. If Mack didn’t owe Garrett so much—both as a boss and as a buddy, he would’ve rescheduled.

Instead, he put the patrol car in gear and headed back to town. If he was going through with this, he needed to be the first on-site for the appointment. He didn’t need a member of the press waiting, unsupervised.

THE YUGO BUCKED IN complaint as Chloe drove in second gear down Applegate’s Main Street. Squinting against the sunlight, she searched for Mel’s repair shop. Ah, there was the domed courthouse and, in its shadow, a two-bay cinder block garage with kudzu creeping up one side. She parked in front, then pulled on the stubborn emergency brake. Reaching into the back seat, she grabbed a pad of paper to jot down a few notes and capture her first impression of Deputy Whittaker.

Thirty-something, he was handsome—the uniform automatically did that for a guy. Strong jaw. A nose that could have been considered classically Roman if the deputy hadn’t broken it. An old sports injury? From the barred and bolted look in Whittaker’s dark brown eyes, Chloe had an instinctive feeling he’d reveal nothing he didn’t want known. Either about his job or himself. If she had anything to do with him this week, he might prove problematic. A difficult lock resisting the pick.

The Colum County Sheriff’s Department. Now there lay a potentially rewarding project. Her first feature story. Her first byline. A tiny shiver ran through her as she anticipated the opportunity. Hastily she wrote, “Deputy Whittaker. Humorless. Stickler for details,” before tossing the notepad onto the passenger seat.

She wrestled with the door of the Yugo. “Honestly, you are one more act of resistance away from the scrap heap,” she warned the mutinous vehicle when she managed to break free. She kicked the door shut behind her.

At the garage’s first bay, she gingerly stepped around a pick up to approach the bottom half of a coverall-clad mechanic leaning well under the truck’s raised hood.

“Mr. Mel?” she inquired with well-practiced Southern deference. “Deputy Whittaker sent me.”

“Mr. Mel! Now that’s a hoot!” The top half of the technician popped into view.

Chloe immediately recognized her error.

The person in the coveralls would never be mistaken for a man. She had wild red hair caught up in a bandanna, a movie-star smile and classically feminine features, not to mention a voluptuous body. But the woman’s voice belonged to the racetrack pit or smoke-filled juke joints. Chloe didn’t even hazard a guess at her age.

The mechanic stuck her greasy hands on her hips. “So the deputy sent you over to see Mr. Mel. Maybe his sense of humor’s finally coming back.”

“It was my mistake. He said to pull into Mel’s auto repair. I jumped to conclusions. Sorry. That’s not my style.”

“Well, I’m Mel. Short for Melody. My mama was hoping for a girlie-girl.” She rolled her big blue eyes. “But grease monkeys defy gender, honey. Come on in the office. I’m due a break.” She wiped her hands on a rag.

Chloe followed the woman into a cramped room no bigger than a utility closet.

“Coffee?” Mel raised a half-full pot from the automatic coffeemaker perched on a packing crate. “Nectar of the goddess.”

“Please.”

“You’re new in town.” The woman handed Chloe a mug of sludge-black liquid.

“I’m a newspaper reporter for the Western Carolina Sun,” she replied, taking a sip of the bitter brew and noting the three-year-old SPCA calendar hanging on the wall.

“A reporter?” Mel paused, coffeepot in midair. The energy in the room shifted from positive to unnervingly negative.

“Sheriff McQuire suggested we do an article on his revamped department,” Chloe explained, trying to establish credibility. “I have my first interview with him in a few minutes.”

“That’ll be difficult, seeing as he’s on his honeymoon.” Mel’s chuckle swelled to a roar. She slapped her thigh, spilling coffee on the cracked linoleum floor. “I bet he did that deliberately.”

Chloe clenched her mug in both hands, hoping the heat would defuse her rising irritation. “And the reason would be?”

“Even though, as sheriff, Garrett would recognize the need for positive PR, personally, he and journalists aren’t on the best of terms after they hounded his wife.” Mel thumped the pot back on the coffeemaker’s heating ring. “Made the whole town miserable. You’d have to be living under a rock not to know about it.”

Okay. The runaway heiress. But…“I wasn’t part of that feeding frenzy.” No, she’d been stuck on the garden-club beat.

Mel raised one eyebrow.

“So—” in the face of this woman’s disbelief, Chloe forged ahead “—who’s left to handle my interview?”

“While Garrett’s gone, Mack’s in charge.”

“Mack?”

“Deputy Whittaker.”

Interesting. The lock in need of a pick.

“The guy who sent you here for…what?” Mel prodded.

“Yes. My car’s broken taillight. The deputy ran into me outside town. Didn’t cite me on condition I see you.”

“I gotta say this new department’s been good for my business.”

“Do you have an arrangement?” Chloe blurted out. She fumbled in her pocket for her notepad, then realized she’d left it in the Yugo. She’d heard of small towns adding to their coffers with overzealous ticketing or costly kick-back repairs that targeted motorists passing through.

Mel dropped a rag on the spilled coffee. As she bent over to wipe it up, she uttered a terse no. When she stood again, the sparkle had gone from her eyes. “I merely meant this particular crew adheres strictly to the law.”

“So what’s Deputy Whittaker like?” Chloe asked, struggling to reconnect.

Mel tossed the coffee-soaked rag into a bin by the door. “Let’s look at that taillight,” she said, all business now.

If this was the level of Applegate respect, cooperation and disclosure that Chloe could expect, she had her work cut out for her.

MACK LEFT THE DOOR to the sheriff’s office open. A symbolic gesture. Let the reporter see the department had nothing whatsoever to hide.

He placed his Stetson on a rack behind the door, then sat on the edge of the desk, feeling edgy himself. His headache had subsided to a dull throb. He relished the law-and-order part of his job, not the public relations. He examined his watch. Twice.

Garrett and he had talked about how they wanted the new Colum County Sheriff’s Department’s story told. To that end, they’d hoped to get a reporter without an agenda, who’d write an unbiased story that would accurately portray both the danger and the drudgery of rural law enforcement. They’d agreed the article shouldn’t be about individuals, but about the team.

Thinking about the fishbowl position he was now in, Mack’s muscles went rigid. The pencil he gripped snapped in two.

“Surely, the prospect of meeting with me can’t generate that much tension.”

He jerked his head up to see the young woman who drove the battered Yugo, standing in the office doorway, carrying an enormous backpack. He chucked the ruined pencil in the trash, then stood. “Did you get your car fixed?”

“Mel says I can pick it up this afternoon before she closes.”

“Is that going to throw your schedule off?” He didn’t really want to know. He was trying to be…human. Approachable. Practicing for that reporter. “Work? School?”

“No.” The kid stepped into the room. “I was planning to stay the week, anyway. At June Parker’s bed and breakfast. While I take care of my assignment.”

“Let me guess. Appalachian folkways.” The professors at Brevard College often sent their students to do field work in Colum County.

“No. I’ve come to see you. Well, Sheriff McQuire, but I understand you’re the one in charge at the moment.”

“I am. What can I do for you?”

She extended her hand. “I’m Chloe Atherton. Reporter for the Western Carolina Sun. I have an appointment.”

He inhaled sharply. My head. Ignoring her outstretched hand, Mack walked around the desk and glared at the sheriff’s calendar. He deliberately placed the tips of his fingers on Garrett’s illegible handwriting next to today’s date. Gave himself a couple of seconds to absorb it.

This kid was the reporter?

“You could have told me who you were back by the roadside,” he said at last, looking up.

“You could have told me Mel was a woman.” She plunked her battered backpack on the floor, then perched on the chair opposite his desk. “Can we begin?” Without waiting for his reply, she pulled various items from the backpack.

He remained standing, the desk solidly between them. “Ms. Atherton, how long have you been a newspaper reporter?”

“I think I’m the one doing the interviewing.” There was a defiant tilt to her chin. “But if it will make you feel more comfortable…no, I’m not thirteen years old.”

He’d been thinking more like seventeen.

“I’m twenty-six,” she offered, lining up a notebook, a pencil, a small tape recorder and what appeared to be an expensive Nikon camera on the metal desk. As if the space were hers to do with as she pleased. “How old are you?”

He frowned. “Do you need to know?”

“My newspaper still requires ages.”

“Thirty-five,” he said, suddenly feeling ten years older. “But this article isn’t supposed to be about me.”

“Maybe not, but you’re my first interview.”

Damn. Although she looked like a teenager, she handled herself with the equanimity of a pro.

“I can give you an hour today,” he allowed. “We can use the time to work up a schedule for the rest of the week.”

“Only an hour? I’d hoped—”

He raised his hand to cut her off. “Can that car of yours withstand a week’s worth of cruising these roads?”

“I intend to ride with you.”

He rubbed his forehead as the headache came roaring out of retirement. “I don’t think so.”

“Deputy Whittaker, this article was Sheriff McQuire’s idea. He contacted my paper. He suggested a human-interest story on a week in the life of a sheriff’s department. I wouldn’t get much of an idea of what the job entailed if I were to follow several car lengths behind you, would I?”

“I doubt Garrett—Sheriff McQuire—had a ride-along in mind. Liability issues—”

She flipped through her notebook. “I’ve done my homework. Ah, here it is. Sheriff McQuire encourages public-safety interns from the college. They ride in the cruisers. I’ll ride in the cruiser.”

“He didn’t tell me—”

“Call him.”

“He’s on his honeymoon.”

Victorious, she dropped the notebook in her lap, crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “Then it’s settled. You’ll have to take my word for it. I’ve already kept my word once by having that taillight fixed.”

She wasn’t riding with him. He wouldn’t argue now, but he’d sure as tomorrow think of some excuse not to have this reporter dogging his every move. Hell, he’d only recently begun talking to his fellow deputies. Had Garrett really planned this? Could Mack get someone in the county health department to sanction the sheriff for practicing psychology without a license?

“Now…” She was scribbling something on her notepad. “One way we might approach the article is from the perspective of the evolution of a rural office. I noticed a huge vacation community—Ryder’s Ridge?—as I was entering town. And another new year-round subdivision closer to town. Surely progress, if you want to call it that, has changed the complexion of the county. Changed your job.”

Putting aside for a moment the problem of her riding with him, he stared hard at her. It had taken her only a few minutes to get to the root of the department’s problems. Sheriff Easley hadn’t been able or willing to move into the twenty-first century. Of course, the problem was more complicated than what she’d picked up on, but she’d come very close to the mark. Not too shabby for a green reporter.

“Deputy Whittaker? How’s my assessment?”

“Rapid growth is a major issue,” he grudgingly replied.

She wrote something down. “I have an idea about the who, the what, the where and the when. Now all I need is the why.” She licked the tip of her pencil. “Why did Sheriff McQuire call in the media? Is this an election year? Does he need to look good in the polls?”

Mack didn’t like questions that began innocuously but packed a hidden sting. “Sheriff McQuire wants you to write about the department. Not about him. Not about me. Not about any of the other deputies. Not as individuals, but as a team. Doing what we’re supposed to do. Our job is to protect and serve.”

He came around the desk, then leaned forward until his face was within inches of hers. “Now, let me ask you a few questions. Do you have something to prove? Is this assignment a stepping-stone to bigger and better assignments? Would your boss be happier with solid reporting or with some trumped-up exposé?”

Chloe reacted to his deliberate intimidation by inhaling sharply and sitting back in her seat until her spine pressed against the hard molded plastic. What had lit a fire under Deputy Whittaker? Did he interact with all reporters this way, or did he have a problem with female reporters specifically? She made a mental note to find out the number of women in the department and how they were treated.

“Let me rephrase the question,” she replied. She’d get to any prejudices he might have later. When she caught him in an unguarded moment. “Why would the sheriff want an outsider poking about the department? Why not issue a press release? In any event, why do you think your day-to-day operations would be of interest to the general public?”

“Why would the public be interested in how we run the department?” he asked, his expression growing darker. “Did you skip your junior-high classes on local government?”

“No. I happen to have loved—”

“Let me spell it out for you.” The muscles in his jaw twitched as he leaned back against the desk. “The history of this office—this public-safety office—goes back to England and the days of Robin Hood. The sheriff’s an elected official, the highest law-enforcement official in the county. Entrusted with keeping the peace.”

“The point being?” It was her turn to bridle. She’d never liked lectures. And she didn’t like overbearing men.

“The point…” He tapped her notepad with his index finger. “If the electorate has the sense they were born with, they better damn well want to know how we’re carrying out our duties.” As his voice rose, he accidentally knocked a stack of file folders off a tall cabinet onto the floor. He ignored the mess.

Heavens. If this was the deputy in charge, what was the sheriff like? Chloe refused to be daunted. If the truth be told, his civic ardor excited her. Electrified the room. What good was a career if you weren’t passionate about it?

She crossed her legs, sat up straight and met the deputy’s fierce expression. His eyes weren’t merely dark brown, they were hickory-nut-brown, she noticed. And hard. “Then we’d better back up. The sheriff said y’all had turned the office around. What was the problem?”

He remained immobile for several moments, staring at her. The information had to be public record. Narrowing his eyes, he appeared to come to a decision.

“Five years ago,” he began with great deliberation, “Zach Taylor sold four hundred acres of prime land to a real-estate developer who, in turn, built two complexes—year-round executive homes and expensive vacation homes. Those complexes attracted hundreds of families to Applegate. The population of Colum County soared.”

“Bringing new problems to your department.”

“It wasn’t our—Sheriff McQuire’s—department at the time.”

“But there were problems.”

“Yes. But I think Sheriff McQuire intended that you concentrate on the present, not the past.”

That wasn’t how the media worked, but she knew to choose her battles. “How have things changed?” She tuned into his body language as she waited.

He began to pace the cramped quarters, stepping over the spilled folders. “For one thing, we now run things strictly by the book.”

Chloe took down his words without comment. There would be time enough to determine if the new sheriff ran an honest department. Believe only what you see, what you can prove, her mother, a scientist, always said.

She raised her head. “And for another?”

“For another, we’ve brought the department into the computer age.”

Suppressing an urge to yawn, she bet her next paycheck her readers couldn’t care less about the sheriff’s computers. But the personnel might be a different issue. Take this particular deputy, for instance. Confrontational. Ardent. Protective. But what, exactly, was he protecting? She’d find out soon enough.

“What about the sheriff’s staff?” she asked.

“What about us?”

“What makes you different from the last batch?”

He flinched. “We’re handpicked—”

“Not elected like the sheriff?”

“No, but—”

“Mack!” Another deputy stuck her head through the office doorway. “You’re wanted at the high school. Stat.”

As Deputy Whittaker reached for his Stetson, Chloe stuffed her pencil, notebook and camera in her backpack, then activated her pocket tape recorder. When the two deputies left, Chloe trotted along right behind, observing every move, picking up every word.

“What’s the story?” Whittaker asked.

“Rival groups again,” the second deputy answered. Her name tag read Breckinridge. “Same old beef. This time someone pulled a knife.”

“Do we have anyone out there?”

“McMillan and Sooner answered the call. The kids are being held in the school cafeteria until you and the parents get there. Most of them are from The Program. That’s why Principal Cox called for you.”

Chloe didn’t understand everything they were saying. She hoped the recorder was picking it up, allowing her to get clarification later. This was the kind of eye-witness involvement she’d anticipated, the kind that would lead to a compelling story. Her pulse raced.

Deputy Breckinridge halted at the big double doors leading to the parking lot, but Chloe slipped outside behind Whittaker. He didn’t acknowledge her presence.

When he got to his cruiser, she automatically went to the passenger door.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he barked across the roof.

“I’m working my story.”

“Today’s interview is finished.” Abruptly he got into the driver’s side and slammed the door. She opened the passenger door and climbed in, slamming her door for good measure.

“Get out.” By his tone of voice, he meant business.

So did she. “Drive.”

He glared at her.

“While you’re driving,” she added, “you can explain the history of this altercation.”

Muttering under his breath, he turned the key in the ignition. As he pulled the patrol car out of the parking lot, she could feel the anger radiating off him.

“I’m not going to waste time arguing with you.” The veins corded and pulsed along his temple. “When we get back, though, I’m calling the Sun to request your replacement.”

He wouldn’t dare. But in case he did, she hunkered down in her seat and prepared to defend her right to be there.

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS ALL MACK COULD DO not to speed. At least Deputies Sooner and McMillan had this call under control. The kid—the reporter—wouldn’t be in any danger. Only in the way.

When he heard a click, he looked over at her. She had taken his picture. An itchy heat crawled up the back of his neck to join forces with the headache. “Put that thing away,” he warned, holding up his hand to shield himself.

“You’d better get used to it. Do you know how many photos I’ll have to take to get two or three perfect ones for the article?”

He grasped the steering wheel tightly and concentrated on the double yellow line in front of him. On the evergreens and granite boulders crowding the edges of the two-lane county road. On anything but her. She was an invasion.

“Put it away for this call,” he ground out. “Even under the best of circumstances, you’d have to get written releases to photograph the students. And these aren’t the best of circumstances.”

“But I’m photographing you—”

“Put it away.”

She sighed.

He refused to look at her again.

After several seconds he could hear her zip the camera into her backpack. “Why were you called to the school,” she asked, her words measured, “if your deputies already had the situation in hand?”

He took a deep breath. “This program’s the sheriff’s baby. Right now, I’m acting sheriff.”

“What program?”

He might as well tell her the whole story. She wasn’t going to let up until she got it. “Because of county-wide growth,” he began, “we had to build a third high school. Letting the seniors spend their last year at their two old schools—McEaster and North Colum—the board of ed pulled surplus juniors and underclassmen from the overcrowded schools to attend the new one—Harriman.”

“And if this area is anything like all the others in the South,” Chloe said, “high-school sports rule. They fuel small-town social life and loyalties.” She was quick to catch on.

“Yeah.” He ran his window down. Quick to catch on or not, she made the car’s interior feel too close for comfort. “The underclassmen have settled in fine, but the juniors have the hardest time forgetting. McEaster and North Colum used to be fierce rivals. Now the students from those two schools are expected to pull together for a brand-new school.”

“Deputy Breckinridge said someone pulled a knife this time. That’s extreme.” She had good ears, too.

“You have to understand. Not only are we dealing with the displacement of old school loyalties, but also with an influx of newcomers, mostly affluent families from the city. Plus immigrant workers who’ve come to service an expanding vacation sector. There’s cultural friction…and more. We may be rural, but we aren’t untouched by drugs. Meth has replaced moonshine.”

“And you can never minimize the pressure of teenage hormones.”

Caught off guard by the thoughtfulness in her tone of voice, he hazarded a sideways look at her. “You’ve got it.” Her eyes half closed, she was contemplating him. He snapped his head forward. “So…Sheriff McQuire established a program,” he said, retreating to his spiel. “A public-safety program that’s an offshoot of the Junior Deputy Program we run in the elementary schools. The sheriff put me in charge of the high school.”

“I can’t picture teenagers willingly participating in something called a Junior Deputy Program.”

The cruiser’s two-way radio crackled. As she reached out to adjust the volume, he put out his hand to stop her. Apparently, she wasn’t real good with boundaries.

“At the high-school level,” he explained, “we just call it The Program. And it’s as no-nonsense as its name. We deal with peer pressure, drugs, conflict resolution. All under the umbrella of public safety. We pull no punches in how we talk to the kids.”

Straining against her seat belt, she leaned forward to examine the controls on the dashboard. “Why did Sheriff McQuire put you in charge of it?”

Probably because Mack knew these kids inside out. He’d been one of them. Full of piss and vinegar, his grandmother used to say. But he wasn’t about to tell this to a stranger, a reporter, no less. “You’d have to ask the sheriff.”

He could feel her eyes on him, but he kept his own on the road. “Back to the kids,” she said, her tone level. Patient, even. When you didn’t look at her, she came off as mature. “Even with a realistic course for them, they still get in trouble?”

“They’re kids. Obviously you don’t have any.” Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw her stiffen.

“N-no.” Her hesitation seemed out of character. “I’ve never been married. Are you married?” She lobbed that question as she might something dangerous she wanted to get rid of. “For the record.”

“Married to the job. But this article’s not about me, remember.”

Did he hear an oh, yeah? in the silence?

“So what’s the game plan when we reach the high school?” she finally asked.

“By the time we get there, the principal should have assembled the parents—even the working parents. Getting them involved in school altercations should cut down on more serious…incidents in the future. I’m essentially going to run a conflict-resolution session with these kids, their parents and the school counselors.”

“And me?”

With relief he saw the cell-phone tower above the trees of the high-school campus. The school itself couldn’t appear fast enough for him. He needed to get back to his duties. Clear-cut action to solve a specific problem. And away from all this hopscotch questioning.

“And you? You’re going to sit in the corner,” he replied, suspecting he might later regret this decision. “Out of the way. Where you’ll observe and take notes.”

“Why should I take notes? I thought when we got back to your office, you were going to call the Sun and get them to replace me.”

As if it required all his attention, he hit the directional signal as they neared the school entrance. Made himself listen to it click three times before answering her. “Let’s say you’re quick,” he admitted. “You catch on to what’s happening without me hammering it home. If you stay out of my way and let me do my job, maybe we can work something out.”

“Maybe? Am I, like, on parole?”

Was she trying to tick him off? He pulled into the parking lot and stopped in front of the main entrance. With an irritated shove, he opened his door and got out.

CHLOE OBSERVED THE STUDENTS, their parents and school officials as they dispersed from the cafeteria. She’d been witness to Deputy Whittaker’s impressive display of self-control balanced by his uncanny understanding of human nature.

Surprise, surprise. The man had a non-prickly side to him.

It was good he’d been the focus of her story because, once inside the school, surrounded by teenagers, she’d remembered why she’d told her editor she’d never do the board of education beat. Claire would have been seventeen…

Fortunately the deputy interrupted her reverie as he walked across the big room to where she sat on a folding chair next to the emergency exit. He should be pleased he’d brought the intervention to such a positive end, yet he didn’t look it. His shoulders were stiff, his mouth was set in a severe line, and he carried himself with military bearing.

Automatically Chloe rose and retreated a step toward the emergency door. Why was it that in his presence she felt compelled to stand and salute?

“Ready to go?” His staccato words jolted her. Her backside hit the door’s push bar and the door opened. The alarm sounded. The other deputies, the principal, the school counselors, several remaining parents and their kids froze. The kids began to snicker.

Whittaker reached past her with a grimace that said she’d lost any Brownie points she’d scored during the meeting by staying out of the way. Wordlessly he disengaged the alarm, then closed the door.

“Reporter humor?” he asked.

When she chose to consider that a rhetorical question and remained silent, he grasped her by the elbow and propelled her out of the cafeteria.

“Tomorrow I think I’ll hand you over to Deputy Breckinridge,” he said as he marched her through the school corridors to the front door. “She’s on desk duty.”

Feeling like a truant on the way to the principal’s office, Chloe tried not to pant keeping up with his long-legged stride. “I don’t think desk duty was what Sheriff McQuire had in mind when he called in the press,” she declared, wresting control of her elbow from Whittaker. “Besides, you and I haven’t finished with today.”

In the parking lot he swiveled to face her. “I’m in charge while the sheriff’s away. Today’s interview is finished. I’ll drive you back to the B and B.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Now wait a minute. This isn’t going to work as a piecemeal deal. I’m supposed to walk in your shoes. Get a feel for your job. A couple hours a day won’t cut it. You haven’t even offered me a doughnut.”

Instantly she regretted her unprofessional dig.

He slid behind the wheel. Because she didn’t doubt he’d leave her in the parking lot, she scrambled into the passenger seat.

The cruiser’s radio crackled. Chloe didn’t understand the entire message, delivered in clipped jargon, but she caught the words cat, tree and Sarah Culpepper. When she turned to the deputy for explanation, he concentrated on his driving as if it were his first time behind the wheel. To Chloe’s surprise, the tips of his ears were a deep shade of pink.

He cut her a glance. “I have a stop to make before I drop you off. You can stay in the car.”

“Is it a dangerous situation?”

“No.”

“What is it, then?”

He remained silent.

Chloe suspected he had an amazing capacity to stonewall. Well, she had an amazing capacity to persist. “You don’t get to pick and choose what I see this week, Deputy. I’m here to record the good, the bad and the ugly.” She reached in her backpack for her Nikon.

“Put that thing away and I’ll explain.”

She did as he ordered, telling herself he hadn’t specified for how long.

“It all began,” he said, clearly exasperated, “when Bonita Culpepper bought her granny a cell phone after a talk given at the seniors’ center. On personal safety.”

“Cell phones for the elderly. That sounds like a good suggestion.” She heard a click in her pocket. “Wait! Wait!” Quickly she removed the finished tape from the tiny recorder, then rummaged in her other pocket for a spare.

“Sarah Culpepper makes good use of her phone,” he continued, ignoring her. He certainly didn’t follow instructions very well. “No matter what her trouble is, she thinks she has a direct line to me.”

“Who can you turn to if you can’t turn to the sheriff?” she asked as she found a spare tape and jammed it in the recorder.

“Miss Sarah and I go back a long way. To when I was a boy. I’m not sure she sees me as a cop. As an adult, even. To her, I’m the neighbor’s kid Mack, and I’m the one who always shinnied up her tree to rescue her cats.”

“She had a cell phone when you were a boy?”

“No. She lives on a slip of property that abuts my family’s homestead. She used to blow an old conch shell when she needed something.”

“It’s amazing that sound didn’t scare the cats right out of the tree.” Things were looking up. Chloe sat back in her seat and waited for events to unfold. She was about to see where Whittaker grew up and meet a woman who knew him as a boy. Now this might be a human-interest story in the making.

Mack sensed the smug satisfaction oozing from Chloe’s side of the car, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Miss Sarah’s house was coming up. He couldn’t waste time or gas ferrying the reporter to town and driving back out here. For a cat. He pulled into the swept dirt front yard of the shotgun house. It sat in a grove of trees alongside the road to the Whittaker property.

He could hope the kid stayed in the cruiser. He could hope that, today, Miss Sarah’s cat was easy to reach, giving the elderly woman less time to fill the reporter’s head with tales of his youth. Hey, he could always hope he won the lottery while he was at it.

He pulled on the emergency brake. “This won’t take long.” His passenger had already cracked open her door. “You don’t have to get out.”

“All part of the story.”

That was what he’d been afraid of.

“I hear meowing,” she said.

“It’ll be coming from the sweet-gum tree right over there. It usually is.” He walked in the direction of the sound without checking to see if his shadow followed.

She did. “Is this the same cat you rescued as a boy?”

“Hardly.” There’d been a succession of cats. All squirrel hunters. All with an uncanny inability to get down from a tree once they’d chased their prey up it. “All with the same name, though. Buster.”

“Same tree?”

“Mostly.” Mack looked toward the leafy canopy to discover not only Miss Sarah’s cat stranded in the sweet gum, but Miss Sarah herself.

Her apron in a bunch around her middle, she clutched the tree trunk with one hand and her cell phone with the other. “You sure took your sweet time, Mack Whittaker.”

He spotted the overturned kitchen chair at the base of the tree. “Now, why didn’t you wait for me, Miss Sarah? Don’t I always come?”

“Sooner or later.” She hugged the tree trunk more tightly. “These days it’s more often later than sooner.”

“Deputy Whittaker had an emergency meeting at the high school,” the kid piped up.

Miss Sarah squinted down from her precarious seat. “Who are you?”

“I’m Chloe Atherton, ma’am. From the Western Carolina Sun. I’m doing a story on the Colum County Sheriff’s Department.”

“Will I be in it?”

“Well, it sure looks as if you’re part of the job.” And right then and there, Kid Atherton had the nerve to take a picture of the old woman up a tree.

He grabbed the Nikon.

“Hey! Give that back!”

“Have a sense of decency,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

“Give her back the camera, Mack,” Miss Sarah ordered. “It’s not often an old woman gets herself some attention.”

When he handed it over, the reporter examined it carefully. “Ms. Culpepper,” she said, with a none-too-happy glance in his direction, “this is a digital camera, so you can preview the photos. I’ll erase any you’re not happy with.”

“Suits me fine,” Miss Sarah retorted. Now she sent Mack a disapproving look.

He couldn’t win.

“Ladies, if you’ll excuse me.” When he stepped under the low branch Miss Sarah sat on, his head reached her knees. “You can chat when both of you are on the ground.” He held up his arms. “Push off, and I’ll catch you.”

Miss Sarah ignored him and concentrated, instead, on Chloe. “I’d like you to take a picture of Buster.”

As if seconding that suggestion, a plaintive meow wafted from the upper branches.

Mack had endured enough of the niceties. “Ma’am, with all due respect, if you don’t hop down—now—I’m going to leave and let the next big wind blow you and Buster out of this tree.”

“You won’t and you know it.” Despite her assumption, she slid off the branch, anyway, and into his outstretched arms in a puff of nutmeg-scented flour. Flour and all, she must have weighed no more than ninety-five pounds.

“I declare,” she said, dusting off her clothing with one hand and shaking her cell phone next to her ear with the other. “While you get Buster, Mack, let me see about hermit bars and sweet tea. Made ’em myself, you know.”

“Thank you, but we won’t be staying,” he countered.

“Yes, you will.” Miss Sarah beckoned to Chloe. “Girl, you can help me.”

Reluctant to leave the two alone, he nonetheless swung himself up onto the lowest branch.

Once his footing was secure, he surveyed the surrounding landscape from his new perspective. Nothing adjusted your attitude faster than climbing a tree. Maybe that was why he didn’t foist these cat-rescue missions off on one of the other deputies. For a few minutes every so often he got to feel like an innocent kid again in the branches of the Culpepper sweet gum.

He located Buster, hunkered down and suspicious, but within reach. Remembering the scratches this particular demon feline had inflicted last time, he cautiously wrapped his hands around the cat’s middle. The Busters were the drawback to the tree-climbing respite.

HAVING TAKEN ONLY ONE mouthwatering bite of a homemade hermit, Chloe set the still-warm bar on a paper napkin to photograph Whittaker slowly maneuvering the branches with an indignant tabby in his arms. He’d left his hat in the car, and his dark, wind-ruffled hair no longer looked regulation. Although the climb in the tree had taken some of the starch and press out of his uniform, he still looked like a man used to commanding authority.

Sarah Culpepper stood beside Chloe on the narrow back porch and wiped her hands on her apron. “Despite the scrapes he’s been in, that boy was destined to be a lawman.”

“Scrapes? What—”

“Weren’t you listening?” Sarah snapped. “I said Mack was destined to become a lawman.”

For a fleeting instant Chloe thought the deputy might have engineered this particular PR stop. “Always?” If dirt were to be dug, she had a week to do it.

“Well, I’m not saying he always acted out what he knew to be right,” Sarah said as she lined up three tall glasses on the porch railing, then filled them with tea. “And as a boy, he did have a devilish sense of humor that sometimes compromised his better nature.”

Humor? He’d been pretty taciturn to this point. Chloe looked in the deputy’s direction. In one fluid motion, he lowered himself to the ground, then deposited Buster at his feet. Cricking his tale, the cat stalked haughtily a few paces away, then sat and began to wash himself. Chloe continued taking photos as Whittaker brought the kitchen chair back to the stoop.

“Thanks for entertaining Ms. Atherton,” he said. To Chloe he added, “Time to go.”

Chloe slipped a couple hermit bars in her pocket in case he meant it.

“Sit down.” Sarah thrust a glass of sweet tea at the deputy. “And you,” she ordered Chloe, “need to go get that picture of Buster. Make sure his eyes are open. He has beautiful gold eyes.”

Chloe was quick to comply. When she’d taken several photos of the cat, she hurried back to show Sarah, only to find her deep in conversation with Whittaker, who was actually chuckling.

Seeing Chloe, he stopped short, then drained his glass. When he turned toward the cruiser, Sarah reached out to hold him back. “I was about to tell Chloe about your devilish sense of humor,” she said.

“Don’t believe a word of it.” Mack ran his fingers through his close-cropped hair, resignation settling over his features.

“Well, Myron Hapes had a workshop behind his house,” Sarah began. “A shed, really. Used to relax after a day of delivering the mail by doing woodwork in the evenings. Now when nature called, he’d avail himself of an old outhouse on the back of his property. If Estelle Hapes knew I was telling you this, she’d have a cow, especially seeing how proud she is of that new twenty-thousand-dollar bathroom she had put in off the master bedroom.”

How was this shaggy-dog tale going to connect with Whittaker, and how was he going to react? Chloe wondered. Right now his arms were crossed and his eyes were closed as if he was writing up the report of the recent high-school meeting in his head.

“Come October,” the elderly woman continued, “Mack carves a jack-o’-lantern, lights it and puts it in Myron’s outhouse after dark. Nearly gave the poor man a coronary. Mack was all of six. My, but I can tell you tales…So can most of the neighbors.”

“I paid my debt to society,” the deputy deadpanned. “Washed and waxed Mr. Hapes’s Pontiac every Saturday for four weeks.”

“Funny,” Chloe said, getting into the spirit. “Perhaps I should follow up on this. Discover what other former scoundrels are now county leaders.”

Whittaker froze. “Are you here to dig up dirt? Or are you here to write about a department in transition?”

“A good story’s always worth the investigation.”

Even Sarah bristled. “Well, you won’t find any dirt on the sheriff or Mack. They are truly Colum County’s finest. Why, Mack’s a war hero. Got the medals to prove it.”

“That and a dollar-fifty will get Ms. Atherton—”

“Chloe,” she said.

“Chloe—” he repeated her first name as if it were strictly against regulations “—a cup of coffee at Rachel’s Diner. We need to get you back to the B and B. Afternoon, Miss Sarah. Thanks for the tea.” Abruptly he marched out to the patrol car.

When Chloe started to follow him, Ms. Culpepper asked, “You’re not here to make trouble, are you?”

“No, ma’am. I plan to write the facts.”

“There’s facts and then there’s truth.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

She’d found the human-interest core to her story.

CHAPTER THREE

“DID YOU HURT YOURSELF climbing that tree?” Chloe asked.

Mack started. Damn, he’d blocked the extra presence out of the cruiser. “No. I didn’t hurt myself.” He pressed down on the accelerator.

He needed to check back at the office and have a quick briefing with the staff. A heads-up concerning this article, which was becoming more intrusive than he’d anticipated. He needed to see Tanya. And he needed to remember not to call this kid reporter Chloe as she’d insisted. More than the familiarity rattled him. The name itself was unsettling. Feminine and faintly seductive. When he’d said it, it had nearly pulled him out of business mode.

“Where do you live?”

Her simple question caught him off guard. “What does that have to do with your story?”

“Everything has to do with my story until I sort out my notes and choose a central theme.”

“I thought we agreed the focus would be the department. The team.”

“That’s what you want it to be.”

He’d seen how Atherton’s face had lit up while Miss Sarah was talking. Reporters loved to chase human-interest stories the way Buster loved to chase squirrels. So let this rookie reporter humanize Breckinridge’s story, or McMillan’s or Sooner’s. His was confidential. There were some things even the electorate had no right to know. He winced as he thought of Miss Sarah describing him as a war hero.

Atherton reached out and ran her fingers lightly over the instruments on the patrol car’s dashboard, distracting him.

“Don’t touch,” he snapped.

“You or the dashboard?” she asked, pulling her hand back. “Where do you live?”

“Not in one of the expensive new developments,” he replied, ticked at himself for explaining. “So you can stop suspecting misappropriation of department funds.” Make that double-ticked for elaborating.

“Where, then?” She rolled her window down. Then up. Then halfway down. Then settled in to review the photos she’d taken. “The question’s not out of line. A big issue in many metro areas is that teachers, firefighters and police officers often can’t afford to live in the neighborhoods they service. Is it the same in Colum County?”

“Above the office there’s a small barracks. I live there.”

She plunked the Nikon in her lap. “Do the other deputies?” The surprise in her voice warned him to be cautious.

“Not full-time,” he admitted.

“Why do you?”

“Because I’m married to my job.” He wasn’t about to tell her how the sheriff, afraid Mack might backslide into alcohol, had installed him in the barracks. When his life had stabilized, Mack hadn’t seen much point in moving, although his parents kept bugging him about how they kept his room at the farmhouse available, should he ever want to return home.

Thankfully, the bed-and-breakfast came into view. He pulled the cruiser to a head-snapping halt in front.

“Deputy Whittaker?”

Without enthusiasm, he turned to look at his passenger. He could use a drink.

“Your doubts about our working together wouldn’t come from the fact that I’m a woman, would it?” she asked.

He gritted his teeth. Working with women—either in the department or in the army—had never been a problem. But how could he say so now without sounding defensive? “I’m sure we’ll get along fine.”

“Good. See you tomorrow.” She got out of the car, but left her scent behind. Light. Appealing. Like fresh-baked goods. Simpler days.

He didn’t answer her. Didn’t set a time for their meeting again. Didn’t look in her direction. As soon as he heard her door click, he put the patrol car in gear. Automatic drive.

Chloe watched as Deputy Whittaker drove away, not like a cop, but like a hotrodder. The man was as thorny and closed as a pinecone after the rain. Why, back at Ms. Culpepper’s, when Chloe had suggested he call her by her first name, had he not made the slightest, begrudging suggestion she call him Mack? And why had he gone all wooden when the elderly woman mentioned his combat medals? Unless the other deputies proved as intriguing, Chloe was determined to follow Whittaker until she had him—and the pull he exerted in the county—figured out.

Shouldering her heavy backpack, she made her way up the front walk to the bed-and-breakfast, a rambling two-story structure that, despite the rockers on the front porch and the planters still filled with winter pansies, looked as if it might once have been a saloon. Chloe wasn’t sure whether June Parker would be offended or amused by that observation.

Chloe was fascinated by the owner. Part nineteenth-century sweet magnolia and part savvy twenty-first-century businesswoman, Ms. Parker was an exquisitely groomed woman of indeterminate age. As well as running a bed-and-breakfast, she apparently gave comportment lessons to the town children and headed an investment club for retired women—discreet signs at the front desk advertised as much.

“Afternoon, Miss Atherton.” Wearing a large sun hat, hot-pink Crocs, gardening gloves and an apron that read “I’m not old—I just need repotting,” Ms. Parker knelt in a flower bed. “Will you join us for tea at four? Everything on my tea cart is homemade.”

Chloe shouldn’t have eaten so many of Sarah Culpepper’s hermit bars. “Of course,” she replied, unwilling to miss an opportunity to gather information. “Do I have time to freshen up?”

Ms. Parker checked a delicate antique watch pinned to her blouse. “We both do. I’ll see you in the parlor in thirty minutes.”

Chloe retreated to her room, grateful for the small luxuries her hostess had provided. Hand-milled soaps, fluffy towels for a quick wash and a big, sensuously soft bed scented with crabapple blossoms from the gardens below. The April breezes ruffled the sheer curtains by the open window and acted as a narcotic, quickly lulling her into a deep, dreamless sleep when she’d only intended a catnap.

She awoke abruptly, wondering if it might be morning—and time to meet up with that puzzling deputy—until she smelled the pungent bergamot aroma of Earl Grey, mingled with baking spices. She found herself unexpectedly ravenous. Both for food and for information. Hopping out of bed and glancing in the mirror, she ran her fingers through her hair, then dashed downstairs to find Ms. Parker presiding at a silver tea set. Although a three-tiered sandwich and pastry tray held enough food for, if not an army, then a battalion, the innkeeper was the only person in the room.

“I’m sorry. I overslept,” Chloe explained. “Did I miss everyone?”

“Not at all,” Ms. Parker replied, pouring hot tea into a translucent china cup. “We’re only two today. Mondays aren’t particularly busy.”

Chloe accepted the tea and a seat on a chair covered in petit point at a table set with linen and fresh flowers. “And you went to all this trouble.”

“Trouble? I hardly think a civilized break in the middle of the day can be categorized as trouble. If I had no guests at all, I’d do this for myself. Call it part of my mental health program.”

No wonder you couldn’t tell June Parker’s age. She knew how to take care of herself. If Chloe hadn’t moved on to harder news, June would have made a lovely subject for the paper’s Living section.

“But all these goodies…” Chloe indicated the extravagant tea tray.

“At the end of the day I send what’s left over to the sheriff’s office. Those hardworking deputies deserve some TLC.”

An opening.

“About Mack Whittaker…”

“Him especially.”

Chloe was taken aback. If ever there was an individual who appeared able to look after himself, who appeared not to need—or notice—the softer things in life, that was Deputy Whittaker.

“Mack recently served in Iraq,” Ms. Parker explained.

“Ah, yes. Ms. Culpepper said he’d received medals.” Chloe nibbled on a cranberry-orange scone. Heaven. “Can you tell me what they were for?”

“I could. But you should have Mack tell you.” The inn owner fingered the delicate lace edging on her linen napkin. “Applegate is one big family, Ms. Atherton. Of course we talk among ourselves. But unless we know your daddy, granddaddy and great-granddaddy, we’re not going to talk to you behind a family member’s back.”

Chloe’s opened her eyes wide. Well. Now she knew where she stood. Whittaker’s medals she could research. But it intrigued her that this was the third time today she’d met apparent admiration for the deputy, tempered with a reluctance to talk about him.

“Perhaps we could switch to first names,” Ms. Parker said, “and you could tell me about yourself.”

Chloe fidgeted in her seat. Without her backpack and her tools of the trade, she felt exposed. She had made herself strong by becoming an observer and never liked being the object of attention.

“Were you born and raised around here?” June persisted.

“No. I’m from Atlanta originally. My father’s a mathematics professor at Emory and my mother’s an epidemiologist at the CDC—Centers for Disease Control. I’m a reporter, and that’s about all there is to tell,” she finished in one long breath.

June smiled over the rim of her teacup. “I’m sure there’s more to the story than that.”

“We’re a family that sticks to the facts,” Chloe replied with a twinge of discomfort. “To that end…I’m in town to learn about the sheriff’s department. Its procedures. Its personnel.”

“I certainly hope you’re not planning to rummage around in Mack’s personal pain to sell papers,” the innkeeper said, putting her teacup down with a sharp snick.

Chloe didn’t back down. “I’m searching for the right angle. Whether it’s the town itself, the sheriff’s department or the individuals who make up that department.”

“Then you’d better head to the town meeting tonight. There’ll be enough topics there for several articles.”

Chloe cocked her head. Why hadn’t the deputy mentioned the town meeting? For his lack of disclosure alone, she wouldn’t miss it.

FROM WHERE HE STOOD IN the corner at the back of the hall, Mack noticed Atherton, dragging her battered backpack, squeeze through the entranceway.

How did she get wind of the meeting?

Unsuccessfully, she looked around for a seat, then began to mingle with the crowd that always formed at the back of the room. The folks who came to shoot the breeze as if there wasn’t an official meeting going on in the front. Mack took a count of those citizens nearest the reporter who might be counted gossips. Three notorious talkers. Damn.

Making space for latecomers, Myron Hapes stepped closer to Mack. “I hear,” the retired postal worker said, leaning in, “Frank Hudson’s getting up a petition to turn the county dry. What do you think his chances are?”

“Slim to none.” Mack let out a groan as he saw Atherton moving in his direction.

“I know you probably would rather liquor weren’t so readily available,” Mryon said, not bothering to lower his voice. “A dry county would make your job easier. Maybe would have made it less easy for you to turn to the stuff.”

Tearing his attention from the approaching reporter, Mack glowered at Myron.

“Sorry, Mack. I didn’t mean to dredge up ancient history.”

So why did people always do it? And now, especially, with the fourth estate on the prowl.

“I gotta talk to Frank,” Myron said hastily, then retreated into the crowd.

Only to be replaced by Atherton. “Nice of you to mention there was a meeting tonight,” she said, her words laced with accusation.

“It slipped my mind.” He pretended to concentrate on Deputy Darden, who was at the front of the room answering a question on speed bumps.

“I wanted to ask you—”

“Shh!”

“Don’t shush me! I’m not a child.”

“There’s a meeting going on, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

She scanned the groups milling by the door, then rolled her eyes. “As if I didn’t know the real stuff gets done in these back-of-the-room cabals.”

He’d have to look that word up in the sheriff’s crossword dictionary.

He looked at his watch. Tanya was expecting him. “I’ll answer your questions tomorrow,” he said. “Right now I’m off duty.” He could only hope she understood he was entitled to a private life.

But the expression in her eyes was one of disbelief. “When you said you were married to the job—”

“Even married folks need an occasional break.” He inspected her upturned face, suspecting she might be someone else as dedicated to her job as he was. It was his bad luck she regarded him as her job. Without engaging in further chat, he made his way out of the room.

SO WHAT DID A WORKAHOLIC public servant do off duty?

Was that even pertinent to her article? Shouldn’t she stay here and soak in some of the town flavor? Suss out the issues? Meet the residents who were directly affected by the local law?

At the front of the room—in the official meeting—people were hotly debating methods for slowing traffic on the main drag. Yawn. The back of the room wasn’t much better. Talk of feed prices, boundary disputes, the sheriff’s wedding and some investment scheme making the rounds. Double yawn.

She gave him a couple of minutes’ head start, then slipped out of the room. At the entrance to the town hall, she observed him making his way across the parking lot to his cruiser. Not a private vehicle. And the deputy was off duty. Was that by the book? She’d have to check. Something else came to mind. She hadn’t caught all of Whittaker’s conversation when she’d come upon him in the meeting hall, but she thought she’d heard the man he’d been talking to mention something about Whittaker’s having turned to liquor. A joke, or serious? If it had been serious, what did it have to do with the execution of the man’s duties?

If he was on the up-and-up, he had nothing to hide from her investigation.

As she made her way to the Yugo, she felt a twinge of doubt. Was this investigative reporting…or was this creative nonfiction? Had she singled out Whittaker because he was the deputy in charge or because he was an enigma? That fact-finding challenge she so loved. A man the residents of Applegate relied on, respected and worried about. A man who softened—slightly—only when he was up a tree, rescuing a tomcat.

June Parker had warned her not to use Whittaker’s pain to sell papers. But the woman couldn’t have known the personal pain that drove Chloe to uncover the facts and dispel speculation.

As the deputy pulled out of the parking lot, she put her own car in gear. Firsthand observation led to facts. The facts, once they fell into a pattern, would constitute the truth. And the truth, however painful, was the foundation of life.

Following at a discreet distance, she was mildly surprised when he didn’t pull into the sheriff’s office parking lot but continued through town. On the outskirts, where the streetlights ended, he turned left and crossed the railroad tracks. A full planter’s moon provided the only real light.

Chloe knew that in many small towns in the south, “the wrong side of the tracks” wasn’t merely an expression. Despite its new upscale subdivisions, Applegate still had a seamier side, and this was it. Not part of the groomed in-town neighborhoods, but not rural farmland, either. The road meandered between houses too close together and in need of repair.

The evening being mild for April, Chloe rolled her window down. Many of the residents clustered on front stoops—talking, drinking, smoking or listening to music. Although it was fairly late and a school night, kids were everywhere. Adolescent boys with attitude hung with men who eyed the women. The women eyed them right back. The aromas of barbecue and simmering salsa melded with a sweet scent Chloe knew couldn’t be legal. Didn’t Deputy Whittaker smell it? If so, he didn’t stop.

About a mile down the road, as the houses became less regularly spaced, the cruiser slowed, then came to a stop in front of one particular house, its weedy front yard strewn with plastic toys. The deputy got out of his patrol car and walked over to a woman leaning on the front porch railing. Her hair was big…her tank top small. And her jeans looked as if they’d been painted on. In the porch light she looked tired.

Chloe slowed the Yugo as she drove past.

Mack Whittaker pulled his wallet out of his back pocket, took out several bills and handed them to the woman. Stuffing the money in her top, she slid her arm around his back and drew him into the house.

Now what was Chloe to make of that firsthand observation?

CHAPTER FOUR

THE DAY WAS ALREADY HOT as hell. The terrain outside the military tent was dry, sand-choked and godforsaken. Several of the guys in his unit were engaged in a game of poker before heading out on patrol. Mack couldn’t understand the attraction to games of chance. Not here. When every breath you took was a gamble. But who was he to judge? Nate, looking up from his hand, had razzed him for opting for a shower—if you could call it that, what with the rationed water. What’s the point, Nate had asked, when you’re gritty again two seconds later? Maybe Mack persevered because, for a few moments, he could close his eyes and imagine himself back in Applegate.

The explosion rocked the encampment as he was peeling off his T-shirt. Bare-chested, he ran out of the shower area. Plumes of black smoke rose to embrace the relentless Iraqi sun. Rose from the spot where his tent had been. Where the guys had been playing poker minutes ago…

With a howl to wake the dead, Mack sat bolt upright. In the dark and drenched in sweat, he couldn’t tell what was real or what was dream until a door opened and Deputy McMillan stuck his head in. The shaft of light illuminated the wall of lockers, the cots—all empty except for the one Mack clung to, in the barracks room he’d called home for the past six months.

“Whittaker, you okay?”

Mack was shaking so hard he was afraid he might bite off his tongue if he tried to answer.

“The morning shift’s about to come in,” McMillan drawled, feigning nonchalance, Mack knew. “I’m makin’ coffee. Take a shower. You can get a hit of caffeine when you’re done.” The deputy disappeared, leaving the overhead light off, but the door ajar.

Mack put both feet on the floor. He hated that the other deputies tiptoed around him. Hated that they appeared to be waiting patiently for an explanation. Of his continued squatting in the barracks. Of his silence about his tour of duty. Of his night terrors.

His head now throbbing, he stripped and stepped into the shower. Let the harsh stream of cold water sluice over his body, numbing him. When he returned to his cot, a mug of fresh coffee sat on the nightstand. A small act of compassion that compounded his guilt.

He gulped the coffee as he dressed, then headed downstairs to the sheriff’s office. He’d pick up something to eat on the go because he didn’t want to hang around the kitchen for breakfast as the shifts changed and the deputies congregated with stories about family or nights carousing or days off fishing. He might be fit for duty, but he wasn’t up to faking the rest.

As he approached Kim Nash, engaged in animated conversation with…Damn, he’d forgotten all about the kid.

Dressed in penny loafers—he didn’t know they still made them—trousers made of some silky khaki material and a long-sleeved white shirt with a flowing scarf tied at her neck, Chloe Atherton didn’t look as if she belonged in the twenty-first century. She looked like an actress right out of the 1940s. One of those earnest ingenues trying hard to make it in a man’s world. The one who always cracked the hardboiled hero’s shell. God, he’d spent too many sleepless nights watching old black-and-white movies on the barracks TV.

“Good morning, Deputy!” Atherton sang out as she pocketed her notepad. “I’m ready when you are.”

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