The Lawman Next Door

Piper McKinney’s got her hands full. Busy saving her farm from developers, and her family from trouble, she has no time for love. Not even for the handsome state trooper who becomes her new neighbor. But Zach Harrison can’t ignore the girl next door. Even though he gave up the farming life years ago, Piper intrigues him, and her plight calls out to the protector in him. Piper may not want a man, especially one with a badge, but Zach will show her that he’s here to serve and protect...and love.

Kirkwood Lake: A town full of heart and hope.

“We’re neighbors and that’s all we’ll ever be.”

“You’re sure about that?” His touch was so gentle, so pure that Piper’s heart wanted to melt on the spot. His gaze lingered on her short nails, the calluses on her fingers. He didn’t bring her hand to his mouth for a kiss, but his expression was a kiss, a look of warmth and understanding.

“Zach, I don’t flirt well.”

He laughed. “Yes, you do.”

“Okay, maybe I do. But I can’t. Shouldn’t. Won’t.”

“Me, either. Maybe sometime we should sit down and list our reasons for why we won’t work, Piper, because even though I live next door and I’ve only known you a few days, when I’m not with you, I’m thinking about you.”

“Well, stop.”

“I’ve tried. It doesn’t appear to be working.”

“Try harder.”

He grinned at her. “What if I don’t want to?”

RUTH LOGAN HERNE

Born into poverty, Ruth puts great stock in one of her favorite Ben Franklinisms: “Having been poor is no shame. Being ashamed of it is.” With God-given appreciation for the amazing opportunities abounding in our land, Ruth finds simple gifts in the everyday blessings of smudge-faced small children, bright flowers, freshly baked goods, good friends, family, puppies and higher education. She believes a good woman should never fear dirt, snakes or spiders, all of which like to infest her aged farmhouse, necessitating a good pair of tongs for extracting the snakes, a flat-bottomed shoe for the spiders, and for the dirt…

Simply put, she’s learned that some things aren’t worth fretting about! If you laugh in the face of dust and love to talk about God, men, romance, great shoes and wonderful food, feel free to contact Ruth through her website at http://ruthloganherne.com.

Falling for the Lawman

Ruth Logan Herne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Philistines gathered at Lehi and attacked the Israelites in a field full of lentils. The Israelite army fled, but Shammah held his ground in the middle of the field and beat back the Philistines. So the Lord brought about a great victory.

—2 Samuel 23:11–12

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Kim Zarpentine of Zarpentine Farms and Robyn Sweeney of Sweeney Farms for their wonderful example of “Piper” in reality. You women bless me with your faith, industry and knowledge. May God bless you both! Huge thanks to New York State Trooper Christopher Lana, whose candid

help made Zach Harrison come to life.

To Anne Lana, a dear friend and sister-in-Christ. You bless so many with your gentle presence. To Mary and Ivan Connealy for answering my nonstop farming questions. Ivan, Nebraska truly does have the best beef! To Beth for all your help on keeping manuscripts tight. Thank you for blessing me with your time and effort! Huge thanks to Melissa Endlich, my editor, boss and buddy at Love Inspired Books. Her constant encouragement and belief are true gifts. And to the town of Parma, whose support of

“Blackie the Rooster” changed local laws allowing farm animals to live in peace. Although Blackie

is no longer with us, “Phoenix” and “Starlight”

carry on his morning tradition.

To Katie, my beautiful granddaughter… May God bless you and keep you all of your days, Katie-girl! Grammy and Grandpa love you!

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

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Chapter One

“To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heavens.”

Raised in the pews of a sweet country church, New York State Trooper Zach Harrison embraced the poetic lines of Ecclesiastes one hundred percent.

But it couldn’t and shouldn’t apply to constantly crowing roosters.

He refused to look at the dashboard temperature readout as he climbed out of his car. The trickle of sweat along his neck proved the meteorologists correct. Low nineties by noon, even here in the hills of Western New York.

He shut the driver’s door and ignored the initial blast of mid-July heat. The best thing about working nights to help cover summer vacations was the cooler temperatures. The worst? Trying to sleep in the middle of the day in a new house, with his father pacing in the next room, the sun beating on the roof, no central air and the neighbor’s rooster crowing on the quarter hour.

He couldn’t change anything too major about the house. Not yet, anyway. The down payment, closing costs and lumber to replace the rotting backyard deck put a serious dent in his savings.

Three weeks ago his summer had stretched before him, filled with work on the force and his new home. One phone call had changed all that.

“Are you a real policeman?”

Zach turned, surprised, and a small part of his heart went soft in the space of a beat.

Two identical girls peered up at him from behind an aged catalpa tree. The twins were petite perfection, mirror images of each other. Pink and purple pigtail ribbons danced in the July wind, a breeze that did nothing to soften the hot, humid conditions. “Yes.” He stooped low, knowing his size could intimidate, captivated by this unexpected pair of miniature greeters at the nearby farm. “I’m Trooper Zach.”

“I’m Dorrie.” The first girl beamed him a smile, open and broad, tiny white teeth a contrast to her latte skin beneath the purple pigtail ties. “And this is my sister, Sonya. We’re five.”

“Nice to meet you.” Zach put out his hand and fought a wince as a rooster crowed again, the loud reason behind his late-morning call on his new neighbor. New chicken dishes filled his brain. Maybe something deep-fried for the bird that aggravated his father and interrupted Zach’s midday attempts to sleep.

“Are you getting ice cream?” Dorrie wondered. She pointed to the line at the window of a converted barn. “Aunt Piper has the best ice cream anywhere.”

“Grandma helps,” interjected Sonya, obviously determined to give credit where due. She looked like her more assertive sister, but one finger twirled the pink ribbon tied around her left pigtail, the anxious action speaking louder than words.

“But not Uncle Chas,” Dorrie added, determined to keep the record straight. “He hates this place. So does our mom. Uncle Colin, too.”

“Doralia! Sonya! Where are you?”

Zach straightened, remembering his task, and it wasn’t to fall in love with two kids who would cause their father plenty of worry once they turned into teenagers. “They’re here.”

A robust woman of similar coloring strode his way. She nodded thanks to him, then gave the girls an earful in a mix of English and Spanish with a hint of what might have been Native American thrown in for good measure. The girls dropped their chins, pretending penitence, but Zach knew they’d disappear again in an instant, given the chance.

That was the one thing he’d loved about being raised on a farm in Central New York. Freedom, once his work was done. Time to roam. Study nature. Hunt white-tailed deer come fall. Find birds of all sorts, tucked into nature’s God-given homes. But it was the only thing he’d liked. The endless hours of farm work, day after day, dawn to dusk, confronting the weather, market prices and wind-borne disease?

Not so much. He liked his steady law enforcement paycheck, a promised pension, clear expectations and visible rewards. Bad guys got put away. Good guys stayed safe. It was a tangible world with measurable results, which suited him.

The girls hustled into the country-themed barn. Zach followed. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the change in lighting, but when they did, he was surprised.

The other buildings showed wear and tear no doubt caused by lack of money or time. Probably both. The Southern Tier of Western New York had fallen on hard times over a generation ago. Businesses closed, factories shut down, employment dropped to all-time lows.

But this barn glistened. Bright white coolers were located to his right, their glass doors immaculate despite the throng of people and busy hands. Inside the coolers, glass bottles formed military-straight lines. He moved closer, intrigued. Intrigue gave way to surprise as he read the labels. Whole milk...2 percent milk...skimmed milk...eggnog...

Eggnog? In midsummer? Either these folks lived by a different calendar or they were way ahead of the game prepping for Christmas.

The rooster crowed again, the pitch and length of his practiced voice taunting Zach. Clearly the bird didn’t realize Zach packed heat in the form of a lightweight Glock.

The twins buzzed past him, back toward the door, dragging a small brown-and-white goat between them. The creature needed a haircut, which reminded Zach he could use one himself. But the sight of them bound for fun touched a wistfulness inside him. Their presence instilled a warmth he didn’t know existed five minutes ago.

“May I help you?”

He turned.

His heart melted. It was an absurd reaction because he’d met a lot of pretty girls in his life, but the one watching him now with more than a hint of question and a bite of sass in her gaze, could have been cast in a country music video. Her trim T-shirt read Yes, I’m the Farmer. How Can I Help You? A faded Kirkwood Lake Central School ball cap was pulled down properly on her forehead, while a long reddish-brown ponytail swung from the hat’s opening. Thin jeans, faded and worn, said she wasn’t afraid to work for a living, and farm boots gave testament to the shirt’s claim. A pair of work gloves poked haphazardly from her right hip pocket. Right-handed, then, most likely.

“Zach Harrison. I live...”

“Piper McKinney.” She stuck out her hand, then paused and withdrew it. “Oops, forgot. Cops don’t like to shake hands. My bad.”

She was right, but how did she know that? Some cops were fanatic about not shaking hands for various reasons. Zach wasn’t one of them. He’d been on the force for eleven years and he’d defused many situations with a simple handshake. In this case? Shaking this particular hand couldn’t be called a hardship.

He extended his hand. She waited two breaths, maybe three, then inhaled and touched her fingers to his. He gripped them gently, noting the work-worn surface of her skin.

“Piper?” A voice, ripe with question, interrupted the moment.

She withdrew her hand and turned. “Lucia. This is Trooper Harrison. He lives...?” She raised a brow again and made a face. “I have no idea where he lives because I never gave him the chance to say so. Sorry, Officer. This is my stepmother, Lucia McKinney.”

Zach nodded politely. A hint of distrust marked the older woman’s eyes. She swept his uniform a furtive glance, as if she’d had less-than-happy run-ins with police before. That would be something to think about later. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. McKinney.”

“Lucia is fine,” she told him. Her voice, a touch gruff, sounded work-worn. Zach understood that. Farms were life-draining occupations. He’d seen that firsthand, hence the pledge to work somewhere else. A pledge he’d kept from the day he graduated from the academy.

Lucia turned her attention toward Piper. She jutted her chin toward the back. “Chas is grumbling about the new pasteurizer.”

“Of course he is.” Piper offered a bright smile that stopped short of her eyes. The resignation in her gaze made Zach want to have a word or two with Chas.... Whoever he was.

Her expression called to the protector in him. And while this woman’s straight-on gaze said she needed little protection, something in her stature said otherwise.

Piper shifted her focus to Lucia. “Are the girls still in the back room or did they escape again?”

Zach waved toward the door. “That way. With a goat.”

“Ach, those girls!” Lucia flapped her apron in Zach’s general direction, as if it was his fault the two miscreants had performed another vanishing act. The college-age girl behind the counter took care of the next milk customer while Zach shifted his attention back to Piper.

Her expression defined the current chaos as normal. Zach wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, especially where kids were involved, but he remembered some early escapades from his youth on the family farm. And he’d survived.

“Are you here on a case?” Piper interrupted his musings.

“No.”

“Have we done something wrong? Maybe you need milk. Or eggs. Unless you’re waiting for Ada Sammler’s daily baking of bread? It should be arriving any minute.”

He had no idea who Ada Sammler was, and while fresh bread sounded great, he wasn’t about to store bread that would only go moldy in days because his busy schedule meant he wasn’t around often enough to eat it. Even with his father there. Dad wasn’t eating all that much. Another source of concern.

He simply wanted peace and quiet. The sooner the better. “It’s the rooster,” he said again. “Roosters,” he repeated, stressing the plural.

She frowned, not understanding, and waved to a young family as they strode through the doors, then again to an aging couple. “Albert, don’t think for a minute I’m letting you haul jugs of milk to the car on your own,” she scolded, but her grin took the sting out of the reprimand. “You hang on to Edna so we don’t have another broken hip on the prayer roster and we’ll handle the bags, okay?”

The old man smiled, and the peaceful look on his aged face made Zach wish that kind of contentment for his father. But they’d have to find a way to redistribute a wagonload of Marty Harrison’s anger, and Zach had no clue how to do that. You there, God? I’m open to suggestions these days. Not nearly as stubborn as I used to be. If you’ve got any bits of wisdom to throw my way, I’m ready for them.

Piper pulled her attention back to him, and smiled as if what he had to say mattered. The smile almost made him forget his request, she was that engaging. Bright green eyes sparkled beneath thick brows, and her classic athletic look said she stayed in shape to do her job, not just to look good in a dress. Though Zach was pretty sure she’d look great in a dress.

Another rooster crow brought him back on track. “Him. Them.” Zach waved a hand to the right. “I bought the house around the corner on Watkins Ridge, and I need the roosters to quiet down during the day when I’m sleeping.”

She stared at him, then tried to hide a grin by coughing into her hand. “You want quiet roosters? There’s a novelty.”

“I’ve been working nights...”

“Close your windows.”

Brilliant idea, except for the extreme summer temperatures. “Too hot,” he shot back.

“Get a fan. Install air-conditioning.”

“A room air conditioner blocks sound. That’s not safe. And I’ve got hot-water baseboard heat, so installing central air would be crazy expensive.”

She tapped a finger to her jaw, contemplating him. “Let me get this straight. You want the roosters to be quiet because you can hear them, but you don’t want to install a room air conditioner to block the noise of the roosters because then you can’t hear things. Right?”

Okay, it sounded preposterous put that way, but essentially, yes. He wanted to be able to hear a home invader, so the idea of a noisy air cooling unit wasn’t on his list. But he didn’t want to hear annoying birds that refused to respect his backward sleeping habits. “Kind of.”

She threw him a bright smile that said “conversation over” and started to back away. “I’ve got a cutting of hay to bale and get pulled in before this afternoon’s possible thunderstorm, so Zach―” she raised her index finger to her cap and tipped the brim in a gesture of respect “―I’m going to take what you said seriously right after I get in acres of forage, oversee the afternoon milking and pray this drought doesn’t ruin an entire year’s corn crop or I’ll be feeding cows with nonexistent funds. I’ll be doing that while keeping two little girls alive although they seem determined to tempt fate, running a busy dairy store, and keeping a neat and tidy farmhouse. I may or may not be lying about that last one.” She turned and strode away, but not without one more parting shot. “Sleep well.”

Grudging respect rivaled frustration for his sleep-deprived emotions. He had sounded somewhat absurd, and she wasn’t afraid to call him on it. And the teasing grin she sent over her shoulder as she walked away was a look that said she’d be looking forward to “round two.”

That was enough to make him eager, too. Right until the roosters let loose again, reminding him that in nine short hours he’d be back at work. He’d really like to spend half a dozen of that sleeping.

* * *

Piper dragged herself into the house just before nine that night. Lucia rose from a side chair as Piper slipped through the back screen door. She bustled to the kitchen, a fast-moving woman despite her wide girth. “You go wash. I’ll warm supper.”

“I can handle it, Luce. Sit down. Relax. You work every bit as hard as I do. I don’t need you to wait on me.”

“I’m older and bossier,” the middle-aged woman shot back. “Therefore I give orders in the house. You give them on the farm.” She lifted her shoulders in a gesture of agreement. “And we share bossing people in the store and the dairy. It works, no?”

“It does.”

Piper climbed the creaky stairs. The thought of fresh-smelling cotton pajamas called to her, but first she peeked at the girls.

Dorrie and Sonya shared one bed despite efforts to separate them. With no father in their lives, and their mother’s abandonment nearly three years ago, the girls clung to each other. They would enter kindergarten this fall, in separate classrooms, and Piper and Lucia had wrestled with that decision for weeks.

Was it right to split them up? Would it instigate more trauma? Could they handle being apart?

Piper had no idea, and the published experts disagreed, so she and Lucia followed their common sense and decided separate classrooms were in the girls’ best interests. But neither woman pretended the girls would embrace the concept. They’d shared a Sunday school class the past two years. But pricey preschools didn’t fit the farm budget and Piper’s schedule left little time for playdates, which made the girls more dependent on each other. With their first semester of school approaching, Piper wished she’d given the girls more play time with other children. That would have prepared them better for September.

“You made soup?” The scent of spiced beef greeted Piper as she descended the stairs fifteen minutes later. She met Lucia’s matter-of-fact gaze with a smile. “In this heat?”

“Crock-Pot.” Lucia nodded toward the cooling bowl on the table. “And one of Ada’s loaves from yesterday, toasted. I turned the rest into croutons for selling.”

“You’re a marvel, Lucia.”

The older woman shrugged. “Waste not, want not. The hay is in?”

“The front fields, yes, and good quality. It’s dry, though, and that might make our second cutting nonexistent. The lower field of alfalfa gave a great first yield, but the lack of rain is worrisome. The girls managed to stay alive, I see.”

Lucia’s expression soured. “What one doesn’t think of, the other does. And so beautiful, those smiles...they flash them as they plan one more way to turn my hair gray. Bah!” She raised a hand of dismissal as she changed the subject. “You cannot worry about the weather. Your father never learned this lesson. His daughter should.” Lucia sent her a stern look tempered with love. “God is, was and ever will be. Weather is not of our doing. So we deal with it as it comes, no worries, because people of faith do not worry about what they cannot control. But this problem.” She hooked a blunt thumb north and her gaze narrowed. “The policeman. He will make trouble, no?”

“Because of the roosters?” Piper scoffed at the idea, then shrugged. She’d cringed every time she made a tractor pass along the hay field that day because either Raven or Starlight seemed determined to crow along the fence that bordered the trooper’s backyard. “I advised him to block the noise. He was less than appreciative. So yes, he might make trouble. And I get his point, Luce, about sleeping, but really?” She made a face of disbelief that drew the other woman’s nod of agreement. “Don’t move to the country if you can’t handle the country.”

“I can handle the country.”

Piper turned, chagrined.

Lucia straightened. Alarm darkened her features.

Six feet of square-jawed good looks stood beneath the porch light at the back screen door, dressed in uniform. Piper clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oops.”

“But there’s no reason to have those birds outside my back door, crowing at each other all day,” Zach continued. Raising a hand, he waved light-seeking bugs away from his rugged, handsome face. “You’re not raising chicks, you’re selling eggs, and you don’t need a rooster to do that. What use are they on this farm, Miss McKinney?”

Piper stood and faced him, then waved him in. “We’re neighbors. Don’t stand on the porch, swatting bugs. Come in. And call me Piper. Want coffee?”

“You have coffee on? It’s almost nine-thirty.”

She nodded to her one-cup brewing system. “Twenty-four/seven. I don’t have the patience to wait in the mornings. This is easy. And perfect.”

“Then, yes. I’d love a cup. And a rooster muzzle to go with it.”

She laughed. Even when serious, he was funny, and she liked that in a man. Guys who could laugh at themselves? That kind of man was rare in her experience.

Regardless, she was keeping her birds, no matter how cute the trooper was in his gray serge uniform with a freshly shaved face and somewhat sleepy eyes.

Guilt mounted, but only a little. The girls loved the roosters―they’d raised them right out of the egg―and no way was she parting with them. Dorrie and Sonya had enough on their plates. The roosters stayed. End of discussion.

“So. About the birds...”

“Cream? Sugar?” She held out both in matching stoneware after she handed him a mug of fresh, hot coffee. “This is real cream, straight from the dairy. Unless you’d prefer milk?”

“I love cream in my coffee.” He sat, raised the little pitcher in big, broad hands and handled it with a dexterity Piper appreciated. “And sugar. And I have to sleep sometime, right?”

He stared right at her, letting those blue eyes sparkle with charm, their brilliance tempting her to smile back. But she’d dealt with irksome neighbors in the past. These days it was a common farmers’ lament, as if running a weather-dependent business wasn’t work enough. No, today’s farmer had to deal with keeping the neighbors happy, and dealing with calls from the town officials listing a litany of complaints.

Folks wanted fresh food but not the work, noise and odor that came with farming. Her father had caved now and again.

Piper wouldn’t. She’d already put heart and soul into saving this place. Give an inch and folks wanted a mile. Not on her watch. And avoiding Zach’s flirty look was easier when she remembered how good Hunter had been with those long, intent gazes.

She’d been young then. She felt plenty old now, with her father gone, the farm to run, kids to watch and her brothers haranguing her on a regular basis. “There must be some way to block the noise. Or switch shifts. You could work days,” she suggested.

Lucia coughed a sound of warning. Cops made her nervous. The twins’ mother had gone to jail as a teen, and that never sat right with Lucia. Going toe-to-toe with a trooper who now happened to live next door would worry her.

“We’re shorthanded at the moment, so my schedule varies,” Zach explained. “Days. Nights. Afternoons.” He shrugged. “It will be like that for a while. That’s a long stretch to work on no sleep.”

He was being nice. Not demanding. Simply stating his case, and that made Piper more willing to compromise. For the moment. “I’ll put the boys in the far pen tomorrow. On separate sides, or they’ll fight. But I can’t put them in the hutch in these temperatures. They’re heat-sensitive.”

“Me, too.” Zach stood, smiling. Upright, his presence filled the room. His height, the broad shoulders, the uniform that made him stand out in a crowd...

He stood out here, too. Piper rose and followed him to the door. He glanced at his watch. “I expect you need some sleep yourself. Milking comes early.”

Did he know that from personal experience, she wondered?

“It does.” Piper offered her hand, glad she’d gotten cleaned up as soon as she came in. Although why she should care was something to examine later. Much later. “Let me know how tomorrow goes. If having the roosters in the barn pen helps.”

“I will.” He tipped his gaze down, his expression warm. Grateful. A little teasing.

She didn’t want to smile back. Hold his attention. But she did, and for long, pointed seconds neither one breathed, caught in the moment, her hand melded with his.

Lucia coughed again.

The sound brought Piper back to reality. He might be the nicest guy in the world, but she’d learned her lesson. Cops were in her “high risk” category, and flirting with a neighbor?

If things went bad, you still lived next door. No way could the situation end well.

She extricated her hand, stepped back and pasted a small, polite smile into place. “Have a good night.”

He swept her outfit a quick glance and a grin. “You, too.”

Tired and surprised by his unexpected visit, she’d forgotten the faded Scooby-Doo pajama pants and matching T-shirt.

Great. She looked like a twelve-year-old. And her hair was half wet, half dry, a bedraggled mess.

She shut the door and turned.

Lucia rose from the recliner in the adjoining living room. She shot a dark look toward the door as Zach’s engine rumbled to life outside. “You want trouble again? Another broken heart?”

“Luce—”

Lucia’s firm gaze stopped Piper’s argument. “I know, I am not your mother.”

She spoke the truth. Piper’s mother had divorced her father when Piper was still in grade school. She’d moved away with a massive share of the heritage farm in her pocket, a share that put the farm in the red from that day forward. She’d never looked back.

Her father married Luce months later, his quick remarriage inciting plenty of small-town talk. He adopted Rainey as a child, bringing the beautiful girl into the fold. But when Rainey went on her wild-child sprees as a teen, tongues wagged faster. Chas and Colin were in college by then, but Piper had been here, helping hold down the fort. It hadn’t been easy.

“We have had our differences,” Luce acknowledged. “But that does not change my love for you. You had your heart broken once by an officer. And I had mine broken when they took my daughter to jail.”

“Luce, you can’t blame the police for what Rainey did.” The last thing Piper wanted to do was hurt Luce’s feelings, but where Rainey was concerned, Luce’s judgment proved faulty. “She broke the law. But she paid her price, and who knows?” Piper closed the space between them and embraced the older woman. “Maybe she’s clean now. Maybe she’s gotten her act together and she’ll come back, ready to be part of the family again.”

Luce didn’t return the hug. She stood stiff and straight, fighting emotion. “And what do we do if this happens? Trust her? Welcome her? Hand the girls over as if it is okay to leave your babies for years?” Eyes wet, she stepped back. “I don’t know what to wish for. My daughter to return? Or my daughter to stay away and leave those babies in peace?”

Piper understood the dilemma. Rainey’s teenage antics had finally resulted in prison time. She’d straightened herself out and started her associate’s degree in prison. She’d stayed squeaky-clean, no drinking, no smoking, no drugs, obeying her parole. She’d gone to church and sang with them, her beautiful voice soaring on the words of ageless hymns.

Then something had pushed the headstrong girl beyond her limits. She got pregnant, had the twins, then disappeared before the girls’ second birthday, leaving only a short note.

They’d heard nothing since. Three years of not knowing. Was she alive? Safe? Straight? Or had she fallen back into the vicious cycle that had claimed her teen years?

Piper kept it simple. “We pray. God’s bigger and stronger than any force on earth. We pray for her and for the girls. And us.”

Luce nodded, fighting emotion. “All right.” She dashed an apron to her eyes and moved toward the kitchen. “If you and Berto need help in the morning, call me.”

She said that same thing every night, because she didn’t trust Piper’s brother to show up. Chas hated the farm.

He despised being in the fields, so she put him in charge of the milk production room, where fresh, ultrapasteurized dairy products were bottled for sale under cool conditions while she labored in the hot sun. He had two people working with him, and still whined about it all, the narrow profit margins, the uselessness of tempting people with vintage-style glass bottles of fresh milk products.

Piper knew that thin profit margins beat zero-profit margins. She bit her tongue on a regular basis, not wanting to fight with her older brothers.

She loved the farm.

They didn’t.

But they couldn’t sell without her permission. Unless she went under. And no way was she about to let that happen.

Chapter Two

“Missing something?”

Zach’s questioning voice rumbled, ripe with wry humor.

Piper forced herself to maintain an outer calm she didn’t feel and looked up from a tractor seal that seemed determined to give her a hard time. She saw Zach holding the girls’ Nigerian dwarf goat, a favored pet. The brown-and-white miniature creature looked quite content in the big man’s arms. “Beansy? Where did you find him?”

“In what used to be my vegetable garden.”

First the roosters. Now the goat. Piper winced until she read the humor in Zach’s eyes. “You haven’t lived there long enough to have a vegetable garden.”

“It appears he didn’t know that. How’d he get out?”

“The better question is, where are the twins? And did they engineer his escape or escape right along with him?” She jumped down from the huge wheel and strode toward the barn door as she spoke, using the sides of her jeans as grease rags. Thin streaks of motor oil left telltale marks. “He was in your yard? And before you answer that, why aren’t you sleeping? It’s after twelve. Too hot? Or did the roosters wake you? Because I penned them and I haven’t heard them crowing, but I can block the sound. Was it them? They wake you?”

“My current dilemma is which question to answer first,” he drawled, his slow talk making a valid point. She tended to jabber in stream-of-consciousness fashion. Maybe she’d slow down someday when she didn’t have to cram thirty hours of work into a twenty-four-hour day.

“Yes, he was in the yard,” Zach continued. “My father noticed him. And I did catch a quick nap, but something’s come up. I’m taking the next couple of weeks off, so I didn’t need to get more than that today.”

“You’ll be ruing that choice tonight,” Piper supposed over her shoulder. “Dorrie! Sonya? Where are you?”

Silence answered. She reached into her pocket and withdrew her cell phone. When Lucia answered, she put out an APB on the girls.

“Berto’s got them,” Lucia assured her. “He’s giving them a ride on the hay wagon before lunch. Why? What have they done now?”

Piper wasn’t sure they’d done anything, but from the look on Zach’s face, she figured the two girls may or may not have been trying to catch a glimpse of their new favorite policeman.

He’d been in uniform both times she saw him yesterday. Tall. Broad. Strong. Dark hair. Bright blue eyes that warmed with humor.

Today?

Better, if possible. He wore a short-sleeved T-shirt that proclaimed him the winner in last year’s October breast cancer run, along with well-worn blue jeans. Piper noted his pants with a glance. “Jeans? In this weather?”

“I’m a farm kid,” he admitted, which surprised her because she’d noted reluctance in his gaze as he scanned the farm the day before. “You always wear jeans on a farm.”

“True.” She slipped the phone back into her pocket and turned toward the barn, noting the fresh oil streaks on her work pants with a grimace. “Denim’s handy when you forget to grab a stack of rags while doing engine maintenance. Luce will have something to say about this, no doubt.”

Her look of repentance made him smile. “Where would you like Beansy?”

She growled and led Zach and the goat through an adjacent barn. Calf pens lined the semishaded side of the building. One pen sat to the side. The perimeter fencing was decked out with trinkets and miniature signs done in little-kid scrawl. Beansy the Goat read one. Beware of Goat said another. A half dozen similar signs swung strategically around the enclosure, leaving no doubt about the ownership. “Here we go, Beans. Scoot in there and bleat real loud if they take you out again.” Piper scratched the little fellow’s head, and Zach was pretty sure the tiny creature preened.

“Beans is a pet, I take it.”

Piper hemmed and hawed, then nodded. “I’m a softie and I have a hard time saying no to those girls.”

Zach laughed out loud. “Well, who wouldn’t? They’re the cutest things I’ve ever seen. So Beansy is theirs?”

“Beansy was left behind by folks who moved away and abandoned their animals. Luke Campbell brought him by last spring.”

Luke Campbell was a deputy sheriff for the county. But did Luke’s visit here mean he and Piper had something going? And why should Zach care if they did? One glance her way said he had a grocery list of reasons to back away from this attraction, but the look on her face made him wish the list away. “But Beansy is just a baby.”

Piper shook her head. “He’s not. He’s a small breed, and he’s smaller yet because he wasn’t properly fed, but he’s probably two years old. Luke thought the girls would love him. And he was right. We have room. And forage. And he’s so little and cute.” Her voice went soft. Sweet. Maternal. But one snap of her hand to her thigh brought back the dogged farmer within the pretty, petite woman. And Zach had enough of farms and farmers growing up to last a lifetime. “I’ve got to get back to that oil leak. Zach, I appreciate what you did.” She tipped her hat and held up her grease-stained hands as evidence. “I’d shake your hand but that’s pretty undesirable right now, so I’ll just thank you again for Beansy’s safe return.”

* * *

Despite the sheen of grease on her palms, Zach didn’t find her hands one bit unbecoming, but he shoved that opinion into his “don’t go there” file. “You’re welcome.” He started walking away, but something―manners, interest, guilt―made him turn back. “Do you need help, Piper? I know a few things about tractors.”

She turned and met his look. For long seconds they stood separated by a matter of ten feet, but the look in her eyes said they might as well be light-years apart. “You’re kind, but no. I’m fine.”

Cool. Concise. As if she were shouldering him off because she loved working with smelly, greasy engines?

No.

Because she didn’t want to work on the engine with him.

Zach reached into Beansy’s enclosure, gave the fuzzy fellow a nice ear rub, then headed toward his house. Helping on a farm ranked dead last on his list, so most of him was glad she’d rejected his offer. But he’d glimpsed the tired, frustrated look in her eyes when she first turned his way in the barn. And it had deepened when she’d been unsure of the girls’ whereabouts.

A part of him longed to ease that frustration, but he’d grown up witnessing that look on his father’s face. It wasn’t a game he ever wanted to play again.

* * *

“You didn’t need to take time off.” Marty Harrison poured a cup of coffee, gaze down, grinding the words that evening. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Dad, I—”

“And I don’t need someone hovering over me 24/7. What I need is...” Marty stared out at the fields beyond, the adjacent dairy farm a reminder of all he’d lost due to a medical error, a mistake that had triggered a bunch of wrong decisions. Decisions made by Zach.

His father’s grim expression increased Zach’s guilt. “I didn’t take the time off because of you, precisely. I realized that if I’m going to get that deck done out back, I’d better do it before summer ends. I thought I might be able to enlist your help with it. If you want to, that is.”

“Keep the old man busy?” Bitterness deepened his father’s already cryptic tone. “That way I won’t get into any trouble?”

Easing Marty back into a semblance of normalcy was going to be harder than he expected, Zach realized. His father’s flat gaze deepened Zach’s concern, but other than good old-fashioned time, how could he help Marty’s mental and physical recovery? “We could drive down to the lake,” Zach suggested. “Or take a walk.”

“A walk to nothing is still nothing.”

Zach knew that wasn’t true. He’d often walked on his own as a kid. He continued the habit now, as an adult. Quiet walking time cleared his head. Eased his mind. The measured pace allowed him to be at peace. Notice the birds, the winged creatures chronically busy but generally unworried.

In a job that dealt with the seamier side of humanity too often, walking soothed him. If Marty Harrison wasn’t walking to something, to be somewhere, the walk wouldn’t make sense. But things were different now, and—

Marty’s shoulders squared. His jaw softened. He held the coffee cup higher. Tighter.

The sound of children laughing drifted across the evening air. A host of them, from what Zach could hear. Another shout of laughter had Zach noting the time. Almost eight o’clock. That must mean ice cream at the dairy store. He moved to the back door and swung it wide. “Dad, come on. Let’s go get some ice cream.”

“I’m not walking down to the lake for ice cream.” His father’s ludicrous look said Zach was crazy and annoying. “It’s nearly a mile.”

“Come on.” Zach pointed southeast and gave his father a lazy smile. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Marty’s face darkened. His eyes looked down for several beats, but Zach had outwaited tougher guys than his father lots of times. He stood, patient and persevering, allowing his father time to take that first step forward. Shouts of childish laughter tempted Marty outside. By the time they skirted the near pasture and worked their way around the closest barn, the sight of children laughing, playing and shrieking paused Marty’s step.

“What are they doing here?” he asked.

“Ice cream after the game.” Zach pointed toward the dairy store tucked on the protected side of the barn they’d just rounded. “Just like you did with us when we were kids.”

Not exactly. His father hadn’t been a mainstay at soccer games or Friday night football. On a farm there was always something to do, fix or tend. Running kids to games had fallen to his mother.

That brought to mind Piper that afternoon, hanging over the tractor, trying to put big, heavy things right when she should have been spraying crops or turning cut hay. Guilt speared him for not taking the time to help. He knew farm equipment. And his size made tractor parts a whole lot easier to handle, although she’d probably jab him in the solar plexus if he suggested such a thing. And she’d done all right on her own to this point, so why was he torturing himself about it?

Kids of all ages dashed here and there. Some sported baseball attire. Others were dressed in soccer gear. Parents sat or stood in small circles across the wide yard, watching the antics with small-town comfort. “I wonder if they’ve got Parkerhouse cherry?”

Marty’s hopeful expression made Zach wince inside. Whatever this cherry thing was, he was pretty sure the inviting ice cream window was about to disappoint his father. Frankly, Zach wasn’t sure how many more downturns his father could handle, which was exactly why he’d taken emergency leave for the next couple of weeks. Maybe just having Zach around would help Marty through the worst of this adjustment period.

The short lines moved quickly. Lights lit up the parking area, while the scattered picnic tables set beneath sprawling farmyard trees remained more shadowed. When they got to the front of the line, Zach was surprised to see Piper, Lucia and the same college girl he’d seen yesterday all inside the window. “You work here at night?”

The sound of his voice got her attention, and unless Zach had lost his policing skills in the twelve hours he’d been off duty, she looked happy to see him. Excited, even.

Which made two of them.

Her smile inspired his, but he felt a moment of abject fear when Lucia asked, “What can we get for you, gentlemen?” Zach dreaded the thought of Marty’s disappointment over something as simple as ice cream.

“You got Parkerhouse?”

Lucia’s quiet frown said they didn’t. Zach was ready to point out the long list of flavors they did have, but Piper’s voice interrupted him. “Sir, do you like amaretto-based Parkerhouse or vanilla?”

Marty’s eyes lit up. “The almond stuff.”

She threw him a smile, winked and scooped a generous serving onto a cold stone set off to her left. Taking a tong’s worth of cherries with just a little juice, she worked the ice cream between two flat paddles for about thirty seconds. She arched a glance back toward Marty. “Did you say cone or dish?”

“I didn’t,” he replied, the more appreciative tone in his voice making Zach breathe easier. “A cone,” he decided. “One of those.” He pointed to the waffle cones and Piper’s smile said she approved.

“These waffle cones are the best,” she told him as she plied the ice cream mix into the cone. “In my humble opinion...”

Lucia’s cough said Piper’s opinions might not be as humble as she thought. Her timing deepened Marty’s smile, which then eased some of Zach’s concern.

“...the cone makes the treat,” Piper declared. She sent Marty an arch look. “Too soft, too sweet, too well-done.” She shrugged narrow shoulders clad in a T-shirt beneath the ice cream apron. “The best ice cream deserves a solid cone.”

“I concur.” Marty took a taste of the cone she handed him. She watched, waiting, clearly hoping she’d pleased him, and in that moment Zach discovered more to like about her. Patience in an impatient world. Concern, as if Marty’s satisfaction mattered. And a hinted joy as if she loved the task at hand, taking care of business after working in hot fields and barns all day.

“Delicious. And an almost perfect balance of cherries to ice cream.” Marty smiled at her, and Zach was pretty sure that was the first genuine smile he’d seen since bringing his father home postsurgery five days before, even though the smile was accompanied by veiled criticism with the word almost.

Zach had lived with those “almosts” for a long time. Almost smart enough, almost good enough, almost strong enough...

But Piper just laughed out loud. “You come back tomorrow or whenever and I’ll add more, okay? Although the secret to a perfect Parkerhouse cherry ice cream—” she shortened the distance between them by leaning out the window. Marty bent closer “—is to make the palate long for that next bite of fruit. Too much and the texture is messed up. It’s all about ratio, but you come back,” she repeated, “and I’ll use more cherries. Deal?”

“Deal.” Marty confirmed the pact with a brisk nod.

“Zach. What can I get for you?” She turned her attention his way while Lucia and the girl handled two other customers.

“Vanilla.”

She almost burst out laughing, but held it in with effort. “You’re serious? That’s it? With thirty-one flavors at your disposal?”

“I’m very serious about my ice cream, Piper. Why taint a perfect blend with nonessential additives?”

“Oh, brother.” Skeptical, she made a face, reached for a cone, then paused. “Clearly I’m forgetting myself when you’re around. Or maybe your adorable father has me flustered. Cone or dish?”

Adorable? Marty Harrison? Industrious, ambitious, driven, forceful, yes, Zach reasoned mentally.

But nothing about the hard-core farmer could be labeled adorable. Could it? “First, I like that I fluster you. Second, you’ve made my father’s night and that makes me grateful beyond words. Third, I’d like the same kind of cone my dad has because you did a great sales job.”

She angled him a saucy “I do what I can” kind of smile.

“And fourth, does Luke Campbell come around to bring you animal gifts on a regular basis?”

* * *

Piper’s hand paused.

So did her heart.

And when it started again, she knew exactly what he was asking, and why all she wanted to do was flirt right back with him.

But her emotional scars stopped her.

Intellectually, she knew her former fiancé’s misdeeds had nothing to do with the broad-shouldered trooper at her ice cream window, but family embarrassment had dogged Piper for over a decade. She couldn’t―wouldn’t―put herself in the hot seat again. When she put cops in the “no dating” category, she’d meant it. But Zach didn’t know that, and she could simply let his assumption about Luke ride. Easier on both of them.

And so she smiled softly and said, “Luke’s a great guy, isn’t he?”

Zach’s gaze scanned her face. His eyes took in her easy expression, her gentle smile, and she let him read what she wanted him to see. Let him think she was off-limits. Because, despite the fact that Luke was just a good friend who lived on the opposite side of Kirkwood Lake, she was okay having Zach consider her off the market because she utterly refused to be fooled by a cop ever again. No matter how nicely he smiled.

Chapter Three

“There is a bicentennial committee meeting tonight.” Lucia tapped the calendar page with one blunt finger the following morning. Her voice said attending the meeting didn’t make her short list, but they both knew one of them needed to be there to represent their farm.

“We can have Noreen stay late and help at the ice cream window.” Piper tugged on socks, hating the heat but knowing her boots would chafe if she didn’t layer up. “Can you check with her, see if that’s okay? I’ll go to the meeting,” she continued. Lucia’s quick smile rewarded her decision. “It’s at seven, so just make sure I don’t forget. And remind me in time to grab a quick shower, okay?”

“I’ll text you. And Piper...” Lucia compressed her lips, a sure sign of trouble.

“What? What’s happened?”

Lucia dipped her chin toward the west-facing window. “The Hogans are putting their farm on the market.”

No.

Lucia breathed deep, watching her, because she understood the implications. Kirkwood Lake was becoming more populated. The beautiful lake, nestled between the rise of Enchanted Mountains and the lake plains of Lake Erie, had been overlooked for years during a depressed economy, but Piper had been approached by developers twice this past spring, both offering big bucks to turn McKinney Farm into an upscale subdivision with lake rights on the upper northwest shore.

Piper and Lucia had declined both offers, but Vince and Linda’s farm sat above hers. The lake and quaint town sat below. As the Hogans aged, Piper’s father had leased nearly eighty acres from them, acreage Piper used for corn. If the Hogans sold their farm, where would she find acreage for next year and the years to come, especially if increasing land values tempted more farmers out of the game?

“We’ll figure this out.” Lucia made the promise as if they had choices.

They didn’t.

Piper crossed to the milking barn quickly. She’d oversee the morning chores with Berto, hope that Chas showed up to the dairy room on time, and try to accept the things she could not change, like the imminent For Sale sign in front of the neighboring farm.

Trouble was, she’d never grasped that life lesson well.

“Need a hand this morning?”

The disembodied voice startled Piper. She bit back a girly screech, then recognized Zach’s father moving her way. “Mr. Harrison?”

“Call me Marty.”

She raised one shoulder in acknowledgment, but the adrenaline rush of having him here in the shadowed dawn kept her heart pumping. “It’s early for ice cream, isn’t it?”

His smile reassured her. Dimmed hints of Zach’s good looks and humor came through the softened expression. “Is it ever too early for ice cream?”

Piper shook her head, trying to feel the situation out and coming up short. “No. Not in my world, anyway.”

Marty motioned to his right. “Zach’s got a massive backyard project scheduled, so he’s gone to the Home Depot. I’m an early riser, I hate television and I worked on a farm for years. I’d like to help if you’ve got stuff to keep me busy.”

Did she have stuff?

And then some.

But a cash shortfall made her keep the staff minimal to the point of negligible. “There’s always work here. Compensation for that work is another matter,” she told him as she moved into the barn. Berto lifted a hand in greeting as he tended the initial group of Holsteins, then he stood straighter, shoulders back, as he spotted the strange man at Piper’s side. He moved their way, protective but open, qualities Piper loved about her middle-aged step-uncle.

“I don’t need money,” Zach’s father told her.

Piper might be young, but she’d never met anyone who didn’t need money. And Marty’s clothes―which were somewhat loose and dated―said if he had money, he didn’t spend it on his appearance. Which made his assertion more doubtful.

“Free help?” Berto defused the moment with a smile and waved Marty his way. “And I heard you say you have worked on a farm, no?”

“Yes.”

Berto’s expression said Marty had come to the right place. “He can work with me here,” he told Piper.

Piper read what Berto wasn’t saying, that he’d keep an eye on Marty and make sure things were on the level. Having a strange guy, a new neighbor, show up out of the blue wasn’t the norm in Kirkwood.

It’s not the norm anywhere, her brain scolded.

Mixed feelings made Piper hesitate. She didn’t know this man.

You’ve met his son, the cop. How bad can he be?

“I’ll take this side.” Moving with more grace than Piper had observed the night before, Marty took a spot on the milking row opposite Berto. Without a glance in either direction, he began prepping the cows with a dexterity Piper almost envied.

Berto met her gaze. “We’ve got this.”

Dismissed.

Which meant she could move the unfreshened heifers onto new pasture earlier than planned. She climbed into the pickup truck, headed west, turned the young cows out in record time, and was back to the house ninety minutes earlier than usual.

“You are back.” Lucia frowned her way as she ladled pancake batter onto a hot griddle. Plump blueberries sizzled and burst in the heat, filling the air with sweet, summer fragrance. “The milking is done or the vacuum machine is broken?”

“Neither. Zach’s dad came over to help. He and Berto are doing the milking.”

“The policeman’s father is working here?”

Piper made a face. “Weird, huh?”

Lucia set her gaze hard. “I have little trust for those who butt in to another’s business.”

“And yet you help so many, Lucia.” Piper shrugged, grabbed coffee and buttered a steaming pancake. Then she took a sifter of powdered sugar, generously applied it to the pancake, rolled the whole thing into a cylinder and raised it to her mouth to bite. “You’re always first in line to help with church functions or folks down on their luck.”

“We are not down on anything that hard work and a heart for God won’t fix.” Lucia flipped the sizzling cakes with more zest and authority than could ever be needed. “We are independent. Industrious. Hardwork—”

“Whoa.” Piper paused the pancake roll without a bite, and the scent of it, sugary-fruitiness waiting to be consumed, made her wish she could ignore Lucia’s angst.

She couldn’t. “Luce, he’s not exactly breaching our defenses. He’s running milk lines to udders. And Berto’s got things under control. Right?”

Lucia’s frown said it wasn’t right, but then her expression became subdued.

Piper turned.

Zach stood in the doorway much as he had two nights before, only this time thick concern worried his brow. “Have you guys seen my father? I had to run some errands at first light. He’s not home and he’s not the take-a-walk type. I wondered if he might have headed over here?”

“He did. We have him sequestered in the milking parlor, where he seems right at home, and you’re just in time for food.” Piper eyed the cooling rolled pancake in her hand and decided it was thoroughly gauche to eat a pancake like that in front of a great-looking guy, even if she had declared him off-limits. Swallowing a sigh, she started to put the pancake down as Zach stepped through the door.

“You roll your pancakes, too?”

“Too?”

He nodded, dipped a smile toward Lucia and slanted a questing gaze toward the plate. “May I?”

“Of course.”

He repeated Piper’s butter and sugar maneuvers, then rolled the cake tightly and took a bite. “Ah, Lucia. Es muy delicioso.”

Zach rolled his pancakes. Just as she did. That had to mean something, right?

Sure, her internal command center noted. It means he’s hungry. Leave it alone. “Your father knows dairy cattle. Milking procedures. Why is that?”

Zach met her look directly. “I told you. I was a farm boy. Worked with my father for years.”

“And this farm was...?”

“Central New York. About two hours east.”

“And now—”

“Sold. Nearly two years ago.”

She’d have to be blind or foolish to miss the note of regret in the lawman’s eye, a resignation in his tone. Knowing the intricacy of maintaining a profitable farm, she had no trouble understanding how difficult that must have been for Marty. “I’m sorry. These are hard times.”

Zach’s gaze agreed, but he pasted a smile on his face as footsteps approached the back door. Piper took his cue and dropped the conversation. “Hey. You guys made record time. Marty, you’re showing me up.”

Berto kicked his boots off, came in and headed for the kitchen sink. He indicated Marty as if they were long-lost best friends. “Me, too. I had to move quickly to pretend to keep up.”

His words put a smile on Marty’s face, a genuine look of pleasure.

“Amazing pancakes.” Zach made the pronouncement as he helped himself to another one. He paused, eyeing Piper’s hand and the uneaten cake. “You haven’t eaten yours.”

“I will.”

“It’s cold.” He swiped hers with an athlete’s dexterity and handed her the hot, buttered cake roll he’d just made. “Eat this one while it’s hot, because I don’t make sacrifices casually.”

She took a bite of the rolled-up pastry and agreed with him on one thing: the tubed cakes were fine cold, but they were melt-in-your-mouth delicious while warm.

But she didn’t buy that he didn’t make sacrifices casually. His job, his presence, the slightly careful attention he paid his father?

She was willing to bet Zach Harrison made casual sacrifices every single day, but was too darn nice to know it.

* * *

Piper moved farther into the town hall conference room that evening, but kept toward the rear purposely. Getting out quick at meeting’s end meant getting home early, always a plus.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” a new but familiar voice offered softly, far too close to her right ear to ignore. “We could have come down together.”

Goose bumps prickled Piper’s arms, and she didn’t have to turn to know who was standing behind her at the crowded bicentennial planning meeting. After meeting him three days ago, Zach’s voice had already found its way past her defenses. Not good. Not good at all.

“I walked down.” She didn’t turn so he moved closer, off to her right, his arm snug against hers in the crowded conditions. A good fire marshal would demand that thirty people, minimum, should leave because the room was grossly over limit, but the fire marshal was on the board and knew how to pick his battles in their small town. “My great-great-grandparents were some of the original settlers.”

“Generational farm.”

“Yes.” She turned to face him more fully and recognized the bad move in record time. Away from him, it was easy to dismiss his breadth and solidity. That strong, stalwart commanding presence. In the abstract, she could write off his warmth, the humor in those bright blue eyes, the air of protection he carried intrinsically.

Up close now?

Not a chance.

He smiled down at her, and something in the ease of that grin called to her, but she’d been there, done that and wasn’t about to repeat the mistake, especially in front of over one hundred townies as the meeting was called to order.

Twenty minutes in, Piper was glad she’d left Lucia home with the girls. Lucia’s patience thinned with protocol, and by the time they’d waded through last month’s minutes and changes and voted on those changes, she was ready to head for the hills herself.

“Why don’t they send the minutes out as an email, ask for adjustments, make those adjustments, then start the meeting with acceptance of the amended minutes?” Zach whispered the question into her right ear, having no idea what the tickle of breath did to her pulse.

“I dare you to make that suggestion.”

He swept the aging crowd a look, then shrugged acceptance. “Gotcha.”

“Uh-oh.”

“What?” He leaned closer again. Piper pointed front and center where an aging woman with a really bad dye job stood, jabbing a finger toward the bicentennial board appointees.

“Violet Yardley, our resident revivalist. She’s rich, owns land that straddles both counties and wants things her way.”

“South shore, not far from Clearwater, adjacent to the vacant campgrounds.”

“That’s one of her properties. Yes. I take it you’ve patrolled down there?”

“Troopers, sheriffs and the occasional Clearwater cop have been called on-site, even though it’s off the Clearwater jurisdiction. Empty cottages and spaced-out kids from the city make a bad combo. She wants to run the show here, huh?”

Piper slanted him a quick look of approval. “She can’t, but she’ll make a solid attempt.”

He placed a strong but light hand on her shoulder, a touch that meant more when accompanied by his words. “Can’t blame folks for trying, can you?”

“Blame, no.” She met the twinkle in his gaze with a solid look of determination. “Refuse? Yes.”

* * *

He heard the words. Read the look. And he wasn’t foolish. He’d seen the careful way she’d handled his question about Luke Campbell the previous night, but for whatever reason, God seemed determined to put this woman in his path. Was it random chance that he bought the house abutting her farm? Or God’s will?

He’d have declared “chance” three days ago. Now? He wasn’t so sure. He’d seen his father smile. Rescued a miniature goat. Had his heart won by two little girls bent on mischief.

Whatever the reason, he liked Piper McKinney’s company, but she’d shied away from him. Hint taken. He’d just had nearly two thousand dollars’ worth of pressure-treated lumber delivered to his backyard. For the next two weeks, manual labor, power tools and the scent of sawdust would mark his time. With his father’s help, maybe they could complete the project in the next thirteen days, leaving his hunting season vacation intact. And maybe it would get Marty’s mind off his change of circumstance.

“Do we have representatives from law enforcement here this evening?” The board chairman scanned the crowd as he asked the question.

“Here.” Zach raised a hand, drawing attention from the surrounding room. And with that attention, he noted that more than one person saw him standing closer than was necessary to Piper McKinney. “Trooper Zach Harrison, New York State Police.”

“And here.” From the other side of the room Luke Campbell’s older brother also raised a hand. He made a visual but silent connection with Zach, then turned toward the board. “Deputy Sheriff Seth Campbell. Once the committee firms its plans, Trooper Harrison and I will present our strategy on public safety that will take us through the bicentennial year.”

“You’re working the bicentennial?” Piper looked up at him, and he had to pretend it didn’t affect him. “You hadn’t mentioned that before.”

“I do believe our conversations have centered on raucous birds, tiny goats, cherry ice cream and cows. I don’t think my job has once entered into the mix. Why is that, Piper?”

She flashed a smile. “I talk faster than you.”

“There’s that.” He drawled the words purposely, giving her time. Hoping she’d open up, just a little. But why was he hopeful? What was there about her that drew him?

“And my farm life is fascinating and all-encompassing, and spares me time for little else.”

“I will shrug off the first, chart the second as personal choice, and the third as a cool put off.”

“Whereas I’d call it life and be done with it. We are what we are, we do what we do and life moves on accordingly.”

The annoyance in her tone gave Zach more to chew on.

The meeting adjourned after several progress reports. As folks moved to the exits, an older man came to a stop in front of Piper. Sadness and resignation filled his eyes. “I expect you’ve heard.”

She nodded, reached out and hugged him. “Vince, you do what you have to do. You need to take care of you and Linda.”

“I shoulda offered it to you first before signin’ with that realty place, though.” He twisted his hands, penitent. “I promised your daddy I’d do that.”

Piper shrugged off his apology with a gentle grace Zach envied. “I don’t have the money to buy your land, Vince. You knew that. You saved me an awkward moment.”

The man’s face relaxed a little. “Mother said much the same thing, but it’s good to hear it straight from you. Where will you plant your corn now?”

“We’ll find a place,” Piper assured him. “We always do, don’t we?”

“Yes.” The man smiled, eager to agree, guilt eased. “Farmers always find a way.” He nodded up to Zach and moved off.

Zach stepped in front of Piper, blocking her way to the door of the emptying room, forcing her to face him. “That was a nice thing you did.”

She shrugged.

Her attempt to slough off the compliment deepened his smile. “Where will you plant your corn?”

She bit her lip and frowned. “I have no idea. He’s the second farmer on the west side to fold this year. The town resurgence is wonderful, but it inflates land values like crazy.”

Zach understood that. Their family farm had sold for an outrageous sum of money, cash they thought they’d need to take care of Marty. Only now he was healthy and had money in the bank, and no farm.

By default and proximity, Zach had been the elected decision-maker, which made the situation with his father mostly his fault. The fact that he hadn’t loved the farm was no big secret. Did his father think he’d made that decision casually?

“How big is their place?” He looked toward the exit, where Vince was met by a pretty blonde grandmotherly type who hooked her arm with his.

“Ninety acres. Nearly ten of it is woodlands and hedgerow, but the other eighty we’ve kept prime for nearly a dozen years. Great slope, good drainage, not too rocky. Oops, sorry.”

She made a face, cute and regretful. “More farm talk.”

“I’m getting used to it. Again.”

His wry note made her smile and he liked that, watching her face light up and the furrow in her brow smooth out.

It softened her dogged determination, too, the firm set of her chin and shoulders as she tackled tasks a lot of men would hire out. The softer side held great appeal. The tougher, no-nonsense face she showed more often?

That reminded him too much of his father, tied to the land, the cows, 24/7. He’d lived that once and hated it. He never wanted to live it again.

“Harrison?”

Zach turned as Seth Campbell approached them. “Seth. How are you?”

“I’d be better if you answered your emails,” the deputy replied, but he mellowed the words with a smile.

“Took an unexpected leave,” Zach told him. “Text me, instead. Or just call my cell. There’s not much we can do until they firm up the bicentennial schedule, though, right?”

“True. I was just checking in to see if you’d be here tonight. Piper. How’s everything going? All this heat and no rain making you crazy yet?”

She whacked his arm in a manner that suggested old friends. “No more so than people asking me if the heat and lack of moisture is making me crazy.”

He laughed. “I ran into Chas yesterday.”

“And got an earful, no doubt.”

“And then some. I told him to branch out, look for other work if he hates the farm so much. That’s what you did, right?” Seth settled a frank look toward Zach.

A moment of silence stretched on before Piper turned her attention up. A new level of understanding deepened the green of her irises.

Zach fumbled the moment. “I knew I needed a different kind of work, yes.” His reply sounded lame, even to him, because he knew she’d focused on one key phrase, “hates the farm.” Being an honest man, he wasn’t about to deny it.

* * *

“Farming’s not for everyone.” Piper stepped back, ready to distance herself. Surrounding herself with negative farm talk was in no one’s best interest, especially hers. She was a numbers gal; she understood the fine line between success and failure. But life and faith had taught her to avoid negative energy and seek the bright side of things. An optimist?

Yes, with a realist’s work ethic, and she wasn’t about to let anyone’s unenthusiastic take on her chosen profession bring her down. Not when her balance was already precarious. “Gentlemen.” She started up the road that led toward the farm with a quick wave of dismissal. “I’ve got to get back home. Nice seeing you.”

“You too, Piper.”

Seth’s voice followed her.

Zach’s stayed silent. Just as well, because there was little to say. She’d noted his aversion to farming right off. He’d hated the roosters, the noise, the confusion surrounding her. She sensed that instantly. So why did she let a pair of sweet blue eyes confound her? What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she move on accordingly?

Lesson learned. From this point forward she’d consider herself forewarned. Unapproachable. Off-limits and immune to Zach’s strength and sincerity.

The come-hither blue eyes?

She sighed, pushing herself to walk faster. The magnetic pull of those eyes put her right back in the hot seat every time. What was she going to do about that?

Chapter Four

“Hey.”

A hand touched Piper’s arm less than a hundred yards later.

She screeched, a feminine “just saw a mouse” squeak.

“I called your name. You didn’t turn.” Zach smiled at her, and his look said her surprise was her own fault.

“Call louder next time.” She scowled, pulled her arm back and looked behind him. “You forgot your car.”

“I walked, too. You didn’t give me time to say that during the meeting.”

“Oh.”

“And I thought since we’re walking in the same direction, we could walk together.”

Try as she might, she could not argue with that.

“And you were quietly storming off because I didn’t like being raised on a farm, and I thought we might want to talk about that.”

“Except...” She held up a hand, palm out. “Your choices have no effect on either one of us. We’re neighbors and we’ll live compatibly side by side, but that’s it.”

“You’re sure?” He took her raised hand in both of his in a touch so gentle, so pure, that her heart wanted to melt on the spot. His gaze lingered on the calluses, the short nails, the dry, rough skin. He didn’t bring her hand to his mouth for a kiss, but his expression was a kiss, a look of warmth and tenderness, longing to help.

Then he made a slight grimace, released her hand, and started walking next to her.

“Zach, I don’t flirt well.”

He laughed. “Yes, you do.”

“Okay, maybe I do,” she amended honestly. “But I shouldn’t. Won’t.”

“Me, either. Maybe sometime we should sit down and list our reasons, Piper, because even though I’ve only known you a few days, and I live just around the corner, when I’m not with you, I’m thinking about you.”

“Well, stop.”

He laughed again. “I’ve tried. It doesn’t appear to be working.”

“Try harder.”

“Part of me doesn’t want to.”

They’d reached the driveway leading up to the farmhouse. She heard what he was saying, but she’d learned to harden her heart to sweet-talking overtures a few years ago. And only a fool would leave herself wide-open for heartbreak from another cop and a neighbor besides.

A farm-hating neighbor, at that.

The lowing of contented cattle drifted their way. The roosters were tucked away for the night. The hens, too, the dimmer light pushing them to their roosts. A soft breeze and cooler temperatures made the evening less oppressive. Piper turned her face into the breeze, letting it cool the heat of walking nearly three-quarters of a mile uphill. “I love this place.”

Zach watched her, silent.

“And I’ve had to fight for ten years to keep it going. I took college courses nearby so I could live at home and work the farm. I watched my parents’ marriage fall apart because she hated this life. Did you know there’s a website now, a singles site, for farmers? Because the divorce rate among farmers is so high? And it’s nearly impossible for a guy to find a woman who wants to be tied to the rigors of farm life. The daily sacrifices it entails. For a woman?” She worked her jaw, then shrugged. “I’ve learned the hard way to put my future in God’s hands. Most days.” She sent him a smile of admission. “And in all honesty, I’m usually too busy to care.”

She took a broad step back, hands raised, a move that negated his step forward. “I have more than a job here. I have a legacy. And I get that most people don’t understand it, but I’ve spent a lot of time seeking faith and guidance on this stuff. I take nothing lightly when it comes to this farm. This family.” She looked left when the laughter of children floated across the dancing grass in need of mowing. “Lucia. Berto. My brothers. The twins. Noreen and Marly in the ice cream shop. Every decision I make affects them, and I can’t afford to make more mistakes.” She backpedaled up the drive and sent him a small smile and a quick wave. “I think your dad’s coming over to work tomorrow. If that’s okay.”

“My father can do whatever he wants.” Zach’s expression said her words surprised him. “He doesn’t need my permission for anything.”

“Does he know that?”

* * *

Aggravation hit him because she was right, and that frustrated him.

He’d been treating his father with kid gloves because of Marty’s health issues, but his father was better now. And Zach had to learn to back off. Be the kid.

And that was hard for a grown man who wore a badge and carried a gun.

He wanted to watch Piper walk to the house.

He didn’t.

He strode up and around the corner, past the pond, not stopping for a cone, or a talk with the kids, or to pet the little goat.

Right now, he wanted to create distance between him and most everything on the planet.

A slight sound caught his attention.

He turned, the late-day shadows playing tricks with his eyes.

The noise came again, imploring. Needy.

Puppies.

His mother had bred golden retrievers for years. He’d know that sound anywhere.

His heart softened, then hardened as he approached a bag tossed alongside the pond. Hard stillness marked one side of the bag, but the movement within the tied sack gave him hope. He bent low, withdrew the sack from the water’s edge and untied it carefully.

Four tiny puppies mewled up at him, eyes shut tight, days old. Tossed aside like yesterday’s garbage.

Someone had weighted the bag with a rock and tossed it into the pond area, but missed the water by inches. Then they’d driven off, leaving the pups to bake in the summer sun.

“What’ve you got there?”

Marty approached him with an ice cream cone in hand, his brows upthrust.

“Puppies.”

“No.” Marty’s face went hard and soft, just like Zach’s had done. “They dumped them?”

“Tried for the pond. Missed.”

“Good thing you came ’round this way,” Marty told him. “I wondered why you didn’t come over for ice cream, but if you had, these little guys would be goners.”

A spark of wisdom nudged Zach. “What can we do with them, Dad?”

“Save ’em, of course.” Marty handed off the cone to Zach and cradled the bag in his arms as if he carried something rare and precious. “Your mother loved puppies.”

“She did.” The regret in his father’s voice stirred up something else inside Zach. “Even though they were a bother.”

“I shouldn’t have said that,” his father confessed as he carried the puppies toward their house. “The dogs were her project. And it was her farm, too. I should have praised that more, because those pups brought in a pretty penny at times when we needed it.”

Marty’s words said Zach wasn’t the only Harrison who harbored regrets. “Mom was pretty independent. I don’t think she was looking for praise.”

“I should have given it, in any case,” Marty told him. “I knew it then, I know it now. Run over to the farm and see if Piper’s got any baby animal supplement. If not, bring me some fresh milk and I’ll condense it to make formula for these guys. And see if she’s got eyedroppers, too.”

Run to the farm?

See Piper?

The woman who’d just brushed him off?

The sight of Marty hunting up a small box, lining it with an old towel, then tucking it into a darkened corner was enough to push Zach across the field. He’d find Piper, make his father’s request and then head home, ready to take her advice. He’d be foolish to waste time searching for common ground. From now on his common ground with Piper McKinney was property lines, drawn by surveyors required for his mortgage.

Neighbors.

That was that. A deck to build was more than enough to fill his vacation time. Backbreaking work under a blazing summer sun would put thoughts of Piper where they belonged: out of sight, out of mind.

* * *

“Puppies? Dumped? Are you kidding me, Zach? Who would do that?”

Piper’s maternal expression put Zach right back in the zone he’d decried not minutes before, which meant he really needed to work harder to put her out of his thoughts. “Dad was wondering if you had anything over here to help raise them. If we can save them, that is.”

“I don’t, but Luke will.” She pulled out her phone, hit a number on her speed dial and was connected to Luke Campbell in seconds.

But it was plenty long enough for Zach to read the writing on the wall.

Campbell liked animals.

He had a cute kid.

He’d been widowed for over two years.

He was a nice guy.

And he had baby puppy formula supplement. That took a first-place blue ribbon right there.

Zach stopped the list of attributes before it grew any longer. If Campbell and Piper were a done deal, he needed to face reality.

Luke and his little boy pulled into Piper’s yard fifteen minutes later. He retrieved a bag of supplies while his son, Aiden, climbed out of the booster seat in back.

Piper approached him, apologetic. “I hope you didn’t have to get Aiden out of bed. One of us―” she nodded in Zach’s direction “―could have come over and picked it up.”

Luke noogied his son’s head. “Bedtime’s late this time of year, and I promised him ice cream. That made hopping into the car a quick deal.”

Piper smiled down at the little boy. “I would do most anything for ice cream, too, kid. Do you want to go play with the girls?”

Aiden shook his head, shy. He leaned into his father’s leg as if seeking support.

“He can hang with us.” Luke sent a smile of approval to the boy. “Where are the puppies?”

“His place.” Piper motioned to Zach as she moved toward the cut-through between the barns. “Zach, do you know Luke?”

“We met at the breast cancer run last October, and on the Whitehorse Café case. And I’m working the bicentennial with your brother Seth.” Zach reached out a hand, shook Luke’s and tried to make his greeting something other than tepid.

He failed. Miserably.

But Luke’s smile said he was oblivious to Zach’s true feelings. “I remember. You busted loose and won the race, and gave the sheriff’s department necessary info to nail the guy who trashed the café. You live over here?”

“Moved in a few weeks ago. I got to meet an old friend of yours, I hear.” Zach squatted to Aiden’s level as he indicated the far barn with a quick look to the right. “Beansy the goat.”

The little boy’s eyes shone. His quick nod made Zach smile. But he stayed quiet, his grip tight on his father’s hand.

They moved into Zach’s house, and Piper winced slightly. “It is hot in here.”

“Hah.” Zach shot her an “I told you so” look that she shrugged off.

“It’s cooler down here,” Marty called. He’d tucked the pups into the second-lowest level of the house.

“Would the basement be better, Dad?” Zach wondered. “It’s even cooler there.”

“Pups this age like eighty degrees,” Marty told them. “My wife bred dogs for years. She was finicky about keeping the temps hiked until they were two weeks old because they lose heat quickly.”

“No fur.”

“Right. What’ve we got here?” Marty shifted his gaze from Piper to Luke.

“Eyedroppers, puppy supplement, disposable gloves, nail trimmers and baby wipes for their bottoms. And a recipe for making your own supplement in a few days. This is good for starters, but pricey.”

“Well, let’s get started.” Marty handed them each an eyedropper, popped the top on a can of formula and bent low. “I’ll start with this little fella.”

He picked up a tiny male pup with tender hands, then gained Luke’s approval by dropping a bead of milk on the pup’s upper lip, allowing the pup to find the milk with his tongue. It took several drops before the pup hunted for the source of the milk, but once he did, the pup pursed his tiny mouth avidly, drawing drops of food from the plastic tube.

“Don’t overfeed this first time,” Luke counseled. “Give them a little, let their bodies adjust.”

“Exactly right.” Marty shot him a look of approval. “You know things about pups.”

“Or I’m a sucker for baby animals.” Luke smiled, stood and rolled his shoulders.

Aiden tugged his hand, drawing Luke’s attention down. He smiled and rubbed the boy’s head. “You want to see Beansy?”

The boy nodded.

“And get ice cream before Lucia closes things up?”

Aiden’s grin said his father read him clearly. “You guys are all right here?”

Piper nodded as she crooned murmurs of love to the minute creature in her hand, the sound making Zach long to draw closer. But that would be stupid and shortsighted, so he stood along with Luke and moved toward the half-flight of stairs rising to the main level.

“Be sure to rub their tummies,” Luke added as he and Aiden moved up the steps.

“Will do.” Piper shot him a look of gratitude. “Thanks for running right over.”

“Glad to help.”

Zach followed Luke and Aiden out the door. The cooler air felt good against his face. “Thanks, Luke. You’re welcome to wait for Piper here, you know.”

“Wait for...?” Luke turned, his face questioning, and in that gaze Zach read exactly what he hoped to see. “I’ll see her at the house. Or the next time we stop by.”

An interested man would never brush off time with a woman like Piper. Zach understood that, and he shouldn’t be the least bit happy that Luke’s casual expression said there was nothing between him and the farmer next door. But he was happy. Very.

Luke eyed him, then smiled. “You thought I had something going with Piper.”

“Just didn’t want to get in anyone’s way,” Zach countered.

Luke laughed out loud. “Well, if you can get by Piper McKinney’s cop-phobic attitude, more power to you. Her old fiancé did quite a number on her, and Piper doesn’t have much use for cops these days.”

Zach’s arched brow invited Luke to continue, but Luke shook his head. “Not my story to tell, because Piper’s a good friend and has been for years, but if you do an internet search on Hunter Reilich, you’ll understand why she shies away from uniforms. Between her and Lucia, they don’t have a lot of trust in the system right now.”

Reilich? The dirty cop who aided and abetted a racketeering ring after his father bought his way into the Clearwater Police Department?

Zach had noted Lucia’s reticence. But Piper’s?

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