Читать книгу His Arch Enemy's Daughter - Crystal Green, Crystal Green - Страница 10

In the sterile light of the sheriff’s office, Ashlyn noticed that Sam echoed the faded colors of a Remington painting, as well—the dusty oranges, browns and blues that spoke of still life and times gone by.

He led her to a seat in front of his hardwood desk, the top resembling a desert landscape with a minimum of papers and clutter. Well, if she had a desk in this place, it’d look like that, too, she supposed. All the sheriff of Kane’s Crossing usually did was baby-sit drunks and chase around Spencer’s wayward daughter anyway. The town hadn’t seen any major action since… Her heart took a swan dive.

Since Sam’s father had died in her family’s factory.

As he sat at his desk and shucked off the jacket, she noticed that his badge had rusted around the edges.

He leaned back in his chair, propping his boots on the desk, reclining his head into his hands, surveying her with detachment. “Ashlyn Spencer, I don’t know what the hell to do with you. Trespassing is illegal, no matter how honorable your intentions are.”

She started to correct his assumption about her being a good person, but was cut off.

“Lock her up,” rasped an inebriated entity from around the corner and in the back, where the holding cells were kept.

Ashlyn recognized the voice. “Not your business, Junior.”

From the deputy’s desk, the scanner came to life, putting in its two cents with an explosion of static.

Unfazed, Sam kept his gaze on Ashlyn. “I guess I could put you behind bars with Junior Crabbe, just for the fun of it.”

She couldn’t help her tart smile. “Definitely my idea of Shangri-la, Sheriff.”

Junior Crabbe and his absent Siamese trouble twin, Sonny Jenks, had hung around her brother in their younger years. They were the bane of every peace-loving citizen’s existence with their frequent drinking, brawling and carousing.

Problem was, she thought the sheriff just might put her in a cell with Junior. For fun. To teach her a lesson. To make up for the loss of Sam’s father. Whatever the reason, she deserved it for her stubbornness.

Would that ever blow her father’s top.

A whoosh of frigid air shivered over her back as the door burst open. She turned to see the new deputy, Gary Joanson, struggle in under the weight of another drunk, Sonny Jenks.

Gary’s voice reflected his strain. “Evenin’, Ashlyn. Sheriff.”

“Joanson,” said the sheriff, nodding a greeting, still eyeing his own problem for the night.

Gary, just a speck of a man, dragged the burly Sonny Jenks down the hall, where a happy Junior Crabbe’s rebel yell greeted his buddy. Cries of “Traitor!” preceded the clank of jail bars, reflecting how Gary had befriended Nick Cassidy last year and turned against his bully-brained cronies.

Ashlyn was growing nervous under the sheriff’s stare. She absently fingered her necklace, a piece of her own creation that, at times, pricked her skin with the edges of its incomplete circles.

“So,” she said, wishing she could relieve the tension that had settled over the room, “aren’t you glad to be back in Kane’s Crossing?”

His face was expressionless. “Some days more than others.”

Ashlyn slid her elbows onto the desk, one hand nestled under her chin as she smiled at him. “From what I hear, Meg Cassidy is making a lot of her blueberry ‘boyfriend’ pies over at the bakery.”

“Meaning what?” He lowered his arms, sat forward in his chair.

Tread carefully. She didn’t know him well enough to be flirting like this, but what did she have to lose? Maybe she could even talk her way out of trouble if she said the right words. “You know your sister-in-law and all the gossip about her baking. Eat an angel food cake of hers, you’ll get married. Eat her chocolate cake, you’ll get pregnant. I’m just saying she’s been making a lot of blueberry pies since you came to town.”

The sheriff didn’t even bother to comment, just suddenly became very preoccupied with a slim pile of papers on the corner of his desk. “How thick is your file here in the sheriff’s office, Ashlyn?”

“Pretty huge.” Maybe some flattery would be useful right about now. “At any rate, since you became sheriff, women have been experiencing all sorts of emergencies in town, haven’t they? False alarms, cookies that need to be eaten…”

His face got ruddy at this comment. Ashlyn decided to lean back in her chair, to put a cork in the cake conversation. This was obviously not a man who preened under the onslaught of compliments.

She recalled when his foster brother, Nick, had first come back to town, how he’d rarely smiled, either. But Meg, his wife, sure had him smiling now. Nick had fallen in love with Meg’s surefire optimism and sense of self-worth. They were the happiest married people Ashlyn had ever seen.

She watched Sheriff Reno simmer down as he stood and ambled to the file cabinet. Ever so slowly, as if he had all the time in the world at his disposal, he thumbed through the manila folders, retrieving a War and Peace-thick collection. He tossed it onto the desk, the file thumping in her ears like a slap upside the head.

“Mine?” she asked, pointing at the folder.

“All fifty pounds of it. I have to admire your perseverance, I suppose.”

She poked at it, remembering the contents without even having to look. Wait until he saw how idiot-stupid she could be. When it came to making her father angry, she was a very creative camper. Everything from decorating the factory’s outside wall with pictures symbolizing workers’ rights, to hiring a neighboring county’s high school band to march in Spencer High’s homecoming parade playing Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” Unfortunately, Horatio Spencer had appreciated none of this.

As she looked into Sam Reno’s lifeless gaze, she saw a reflection, a young girl who needed to grow up, to let go of this bitterness she’d lived with since the age of seven, to get past her “bad girl” reputation and make a new life for herself.

She sat back in her chair, hands folded in her lap, head down. “I won’t make your job harder than it needs to be.”

“Thank you,” he said, his voice wry enough to make her wonder if he was kidding.

She glanced at him, but he was still expressionless.

He continued. “Town pride isn’t a bad thing to have, Miss Spencer.”

Guffaws ricocheted through the holding cell, where Junior and Sonny were obviously listening.

“Yeah, Ashlyn, town pride!”

“Be a good neighbor! Come on back here and—”

A door slammed, and Gary Joanson’s tinny voice rose above the taunts, quieting the drunks.

The sheriff shook his head, taking a step nearer to her. “Sorry about that.”

“No, you’re right,” said Ashlyn. His thigh just about brushed her arm, and her skin actually buzzed from the almost-contact. “No more games, Sheriff. I’ve turned over a new leaf.”

“Sounds sincere enough.”

She met his gaze and almost fell into the bottomless depths of his eyes. What had happened in life to make him so sad? “Not to say I won’t still have my fun, you understand.”

He merely raised his brows.

“What I mean,” she added, her protective shield of tough talk rising to the surface, “is that we come from utterly different places. This is my time to be carefree. You’re Generation X and I’m Generation Why-Me…”

What was she trying to say? His stare, his brooding, was tangling her thoughts. Great, now she felt even younger, even more stupid.

When she looked at him again, a ghost of a smile lit over his mouth. A slanted grin, just as rusty as his badge. She wanted to use her fingertips to brush over his full lower lip, to test its softness.

Admit it, she thought. You’ve been dying to touch him since he hauled you away from Emma Trainor’s porch.

Ashlyn sighed out loud, grinning in a heated flush when she caught the sheriff’s still-cocked brow. “At any rate, you have my word. No more trouble.”

Deputy Joanson walked into the office room, proud as a rooster. “How do, folks?”

Sam, smooth as still water, watched Ashlyn as he addressed his deputy. “You took my car tonight.”

Ashlyn didn’t break eye contact with Sam. Her pulse thudded in her ears, Gary Joanson’s voice becoming nothing but background chatter.

“I thought you wouldn’t mind—”

“—I mind.”

Gary stepped into Ashlyn’s view, dwarfed next to Sam Reno’s sturdy frame. “I kinda like the Bronco, Sam.”

Slowly, Sam turned to Gary, who took an unsteady step backward.

“Okay,” said the deputy. “I’ll take the grandma car.”

That done, Gary tipped his cop hat to Ashlyn. “I was wondering when you’d make your first trip here, Ashlyn. What were you up to?”

She had the grace to look ashamed. “It depends on your point of view, I suppose.”

“Isn’t that always the case with you?” Gary slapped his knee in mirth. “Sheriff Carson would’ve been beet red by now.”

Gary addressed Sam, who’d returned to staring at Ashlyn dispassionately. “This gal used to be a real firecracker, Sam. Before you hired me on, the other deputies would talk about how she kept Sheriff Carson busy and blowin’ steam. Did ya decorate the town with some jokes tonight, Ashlyn?”

She kept her tongue. This night was becoming more humiliating by the second, but she wouldn’t lose her cool in front of Sheriff Reno. She’d never let anyone—especially this man—know that she was crying inside. When people laughed at her jokes they were laughing at her and her family.

Sometimes it hurt to be laughed at.

“Deputy, do you have work to do?” asked Sam.

Gary hesitated, then, slump-shouldered, sat at the scanner desk, shuffling through papers.

Ashlyn heard Sam move closer to her again, felt him looming over her. The breath caught in her throat.

“Up, Ashlyn,” he said softly, his drawl lazing over her skin with the warmth of slow molasses.

She stood, almost body to body, eyes at the level of his corded throat. She’d always been considered a tall girl, gawky as a forest creature, all elbows and knees, but standing next to Sam Reno made her feel as if she were a normal person. As if she didn’t stand out in a crowd.

He took her elbow, walking her near the door. When he let go, she wanted to seize his hand and put it right back. She didn’t mind that her knees were turning to liquid, that she was all but clawing for breath inside.

After a pause, Sam took a step backward. He lifted up a finger, a wall between them. “I don’t want to be called out on account of your wild schemes.”

“I’ll do my best to keep to myself, Sheriff.” No more charitable gestures, no more caring. Nobody would believe her capable of it anyway.

“My name’s Sam,” he said, shrugging one wide shoulder. “Just…call me Sam.”

She didn’t want to leave, to go back to her house where she’d spend the night in her own lonely wing of the Spencer mansion, listening to sounds outside their sculpted iron gates.

It was sad, really. Emma Trainor had made it more than clear: Ashlyn wasn’t welcome in Kane’s Crossing. Those gates would help to shield her, to keep her from reaching out again.

While she was searching for words, he spoke. “It’s good to see a Spencer doing the right thing. I think Emma was thankful for your help.”

Ashlyn had done her share of Spencer bashing, but his statement felt like a personal affront. “Some of us Spencers have a bit of honor.”

Sam’s hands rested on his lean hips. “That’s not what I wanted to say.”

“What did you intend?”

She noticed the slow simmer of his temper in the tensing of his fingers on his hips. “Let’s forget it before I say something we both don’t want to hear.”

“Anything you say won’t exactly be a news flash, Sam. Just go for it.”

“Nothing.” Dead, empty eyes, void of fight.

“Heck.” She shrugged, wanting to get their differences out in the open. “Why don’t I do it? The Spencers are a greedy lot. Stingy, monstrous, ugly. Is that it?”

He stayed silent.

How could she explain her flash of anger without seeming illogical? How could she make sense of the idea that she was the only one allowed to criticize her family? When she did it, it didn’t hurt as much.

“I think it’s time for you to leave, Ashlyn.”

In the background, Deputy Joanson cleared his throat. Ashlyn attempted to rein in her temper.

“I know, Sheriff, that having your father killed at my family’s factory won’t make us best friends.” There. She’d said it. Put it out there for Sam to handle any way he wanted.

Finally, something exploded in his eyes. His jaw tight, he said, “You don’t want to know how much hate I hold for your family. If I were you, I’d just walk through the door.”

He jerked his head toward the exit. “Joanson, drive her home.”

She said, “My car’s at Locksley Field. I can take it from there.”

But he was already moving toward the jail cells, oblivious to her voice. She watched him leave, shame catching in her throat.

She hadn’t gotten the chance to tell him how sorry she was about his parents.

But it didn’t make much of a difference. He probably wouldn’t listen anyway.

To Sam, this feeling of lingering guilt was much worse than any hangover he’d ever dealt with. And he’d nursed plenty of them following the weeks after he’d quit the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department in disgrace, the days after his wife’s death.

As he listened to the blessed quiet of Junior and Sonny sleeping off their canned-beer binges, Sam wiped a hand over his face, regretting what he’d said to Ashlyn Spencer.

Of course, it was no big mystery that his father had been killed in the factory. Everyone in town knew it. Ten other people had died that day, as well. Worst part of it was, Horatio Spencer had blamed Sam’s father for the deaths, but Sam knew better. His father had been talking about the grinding machinery, the wear and tear on the assembly line.

But any way you looked at it, Ashlyn wasn’t responsible for those deaths. Putting her on the same level as her family wasn’t fair.

Fairness. Justice. Words he didn’t believe in anymore. His sense of faith in the world had died the night his wife, Mary, had been killed by a hit-and-run driver.

He’d quit his job a few weeks before the accident. So when his buddies from the D.C. police force had shown up on his doorstep, pity dragging down their expressions, he’d known something was very wrong. Sam even remembered the exact instant his soul had been sucked from his body by the news of her death. He remembered feeling a numbness slide into the place where he used to keep happiness in all the colors of a rainbow, the place he’d tried to fill with dreams of marriage and warmth.

Rainbows. He hadn’t noticed one for a while, didn’t even know if he could still recognize the different shades. But when he’d looked into Ashlyn’s eyes tonight, he’d seen them—vibrant facets of blues, greens, violets—swirled together to create a glint of what heaven must look like.

Right, Sam. Just forget that she’s a Spencer.

He couldn’t forget the stark horror grimacing his mother’s lips when she’d heard her husband had been caught in the Spenco Toy Factory machinery. Couldn’t forget the quiet funeral she’d requested before she’d contracted a fatal case of pneumonia, joining her husband in death.

There were so many things he couldn’t forget. Couldn’t forgive.

Dammit, he’d come back to Kane’s Crossing to erase his past. His parents were far enough in the land of memories that it shouldn’t be tearing at him right now. All Sam wanted was to live the rest of his life in peace, in the presence of his foster brother, Nick, and his family.

Headlights flashed through the front office window, jerking Sam from his thoughts. Good thing, too. He’d never get any work done if he sank into a pool of emotion.

Deputy Joanson stuck his head in the door. “Sheriff?”

Sam tried not to seem as if he’d been mulling over useless memories again. “Yeah.”

“Ashlyn Spencer? Well, I dropped her off at Locksley Field, but…”

By God. “What?”

“Well, I know the other deputies, before me, would’ve chased her down, but she’s not too good at listening.”

Sam stood, worried now. He realized his agitation and erased his mind. “What the hell did she do?”

“Oh.” Gary stepped in the door, shrugged. “Nothing like that. Sorry to make you fret, Sheriff.”

“I wasn’t fretting.”

“Right. So she said she had her car at the field, but she lied to me. Wouldn’t get back in the grandma car. Said she’d rather freeze her patootie off than be caught dead in it again.”

“She walked home?” Two degrees below red-nose weather and the blasted woman was taking a stroll? “I’ll take care of it.”

Gary shuffled his feet. “Sorry I couldn’t tackle her like the other deputies would’ve. But she’s a lady.”

“Appreciate it, Joanson.” Sam grabbed his coat and clutched the Bronco keys. And he thought he’d only have to deal with drunks as Kane’s Crossing’s sheriff. Ashlyn would obviously make him earn his paycheck.

“I know, I told her.” Gary rattled on, blocking Sam in his bid to provide more information. “Women-folk shouldn’t be walking alone. Especially during April Fool’s with the high school boys roaming around.”

Sam almost laughed at his deputy’s concern. Maybe Joanson should visit Washington, D.C., on a normal night. That’d give the guy nightmares for sure.

Still, the idea of Ashlyn walking home alone made him cringe. Any number of things could happen to a woman strolling by herself on a country road. Things he didn’t want to think about.

“Besides,” added Gary, “her daddy’ll kill you if something happens to her.”

“I wasn’t put here to please Horatio Spencer,” Sam said, shutting the door on Gary’s answer.

The cold air nipped at his skin, and he thought of Ashlyn’s thin, fashionable red sweater and ankle-skimming pants. What was going through her mind?

He settled himself into the Bronco, easing the vehicle onto the road again. Ashlyn Spencer—a synonym for trouble, if there ever was one.

He cruised to the outskirts of town, near the Spencer mansion, intending to backtrack from there to Locksley Field. When a flash of red sweater filtered into his headlight view, he slowed to a near stop, putting down the window to talk with Ashlyn.

She kept going, barely glancing at him, forcing him to do a U-turn and roll down the passenger window.

“Get in before I lasso you in.”

Her walk was easy, swivel-hipped, casual. As if she were enjoying a sunny afternoon, parasol tipped over her head, fountains splashing in the background.

“I’m fine, Sheriff Sam.”

He kept his silence, knowing words couldn’t approach where his anger was leading him.

She seemed to catch his frustration, stopped, tilted her head. “I’m sorry for what happened to your family.”

His vision went dark for a moment. All he could do was nod, accepting her sentiment. He would’ve apologized to her for his sharp attitude in the office, but he found it hard to speak with his throat burning as sorely as it was.

Damned wimp. Since when did he get so emotional?

He put the Bronco in neutral, pulled the emergency brake, slid over to open the door and extended a hand to help her into the vehicle. An eternity seemed to pass before she accepted, blazing his skin with the touch of hers.

Wasting no time once she was inside, he retreated back to his side of the car, angry at his body’s reaction to her soft skin, her colorful eyes, her sweetheart smile.

Dammit.

He started up the car, drove a little faster than necessary in the hope of getting her away from him.

The police scanner did the talking for them, bits and pieces of static, beeps and Deputy Joanson’s monotone saying, “Testing, testing…” He really needed to hire that dispatcher. As soon as possible, too.

It was no use thinking about the job. He was much too aware of her honey-and-almond scent, the way her hair stuck out at interesting angles, making her seem as though she’d just tumbled out of bed. It was a long drive all right.

After what seemed like generations later, they pulled up to the Spencer mansion. Normally, its thunderous iron gates were like muscle-bound arms crossed to the rest of the world. But tonight the gates were open.

He and Ashlyn exchanged looks, noting the oddity.

The engine purred as Sam hesitated, peering up the stretch of driveway, past the fortress of pines—trees that blocked the brick Colonial-style mansion from gawkers, those unworthy enough to happen upon the Spencers’ seclusion.

He started to turn the steering wheel, aiming for the driveway.

Ashlyn reached out, her fingers clutching his biceps. They remained for a beat too long, lazily sketching down the length of his forearm as she absently peeked out the window at her grandiose home. He wasn’t sure she knew what she was doing, touching him like this, leaving a trail of dangerous fire that had spread from his arm to his stomach.

“I’ll bet my father’s waiting for me,” she said.

The words sounded ominous because Sam thought maybe Horatio Spencer was waiting for him, too. Waiting to blast him a glare he usually reserved for Sam’s foster brother, the one who’d purchased the all-important businesses from under the Spencers’ noses.

It didn’t matter that Nick had been helping needful families by giving them houses and businesses with money from his self-constructed fortune. Horatio Spencer looked upon the whole episode as a young man’s revenge against Chad, his son. The son who’d framed a teenage Nick for a crime he hadn’t committed.

Sam held back a grimace, welcoming this chance to greet Horatio.

Ashlyn’s hand left his skin, traveling from his arm to her neck, toying with the necklace she wore. It was a chunk of ordinary gravel, surrounded by gleaming silver half circles. He wondered why someone as rich as Ashlyn Spencer wasn’t wearing emeralds or sapphires to go with the shine of her eyes.

He couldn’t help asking about the charm. “Is your talisman strong enough to get you out of trouble?”

She started, maybe just realizing that she’d been rubbing it as if it were Aladdin’s lamp. “I’ve got my own strength.”

Shut out, as he’d done to her so many times tonight. “Right.”

Her smile was wistful. “It’s nothing, anyway. Just my albatross.”

He cocked his brow, not knowing what to say. Instead, they both returned their attention to the open gates.

“Let’s go,” he said.