Читать книгу Lassoing the Deputy - Marie Ferrarella, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 11

Chapter Two

“Hey, Alma, look who I just found walking by our office,” Larry called out. It became apparent that the blond-haired deputy had snagged Cash and brought him in, thinking perhaps that he was doing a good deed. “The city-slicker lawyer is finally paying the country mice back home a visit.” Larry chuckled at his own display of wit. It was a given around the office that he was always his own best audience. “How’s it going, Cash?” he asked, pumping Cash’s hand. “Any of those fancy ladies in Los Angeles manage to lasso you yet?”

“It’s going well,” Cash replied mechanically. “And no, they haven’t.” He wasn’t looking at Larry when he answered. He was looking at Alma.

And she seemed to be looking into his soul.

That was what he used to say to her, that she was his soul. It was a play on her name, which meant “soul” in Spanish. But, even so, back then, he’d meant it. He’d really felt as if she was his soul. His beginning, his ending.

His everything.

In that last summer, during the space between graduation and his going off to college on the West Coast, no one was more surprised than he was when he found himself falling for her. Really falling for her. They had grown up together. When he and his mother had come to live with his grandfather, he’d been seven years old, and after a while, it felt as if he had always lived here and always known the Rodriguez kids.

Hardly a day went by that he and Alma didn’t see each other, play with each other. Fight with each other. He was friends with her brothers, especially Eli and Gabe, and she always found a way to tag along, no matter how hard he and her brothers initially tried to ditch her.

It seemed that the more they tried, the harder she was to get rid of. Back then, he’d thought of her as a royal pain in the butt. He couldn’t remember exactly when all that had changed, but it had. Slowly, she became his friend, then his confidante, and then, ever so gradually, his best friend.

And finally, his first love.

Now that he thought about it, Alma had been part of his every day.

Until he left for college.

He’d left to make a future for himself and for her. That was what he’d told himself, what he’d believed. But somewhere along the line, he’d let himself get caught up with the newness and of life in a major city like Los Angeles. He was the country boy who hailed from a speck on the map and he wanted to be as polished, as sophisticated as the students he saw around him in his classes.

Still, in the beginning, while he was still homesick, he looked forward to Alma’s letters. He devoured them like a starving man devoured every last morsel of a meal.

But he soon discovered that his tall, blond good looks and Southern accent attracted more than just a handful of women. Male students befriended him, wanting him to be their wingman, their “chick magnet.” And female students just wanted him.

After a while, Cash forgot to answer Alma’s letters. And then he forgot to read them. He told himself he was too busy studying for exams, but the truth was that he’d been too busy cramming as much life as he could into his existence. It was as if he’d felt compelled to make up for lost time.

He had still studied hard, but every weekend saw him partying equally hard, each time with a different girl. That way it couldn’t be construed as anything serious and the tiny part of him that still had a conscience argued that he wasn’t being unfaithful to Alma.

Cash told himself that he was just becoming a more rounded person. He was socializing and making connections that would help his future once he became a lawyer.

Instead, it made him, Cash now realized, as incredibly shallow as the people with whom he socialized.

It had been a hell of a ride, though. Somehow, despite all his frantic partying, he wound up graduating near the top of his class. Offers came in from major law firms to intern with them. He made up his mind quickly. He picked the firm with the highest profile, one that dealt in criminal defense cases.

Once on board, he dedicated himself to becoming the best damn intern Jeffers, Wells, Baumann & Fields had ever had in their one-hundred-and-three-year history. He achieved his goal, rising through the ranks faster than any of the partners who had come before him and were now firmly entrenched in the organization.

And all through his rise, there’d been victories and accolades. And women. Many, many women whose names and faces now seemed to run together.

Somewhere along the line, he didn’t know just when, he’d managed to lose his soul without realizing it. It hadn’t really bothered him very much.

Until that horrible day when everything just blew apart.

All this went through his head in a nanosecond as he stood, looking at Alma, too hollow to even ache. “So how are you, Alma?” he asked quietly.

It almost didn’t sound like Cash. Had she ever known this man? Or had she just imagined it all?

“I’m fine,” she answered politely. Then, because the silence felt awkward, she added, “Your grandfather mentioned you were coming, but I didn’t expect to see you until just before the wedding.”

She didn’t tell him that Harry had gone out of his way to tell her—to prepare her—and that she’d dropped the glass she’d been holding, breaking it on the diner’s counter when she was given the news.

Cash had initially toyed with the idea of waiting until just before the big day, but he knew that if he waited until then, he might not be able to come at all. By then, the despair that held him captive, that ate away at him daily, might have grown too large for him to handle.

But all this was darkness he wasn’t about to share. It was his cross to bear, no one else’s.

So instead, he shrugged in response to her words and said, “I had a little extra vacation time coming to me. I thought I might just come early and catch up on things I’ve let slip away.”

Just like that, huh? You come sashaying back and we’re all supposed to put on some kind of show for you, is that it?

“Good luck with that,” she heard herself saying. With that, she walked past him, deliberately avoiding making contact with his eyes.

His voice followed her. Surrounded her. “My grandfather told me you became a deputy sheriff.”

She turned around. Considering that she was wearing the same khaki shirt and pants that the three men in the office had on, it would have been hard to make any other conclusion.

“I did.”

He laughed softly, but there was no humor in the sound. “Guess I had to see it for myself.”

She glanced down at her uniform, then back at him. “Well, you did.”

Even as the words came out of her mouth, Alma almost winced. Could either of them have sounded any more stilted, any more awkward, than they did?

That last summer, before Cash went away to college, leaving promises in his wake, they had talked about everything under the sun and the stars. There wasn’t a topic they hadn’t touched on.

More than talk, there had been trust. She’d trusted him the way she had never trusted anyone else, not even her brothers. And he had opened up to her, sharing his thoughts, his dreams for a future together with her. When he spoke, he’d created vivid pictures with his words. It had been exciting just to listen to him.

Together, they were going to change the world.

He’d even, at the last minute, she recalled with a pang, urged her to come with him.

But that was one of the impossible dreams.

“I don’t have any money saved,” she’d protested. Just as it had been with her brothers, every penny she’d earned had gone to help pay off her mother’s astronomical medical bills.

It was either that, or stand by and watch her father lose the ranch in order to be able to settle the outstanding account. She couldn’t allow that to happen just because she wanted to follow Cash to California.

“The money doesn’t matter,” Cash had told her with the conviction of the very young. “We’ll find a way.”

She’d wanted to believe him. Wanted, in the worst way, to go with him.

But her sense of honor, her sense of responsibility, had prevented her from impetuously leaving everything behind and following Cash. She just couldn’t bring herself to turn her back on her father at a time like that, even though she knew that he would urge her to follow her heart and tell her that he understood.

It didn’t matter if her father understood. She wouldn’t have been able to live with herself.

And so, she’d had to learn how to live without Cash.

The last night they were together, Cash had watched her solemnly and she remembered thinking that she had never seen such sadness in a person’s eyes. He’d promised her that he would be back for her.

He’d sworn that he would come back for her.

He’d told her that once he had his law degree and was working for a firm, she could stop working and go to school to get her own degree. He’d told her he would pay for it.

She’d hardly heard him. Her heart was aching so badly at the thought of living a single day without him, she could barely stand it. When she couldn’t stop the flow of tears, he’d tried to comfort her. And, as sometimes happens, one thing had led to another.

That was the first time they made love.

He’d left her, with great reluctance, the next morning, promising to be back, to make her proud of him and to love her forever.

Watching him go, his secondhand car growing smaller and smaller against the horizon, Alma had been certain that her heart would break right there and that she would die where she stood.

But she didn’t die.

And her heart only felt broken.

Somehow, she’d found a way to continue. She wrote him every day. What kept her going in the beginning was waiting for his letters.

The wait grew longer, the letters grew fewer. And shorter. Until they stopped coming altogether.

She remembered that now, remembered how she had felt when she finally made herself admit that he wasn’t coming back, not to the town, not to her.

Alma squared her shoulders. “Well, I’ve got work to do,” she told Cash stiffly. “So if you’ll excuse me—”

They sounded like two strangers who didn’t know how to end an awkward conversation, he thought. And that, too, was his fault.

Just like the Douglas murders were his fault.

“Sure. Sorry,” he apologized. “Didn’t mean to keep you from anything. Maybe we can get together later,” he suggested. If there was a note of hope in his voice, it had slipped out and attached itself to his words without his knowledge or blessings.

Alma’s voice was completely flat and without emotion as she echoed the word he’d used. “Maybe.”

When pigs fly, she added silently.

“Nice seeing you again, Alma,” Cash said by way of parting. “Really nice.”

And then he was gone.

Alma didn’t even look up.

“Well, that was awkward,” Larry announced the moment Cash was no longer in the office.

The last thing she wanted was to have a discussion about this—any of this—with Larry. She was fond of the man, but he had a gift for always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and she wasn’t in the mood to put up with that.

“Larry, I brought brownies in yesterday morning. Why don’t you go and stuff them into your mouth?” she suggested, accompanying her words with a spasmodic smile she didn’t mean. “They’re in the cupboard.”

“No, they’re not,” Larry told her matter-of-factly. There was a touch of sheepishness in his voice when he spoke. Alma eyed him suspiciously and he instantly confessed. “Hey, I was here after hours and I got hungry.”

“You ate them all?” she asked incredulously. Why wasn’t this man fat? Instead, he was as skinny as a rail. “There were sixteen brownies,” she emphasized. She’d brought them in for the others, but then she’d stopped at the diner to see Miss Joan, and Harry had told her about Cash. After that, things were a blur. She’d completely forgotten about the brownies until this moment.

“I know,” Larry answered. “I counted them. They were probably the best brownies I ever had. Thanks,” he added. He had the good grace to look contrite and embarrassed by his apparent gluttony.

“Larry—” She began to complain that he hadn’t left any for the others, but at this point, it was all moot. She just sighed.

“Don’t pick on him, Alma,” Joe said. He scooted his chair to Larry’s desk for a moment. Reaching over, he patted the other man’s stomach. “He’s a growing boy.”

Annoyed, Larry pushed his own chair back, away from Joe. “Cut it out,” he warned.

“All right, kids, knock it off,” Rick ordered, deliberately using the word kids despite the fact that he was only a couple of years older than any of them.

When he glanced at Alma, there was compassion in his eyes. He’d been raised by his grandmother and he’d protectively looked after his little sister during those years. He was more geared in to the workings of a female mind than the average male and he sympathized with what she was going through.

“You want some time off?” he asked her gently.

That caught her by surprise. “What?” Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

Crossing over to her desk, Rick turned so that while he faced her, his back was to Larry. He wanted to block the other deputy’s view. The office was a fishbowl, but he did what he could to give Alma some privacy.

“I know this is all kind of rough for you,” Rick told her.

“It would be,” she conceded, then said with feeling, “if I wasn’t over him, Sheriff. Really, I’m fine.” Rick had always been like another big brother to her. An understanding big brother who didn’t get off on teasing her the way her real brothers did on occasion. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do but it’s not necessary. I don’t need any kid-glove treatment. I’m the same person I’ve always been,” she assured him. “No need to walk on eggshells or tiptoe around me. Really,” she stressed.

“All right. If you want to stay on the job, look into this for me.” Taking a piece of paper out of his breast pocket, he placed it on her desk in front of her. “Sally Ronson just called, said that she saw the Winslow boys horsing around in the field beyond the high school. They were smoking.” There were two things wrong with that. “They’re underage and this is fire season. Get those cigarettes away from them and put the fear of God into them any way you see fit—just remember, we draw the line at flogging.”

He said it so seriously that for a second she actually thought that he was.

And then she saw the glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “Got you. No flogging.”

Joe, who listened unobtrusively to everything that went on in the sheriff’s office, looked up. “The Winslow boys?” Joe repeated, then asked, “Kyle and Ken?”

Rick nodded. “The very same.”

Joe shook his head. The two brothers were a rowdy handful.

“Good luck with that,” he told Alma. “Those two don’t have half a brain between them.” And then he raised his eyes to hers. “Want company?” he offered.

She knew what he was thinking. What all of them were probably thinking. That the sixteen-year-old twins were strong young bucks and she would need help getting them to listen to her.

“Thanks, but no,” she told Joe. “The day I can’t handle two snot-nosed teenage boys is the day I’m handing in my badge.”

Rick nodded, relieved that at least some of Alma’s fighting spirit was still intact. For a minute back there, when Cash had walked in, he’d had his doubts.

“Go get ’em, Deputy Rodriguez. And if they give you any lip,” he said, “bring them back here to me.” His eyes met hers. “Understood?”

“Understood,” she parroted. And then she smiled. “They won’t give me any trouble. Don’t go dusting off the jail cell just yet.”

After folding the paper the sheriff had given her, Alma tucked it into her back pocket. She did it as a formality. Everyone knew where the high school was and she was more than acquainted with the field he’d referred to. She and her brothers used to hang out there.

As had Cash, she remembered.

Even just thinking of his name made something twist deep in her belly. It would be a hell of a long two weeks.

Walking out, she silently blessed Rick. She was glad to leave the office on a pretext. Rick’s initial offer of letting her go home wouldn’t have been any good. She didn’t want to go home. Being alone with her thoughts right now was worse than being subjected to an afternoon laden with Larry’s jokes. She needed to keep busy, but being cooped up in the office with Larry unintentionally saying stupid things wasn’t conducive to having a tranquil afternoon, either.

She thought back to Joe’s offer to come with her. She actually wouldn’t have minded his company, but ever since he’d gotten married, he seemed to be slightly more talkative, slightly more prone to commenting on things. It used to be that he kept mostly to himself and spoke only when he had to. Right now, she would have preferred that version of Joe to the new, improved one. One that didn’t feel compelled to offer sympathy or comfort.

All she wanted to do was go on as if Cash Taylor was still on the West Coast. She didn’t want to talk about him or think about him.

Not exactly an easy matter, she realized a couple of moments later, given that his image popped up in her mind every second and a half.

That was because she was still in shock, she told herself. And why not? He’d come on like an apparition from her past, walking right into the middle of the sheriff’s office. Granted, Larry had propelled him into the room but that still didn’t negate the final effect.

Or the fact that her heart had stopped beating and then launched into triple time.

She hadn’t thought it was humanly possible for someone as good-looking as Cash to grow better looking over time, especially since she assumed that he had had a sedentary life since he’d left Forever.

But he had.

Those were muscles beneath his custom-made jacket. Firm muscles. They went well with his flat stomach and his taut hips.

As for his face, he seemed to have taken on a more chiseled look. Certainly his cheekbones had become prominent. All in all, it gave his profile a somewhat haunting look.

There was that word again, she thought. Haunting. She might as well admit that was the way she felt right now.

Haunted.

Haunted by Cash’s memory, by his presence—and by the thoughts of what might have been.

The next couple of weeks were not going to be good. She would just have to resign herself to that and make the best of it.

Easier said than done.

A lot easier said than done.