Читать книгу Slow Dance with the Sheriff - Nikki Logan - Страница 10

ELLIE pulled her knees up closer to her chest, cupped her chamomile tea and listened to the sounds of the storm raging over Larkville. The awesome power of nature always soothed her, when the noise from the heavens outgunned the busy, conflicting noise inside her head—the clamoring expectations, her secret fears, the voice telling her how much better she should be doing.

The sky’s thundering downpour was closer to mental silence than anything she could ever create.

Her eyes drifted open.

The crackle of the roasting fire was muted beneath the rain hammering on the barn’s tin roof but its orange glow flickered out across the darkened room, dancing. The flames writhed and twisted in the inferno of the stove, elegant and pure, the way the best of the performers in her company had been able to do.

The way she never had. Despite everything she’d done to be good enough, despite sacrificing her entire childhood to the God of Dance. Her entire body.

One particularly spectacular flame twisted in a helix and reached high above the burning timber before folding and darting back into itself.

Still her body yearned to move like those flames. It craved the freedom and raw expression. She hadn’t really danced in the nine years since walking away from the corps and the truth was she hadn’t really danced in the twelve years before it. The regimented structure of ballet suited her linear mind. Steps, sequences, choreographed verse. She’d excelled technically but, ultimately, lacked heart.

And then she’d discovered that one of her father’s corporations was a silent patron for the company, and what heart she had for dance withered completely.

The place she thought she’d earned with brutal hard work and commitment to her craft… The place she knew two dozen desperate artists would crawl over her rotting corpse to have…

Her father had bought that place with cold, hard cash.

Two air pockets crashed together right overhead and the little barn rattled at the percussion. Ellie didn’t even flinch. She shifted against the sofa cushions to dislodge the old pain of memory. She’d run from that chapter in her life with a soul as gaunt as her body, searching for something more meaningful to take its place. But she didn’t find it in the thousands of hours of charity work she put in over the past decade raising funds for Alzheimer’s research. And she didn’t find it in the company of some man. No matter how many she’d dated to appease her mother.

And—finally—she opened her eyes one morning and realised that her inability to find something meaningful in her life said a whole lot more about her than it did about the city she lived in.

The rolling thunder morphed into the rhythmic pounding of a fist on her door, though it took a few moments for Ellie to realise. She tossed back the blanket and hurried the few steps to the front door, taking a moment to make sure her hair was neatly back.

‘Are you okay?’

The sheriff stood there, water streaming off his wide-brimmed hat and three-quarter slicker, soaked through from the knee down. A bedraggled Deputy shadowed him.

Surprise had her stumbling backwards and man and dog took that as an invitation to enter. They stepped just inside her door, out of the steady rain, though Jed took off his hat and left it hanging on the external doorknob. He produced a small, yellow box.

‘Matches?’ she said, her tranquil haze making her slow to connect the dots.

‘There’s candles in the bottom kitchen drawer.’

‘What for?’

He looked at her like she was infirm. ‘Light.’ Then he flicked her light switch up and down a few times. ‘Power’s out.’

‘Oh. I didn’t notice. I had the lights out anyway.’

Maybe people didn’t do that in Texas because the look he threw her was baffled. ‘You were sitting here in the dark?’

Was that truly so strange? She rather liked the dark. ‘I was sitting here staring into the fire and enjoying the storm.’

‘Enjoying it?’ The idea seemed to appall him. He did look like he’d been through the wringer, though not thoroughly enough to stop water dripping from his trousers onto the brick floor of the old barn.

‘I’m curled up safe and sound on your sofa, not out there getting saturated.’ He still didn’t seem to understand so she made it simpler. ‘I like storms.’

Deputy slouched down in front of her blazing fire and his big black eyes flicked between the two of them. Jed’s hand and the matchbox still hung out there in space, so Ellie took it from him and placed it gently next to the existing one on the woodpile. ‘Thank you, Sheriff. Would you like a coffee? The pot’s just boiled.’

Colour soaked up Jed’s throat, though it was lessened by the orange glow coming from the stove. Had he forgotten his own woodpile came with matches?

‘Sorry. I thought you might be frightened.’

‘Of a storm…?’ Ellie swung the pot off its bracket and back onto her blazing stove, then set to spooning out instant coffee. ‘No.’

‘I’d only been home a few minutes when the power cut. I had visions of you trying to get down the stairs in the dark to find candles.’

Further evidence of his chivalry took second place to inexplicable concern that he’d been out there in the cold for hours. ‘Trouble?’

He shrugged out of his sheriff’s coat and draped it over the chairback closest to the heat. ‘The standard storm-related issues—flooding, downed trees. We’ve been that long without rain the earth is parched. Causes more run-off than usual.’

The kettle sang as it boiled and Ellie tumbled water into his coffee, then passed it to him. He took it gratefully. ‘Thank you.’

She sunk back into her spot on the sofa and he sat himself politely on the same chair as his dripping coat. Overhead, the storm grizzled and grumbled in rolling waves and sounded so much like a petulant child it was hard not to smile.

‘You really do love your weather, don’t you?’ he said.

‘I love…’ What? The way it was so completely out of her control and therefore liberating? No one could reasonably have expectations of the weather. ‘I love the freedom of a storm.’

He sipped his coffee and joined her in listening to the sounds above. ‘Can I ask you something?’ he finally said. ‘How did you know it was going to rain?’

She thought about that for a moment. Shrugged. ‘I could feel it.’

‘But you know nothing about Texas weather. And it was such a long shot.’

‘Intuition?’

He smiled in the flickering firelight. ‘You remind me a bit of someone.’

‘Who?’

‘Clay Calhoun.’

Her heart and stomach swapped positions for a few breaths.

‘Jessica’s father. That man was so in touch with his land he could look at the sky and tell you where a lightning bolt was going to hit earth.’

Awkwardness surged through her. Clay Calhoun was dead, just a legend now. Getting to know the man at the start of all her emotional chaos was not something she expected when she came to Texas. Yet, there was something intensely personal about discovering a shared…affinity…with the man that might be her father.

Was. She really needed to start digging her way out of denial and into reality. Her mother had virtually confirmed it with her bitter refusal to discuss it. And Jed had just reinforced it with his casual observation.

Maybe her weather thing was a case of nature, not nurture. Her Texan genes making their presence felt.

She cleared her throat. ‘Past tense?’

He shifted his legs around so that the heat from the stove could do as good a job drying his trouser bottoms as it was doing on his dog. ‘Yeah, Larkville lost Clay in October. Hit everyone real hard, especially his kids.’

Some harder than others.

He turned to look right at her. ‘I thought that might be why you were here. Given Jess’s recent loss. To bring condolences.’

‘I’m…’ This would be the perfect time to tell someone. Like confessing to a priest, a stranger. But for all she barely knew him, Jed Jackson didn’t feel entirely like a stranger. And so, ironically, it was easier to hedge. ‘No. I… Jess is helping me with…something.’

Wow… Eleanor Patterson totally tongue-tied. Rare. And exceedingly lame.

‘Well, whatever it is I hope it can wait a few weeks? Jess won’t be back until the end of the month, I hear.’

It had waited thirty years; it could wait a couple more weeks. ‘It can.’

He stood and turned his back on the fire to give the backs of his calves and boots a chance to dry off. A light steam rose from them. His new position meant he was five-eighths silhouette against the orange glow. Imposing and broad.

But as non-threatening as the storm.

‘Have you eaten?’ he suddenly asked, his silhouette head tilting down towards her.

Even after all these years she still had a moment of tension when anyone mentioned food. Back when she was sick it was second nature to avoid eating in public. ‘No. I was planning on having leftovers.’

Though her idea of leftovers was the other half of the apple she’d had at lunch.

‘Want to grab something at Gracie May’s?’ he asked, casually. ‘Best little diner in the county.’

The olive branch was unexpected and not entirely welcome. Was it a good idea to get friendly with the locals? Especially the gorgeous ones? ‘But you just got dry. And won’t her power be out, too?’

‘Right. Good point.’ He launched into action, turning for the kitchen. ‘I’ll fix us something here, then.’

‘Here?’ The delightful relaxation of her stormy evening fled on an anxious squeak.

He paused his tracks, cocked his head in a great impression of Deputy. ‘Unless you want to come next door to my place?’

How did he manage to invest just a few words with so much extra meaning? Did she want to go next door and sit down to a meal with Sheriff Jed Jackson? Surrounded by his cowboy stuff, his Texan trappings? His woodsy smell?

Yes.

‘No.’ She swallowed. ‘Here will be fine. Some guy delivered enough groceries for a month this morning.’

His smile did a good job of rivaling the fire’s glow and it echoed deep down inside her. He set about shaving thin slices of ham from the bone and thick slices of bread from the loaf. Then some crumbly cheese, a sliced apple and a wad of something preserved from a jar labelled Sandra’s Jellies and Jams.

‘Green-tomato jam. Calhouns’ finest.’

That distracted Ellie from the sinking of her stomach as he passed a full plate into her lap and sank down onto the other half of the suddenly shrunken sofa. She turned her interest up to him. ‘Sandra Calhoun?’

‘Jess, technically speaking, but a family recipe.’

Her family’s recipe. That never failed to feel weird. For so long her family had been in New York. She picked up her fork and slid some of the tomato jam onto the corner of the bread and then bit into it. If she was only going to get through a fifth of the food on her plate, then she wanted it to be Jess’s produce.

Jed was already three enormous bites into his sandwich and he tossed some ham offcuts over to Deputy, who roused himself long enough to gobble them up before flopping back down.

She risked conversation between his mouthfuls. ‘The Calhouns have quite a presence.’

‘They should. They’re Larkville’s founding family. Jess’s great-great-granddaddy put down roots here in 1856.’

‘And they’re…well respected?’

The look he threw her over his contented munching was speculative. ‘Very much so. Clay’s death hit the whole town hard. They’re dedicating the Fall Festival to him.’

‘Really? The whole thing?’

‘The Calhouns practically ran that festival anyway. Was fitting.’

‘Who’s running it now?’ With Sandra and Clay both gone, and all the kids away?

‘Jess and Holt will be back soon enough. Nate, too, God willing. Everyone else is pitching in to help.’

She filed that away for future reference. ‘What happens at a fall festival?’

He smiled. ‘You’d hate it. Livestock everywhere.’

Heat surged up her throat. ‘I don’t hate cows…’

‘I’m just teasing, relax. Candy corn, rides, crafts, hot-dog-eating competitions. Pretty much what happens at fall festivals all over the country.’

She stared at him.

His eyebrows rose. ‘Never?’

The heat threatened again. ‘I’ve never left New York.’

‘In your entire life?’

She shrugged, though she didn’t feel at all relaxed about the disbelief in his voice. ‘This is my first time.’

‘Summers?’

Her lips tightened. ‘Always rehearsing.’

‘Family vacations?’

‘We didn’t take them.’ The way he’d frozen with his sandwich halfway to his mouth got her back up. ‘And you did?’

‘Heck, yes. Every year my gram would throw me and her ducks in her old van and head off somewhere new.’

The ducks distracted her for a moment, but only a moment. ‘You lived with your grandmother?’

His eyes immediately dropped to his plate. He busied himself mopping up the last of the jam.

She’d grown up with Matt for a brother. She knew when to wield silence for maximum effect. Jed lasted about eight seconds.

‘My parents got pregnant young. Real young. Dad got custody after Mom took off. Gram was his mother. They raised me together.’

Mom took off. There was a lot of story missing in those few words. If only she didn’t respect her own privacy so much—it necessarily forced her to respect his. ‘But your dad wasn’t in the van with you and the ducks every summer?’

‘He worked a lot. And then he—’ Jed cleared his throat and followed it up with an apple-slice chaser ‘—he died when I was six.’

Oh. The charming cowboy suddenly took on an unexpected dimension. Losing your parent so young… And here she was whining about having too many parents. ‘That must have been tough for you to get over.’

‘Gram was a rock. And a country woman herself. She knew how to raise boys.’

‘Is she still here in Larkville?’

The eyes found hers again. ‘I’m not from Larkville, originally.’

‘Really?’ He seemed so much part of the furniture here. Of the earth. ‘I thought your accent wasn’t as pronounced as everyone else’s. Where are you from?’

‘Gram was from the Lehigh Valley. But my dad was NYPD. He met my mother while he was training.’

New York. Her world—and her hopes at anonymity—shrank. She moderated her breath just like in a heavy dance routine. ‘Manhattan?’

‘Queens, mostly. He commuted between shifts back out to the Valley. To us.’

‘And he’s the reason you became a cop?’

‘He’s part of it. He, uh, died on duty. That meant there was legacy funding for my schooling. It felt natural to go into law enforcement.’

Died on duty. But something much more immediate pressed down on her. ‘You studied in New York?’

His eyes hooded. ‘I lived and worked in Manhattan for fifteen years.’

Her voice grew tiny. ‘You didn’t say. When I told you where I was from.’

‘A lot of people come from New York. It’s not that remarkable.’

So she just asked him outright what she needed to know. ‘Do you know who I am?’

That surprised him. ‘Why? Are you famous?’

His cavalier brush while she was stressing out didn’t sit well with her. She took the chance to push her plate onto the footstool next to them. ‘Be serious.’

He stared at her. Doing the math. Consulting his mental Who’s Who of New York. She saw the exact moment that the penny dropped. ‘You’re a Patterson Patterson?’