Читать книгу Heartland - Sara Walter Ellwood - Страница 7

Today marked the second anniversary of his wife’s overdose.

McAllister County, Texas, sheriff EJ Cowley hated the memory of finding Raquel in the bathtub and of their hungry six-month-old son screaming from his crib. He’d lain in his soiled diaper for at least five hours. Raquel’s body had been colder than the water. Two empty medication bottles were found on the floor by the edge of the tub: one held Adderall and the other Zoloft. She had been given the latter medicine to help deal with her postpartum depression. She’d taken Adderall as a kid for ADHD, but as an adult had outgrown the need for it. He’d discovered afterward she’d bought the pills on the internet using a bank account he hadn’t been aware she had. She’d become addicted to the amphetamine after the birth of their son, which formed a deadly combination with the antidepressant when taken in larger doses than a doctor would prescribe. However, the bottle of Zoloft she’d emptied hadn’t been hers.

The purr of a high performance car engine broke the silence along the two-lane country road passing his driveway. He shook the memory away and focused down the long straight stretch of road heading toward town. The early morning sun glinted off the windshield of an oncoming car racing toward him.

“Damn.” He hated ticketing speeders, but not because he disagreed with speeding laws. He disliked the stinking attitude most took up when they were stopped. After a night filled with cold-sweat inducing dreams interspersed with his two-year-old son’s painful cries from a belly ache, the last thing he wanted to deal with was a smart-assed mouth.

When the fast cherry-red sports car passed, he clocked it at sixty miles per hour in a forty-five speed zone. Putting the portable siren he kept in his Silverado on top of the cab, he pulled out of his driveway and followed. The vehicle in front of him slowed and pulled over as he gained on it.

As he reached in the glove box for his pad of tickets, he whistled between his teeth. A Maserati with a Tennessee plate. His computer was in his official Tahoe, which was parked at the station, but he could ticket the driver and enter the citation when he got to the office. Opening the door, he picked up his hat from the side seat and put it on his head as he slid out of the pickup. He caught the female driver watching him through her side mirror and got a glimpse of dark reddish hair and big-lensed sunglasses covering most of a slender face from her reflection.

She straightened in the leather seat and smiled as he stopped at the driver’s door, ducking down to look at her. Despite the sunglasses covering her green eyes, he knew her. The magazines and TV hadn’t done her justice. She was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. Her auburn hair was styled in a short pixie cut that seemed to make her look even more like a fairy than he’d thought of her when she was younger. A sudden flutter hit his gut and rattled his thoughts. What the hell was he nervous about? He’d met famous people before. Besides, he’d known this girl all of her life.

In spite of the reason he’d stopped her, he smiled. “Well, if it isn’t Emily Ritter. Haven’t seen you around here for years.”

Her smile fell the moment the name Ritter slipped out of his mouth. “I don’t go by that name any more and haven’t since I was fourteen.” She shot back as she glanced at his badge and the nametag above it on his uniform shirt. “Edward James Cowley.” The smile returned, but this time it held a hint of mischief. She must have remembered how much he hated his full name and used it to get back at him for his flub. “You’re the sheriff now? You get out of the Army?”

“I got out a little over two years ago, and yes, I’m the sheriff.” EJ pushed the brim of his hat over his forehead. God, he had to focus. “The reason I stopped you wasn’t to engage in small talk. You were speeding. I’ll need to see your driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance.”

“C’mon, since when does anyone care about speeding on this old stretch of cow path?” She removed her sunglasses to reveal eyes the color of spring grass. They’d always seemed to mesmerize him, even when she was a kid, and now wasn’t any different. “Hell, the only people out here are my family, the Ritters, your family, and the Campbells.”

Her voice broke the trance her beauty put him under. She definitely wasn’t the girl who’d followed him around when she’d come over to the Double K to visit John Kendall, never knowing the old rancher was her grandfather.

“Actually, I own the Campbells’ place. They sold the Arrowhead Ranch a year ago after Uncle Joe had a heart attack. He and Aunt Sally moved to Arizona to be closer to my mom and dad.” He had to remember this woman wasn’t the innocent little girl he’d teased any more. Or a stunning woman he’d like to get to know better. From what he’d heard on the radio and from the tabloid covers he’d read while standing in line at the grocery store, she’d turned into a drug addict and party hellion after marrying a British rock star. He didn’t even like her music anymore, and there was a time, he’d thought she had the voice of an angel. The thought of her throwing away her talent on booze and drugs sent a spear of anger through him. Someday she’d undoubtedly end up as dead as Raquel had.

He held out his hand. “Your driver’s license, Ms. Kendall.”

She reached for her purse, setting on the passenger’s seat, and pulled out her license, then rummaged through the glove box for her registration and insurance papers. As she handed the items to him, she smiled the sweet, breathtaking smile he’d seen splashed on magazine covers and award shows, but it never entered her hard eyes. “Fine. Here you go, Sheriff Cowley.”

* * * *

Emily glared at the retreating backside of EJ Cowley as he sauntered to his SUV, but her ire at the McAllister County sheriff was soon replaced with an appreciation of the way his ass filled out the tan pants. The scrawny teenage boy who’d pulled on her pigtails and chased her around the Double K when John Kendall wasn’t watching had grown up into a good-looking man.

Too bad he’d turned into a jerk.

She shook her head and rested her hand over the slight swell of her belly. Even if he was the nicest, sexiest man in the world, he was the last thing she needed. She wasn’t looking for a man. Didn’t want one. Her divorce had been final for almost two months, but she wouldn’t ever be completely free of Fabian McPhee despite her not wanting him to be part of her child’s life and his lack of paternal acknowledgement. The only way to escape him was to never let her baby know about him which she wouldn’t--couldn’t--ever do. Regardless of the pain of abandonment and the questions the knowledge of her little girl’s famous father would cause her, Emily could never do to her daughter what her parents did to her. The not knowing and finding out later was worse.

Emily closed her eyes and rested her head on the seat behind her. As she rubbed over the baby growing inside her, she smiled as the memory of when she’d found out she was having a girl entered her mind. Twelve weeks into her pregnancy, the OB/Gynecologist, Dr. Summers, performed an amniocentesis. The test results came back perfectly normal and revealed the baby’s sex.

Every test the doctors performed had come back showing her baby was healthy. Dr. Summers accredited the good news to the fact Emily found out about her pregnancy early and stopped taking drugs.

“Emily… Miz Kendall? You okay?”

At the sound of EJ’s deep Texas twang, she jerked her eyes open and stopped massaging her belly. No one outside of Trish Russell, Fabian, and her doctors knew about the baby, not even her parents. If he suspected her secret, he showed no signs as he held out a sheet of pink paper--her speeding ticket.

She snatched it out of his hand and tossed it on the seat beside her. “I’m fine. Tired. I’ve been driving for thirteen hours and want to get home to my family.”

He straightened and the buttons on his uniform shirt strained across his chest as he took a deep breath. Did he lift weights? Without warning, she imagined him without the shirt and envisioned a broad chest rippling with muscle.

Irritated at the fantasy as much as by the man, she put her sunglasses back on her face and glared at him. “Are we done?”

He gave her a devilish smile, which turned his ruggedly handsome face superstar gorgeous and sent a tingle through her nervous system. “Yeah. Say hi to your mama and daddy.” As she turned the key in the ignition, he tapped the top of her car. “And drive within the speed limits.”

Her response was to hit the gas hard enough to send up a cloud of dust from the side of the road, but she didn’t speed past forty-five. As she looked at him through her rearview mirror, she grinned at him shaking his head and standing with his arms crossed as the fine, Texas grit settled around him.

* * * *

Emily pulled into the driveway and stopped to gaze up at the wooden sign framed by a wrought iron arch over the paved tree-lined lane leading to the house her ancestors built over a hundred years ago. On the right side of the wood a bold black-painted K with another K formed from the bottom leg mimicked the brand of the seven-hundred-acre ranch. Beside the symbol, in the same bold lettering was the name: Double K Ranch. Below that read, Seth and Abigail Kendall, Owners. Despite having the four years she’d lived in the large Victorian house broken up by staying in Nashville with her dad or being on tour with him, she considered this place home.

A sensation of fluttering in her lower belly had her gasping as it did every time she experienced it. With a racing heart, she glanced down as she pressed both palms over her baggy t-shirt and held her breath. When the movement tickled her insides again, almost as if a butterfly was caught beneath her skin, she exhaled and laughed.

“You’re happy to be home too, aren’t you, baby girl?” She sat there for a long time waiting for the quickening again, but nothing happened. “Okay, maybe you’re as nervous as I am.”

She had no idea what to expect from her parents. Although, they’d voiced their worry and disapproval of her marriage to Fabian, they had never pushed her away. If anything, at first, her dad had tried to keep her close. But after he’d found her unconscious on her tour bus and had her admitted into Fernwood, she refused to speak to her mother or father again. Fabian had fueled her anger by accusing her parents of wanting to control her life.

Oh, how wrong she had been.

With a sigh, she stared into the distance at the large white house with its dark green shutters and gingerbread trim, then turned the key in the ignition. “Well, baby girl, let’s go and admit they were right.”

She parked the car to the side of the three-car semi-detached garage and got out. As she stretched her back, she looked around at the old familiar buildings. The barn across the lane from the house must have been recently painted and a new stable and training facility had been built in the middle of a pasture she used to ride through. Her mother had mentioned a few years ago she’d like to try her hand at raising and training horses. She must have decided to go for it.

With a deep breath, Emily headed toward the house.

“Emily?”

At the sound of her father’s deep voice, she turned toward the man standing at the open barn door. “Hi, Daddy.”

Her childhood idol stared back at her as if she was a mirage. Wearing a beat-up tan Stetson, faded jeans, scuffed boots, and a plaid western shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, he looked more like a ranch hand then a famous superstar country singer. Her heart stuttered over a few beats as both love and admiration filled her. She may not have known Seth Kendall was her father as a little girl, but he’d more than stepped up to fill the job during her teenage years, even making her dreams come true.

Dreams she destroyed with drugs and hard living.

She swallowed as the silence stretched. Maybe she shouldn’t have come home. “I hope you don’t mind me being here.”

He ran across the wide driveway, and before Emily could process what was happening, he wrapped her up in a tight bear hug which she returned with equal fervor.

“This is your home.” He placed a kiss on her forehead and held her far enough away to meet her gaze. She was shocked to see a tear form at the corner of one of his bright green eyes, the same shape and color as her own. “You’re always welcome here, sunshine.”

At the use of the nickname he’d given her when they’d first met, she wrapped her arms around him and let the relief flood over her as she rested her cheek on his chest. The spiced sandalwood scent of him surrounded her, comforting and forgiving, and she closed her eyes as tears stung her sinuses. She feared if she started crying, she wouldn’t ever stop. “I’m sorry, Daddy. For everything. I’ve made such a mess of my life.”

He rubbed her back and rested his chin on her head, like he’d done since they’d first met eight years ago. At times like this, she wished she’d known him all her life. Mike Ritter--the man she’d believed to be her father until she met Seth--and she had been close, but they’d never had the relationship she and Seth shared.

“The important thing is you’re here now.” His deep voice trembled as if he was holding in a massive wave of emotion. He swallowed and slowly stepped back, but didn’t completely let her go as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “C’mon. Let’s go find your mother.”

She sniffed and wiped at the stray tears on her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Is Johnny home?”

He squeezed her shoulders and his smile beamed as bright as the morning sun. “You just missed him. Your momma took him to preschool. He’ll be home in a few hours.” He stopped at the steps leading to the wraparound porch. “You’re going to make the kid’s day when he gets home. He idolizes you.”

She shook her head. “He shouldn’t. I’m one messed up woman these days.”

Dad brushed at a stray strand of her hair lying on her forehead. “No. You’re a strong woman trying to get her life back on track. I knew you were on your way to healing when I heard about the divorce and that you were in rehab for longer than a week.”

She glanced away. The hope in his voice nearly broke down the damn holding back her tears.