Forever After (16 page)

Arms hugging her waist, Meredith stood off to the side, only half listening as Heath began to lecture her daughter on the dangers of inserting foreign objects in her nose. After Sammy’s slip while spelling her name, Meredith’s nerves were jangling, her heart fluttering like the wings of a frantic bird. Tammy, Sammy. The two names were very similar, a deliberate choice on Meredith’s part to make it less traumatic for her daughter to grow accustomed to the change. Unfortunately, the similarity also made it harder for Sammy to keep the two names straight when she was upset.

Heath hadn’t picked up on the slip, thank heaven. Because he knew Sammy had been practicing her letters, he’d assumed she had made a simple mistake. But what about next time? Sammy was so young. Since the move to Oregon, Meredith had drilled her constantly, but there was so much to remember. Sooner or later, Sammy would reveal something else to Heath, and the cat would be out of the bag.

Stupid, so stupid
. Was she out of her mind? She couldn’t afford to take chances like this. The man was a law officer.

Hunkered beside the table, Heath held Sammy’s small chin cupped in a large, sun-bronzed hand. “So, sweetcakes, do I have your promise you won’t poke any more beans in your nose?”

“I promise,” Sammy assured him.

“You didn’t stick beans anywhere else, did you?” he asked. “Not in your ears or your belly button or—”

Heath broke off, a dark flush creeping up his neck. It had obviously just occurred to him how creative a little girl could get with beans.

Sammy’s eyes widened. “I di’n’t put beans no place else.”

“Well…” Heath
harrumphed
, then released Sammy’s chin to rub his nose, his gaze flitting around the kitchen. “That’s good.” He shot Meredith a look that said he’d waded in over his head and was going under fast. “I, um…yeah.” He sniffed and rubbed his nose again. “That’s that, I guess.”

Heath pushed to his feet, six feet plus of discomfited male. It wasn’t necessary for her to usher him out. After giving Sammy’s hair a gentle tousle, he collected his dog and made tracks for the front door, muttering something she couldn’t quite catch about having work to do at home.

Falling in behind him, Meredith said, “Thank you for coming over. Mineral oil. I’ll remember that.”

He stood with his hand on the door knob, his chiseled features still slightly flushed. “Hopefully, this will teach her not to put any more beans up her nose.”

Meredith flashed a brittle smile. “Yes, well, we can hope. Kids have short memories sometimes.”

“I’ll stop by in the morning on the way in to town and jump-start your car.”

“Oh, no, really.” Meredith bent to give Goliath a farewell pat. “You’ve done more than enough for us. I’ll manage.”

He narrowed an eye. “You know how much it costs to call a tow truck? It’ll take me five minutes. After I get it started, you should let it idle to recharge the battery.”

“I should probably just replace it. This isn’t the first time it’s gone dead on me.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a little hard to budget for a car battery when your wages barely stretch to cover the necessities.” He reached to push a stray tendril of hair from her cheek. “What you need is a second income.”

“There aren’t that many jobs I can do at home, and I don’t want to leave Sammy with a stranger.”

He rasped his thumb over her mouth. “I’m not talking about you getting another job, Merry. I mean a husband’s income.”

Their gazes locked, hers wary, his filled with tenderness.
A tingling tension built between them. Meredith couldn’t think clearly, let alone move, not even when she realized he was leaning closer. For a moment, she thought he meant to kiss her. The blue of his shirt filled her vision, the cloth stretched taut over his chest. Her lungs hitched, her breath snagging at the base of her throat.

“A leaf.”

His fingertips touched her hair. A second later, he held a leaf in front of her nose. She had a feeling he knew exactly what she’d been anticipating, and that he found her reaction amusing. A kiss, after all, wasn’t that big a deal.

“Good night, Meredith,” he whispered huskily.

As he let himself out, she replied in kind. “Good night.”

What she really meant was good-bye.

Arms propped on
his desk, chin resting on one fist, Heath stared down at the date on his oversized desktop calendar, which served double duty as a blotter.
Monday, May 19th
. Next Saturday would be the kickoff for Memorial Day weekend, one of the busiest and craziest holidays of the year, with drunks swarming onto the highways like armies of crazed ants, die-hard outdoor enthusiasts descending on every available water recreation site in the county, and teenagers celebrating their high school graduations. Heath knew from past experience that he would get no sleep during that seventy-two hour stretch, let alone anything remotely resembling a second of tranquility.

That wasn’t what bothered him, though.
May 19th
. Nineteen years ago, the nineteenth had fallen on Friday a week before Memorial Day weekend, and Heath, a rebellious college freshman, had come home from the University of Oregon to informally celebrate his sister Laney’s high school graduation at a beer bust the senior class was throwing to commemorate the coming event.

Heath squeezed his eyes closed, trying to shove away the memories. It didn’t work. It never worked. The memories were part of his punishment. Punishment that would never end and that he accepted because he deserved it. Hell, he deserved worse. A lot worse.

“Sheriff?”

Heath glanced up to see Jenny Rose leaning around the partially opened office door, the sounds of ringing telephones, clicking keyboards, and bleeping computers filtering past her to defile his inner sanctum.

“Deputy Moore just came in,” she said, smiling impishly. Her brown hair, skinned back into a tidy French twist, glistened in the slats of sunlight that poured through the Venetian blinds. “He’s booking Alma Cresswell for shop-lifting again.”

“Christ.” Heath raked a hand through his hair, the dull ache behind his eyes exploding into a knifing pain. “Can you call her daughter, Jen? Ask her to come down and pick her mother up.”

Jenny Rose gave him a thumbs-up. “I think I should warn you, though. It’s grand theft this time. The old doll walked out of Holt’s Jewelry with twelve thousand dollars worth of ice dripping from her fingers.”

Heath’s headache mushroomed. “
What?
”

“You heard me. She went in to look, supposedly for a birthday gift for her daughter. The clerk left the case open, got busy with another customer, and forgot to watch her. Alma left wearing the whole display.”

Heath stood, giving his chair such a forceful shove that it rolled back on its castors and hit the wall.

Jenny Rose jumped. “Temper, temper.”

“Yeah, well,” Heath grumbled as he shouldered his way past her. “Deputy Moore is a frigging blight on humanity.”

Jenny Rose snickered as she drew the door closed behind them.

Heath scanned the outer office. It was a typical Monday morning, half his force off duty after working through the weekend, the other half trying frantically to deal with the weekend spillover—Saturday night drunks posting bail, neighbors filing complaints against neighbors over weekend disputes, parents searching for runaways, and the usual handful of kids who’d been hauled in off the streets for truancy.

“No, no, no!” an elderly man yelled at one of Heath’s
deputies. “It wasn’t just
grass
he dumped over the fence. There was dog shit mixed in, I tell you!”

Heath blocked out the babble as he circled desks and made his way down a paper-strewn aisle. He drew up beside Moore’s station, his gaze coming to rest on the diminutive woman who sat across from the young deputy in a metal-frame chair. The embodiment of everyone’s great-grandmother in a floral-print dress with a lace collar, Alma Cresswell smiled up at him.

She looked like an elderly angel with a halo of wispy white curls. Heath couldn’t help staring in startled amazement. Perched at a jaunty angle on Alma’s halo was what appeared to be the inverted bottom half of a gallon-sized, white plastic bleach jug, which she’d fashioned into a gaily decorated hat. Two tattered silk roses sprouted from the crown, waving like colorful insect antennae every time she bobbed her head. The edge of the bleach bottle had been crocheted with a two-inch wide, celery-green ruffle that reminded him of wilted lettuce.

“Hello, Mrs. Cresswell,” Heath said respectfully. “How are you today?”

“Oh, you dear boy,” she said, her palsied voice cracking. “I haven’t seen you in a month of—” She broke off, her rheumy eyes filling with confusion. She chewed on her bottom lip, which was smeared with the same bright crimson lipstick that decorated her dentures. “When
was
the last time. Do you recall?”

“Uh, yes, ma’am. It was last Wednesday.” When Tom Moore had hauled her in for stealing greeting cards from Hallmark.

“She’s really done it this time,” Moore informed Heath in an official, deputy voice nearly as starched as his uniform. “Twelve thousand in jewelry. That constitutes grand larceny.” He gestured toward a pile of sparkling diamonds, which he had laid out on his desk for effect before bagging them as evidence. “I got her nailed to the wall.”

Heath cut the deputy a glare, then returned his gaze to the old woman, a victim of advanced senility that Heath
suspected was undiagnosed Alzheimer’s. A former schoolmarm, Alma believed she was still teaching. She carried a lesson-planning book around in her large vinyl tote, along with merchandise she filched from store shelves on a daily basis as she wandered Main Street. Every Friday evening, her middle-aged daughter, an office secretary at one of the high schools, returned all the loot, paid for anything damaged, and apologized to the proprietors for her mother’s behavior.

In Heath’s estimation, Alma Cresswell was a completely harmless old lady whom Deputy Moore should have been helping across the street. Instead, the bastard kept arresting her.

Heath settled his seething gaze on the handcuffs that banded the old lady’s wrists. Her frail hands were so gnarled with arthritis her fingers were crooked, the knuckles at least three times their normal size. Definitely not the stuff dangerous criminals were made of.

Heath balled his hands into tight fists, barely resisting the urge to pummel Moore’s face. The only bright spot in the situation was that Alma remained happily oblivious. In better times, she’d probably never received so much as a parking ticket, and now, hopelessly befuddled most of the time, she couldn’t comprehend that anyone might arrest her. In her mind, all she’d done was go shopping, her buying spree culminating with this nice young deputy taking her for a ride.

“Get the bracelets off her,” Heath ordered softly.

“But, Sheriff, she—”

Heath leaned down to put his face a scant, threatening inch from his deputy’s. Forcing a smile for Alma’s benefit, he grated out through clenched teeth, “
Now
, Moore.”

Tom leaped from his chair and scuttled around his desk to unlock the cuffs. He shot Heath a glare as he returned the restraints to the pouch on his belt. “I can’t understand you. She
steals
things, dammit. I’ve finally got her for grand theft.”

Heath signaled to Helen Bowyer, doing paperwork two
rows over. “Can you take it from here, Helen?” he asked. “Bag the evidence and put it in the safe. Then Alma would probably like some tea while she waits for her daughter. I always seem to make it too strong for her.”

“Hi, Mrs. Cresswell,” Deputy Bowyer called as she made her way toward Moore’s desk. “Wow, don’t you look fashionable today. I
love
that hat. Did you make it?”

“Why, yes,” Alma confessed, patting the ruffle on the bleach bottle. “Would you like me to make one for you?”

Helen flashed Moore a warning glance, then smiled brightly. “Oh, I’d love one! How sweet of you to offer.”

“Little Helen Evans, isn’t it?” Alma asked, leaning forward to peer up at Helen’s face. “My goodness, how you’ve grown up.”

Helen, who had just celebrated her fortieth birthday, winked at Heath. Smoothing a hand over her khaki trousers, which had grown snug across her hips in the last few months, she said, “I’ve grown out as well as up, I’m afraid.”

“I think you look lovely,” Alma assured her. “How are you coming with your fractions, dear? No more problems, I hope?”

Heath had heard the latter part of this conversation last week when Alma had been brought in. The old lady’s short-term memory was almost nonexistent, but events from long ago were still clear in her mind.

He planted a hand on Deputy Moore’s shoulder, squeezing hard and experiencing an unholy glee when the younger man winced. “Tell Mrs. Cresswell good-bye, Tom. I need to speak with you in my office.”

Face red with indignation, Tom tried to shift from under Heath’s hand, the attempt aborted by Heath’s tightening grip. “I’ll see you later, Mrs. Cresswell.”

“Thank you so much for the lovely ride,” Alma called. To Helen, she added, “I do so enjoy that little radio he has. You hear all kinds of interesting things while you’re driving. There was a collision at the corner of Pine and Madison just minutes ago. No injuries, thank heaven.”

Heath guided Moore across the busy room. When the two of them were inside his office with the door firmly closed, he finally released the younger man to turn and advance on him, nose to nose. “Moore, do you know the one and only reason I’m not going to fire your ass?” Heath rammed a finger against the deputy’s chest. “Because your daddy is the mayor, and right now, I’ve got enough problems without squaring off with him. But understand me, buster. I’m serving you official notice. Arrest that little old lady one more time, and your ass will be out the door. Have I made myself clear?”

Tom blinked. “I took an oath to uphold law and order. If necessary, I would arrest my own mother.”

“Why don’t you go do that?” Heath demanded. “Maybe then, your father will understand why you’re such a pimple on my ass.”

The intercom on Heath’s desk buzzed. He stepped over to take the call. “Yes, Jenny?”

The dispatcher’s voice crackled over the speaker. “I’ve got a hysterical old lady on the line. She says there’s some woman parading around across the street from her house, stripped stark naked except for a red garter belt, black stockings, and three-inch heels. She’s afraid her husband’s going to have a heart attack.”

A smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, Heath glanced over at his recalcitrant subordinate. “Deputy Moore has been angling for some excitement this morning. He’ll be more than happy to get right on it.”

Meredith turned, hung up the phone and bent to jot a note in her appointment book. She’d set up sixty-three shampooing demonstrations today. On an average, thirty percent of those people would buy shampooers, which meant a nice little chunk of commission for her. She leafed through the pages, looking for the following day’s date. Then she set to work calling to confirm demonstration appointments with customers.

Halfway through the list of numbers, Meredith paused in
her work and glanced out the window above her desk to check on Sammy, who was playing in the yard. The child was happily occupied with Goliath, who sat patiently at the little girl’s side, a frilly doll bonnet cocked at a silly angle over one ear and a pair of hot pink sunglasses riding on his broad nose.

Meredith smiled and shook her head. She was about to dial another phone number when she heard Heath’s Bronco pull into the drive. This morning when he dropped off Goliath, he’d told her he planned to stop by the building supply store for more lumber on his way home. She really should go help him unload it, she thought. But after his comment last night about her needing a husband, she was more determined than ever to keep her distance from him.
And
to make plenty of money so he could never use her poor earning power as a reason to talk about marriage again.

Goliath began barking. Meredith glanced up. It sounded as if another car had pulled into her driveway. She rose from her chair to peer through the parted curtains at the front window. Heath had just removed an armload of lumber from atop his Bronco. Squinting against the sunlight, he turned to gaze at the white van that had pulled to a stop behind his vehicle. The front doors of the van both opened, and two men spilled out, both of them wearing white shirts and dark slacks. The passenger rushed around to the van’s rear doors while the driver walked toward Heath.

“Bill,” she heard Heath say. “What brings you out this way?”

Though Heath seemed to know the man, his greeting was cool. Since Meredith had never seen either of the men before and she still had calls to make, she nearly turned away. But then she noticed the blue lettering, KTYX, on the side of the van, which was the logo of the local television station. Her stomach clenched, and her heart felt as if it leaped clear into her throat. She raced back through the house to go get Sammy. Unfortunately, by the time she got outside,
the man who had stepped to the back of the van already had his camera rolling.

Oh, God
. Trying her best to appear calm, Meredith walked across the yard, picked up Sammy, and returned to the house, Goliath trotting beside her.
Why were they here?
As she let the screen slam behind her, she felt as if her legs might fold.

Calm down. Heath is always being hounded by newsmen. They’ve come to interview him. That’s all. It has nothing to do with you
.

That thought made Meredith feel slightly better. No one in Wynema Falls was interested in doing a story on her. She was just another shadowy blur in the background.

Meredith took Sammy to her bedroom, dragged out a puzzle, and got the child interested in putting it together. Only then did she go back to the living room to peer through the crack of the curtains. To combat the late afternoon stuffiness, she’d opened the windows earlier, which allowed her to hear as well as see what was going on without being noticed.

“Bill, please,” she heard Heath say. “I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave. For old times sake, if for no other reason.”

“I can’t do that, Heath. I’ve been assigned this story, and it’s my job to report on it. Please don’t take it personally.”