Chapter Twelve
“Where have you been?” Doris stood guard on the top porch step of the bed amp; breakfast with a well-dressed elderly woman when Julie approached. “You didn’t come back to Martin’s.”
Julie’s already-slow stroller pace came to a halt.
Birds sang in the big pine tree by the driveway, happy for the spring breeze and the warm sunshine. They sang despite Doris and her vinegary attitude.
“Birdy.” Duke angled his face up until he met Julie’s gaze. He grinned.
As long as he was fed and rested, Duke smiled at everyone. Julie didn’t feel like smiling. How dare Nate say he’d left the force because of her. How dare he imply she couldn’t work with him and conduct herself with dignity. She didn’t feel like smiling, but she lifted her lips toward Doris anyway, waiting to answer until she was closer.
Moving again, Julie reached the bed amp; breakfast porch steps, her hands shaking so hard it took her three tries to release Duke from the stroller. Darn you, Nate. “We went to El Rosal.”
“We? We?” At Julie’s nod, Doris sharpened her tone even more. “As in you and the boy? Or you and the enemy?” Doris’s attitude was the caustic kind that earned drivers speeding tickets, not warnings. “Leona serves coffee and breakfast here, you know.”
Speak of the devil, Leona opened the door and stared down at them all. “Are you expecting to come in?”
“Two of us are.” Julie made for the door, riding the energy of anger, hefting Duke, the backpack and the stroller up the stairs. “We need to check out. We’re leaving town.” She meant it this time.
Reggie bounced on her toes behind Leona, spouting an apology.
But Doris sputtered and cut her off, flinging her arms about. “Julie, you have to listen to what I have to say first.”
“I don’t, actually.” Julie tried to edge past Leona, but the battle-ax wasn’t letting her inside or Reggie out.
“Don’t go. Your friend Nate is a horrible lawman.” Doris crowded into Julie’s space and gestured to her elderly friend. “He forbade Lilac to drive around town.”
Nodding, Lilac slid her big round sunglasses into her short and stylishly streaked silver hair. She looked competent enough. Clear-eyed and steady handed.
“I see Nate all over town, working on people’s houses.” Doris hooked Julie’s arm with fingers that dug into flesh. “While he’s being paid to do police business.”
That caught Julie’s attention. “As a side job?”
“He abuses his power.” Doris increased the volume, so caught up in the moment she didn’t realize she was yelling in Julie’s ear. “He’s holding this town ransom.”
“That’s not true,” Reggie said, her voice echoing in the empty foyer.
Julie exchanged a glance with Leona, while Duke covered his ears.
“What you believe is up to you,” Leona said flatly.
“Leona doesn’t take sides on anything.” Lilac tossed a teal crepe scarf over her shoulder.
“I don’t take sides, but I do enjoy a good town shake-up.” Leona’s words were as hard as the hair spray lacquer on her salt-and-pepper beehive hairstyle. She was not a happy woman.
“We need a second candidate for sheriff.” Doris scooted between Leona and Julie, preventing her from entering.
Julie didn’t answer. Duke was getting heavier in her arms. He had his head tucked into the crook of her uninjured shoulder. Soon, he’d feel rested enough to run around some more. She wanted to pack up before he got rambunctious.
“I see the way you look at that boy.” Doris pointed to Duke. “You don’t want to give him to the sheriff to raise, and I don’t blame you.”
“A cute boy like that, why...” Lilac smiled with calculated sweetness, moving past Julie to join ranks with Leona and Doris. “The sheriff will ruin him.”
Julie knew she was being played. But the prize of the game tempted. She could keep Duke. She could stay in Harmony Valley and never point a gun again. She thought of her father, standing tall and proud in his highway patrol uniform. He’d approve of her being sheriff. She thought of her mother, holding vigil at Julie’s hospital bed. She’d approve of her being sheriff. She thought of April’s face when she told them there’d be no wedding. Would April approve?
The bear claw turned in her stomach.
She refused to imagine how April would feel. She’d come here to make Nate pay. He loved it here. If he lost...
Nate and Flynn sat at the back of the church in their usual seats.
This time they were flanked by other men in the community. In their pew, every man but Nate held a baby, a toddler, or a child in their lap.
Flynn held Ian.
Will held Travis.
Gage held Mae.
Duffy held Gregory.
Slade had his arms curled around Faith and Grace.
Nate’s arms were empty. He looked over his shoulder toward the door. No Duke. No Julie. He hadn’t seen them around town all day. And he’d driven by Doris’s house twice.
Nate slouched in his seat, visualizing a storm cloud forming over his head.
“She’ll be here,” Flynn said.
Nate wasn’t so sure. The air in the church felt thick, heavy and heralding a fast-moving storm.
The door behind Nate swung open.
“Nay!” Duke stumbled at the end of the church pew.
Nate gathered Duke into his lap and suddenly the cloud over his head dissipated.
Julie appeared in the aisle, looking SWAT ready in her khaki cargo pants and black utility shirt.
“Scoot over,” Nate said to the men in his row.
The pew creaked and groaned as the dads made room for Julie. She sat slowly, without looking at Nate, giving off a vibe weird enough to get that cloud forming over his head.
Her mood, like his rain cloud, was probably a figment of his imagination. “How are your accommodations at Doris’s?”
“I don’t know. I went to Cloverdale for diapers after breakfast, so I haven’t been by. We just got back.” She was babbling. Julie never babbled. Her rapid-fire words only increased Nate’s stress level. “They had a nice park. We had a nice lunch. I took Duke to a Disney movie.”
And here he’d thought Julie might be off with Doris plotting to win the sheriff’s race. Had Julie slept during the movie? It didn’t look like it. “I could have driven you.”
“During your shift?” She frowned, sparing him a glance rimmed with dark circles under her eyes.
“My shift is 24/7,” he murmured.
The mayor called the meeting to order with a bang of his gavel that startled the babies. “This is a special meeting to address the challenge to the public safety decisions the council has made. Rose, please read tonight’s agenda.”
“Reviewing public safety performance and registering candidates for sheriff elections,” Rose said. And that was all she said. For fast-talking, tap-dancing Rose that was an accomplishment.
Something was wrong.
Nate hunched his shoulders beneath the thick, dark cloud overhead.
“Don’t worry,” Flynn whispered, shifting a fussy Ian to his shoulder. “It’s not like anyone else in town is going to run.”
“We conducted an inquiry of sheriffs in other towns our size.” Mildred didn’t refer to notes. Given the thickness of her glasses, she wouldn’t have been able to see them. “Sheriff Nate has given out fewer citations than in those towns—”
“I told you,” Doris interjected from the front row where she sat next to Lilac.
“—but their demographics are different. Younger populations tend to lead to higher incidences of things like speeding, disturbing the peace and such.”
“All of which we also have here,” Nate pointed out to Flynn under his breath, while Doris huffed.
“Not all sheriffs are elected,” Mildred was saying. “And satisfaction with the sheriff wasn’t based on him being appointed or voted in.”
Rose drew the microphone closer, her tidy white bun gleaming in the light. “And no sheriff had 100 percent backing in any community.”
“We didn’t follow Robert’s Rules of Order the other night.” Agnes took possession of the microphone next. “Based on committee findings, and the fact that we have a termination clause in Sheriff Landry’s contract, I move we employ a sheriff who is elected by popular vote, with qualifications the same as for other council positions.” Agnes’s gaze found Nate in the crowd. She smiled reassuringly. “Election to be held as soon as possible to avoid interfering with the Spring Festival.”
“Second.” Mildred nodded.
There was a smattering of applause.
Awakened by the meeting noise, Ian began to whimper.
“All in favor?” Mayor Larry said.
The entire town council said, “Aye.”
An election. Anything could happen.
Nate forced air in his lungs. Agnes had told him to trust her. In some part of his mind, he’d been thinking the election would go away. He should have known better.
“Motion passed.” The mayor pounded his gavel. “Nate Landry. Are you willing to run for sheriff?”
Townspeople turned.
Nate stood, bringing Duke to his hip. “I am.”
Several people smiled at Nate. It was gratifying to know he had some support.
“Does anyone else wish to run?” Mayor Larry looked around.
The pews shifted and creaked. Some of the tension Nate felt eased. Flynn was right. No one else wanted the job.
And then Doris stood from her seat in the front pew and turned around. She looked right at Nate, brows lowered.
No. She wasn’t looking at Nate. She was looking at—
There was a noise next to him. Boots planted firmly on the wood floor. Pew creaking as someone stood.
“I do,” Julie said.
On occasion, when Nate let his guard down, he imagined hearing Julie say those words to an entirely different question.
But now… Today…
Betrayal sucked at the back of his knees until he had to sit down or risk falling with Duke in his arms. Doris’s interest in Julie at breakfast. Julie being unable to meet his gaze when she came in. He’d discounted her as a candidate because she was wounded and had only just achieved the position of SWAT.
“She can’t run,” Rutgar boomed from the pew behind Nate. “This town’s never had a female sheriff.”
Half the town stood up with a rumble of anger—the female half.
Everyone began talking at once.
Julie sat back down. Duke scrambled to her lap like a startled puppy in need of reassurance.
Nate’s rain cloud was back, flashing with lightning. “You could’ve told me, Jules. We could’ve discussed this.”
The fighter was back. Julie’s chin thrust out. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Betrayal gave way to the flush of anger. Did she think he was stupid? “I wouldn’t understand what a great place this is to raise a kid because you’re not planning to give me custody? Or I wouldn’t understand that you hate me so much you’d sabotage my career? Or I wouldn’t understand how afraid you are to return to active SWAT duty?”
She blanched.
And yet, I still find her attractive.
“Unbelievable,” Nate muttered.
“Well, this changes things.” Flynn stood, smiling apologetically at Julie—at Julie, not Nate. And then he said to Nate, “You’re going to need a campaign manager.”
“I’ll do it.” Rutgar banged the back of Nate’s pew with his crutches. “Printed signs, speeches, kissing babies, making friends and influencing people. It’s right up my alley.”
The black cloud descended, funneling Nate’s vision. Rutgar, the recluse, was his campaign manager? Nate’s run for office was doomed before it ever began.
“You’ve got my vote.” Lilac came up to Julie, a gauzy teal scarf knotted at her throat. She tugged on the knot as she spared Nate a deadly glance. “With you in charge, I will never receive a totally undeserved speeding ticket again!”
She’d deserved every driving citation she’d been given. She’d practically run Chad Healey down last year, and nearly killed Truman Harris’s dog the year before.
“I’m going to work to get you elected, missy.” Clementine Quedoba appeared next. She gave Nate a dirty look. “My son’s in jail because of the sheriff. A woman might’ve gone easy on him.”
Nate supposed it wouldn’t help his cause to say he’d caught her son Carl stealing copper from vacant buildings and homes in town. Carl may have gone to prison, but he hadn’t made financial restitution for the damage he’d done to the property of others.
The elderly women whisked Julie and Duke out of the pew and away from Nate just as the elderly male residents of Harmony Valley crowded toward Nate. They didn’t so much want to talk to Nate as to strategize to the group at large.
“I’m in charge here.” Rutgar pounded his crutches on the floor, trying to take control. “We’ll need to use every trick in the book for this.”
“The sheriff is sneaky. He’ll be fine.” Wilson Hammacker should know sneaky. He’d hid his drinking for years.
“I’m telling you...” Rutgar argued, but the other elderly men outtalked him, tossing out ideas in a jumble of indecipherable noise.
The men Nate’s age made their way out of the other end of the pew with their babies and toddlers.
Flynn caught Nate’s gaze as he made a break for the door. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Betrayed by Julie. Abandoned by his friends. Hung out to dry by the town council. How much worse could it be?
“Who’s making signs?” Old Man Takata banged his walker against the pew. “You can put one in my yard.”
“What we should do is have a contest, like we do for the Pumpkin Queen.” This came from the mayor, of all people. He’d finally found a cause that made him abandon neutrality.
“Who can handcuff a perp the fastest,” Wilson suggested. “Or who does the best traffic stop.”
“Our sheriff should be the best shooter.” Rutgar got to his feet and leaned on his crutches. “We need a shooting competition.”
“What about a chicken capture?” Old Man Takata got on the outrageous suggestion bandwagon. “I’ve seen the sheriff wrangle chickens. He’s very good.”
“These are all fantastic ideas.” Mayor Larry beamed. “They need to be presented to the town council.”
The elderly men hurried to the front of the church, presumably to present their ideas to the women surrounding Julie and the town council.
Nate couldn’t sneak out as Flynn had, not when the gist of the meeting involved his livelihood. He leaned back in the pew, listening to suggestions, but not hearing anything more, not wanting to listen. For better or for worse, he had an election ahead of him.
By the time the chaos died down, it’d been decided that the brief election season would include a series of contests and events, ending in a vote.
It was all looking worse.
The barking began with the first car door slam. Doris’s.
It intensified when Julie closed the SUV door in Doris’s driveway.
She removed Duke from his car seat in the back. “Are you sure this is okay?” Nothing had felt right since she’d entered the church. She should have celebrated pulling the rug out from under Nate by running against him. But when she’d announced her candidacy, the shocked look on Nate’s face hadn’t given her any pleasure.
What is wrong with me?
Julie rolled her eyes. She had a long list.
The yapping didn’t stop. Duke began to bark, too.
“Let me put the dogs up.” Doris opened the door. More barking ensued. Louder barking. Little dog barking.
Little dogs? Chihuahuas perhaps? This shouldn’t have come as a surprise given Doris’s wardrobe choices.
The next-door neighbor was returning from the town council meeting. He shook his head and hurried inside, muttering something Julie couldn’t catch.
Julie slung the diaper bag over her good shoulder and picked up Duke in case some little dog saw the toddler as an intruder and nipped at him. “This has mistake written all over it.” She’d return for the bedroll and duffel bag once she scoped out the situation inside.
“The coast is clear.” Doris waved to her from the front door. She lived in a small ranch house painted coral with white trim. The shrubs in front were as stunted as Doris. A bass-fishing boat sat on a trailer in the street in front of the house, which was technically a violation. Did that account for one of her tickets?
Duke was quiet as she carried him inside, wide eyed.
The floors were a dark laminate. A small pink love seat and two teal high-backed chairs that looked uncomfortable were arranged around a low pine coffee table. There were pictures of dogs on the wall. Framed pictures. Sometimes an extreme close-up. Sometimes a dog posing on a table next to a trophy.
So what, if Doris loved dogs? Julie supposed someone who wasn’t in law enforcement would think her apartment was odd. She had black-and-white still photos of lawmen of the West hanging on her living room wall.
The barking was muffled now, but no less intense and possibly accounted for another one of Doris’s citations.
The house smelled of dogs, and not just dog hair. Ugh. Responsible aunts only stayed in a place like this as a last resort.
Women running for sheriff shouldn’t be living a life of last resorts.
“I’ll put you in the guest room.” Doris scurried down the hall. “Have you had dinner?”
“Yes.” Having lost her way to responsible aunt status sometime in the past forty-eight hours, Julie followed.
The smell was better in the guest room. It had a full-size bed with a blue log cabin quilt on it. Dog crates were stacked along one wall. Dog food bags, bulk packages of potty pads, boxes of dog chews and treats, and folded portable dog pens were stacked in front of the window. If there was a fire, there’d be no escaping through the window. Not to mention if Duke got inquisitive, there’d be an avalanche of dog supplies on top of him.
Julie didn’t think she could stand to sleep in the living room with that smell. She’d have Duke sleep on the bed, and she’d cram herself on the floor somewhere in case she had a nightmare and latched onto him the way she had Leona.
“How many dogs do you have, Doris?” She set Duke on the bed.
He began barking again.
Doris smiled as if Duke’s barking was the cutest thing. “I only have a few breeders and some puppies.”
It sounded like more than a few. If Julie had to guess, it was a doggy dozen.
After showing Julie the kitchen and bathroom, Doris bade them goodnight, claiming she fell into the “early to bed, early to rise” camp.
Julie brought in the rest of their things and cleared a small space on the floor at the foot of the bed. Duke was already asleep. She dropped some pillows on the floor, lay on Duke’s dinosaur bedroll and removed her shoes and socks.
For what seemed like hours, she listened to Doris’s TV and the frequent chorus of barks—at passing cars, at cat fights, at loud commercials with doorbells from Doris’s room. It seemed as if she’d never fall asleep, but Julie must have dozed, because she woke to the memory of gunshots and blood. Her hands were shaking, and it took her a moment to remember where she was—in Doris’s guest bedroom.
The house was finally silent. She dug in her pocket for Nate’s worry stone.
Nate had told her to take charge of her life and heal. He’d been nothing but helpful and kind since she’d come to Harmony Valley. And how had she repaid his kindness? With a knife in the back. What would her dad think of that?
For nearly three years, she’d dreamed of ruining Nate’s life. She should feel happy or vindicated or at peace with the world. She felt sickened.
Her mouth was dry. She got up, intending to get a drink in the bathroom. She closed the bedroom door behind her. But even roughing it and drinking from the sink didn’t quench her thirst or settle the tumultuous feeling in her gut that something wasn’t right.
She wandered out to the kitchen and found a glass in the cupboard above the sink. Light from the full moon spilled through the kitchen window so she didn’t have to turn on the light and risk waking Doris.
Nails clacked slowly across the laminate. A shadow approached from the living room. A short shadow. One about eight inches high with four legs and a tail.
“Nice doggy,” Julie whispered, willing it not to bark.
It didn’t bark. It lunged and nipped Julie’s ankle. Once. Twice. Not hard enough to break the skin, but stinging, angering.
“No!” Julie said in the growly voice the canine unit used, which set off a round of barking somewhere in the house. She reached for the light switch, turning on the garbage disposal instead. It growled more fiercely than the pint-size dog that bit her again. She drew back into the corner of the kitchen and shouted this time. “No!”
The dog latched onto her pants leg and growled.
Lights blinded her.
“Freeze.” Doris appeared in the kitchen doorway, her hair wrapped in a pink turban. She wore a blue checked nightshirt, slippers with Chihuahuas embroidered over the toes, and pointed a handgun at Julie. “Oh.” She lowered the barrel, but it was still aimed at Julie’s feet. Or maybe the dog.
“Don’t point that gun at me.” Julie’s fingers flexed for a weapon of her own, making her heart beat like it wanted out of her chest. Having a gun in hand didn’t make her safe, not if she was unwilling to pull the trigger. “We can’t stay here.”
Now her responsible-aunt gene reared its head?
“But it’s the middle of the night.” Doris gestured with the gun as if it was an extension of her hand. “I didn’t think you’d get up. That’s why I let Bruiser out on patrol.”
Julie took the gun from Doris and set the safety. She placed it on the white stove which had a layer of what looked like bacon grease ringing the main burner. “We’re leaving.” She walked down the hall, dragging a growling furry cling-on attached to her pants leg.
“You can’t go. You’re the perfect candidate for sheriff.” Doris followed as close to Julie’s heels as she could get without stepping on the dog. “You disarmed me.”
“It wasn’t that hard.” Julie was truly disgusted with herself. She should have known better than to trust Doris. Since the shooting, she’d been making one bad decision after another “Do you have a permit for that thing?”
That thing being the Glock.
“I don’t need a permit. I’m not a criminal.” There was that holier-than-thou note to her voice that got under Julie’s skin.
Julie wanted to thunk herself on the head. She’d thrown in her lot with a woman who didn’t think the law applied to her? She’d given her word in front of the town that she’d run for sheriff? “Everyone who owns a handgun in California needs a permit.”
“It’s just a piece of paper,” Doris explained in the same tone of voice Julie had once used to tell her dad her fender bender had resulted in just a scratch. “Besides, it’s not like I wave my gun around. I keep it in my purse.”
“That’s carrying concealed.” Two violations of the law.
“You really know your stuff.” Doris was either thicker than a layer of snow after a Sierra snowstorm or she thought Julie was. “You’re the perfect candidate for sheriff.”
“So you’ve said.” Nate would have a good laugh over this. Or maybe he’d give her that contained half smile and not say a word.
“Don’t leave me.” Doris latched onto Julie’s hand.
“I can’t stay. I can’t let Bruiser bite Duke.” Julie stood at the guest bedroom door and shook her leg, but Bruiser refused to let go. She shook her arm, but Doris refused to let go. “Get your hands off me and take your dog before I tip off Nate and he writes you enough citations to wallpaper your house, not to mention throws you in jail.”
Nate tapped on the passenger window of Julie’s red SUV at two a.m.
The passenger seat was reclined, and Julie was reclined with it. Duke lay on top of her, covered by his dinosaur bedroll. Neither one of them woke up at his knock.
Nate glanced up and down Kennedy Avenue. He couldn’t see far. Fog clung to rooftops, blocking streetlights, and chilled his body to the bone. Julie’s windows were mostly clouded over, and the SUV’s engine was silent. She’d been here awhile. He wouldn’t have found out she was sleeping in her vehicle if Terrance hadn’t called it in.
So much for thinking the old man’s pajama-themed walkabouts had ended when he’d taken to shaving and ironing again.
But that wasn’t Nate’s immediate problem. His immediate problem was sprawled in her SUV like someone on the run. This wasn’t the woman he’d worked with in Sacramento. This woman needed his patience and compassion.
Patience and compassion weren’t what Nate was feeling. No. It was anger. Anger that Julie had exposed Duke to the elements.
He rapped harder on the window.
Julie startled, opening her eyes. She clutched Duke when she realized there was a man at her door.
“It’s me.” Nate motioned for her to open the window, holding his temper in check with a thin thread.
It was twenty seconds before the window slid down.
He’d counted.
“You aren’t going to win any votes as a homeless sheriff.” Nate had to keep this civil, or he’d start to yell. He could feel shouts forming in his chest like cannonballs. Are you nuts? What are you doing? Didn’t you think of Duke at all? “Follow me back to the station.” His truck was parked in front of her SUV.
“We’re fine,” Julie said inanely, still half-asleep and looking halfway short of fine. She had a bad case of bed head and her sallow complexion in the streetlight looked certifiably corpse-like.
He leaned in the window. “We have vagrancy laws in town. It’s within my rights to haul you in.” He drew a deep breath, noting Duke shivering, noting Julie shivering, noting Julie made no move to move.
He marched around the SUV, got in behind the wheel, adjusted the seat from recline and drove them home. To jail.
“I put him down in the driver’s seat,” Julie said in a dazed voice, holding Duke in her arms. “I thought he’d be safe there.”
“With the key in the ignition?” Kudos to Nate for using his indoor voice.
“He climbed into my lap.” She didn’t seem to register the point Nate was making. “I didn’t even wake up.”
Nate wanted to shout, “Because you’re half dead!”
He didn’t think yelling would help matters. So, he counted some more. He counted past Madison. Across Harrison. Down Main Street.
When he parked in front of the sheriff’s office, he came around to her side of the SUV and relieved her of Duke. “I take it things didn’t work out with Doris.” He held the office door for her, and then he carried Duke up the stairs.
“We can sleep down here.” Julie still sounded half-asleep.
“No. You can’t sleep in the jail.” He didn’t trust her not to walk out at sunrise. Nate opened the door at the top of the stairs and carried Duke to the bed in his studio apartment. “The sheets were clean since yesterday. Don’t flush when the shower’s running or it’ll turn cold.”
She sat on the mattress next to Duke. Only her sit was more like a collapse. “Thank you.” She had something clutched in her fist. She set it on the bedside table.
It was his mother’s worry stone.
Nate bit back a curse and pulled up a chair from the kitchen table. He took Julie’s hands in his. They were like ice. “What were you thinking? Why didn’t you call?”
“It was horrible. One of her dogs bit me.” Julie’s mouth worked as if she was fighting tears. “I should have gone home, but I promised to run for sheriff. And my dad always said you had to honor a promise. And I couldn’t call you because I didn’t want you to think that I couldn’t take care of Duke.”
He fought the urge to pull her into his arms. “That’s the exhaustion talking. I would’ve respected you if you had called me.”
She closed her eyes. “I can’t seem to do anything right since—”
“Don’t say since the shooting. Don’t define your life that way.” Nate shook her hands, thought better of it and framed her cold cheeks with his palms. “You aren’t to blame for that woman dying.”
She raised her tear-filled gaze to his. “How would you know?”
“The woman you shot was cornered, afraid and angry. She made a choice. She drew her weapon.”
“She didn’t deserve to die.” And there it was. The heart of her sleeplessness.
Nate grabbed her arms, bringing her to her feet, as well. “She could have walked out of that house when the negotiators asked. She could have turned herself in. But she didn’t. She held her own children hostage. She was trapped and scared and wanted to hurt someone. She wanted someone to end her pain.”
Julie’s eyes were huge, desperate to believe she wasn’t a cold-blooded killer.
“Yes, suicide by cop.” Nate nodded. “But you… You protected your unit. You made sure they got home safe to their loved ones.”
Julie’s hands crept up his chest. “She haunts me.”
Nate glanced at the worry stone next to the bed. “She doesn’t deserve to blame you.” He drew Julie closer and stroked a hand down her back, breathing her in the same way he’d done with Duke days ago. She smelled of daisies and damp. “You have to take care of yourself. If not for you, for Duke.”
Julie shuddered. “The nightmares. I can’t sleep in the same bed as Duke.”
Nate drew her closer still. He’d take away her pain and ease her suffering if he could.
“I...” Julie sighed and relaxed in his arms. “Leona checked on me last night during a nightmare and I put her in a choke hold.”
Now it was Nate who was chilled. He hadn’t realized her symptoms from the shooting were that bad. “It’ll be all right. I’ll get his bedroll. Duke can sleep in the chair.”
“Don’t leave,” she whispered, so faintly he thought he might have imagined it until she stepped free of his embrace, took him by the hand and drew him down on the bed. “He’ll be safe if you’re with us. Just...don’t talk. Just...stay with me.”
Those words...
Longed for, dreamed of...
Nate couldn’t have left Julie if he wanted to.
Nate sat on the bed, his back to the wall.
Julie sat close, staring at Nate with luminous eyes that had taken on more pain than she was ready to handle. She’d arrived in town with vengeance on her mind, but fear in her heart. She’d always fought for what was right. But she’d lost track of the boundary where right ended and wrong began.
Julie took his pillow, placed it in his lap and rested her head on it.
Nate ran his hand up and down her back with a slow, light touch. He wanted to bring her into his arms and kiss her fears away. But she didn’t want that. She didn’t want him. She wanted a guardian to watch over her nephew.
Her breathing steadied, deepened.
How little it took for her to fall asleep.
How little it took for his heart to pang with longing.