Chapter Nine
“D o I really have to go to school on Rodeo Day?”
There was the slightest touch of a whine in Jeremy’s voice as he toyed with the last small sausage on his plate.
Tucker watched him with a smile, glad he’d accepted the invite to come up the hill and have breakfast with them.
Not so long ago the kid wouldn’t have cared one way or the other, because all capacity for such things had been blasted out of him by the loss of his mother.
So now, Tucker was happy to hear his voice, even if it was whiny.
“Now that,” Nic said as she looked at the boy across the table, “is a good question.”
“Would they really do that?” Jackson asked. “Cancel classes for that day?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Nic said. “Rodeo Day’s nearly the biggest thing in Last Stand, short of Christmas. We’ll have to ask somebody. Just have to figure out who.”
“Why don’t I ask when I pick him up this afternoon?” Tucker suggested.
Jeremy’s head came up. “You gonna come get me again?” he asked, sounding considerably more cheerful.
“Thought I would,” Tucker drawled.
“Yay!” Jeremy stuffed that last sausage in his mouth, chewing it hastily, then pushed back from the table.
“Teeth,” Jackson said.
Jeremy nodded, grabbed his plate, slid off of his chair and carried it to the kitchen. Then he headed down the hall to brush his teeth.
“You ought to go a little early,” Nic suggested, looking at Tucker.
“He getting out early?”
“No, but Emily might be there.”
He could not deny the thought had occurred to him. What unsettled him was that Nic had apparently known where his mind had gone. Jackson had told him she had good instincts about people, but…he didn’t want to admit even to himself that she had sensed anything, let alone what he was feeling.
Hell, he didn’t even know what to call what he was feeling.
Crazy. You forget what happens to cops all too often?
No, he hadn’t forgotten. And he never would. He just needed it pounded back home now and then.
“Maybe she will be there. I’m sure Jeremy would like to see Lobo again,” he said, careful to keep his tone neutral.
“Uh-huh,” Nic said, and a glance at her told him she’d seen right through his facade.
“I’d appreciate it if you were there in case Lobo and his partner can’t be,” Jackson said, setting down the coffee mug he’d just drained. “In case those kids try harassing him again.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Tucker confirmed. “You can’t, because it would be such a freaking big deal.”
Jackson sighed. “Yeah.”
“I think you might be surprised,” Nic said. “Last Stand has accepted you as one of their own now. And as you may have noticed, we’re a little protective. Look at Kane Highwater. He’s not quite your level of famous, but he’s getting there. And nobody in Last Stand would let anyone mess with him.”
“Point taken,” Jackson said.
“But I still think Tucker needs to go get Jeremy,” Nic said. “Because, you know, Emily.”
Tucker finally broke. “Will you stop?”
Nic gave him an innocent look. “Whatever do you mean?” When Tucker rolled his eyes, she laughed. But then, quite seriously, she said quietly, “I’ve known Emily for years. We went to school together. And in all that time I’ve never seen her react to someone the way she has to you.”
He nearly gaped at her. “What?”
“Let’s just say I haven’t seen her blush since her high school boyfriend dumped her publicly. And on the job she’s cool, collected, and competent. But you so much as smile at her and she gets flustered.”
He blinked. Was she serious? If that was flustered, then she must be as cool as ice the rest of the time. Or maybe he just didn’t know her well enough to be able to tell.
But I’d like to…
Whoa. A cop? Someone who put their life on the line every day? And too often paid the highest price? No way.
Jackson gave Nic an oddly intent look, which she registered with a furrowed brow. “Enough,” he said quietly.
Tucker felt the old pain shoot through him.
Jackson knew. He was one of the few who did.
He appreciated that he’d stepped in, but hated that he’d felt he had to.
He should be over it by now, after all these years.
Two decades, in fact. But sometimes he still felt like that kid, whose life had been blown apart with the news that the police officer who was his father was never coming home again.
Tucker stood up suddenly. He needed out of here. “Why don’t I take him to school today too. That way you two can…do whatever you do when no one’s around.”
“Now that,” Jackson drawled, with a heated glance at Nic, “is an offer I’m happy to take you up on.”
To Tucker’s satisfaction it was Nic who was blushing now.
And he couldn’t help grinning at her as he got up and did as Jeremy had done.
He waited while the boy gave the big golden dog a loving hug, then shepherded him out to the truck he’d been driving, with the Thorpe’s Therapy Horses logo on the door.
It made him feel better about being here, if he could see to Jeremy sometimes, giving them more alone time.
“Tell me if I make a wrong turn,” he told Jeremy as they pulled out onto the road.
“’Kay.”
“That was embarrassing, getting lost in this little town.”
“But if you get lost here, people will help,” Jeremy said, shoving what looked like a tablet into his backpack. “Not like back there.”
Those last words weren’t quite disdainful, but probably as close as a seven-year-old could manage. Obviously, the boy didn’t miss the big city at all. And frankly, Tucker couldn’t blame him. Even he felt different here. Less tense. Almost relaxed, even.
That is, he felt that way until he made the turn—which he knew this time but let Jeremy direct him anyway—onto Hickory from the Spur and saw the marked police unit parked just down from the main entrance of the elementary school.
She’s here.
“They’re here!” Jeremy yelped excitedly.
The moment he pulled the SUV to a halt near the front of the school the boy was scrambling out of the car.
As soon as he hit the sidewalk he headed that way at a run.
Tucker found himself smiling as the back hatch of the unit began to rise; she’d obviously done it from inside.
Then she opened the driver’s door, and he watched as one of those long legs slid out.
She wore boots, he’d noticed that before, although they were lace-ups rather than cowboy boots.
Although if he had to guess he’d say she probably had a pair or two of those stashed in the closet somewhere.
Jeremy was kneeling beside Lobo, petting him, by the time he got out and covered the ten or so yards between them. Jeremy was chattering to both dog and woman simultaneously. Tucker slowed down, for some reason wanting to hear the exchange.
“Good boy. Uncle T brought me again. I think ’cuz Dad and Nic were busy kissing again. Good dog. But they’re always kissing.”
“Are they?” Emily asked with an amused smile.
“All the time,” Jeremy said with a blithe wave of his hand.
“Do you mind?” she asked.
“Heck no. Dad’s happy now. An’ Nic kisses me, too, but not so sloppy.”
Tucker thought he heard the woman stifle a laugh. “If you’re happy, and they’re happy, then so am I.”
Jeremy got back up, looking up at the woman in uniform. Tucker wondered how such utilitarian garb still managed to look good on her. But then again, he couldn’t think of much that wouldn’t.
“You’re friends with Nic, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “We went to school together.” She nodded toward the building behind them. “This very school, for one.”
Tucker tried to picture her as a seven-year-old. He imagined a little blonde sprite in pigtails, an impish grin on her face. Before he let that image run away with him, he spoke for the first time. “Which you should be heading for right now, so you’re not late.”
“Oh, yeah. Later, Uncle T! Bye, Lobo and Officer Emily.” The boy headed for the main door at a run.
“He doesn’t seem to be worried about going in,” she said, sounding as if she were musing aloud.
“You took care of that.” Then, afraid he’d betrayed…something, he added, “You and Lobo here.”
She smiled at him, then looked down at the big dog. “He’s one you want on your side,” she agreed.
He could have just nodded, thanked her for being here again for Jeremy, and left. He could have, but he didn’t. Didn’t want to.
“Does it feel strange, to be here guarding the school you used to go to as a kid?”
She looked at him, as if considering what to say. He wondered if she always had to do that, think about her answers so much. He supposed so, at least when she was in uniform. Out of uniform—
He cut that thought off with the sharpest mental blade he had. Because the words “out of uniform” had him thinking things he had no business thinking.
“It feels good,” she finally said, not helping his effort. “I just do what Last Stand PD did when I was that kid here. Under the chief’s dad.”
He blinked. “Wait…Chief Highwater’s dad was also…”
“Chief Highwater,” she finished for him with a grin.
“Steven Highwater, to be exact.” The grin faltered, as if there were a sad memory connected to the name.
But she went on evenly. “And the current Chief Highwater’s brother Sean is a detective famous throughout the state for solving cases no one else can or has.
He’s married to one of the family who owns Valencia’s, the best Tex-Mex restaurant in town, and his wife’s mom taught at Creekbend High School for years.
His sister, Sage, used to be a part-time dispatcher, but now she runs their ranch and trains reining horses full-time.
And keeps her husband, Scott Parrish, who helps run the shooting range we train at, happy.
So lots of Highwater connections to the department. ”
He was starting to feel a little overloaded, but another name he’d heard came to mind. “And Kane Highwater? I assume he’s related?”
She was grinning now. “Yup. He’s the youngest brother. With a heck of a story of his own.”
“I like his music.”
“So do I. I go see him whenever he’s back in town. Which is more often now that he and Lark have connected. She,” she explained before he inevitably asked, “works for a private adoption agency. And to bring it back full circle, she also helped Tris Carhart work things out with Logan Fox.”
“I think I’m dizzy,” he admitted. This town of Last Stand was a very different sort of place.
Maybe the way it had begun, in a literal last stand, had affected the ground here somehow.
As if everybody here was bound together, connected, like those people who had fought off a far superior force all those years ago.
But what startled him most of all was that he’d been standing here having this conversation with a cop. A cop on duty, but still friendly, open, helpful, kind…
And sexy as hell.
Oh, no. You are so not going there.
Besides, it wasn’t that. He was just used to the “high tension all the time” attitude back in L.A. But he hadn’t really realized until now, when he was far away from it.
Yes, Last Stand was a different kind of town.