Kitabı oku: «I Shocked The Sheriff»

1

ROXANNE ADAMS RAN her dry tongue over parched lips. “Damn. I’ve done it again.”

“Ohh,” she said as she raised her head and then rotated her neck. She grabbed the steering wheel in a punishing grip. The smell of vanilla car freshener filled her senses.

This time I’m safe in the Porsche.

Wearily she rested her head on the top edge of the steering wheel. She didn’t want to replay the episode from so long ago, but the nightmare scene from her last binge boiled over. The drunken man had lifted his head to tell her what a pretty girl she was. Naked, she’d looked up into his filthy face and had seen a mirror of what she’d become.

That vision kept her sober. That vision, the twelve steps, and all her friends from AA. It’d been over two years.

I can handle this. I can. I have to.

Tears moistened her gritty eyes. Sure, cry, you ninny, she told herself as she rubbed them. But Joey’s hanging on. He might have tried to kill himself, but he’s gonna get a second chance whether he wants to or not and this time he’ll make it.

Roxy groaned, then lifted her head from the steering wheel. She knew if she looked in the mirror there’d be a funny circle imprint on her forehead. It had happened before, more times than she cared to count. Sometimes she’d still been drunk and it had seemed funny, but not today.

Today, she was sober. She felt a cautious sense of elation.

Knocking on the window got her attention. She looked over into the condemning eyes of a man in a familiar uniform. That must have been what had awakened her. Why, oh why, had she driven out here?

But she knew. Driving out here had saved her.

“Open your door, please. I won’t ask you again.”

What was he going to do about it? Shoot out the windows? Drag her out of the car by her hair? The Porsche was legally registered in her name, a gift of love from her father for staying sober for a whole year. She’d tell this big, bad cop a thing or two…respectfully, of course.

No sense in ending up in a hick holding tank for sassing the local law. No matter how desperate her high school was for teachers, they’d fire her in a heartbeat if they found out she’d spent her summer vacation in a West Texas jail.

Funny, how the youngest person in her AA group had inspired her to use her degree to teach and mentor at the high school. Finding a purpose had helped her to stay sober, and watching over kids who had it rougher made her appreciate her life.

She grinned at the irony, relishing even this nowhere place and this nobody cop who’d come to rescue her. Wallowing in the sheer relief of being sober.

Roxy unlocked the car doors.

“Step out of the car slowly.”

She pushed herself away from the steering wheel. It didn’t do any good to argue with certain types of cops—his kind of cop. She could tell by the look in his frigid brown eyes.

Still sitting, facing forward, she put one tentative foot outside, grateful for the firmness of the ground and the rustle of dry grass beneath her sandal as a familiar wave of dizziness washed over her.

She breathed deeply, filling her lungs several times before she noticed him shifting in apparent frustration. “I’m sorry, officer. I’m unsteady this morning. Forgot my medication. Ran out of gas. An all-around unhappy morning.”

Roxy’s tone wasn’t flip, but it wasn’t placating, she didn’t have placating in her soul, no matter how many spectacular mistakes she’d made.

He looked her over as if she were roadkill. He’d likely found less pleasant company on the side of the road, but she guessed he wouldn’t admit it. She ran her tongue over her teeth. She hadn’t brushed them, but she hadn’t been drinking, either. Lucky for him, my breath won’t be too toxic.

“You think you could pass a Breathalyzer?” he asked.

Of course, a sheriff from Hicksville would assume the worst. She slung the other leg around the edge of the seat. There she sat facing him, feet on the ground, grass tickling her calves. She resisted the urge to tug on her very short shorts. It would just draw attention to her naked thighs. Out here, anyone not wearing jeans and cowboy boots probably ended up arrested for indecent exposure.

“I haven’t been drinking.” She tried on a smile. Flipped a hunk of hair over her shoulder. Let him think whatever he wanted to just as long as he gave her a lift to the nearest gas station with a rest room.

He looked her over. “What kind of medicine?”

He’d obviously been paying attention to more than her lank red hair and the circles under her eyes. Score one for the policeman. “Do you have any orange juice? I’m worried about my blood sugar.”

“Are you claiming to be diabetic?” He sounded skeptical.

“I’m borderline diabetic. And I’m out of gas. So I guess I’m going to be riding with you. If you’ll help me to my feet we can start for town.” Then she remembered. “If there’s a town in this godforsaken place.”

“You don’t even know where you are? Don’t you know it’s dangerous to run out of gas in West Texas in the middle of the hottest summer on record? In a few hours you’d be cookin’ in that car and there’s no shade and no water for quite a ways.”

She grimaced up at him. This was familiar territory. All cops liked to give lectures. “Actually, I drove all this way just so I could try my hand at hitchhiking along a desert highway in the middle of summer.” She brushed her hair back again. “And I think it’s unkind of you to deprive me of that scintillating experience.”

“That fancy word tells me that you’re educated, but you’re not very smart. You could have died of heat prostration out here.”

Roxy licked her dry lips, imagining being stuck here even more thirsty than she already was. “I guess I just wasn’t thinking straight.”

She was telling the truth. Her longtime friend Joey had attempted suicide after being dry for six months. The shock had hit her hard and fast. And the five-year-old memory of finding her brother, overdosed on Ecstasy, had followed on its tail, kicking her in the teeth like it was yesterday. She’d felt brittle, an urge away from tumbling headfirst off the wagon.

Instead Roxy had grabbed her keys, driving the loneliest stretches of roads she could find. Anything to avoid the neon lure of civilization and alcohol.

“Ma’am, I need to see your identification. Where’re you from?”

“I’m from Dallas. I have my driver’s license here somewhere.” She reached around to look for her purse and found it wasn’t under the seat where she usually stowed it. She looked in the back seat and didn’t see it there. In fact the car looked decidedly bare. In her rush to get away she hadn’t brought her purse, her phone, or anything else.

“Gosh, darn it!” Swearing was not allowed at school and she cringed at the sound of her silly exclamation. Too bad it doesn’t go with his image of me as a lowlife. She would have enjoy harassing this hick, if not for her hard-won job.

Roxy turned back and put her feet on the ground again. The fresh air smelled good, but now she caught the faintest scent of warming asphalt. Add lots of exhaust and it’d be just like home. Roxy looked up at him and shrugged. “Sorry, no purse.”

“Miss Dallas, you’ve got no straight answers and no identification?”

“I’m full of straight answers. You just haven’t asked me the right questions.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. Do you usually drive without your license?”

She shrugged. “I was slightly upset when I left home.” Understatement of the century. “I forgot it.”

“You don’t leave me with any choice. I’ll have to run you into Red Wing and you can sit at the station until we get some confirmation of who you are.”

“Red Wing?”

“It’s a town about ten miles from here. You’re lucky I had business out at Pete’s place or you’d have been in a world of hurt. This is a lonely stretch of road.”

“Do they have gas pumps and orange juice in Red Wing?”

He nodded.

Roxy didn’t know why she bothered being sarcastic. He didn’t even notice. It was almost as irritating as his cop attitude. Because he sure was a handsome man under that uniform, with a body good enough to wake her slumbering hormones.

Down, girl. She’d always been a sucker for broad shoulders and a tight little bottom, but the tight-ass attitude belonged to a cop. It’s not hormones. It’s just my blood sugar.

“I’ll need your keys so I can lock the car.” He looked at her expectantly. It took a minute, but she soon realized he meant for her to get up. She knew she’d never make it to her feet so she held out one hand. “If you don’t want to haul my butt out of the grass you’d better help me up. I’m dizzy as all get out.”

He took her hand as if it were the last thing he wanted to do. He sure was tall. Once she stood up she had to tilt her head back to look up into his face.

“Thank you.” She said it rather reluctantly since it felt like he’d rather be hauling a carcass off of the road.

He didn’t seem to notice her attitude for which she was famous. Roxy handed him the keys with a grimace. Be smart, girl. Don’t challenge him. He’s not worth getting fired over.

He nodded, putting the keys in his pocket and one hand on her arm. She tried to pull away, but it only made her more dizzy so she accepted his touch while doing her best to ignore the zing that had all her nerves humming. He walked her to his car as if she were an old woman, towering over her despite her height and the two-inch heels on her sandals.

His impersonal attitude didn’t upset her, she told herself. She didn’t care if the gorgeous cop from Hicksville saw her as a stray and not as a woman. He probably had a wife and six children back at the ranch.

The only thing that mattered was that she’d done it. Stayed sober despite extreme provocation. It proved…well, it didn’t prove anything. Twenty-six years old and she’d still run, still hadn’t been strong enough. Over two years sober and she was still afraid.

Terrified.

So I’ll just keep fighting it the way I have been—one day at a time. And today’s a good day, another day clean. She hummed a little ditty on the way to the police car.

SHERIFF LUKE HERMANN started his car and then pulled out from behind the eye-popping-yellow Porsche. That was a custom paint job if he’d ever seen one. The car was a beaut and so was the woman.

He didn’t say anything else to the redheaded woman he’d dubbed Miss Dallas. And not because he was usually tongue-tied around beautiful women. No, this woman didn’t count because he was working, and a woman who’d slept in her car should be decidedly unattractive, not long, lean, and lethal.

Luke shook his head.

He couldn’t be sure to what extent she’d broken the law, besides not having her driver’s license with her. He would soon find out.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

Her voice sounded like she’d been chewing gravel or chain smoking for forty years and she didn’t look a day over thirty.

He glanced at her. She gave him an affected smile that told him she didn’t like cops any more than he liked her. Luke knew she had an attitude a mile wide under her carefully chosen words.

“My name’s Sheriff Hermann.”

She just nodded and sat silently. Then she leaned back and appeared to go to sleep. His own disappointment startled him. He’d wondered what she might say next. She looked to be full of surprises.

Usually he didn’t like surprises. That’s why he’d come back to the town he’d grown up in. He knew everyone, their family histories, and their propensity for breaking or bending the law. Usually trouble was a long time brewing and he could anticipate it, prevent it.

Sometimes.

He wasn’t a hero, but he protected his own.

So how come the tall gal didn’t rouse his protective instincts? Her sassy mouth and all that red hair hit him in a more visceral spot. Easy, boy. You don’t usually do your thinking with your balls.

She stirred, apparently not asleep after all. “I’ll need your name.” He shouldn’t bother asking—without proper identification she probably wouldn’t give him her real name. But it was worth a shot.

“I’m Roxy, Roxanne Adams.”

He nodded. Under any other circumstances he might be saying “pleased to meet you,” and meaning it.

“You’re a woman of few words, Miss Adams.”

“Uh-huh.”

He shook his head. He hadn’t a clue what to do with her. “You feeling okay?”

She rolled her head toward him on the seat. For the first time he noticed her eyes were blue. As deep and blue as the creek on his fishing property down in Comstock. The whites were clear. It didn’t look as if she was recovering from a binge or coming off of a drug high. And she hadn’t stolen the car.

This woman fit that car perfectly.

“I’m okay.” She turned away from him, slouching deep into the seat, and wedged one knee on the glove compartment.

Luke sneaked a look at her legs. Lord, they went on for a good ways. He didn’t even give her heck about putting her knee on his dash. His mouth went dry and he longed to reach for a Dr. Pepper from his stash behind the seat. Tapping on the steering wheel, he wondered how such a tall gal fit those legs into that little car.

While Luke subtly watched her, she dropped into sleep. Roxanne Adams fell asleep as easily as a child, like she had an off switch. She had a fine body to go along with those long legs. He was chagrined that he noticed the way her seat belt hugged her high, rounded breasts.

She’s trouble. Because he was thinking about her all wrong. But she isn’t the kind of trouble I have to worry about. I’ll just drop her off at the clinic and she can be someone else’s problem. He pulled his eyes away from her and tried to focus on the road. But every time she gave a little sigh he felt it tug at something deep inside.

He hated misjudging people. And lately Luke had begun to wonder if the job was hardening him. Here he was treating this woman as if she’d done something wrong, because she stirred him. What was he supposed to do with a woman who talked hard but slept like a defenseless child with her hair curling around her face?

He pulled into the small clinic, which served the town in emergencies. Then he gently shook her awake. The pallor of her skin made a sprinkle of golden freckles stand out like bits of brown sugar all across her nose.

He watched the dawning awareness in her eyes with regret. For a moment she’d been sleepy—vulnerable. Then she recognized him and her expression hardened. She had been in trouble before. He’d let those long legs distract him. He should have been angry that he’d given her the benefit of the doubt; instead it made him curious.

Roxanne blinked and sat up. She looked out the car window. “Oh, shi…shoot. A clinic. The only thing worse than a clinic is the police station.”

“Seen your share of holding pens?” he asked.

She swung her head in his direction. A hint of a smile lurking around her mouth. “Not for a long time. What gave me away?”

“I’ve seen your type before.”

She turned away. “That’s the problem with cops’ types. They can’t see past the stereotypes to the person.”

Luke didn’t acknowledge the direct hit to his ego. He always tried to be fair, but after years in law enforcement, the criminals wore you down. You trusted your instincts less and your experience more, and because he didn’t want her to be a criminal, he’d broken all of his own rules.

“Nothin’ you want to say?” she asked, rubbing her hand over her face.

That childlike gesture made him wonder. He shored up his cynicism and shook his head.

“I should call my father. He’ll be worried.”

“Miss Adams, I’ll help you get in touch with your father once we’re inside.” Let the doc have her. He’ll tell me if she’s got a medical problem or a habit.

She nodded. “Probably a good idea to deal with my blood sugar first so I’m coherent when I call him, otherwise he’ll be on his plane in a heartbeat.”

He wondered what it would be like to have a private plane at your disposal. Was being rich what made her so sassy?

“Then I guess we’re going in. Is it going to be a needle?” She rubbed her arm as if already feeling the sting.

“A test.”

“A drug test?” Her eyebrow arched above her eye.

Her eyebrow matched the shade of her hair. He would have expected her to be a fake. But it seemed that her vibrant hair color was natural. “A blood sugar test.”

She rewarded him with a perfect smile that hit him in the gut like a fist. “Fancy that, a blood sugar test. I figured ya’ll still used horse piss and leeches.”

He turned away, busying himself with opening his door, determined she wasn’t going to get a rise out of him. He looked over when he heard the opposite door open.

She stepped out on her side but once on the sidewalk she swayed like tall grass in a storm. He stepped around the front of his vehicle and when he reached her side he grasped her shoulders with his hands. “I’ve got ya.”

Roxanne Adams tried to step away from him. “The hell you do. I can walk into the clinic. I’ll just tell my body I’ll reward it with orange juice if it walks just those few steps. You do have orange juice?”

Luke squashed his appreciation of her grit and the lust those long, lean curves inspired. She needed him. “I insist on helping you. I don’t want you to sue Doc Peterson if you land on the sidewalk on your head.”

“Really, Officer, I’m fine,” she protested, literally trying to stand her ground.

He just propelled her along, one of the benefits of being taller and stronger than even the tallest of the fair sex. “I’ll help you. We wouldn’t want you to fall down and get bruises. You might claim police brutality was involved.”

“Brutality? Like your grip on me? Are you afraid I’ll go running off and get lost in the crowds?” She gestured toward the almost empty street where Mrs. Henderson walked her ancient dog and three kids rode bikes.

He grinned and loosened his grip just a little.

She smiled back easily enough. So why did he get the impression those smiles were a rare occurrence?

“I’d never claim you’d been anything other than downright decent…for a cop.”

Luke’s experience said she wasn’t someone he should stick his neck out for, yet his instincts said otherwise. And his body clamored. But Roxanne Adams was trouble any way you looked at her. And he had to consider Carla, his longtime girlfriend.

Suddenly Roxy went limp in his arms. An unusual sense of alarm thrummed through him. He’d been tested in many different kinds of situations, but this felt different. He gently scooped her up and carried her into the clinic, wishing he knew what kind of trouble they were headed for.

“WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?” Her voice couldn’t sustain the intended irascibility. But her eyes burned at him.

He wondered how her parents slept at night worrying about her. He hadn’t been able to squash his unease while waiting to discover what was wrong with her and it had made him testy. “I think I’m lookin’ at roadkill.”

“Such a nice sentiment. Are all country boys so poetic?”

She thinks I’m a hick. That should ease the ache in my loins.

Yet he wondered. Why was he in this hick town? Suddenly he could see it through her eyes and he wondered if it was small-town inertia holding him in Red Wing. The reassurance of familiar places and people. I really need to see Carla. He’d been going out with his lady for several years, and today he couldn’t remember the fragrance of her perfume.

And yet, all day he’d been remembering the smell of the vanilla air freshener in the Porsche. “Well, Miss Dallas, us hicks managed to patch you up without the leeches and horse piss.”

“Patch me up? Is that what you call it?”

“I take it you’re not feeling much better.”

She widened her eyes. “I guess not.”

“When was the last time you stopped for something to drink? You were really dehydrated. They gave you a shot big enough for a horse.”

“That’s probably all they have in this one-horse town.”

He shook his head. “Not really a big shot. Just the IV in your arm for a couple of hours. You were conscious, talking, but sleepy. Don’t you remember?”

She pushed her hair off of her face. “I remember the doctor talking to me but not much he said. I sleep like a dead person.”

“You were pretty out of it.”

“Did you wait so you could take me down to the station when I woke up? Are you desperate for company? Can’t be too many women in this town under eighty.”

“Is there any reason for me to take you down to the station?” He looked at her intently. “You got anything you want to confess?”

“You’ve got a sense of humor like a mortician. Come to think of it I do remember having nightmares. I think you featured in a few of them.”

As if to prove her wrong, he gave her a charming smile. “I just stuck around to make sure you didn’t cause any trouble.”

“Ah, Farmer John is concerned about everyone but the unfortunate woman stranded on the side of the road because of a medical condition. Your sympathy is astounding.” She struggled to sit up, clutching the neck of the hospital gown choking her. These stupid things had all the material up-front.

He put out his hands like he was trying to turn a stampeding horse. “Whoa. You best lie back down. I don’t think the good doctor is ready for you to be getting up.” His hands hung in the air just above her chest as if he were afraid she might be contagious.

“I gotta pee, Farmer John, and there ain’t no way I’m gonna let them hook me up to any catheter. Those things hurt like hell.” She grabbed the railing, pulling herself to a sitting position.

He took a step back.

She finally made it to her feet.

Then she grimaced. Easy does it. But she wouldn’t make it if the floor didn’t stay in one place. She muttered a mild expletive under her breath. Wouldn’t want to shock the sheriff.

He didn’t say anything. In fact his silence seemed almost strained. She took two leg-shaking, strength-rattling steps and then she looked back over her shoulder.

His gaze was riveted on her naked hind end.

She gave him a faint smile and a salute, which had him blushing the color of a police light. Apparently he didn’t like being caught in the act. Too bad he couldn’t give her a ticket for indecent exposure.

The door to her room slammed shut as the sheriff made his getaway.

She waddled the remaining steps to the bathroom. Nothing like a man with his mouth hanging open to give a woman a boost.