Mildred began, fingering the eyeglasses that hung from a beaded chain around her neck.
“Mrs. Perkins,” he acknowledged politely. “How are you and the Crochet Club today?”
“Oh, we’ve nearly finished that blanket for Cindy’s new grandbaby. Which is what I wanted to see you about.” She twisted the chain into a knot. “Not the baby exactly, but Cindy. Did you see the newspaper today? Cindy was right on the front page. Right there with Julianna Reynolds.”
She said Julee’s name with such relish Tate flinched.
He’d nearly swallowed a doughnut whole this morning when Rita had stuck the paper under his nose, berating him for not taking a more active part in Julee’s charity blood drive. There was Julee, smiling fit to kill as she signed up folks for the big donor drive.
“Yes, ma’am. I saw that. Cindy looked mighty nice.”
“Cindy?” Mildred’s piercing voice shot up a notch. “Cindy? Land o’ goshen, Sheriff, I’m not talking about Cindy. I’m talking about Julianna coming back to Black-wood to help cancer victims. Isn’t that the sweetest thing you ever heard?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed, keeping a bland expression while hoping Mildred wasn’t about to set him up with Julee. “Real nice of her.”
“Did you know the car dealership is having a drawing? The winner gets to drive a new car free for a whole month?”
“I’d heard that.” Who hadn’t? In two days time, Julee had turned the entire town upside down. The radio station blasted a reminder of the bone-marrow drive every fifteen minutes, the newspaper couldn’t seem to print enough rosy articles about the small-town girl who made good, and everywhere he went somebody reminded him of how sweet and perfect and single Julianna was. To hear them talk she was a cross between Mother Teresa and Sandra Bullock.
“Well?” Mildred crossed her arms over the huge red flower decorating her shirtfront and fixed him with a questioning stare.
He pinched his lips between thumb and forefinger and arched his eyebrows. Had he missed something?
“I didn’t see your name on the list of civic leaders who’ve signed up to donate.”
Tate sighed inwardly, guilt warming the back of his neck. He fiddled with a checker, sliding it back and forth along the edge of the board. “I didn’t see yours, either.”
“You gotta be under sixty,” she huffed impatiently. “And Lord knows I passed that a long time ago. You’re young and fit as a fiddle so you got no excuse not to help out those poor little suffering children.”
The guilt of worrying about those “poor little children” was eating a hole right through the smothered steak he’d had for lunch. “Needles make me nervous.”
Mildred laughed and patted his arm. “Oh, Sheriff, you big tease. I know you’ll do your part. Just have Julianna hold your hand while they poke you.” She beamed at the genius of her suggestion. “And afterward, the two of you can come over to the Bingo Game together.”
Bert clunked down another checker, taking one of Tate’s. “Mildred, you’re interfering with my concentration. Why don’t you be useful and go get me a cup of coffee?”
While Tate silently thanked his old friend for the change of subject, Mildred drew back like a hissing adder. “Bert Atkins, you go get your own coffee.”
With a huff, she flounced back to the circle of crocheting ladies who’d been acutely attentive during the brief exchange. Six smiles beamed their goodwill across the room. Mildred’s mouth moved non-stop while she looked at Tate with an expression that said she was certain—absolutely certain—he wouldn’t let her, or Julianna, down.
Sometimes Tate didn’t know whether to hug them or hate them. Dear sweet ladies who meant well, but somehow thought he needed their input in every facet of his life. Not that he didn’t appreciate their casseroles and pies and crocheted afghans. He did. But right now, the last thing he needed was another reminder of the woman he’d never been able to forget.
“Why not donate blood, Tate?” A checker in one hand, Bert paused. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Tate wallowed the peppermint with his tongue and pretended to study the checkers. “My deputies are helping out. I’m too busy to get wound up in Julee’s celebrity tax write-off.”
“Tax write-off or not, it’s a good cause. Just because you and Julee were an item way back when is no reason to avoid her now. Unless you still have feelings for her.”
Tate blanched at the plain speaking. Feelings? Heck, yes, he still had feelings for her. Trouble was, his feelings were all mixed up—fear, mistrust and a longing so fierce he’d been tormented all last night with dreams of Julee. He’d awakened in such a sweat he’d gotten up at 3:00 a.m. to take a shower. A cold one.
“As far as I’m concerned I’ll be glad to see her gone.”
“Question is, why?” Bert pointed a checker at him. “Shelly always said you never got over Julee.”
How could he explain that avoiding Julee was a matter of self-preservation? Learning to live without her ten years ago had nearly killed him, an experience he couldn’t afford to repeat.
“I wasn’t the right man for Shelly,” he said, skirting the issue of Julee. “You know it and so does she.” His brief and disastrous marriage to Bert’s daughter had been the final chapter in his book of love. Never again.
“A man can’t work 24-7 and keep a woman happy, that’s for sure.”
“Running a sheriff’s office is a full-time job. If anyone understands that, it’s you.”
“Being a good sheriff’s one thing, but I don’t recall ever sleeping in my office. You let this town run you ragged.”
“I owe them, Bert. Just like I owe you.”
The old sheriff had seen something worth saving in the rebellious youth, though for the life of him Tate couldn’t imagine what it had been.
“You don’t owe me a blamed thing. This county needed a good sheriff and we were danged lucky to get you.”
“Still, I wish things could have been different for Shelly’s sake.”
“I know that, boy. That’s why I got no hard feelings.” Bert smiled and reached for another peppermint. “That and the fact that Shelly found a nine-to-five fellow and had me some grandbabies.”
“She deserved a better man than me.”
He’d married Shelly out of gratitude, like a groveling dog happy to have a pat on the head. She’d made him feel like a man again during those dark days when he’d cared more about killing himself with liquor and fighting than living, so he’d repaid her kindness by messing up her life. And the remorse he felt for disappointing his mentor, the only man who’d ever believed in him, would never go away.
He shook his head to clear the memory. As a rabble-rousing teenager he’d been called worthless trailer trash. Now he hid behind a clean uniform and a sheriff’s badge, but
