me in,” someone else added.
“Sounds good, Mrs. G.” Tanner thought a minute. “I’ll be happy to run the committee, Doc, if you’ll co-chair it with me. We need a civilian in charge, too.”
Doc patted his ample stomach and smiled. “Why, sur—”
“Doc’s much too busy,” Mrs. G cut in.
Tanner kept tight hold of his surprise. Interrupt someone in her class way back when, and you’d have gotten your mouth scoured out. “Then, maybe Char—”
“We need someone with a level head.”
Tanner’s jaw dropped when Mrs. G broke in a second time.
“We need someone unbiased,” she continued thoughtfully. “Someone like…Sarah.”
He turned to face her. Sarah raised her chin and stared him down.
A number of loud voices rose in support of her.
He nearly snorted. Unbiased, hell, with her son already caught egg-handed and who knew what else he’d been up to?
“The co-chairs would have to work very closely together,” Mrs. G said from behind him, just under cover of the noise.
He peered at her from over his shoulder. She sat giving him that same wide-eyed, encouraging expression she’d turn his way during the annual school spelling bee. Now, as it always did back then, her look made him put his mind to work.
Co-chairing the committee with Sarah would give him open invitation into her bookstore. And into her life. That way, he’d make sure to keep an eye on that wayward child of hers.
And the other eye on Sarah—not a half-bad idea, seeing as she was on her own again.
He’d given up a lot of things when he’d left Dillon, all those years ago, and not only Sarah’s pecan loaf. But now he was back and ready to find out just what he’d missed.
“Sounds like a fine plan to me.” He grinned. “You agreeable, Sarah?”
Seemed like the whole of Dillon gave up breathing while she thought it over.
After a long while, she stood up and walked to the center of the room to stand in front of Doc.
“I’m willing,” she announced.
“Good.” Maybe she’d finally come to her senses and admitted she needed his help. He shifted his shoulders and stood just a shade taller in his uniform.
Doc slid a clipboard across the table.
Sarah reached for it and held it up high. “Okay, we’ll get a sign-up sheet going here, folks. Anyone who wants to take part in the watch, put your name down, and we’ll get started organizing people into groups tonight.”
“What about eating?” Charlie called, getting a round of laughs.
“Refreshments first,” Tanner replied. “Then whoever’s not planning to sign up for watch can leave.”
Doc rubbed his hands together. “Let’s hit those desserts.”
He and Mrs. G fell into step behind the townsfolk swarming toward the back of the room, leaving him alone with Sarah.
She started away from him, too.
He reached out for her.
She froze and stared at him, so close he could see a tiny nerve flicker in one cheek. So still he could feel a pounding pulse in her wrist.
He scanned her from head to toe. Her eyes, calm and green; her long, uptight braid; her tall, slim but curvy body, dressed in the same flower-print dress she’d worn that afternoon.
Imagination took over and he saw those eyes flashing, that braid loosened, that dress a pile of petals on the floor.
As if she read something in him, she pulled her arm away and stepped back. “We’d best get along to the refreshment table, or you’ll miss out.”
“Nah.” He cleared his throat. “Looks like I’ll be around awhile. You can make me a pecan loaf all to myself.”
“And you can make an appointment with Doc right now. To get some medicine for your delusions.”
Illusions, more likely.
He grinned. “Can’t deny it, Sarah, we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”
“Only until we figure out what’s going on around town.” Her eyes flashed for real this time. “So don’t go getting any ideas, Deputy.”
Chapter Three
Two days later, with a heavy heart, Sarah looked around the store and thought about the childhood she’d spent there.
She could barely remember her mother, who had died when she was four years old. From then on, only she and Daddy rattled around in the three-story house with the big backyard.
As a child, she had loved having all the books she could ever want just downstairs in her very own home. It wasn’t till much, much later, when she’d started working in the store with Daddy, that she learned the price of all that convenience. Taxes. Utilities. Upkeep. And a business that usually lost more money than it earned.
Right now, the accounting books glowed in neon-red. She would be ashamed to show them to Delia, the owner of Dillon’s one and only restaurant, who had taught her how to balance the accounts after Daddy died.
Daddy would never give up the house or the store—and neither would she. She’d never wanted to work anywhere but here.
She turned back to the notes she’d jotted on the legal pad in front of her, the rough outline of ways to earn extra money. Maybe not enough to pay off all her bills, but any lightening of her load would help. The first idea she’d come up with, she owed to Tanner Jones and his devotion to her pecan loaf.
And speak of the devil—she looked out the window to see the County Sheriff’s sedan glide to a stop in front of The Book Cellar. She’d had a reprieve from Tanner the day before, but that had just ended.
She slid the notepad onto the shelf beneath the cash register. Wiping her palms on her skirt, she glanced at the wall clock. Kevin’s school bus would drop him off shortly.
The last thing she wanted was for Tanner to be in the same room as her son. She prayed Kevin would come into the store and head directly to the stairs leading up to their kitchen instead of charging into the store like he usually did. But surely he would see the sheriff’s car outside and would know enough to avoid Tanner. Or maybe not.
She would have to get rid of him.
For a moment, his broad outline blocked the light from the front window, and a cool shadow seemed to fall over her. How could that happen, when he hadn’t yet entered the store?
He shoved the door open.
