Ashlyn, town pride!”
“Be a good neighbor! Come on back here and—”
A door slammed, and Gary Joanson’s tinny voice rose above the taunts, quieting the drunks.
The sheriff shook his head, taking a step nearer to her. “Sorry about that.”
“No, you’re right,” said Ashlyn. His thigh just about brushed her arm, and her skin actually buzzed from the almost-contact. “No more games, Sheriff. I’ve turned over a new leaf.”
“Sounds sincere enough.”
She met his gaze and almost fell into the bottomless depths of his eyes. What had happened in life to make him so sad? “Not to say I won’t still have my fun, you understand.”
He merely raised his brows.
“What I mean,” she added, her protective shield of tough talk rising to the surface, “is that we come from utterly different places. This is my time to be carefree. You’re Generation X and I’m Generation Why-Me…”
What was she trying to say? His stare, his brooding, was tangling her thoughts. Great, now she felt even younger, even more stupid.
When she looked at him again, a ghost of a smile lit over his mouth. A slanted grin, just as rusty as his badge. She wanted to use her fingertips to brush over his full lower lip, to test its softness.
Admit it, she thought. You’ve been dying to touch him since he hauled you away from Emma Trainor’s porch.
Ashlyn sighed out loud, grinning in a heated flush when she caught the sheriff’s still-cocked brow. “At any rate, you have my word. No more trouble.”
Deputy Joanson walked into the office room, proud as a rooster. “How do, folks?”
Sam, smooth as still water, watched Ashlyn as he addressed his deputy. “You took my car tonight.”
Ashlyn didn’t break eye contact with Sam. Her pulse thudded in her ears, Gary Joanson’s voice becoming nothing but background chatter.
“I thought you wouldn’t mind—”
“—I mind.”
Gary stepped into Ashlyn’s view, dwarfed next to Sam Reno’s sturdy frame. “I kinda like the Bronco, Sam.”
Slowly, Sam turned to Gary, who took an unsteady step backward.
“Okay,” said the deputy. “I’ll take the grandma car.”
That done, Gary tipped his cop hat to Ashlyn. “I was wondering when you’d make your first trip here, Ashlyn. What were you up to?”
She had the grace to look ashamed. “It depends on your point of view, I suppose.”
“Isn’t that always the case with you?” Gary slapped his knee in mirth. “Sheriff Carson would’ve been beet red by now.”
Gary addressed Sam, who’d returned to staring at Ashlyn dispassionately. “This gal used to be a real firecracker, Sam. Before you hired me on, the other deputies would talk about how she kept Sheriff Carson busy and blowin’ steam. Did ya decorate the town with some jokes tonight, Ashlyn?”
She kept her tongue. This night was becoming more humiliating by the second, but she wouldn’t lose her cool in front of Sheriff Reno. She’d never let anyone—especially this man—know that she was crying inside. When people laughed at her jokes they were laughing at her and her family.
Sometimes it hurt to be laughed at.
“Deputy, do you have work to do?” asked Sam.
Gary hesitated, then, slump-shouldered, sat at the scanner desk, shuffling through papers.
Ashlyn heard Sam move closer to her again, felt him looming over her. The breath caught in her throat.
“Up, Ashlyn,” he said softly, his drawl lazing over her skin with the warmth of slow molasses.
She stood, almost body to body, eyes at the level of his corded throat. She’d always been considered a tall girl, gawky as a forest creature, all elbows and knees, but standing next to Sam Reno made her feel as if she were a normal person. As if she didn’t stand out in a crowd.
He took her elbow, walking her near the door. When he let go, she wanted to seize his hand and put it right back. She didn’t mind that her knees were turning to liquid, that she was all but clawing for breath inside.
After a pause, Sam took a step backward. He lifted up a finger, a wall between them. “I don’t want to be called out on account of your wild schemes.”
“I’ll do my best to keep to myself, Sheriff.” No more charitable gestures, no more caring. Nobody would believe her capable of it anyway.
“My name’s Sam,” he said, shrugging one wide shoulder. “Just…call me Sam.”
She didn’t want to leave, to go back to her house where she’d spend the night in her own lonely wing of the Spencer mansion, listening to sounds outside their sculpted iron gates.
It was sad, really. Emma Trainor had made it more than clear: Ashlyn wasn’t welcome in Kane’s Crossing. Those gates would help to shield her, to keep her from reaching out again.
While she was searching for words, he spoke. “It’s good to see a Spencer doing the right thing. I think Emma was thankful for your help.”
Ashlyn had done her share of Spencer bashing, but his statement felt like a personal affront. “Some of us Spencers have a bit of honor.”
Sam’s hands rested on his lean hips. “That’s not what I wanted to say.”
“What did you intend?”
She noticed the slow simmer of his temper in the tensing of his fingers on his hips. “Let’s forget it before I say something we both don’t want to hear.”
“Anything you say won’t exactly be a news flash, Sam. Just go for it.”
“Nothing.” Dead, empty eyes, void of fight.
“Heck.” She shrugged, wanting to get their differences out in the open. “Why don’t I do it? The Spencers are a greedy lot. Stingy, monstrous, ugly. Is that it?”
He stayed silent.
How could she explain her flash of anger without seeming illogical? How could she make sense of the idea that she was the only one allowed to criticize her family? When she did it, it didn’t hurt as much.
“I think it’s time for you to leave, Ashlyn.”
In the background, Deputy Joanson cleared his throat. Ashlyn attempted to rein in her temper.
“I know, Sheriff, that having your father killed at my family’s factory won’t make us best friends.” There. She’d said it. Put it out there for Sam to handle any way he wanted.
Finally,
