guy’s a jerk.” Rafe blew out smoke. No one disagreed, but Rafe’s gaze shifted to where Cassie was busy serving a booth behind them. “What does a sweet little thing like Cassie see in him?”
“If you ask me, she wants out of the house.” Jared pushed his plate aside. “Her mother would be enough to send anyone looking for the first escape hatch. The woman’s a fanatic.”
“Maybe she loves him,” Devin said quietly.
Rafe’s opinion of that was one crude word. “Kid’s barely seventeen,” he pointed out. “She’ll fall in love a dozen times.”
“Not everyone has a flexible heart.”
“A flexible heart.” Shane whooped with laughter at the phrase. “It ain’t Rafe’s heart that’s flexible, Dev, it’s his—”
“Shut up, creep,” Rafe said mildly as his elbow jammed hard into Shane’s ribs. “You up for a beer, Jare?”
“I’m up for it.”
Rafe leered nastily. “Too bad you two have to stick with soda pop. I bet Duff has a whole case of the fizzy stuff for you kids.”
That, of course, insulted Shane. As it was meant to. Hot words came first, then the jostling. From her station at the counter, Edwina Crump shouted at them to take it outside.
They did, with Devin lagging behind to pay the tab.
On the other side of the window, his brothers pushed and shoved each other, more out of habit than from any real temper. Ignoring them, he smiled over at Cassie.
“Just blowing off steam,” he told her, adding a tip that wouldn’t embarrass her.
“The sheriff sometimes comes by about this time of night.” Her voice was barely a whisper of warning. And so sweet to Devin’s ears, he almost sighed.
“I’ll go break it up.”
He slid out of the booth. He thought his mother probably knew his feelings. It was impossible to hide anything from her. God knew, they had all tried and failed. He thought he knew what she would say to him.
That he was young yet, and there would be other girls, other women, other loves. She would mean the best by it.
Devin knew that though he wasn’t yet fully an adult, he had a man’s heart. And he’d already given it.
He kept that heart out of his eyes, though, because he would hate Cassie’s pity. Casually he walked out of the diner to break up his brothers. He caught Shane in a headlock, elbowed Rafe in the gut, cocked a brow at Jared and suggested amiably that they go play some pool.
Chapter 1
The town of Antietam was a pretty sight in late spring. Sheriff Devin MacKade liked to walk the uneven sidewalks and smell the freshly mowed grass, the flowers, hear the yip of dogs and shouts of children.
He liked to take in the order of it, the continuity, and the little changes. Outside the bank, a bed of pink begonias was spreading. The three cars jockeying in line at the drive-in window constituted a traffic jam.
Down a little ways, in front of the post office, there were men passing the time, taking the air. Through the barbershop window, he could see a toddler experiencing his first haircut, while his mother bit her nails and blinked damp eyes.
The banners were flying for the annual Memorial Day parade and picnic. He could see several people busily scrubbing or painting their porches in preparation for the event.
It was an event he enjoyed, even with its logistical and traffic headaches. He liked the continuity of it, the predictability. The way people would plant themselves with their folding chairs and coolers along the curb, hours before parade time, to ensure that they would have a good view of the marching bands and twirling batons.
Most of all, he liked the way the townspeople threw themselves into that weekend, how much they cared, how strong their pride.
His father had told him of the ancient man who, when he himself was a little boy, had walked creakily down Main Street wearing Confederate gray at an earlier Memorial Day. One of the last living testaments to the Civil War.
Dead now, as they all were, Devin mused as he glanced over at the memorial in the town’s square. Dead, but not and never forgotten. At least not in little towns such as these, which had once known the sound of mortar and rifle fire and the terrible cries of the wounded.
Turning away, he looked down the street and sighed. There was Mrs. Metz’s Buick, parked, as usual, in the red zone. He could give her a ticket, Devin mused, and she would pay it. But when she lumbered into his office to hand over the fine, she would also treat him to a lecture. He blew out a breath, studied the door of the library. No doubt that was where she was, gossiping over the counter with Sarah Jane Poffenberger.
Devin drew together his courage and fortitude and climbed the old stone steps.
She was exactly where he’d expected her to be, leaning over the counter, a mountain of paperback novels at her dimpled elbow, deep into the latest dirt with the librarian. Devin wondered why any woman so…generously sized insisted on wearing wildly patterned dresses.
“Mrs. Metz.” He kept his voice low. He’d been tossed out of the library many times in his youth by Miss Sarah Jane.
“Well, hello there, Devin.” Beaming a smile, Mrs. Metz turned to him. Her elbow nearly toppled the mountain of books, but Miss Sarah Jane, for all her resemblance to an understuffed scarecrow, moved fast. “And how are you on this beautiful afternoon?”
“I’m just fine. Hello, Miss Sarah Jane.”
“Devin.” Iron-gray hair pulled back from paper-thin white skin, starched collar buttoned firmly to her chin, Sarah Jane nodded regally. “Did you come in to return that copy of The Red Badge of Courage?”
“No, ma’am.” He very nearly flushed. He’d lost the damn book twenty years before, he’d paid for it, he’d even swept the library for a month as penance for his carelessness. Now, though he was a man—one who wore a badge and was considered responsible by most—he was shriveled down to a boy by Sarah Jane Poffenberger’s steely eyes.
“A book is a treasure,” she said, as she always did.
“Yes, ma’am. Ah, Mrs. Metz…” More to save himself now than to uphold parking laws, he shifted his gaze. “You’re parked illegally. Again.”
“I am?” All innocence, she fluttered at him. “Why, I don’t know how that happened, Devin. I would have sworn I pulled into the right place. I just came in to check out a few books. I’d have walked, but I had to run into the city, and stopped by on my way home. Reading’s one of God’s gifts, isn’t it, Sarah Jane?”
“It is indeed.” Though her mouth remained solemn, the dark eyes in Sarah Jane’s wrinkled face were laughing. Devin had to concentrate on not shuffling his feet.
“You’re in the red zone, Mrs. Metz.”
“Oh, dear. You didn’t give me a ticket, did you?”
“Not
