Colt Garrett sat behind the desk that faced the jail’s front door. His chair was cocked back on two legs and his booted feet rested on the desk’s scarred top. Hands laced behind his head, he stared in moody contemplation at the rough-sawn wood of the ceiling.
He was in the doldrums and his life was in a rut. Ever since Ellie Carpenter had told him there was no sense in taking their fledgling relationship any further than the friendship they shared, his life had settled into a grating sameness. A few words and poof! Another potential wife was gone, a reminder that change could happen fast and without warning, something he’d forgotten in the years since his wife, Patrice, had been taken from him.
Though he’d be the first to admit that he was not suffering from a broken heart over Ellie’s rejection, he’d looked forward to the time he spent with her. Now his days had settled into boring predictability. He felt like some of the older folks in town must feel. They had their set routines and heaven help anyone who disrupted them. Except Colt wished something would happen to shake up the even tenor of his days. He came to work, ate lunch at home, the café or Hattie’s, and then went home, slept and repeated the sequence day after day.
There hadn’t even been any major crime lately to take his mind off things—not that he was complaining about that. The robberies he’d dealt with in the spring had seen one of his friends injured and another wrongly incarcerated. No, Wolf Creek didn’t need any more crime. It was just that he was lonesome, as lonesome as the rain crow outside his open window sounded.
He hated going home and having no one to share the ups and downs of his day with except a couple of kids. Not that he didn’t love them. He did. But he wasn’t too proud to admit that he not only wanted a wife, but also needed one. His kids needed a mother. Cilla was growing up, and more and more Colt felt that a woman’s influence was essential. What did he know about young girls on the verge of womanhood?
Brady needed a mom to kiss his cuts and scrapes, and he himself...well, he was tired of trying to deal with problems he had no earthly idea how to solve, so he supposed he could add that he was an ineffective father to his general misery.
He wanted to hold hands with a woman as they walked along Wolf Creek. Wanted to have someone listen as he talked about his day, and he wanted to hear about hers. He wanted someone next to him at night. He wanted a wife.
Since taking the sheriff’s position more than a year ago, he’d courted a few of the town’s single ladies, but the relationships had reached a certain point and fizzled out, and pickings were mighty slim in a town the size of Wolf Creek.
To top it all off, Ellie had flat-out told him that part of his problem was that whenever he showed interest in anyone, his two children launched an all-out campaign to sabotage the courtship. She’d been the recipient of some of their ploys, and that, along with her own reasons for not becoming more involved, had ended that!
He was so caught up in his unhappiness that the turning of the doorknob didn’t register. Not until the sound of the door slamming and someone stomping across the room penetrated his reverie did he lower his arms and his gaze to see what was afoot.
He was shocked to see Brady and Cilla’s teacher bearing down on him, her bosom heaving as if she’d run for several blocks. Miss Grainger’s sassy little chipped-straw hat sat cockeyed on her head, and a lone fabric rose dangled over one eye. Her freckled face was as red as the hair scraped back into a severe bun atop her head. One curling, recalcitrant strand trailed down one cheek and onto her shoulder. She was squinting at him as she neared the desk, but even though her eyes were narrowed to mere slits, there was no mistaking the fury blazing there.
What now? Putting on his most professional mien, Colt swung his feet to the floor and sat up straight, as befitting his station. He offered her a friendly smile, which fled when the usually polite teacher slapped something onto the desk with a gloved hand. He stared down at the mangled item. Hmm. Gold wire and a round piece of glass with a webbing of cracks that looked as if a spider had been plying its skill.
He glanced up at the squinting Miss Grainger and back at the object. Glasses! He was looking at a pair of beyond-redemption eyewear. The metal frames were crunched, one lens was cracked and the other missing completely.
He was about to ask her what on earth had happened when a familiar feeling sent his stomach into a sickening lurch. His mind whispered that while he might not know what had happened, he was pretty sure he knew who had done the deed.
“Well?” the teacher snapped. “Aren’t you going to say something?” Her usual warm contralto was shrill with outrage.
Resisting the urge to bury his face in his hands, Colt looked up at her with a puzzled expression as fake as the roses adorning her bedraggled headpiece.
“Uh, what happened to your glasses?” he managed to say, after swallowing a lump the size of Texas.
The petite, plump teacher placed her palms flat on the desk and leaned toward him, her crocheted reticule dangling from her wrist. “Your children happened!” she spat out. “They accosted me!”
Colt’s heart sank, but he sat even straighter. This young woman—obviously too young and inexperienced to be in charge of a classroom of children—had just accused his two offspring of a disgraceful act. Parental outrage kicked in, erasing the fact that Miss Grainger had only confirmed his own suspicion that Brady and Cilla were responsible for the damage he was looking at. Never mind their guilt or innocence. This woman had verbally attacked his children! Flesh of his flesh. Blood of his blood. It would not do. It would not do at all.
“Perhaps you should explain yourself, Miss Grainger,” he suggested through clenched teeth. “Tell me what happened to put you in such a snit.”
“Snit? Snit?” Her eyes widened and her voice climbed at least two octaves. Then she squeezed her eyes shut, drew herself up to her full height—all of five feet and maybe an inch or two if he had to guess—and took a deep breath, trying to regain control of her emotions and her temper.
When she opened her eyes, it was a toss-up as to whether it worked or not. The heat of battle still smoldered there.
“By all means, Sheriff,” she said in a well-modulated, low-pitched voice, taking care to enunciate each word with utmost care. “I am in a snit, as you put it, because I was assaulted by your...your hooli—” Her mouth snapped shut and she pressed her lips together to keep from crossing the invisible line of civility. “Your children in the mercantile.”
Colt bolted to his feet, mimicking her stance. He leaned across the expanse of the desk, his tawny eyes as narrow as hers as they faced each other almost nose to nose. He was a tall man, with more than enough muscle to make most men back down, and he possessed a ruthless expression he could muster in a heartbeat. Many a lawbreaker and bully had been known to tremble before the combination.
Pint-size Miss Grainger didn’t budge an inch.
“Now see here!” he growled. “Those are pretty harsh words. How can two kids, age seven and twelve, assault a grown woman?”
Still regarding him through narrowed eyes, she spluttered, “Brady...p-pushed me.”
Was it Colt’s imagination or was there a hint of trembling in her voice?
“Your children, sir, are a menace to polite society, and I begin to fear that much of the fault must be laid at your feet.”
“My fault?” Colt exploded.
