got up to go into her den to work on tomorrow’s lesson plan, Belle seemed to materialize and stepped into her path. The German shepherd looked up at her with her big, soulful brown eyes.
“You miss her too, don’t you, Belle?” Shania murmured to the dog that she and Wynona had found foraging through a garbage pail behind the Murphy brothers’ saloon the first week they moved back. After determining that the dog had no owner, they immediately rescued the rail-thin shepherd and took her in.
Belle thrived under their care. When Wynona got married, Shania had told her cousin to take the dog with her. But Wynona had declined, saying that she felt better about leaving if Belle stayed with her.
Belle rubbed her head against Shania’s thigh now, then stopped for a moment and looked up.
“Message received,” Shania told the German shepherd with a smile. “You’re right. I’m not alone. You’re here. But there are times that I really wish you could talk.”
As if on cue, Belle barked, something, as a rule, she rarely did. It was as if Belle didn’t like to call attention to herself unless absolutely necessary.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t be feeling sorry for myself, I should be feeling happy for Wyn.” Dropping down beside the German shepherd, Shania ran her hands along the dog’s head and back, petting the animal. “You really are brighter than most people, girl,” she laughed.
As if in agreement, Belle began licking her face.
And just like that, the loneliness Shania had been wrestling with slipped away.
Deputy Daniel Tallchief could feel his anger increasing in waves. He told himself he wasn’t going to say anything to the girl sitting in the seat next to him until he calmed down. He didn’t want to say anything to his sister that he might wind up regretting later, after he’d had a chance to cool off.
Right now, it felt as if that was never going to happen.
And keeping his temper under control wasn’t easy. Not when he wanted to shout into Elena’s face and demand to know how she could do something not only so stupid, but so incredibly disrespectful to the memory of their parents as well as to him.
So far, Daniel had been silent. Silent the entire drive home, even though he could feel angry words clawing at his throat, all but choking him in their eagerness to be released.
Elena wasn’t much help to him in that respect. His sixteen-year-old only sister was sitting in the passenger seat, obviously fuming. Her very body language, not to mention what she was actually saying to him, were goading him to lose his temper.
“I don’t know what you’re so mad about,” Elena retorted, folding her arms in front of her chest just like their mother used to do when she was displaying anger. “You told me I couldn’t have parties in our house while you were gone and I didn’t have one,” she informed him haughtily. “In case you didn’t notice, that was Matthew’s house you storm trooped into, not ours. His house is a lot nicer,” she deliberately pointed out. “Matthew has a right to throw a party if he wants to and I have a perfect right to be there if I want to.” She punctuated her statement by tossing her head defiantly, sending her long, shining black hair flying over her shoulder.
The best laid plans of mice and men, Daniel had read somewhere, often went awry—or words to that effect. Right now, that described his plans for waiting until he had cooled off to a T.
So rather than driving straight home in silence—at least his silence—Daniel pulled his car over to the side of the road and glared at his angry sister, the person who was responsible, at least in part, for his taking a job as a sheriff’s deputy rather than finishing college and getting a degree. Not finishing college put an end to his being able to go on to medical school and to eventually achieve his lifelong dream of becoming a doctor.
It had also wound up putting an end to Lana and him.
The hell with cooling off. “Number one,” Daniel enumerated, “Matthew doesn’t have the right to have a party loud enough to disturb all his neighbors just because his parents were naive enough to leave him home alone for a week. Number two, you don’t have the right to attend a party where alcohol was being unlawfully served. From what I could see, everyone there was a minor so if I was as hard-nosed as you seem to think I am, I would have arrested them all on the spot instead of giving them a warning that I’d come down hard on them if this happened again.”
Daniel took a breath. It was a real struggle to keep his voice down.
Apparently, his self-restraint was wasted on his sister.
She glared at him. “Not much that they can do in the way of partying now that you took away all their liquor.”
“I confiscated it,” Daniel corrected. “And when Matthew’s parents get back and ask about what happened to their incredibly large supply of alcohol, I’ll hand the bottles over to them.”
Elena’s frown intensified. “Along with a lecture, no doubt, about how they should make an effort to be better parents.” She fumed, looking at him darkly. “You know, not everyone wants to be like you, Daniel.”
“Right now,” the deputy told Elena, starting up his car again and heading back to town, “I don’t even want to be me.”
Refusing to appear intimidated, Elena raised her chin defiantly. “Well, it’s no picnic being your sister, either.”
Daniel bit his tongue to keep back the hot words that were hovering there, aching to be released. Saying them to Elena might very well produce momentary gratification, but he knew that he’d wind up paying for that gratification in the long run. Paying for it with the amount of damage that those words could cause to the relationship he had with Elena.
A relationship that already felt as if it was tottering on its last legs.
He and Elena had been close once. Extremely close. He’d helped raise her because both his parents were so busy trying to provide a decent life for his sister and for him. Despite experiencing the typical wants and desires of a teenager, which included hanging out with his friends and all that entailed, Daniel still doted on Elena and found time to be there for her.
But then the world had been turned upside down. His parents had been in a terrible car accident. His mother had died instantly and his father had lingered for a few hours before he died as well. So instead of graduating college and going off to medical school—he had an early acceptance letter he still carried around folded up in his wallet—he had to drop out and find a job in a hurry in order to be able to provide for Elena and take care of both of them.
And, as hard as giving up his education had been, losing Lana had been even harder on him.
The death of their parents had its effects on Elena as well. Always bright and studious, she’d gradually turned her back on all that. Instead, she just focused on living in the moment.
Partying in the moment.
And frustrating Daniel to the point that he was all but incoherent, like now.
“I don’t even know you anymore,” he told Elena after another
