The Sheriff's Runaway Bride. Arlene James

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СКАЧАТЬ good there was no lapse in assignment,” he said. “Clayton’s no worse than any other small town, I suppose, but I think many are comforted to know that we didn’t have to wait months for a replacement deputy.”

      “Guess it’s God’s timing, as my mother would say,” Zach replied with a smile.

      “Yes, Marion would say that,” the pastor, whose first name was John, agreed.

      Zach stepped to one side, and they chatted a few moments more between other handshakes and greetings until Zach moved farther away.

      “Glad to have seen you here today,” the pastor told him, turning to give a frail, elderly woman his attention.

      She looked rather like old Mrs. Rader, only even smaller and more wizened. She seemed distressed. The pastor bent low to listen to what she had to say. Zach hovered at a polite distance, his senses alerted to trouble, while Brooke and Gabe visited and laughed with friends at the bottom of the steps.

      Zach first realized that Kylie had slipped past the traffic jam in the doorway when she appeared at his elbow and muttered what sounded like, “It’s her granddaughter.”

      Copying Reverend West, Zach bent his head to her in an attempt to provide some privacy. “I beg your pardon?”

      “Mrs. Rader.”

      “Ah. I thought that was her.”

      “She’s concerned about her granddaughter. Seems Sherilyn didn’t come home last night.”

      “I see.” He glanced at the elderly woman. “Maybe I should introduce myself.”

      Kylie shrugged. “If you’re going to search for Sherilyn, start at Vincent’s.”

      “Vincent’s?”

      “She was in the car with him yesterday.” Turning to gaze out over the parking lot, Kylie nodded. “Right over there.”

      “She’s the one you caught him with,” Zach surmised quietly.

      “Yep.” Kylie moved toward the steps, and he ambled up beside her.

      “Miss Jones.”

      “Hm?” Kylie asked.

      “About what I said last night … I didn’t mean that as an insult. I spoke without thinking.”

      She glanced at him, nodded and dropped her chin. “I know.”

      “I didn’t mean to imply that you aren’t … Weren’t …”

      “In my right mind,” she supplied helpfully, stepping down.

      “It’s just that I spent my entire childhood around Vincent,” he said, keeping up with her, “and I’ve seen some things beneath his charming exterior that …” He broke off, realizing with some puzzlement that he had said more than he normally would have. Feeling oddly exposed, he pulled his sunshades from his coat pocket and slid them on.

      She sent a look up at him from beneath the thick sweep of her lashes. “You were right,” she said quietly. “I was foolish and desperate.”

      Uncertain what to say to that, he simply stared at her until she stepped down onto the ground and walked toward his sister’s party. Zach followed, automatically reconnoitering the area, noting who got into which car and who stood and gabbed with whom. Brooke and Gabe now chatted with a thin redhead and a little girl, maybe nine or ten years of age, wearing pink eyeglasses. As Kylie approached, the woman and child turned to greet her. The woman looked older than he’d first assumed her to be and seemed conspicuously frail. The child resembled a blond, blue-eyed doll.

      “Do you know the Perrys?” Kylie asked. Zach shook his head as Brooke made the introductions.

      “This is Darlene and her daughter, Macy.”

      “Hello.”

      “My brother, Zach.”

      “Oh, you’re the new deputy sheriff,” Darlene said. “Nice to meet you.”

      “Likewise.”

      The girl shaded her eyes with a hand and looked up at him shyly. “You’re tall.”

      “Mmm-hmm, and you’re pretty.”

      She gave him a tiny smile and then ducked her head bashfully. Suddenly recognition hit him square in the chest. He looked at his sister then at Gabe and Kylie, but obviously none of them saw it. They wouldn’t, of course. How could they know that Macy Perry, with that long blond hair, bright blue eyes and single dimple in her left cheek, looked exactly like Brooke at the same age? Or did his mind play tricks on him? Maybe being at home again had colored his perceptions, but his cop sense told him otherwise.

      Talk turned to the Independence Day picnic. Kylie said something about having to serve food, but Zach listened with just half an ear while trying not to stare at Macy Perry. It wasn’t unusual for two unrelated people to look alike, of course, but in a town filled with Claytons, such resemblance did not seem random. Who, he wondered, glancing around at the thinning crowd, was Macy Perry’s father?

      Shoving the flimsy, disposable aluminum pan back into Kylie’s hands, Jerome shook his head. “That’s perfectly good meat. Serve it.”

      “It’s all fat!” Kylie protested.

      Unlike Gerald, his happy-go-lucky, roly-poly brother, Jerome was tall, rail thin and as cheap as chewing gum. Both were excellent cooks. Neither, however, could make beef fat palatable.

      Erin Fields, the owner of the Cowboy Café and their boss, breezed by, her long, copper-red ponytail flashing out behind her. Snatching the pan from Kylie’s hands, she carried it away, saying, “You’re just cooking the meat, Jerome, not paying for it. We’ll make this pan an Independence Day treat for the local dogs.” With that, she hurried toward the serving tables being set up on the green.

      Jerome rolled his eyes disapprovingly and turned back to the enormous wheeled grill. Built into a trailer frame, it had been towed to the edge of the street in front of the diner for easy access. The huge chunks of beef, donated by one of the local ranchers, had been smoking on the grill since six o’clock the previous evening, making dogs howl all over town. Erin and her employees had volunteered to serve it.

      Kylie moved to the steel worktable that had been moved out of the kitchen and set up beneath a bright blue canopy tent. Humming, Gerald busily sliced smoked meat with an enormous knife and mechanical precision, piling the slices into a series of disposable pans. Kylie covered one with tin foil and carried it across the street toward the serving tables. Ahead of her, Vincent sauntered by with Sherilyn Rader on his arm.

      They’d been burning up the edge of the green nearest the diner all afternoon, strolling back and forth, over and over again. Apparently, Vincent found it necessary to flaunt his girlfriend in public to save face. At first, Kylie hadn’t recognized Sherilyn because the silly thing had dyed her streaky chestnut hair an unnatural black. Despite studiously refusing to acknowledge the pair’s existence, Kylie couldn’t help noticing that Sherilyn wore next to nothing. Her outfit seemed to consist of flip-flops, a white sports bra and denim short shorts. She made Kylie feel positively overdressed in her usual СКАЧАТЬ