Jack Murray, Sheriff. Janice Kay Johnson

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СКАЧАТЬ grateful, humiliated, frightened, you name it. But attraction was ridiculous. Unless her hormones had decided that any man who came charging to her rescue was worth keeping around.

      If she had imagined that his appraisal had been masculine rather than professional, he quickly disabused her. “Have you changed the locks on the house since your divorce?”

      “No. I’ve been intending to…”

      “Do it. You might consider a security system as well.”

      “The only trouble is, I have to let him in,” she pointed out. “He has a right to see the girls.”

      “Yes, but at least then he couldn’t surprise you.”

      She nodded slowly. Steph and Lauren would be well aware why Mom was having a security system installed.

      “Do you have a brother or a father who could be here when Mr. Sommers picks up and drops off the children?”

      “No,” she said tersely. “I think that would make matters worse, anyway. Ray would get more belligerent. And I don’t want anyone hurt on my behalf.”

      He frowned. “You need protection, Ms. Sommers. A woman alone with two children is vulnerable.”

      Beth set down her mug with a click. “Exactly what is it that a man could do to protect me that I can’t do myself?”

      “Exert physical force, if need be.” Before she could respond to that one, he switched directions. “Tell me, do you know how to handle a gun?”

      “No, and I wouldn’t shoot my ex-husband if I knew how!” Beth said. “That’s all the girls need, to see their dad bleeding to death on our front porch.”

      Jack Murray leaned back in his chair, an expression of impatience on his hard face. “Ms. Sommers, I have the feeling you’re not taking this threat seriously. I know it’s hard to picture a man you’ve lived with doing violence to you, but…”

      Beth stood, pushing her chair back. “Sheriff, I’m a capable woman. I own a business. I employ six other people. I consider myself competent and reasonably intelligent. I would probably lose a fistfight with my ex-husband, but since that hardly seems like a solution to my problem, I’m afraid I don’t see how I could take this threat more seriously.”

      Their gazes met, before he said in that neutral tone a policeman must have to master, “I didn’t mean to imply that you’re incapable. The problem is, in a situation like this you have the reasonable facing the irrational. What if he’d come through that door tonight?”

      “He has a key,” Beth said. “He didn’t use it. When I told the girls that their father was throwing a temper tantrum, I meant it. That’s all it was.” Please, God.

      Jack Murray made a sound under his breath, one in which she read disbelief and impatience. But presumably it was also a form of concession, because he, too, stood.

      “I’ll talk to the people at ESPD.” His patronizing tone was enough to set her teeth on edge. “I’m sure they’ll have a patrol car come by regularly for now, especially on weekends, if that’s when Mr. Sommers takes the girls. And you know where to call.”

      “Yes, I do,” she said, inclining her head with unaccustomed coolness. “I certainly hope I won’t need to.”

      “Ms. Sommers…” The sheriff seemed to think better of whatever he’d intended to say. He only shook his head. “I’d best be getting home.”

      He followed her to the front door. Beth held it open and said again, “Thank you.” She meant it. Jack Murray might be patronizing, but he had come to her rescue. His intentions were good.

      The sheriff looked at her freshly painted front porch, strewed with shattered clay pots, spilled dirt and shreds of bright petunias and lobelia, and shook his head again. “Be careful. Call if you’re even a little nervous.”

      Beth was stubborn, but not an idiot. She didn’t tell him that she was afraid his showing up tonight had made things worse, not better. He thought she was insisting on being self-sufficient to the point of foolishness. Truth be told, she was scared. Ray wasn’t going to disappear from their lives. She had to find a way to make him see that the girls were what was really important. Carrying hostilities further than she already had would only get in the way of rapprochement.

      She watched the police chief step carefully around the shards of pottery and down the front steps. She had forgotten that the lights on top of his cruiser were still revolving, a beacon in the midst of her quiet neighborhood. He reached inside and turned them off even before getting in. A moment later, the police car pulled away from the curb and started down the street.

      Beth hugged herself against the cool night air. She made herself stand on the porch in defiance of a panicky desire to flee inside and lock up tight. The night was calm, Ray long gone. He was angry, not sly; it would never occur to him to park his car around the block and sneak back. When she saw a shadow move under the old lilac, her pulse took an uncomfortable jump, but, just to prove something to herself, Beth waited until first one cat, then a second, strolled out.

      Only then did she go back into the house and lock the door behind her.

      Time to kiss her daughters good-night, time to try to convince them that their world was a secure place.

      THE LITTLE REDHEAD in the third row looked familiar. Jack Murray paused a moment in his presentation to the third-grade class.

      Long red curls caught up in a bouncy ponytail on top of her head. Big blue eyes, freckled nose, a mouth that had no intention of smiling. She was watching him with unusual intensity, too, as though…what?

      Like a slide projector, he clicked through recent pictures stored in his mind. It didn’t take long. She was the one whose father had been trying to smash down his ex-wife’s front door. The one huddled in the hallway with her older sister.

      The one whose mom had blue eyes just as guarded, just as cool.

      Aware of the concerted stare of twenty-four eight-year-olds, Jack continued, “Are any of you ever home alone?”

      A scattering of hands went up.

      “Do your moms or dads tell you what to do if the phone rings and you’re by yourself?”

      At the same moment as a little girl piped up, “Don’t answer it,” a boy said, “Mom checks to make sure I’m home, so I have to answer the phone.”

      Jack strolled toward the boy’s seat by the window. “What if the caller isn’t your mom?”

      The boy, whose hair was crew-cut but for a tiny pigtail in back, shrugged. “It’s usually a friend or something.”

      “Usually?”

      “Mom says if they ask for Mrs. Patterson, it means they want to sell her something, so I just tell ’em we don’t want to buy anything and hang up.”

      Jack stood just above the boy, letting his height and the uniform awe the kid just a little.

      Then he raised a brow. “Do you think they ever guess that your mom isn’t home?”

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