Babes In Arms. Sara Orwig

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      One

      “You can pick up your check from Della. Thanks again on this last case,” Abe Swenson, the red-haired Payne County sheriff said. “You know if you ever want to go full-time with us—”

      “Sorry,” Colin interrupted him. “As an honorary deputy I have more freedom, and I’m enjoying ranching.” He didn’t add that every time he took on police work, he swore it would be the last.

      “You better head home soon. I’ve been getting weather bulletins. Highways are closing all across the northern and eastern part of the state. Our bus terminal closed twenty minutes ago.”

      Colin nodded. “Old Blue does pretty well in snow.”

      “Yeah, well, we may have an ice storm before tonight.”

      “Thanks, Abe.” Colin stopped by the desk, flirting a moment with Della while she gave him his check. He pulled his shearling coat closed, jammed his black Stetson on his head and pushed open the glass door.

      Snow swirled and fell silently, coating sidewalks, frosting the yellow dried Bermuda grass, turning to slush in the streets. Striding to the bed of a battered robin’s-egg-blue pickup, he adjusted the tarp over the sacks of groceries piled in the back and then climbed inside, moving into the Friday afternoon traffic. He headed down Sixth toward the university. Bumper-to-bumper student traffic slowed him to a creeping pace.

      He turned onto the strip, moving past shops, beer parlors and restaurants, watching two guys throw snowballs at three pretty coeds, feeling a moment’s pang of loneliness, which was gone as swiftly as it came.

      He crept to the next light and slowed as the yellow switched to red. To his right at the curb across the intersection, a woman stepped out of a car. She closed and locked the car and glanced up and down the street. Taller than average, yet looking thick through the middle in her bulky hip-length brown parka, СКАЧАТЬ