Montana Sheriff. Marie Ferrarella

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СКАЧАТЬ that, he pulled his truck headfirst into the first parking spot he could. It was in front of the next building, just one door down from the Emporium.

      Cole cut off his engine and sat in the truck a moment longer.

      If he had any sense at all, he silently told himself, he’d start the vehicle up again, go back to his office and work on this month’s monthly report. A report that was tedious given that there was actually very little to report. Crime in this small town of three thousand strong involved nuisance disturbances and not much else.

      Of course, there was that horrible accident two weeks ago involving Amos McCloud and his son, Wayne, and a trucker who had been driving cross-country, but that wasn’t a crime, either, not in the sense that all those prime-time TV programs liked to highlight. His investigation had shown that inclement weather and bad brakes had been to blame for the truck suddenly jackknifing. Amos had seen the accident happening but it had been too late. He couldn’t stop his own truck in time.

      Lucky for Wayne and Amos, Cole had been driving by or there might not have been anything left of the two men except for bits of cinders. Racing from his own truck, a sense of urgency sending huge amounts of adrenaline through his body, he’d managed to get first Amos and then Wayne out. The latter had been brutal. The cab of the truck had folded like a metal accordion, trapping Wayne in its metal embrace. He’d worked like the devil to get Wayne free and had succeeded just seconds before the whole damn truck exploded.

      Fortunately, no one had died at the scene. But the jury was still out about the final count. The trucker and Amos had been pretty banged up, but Wayne had been unconscious when he was taken to the hospital in Helena.

      He still was.

      Was that why she was here? Cole wondered suddenly, straightening in his seat. Had Ronnie come back because of the accident? He might have tried to contact her about the accident himself if he’d known how to find her, but she’d done a good job of disappearing from his life.

      “Damn it, she’s not here any more than she was all those other times you thought you saw her,” he declared angrily, upbraiding himself.

      If he got out of the truck and went into the Emporium to investigate, he would feel like a damn idiot once he proved to himself that she wasn’t really there.

      More than likely, it’d turn out to be some other woman. Or maybe nobody at all.

      But if he didn’t go in, if he went back to his one-story, 1800-square-foot office, and tried to get some work done, this was going to eat at him all day. He knew that. Especially since he hadn’t imagined seeing her in a while now. Almost a whole month had gone by without a so-called “Ronnie sighting.”

      It had begun to give him real hope. He was beginning to think he was finally, finally over her. For real this time. Not the way he’d thought before, the time he’d gotten engaged to Cyndy Foster at the diner.

      Getting engaged to Cyndy had just been a desperate act on his part to force himself to move on. Except that he really couldn’t. Not then. And when he caught himself almost calling Cyndy Ronnie one night, he knew it wouldn’t be fair to Cyndy to go through with the wedding.

      So he’d called it off and tried to explain to Cyndy that he thought she deserved better than spending her life with a man who was only half there. He’d hoped she’d take it well, the way he’d meant it. But she didn’t. His ears had stung for a week from the riot act she’d read him at the top of her lungs. Not that he hadn’t deserved it.

      From that point on, he dedicated himself to the job of being town sheriff and saw to it that he was a dutiful son, as well. Cole figured he’d either eventually work Ronnie out of his system, or become a confirmed bachelor.

      These last few months, he’d begun to think that he was finally coming around, accepting what his life had become.

      A lot he knew, Cole thought sarcastically. If he was on the road to being “cured,” what the hell was he doing having another damn hallucination?

      Only one way to battle this, he decided, and that was to walk in, see who Ed was really talking to and be done with all this racing pulse nonsense.

      With that, Cole pulled his key out of the truck’s ignition.

      Tucking the key into the breast pocket of his shirt, he shifted in his seat and opened the driver’s side door. He got out and walked the short distance to the Livestock Feed Emporium. Cole deliberately avoided glancing in through the window, giving himself a moment to prepare for the inevitable disappointment.

      He opened the door to the store. The same tiny silver bell, somewhat tarnished now, that had hung there for fifty years, announcing the arrival or departure of a customer, sounded now, heralding his crossing the store’s threshold.

      Cole’s deep blue eyes swept over the rustic store with its polished, heavily scuffed old wooden floors. Ed took pride in the fact that the store looked exactly the way it had back in his grandfather’s day when Josiah Haney opened the Emporium’s doors for the first time. The only actual concession that had been made to modern times was when the original cash register had finally given up the ghost. Ed had been forced to replace it with a computerized register since manual ones were nowhere to be found anymore.

      The air had turned blue for more than a week until Ed had finally learned—thanks to the efforts of his incredibly patient grandson—how to operate the “dang infernal machine.”

      The store was empty. Even Ed didn’t seem to be around. The man was probably in the back, getting something—

      Okay, Cole thought, relieved and disappointed at the same time, the way he always was when a mirage faded. She wasn’t here.

      It had been just his imagination, just the way it always was. Just the way—

      And then he heard it. Just as he turned back toward the door to leave, he heard it.

      Heard her.

      He froze, unable to move, unable to breathe, as the sound of her voice pierced his consciousness. Skewered his soul.

      Taunted him.

      Almost afraid to look, Cole forced himself to turn around again. When he did, he was just in time to see the owner turning a corner and walking down an aisle. He was returning to his counter at the front of the store.

      He was also talking to someone. A visible someone. He was talking to a woman.

      And that woman was Ronnie.

      Ed Haney’s round face appeared almost cherubic as he continued conferring. He seemed to be beaming as he bobbed his head with its ten wisps of hair up and down.

      Ronnie McCloud returned the shop owner’s smile. “I’ll tell Dad you were asking after him.”

      Ed was doing more than just asking after the rancher’s health and he wanted her to be clear about that. “Tell Amos that if there’s anything I can do to help, anything at all, he shouldn’t let that damn pride of his get in the way. All he has to do is say the word. I want to help. We all do,” Ed emphasized, then said in a conspiratorial voice, “There was really no need for you to have to come back here, although I have to say it surely is a pleasure seeing you again, Veronica. You’ve become one beautiful young woman, and if I was twenty years younger—well, no need to elaborate.” He chuckled. “You СКАЧАТЬ