The Sheriff's Second Chance. Michelle Celmer

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СКАЧАТЬ turned in her order, and when she glanced back over at Nate a few minutes later, he was gone. She breathed a silent sigh of relief. That could have gone worse, but not much.

      He betrayed you, too, she reminded herself, so why did she still feel so darned guilty?

      For as long as she could remember, she had been dependable Caitie, always doing exactly what was expected of her, sacrificing her own dreams, her own needs, to make everyone else happy. Until one day she had just...snapped. When the acceptance letter to an East Coast school arrived with a full scholarship—one she had only applied for on a whim thinking she would never get it—she knew it was destiny. An opportunity she simply couldn’t pass up.

      She’d hurt two of the most important people in her life when she’d left so abruptly that fall, and she didn’t expect them to understand why she’d done it, but they couldn’t hold it against her for the rest of her life. At some point they would have to forgive her.

      Right?

      Caitie made it through the breakfast rush and was about to sit down for a much-needed break when her dad called her into the back office.

      “Would you mind running these papers home to your mom?” he said, handing her a manila folder. “I forgot them last night when I closed up.”

      She took the folder. “She’s not coming in today?”

      “She does the bookkeeping and ordering from home now. Her headaches have been much more unpredictable lately, and more frequent.”

      As long as Caitie could remember her mom had gotten bad headaches. Sometimes two or three a month. “How frequent?”

      “A couple times a week.”

      Caitie sucked in a breath, wondering why she was just now hearing about it. “How long has this been going on?”

      “It was a gradual change. I would say that it got really bad this time last year. But now they have her on a new medication. It doesn’t take the headache away, but it makes the pain tolerable. And it curbs the nausea.”

      “There’s nothing they can do to stop them?”

      He shook his head. “She copes.”

      Caitie was sure she did. But her mom had worked damned hard all her life. She deserved better than just coping.

      Caitie glanced at her watch and said, “I should go, or I’ll be late for the lunch rush.”

      She walked to the row of lockers across from the office to fetch her purse.

      “I guess you knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” he said, leaning in the office doorway, watching her. “Coming back, I mean.”

      “I guess.”

      His brow crinkled with concern. “Is there anything I can do?”

      “I can handle it,” she said, hoping that was true. She slung her purse over her shoulder. “I’ll be back before the lunch rush.”

      “Before you go...” He wrapped her up in a big hug and said, “I love you, Caitie.”

      It was exactly what she needed. Her dad always knew just what to say and do to make her feel better. “I love you, too, Dad.”

      She let herself out the back door into the sizzling August heat, crossed the alley behind the restaurant and climbed into the beat-up Ford compact she’d bought her senior year of high school. The driver’s side mirror was secured to the door with duct tape and there was a hole in the dash where the radio used to be, but after all this time it still ran—albeit barely. It took a couple of tries, but the engine sputtered to life and she blasted the air conditioner, which, at its best, spit out air that was more lukewarm than cool. She shut it off and cranked her windows down instead.

      She pulled out of the alley and turned left onto Main Street. Her parent’s farmhouse, where she was staying, sat on an acre of land a mile north of town. Caitie’s great-grandfather, Winston Cavanaugh, who had built the house in the early 1900s, used to own the largest farm in the county and until the Great Depression was one of the wealthiest men in town. But his son—her grandfather George Cavanaugh—having no desire to work the land, sold off all but the one acre her parents now owned and built the diner. Caitie and her younger sister would one day inherit all of it, and would undoubtedly sell it. New York was Cait’s home now, and her sister, Kelly, who was attending college in California, was making noises about moving to the West Coast permanently after graduation. Of course, with Kelly, one never knew.

      Caitie headed down Main, her car sputtering and coughing it’s way past the pharmacy and the thrift store, the post office and the ice-cream shop, marveling at how little things had changed in seven years. She had been home for Christmas and Easter, but she usually avoided venturing into town. Too many memories. Too many questions to answer if she ran into someone she knew.

      She passed Joe’s Place, a newer, log cabin–style building on the edge of town. The scent of tangy smoking meat was drifting on the air. She flicked her blinker on to swing left onto the county road, but as she made the turn, her car choked and wheezed; then the engine died. She rolled to a stop dead center in the intersection.

      She cursed and banged the steering wheel, mumbling, “Please, not today.”

      She jammed it into Neutral and turned the key, pumping the gas. “Come on, baby, just one more mile.”

      The engine caught, then roared to life, only to die again before she could get the gear into Drive.

      Seriously? As if this day hadn’t been miserable enough already.

      After several more unsuccessful attempts that only managed to suck whatever juice was left in the battery, she dropped her head against the steering wheel. Sweat beaded her forehead as the temperature in interior of the car skyrocketed.

      A car passed, maneuvering around her, and the driver—an older woman Caitie didn’t recognize—honked her horn, looking annoyed. Did she honestly think Caitie deliberately stopped in the middle of an intersection? Two more cars went by, their drivers offering her sympathetic smiles, but neither stopped to help. So much for small-town hospitality.

      Leaving the car in Neutral, Caitie got out to push it out of the intersection, but pushing and steering simultaneously wasn’t as easy as it looked. The soles of her tennis shoes kept slipping on the hot asphalt as she rocked the car, and sweat poured down her face, stinging her eyes. The county road was on a slight decline, so if she could just get the car moving, getting it onto the side of the road should be a piece of cake.

      She gave one mighty shove that she knew she would feel later as her back and shoulder muscles screamed in protest. But the car started to roll. Slowly at first, but as she completed the turn onto the county road, it picked up speed as the road dipped down. Her intention was to hop back into the driver’s seat and maneuver it onto the side of the road, but she lost her footing. She slipped and went down hard, wincing as her bare knees and palms hit the hot asphalt.

      Unfortunately the car kept on going.

      She scrambled to her feet, but it was too late. She watched in helpless disbelief as the car accelerated and veered to the right, kicking up dust as it hit the shoulder. Then it plunged into the ditch dividing the road from Mr. Johnson’s cornfield and with a sickening crunch of metal landed ass СКАЧАТЬ