The Lawman's Nanny Op

He wrote the number on a small notepad and then shut her trunk for her. “There’s no reason to believe that you’re in any imminent danger,” he said. “No threats have been made on you and it’s possible it wasn’t Dale that Sam saw. Sam said he just got a quick glance at the driver. I just wanted you to know that I’m on top of it and you need to be aware.”

“Thank you, Caleb. I appreciate it, especially with you having Brittany’s disappearance on your plate.”

He smiled, although the gesture didn’t reach the brown depths of his eyes. “At the moment Tom is working Brittany’s disappearance and I’m doing everything possible to fix your world. Besides, I’m afraid if I don’t you’ll sic Layla on me.”

She laughed, and it felt good. “Layla is a good friend.”

“She’s like an attack pit bull when it comes to you,” he replied. He jammed his hands into his pockets. “Anyway, I just wanted to let you know about Dale. I’ll be in touch if I find out anything else.”

“Thanks, Caleb.”

She watched him walk back toward the sheriff’s office and couldn’t help but notice that he looked as good going as he had coming.

As she got into her car she told herself that the tingly feeling she got whenever he was near was nothing more than an old memory playing itself out in her mind.

Did anyone ever really forget their first real love? Their first sexual awakening? Did the memory of that person always evoke the kind of yearning, the kind of electric sizzle that Caleb still managed to pull from her?

They’d both moved on. She knew he dated often and so did she, although no man had ever been as important to her as Caleb had once been.

She dismissed thoughts of him as she pulled away from the curb and headed home. Instead her head filled with thoughts of the Stemples. Dale and Rita had had two children, a three-year-old little boy named Danny and a four-year-old little girl named Diane.

The two children had only been in Portia’s care for two days when she saw the signs of abuse. There had been bruises on Diane’s forearm in the distinctive pattern of fingers and when Danny had called for her help in the bathroom on the second day, Portia had seen that his bottom was not only marked with lines from a belt, but also scabbed over in several places.

She’d immediately called Child Protective Services and a woman had shown up at the day care and had taken the children into custody. Portia had never seen Dale or Rita again.

She’d heard through the grapevine that Dale had been arrested for threatening a social worker and for keeping illegal guns in his house. Rita had left town and Portia had put the whole incident out of her mind except for occasionally wondering what had happened to Danny and Diane.

There had been some speculation that Dale’s parents might step in and request custody, but at the time Dale’s mother had been battling cancer and so the children had disappeared into the foster care system.

After a visit to Melody’s where she got enough hugs and kisses to last for the day, she drove home. She unloaded the paint into the day care and then went into the house for lunch. Her plan was to spend the afternoon moving everything into the center of the room to prepare for painting the next day.

She supposed she was probably overreacting to the break-in by moving the children to Melody’s, but she’d rather err on the side of caution where their safety was concerned.

Besides, she’d been wanting to repaint the interior of the day care for months and this seemed like a perfect opportunity to get it done.

When she left her house to return to the day-care facility, she carried with her a knife from the kitchen drawer and her cell phone. She felt slightly foolish with the knife in her hand and wasn’t even sure she could use it on anyone, even to protect herself. But she was reluctant to be there with no weapon at all while she worked.

At five o’clock she knocked off working and went inside to shower and change for dinner with her mother.

As usual, a faint edge of dread coursed through her as she thought of spending time with her mother.

Doris Perez was a bitter woman who had never gotten over her husband walking out on her and with each year that had passed, her bitterness had grown.

It was duty that drove Portia to the weekly dinners. Her mother had no friends, her health was failing and Portia was an only child. She loved her mother, but there were times she didn’t like her very much.

At six she got into the car to head to her childhood home eight miles away. As she drove she thought of the brief kiss she’d shared with Caleb. It had stunned her to realize that after all these years there was still magic in his kiss. His lips had held an intoxicating warmth, a faint edge of hunger that had excited her.

Although she’d halted it before it had gotten too deep, too breathtaking, there had been a part of her that had wanted to pull him back into her house, take him to her bed and make love with him. But the rational part of her knew that would be inviting heartache back into her life.

As she turned down the tree-lined, narrow country road that would eventually lead to her mother’s farmhouse, she couldn’t help but admire the play of the evening sunshine through the trees.

It wouldn’t be long and the leaves would begin to turn red and gold and fall to the ground. Portia loved autumn, but it was always in that time of the year when she thought of the babies she wanted—not babies who belonged to somebody else that she watched during the day, but rather babies that were from her heart, a twenty-four-hour part of her life. The fall always reminded her that another year was about to pass and she still wasn’t pregnant.

“You have to find a husband before you can have babies,” she said aloud. Although she knew some women chose to be single moms, that wasn’t a choice she wanted to make.

As the daughter of divorced parents and as someone who hadn’t had a relationship with her father since he’d walked out on them, she wanted her children to have something different, something more.

Her mother sat in a rocking chair on the front porch. The swing where Caleb and Portia had spent so many nights of their high school years had been taken down years ago.

As Portia pulled up in front of the house and parked, her mother stood. Doris Perez would be an attractive woman if bitterness hadn’t etched frown lines into her face.

“Hi, Mom,” Portia said as she got out of the car.

“About time you got here. I imagine the salad is soggy by now.”

“I’m sure it will be fine. I told you I’d get here around six-thirty.” Portia joined her mother on the porch and gave her a quick hug.

“Come on in and let’s eat,” Doris said. “When your father was here we always ate at five o’clock sharp. I’m not used to eating this late.”

It was the same litany every time Portia had dinner with her mother. She swallowed a sigh as she followed Doris into the cheerless kitchen, where the table was already set.

As Portia slid into the chair where she’d sat every night for meals while growing up, Doris opened the oven door and took out a homemade chicken potpie.

“How’s work?” Portia asked once they were both seated at the table and eating.

Doris scowled. “I never thought I’d have to work. If your father hadn’t left I would be spending my days having lunch with friends and puttering around the house instead of selling cosmetics to snotty teenagers at the local five-and-dime.”

“You only work four days a week. That still leaves you three days to putter around and have lunch with friends,” Portia countered.

Doris didn’t reply, but Portia knew the truth: her mother had chased off all her friends long ago with her negativity.

“Did you hear about them finding Brittany Grayson’s car in the Miller barn?” Portia asked.

“I heard.” Doris shook her head. “Terrible thing. You know that poor girl is probably dead.”

Portia’s heart constricted as she thought of Caleb grieving for his sister. “I hope not.”

“Have you heard any more on the break-in at your place?”

“I spoke to Caleb this morning about it. He mentioned that Dale Stemple just got out of prison. Remember him? I turned him and his wife in for child abuse.”

Doris nodded. “A nasty piece of work, that man was. I always thought he probably beat up on Rita, too. She acted like she was half-scared to move or talk whenever I saw her.”

“Of course we have no idea if Dale is even back in town or not,” Portia replied.

“I’m sure Caleb has other things on his mind with his sister’s car being found,” Doris replied with a knowing gaze. “But the way I remember it you were always on a back burner when it came to Caleb Grayson. He’s just like your daddy. Loves the women.”

“Mom, please, that was all a long time ago. Why don’t we talk about something a little more pleasant?” Portia exclaimed. The last thing she wanted to do was rehash Caleb’s betrayal of so long ago.

For the rest of the meal they talked about the kids in Portia’s day care, local gossip and the winter months that weren’t so very far away.

After eating, Portia helped her mother clear and wash the dishes. “You aren’t leaving right away, are you?” Doris asked when the dishes were finished. “I thought I’d fix some coffee and you could maybe help me on my newest puzzle.”

Although the last thing Portia wanted to do was spend another hour or so working on a jigsaw puzzle with her mother, she agreed. In truth, Portia felt sorry for her mother, who spent her evenings working puzzles and hating the man who had left her so long ago.

There had been no secrets in the Perez family. Doris had shared with her daughter at a very early age that her father, Pete, had not been faithful. There was a part of Portia that resented that her mother had made her party to adult issues when she should have been a carefree, happy child.

She remembered her father as a big, affable man with a booming laugh and big, strong arms. When she’d been young she hadn’t understood why when he’d left her mother, he’d also left her. As an adult she suspected that her father had been unable to sustain a relationship with Portia because that would have meant he’d have had to deal with his ex-wife.

He’d paid child support every month until Portia turned eighteen, and to this day Portia wondered if she would ever see him again.

It was almost ten and dark outside when her mother walked her out on the porch to tell her goodbye. Portia hugged her mother and wished things could have been different for her, wished that Doris had found some sort of happiness in her life, but she’d clung to her bitterness like it was a warm familiar lover and had refused to let it go.

“I’ll call you tomorrow night,” Portia said as she headed to her car.

It was a beautiful night. The temperature had dropped to a pleasant level and as Portia started her car she rolled down the windows for the drive home.

The road she travelled between her mother’s house and her own was a narrow two-lane stretch of highway that was rarely used and lined with thick-trunked old trees.

The night air drifted through the window and caressed her face. She turned the radio on and tuned it to her favorite oldies station.

Portia hadn’t gone far when she noticed the headlights of another vehicle approaching quickly behind her. Irritation surged up inside her as the truck drew close and its brights shimmered in her rearview mirror.

“Jerk,” she muttered and flipped the mirror up to diminish the blinding glare. “Dim your lights.”

Before she had her hand firmly back on the steering wheel she felt a jarring bang. “Hey!” she cried as she realized she’d been hit from behind.

She started to brake, assuming that it had been an accident, but before she could she was hit again, this time with enough force to wrest the steering wheel out of her hands.

A single moment of panic soared through her as she realized her car was out of control and one of those beautiful, big oak trees was directly in front of her.

She heard the impact just before her head snapped forward and made contact with the steering wheel and darkness sprang up to grab her.

Caleb had just shucked his jeans to go to bed when his cell phone rang. It was the deputy on duty, Sam McCain. “What’s up, Sam?” Caleb asked.

“I just got a call from Gus Swanson. He and his wife were driving down Old Pike Highway and found Portia Perez’s car wrecked and her unconscious. They’re near Doris’s place and I’ve called for an ambulance, but thought you might want to know.”

Sam had barely gotten the words out of his mouth before Caleb hung up. He grabbed his jeans and pulled them back on, his heart thundering with urgency.

He snatched his car keys and was on the road within seconds. Unconscious: that didn’t sound good. What had happened? He knew that stretch of highway was narrow, but Portia had driven it enough times to know it like the back of her hand.

So, what had happened? How had she wrecked? And how badly was she hurt? He squeezed the steering wheel tightly and stepped on the gas, unable to get to the scene fast enough.

No matter what their past, Portia had never moved far out of his heart. Even the love he’d thought he’d had for Laura hadn’t rivaled what he’d once felt for Portia.

As always, thoughts of Laura created a hot ball of anger in his chest. What she’d done to him was unforgivable and even though it had been a little over a year ago, the rage he felt toward her hadn’t diminished.

But he couldn’t think about that now. He had to get to Portia.

His heart nearly stopped as he rounded a curve and came upon the scene. The front end of Portia’s red car was smashed against a tree trunk.

Gus Swanson and his wife, Martha, stood next to the car and Portia was prone on the ground next to them. A sigh of relief escaped Caleb as he saw Portia raise a hand to her head. At least she was conscious now.

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