Tempting The Sheriff

Fulton opened his mouth, glanced at Lily and wisely opted for another sip instead. Clarissa left and Lily waved Fulton into the now empty chair.

He had squeezed back into JD’s uniform shirt. It was tucked neatly into his jeans, revealing his hip holster. His jaw was freshly shaved, and he smelled like a forest on a sunny day.

Lily scowled. “Can’t you ask your mayor pal for money to buy a uniform?”

“He just scored me a flatscreen TV,” he said mildly. “I don’t want to take advantage.”

She peered at him over her glasses, caught the glint in his eyes and wished he didn’t make her feel like such a fuddy-duddy. “There’s a spare rig in the back,” she said. “I’ll pull it out for you. A badge, too.” She should have taken care of that yesterday.

“Thanks.” He sipped his coffee, gaze steady on hers over the rim of his mug. “You sizing me up for a reflective vest?”

“What?” Lily blinked. Had she been staring at his chest? Fudge.

His lips twitched as he gestured with his cup. “Figured you had me in mind for crosswalk duty.”

“I don’t have you in mind at all, Deputy.” When his smirk graduated to a grin, she regretted her words immediately. “What I mean is, I haven’t decided on your collateral duty.” She swiveled toward her computer and stared blindly at the spreadsheet she’d been working on. She had to stop caring that this man had the ear of the mayor. She had to get on with her job.

She hit a few keys. “Court security or records management?”

“You’re giving me a choice?”

“I am.”

“Court security, then.” While she typed, he cradled his cup in his hands and scooted forward in the chair. “Listen. About this thing with the mayor—”

Clarissa appeared in the doorway. “Just got a call from Audrey Tweedy. The Petroskis are at it again.”

Five minutes later, Lily and Fulton were headed south on Route 5, with Lily behind the wheel. Beside her in the passenger seat, Fulton took off his shades, polished them on his shirt and slid them back on. “What’s the story?”

She flicked on her signal and changed lanes. “One of our old-timers, Jakub Petroski, owned a candy store on Buffalo Road. He passed away about six months ago. His kids arrived to settle his estate and we’ve had nothing but trouble since.”

“You liked him.”

She gave him the side eye. “Why do you say that?”

“You’re talking. Can’t be me. Must be him.”

“Anyway,” she said pointedly, “we get these calls once a week. When John and Sadie argue, they do it loudly.”

“Anything more than words exchanged?”

With a shake of her head, she pulled into the driveway of a weathered brick Colonial with teal shutters, a columned porch tucked under a deep copper-coated gable and a chimney on either side of the house. A row of feathery spruces screened the property from the road. She never could understand why Jakub’s kids were so eager to get rid of it.

She parked her cruiser and they got out.

Fulton rounded the hood. “How do you want to do this?”

Lily couldn’t help a glimmer of respect. The last thing she needed on her team was a hotdogger.

“Wait here,” she said. “JD handled these calls on his own. We don’t want them to think we’re here to do anything other than help.”

He frowned, but nodded.

Lily grabbed her hat from the backseat and started for the house. She was halfway up the walk when the front door opened.

“Stop right there, Sheriff,” John, a dark-haired, wiry man with the whitest teeth she’d ever seen, shouted at her through the screen door. “This isn’t your business.”

“It is when a crime’s being committed,” Lily responded calmly. “Let’s start with disturbing the peace.”

“That’s bullshit. No way the neighbors can hear us. That bitch next door has been creeping around again.”

He meant Audrey Tweedy. When the elder Petroski had realized he was dying, he’d begged Audrey to look after his flowers and shrubs until the house changed hands. The old woman had kept the masses of lilies and hydrangeas and irises looking lush. The rest of the property? Another story.

Lily glanced over her shoulder at Fulton, who was eyeing the shin-high grass and the newspapers littering the front porch. “The kids are in it for the money,” he said flatly.

She nodded once. The Petroski twins had made it clear to JD that they couldn’t sell the house and get out of Castle Creek fast enough. As far as Lily was concerned, they’d already taken way too much time.

She turned back to face the house. “We’re just here to talk, Mr. Petroski.”

“Come any farther and my sister’s going to regret it.”

Oh, fudge. This was new. “Want to tell me exactly what that means?”

Silence.

“Mr. Petroski,” she shouted. “Can I call you John?”

“Only if you do it on your way off my property,” he shouted back.

Beside her, Fulton grunted. “Funny guy.”

Lily sighed. “I thought I asked you to wait by the car.”

“This is the point where a show of force is appropriate.”

She didn’t say anything. He was right. And she couldn’t help a swell of appreciation that he was there to back her up.

“Mr. Petroski,” Fulton called. “Do you have any weapons in there with you?”

No response. A bumblebee droned by and leather creaked when Fulton shifted beside her. Lily tamped down a sizzle of desire. What was wrong with her?

The summer sun was gathering its strength. That was it. It was the heat. She adjusted the brim of her hat and grimaced as sweat trickled down between her shoulder blades.

“How about you, Miss Petroski?” she yelled. “Want to tell me what’s going on in there?”

“My brother wants to sell the house to the old lady next door and I don’t.” Sadie was yelling down at them from an open upstairs window.

“What’s wrong with the old lady next door?” The woman in question popped up from behind the hydrangeas that divided the yards.

Fulton had already dropped into a crouch, hand at his holster. Lily had one hand on her radio and the other on the butt of her gun. The instant she registered Audrey as a nonthreat, her knees went weak.

* * *

VAUGHN SWORE AND straightened out of his crouch. Did no one in this town mind their own business?

Jesus. The old lady could have been shot.

“Ma’am,” he growled. “You need to step back.”

Instead, Audrey Tweedy stiffened her lumberjack shoulders and faced her neighbors’ house. “I made you a fair offer,” she called. “Why won’t you accept it?”

No answer. Meanwhile, Sheriff Tate was making shooing motions at Audrey. The elderly woman planted her bright white trainers wide, crossed her arms over her Go Army T-shirt and lifted her chin. She obviously wasn’t going anywhere without a sumo wrestle.

The sheriff rolled her eyes and turned back to the house. “Mrs. Tweedy here said she heard you two threatening each other with knives. Is that true?”

“We only said that because she was listening in.” Now John had his face pressed against the screen as he glowered at Audrey.

The sheriff sighed. “How about you two come out onto the porch? We can talk a lot easier face-to-face.”

“Ha!” Sadie shouted. “You mean it’ll be easier to shoot us.”

“Nobody’s getting shot here today,” the sheriff said calmly, though she did cast a considering glance in Audrey Tweedy’s direction. “I don’t intend to let anyone get knifed, either.”

“They need the money,” Audrey said. The sheriff tried to shush her, but the volume on that baby-doll voice was cranked up to wake-the-dead. “I heard them. John owes five grand to his dentist and Sadie wants bigger breasts.”

“Oh, my God,” Sadie cried. “See what I mean?”

A thundering sound, like someone storming down a set of hardwood steps. “That’s it! We’re not selling!” Sadie shrieked from the first floor. “Not to her, not to anyone.”

“Fine,” her brother hollered back. “So we’ll burn the goddamned place down to the ground!”

“Deputy Fulton,” Sheriff Tate said through clenched teeth. “Please see Mrs. Tweedy safely inside her home.”

Message received, loud and clear. Take the old woman away before someone does get hurt. He hoped to hell he wasn’t going to have to manhandle the lady. She reminded him too much of his aunt Brenda.

When he began to weave his way toward her, maneuvering through chest-high shrubs laden with fat, round blossoms the same blue as the Popsicles he used to enjoy as a kid, the old lady wagged a finger. “Now, listen, dear, I have no intention of moving an inch. I’m on my property. I’m not breaking any laws.”

Oh, yeah. Aunt Brenda all over again. Vaughn lifted his left arm in a futile attempt to back her up. “But you are, ma’am. You’re interfering with a police officer in the course of his duties. Now you can go sit inside your house—” he reached for the pouch at the back of the equipment belt the sheriff had set him up with, pulled out the cuffs and dangled them “—or you can sit inside the squad car.”

Audrey’s eyes widened. She hesitated, then gave a mighty sniff. “I had fully intended to offer you two refreshments when you were done here,” she said crossly. “But I believe I’ll keep my bacon-wrapped shrimp to myself.”

Vaughn watched her march across her yard to her front porch. She stomped up the stairs, but instead of slamming open the door, she turned and dropped onto the top step. Fighting a grin, Vaughn held up two fingers and pointed at his eyes, then at her, then back at himself. Up went her chin as she yanked at the hem of her T-shirt.

Too bad she was holding this against him, because that shrimp sounded good.

He pivoted back toward the Petroski house. Oh, shit. The sheriff was standing in front of the Petroskis’ open screen door, staring down a big-ass butcher knife.

Vaughn pulled his piece and ran.

The sheriff’s hand never even twitched toward her pepper spray or stun gun. Instead she kicked out, and Vaughn heard a muffled thud as boot connected with bone. Steel clattered onto tile and the simultaneous high-pitched screech of pain could have been male or female. Mystery solved when a tall, thin woman collapsed against the screen door, both hands wrapped around her left shin. Sheriff Tate bent down and picked up the knife, seemingly unmoved by Sadie Petroski’s wailing.

Or the fact that she could have easily taken a knife to the gut. Vaughn ground his teeth. He and the good sheriff were going to have to set some ground rules.

Scratch that. What the good sheriff needed was a refresher in defensive tactics.

“John Petroski,” the sheriff hollered at the open doorway. “Come out onto the porch where we can see you.”

“I was only showing it to you,” Sadie sobbed. “I only wanted you to see what my dipshit brother’s been waving at me.” She rubbed her denim-clad shin as she sagged against the screen door, which had banged against the side of the house. “You bitch, you broke my leg.”

“Your leg? What about my door?” Her brother stomped out onto the porch, wearing shorts but no shirt, a half-eaten peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in his hand. “Who’s going to pay for that?”

With his free hand, Vaughn retrieved his cuffs. He climbed the porch steps and kicked several rolled-up newspapers out of the way. “Hands behind your back,” he said to the brother.

Petroski stuffed the remainder of his sandwich in his mouth and complied. Vaughn holstered his weapon and fit the cuffs on the guy’s jelly-smeared wrists.

Meanwhile the sheriff set down the knife, stepped on the handle and pulled her cuffs free of her belt.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Sadie cried. “You broke my leg. Don’t think I won’t sue.”

“Bruised it, maybe,” the sheriff said. “But I didn’t break it. Drop your leg and turn around.”

“You’re going to arrest me?” Sadie pushed upright, shoved her long red bangs out of her face and stomped her injured leg. “What the hell for?”

“Property damage,” said her brother, through the remains of his sandwich.

“Screw you!” shouted Sadie. “It’s my house, too.”

Sheriff Tate fit her cuffs on a fuming Sadie. “Mr. Petroski, I need you to go with Deputy Fulton. He’ll find someplace quiet where you can tell him your side of the story.”

Vaughn led John Petroski down the porch steps and around the side of the house. Petroski was much calmer away from his sister. He admitted he’d brandished the knife at Sadie, then set it on the counter. She’d grabbed it and run for the door, shouting that she was going to “tell on him.”

Jesus. “You two are how old?”

Petroski scowled, then jerked his head at the house. “What’s she got coming?”

“Aggravated assault.”

“Give me a frickin’ break. I just told you, she wasn’t threatening the sheriff.”

“She was brandishing a weapon. That’s called physical menace.” When Petroski swore and kicked the side of the house, hard enough to dent the siding, Vaughn narrowed his eyes. “We going to have to put you in leg irons, too?”

“Don’t you worry, Deputy. I’ve got him covered.” Audrey Tweedy approached from the rear corner of the house, lip curled, eyes squinted. She carried a spray bottle of oven cleaner in one hand and a can of WD-40 in the other. “And you.” She pointed the can at Petroski. “Stop putting holes in the house, or I’ll drop my offer by ten percent.”

Petroski snorted. “If anyone deserves to be arrested, it’s this old bag. C’mon, man, she’s trespassing.”

Audrey lowered her weapon and grinned. “Sell me the house and I won’t be.”

They settled the Petroskis in the cruiser, escorted Audrey back to her own property and bagged the knife. Back at the station, Vaughn waited for a chance to pull the sheriff aside. She’d arrested both Petroskis for disturbing the peace and handled the processing and paperwork without any visible aftereffects from a situation that could have landed her in the hospital. Or worse.

Her attitude worried him. It also pissed him off.

The moment she returned to her office, a mug of coffee in one hand and a stack of paperwork in the other, he followed her in and shut the door. “I know you’re smarter than what you pulled today. You have to be.”

With slow and careful motions, the sheriff set her coffee on her desk and pushed her shoulders so far back it was a wonder she didn’t topple over.

She had grit. He admired it, and he resented it. His job here wasn’t going to get easier anytime soon, which made it damn inconvenient that every time he saw her he wanted to back her up against the nearest wall and practice his search-and-seizure skills.

“You don’t know me,” she said.

He sure as hell wanted to. “I won’t get a chance, either, you keep taking idiotic gambles like that.”

“Do I need to remind you who’s the sheriff and who’s the deputy here?”

He shook his head, and let his gaze linger on her chest. “Don’t worry. I see the badge.”

Her arms twitched, as if she wanted to fold them over her chest. “Exactly what do you think I should have done differently?”

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