Second Chance at the Sugar Shack (6 page)

Sheriff Washburn was too focused on retirement to recognize the problem or to want to find a solution. After forty years of service, he rightfully had his eye on the back nine at the Shadow Peak Golf Course and a place in the shade with a cold beer at the end of the day. When Matt became sheriff, he intended to tackle the situation full force before any more kids fell further down the rabbit hole. He’d made a list of methods to gain funding for the growing situation. Made a list of procedures to eliminate the problem. Now all he had to do was make sure the community put a check in front of his name on the ballot for sheriff.

Matt’s boot heels echoed across the concrete floor as he walked toward his office. He hadn’t gone far before Buddy Hutchins appeared. Matt had hoped his high school nemesis wouldn’t make an appearance today. He should have known better.

“How can I help you, Buddy?” Matt’s greeting was met with the same glare he’d faced when the two of them had played high school football together. Buddy had been a huge defensive back with a bad attitude. Things hadn’t changed much over the years.

“You get a kick out of arresting my uncle on a drunk and disorderly?” Buddy growled. “He’s an old man. Can’t you go pick on someone else?”

Matt folded his arms. “Mr. Tittlebaum is not under arrest. He’s currently sleeping it off.” The stink of stale beer surrounded Buddy like flies on shit. “I’d suggest you do the same.”

Buddy pushed at Matt’s chest with both hands. “You threatening me, Ryan?”

The shove was enough to cause Matt to move back a step. But he didn’t back down. “
Suggesting
, Buddy. It’s a beautiful day. I’m sure you’d rather enjoy it from this side of the bars.”

Buddy pulled back his fist and aimed it at Matt. “That’s a threat! You son-of-a—”

The punch never landed. Matt caught it in his hand and used a familiar maneuver to restrain Buddy without much effort. “Assaulting an officer of the law is a federal offense, Son,” Matt said as he guided Buddy back toward the holding cells. “Maybe you need to sleep it off alongside your uncle.”

“
Son!
You’re a piss-ant, Ryan.”

“Yeah, I know.” He pushed Buddy into his uncle’s cell and turned the key in the lock. A rant of swear words followed Matt all the way back to his office. If not the brightest, Buddy was at least creative.

Matt dropped to his chair, ignored the creaks and groans of the age-old springs beneath the leather seat and tossed the arrest log on the desk he shared with James Harley and Stan Bradshaw. Across the scratched surface sat a picture of Stan’s wife and twin boys. The only sign eternal playboy James took up residence was a half-empty mug of cold coffee.

With a few quiet minutes before he headed out to run the lake-to-Lookout Point patrol, Matt pulled his wallet from his pants and withdrew a wrinkled piece of paper. He unfolded it and stared at the names written in his heavy, barely legible scrawl.

“What the hell is this?” James suddenly appeared and whipped the paper from his hands.

Matt grabbed for it but James waved it above his head and grinned like the antagonist pain-in-the-ass he was.

“You makin’
another
list, Deputy Ryan? Seems you got a list for everything.”

The chair creaked as Matt leaned back. He refused to give James any more ammo than he already held in his hand.

“Let’s see . . .” James’s dark brown eyes scanned the list. He forked his fingers through sandy colored hair that looked like he’d just done time in the sack with one of his many female admirers. “Emma Hart, Sarah Collins, Lacy Shaw, Diane Fielding . . .” He looked up, shaking his head. “You plan to keep all the single ladies in town to yourself?”

“It doesn’t concern you.”

“Uh-huh.” James’ grin widened. “You’re not thinkin’ about marrying one of these gals, are you?”

Matt fought the irritation that stung his cheeks. “Like I said, none of your business.”

“Of course it is.” James clasped a hand to the front of his shirt. “I’d be lax in my best friend duties if I didn’t butt right on in. You want my advice—”

“I don’t.”

“I’d go with that Lacy Shaw. She’s pretty hot. Nothing sexier than a woman in a nurse’s uniform.”

“I’m not looking for hot, James. I’m looking for respectable.” Maybe to some, making a list of potential wives seemed a mechanical method. Too thought out. No emotions involved. But Matt was ready—now—to find someone he was compatible with. Someone who would make a good wife and mother. Someone who would keep his bed warm and be happy to see him each night when he walked through the door. The trick, however, would be dating more than one of these ladies in a town the size of a postage stamp without hurting someone’s feelings.

He’d never considered himself a player. He’d always considered himself a one woman man, even when he’d never returned to a woman’s bed more than once. But lately he hadn’t had time for many outside pleasures. Dating had been dead last on his mind. He’d mapped out a life and he only had a few months to make it happen. If all went according to plan, by this time next year he’d be Sheriff of Deer Lick, have a wife, and maybe even have started a family.

Matt wanted a family.

He
needed
a family—one that would erase the years of dysfunction that had bred like cockroaches in his childhood home. Whatever welfare trailer-of-the-month that had happened to be.

Letty Silverthorne had told him he’d written himself a pretty tall order. But Matt knew what he wanted. Knew what he’d worked hard for these past eight years. And he had every intention of making all his dreams a reality.

All of them, except one.

He’d dreamed that Kate would realize she loved him and come back. But she hadn’t. Time to move on.

“Well, if you want respectable,” James said, “you’d best cross off Diane. I hear she’s got a mean penchant for whips and leather.”

Matt’s head shot up to find the customary smirk tilting his partner’s mouth. He and James had become friends over the six years they’d worked together. Before that, James had been untouchable, unreachable, and downright scary. Since he’d come over to the right side of the law, he’d become trustworthy and dependable. Seems James had hunted down his demons and won. Now he maintained a decent, if not a little wild, existence in his time off. But that didn’t make Matt want to wring his neck any less. “May I have that back?”

James handed him the paper. “You’ve got to quit making so many lists, my man, and start living.”

“That’s what I intend to do.”

“Right.” James leaned a hip against the desk while Harvey’s snores and Buddy’s curses rattled through the station house. “So does that mean you’re going to ask out that hot little redhead I saw you talking to in the Grange parking lot last night?”

Matt’s pulse kicked up a notch. “That hot little redhead happens to be the youngest Silverthorne.”

“No shit?”

“No shit,” Matt answered. “And no, I won’t be asking her out.”

“Huh.” James scratched his chin. “Mind if I do?”

Something zinged around Matt’s heart and forced its way into his throat like a fifty pound bag of cement. Something that made him remember the way Katie had whispered his name when he’d held her in his arms. Something that brought back the same fresh, raw ache in his soul he’d felt the day he learned she’d left without even a good-bye.

Did he mind?

The sudden image of Katie in James’s arms made Matt’s blood boil. Fucking right he minded. “She’s only in town for two days and her mother just died.”

James shrugged. “Maybe she needs some consoling.”

Matt’s stomach churned as he shoved the folded paper into his jacket pocket and hoped to God he wouldn’t have to kill his best friend.

K
ate glanced around the bakery. Everything about the Sugar Shack screamed 1970s. The floor tiles, once a dusty pink, were now so yellowed with age they’d turned a putrid shade of orange. Dark paneling covered the walls and baskets of faded silk flowers decorated the top shelves. Everything was the same, even the intense smell of sugar.

Hands dusted with flour, Kate popped a tray of cooled cupcakes onto the work counter. Beside her, Kelly cut a tube of chilled dough to make their mother’s famous honey wheat dinner rolls. On Kate’s other side, Dean grumbled while he used a spatula to lift a batch of fresh-baked oatmeal raisin cookies from a metal pan.

“I’ll bet
Sports Illustrated
would love to get a load of you wearing that apron,” Kate teased. “Some big football stud, you are.”

“Just because I can bake a mean pastry doesn’t mean I’m not a killer on the field.”

Kate laughed and patted him on the back, leaving a floured handprint on his baby blue shirt. “You keep convincing yourself of that, Bucko.”

Kelly looked up. The frown wrinkling her smooth forehead ended their fun. “Come on you guys, quit goofing off. We need to discuss dad’s situation while he’s busy.”

Kate glanced across the bakery where their father leaned against the counter talking with Gretchen Wilkes, a woman far too old to wear a mini-skirt and cowboy boots. “Yeah. Now’s a good time. Especially since I have to leave tonight.”

“You what?” Kelly’s eyes widened. Her knife thunked into the cutting board. “You can’t leave tonight.”

“Yes I can.”

“Uh-uh,” Dean interjected. “We agreed we’d talk about dad’s situation.”

Kate piped a dollop of butter cream icing on a cupcake. “So talk.”

Dean, being the oldest, gave Kelly that stupid eye signal he’d used in their adolescence when the two of them had plotted against Kate, the youngest and obviously, most naive.

“There’s no way we can all just jump on a plane out of here,” Kelly said. “Dad has no one.”

“I’m aware of that, Kel.”

“How’s he going to bake all this stuff? It’s going to take time to hire a good employee.” Dean slid the cookies onto parchment-covered trays. “And how’s he going to run the business alone? Forget about trying to run the household too. Mom took care of everything.”

“Who’s he going to go home to at the end of the day?” Kelly asked.

Kate looked up from the cupcake she was decorating with barely recognizable iced violets. “Why are you guys giving
me
the third degree?”

“We’re not,” Dean slammed his fist into a fresh glob of dough. “It’s just something we need to discuss.”

“So . . . let’s discuss,” Kate said.

“The football season is in high gear,” Dean informed her as if she didn’t already know. “I can’t just walk away. I’ve got a contract.”

“And I’m in the middle of a high-profile case,” Kelly announced. “If I walk away, a child murderer might go free.”

As their words sank in, Kate felt dizzy. The oven-warm smells of the bakery suddenly overwhelmed her. Her heart skipped and thudded. “This doesn’t sound much like a discussion.”

Dean plowed his fist into the dough again while Kelly slapped her dinner rolls onto baking sheets. Neither of them would look her in the eye.

“It just makes more sense that you would stay,” Dean said.

Kate shook her head. “No. I have a job too. I have three celebrities to dress for awards shows next week. I can’t just walk away either.”

“Isn’t there some way you can work without actually being there? You have a laptop. A cell phone.” Kelly shoved her rolls into the deep wall oven. “Seriously, Kate. You can hardly compare making gorgeous people even more beautiful to putting a child murderer away for life.”

“Or winning the Super Bowl,” Dean added.

“Are you both crazy? You can’t do this to me!”

Their father’s attention broke away from his conversation with Gretchen Wilkes and he gave Kate a smile that reached all the way from his sad green eyes to her heart. Kate broke out in a cold sweat that had nothing to do with the heat of the ovens behind her. “Oh, my God. You guys already told dad I’d stay, didn’t you?”

Kelly at least managed to look sheepish. Dean, not so much.

“Uh-uh.” Kate thrust her index finger in the direction of the back door. “Outside. Now!”

Surprisingly the football hero and the fierce prosecutor ducked their heads and followed her orders. Once they reached the back alley, Kate shut the door, folded her arms and glared at her traitorous siblings.

“Kate—”

“You guys suck. You know that? I may not have a job that can save the world or that an entire team depends on, but my career is important to me too. You both said we’d
discuss
dad’s situation. So that’s what we’re going to do right here, right now.
Discuss
. Not dog pile on Kate.”

Dean and Kelly looked at each other.

“Stop that!” Kate yelled. “I know all about that weird nonverbal communication thing you do. It won’t work this time.”

Kelly rubbed her forehead. “I’m so sorry, Kate. There’s no way I can walk away from this case. You don’t know what it’s like looking into the eyes of this child’s parents. I can’t let them down. I’ve got to make sure their daughter’s killer never hurts another child, ever again.” Kelly’s eyes darkened. “Or I’ll never be able to live with myself.”

Imagining the worst scenario, Kate’s heart thumped hard. “He’s a real bad guy, huh, Kel?”

“The worst.” Kelly nodded slowly. “The best guesstimate I have for when the trial might be over is three to five months.”

“The season will be over after the Super Bowl,” Dean added. “I won’t accept that it will end sooner for the team. They’ve worked their asses off this year.”

Five months.
Kate groaned silently.

Five looooong months.

How would she be able to keep her career alive after a five-month absence in a town that could forget a name in the span of an episode of
Entertainment Tonight
?

“We’re so sorry, Kate. I’ll come back as soon as I possibly can,” Kelly promised.

“Me too,” her brother echoed.

Kate exhaled. “I know.”

Then, they all hugged. Because in the end, this wasn’t about them. It was about their dad.

When all the baking had been done, Kelly and Dean went home and Kate returned to her cupcakes. Tension cramped the muscles in her neck and her grip on the pastry bag tightened. A big spurt of pale pink icing globbed onto the cupcake, ruining it for consumption other than the mouth of the trash can.