Tomorrow's Promise (The Hawks Mountain Series) (2 page)

“I’ve come to see about the job in the newspaper.” Faith held out the dog-eared edition of
The Carson Gazette
she’d pulled from her shoulder bag. “I’m Faith Chambers.”

Harriet’s eyes widened. “Well, bless me, yes you are. Now, why didn’t I recognize you right off?” She rose and came around the desk to gently hug both Lizzie and Faith. “Doc keeps telling me to have my glasses changed, I guess he’s right.” She grinned, then cupped her hand over her mouth and whispered, “Don’t tell him that. He loves it when he’s right, and then there’s no living with him at all.”

Harriet’s warm greeting took away the sting of Laureene Talbot’s prying. Faith returned the smile and promised, “I won’t tell him.”

“Good.” Not one to waste too much time on social pleasantries, Harriet got right to the heart of the matter. “About that job, dear . . . I’m afraid we hired someone a few days ago. I’m getting too old to run the office and keep up with the chores at home.” She leaned closer to Faith. “Truth be told, I’d rather be here anyway. Always hated housework.”

The job was filled?

Faith felt the bottom drop out of her world. What would she do now? “Would you or Doc know of anyone looking to hire in Carson? I don’t have a car, so I’d need one within walking distance.”

“I don’t recall any off hand, but Doc might know of something.” She lowered her voice as if to share a confidence. “Everybody who comes in here thinks they have to tell him the story of their lives. Between you and me, I think he enjoys hearing the latest about all of them.” She grinned. “If anyone in Carson is looking for help, he’ll know.” She reached across the desk for Doc’s brown leather appointment book. “You came at a good time. He doesn’t have another appointment for fifteen minutes or so. Get right in there.”

Faith looked around the waiting room. “Can I leave Lizzie out here with you? She’s sleepy so she shouldn’t be any trouble. If it’s okay, I’ll just lay her on the couch.”

Harriet frowned. “You most certainly will not.” Faith’s heart sank. How was she going to talk to Doc about a job with Lizzie demanding her attention? “She can sit right here on my lap,” Harriet said, reaching for Lizzie. “I can never hold the little ones enough.”

Lizzie went to Harriet without a backward look at her mother.

“Thank you.”

Harriet dismissed Faith’s gratitude with a wave of her hand. “No need to thank me. I’ll enjoy this more than she will. Now, you get in there and pick Amos’s brain about that job.”

Heart in her throat, Faith opened the door to Doc’s inner office. Just the thought of having to crawl back to her parents and beg them to take her in made her stomach sour. If she didn’t get a job, facing her mother’s censure and I-told-you-so’s would be infinitely worse than facing the entire town’s disapproval. She’d rather die than have to crawl home to Celia Chambers.

ACTING SHERIFF Cole Ainsley closed the door to his office, leaving his deputy, Graylin Talbot, to oversee things in his absence. Even since Davy Collins went missing a while back, before Cole arrived in town, things around Carson had been quiet, with only a few speeding tickets and Jimmy Logan’s nightly incarceration for public intoxication to contend with.

A good thing it was, since Graylin would not have been Cole’s first choice for Deputy of the Year. His nickname around town was Barney Fife, which kind of said it all. Not that Graylin wasn’t a good man and a fine officer, he was. He was just overeager sometimes and lacking a bit in the common sense department. Like the time he arrested Lucas Michaels and Amantha James for “killing” a mechanical baby. Secretly, Cole believed Graylin watched too many cop shows on TV and was just waiting for a serial killer to show up or a crime spree to erupt in Carson—the very last thing Cole wanted. He’d had enough of that kind of life as a detective in Richmond, VA.

Cole glanced across Main Street at the blue SUV that had just maneuvered into the parking slot in front of Keeler’s Market. He recognized the car as that of Hunter and Rose Mackenzie. Rose was ready to deliver their third child in a few months, and Hunter had been sticking to her like glue on a postage stamp for the past week to make sure his wife and baby were safe and secure.

Cole felt a pang of jealousy arrow through him. What he wouldn’t give to be in Hunter’s shoes with a quiet existence, a beautiful wife, two toddlers at home, and a child on the way. Cole had come close to getting some of that, but . . .

If only Diane hadn’t waited until he’d fallen in love with her to tell him she had no desire to be married or have children and that her career would always come before a relationship and family. The pain she’d inflicted had gouged a wound deep in his soul. One that still lay raw in his gut. Added to that was the emotional strain the big city crimes he’d witnessed had put on him. He’d seen enough waste of humanity to last him a lifetime.

When his father’s health had forced him to leave the sheriff’s office before his term was over, and he’d called on Cole to fill in for him until the November elections, Cole had jumped at it. He’d hoped that coming back to Carson would help heal his emotional wounds and give him the quiet life he longed for. Unfortunately, the small, close-knit community, although quiet, held too many reminders of the life Diane had stolen from him.

As a result, he’d decided to get out of law enforcement and put his teaching degree to work. After the town’s election took place and they had a new sheriff, he planned to take the job he’d been offered teaching history at a high school in Atlanta. Maybe then he could find the peace he sought. Until that time . . .

Shaking his head to free himself of his troubling thoughts, he waved at the Mackenzies, and then hurried down the street toward Doc Amos’s office. This should be the last time he’d have to see Doc. The cut on his leg, where he’d had a fight with some barbed wire and lost, had taken weeks to heal, but with Doc’s care, it was no more than a thick, pink line running down his calf. Doc being Doc, he wanted one more look before he declared Cole officially healed. Cole had no choice but to reluctantly oblige the good doctor.

Pushing open the office door, Cole found Harriet with a small child balanced on her knee who had a stranglehold on a teddy bear that was nearly as big as she was. The child had crimson saliva dribbling down her chin and over her fingers from the cherry lollipop she waved precariously close to Harriet’s hair. Traces of lollipop juice matted the fur on the teddy bear in her free hand.

“Who’s your friend, Harriet?” Cole asked.

Harriet never removed her gaze from the child. She tucked her under the chin, and the little girl giggled around the lollipop, which was now jutting from her mouth. “This is Lizzie.”

“Lizzie, huh?” The sound of her name brought the little girl’s chocolate-brown gaze to him. Her lips were deep red from the candy, and the gold ringlets sticking to her pink cheeks attested to a few encounters with the sticky sweet. He smiled at her, and her angel face broke into a huge grin.

She held the lollipop out to him. “Bites.” Cole shook his head and patted his stomach. “No thanks, sweetie. I’m watching my figure.” She stared at him for a moment, and then her mouth screwed up into what promised to be a wail of disapproval if he didn’t cooperate. “Okay, since you put it that way.” Leaning over, he pretended to lick the pop. “Mmm. That’s sooo good.” Exaggerating the gesture, he smacked his lips loudly. “Thank you.”

Lizzie giggled, and then went back to enjoying her lollipop, but kept a sharp eye on Cole.

He traced his finger over her soft, sticky cheek. “Who does this little beauty belong to?”

“She’s mine.”

Cole straightened and glanced in the direction of the melodic voice. His breath lodged somewhere between his lungs and his throat. Not until the pain pushed at his chest did it dawn on him that he’d have to breathe to find relief.

A little too thin and looking like a fragile piece of porcelain that would shatter under the slightest pressure, the woman scooping Lizzie off Harriet’s lap was the most beautiful thing Cole had ever seen, despite the distinct look of defeat in her eyes. With hair the color of summer wheat and eyes that would rival any clear blue sky, she quite literally took his breath away. Without conscious thought, his gaze went to her bare ring finger.

“Cole, this is Faith Chambers.” Doc Amos laid a hand on Faith’s shoulder, as if protecting her from some unseen danger.

Cole, who hadn’t even noticed the good doctor until he spoke, searched for his voice. While he waited for it to come back, he realized how scared she looked. He decided instantly that if she needed protecting from whatever, he wanted to be the one to do it.

He dipped his head. “Ms. Chambers.” “Faith, this is Sheriff Ainsley, Ben’s son. Faith here’s come back to Carson, and she’s looking for a job. Don’t happen to know of any, do you, Cole?”

He thought for a moment, and then shook his head. “Not off hand.”

Despite sounding alert to the conversation, Cole’s brain kept replaying something Doc had said.
Back to Carson.

She’d lived here before?

He searched his memory for any hint that he knew this woman, but nothing registered. Then he recalled a rather pretty, but shy and slender girl a few years behind him in school. He’d often caught those beautiful blue eyes staring at him in the cafeteria or at a sporting event. But that was about it. After all, he’d been eighteen back then, and she’d been . . . What? Maybe fifteen.
Jail bait,
as his friend Jimmy Williams would have said.

One thing for sure, she might have been classified as cute back then, but she’d matured into absolutely stunning. Cole sucked in another steadying breath.

Doc released his grip on Faith’s shoulder and drew his pipe from the pocket of his white smock. He cast a glance at Harriet, who frowned, and he immediately returned the pipe to his pocket. “I was just going to ask Harriet to drive Faith out to our cottage north of town. She’s gonna stay there until she can find a job and her own place. Now that Harriet’s sister is in the nursing home, it just stands there empty. I’d rather have somebody living in it.”

“No need to bother Harriet,” Cole quickly put in. “I’m heading in that direction anyway. I’d be happy to take Faith and Lizzie out there.” He really wasn’t going anywhere near there, but he couldn’t pass up a chance to spend a little more time with this woman.

Faith opened her mouth to say something, but Doc cut her short. “I kind of figured you might.” Doc grinned, obviously on to him, and turned to Faith. “That’s probably best. Harriet doesn’t know a breaker box from a cereal box. Cole can turn everything on for you. The place is furnished—bed linens, towels, dishes and all. There might even be a crib in the attic for the little one. Harriet never throws anything away.” He rolled his eyes in the direction of his wife. “Cole can take you by Keeler’s Market for food on the way. Tell Bill I said to put it on my tab, and you can pay me when you get your first week’s paycheck.”

Faith thanked Doc and Harriet for their generous help, and then glanced at Cole, as if to get his okay. He nodded.

“Since it’s right on the way, maybe Faith would like to stop by and see her folks.” Harriet stood up and came around the desk to stand beside Doc, who threw his arm around her shoulders.

“Oh, no!” Faith swallowed, and then smiled nervously. The last thing she wanted was to start her new life with a visit with her sanctimonious mother. “I’m . . . I’m tired and so is Lizzie. I think we’d like to settle in. I can see my folks another time. Maybe tomorrow.”

Strange. She’d just come back to town and didn’t seem in any particular hurry to see her family. When Cole had come back to Carson, he could barely wait to get off the bus and sit down to one of his momma’s home-cooked meals.

Glancing at Doc, Cole raised an inquiring eyebrow. Doc shook his head very subtly, as if to say, “Don’t push the issue.”

“Sounds like a plan to me. Is this yours?” Cole pointed at the battered, brown suitcase sitting beside the door.

Faith nodded.

Grabbing the suitcase, Cole opened the door and stepped to the side for Faith to walk ahead of him. She paused and turned back to Doc and Harriet. “I don’t know how to thank you . . . for everything.”

“No need,” Doc said, easily dismissing her gratitude with a wave of his hand. He frowned at Cole. “Just a minute, Sheriff. Aren’t you forgetting your appointment with me?”

Cole was stunned that, in the course of a few minutes, this woman had made him forget. He rarely forgot anything, but she seemed to have changed that, for now anyway. “I’ll reschedule.”

“No need,” Doc declared.

He strode over to where Cole stood. Without preamble, Doc yanked up the leg of Cole’s khaki uniform pants. He ran the tip of his finger down the pink line of skin that extended from Cole’s mid-calf almost to his ankle. The doctor prodded the scar a few times and then felt the skin around it.

Straightening, he smiled at Cole. “You’re gonna have one nasty scar, but I think you’ll live. No need for any more visits, unless you decide to out wrestle another piece of barbed wire.”

“Not in this lifetime. Once was enough for me.” Cole turned to Faith. “Guess that means we can go.”

Without a word, Faith strode past Cole. Lizzie grinned up at him, while clinging to her bear with one hand and mother’s blouse with the other and leaving tiny red fingerprints on the white material.

He set the suitcase down on the sidewalk, and then turned to Faith. “You wait here. I just have to run down to the office and get the car. Won’t take but a minute.” She nodded, and then he took off at a trot toward the other side of the street.

Faith watched him as she sorted through the emotions running rampant through her mind and body. She’d needed no reminders of the muscular quarterback on the high school football team that had captured her attention and her heart back then . . . a lifetime ago. And here he was again, all grown up and more handsome than ever.

She took a deep steadying breath. Had coming back to Carson really been such a good idea after all?