A Castle Creek Romance
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Vaughn shook his head. “Anything else catches your eye, please take it. That includes the cat.”
“Nice try, hon. Our Baby Blue would foam at the mouth if we tried to expand our little family. Schnauzers aren’t usually superpossessive of their owners, but ours certainly is.” Hazel patted him on the cheek. “We need to go. We have a fund-raiser to finalize. Good luck with the house. I’m sure you’ll get a fine price for it after all the repairs are made.”
Vaughn frowned down at her. “I know about the roof. Don’t tell me there’s more.”
“I’m afraid so.” June hugged to her chest the office supplies she’d scavenged. “Your uncle had an electrical fire upstairs a few months ago, and there’s a problem with the plumbing in the master bath.” She squinted up at him. “He didn’t tell you?”
Vaughn shook his head. What else had the old man kept from him?
Hazel grimaced. “The way the market is around here, you’re not going to find a buyer if they have to invest in major repairs.”
Vaughn barely refrained from rubbing his eyes with his knuckles. His halfhearted search for Uncle Em’s whiskey stash had now become critical. He didn’t have the money to invest in major repairs. His chances for getting a loan weren’t good, either. Not when he was already stretched thin. Rent ate up most of his pay.
He thanked the sisters again for the food, apologized for not being able to offer them coffee and walked them out, then shut the front door and glanced at the second floor. That cat could be up there having kittens right this moment. In his bed.
Oh, hell, no. Vaughn grabbed his cell and headed for the stairs. Why hadn’t he asked June for the vet’s number? Before he could do a search on Wilmer Fish, he noticed a text from Whitby.
Forgot to mention it’s a paid position. Let’s talk salary over dinner. Cal’s Diner @ 7? I’m buying.
He hesitated on the top step. As his thumb hovered over Reply, his ringtone blared into the silence. With a sigh, he lifted the phone to his ear.
“Hey, Mom.”
“You said you’d call.”
“I got caught up in something.” He worked his way toward the room Aunt Brenda had assigned him during his summer visits. So much for hoping the second floor wouldn’t also be packed to capacity. It was standing-room-only up here. And it reeked of mothballs.
He stopped in the doorway of the guest room and exhaled. Even his bed was piled high with crap. Though maybe that was a good thing, considering the twin-size mattress looked about five times smaller than he remembered.
His mother gave a disapproving huff. “Do whatever it is you need to do and spend the rest of your break with us. Your father has someone he’d like you to meet.”
Vaughn tightened his grip on his phone and swung toward the master bedroom. “I thought I made it clear. Enough with the ambushes.”
“Don’t be stubborn. So we scheduled a few dinners. You have to eat.”
“Mom. I have a job waiting for me in Erie.” At least, he hoped he did. “I’m not changing my career.”
“Plenty of people your age and even older have made the decision to steer their professional lives in a new direction. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I’m not ashamed, I’m resolved. I’m proud of what I do. I plan to continue doing it.”
“Vaughn.” His mother’s voice gentled. “You know your father and I would rather you find a job with actual earning potential. We’re trying to look out for you. Don’t you want to be able to afford a house someday? A family? Don’t you want to have money to travel when you retire?”
He did have a house. His uncle’s house. But it was only partly his, and it wasn’t in Erie. Not for a moment would he consider staying.
As his mother talked about the trips she and his dad had taken and all of the places they planned to go, Vaughn peered into his uncle’s bedroom. Score. The bed was empty. No junk, no cat in labor.
He propped a shoulder against the doorjamb and listened to his mother describe the luxury car he could afford if only he earned a decent paycheck.
Most law enforcement parents would worry about their son or daughter getting hurt in the line of duty. Vaughn’s folks worried what the neighbors thought of their blue-collar son.
“So when can we expect you?” his mother asked. “I think you should talk to the man from the securities firm first—he has a personal driver and a summer house in the Hamptons.”
“Not interested, Mom.” Did she ever get tired of hearing it? ’Cause he was sure as hell tired of saying it. “Even if I were, I don’t have the time.”
“You don’t have the time to visit your own parents?”
“Not when they won’t stop campaigning against my job.”
“And anyway, how complicated can it be to put up a For Sale sign?”
Basically what he’d said to Whitby. So why didn’t the suggestion sit well?
“It’s more involved than that.” Just to be difficult, Vaughn added, “Plus they want me to pinch-hit as a deputy while I’m here.”
Her reaction didn’t disappoint. “That’s not going to happen,” she said flatly. “As if wasting your potential chasing hardened criminals around the city isn’t bad enough.”
Vaughn rolled his eyes. “There’s a lot more to the job than that. By the way, crime rate’s a lot lower here.”
“So is the standard of living. What’ll I tell the securities broker, that you’re busy breaking up a moonshine ring? Please be serious. You’ll damage your prospects. You know very well your father and I are not going to let you bury yourself in the country playing cops and robbers with your uncle’s cronies.”
She wouldn’t let her uncle’s arrest go. Never mind that Vaughn was still holding his own grudge. His mother didn’t blame Sheriff By-The-Book Tate, but Vaughn sure as hell did. “I’m twenty-eight, not twelve,” he said. “If I want to play cops and robbers, I’ll play cops and robbers and you can’t stop me.”
He winced at his juvenile tone. After muttering his goodbye, he straightened, drew in a breath and prepared to flush a pregnant cat from her hiding place.
Or maybe he’d just join her there.
* * *
WHEN SPEEDY PETE drove past Lily Tate sedately enough that she had time to register his smirk, she realized she’d been had. Squinting after his faded gray Jeep as it disappeared around the bend, she lowered the radar gun and swore. The last time Pete Lowry had driven that slowly, he’d been bringing up the tail end of the Christmas parade, putt-putting down the center of State Street hauling a flatbed crammed with the high school football team, the cheerleading squad, three dozen bales of hay and a celebrity Holstein named Priscilla Mae.
Somehow the smug so-and-so had known Lily was parked at the entrance to the old logging road. But how? The only vehicles she’d seen that afternoon had all been headed in the same direction, away from Castle Creek.
She lifted her hat and blotted the sweat clinging to her bangs. She blinked against the perspiration that stung her eyes and wriggled her shoulders, desperate to free her skin from the short-sleeved uniform shirt plastered to her back. But that wouldn’t happen until she was back in the air-conditioned courthouse, and that wouldn’t happen until she managed to actually write a citation.
Two hours in the August sun and she hadn’t issued the first ticket. Today’s lack of revenue would not please the mayor. He’d probably auction off her parking space again. Not that she minded the walk, but it always seemed to rain the week she’d been relegated to the back of the lot.
She huffed in exasperation and grabbed at the car door. Time to find out why everyone was driving like the road was coated in ice.
The moment she dropped into her seat, she heard a rattling sound. What the—oh. She plucked her cell free of the plastic cup holder. When had she put it on Vibrate? A glance at the screen had her wincing. Burke. Again. She pressed Ignore. The man had to be as tired of hearing no as she was of saying it.
She started the car, then lightly bounced her forehead against the wheel. All she wanted was to do her job. Stay busy. Enjoy her privacy.
Forget.
But the mayor was determined to make her job harder, Burke Yancey wouldn’t stop asking her out and every time she heard a child laugh—
She pressed her hands against her chest, where sudden pain sliced deep. After a few breathless seconds, she filled her lungs, sat up straight and reached for her seat belt.
Focus. She had a job to do. And doing that job meant finding out why every driver in Castle Creek had suddenly developed a feather foot.
It didn’t take long.
CHAPTER TWO
HALF A MILE past the curve that prevented Lily from seeing oncoming traffic—and prevented oncoming traffic from seeing her—she spotted the problem. Jared Ensler.
She should have known.
The skinny preteen stood on the shoulder, his back to Lily. Wincing at his camouflage pants and dark green T-shirt, she pulled off onto the opposite shoulder. At least the kid’s blazing orange skullcap made him stand out. Well, that and the poster-sized sheet of cardboard he was toting.
The sound of her engine must have finally registered because he turned. His eyes went wide, his mouth went slack and his arms collapsed. The bottom third of the sign buckled against his shins. Lily eyed the bright red, hand-painted letters and suppressed a grudging smile.
Speed Trap Ahead.
Jared chewed his bottom lip and let the sign drop to his side, but he stood his ground. Ignoring the hat she’d tossed on the passenger seat, Lily pushed herself once more into the thick, sticky heat of the afternoon. A farm stand just down the highway was selling peaches, and she breathed in the heady scent. A mental image of a bowl of vanilla ice cream topped with juicy slices of the ripe fruit was almost enough to forgive the sun for its enthusiasm today.
Almost, but not quite.
The harsh cry of a crow on the power lines overhead had her rolling her eyes at herself. Food fantasies were so not her thing. That’s what she got for skipping lunch. And leaving her hat in the car one too many times. With a wistful glance at the distant, dark blue wedge of Lake Erie, she adjusted her sunglasses and crossed the road.
Jared kicked at a dandelion sprouting at the pavement’s edge. Bits of white fluff exploded into the air. When the crunch under Lily’s boots signaled she’d moved from asphalt to gravel, he lifted his head. His mouth formed an arrogant slash, but his eyes held a hint of panic.
“Am I in trouble?” he asked gruffly.
“Depends. Your mother know what you’re up to?”
“I’m used to that kind of trouble. I need to know about the jail kind.”
“Why are you out here, if you thought you might be arrested?”
He stacked his hands atop his skullcap. “Am I? Under arrest?”
“Jared.” Lily bit back her impatience as sweat dripped down the back of her neck. “Are you wearing sunscreen?”
He gave her an odd look and shook his head. He wasn’t wearing shades, either, but at least he’d been smart enough to bring something to drink. A battered handheld cooler rested on the shoulder behind him.
Lily sighed. “What are you doing out here?”
He glanced around, as if for inspiration. “Something’s wrong with our Xbox.” When she crossed her arms, he shrugged. “We got bored watching TV. We heard my mom talking on the phone with someone who’d seen you out here—”
“And decided it would be fun to warn everyone I was using radar.”
“Yeah.” The word carried a lot of duh.
“Who’s ‘we’?”
He hesitated. “Scottie’s out here, too, down the road a ways.”
His younger brother, on the road by himself. Fantastic.
“There hasn’t been any traffic from that direction,” she said. “How is that less boring than watching TV?”
Jared smirked. “He’s doing okay.”
“How do you know?” When he pulled a smartphone out of his pocket, Lily nodded, barely resisting the urge to say this duh for him. “Let’s go get him. I’m taking you two home before you get heatstroke.”
“You’re not taking us to jail?” His mouth tipped up and then down, as if he didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
“I have a feeling any punishment your mother dishes out will be worse than a stretch in one of my holding cells. What you’re doing isn’t illegal, but it is dangerous. What if a car came around that corner too fast and swerved onto the shoulder? What if a driver wasn’t paying attention and drifted off the road?” She broke off. The possibilities had her lungs floundering.
Jared looked unimpressed.
She breathed in, then out. “How did you even get out here?”
“Our neighbor brought us.”
Right. Lily did remember seeing Mrs. Yackley drive by in her lime-green Beetle. “She didn’t ask why you and your brother wanted to be dropped off in different locations?” Or wonder if she should leave a twelve-year-old and an eight-year-old out on the highway alone? “What’d you do, tell her you were on some kind of secret mission?”
Jared shook his head. “We told her the truth. She was cool with it, but she said if her taxes went up she wouldn’t knit us any more hats.”
Lily huffed a laugh. “Okay, then.” Apparently Mrs. Yackley had an issue with authority. Or maybe just a soft spot for restless preteens.
Jared picked up his cooler and followed Lily to her patrol car. She agreed to let him sit up front until they collected his brother. After that, the boys would have to share the backseat—no way was she going to play referee while they argued about who got to sit where.
She drove back to the logging road and eased around the curve beyond it. There stood fair-haired Scottie, wearing a banana-colored T-shirt that hung to his knees and holding a sign identical to his brother’s. Except for the message.
Lily snorted. These kids had the perfect setup. After Jared warned drivers of the speed trap, Scottie asked them to show some gratitude.
He held a bucket in his left hand and in his right a sign that read Tip$.
The moment it registered exactly whose car he was signaling, Scottie dropped the sheet of cardboard. The bucket he hugged to his chest.
Once again, Lily steered the car onto the shoulder. This time she parked behind Scottie on the left, so he wouldn’t have to cross the road. “Clever scheme,” she said.
Jared never glanced up from his perusal of the switches, lights and video screens on her dash. “I know, right?”
Less than five minutes later, Lily had both signs tucked away in her trunk and both Ensler brothers buckled up in her backseat. She nodded in approval at the sound of plastic crackling as they guzzled water. She cranked up the AC and pulled back onto the road, then checked out her passengers in the rearview mirror. “You two trying to earn money for something in particular? A birthday gift for your mom, maybe?”
Jared shot her a disgusted look. “I told you, our Xbox isn’t working.”
“The red ring of death,” Scottie said. His voice was closer than it should be. A glance to her right showed he had his head thrust between the front seats, wide eyes glued to the same panel of switches that had fascinated his brother.
“I need you to sit back, buddy. I know you’re curious, but the time to look around isn’t when the car’s in motion. Jared, make sure your brother’s buckled in. So what’s the red ring of death?”
“Happens when your console’s broke,” Scottie said. “The red lights around the power switch come on. When Dad couldn’t fix it he said it was about as useful as tits on a boar hog.”
Jared hooted, and the sound had her shoulders curving in, her stomach muscles bracing against a surge of acid regret. Stop that, she told herself firmly.
She swallowed the misery coating her throat and forced a chuckle. “I doubt your dad would appreciate you repeating that. How much did you make today, anyway?”
Paper shuffled as Scottie counted. After a whispered consultation in the backseat and a muffled “No, give it back” and “It’s not a secret,” he announced, “Forty-five dollars.”
Good God. How many tickets should she have written this afternoon?
Jared grunted and crossed his arms. “You gonna confiscate that, too?”
“Not if you promise never to pull something like this again.”
“Aw, man.” Scottie threw his head against the seat back and groaned up at the roof. “But we don’t have enough money yet.”
“I’m sorry,” she said firmly. “You’ll have to find a safer way to earn it.”
“Shit,” Scottie mumbled, and it was so unexpected, Lily was hard put not to laugh. She pressed a palm to her chest again, this time wishing she could trap the unfamiliar lightness there.
“Shh.” Jared darted a worried glance at the rearview mirror.
“What? Not like she can arrest us for cussing.” A brief pause. “Can she?”
Wait for it...wait for it...
“Sheriff Tate?” Scottie asked meekly.
There it is.
“Yes, Scottie?”
“Can you get arrested for using a bad word?”
“Not unless you’re threatening someone. It’s never a good idea to be mouthy around the police, though, and it is bad manners. I doubt your parents would approve, so why don’t you try and keep it clean, okay?”
He sighed, then grudgingly muttered, “Okay.” Neither brother said a word after that.
The sullen silence lasted until she pulled into the Enslers’ driveway. “Your mom or dad inside?”
“Dad is,” Jared said morosely.
“Before I walk you to the door—” Scottie groaned “—let me set you straight on something.”
“He only said that one word and he’s sorry,” Jared said quickly.
“I’m really sorry,” Scottie squeaked.
“Neither of you is in trouble.” She retrieved her wallet from the center console, pulled out a twenty and dropped it in Scottie’s bucket. “I didn’t confiscate your posters,” she said. “I bought them.” Even though they were about as useful as tits on a boar hog.
Twenty minutes later, Lily had just backed into a new hiding place and pulled out the radar gun when her cell vibrated again. She picked it up and immediately wished she hadn’t. The mayor’s office. Shouldn’t his staff be at Hazel’s barbecue?
She swallowed a groan. Chances were that’s what they wanted to ask her. If the mayor summoned her, she’d have to go. A drop of sweat skated down her temple and she swiped it away with the heel of her hand.
Maybe she’d get lucky and they’d assign her to the dunk tank.
She took the call and moments later dropped her phone back into the cup holder with a scowl. The mayor had summoned her, all right—to his office. On a Saturday?
This did not bode well.
* * *
LILY PARKED HER patrol car behind the courthouse, a single-story, faded brick building the sheriff’s department shared with the county clerk, the treasurer, the commissioner of revenue and the mayor. With the colossal, pineapple-shaped sugar maple that for decades had served as the front lawn’s centerpiece, and the surrounding century-old oaks and lush camellias scattered like guests at a cocktail party, the property was lauded as being especially eye-catching in the autumn. Lily no longer paid attention. Fall had officially become her least favorite season.
The mayor’s assistant wasn’t at her desk—not surprising, since it was Saturday—so Lily knocked twice on Rick Whitby’s open door and strode into his office. Or candy store, as Lily’s dispatcher, Clarissa, liked to call it, since the mayor had a credenza lined with clear glass jars he kept well stocked with sweets. Licorice sticks, mini chocolate bars, lollipops, jelly beans—his sweet tooth provided a clever means of staying informed, since the addicts he created couldn’t stay out of his office.
As long as he didn’t start dealing peanut M&M’s, Lily had no problem resisting temptation.
He hadn’t heard her knock. He stood with his back to the door, right hand dipping a paper cup into the jelly beans while the left held the lid aloft.
“Mayor Whitby,” she said.
The clatter of jelly beans told her she’d startled him. With a muffled clank, he replaced the lid on the jar and turned to face her.
The mayor was a lanky, languid man in his fifties with thinning blond hair and a perpetual flush on his face. His title was actually County Executive Officer, but “mayor” was much less of a mouthful. He was popular, a shirtsleeves-and-cold-brew kind of politician, but his hard-at-it look was an act—the man was lazier than an overfed hound sleeping away a hot summer afternoon.
Lily had always suspected he’d run for mayor solely as a means to jump-start his love life. Not long into his term, he’d ended his relationship with his assistant, Paige Southerly, a woman several years his senior. Paige still worked for him and Lily didn’t know how she did it, every three or four months taking the newest girlfriend’s calls, scheduling dinner dates and sending flowers. Paige insisted their affair had run its course and as long as her boss kept the dish of butterscotch candies stocked, it was all good.
“You’re not dressed for the fund-raiser.” The mayor gave Lily a once-over as he fished a yellow jelly bean out of his cup.
Yeah, she’d known that was coming. Hazel Catlett and a handful of volunteers were hosting a barbecue to raise money for the citizens’ center. As sheriff, Lily should be there, but it was hard to drum up the enthusiasm to mingle with a bunch of happy families.
She needed to get over that. And she would. Just not today.
“JD will be there,” she said. “There are only two of us now and you know we can’t both go.”
When Whitby failed to scold Lily for complaining about her long-ignored deputy vacancy, her stomach did a little side step. Whatever he was about to say would not be pleasant. Not for her, anyway. The gleam in his bright blue eyes indicated he was looking forward to it. Either that, or those were damn good jelly beans.
Her fingers curled around her equipment belt and she pulled in a stealthy breath. “What did you want to see me about?”
He held out the cup and rattled it. When she shook her head, he set the cup on the credenza, brushed his hands together and strolled to his desk. “I have something important to discuss with you.” He scraped a fingernail over a front tooth to loosen a green gummy wedge. “Here’s the thing. I’ve decided to fill that deputy position like you’ve been asking.”
Lily blinked. “Thank you. JD hasn’t had a real vacation in over a year. I’ll get busy writing up an ad for the paper—”
“That won’t be necessary. I already hired someone.”
Damn it. “Without consulting me?”
“I am the mayor.” His grin revealed he’d missed a sliver of purple.
“What about the town council?” The mayor did have the right to hire and fire county employees, but he didn’t ordinarily do it without the council’s okay.
“Bought ’em each a steak dinner and one of Ivy Walker’s cheesecakes.”
“You bribed them?”
“I distracted them.” He wilted into his leather club chair, as if her resistance had exhausted him. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d pressed the back of a hand to his forehead. “Your new deputy is Vaughn Fulton, on temporary loan from the Erie police. He reports on Monday. I asked his captain to email you his qualifications so he can get right to work.” He closed his eyes and let his head fall against the back of the padded chair.
Lily tightened her grip on her rig. “May I ask how this Officer Fulton of the Erie PD heard about little ol’ Castle Creek and its three-man department?”
“Four again, with Deputy Fulton, and I invited him to apply.”
“You mean you offered him the job.” She frowned. “Fulton. Any relation to Emerson?” She’d liked that old son of a gun. He’d died a few months back, the weekend she’d been taking her recertification training in Harrisburg. She’d regretted not being able to attend the service.
Slowly, Whitby pushed himself up out of the chair and slid his hands into his pants pockets. “Emerson Fulton was his great-uncle. He was also a good friend of mine. His nephew is on a temporary leave of absence while he handles his uncle’s affairs. I gave him a call, asked if he’d be willing to help us out for a while.” His voice tightened. “He’s a decorated city cop. You should be pleased.”