Atonement. B.J. Daniels
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especially, since the crazy woman had tried to run her down out in the street in front of the store. But that had been months ago, and there’d been no sign of Pam since.
The bell over the front door jangled, and Frank walked into the store. At just the sight of him, Nettie felt like she had as a girl. Frank Curry was a large broad-shouldered man who looked like an old-time sheriff. He had a thick, drooping, blond mustache flecked with gray, and a weathered Montana look that belied the gentleness in him. He wore jeans, boots, a uniform shirt and a gold star, his gray Stetson resting on a full head of graying blond hair.
To her he would always be that young man who’d shown up at her house on a motorcycle, wanting her to run away with him. His hair had been long and blond as summer wheat back then. He’d been wild and carefree and had made her heart race at just the sight of him.
No wonder her mother had talked her out of going off with Frank. Instead Nettie had married dull, safe Bob Benton. His parents had given them the store, which was something Bob had never had one iota of interest in running.
The store, though, had saved her during all those years of marriage to Bob. But now he was gone, and the ink on the divorce papers had dried a long time ago.
All water under the bridge, Nettie thought as she smiled at the sheriff. “Glad to see you back in uniform.” Like everyone else, she’d been worried he would never go back to being sheriff. Just as she had worried that he would never love her again. She’d broken his heart. Or at least that was what he’d told her all those years ago.
He gave a slight nod, his smile racing straight to her heart. “It feels good. I’m sorry I haven’t been by for so long—”
“You don’t have to do that,” she said as he made his way to her. “No apologies are necessary.”
“Yes, they are. You asked me to fix your office door months ago. Is it still sticking?”
She nodded and smiled. “I just don’t close it.”
“Otherwise you would be locked in?” He shook his head.
“It’s no big deal. I can always call Kate across the street to come get me out. Anyway, you’ve had more important things on your mind. The usual?” She was already getting him an orange soda from the cooler.
“I’ve missed you,” he said as she opened the bottle on an old-fashioned opener on the wall and handed it to him. Their fingers brushed and she felt that familiar thrill.
She didn’t want to tell him how much she’d missed him. Or how much she’d feared he would never come back. She’d survived on what he’d said before he left. He loved her.
“Is this your first day back at work?” she asked.
He nodded and took a drink.
He’d changed over the past six months. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, though, but he seemed reconciled. A man like Frank Curry believed he could “fix” most anything—or at least should be able to. He’d blamed himself for Pam being the way she was.
“I’m so glad you gave up on finding Pam,” Nettie said.
Again he merely nodded.
She thought of the man who’d taken off out of the store, murder in his eye, to find Pam. So what had changed? she wondered as she studied him. Pam Chandler was still dangerous. She was still out there somewhere. Nettie lived with that knowledge every day. She didn’t cross the street to the post office or the Branding Iron Café without looking around for the crazy, vindictive woman. She no longer walked down to the store at night unless someone was with her. At the house, she locked all her doors, even in the daytime, something pretty much unheard of in most of rural Montana.
“I’d better be going,” Frank said. He had a deep voice. It had always sent heat racing through her blood. His gaze met hers and she felt a catch in her throat. “I was thinking you might want to go to a movie tomorrow night.”
He was asking her for a date? It had been so long in coming that she didn’t answer at first, out of shock.
“That is, if you’re free.” He sounded not so sure of things between them. Understandably, since it wasn’t that long ago that she’d given up on him and had spent some time with another man.
She shoved that thought away. “I would love to go,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion.
He smiled then and he was the Frank Curry she’d fallen so desperately in love with so many years ago. That love had lingered and only recently begun to bloom again, like a glacier lily coming up after a long, hard Montana winter.
Stepping down the hall, he took a look at her office door.
“Frank, I don’t want you to be late for work. The door can wait.”
“It looks as if I’m going to have to take it down and plane off some of the wood. The store must have shifted on its old foundation. I’ll fix the door this weekend. Just don’t get locked in.”
“I won’t.” His concern warmed her heart. She pushed aside her worries about him as he leaned over and kissed her softly on the mouth. He tasted of orange soda and smelled of the outdoors. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him to her, but he was already drawing back, saying, “Don’t want to be late my first day back on the job.” And he was gone, the bell over the door jingling.
Nettie moved to the window to watch him leave, her fingers pressed to the glass, her heart pounding. She had waited so long for this.
Please don’t let anything spoil it.
* * *
TESSA STARTED AT the knock on her motel room door. Her first thought was, No one knows I’m here. No one but Ethan, or whatever the man wanted to call himself.
At the second knock, she moved to the door and asked, “Yes?”
“Ms. Winters, I’d like to have a word with you.” Ethan’s voice, though more authoritative. Just the sound of it hurt. “It’s Undersheriff Dillon Lawson.”
“I believe we said all we had to yesterday,” she called through the door.
“Not quite.”
She gritted her teeth and opened the door. For a moment she was taken aback by the uniformed man standing in her doorway. He wore a pale gray Stetson over his longish blond hair, a tan uniform shirt with his name tag and a gold star. A gun was strapped to his slim hips, over a pair of jeans that ran down his long legs to his boots.
Ethan was as handsome as any man she’d ever known, no matter what he was wearing. But in a uniform, he looked so responsible, so nice, so safe, that he threatened to break her heart all over again.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“Just to talk. May I come in?”
Tessa hesitated. “I don’t see what talking—”
“Please.”
The break in his voice made her relent. She stepped aside to let him enter the room but left the door open. She’d made the bed, a habit her mother had taught her and one she couldn’t break even when it was a motel. The air smelled of pines and the Yellowstone River nearby. She breathed it in and braced herself for whatever was to happen next.
He saw the bed and looked surprised.
“I can’t stand an unmade bed and I wasn’t quite ready to leave yet.”
He’d removed his Stetson and now held the brim in his fingers. “Where are you going?”
“Not that it concerns you, but back to California. I have a job there, you might recall. I had a life there before I met you.”
“Do you have family there?”
She studied him. “Are you asking as undersheriff or as the father of my baby?”
He