Single Dad Sheriff (Harlequin American Romance) Read online

  “So why’d the sheriff bring you home?” Christopher asked as Tommy settled onto the bus seat next to him.

  Tommy shrugged off his backpack and dropped it onto the floor next to a wad of hard blue gum. “I didn’t break the law or anything,” he said. “I just wanted the sheriff to help me with something.”

  “Is he as cool as everybody says?” Christopher asked, his voice all crackly as if he were really excited. “Does he have scars and tattoos like the army guys do?”

  Tommy shrugged. After seeing his friend playing ball with his dad yesterday, he’d been too mad to really think about meeting the ex-Marine. He should be able to play catch with his own dad, not have to borrow someone else’s. He had a dad, out there somewhere, maybe. He wasn’t dead, like Tommy had thought all those years. Well, his mom had said that the guy wasn’t dead when Tommy was born, but that was all she’d finally told him.

  So why wasn’t he around?

  Christopher nudged him. “So?”

  Remembering the sheriff’s promise to help him, he nodded. “Yeah, he’s really cool.”

  “Too bad he wasn’t your dad, huh? He could tell you war stories and maybe he’d let you turn on the siren in his car.”

  Tommy drew in a breath that puffed out his chest a little bit and replied, “He did.”

  Christopher’s eyes opened wide behind his glasses. “You got to use the siren?”

  Other kids—older kids—turned around in their seats and leaned out into the aisle, wanting to know what he and his friend were talking about. Usually they never paid any attention to the younger kids except to try to trip them in the aisle.

  “He let me use the siren and the lights,” Tommy said. He didn’t mention that it was only in the parking lot of the tiny police department. But it was still cool. And maybe those older kids would think he was cool, too.

  “Were you in a car chase?” Christopher asked, his voice all squeaky again.

  Tommy glanced at the older kids. He wanted to lie. But his mom had a real strict no-lying rule, so he shook his head. “Nah. The sheriff said that nobody speeds in this town.”

  “It’s boring,” someone said.

  “Probably really boring to him after the stuff he’s done,” his friend remarked.

  “He’s got a purple heart,” another boy commented. “My dad saw it.”

  Purple heart? Tommy couldn’t figure how someone would have seen the sheriff’s heart. It wasn’t like he had a zipper down his chest—unless he’d been blown up a little bit by a bomb. He’d have to ask to see his scars and tattoos next time they saw each other. The sheriff had promised he’d stay in touch; something about keeping Tommy “prized” of his investigation.

  Tommy had figured the prize would be getting to finally meet his dad. But maybe the prize was getting to know Sheriff Drayton.

  Too bad his mom didn’t seem to like the guy. But maybe she just had to get to know him. And if the sheriff kept coming around because he was helping Tommy, she could get to know him better.

  Maybe he’d show her his scars, too.

  Chapter Three

  Moms and dads get divorced, but they still get to see their kids.

  Tommy Phillips’s words, shouted at his mother, had been ringing in Chance’s head ever since he’d eavesdropped on their conversation. He hadn’t meant to overhear. He hadn’t meant to stick around so long after Jessie Phillips had slammed the door on him, but Bruce Johnson was a friendly man and kept talking. And talking. But not so loudly that Chance hadn’t overheard the kid’s part of the conversation going on inside the house. And wished like hell that he hadn’t. He blew out a ragged breath. “Oh, Tommy…”

  Chance couldn’t even remember being that young and that certain that life was fair. Tommy had no idea what the world was really like, and he hoped the boy never had to learn. Remembering the fear in her pretty green eyes, he wondered…was that why Jessie Phillips wouldn’t tell her son who his father was? Was she only trying to protect her child?

  That was the excuse Robyn had used when she’d filed for full custody of their son. She was only trying to protect Matthew. From Chance? He would never hurt his son. Not intentionally. It had upset Matthew when Chance was deployed to Afghanistan. But Robyn had been the reason he’d stayed in the reserves after his initial stint in the Marines—to help pay for her college and med school loans. And to show her appreciation, she’d taken away his son. He uttered another sigh, ragged with frustration.

  Robyn had no reason to protect their son from Chance. But did Jessie Phillips have to protect Tommy?

  “Tired? Here’s some coffee to perk you up.” Eleanor placed a steaming cup of the aromatic, black brew on his desk.

  “You don’t need to bring me coffee,” he reminded her. He was perfectly capable of getting his own. “But thank you.”

  She smiled. “You’re welcome. You’re going to have to get used to it. I’m too old to retrain myself. Sheriff Beuker always had to have his coffee. ’Course the caffeine was probably the only thing keeping him awake.”

  “Lucky guy,” Chance murmured as he took a sip of the hot, strong drink and nodded in appreciation. He had so many things that kept him awake: memories of the past, worries for the future, and now that damn promise he’d made to Tommy Phillips to find his father. Tommy’s mother was right; it wasn’t a promise he’d had any business making.

  “Sheriff Beuker slept like an infant,” Eleanor remarked with a smile, “with all the nodding off he did throughout the day.”

  “It’s been a while, but I don’t remember infants sleeping all that much.” Matthew hadn’t. Even as a baby, he’d had boundless energy. His son needed more room to run around and play than the cramped apartment in Chicago and the crowded city street outside it. “Well, he slept without a care in the world,” she amended with a chuckle.

  The last time Chance had had no cares, he must have been a child. A weary sigh slipped from his lips, and he leaned back in his chair.

  “I thought I heard you talking to yourself a little while ago,” Eleanor said, settling into the low-backed leather chair in front of his desk. It wasn’t that she had to stay at hers; the phone hardly ever rang. And the only recent visitor had been Tommy. “Beuker always rambled away to himself, but that was because he was getting senile. What has you talking to yourself, Sheriff Drayton?”

  “Chance,” he reminded her.

  She smiled again but shook her head. “Sheriff.”

  Two months he’d worked with the woman, and she still refused to use his first name. He pushed his hand through his hair.

  “You have a lot to talk about,” she prodded him, “with everything you have going on.”

  While he hadn’t specifically shared his personal problems with her, she must have taken enough calls from his lawyer that she’d figured out exactly what was going on in his life.

  “It’s actually Tommy Phillips who’s weighing on my mind,” he admitted, disgusted with himself for making that promise to the boy. Had he done it because he really wanted to find Tommy’s dad for him or because he couldn’t be a dad to his own son?

  He suspected it was the latter. But just because he hadn’t had the most altruistic motive behind his promise didn’t mean he didn’t intend to keep it. He had even gone so far as to pull up the boy’s birth certificate from county records. But Tommy’s father was listed as unknown. Gauging from her reaction when Chance had passed on her son’s request, Jessie Phillips seemed to have every intention of keeping it that way. Hopefully she had a damn good reason. Better than Robyn’s…

  And if she did, he’d have to break his promise to Tommy. Hell, even if she didn’t, Jessie Phillips was still the boy’s mother. What she told her son about his father was her decision. Not Chance’s.

  “That little guy really got to you,” Eleanor mused, staring thoughtfully at him. She had definitely figured out exactly why the boy had gotten to him. But then in addition to the calls, she had to have noticed Matthew’s picture on his desk. In the photo,
a class portrait from a couple of years ago, he looked around Tommy’s age. And with his dark hair and navy blue eyes, he looked like Chance.

  “Tommy Phillips wants a relationship with his dad,” he said, hoping his son wanted the same thing with him. “And he’s too young to understand we can’t always get what we want.” He grimaced as the coffee turned acidic in his stomach. “I shouldn’t have made that promise to him.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have,” Eleanor agreed with the simple honesty on which Chance had come to rely.

  “I did swear to protect and serve the people of Forest Glen, though,” he reminded her.

  “Yes, you did,” Eleanor agreed. “Mrs. Wilson is one of those people, and she still hasn’t found that cat yet.”

  “I thought Steven went out yesterday to look for it,” he said, referring to the younger of the two deputies.

  Eleanor shook her head. “No. His allergies are so bad he can’t even get out of his vehicle at her place.”

  Chance set aside the mug of coffee and stood up. “I’ll head out there and look around for her.” Maybe he’d be able to find at least one thing that had been reported missing.

  “Are you allergic?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “No.” Robyn had had a cat. Of course the creature had hated Chance so much it hardly ever came near him. Robyn must have grown to hate him as much as her cat had, because if she’d had any feeling left for him, she wouldn’t be keeping him from his son.

  “Be careful,” Eleanor advised him as he headed out the door.

  He suppressed a grin at her mothering. He’d made it through two tours of duty in Afghanistan without a physical scratch. He doubted anything would happen to him while looking for a cat.

  “JESS, CAN YOU STAY a little while longer?” Dr. Malewitz asked just as she’d pulled her purse from the bottom drawer of the metal desk in the tiny reception area of the single-physician medical practice. “Reception” consisted of her desk and half a dozen orange vinyl chairs, a coffee table and an overstuffed magazine rack. The gray-haired doctor leaned out the door of one of the three exam rooms. “I have a new patient coming in.”

  Jessie glanced at the appointment book that lay open on the leather blotter. Dr. Malewitz was an old-fashioned physician who preferred the ledger to the computer system she’d set up for him. “But there are no more appointments written down.”

  “That’s why I need you to stay and start a chart for him,” the doctor explained. “Can you have someone else meet Tommy’s bus today?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “No, you can leave, and I’ll start the chart,” Ruth Malewitz offered as she slipped out of one of the other exam rooms.

  Jessie smiled but shook her head. The doctor’s wife, a registered nurse, already picked up too much of her slack, handling the tasks Jessie couldn’t complete since she only worked the hours Tommy was at school. But Ruth insisted that motherhood came first.

  “I’ll stay,” Jessie said. “It’s no problem. I’ll ask Brenda Johnson to watch him until I get home.” She’d just put down the phone from calling her neighbor when the exterior door opened and the new patient walked into the reception area.

  Breaths wheezed and rattled in Sheriff Drayton’s muscular chest as he stumbled through the door, his eyes probably too swollen to see where he was going. She could barely detect a glint of that deep blue between his red eyelids. “Are you all right?” she asked, leaping up from her chair and coming around her desk.

  “I…I c-can’t breathe,” he gasped.

  Mrs. Wilson stepped inside the open door. “He must be like that deputy of his—allergic to my cats,” she said with a disapproving click of her tongue against her false teeth. “I called Doc Mal, so he’d have the shot ready for him.” The white-haired woman, her sweater coated with cat hair, pushed him forward so that he stumbled against Jessie.

  She wrapped her arm around his waist as he wound his around her shoulders. His labored breathing stirred her hair. “Dr. Malewitz!” she shouted.

  But the older man was already there, grabbing the sheriff’s other arm to help him into the exam room. Ruth stood inside the room; she held a needle in a latex-gloved hand. “Any allergies to antihistamines?”

  “I—I don’t know,” he murmured. “I…I didn’t think I was allergic to c-cats…”

  “I should take his medical history,” Jessie said, “before you give him anything. I could try to get his records from his attending physician.”

  “There’s no time,” Dr. Malewitz said, his stethoscope pressed against Chance Drayton’s chest. “He’s going to lose his airway.”

  “Th-throat’s closing,” Chance choked out between gasps for air.

  Still pressed against his side, Jessie trembled. But then Dr. Malewitz pulled the sheriff away from her and helped him onto the paper-draped exam table. “We’ve got this, Jess…”

  Dismissed, she backed toward the door, her steps slow and heavy with her reluctance to leave. Dr. Malewitz was just a small-town physician. He handled colds, earaches and other viruses. For anything more serious, patients went to the hospitals or specialists in Grand Rapids or Muskegon.

  Bumping into Mrs. Wilson in the doorway to the exam room, she turned to the older woman, dubbed the crazy cat lady by most of Forest Glen. “You should have called an ambulance,” she said.

  “Figured it’d be quicker to bring him here. I drove that fancy new police car of his, lights flashing and everything.” The woman’s eyes glinted with excitement. “I got him here real fast.”

  Jessie glanced back inside the exam room, but Ruth shut the door before she could see more than a glimpse of his bare chest as he dragged off his shirt. Her breath caught with a gasp.

  Hopefully Mrs. Wilson had gotten him there soon enough.

  “I FEEL LIKE hell,” Chance answered in reply to Jessie Phillips’s question. His throat was sore and scratchy, like his eyes. And his head pounded. “But I could have driven myself home.”

  She laughed. “How? You can barely see.”

  “The swelling’s gone down since the shot,” he replied. But water streamed from his eyes now, probably because of all the cat hair Mrs. Wilson had left on the driver’s seat. He preferred Jessie Phillips behind the wheel; he trusted her more than he had the older woman.

  Not that he had anything against Mrs. Wilson’s age. The woman definitely had all her faculties and then some. When he’d started wheezing in her barn full of cats, she’d responded by driving him immediately to the doctor’s office. She’d just enjoyed that drive a little too much as she’d sped, lights flashing and siren wailing, down the rural roads leading from her farmhouse into town. Remembering how the tires had spun on the gravel, the car fishtailing and nearly careening into the ditch, Chance grimaced. Even without the allergic reaction, he would have had trouble breathing, the way she’d been driving.

  Jessie, on the other hand, drove slowly and carefully, as if she were afraid that any sudden turn might have him gasping again. “I’m going to be a real cool mom now that I’ve driven the police car,” she pointed out.

  With her red hair bound high in a ponytail, she looked more like a teenager than a mother. And despite working in an office, she’d dressed casually—in jeans and a bright pink sweater that made her look even younger.

  “I know what else would make Tommy think you’re a cool mom,” he said.

  The smile left Jessie’s beautiful face as her delicate jaw tensed. “You need to let this drop. It’s not any of your business.”

  “True,” he admitted. “But will Tommy let it go?”

  “He was fine last night after you left,” she assured him. “And he was his usual happy self this morning.”

  “So you think he already forgot about it?” Could a kid who, just yesterday, had been as determined as Tommy Phillips give up so easily? While the boy had seemed far older, he was still just eight. A kid. Maybe since he’d only been able to e-mail and chat on the phone with Matthew the past year, and was den
ied any visitation, Chance had forgotten how a child’s mind worked. Would his son forget about him this easily?

  Jessie nodded but spared him a glance that revealed her own doubts. “For now.”

  “Do you want me to talk to him?” he offered. Take back his promise? He wasn’t sure he could do that, though, if he looked into Tommy’s hopeful, vulnerable eyes again.

  Jessie must have realized that because she shook her head again. “No, like I said, he’s fine now. Let’s just forget all about this.”

  If only he could…

  But he wanted to know why Jessie had listed her baby’s father as unknown. Unless she’d been a real wild teenager, he doubted that she didn’t know her son’s paternity. So if she knew, why would she have omitted to name Tommy’s dad? Had she been afraid of him? Was she still?

  Chance had glimpsed that fear in her eyes when he’d told her what Tommy wanted from him. But she didn’t act like the battered women he’d met during his years in law enforcement in Chicago. She didn’t shy away from him as if afraid to be touched. In fact, she’d reached for him back at the doctor’s office, wrapping her arm around him. To help him.

  After she’d left the exam room, the doctor and nurse had sung her praises about how she juggled her work and nursing school schedule around Tommy’s. That as hard a worker as she was, she was a better mother. So why had she refused the boy a relationship with his father? Maybe if he knew her reasons he could understand Robyn’s better. Not forgive—never forgive—but at least understand…

  He opened his mouth, but a cough smothered the questions he wanted to ask. By the time the spasm passed, she’d pulled the car into his driveway. Even if he hadn’t given his address to her for those medical records, she had probably known where he lived. He doubted there were any secrets in this town but hers.

  “Do you have anyone who can check on you?” she asked.

  He shook his head but couldn’t quite shake off the loneliness that tugged at him. The only person he’d known in Forest Glen had died while he’d been deployed the first time. Grandma Drayton, aware of how much he’d loved the summers he’d spent with her, had left him this house. In the middle of a five-acre lot, the Victorian farmhouse sat back from the tree-lined road. The freshly budded leaves on the tall oaks in the yard cast shadows across the wraparound porch. He’d fixed its worn floorboards, but he needed to replace some of the spindles in the decorative railing. The teal and purple trim clashed with the warm yellow siding. Grandma had loved her bright colors, and he couldn’t quite bring himself to repaint the house. Hell, if things didn’t work out the way he wanted, he might not even be able to continue living here.