Melinda Curtis - Support Your Local Sheriff

“No.”

Unable to wait any longer, Nate edged Julie aside and picked up Duke.

“Want bed.” Short, sturdy arms wrapped around Nate’s neck.

Nate hugged him closer, drinking in the smell of toddler—sweat and dirty clothes and the essence of his son.

Julie had moved to the rear of the red SUV. She unloaded an open bag of diapers with a tub of wipes stuffed in it. A dinosaur-print bedroll came next, followed by a duffel bag and a backpack. She closed the hatch, groaning almost as much as the hinges on the hatch. Was she recovering from the flu?

“Let me carry those,” Nate offered.

“No,” Julie snapped, but it was a weary snap.

“Juju.” Duke leaned toward her, small arms outstretched, near tears. “Want bed.”

“Soon.” Julie slung the duffel over a shoulder (a sharp intake of breath), held the bedroll under an arm (a wince) and clutched the bag of diapers in her hand (looking like she might topple).

“Let me help you.” Nate lowered Duke to the ground and snagged the backpack.

Wailing, the toddler staggered dramatically to Julie and latched onto her leg.

“Duke.” Julie looked like she wanted to wail, too.

Without a word, Nate took the duffel, bedroll and diaper bag from her.

The front door opened. Leona Lambridge, the original proprietor of the bed-and-breakfast, stood in the doorway. Her thin-bladed features were sharper than surgical knives. She wore a simple navy dress that cast the gray in her tightly bound hair an eerie blue. She stared at them—an overloaded sheriff, a spent-looking aunt and a hysterical child—clasping her hands as if it helped her withhold verbal judgment.

Leona wasn’t a people person. Why she’d opened a bed-and-breakfast was a mystery to Nate.

Julie knelt, gathered Duke with her left arm and muttered, “The music from Psycho is playing in my head.” Cop humor. Meant to diffuse stress.

“Pay no attention to my grandmother.” Reggie, Leona’s granddaughter, edged past the old woman and hurried down the stairs to greet them. “I’m running the Lambridge B and B now.” Poor Reggie. She had to be working her fingers to the bone. She looked thin and haggard. Her long brown hair listless and her pert nose less than pert.

“She’ll run it until something better comes along,” Leona quipped. “She’s left me once already.”

“Your patrons missed me when I was gone.” Reggie took the diaper bag from Nate and smiled hard at Julie. “She’s friendlier than she’d like you to believe.”

Having known Leona a few years, Nate withheld comment.

Reggie scowled at him when he didn’t back her up. “Grandmother has friends in town. She’s retired. It’s not like I have to force her out of the house.”

“Oh, she forces me, all right. In hopes I’ll take back my ex-husband.” Leona retreated into the foyer where her hair seemed less blue and her countenance less sharp. “Or join one of Harmony Valley’s many causes.”

“Too much information for our guests,” Reggie muttered.

“My offer of a place to stay still stands,” Nate said to Julie. He had a studio apartment above the sheriff’s office.

“I’ll face the music of my own making, thank you.” Lugging Duke, Julie followed Reggie up the steps. “You’d best do the same.”

Nate noted Julie’s slow, measured steps. Her uneven breathing as she ascended the stairs. Her rigid posture and the tender way she held Duke. What had torn her apart?

Cancer?

She’d been favoring her left shoulder.

Breast cancer?

Nate bounded up the stairs, suddenly afraid Julie might collapse.

“I could like Ms. Smith.” Leona gave Julie a knowing smile. “She has a way with the sheriff. But—” she tilted her head and filled her expression with cheerful remorse “—the reservation was for one.”

“Casa Landry has room for two,” Nate said, if he slept downstairs on the cot in the jail cell.

“Poaching my business.” Reggie tsked and tried to look like there was much business to poach. “Bad form, Sheriff. Children under six stay free, Grandmother.”

“Want bed,” Duke crooned.

“As soon as we check in, little man.” But Julie didn’t move toward the door in her usual take-no-prisoners style. She blew out a labored breath and planted her boots on the porch as if it was an accomplishment just to make it that far. “Reservation for Smith.”

“Reggie needs your credit card.” Leona tried to smile, although it made her look as if she was having indigestion. “I need your assurance that your party won’t disrupt other guests.”

“By other guests, she means herself.” Reggie softened the remark with a more natural smile. “Thankfully, without her hearing aids she can only hear you if you scream. She hasn’t been disturbed at night yet.”

Julie was a woman of action, but she was loitering on the porch as if this was a social call and she wasn’t swaying with fatigue. Why? Because cancer was making a buffet of her strength. Nate was certain of it now. His certainty hollowed him with a sense of impending loss.

“Excuse me.” A man’s voice reached them from the sidewalk. “Is this the Lambridge Bed & Breakfast?”

“It is.” Reggie shoved the diaper bag into Nate’s chest. “Grandmother, show the Smiths to their room.”

“Yes,” Nate said firmly. “Show us now.”

* * *

WHEN JULIE WAS a kid, she’d had boundless energy. It was as if she’d gotten her share of energy, plus April’s.

April had asthma. April had painful growth spurts. April had flat feet, poor eyesight, lactose intolerance, skin that burned, toes prone to warts. You name it, April suffered through it. Not with Julie’s spunk, but with a gentle smile and a well-meaning joke.

Five days ago, Julie had been shot in the soft flesh near her shoulder. She’d lost a lot of blood.

Standing and carrying Duke. Fighting with Nate. Being out of bed. How quickly it all drained her reserves. She wanted to collapse on the chair just inside the front door. She didn’t want to carry her nephew and follow the Bride of Frankenstein up the stairs to a bedroom.

Seriously. Leona was a dead ringer for the black-and-white film icon. Give her a couple of neck bolts, tease up her hair, and she’d be ready for Halloween.

She was out of place in the house, which was beautiful and serene. It was like stepping back in time. Bead board. Wood floors. Old fixtures. Antique furniture. All lovingly cared for. By Reggie, no doubt.

“I’m curious.” Nate stared at Reggie and the man on the sidewalk. And then he turned to look at Leona. “You’re singing in Rose’s production of Annie for the Spring Festival?”

There was a shift in Leona’s posture, a preening. “Rose said no one else could play Miss Hannigan.”

Nate’s half smile twitched. He adjusted his hold on the load he carried. “Can you give us a sample?”

“I don’t do requests.” With a toss of her head, Leona led them with slow steps that made the creaking stairs wail as plaintively as Duke had outside.

The music from Psycho played once more in Julie’s head, but this time she was smiling as she climbed.

The pain meds are making me loopy.

Or they would be if I’d taken the pain meds.

When they reached the second floor, Leona gestured to an open door. “This is your bathroom.”

It was completely tiled and completely white. Not the best choice for the dirt little boys tended to bring inside.

Blessedly, a few steps later they were at a bedroom. The four-poster bed was huge, and the room was still large enough for a Tae Kwon Do match.

Julie set Duke down on the bed. Only the presence of Nate kept her from collapsing next to him.

She’d played sports in high school and trained in martial arts. She knew how to play through pain. But exhaustion. Exhaustion was different. Exhaustion took you out of the game.