Leandra Logan - The Sheriff's Second Chance

When she graduated, he’d presented her with a modest engagement ring. A no-frills elopement had soon followed, as had the purchase of their house, made possible by her unspent wedding fund and a generous gift from the Cutlers.

Sarah sighed against her pillow. Everything had been going so well for so long. But only because nobody ever crossed Lewis Cutler. She wouldn’t usually be doing it herself. But this was for Kelsey. Who, just like the rest of them, had a legitimate birthright here in Maple Junction.

Ethan was edgy at the sheriff’s office the next morning, determined to track down Sarah for a quick, frank talk about Kelsey. Why hadn’t she answered the door last night? It would have been easy to find her two weeks ago when school was still in session. Despite the arrival of Amy Joy, Sarah had watched over her morning kindergarten class most days, relying on her aide to handle the get-up-and-go tasks. Occasionally, the baby had even hitched a ride along in her buggy. Things were like that in the small town, with obliging parents and staff wanting to make it easy for Sarah so she’d return next year.

It turned out all Ethan had to do was hit Harvester Avenue, where he spotted willowy Sarah sitting idle on a bench in front of the corner drugstore at Fifth Street, her hand gently rocking Amy Joy’s big springy buggy.

Pretty as a picture was the new mother, dressed in a green peasant blouse and denim shorts, her wavy gold hair captured in a ribbon. With bare legs crossed, she bobbed a sandaled foot in time to “Spanish Flea,” an Herb Alpert tune played by two clarinetists from the Whittier High School band busking at the corner. Amused passersby were tossing coins into an upside-down baseball cap.

The boys froze at the sight of him, probably wondering if they needed a permit to play.

Ethan didn’t know or care. “Go ahead, knock yourselves out.”

Happy, they tooted on with gusto.

Peeking at the dozing baby under the buggy’s visor, Ethan leaned against a nearby lamppost. Sarah wasn’t going to be able to avoid him this time. Funny that she’d tried it last night. But she was one tough girl and had kicked him out of the treehouse in her father’s apple orchard more than once. Landing on apples sure did hurt! He still couldn’t bear to eat one.

“Nice day, Sarah,” he greeted genially.

“Perfect.”

“How’s our baby girl doing?”

“Swell. As you can see for yourself.”

“They grow up so fast,” he marveled. “Assert their independence so early.”

She gaped at him. “What do you mean?”

“I could’ve sworn I heard her crying alone in your house last night. Naturally, I got right off the bell. Waited though, to give her a sporting chance to respond but I guess she just couldn’t crawl the distance.”

“Don’t be silly, Ethan.”

“Of course if you had been there, you’d have answered the bell, right?”

“Well, sure. I mean, none of us were there. Must have been the radio you heard. Derek keeps it on when we go out. To fool burglars.”

Her brown eyes were bright and steady in spite of the lie. She and Kelsey could sell anything to anyone back in the day—watered-down lemonade, bruised apples, day-old pastries, all with convincing sincerity. He expected that would still hold true, at least for her.

“So why did you drop by last night, Ethan?”

It was a smart move to ask, knowing she was already trapped.

“I was following up a rumor about Kelsey coming. Is it true?”

“Yes!” She clasped her hands gleefully. “A crazy twist, huh?”

The craziest.

“C’mon, take another look at Amy Joy,” Sarah urged suddenly.

“Why?”

“This time, note the sweet little rosebud dress she’s wearing.”

He leaned back over the pram. “Very nice.”

“Sent to her by guess who?”

“Kelsey.”

“Exactly.” She closed her eyes and smiled up at the sun. “Amy Joy’s only outfit from out of town. Makes her look sharp and unique, like her aunt Kelsey.”

It was becoming impossible to talk over the music. Ethan turned to discover there were now four musicians on the corner. He decided to sit on the bench beside Sarah to make himself heard. “How long have you known about Kelsey’s homecoming?”

“I’ve kept the news under wraps a little while,” she admitted. “There seemed no hurry in giving grudge-toting people time to get worked up about it and plan a negative campaign. So how is Mr. Grudge himself taking it?”

“Lewis is a little worked up.”

“As expected.”

“Is he the reason you pretended not to be home last night, Sare?”

“Okay, yes,” she relented. “Neither Derek or I felt like dealing with the Cutler issue at that hour.”

“He’s bound to have an interest, Sarah. In his mind, Kelsey robbed him of his only child, his main reason for living.”

Sarah’s face hardened suddenly. “You know as well as I do that Kelsey didn’t hurt anyone on purpose. Ever.”

“Still, the fact remains—”

“Cutler and those other fools drove the poor girl right out of town.”

“A college education from Bryn Mawr is hardly a sentence at San Quentin.”

“Oh, but how she struggled to earn it. She had to maintain the best grades to keep scholarships and worked some very crummy jobs.”

“I guess I never realized.”

“Nobody did. Kelsey was forced to take the fall for the accident, then it was out of sight, out of mind.”

“Are you suggesting the case was poorly handled?”

“Sheriff Norton hardly solved it.”

“He couldn’t with so little to go on.”

“I was highly suspicious of his methods even then.”

“What I remember most is struggling with the loss. In the long run, it’s all been about moving on, trying to forget.”

Hoping to regain his composure, Ethan stood, dipped into his blue uniform shirt pocket for his sunglasses and put them on his lean, taut face. But Sarah wasn’t finished with him.

“Maybe it’s time we took a fresh look at the whole mess, put a stop to the anger—encourage Kelsey to move home for good! That’s exactly what I intend to do. Go stuff that in one of Lewis’s big stinky hand-rolled cigars.”

Encourage Kelsey to move home? That was what was behind this? Ethan was completely floored. The idea of having her back in town, so full of fun and wit, was one he’d given up on long ago.

Just then a big motor coach wheezed to a stop at the curb, the way it did every day round this time. Sarah signaled the band of musicians on the corner and they broke into the Whittier High anthem.

Suddenly things all fell into place in the gray matter behind the tinted lenses. Sarah wasn’t out here by chance. Kelsey was due home the same way she’d left, on a Greyhound bus. This Greyhound bus.

Ethan inhaled sharply in anticipation as the bus door folded open.

Passengers disembarked, mostly a stream of UW students home for the summer.

He sensed Sarah standing beside him now, holding her breath, too.

The sliding door remained open but no one else appeared. False alarm maybe. It did seem impossible that after all these years Kelsey Graham was going to walk off this bus or any other bus to ever set foot back in Maple Junction.

Then a figure in a tight, colorfully striped sundress registered in his brain, along with Sarah’s wild scream. It was her! Kelsey. Here! Finally home.

The same old Kelsey, but different somehow.

As Sarah rushed forward to hug her, Ethan took time to readjust his decade-old picture of the cute and curvy girl with wild bleached brown hair and whimsical green eyes. The adult Kelsey was trimmer with a neat brown cap of hair highlighted red. No longer cute but, rather, beautiful—stunning! The only disappointment lay in her eyes. While still as rich and deep as tropical seas, the whimsy was gone, replaced by the tired wisdom of one who’d seen too much, who carried a number of regrets.