Susan Mallery - The Best Bride

“By.” Now that she was getting her way, she smiled broadly. “Can we have the siren on?” she asked as they stepped out of the building and walked toward the sheriff’s car in the parking lot.

“No.”

She pouted and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Don’t give me that look,” he said. “I can’t use the siren when it’s not an emergency.”

She thought for a minute. “I gotta go.”

His heart sank. “Now?”

She nodded. “It’s a ’mergency.”

* * *

Elizabeth raised the hospital bed and stared out the window. From where she was lying, she could see the corner of the small parking lot and a plot of grass with a Chinese maple in the center. It was early Saturday morning and she’d seen only a handful of cars enter the hospital grounds.

Everything was going to be fine. She’d recited the phrase over and over, hoping by saying it enough she would start to believe it was true. But panic threatened, just below the surface of her carefully constructed facade.

She was scared. There was no getting around the lump in her throat and the cold hard knot in her stomach, just next to the tender incision the doctors had made yesterday. She wasn’t frightened for herself. The surgery had gone well, and she was healing nicely, according to the doctor who had visited early that morning. She had medical insurance, so the unexpected stay in the hospital wasn’t going to deplete her savings.

The lump in her throat got bigger and her eyes burned from unshed tears. She blinked them away and prayed that her daughter hadn’t been too scared last night, alone in a strange place. Had they let her sleep with her bear? Had she had any bad dreams? There were, on average, twenty children at the county facility. Had Mandy gotten lost among all the other kids? Who would have been there to hold her if she cried?

Logically, Elizabeth knew she hadn’t had another choice as far as her daughter was concerned. Having her spend the night in the county home had made sense. She would be fed and warm and have a bed to sleep in. But knowing her only child had been put there, like a stray puppy rounded up by the pound, made her feel like the worst kind of parent. Mothers were supposed to do better for their children. Of course, mothers were also supposed to know what they were doing when they picked out fathers—and look at how that had turned out.

She reached over to the black phone on the small metal nightstand and dialed the number she’d gotten from directory assistance. For the second time in fifteen minutes, she heard a busy signal. From what she remembered from her tour during her interview a month ago, the county facility only had one line. She hung up the receiver. She would keep trying until she got through. She wanted to check on Mandy and reassure her daughter that everything was going to be fine—even though she didn’t know how.

Elizabeth forced herself to hold on to her control. She couldn’t afford to give into the fear. Not now. If she started questioning herself, she might never stop. Six months ago her world had come crashing in on her. She’d managed to collect the pieces and assemble them into a life, but the structure was fragile, and this emergency was enough to send the whole thing crumbling again. The logistics of her condition whirled around in her head. How was she going to take care of Mandy when she was supposed to stay off her feet for a week and not drive for three weeks? What about feeding her, and registering her for school, buying her new shoes, and a hundred other things she’d planned to do over the long holiday weekend? What about taking her out to watch the ducks and playing tag and—

The sound of footsteps in the hallway caught her attention. She glanced over at her partially closed door and watched as it was pushed open. Sheriff Travis Haynes entered the room and smiled at her. She stared at him, surprise and a tiny spurt of pleasure temporarily hiding her worries. He’d told her he would come by today and visit, but she hadn’t expected him to. He’d done too much already. Still, except for Rebecca and Mandy, he was the only other person she knew in Glenwood, and she couldn’t help being pleased to see him.

Gratitude, she told herself firmly, trying to find the reason for the sudden surge of good spirits. Gratitude and nothing else.

“Hi,” she said, managing a shaky smile. She pulled the sheet up to her shoulders and self-consciously touched the straggly ends of her hair. They hadn’t let her have a shower yet, and she felt grungy. She’d planned to insist on getting cleaned up later that morning. She hadn’t expected visitors so early.

“Hi, yourself.” Travis crossed the room in three long strides and pulled a plastic chair close to the bed. “May I?”

“Please.”

His khaki, short-sleeved uniform looked freshly pressed. A badge and a name tag had been pinned above the left breast pocket. He stood about six feet tall, with dark curly hair and a trimmed mustache that outlined his upper lip. He was the kind of man who, as her aunt Amanda used to say, made a woman get a crick in her neck just watching him stroll by.

As he settled himself in the chair, he tossed his beige Stetson across the bed. It sailed through the air and landed dead center on the table in front of the window.

“Neat trick,” she said, trying to ignore the way his brown eyes twinkled when he looked at her. “You have to practice much?”

“Every day. I sit in my office, tossing my hat across the room. It impresses the ladies.” He had a smooth, low voice, like liquid chocolate.

“Really?”

“Aren’t you impressed, darlin’?”

Some, but she wasn’t about to admit it. Once she’d let a man charm her and impress her and seduce her. Never again, she reminded herself. She’d learned a hard lesson from Sam Proctor. “I didn’t expect you to visit,” she said. “I’m sure you have other things you should be doing.”

“You’re the most important item on my agenda,” he said, leaning back in the chair and resting one ankle on the opposite knee. The movement emphasized the muscles in his thighs.

She looked away. “Oh?”

“How are you feeling?”

“A little sore, but better than I was. The doctor says I’m healing nicely.” She shifted in the hospital bed. “They gave me something to make me sleep, and that helped. I never got to thank you yesterday.”

“Just doing my job.”

She waved at the IV still attached to her hand. “They said that if I’d waited another couple of hours, the appendix might have burst. If I’d gone to the walk-in medical clinic like I’d planned, I might have gotten to the hospital too late.”

“So it all worked out. You’ll be released tomorrow.”

“That’s what they told me.” She glanced at him sitting in the white plastic chair. He looked tanned and handsome and disgustingly healthy, while her insides felt as if a herd of buffalo had trampled through them.

“Where are you going to go when they release you?” he asked.

“Back to the motel.” It wasn’t a great solution, but it was the best one she’d been able to think of. Where else could she go?

“And then?”

“And then I’ll get better and go to work. That is, if I still have a job. I need to call Rebecca and tell her what happened.” She forced herself to meet his gaze, and prayed her expression looked as calm and confident as she’d made herself sound. She didn’t want to foist her troubles on anyone, especially not this handsome stranger. One rescue per weekend was quite enough.

He folded his arms over his chest. His shirt stretched tightly across his broad shoulders. He had a solid look about him. He was the kind of man who could physically work for hours without tiring. He looked dependable. She shook her head. Looks could be deceiving.