Lissa Manley - Her Small-Town Sheriff

He tightened his jaw until his head ached. “Because shoplifting was wrong, that’s why.”

She swiped the tears from her eyes. “You’re the worst dad ever!” she screamed. “Mom wouldn’t have made me do this.”

More bullets pierced him; Susan was gone and would never make a tough parenting call again. He was on his own.

He let Heidi’s comment go, sure she was speaking out of anger, which he couldn’t blame her for. He had a boatload of anger, too, mostly directed at himself, though he was also pretty mad at Susan for abandoning them.

Mostly, though, he just felt betrayed.

Heidi turned on her heel and ran out of the room, and he let her go, bleeding inside.

From the hallway she yelled, “And I’m not ever going back to that store and you can’t make me!”

Her footsteps clomped quickly up the stairs, and then he heard—and felt—her bedroom door slam.

A sense of failure screamed through him, and he pressed a hand to the bridge of his nose. His appetite gone, he shoved his plate away and slumped back in his chair. With a weary breath he looked around the kitchen, at the old appliances, ugly cabinets and hideous green-and-gold curtains the landlord had probably put up in the seventies.

The place certainly was not a home, nor the peaceful haven he wanted.

A feeling of helplessness spread through him, and suddenly, he’d never felt so alone. He’d lost his son and his wife, and any kind of peace. And now, in a way, he’d lost his little girl, too.

She hated him.

How was he supposed to face that, much less deal with it?

* * *

“Sheriff Winters is here to see you.”

Phoebe looked up from her desk, trying to ignore the little skip her heart took at the mention of the handsome sheriff. “Okay, thanks. I’ll be right out,” she said to Tanya, an energetic middle-aged woman who was her lone weekday employee.

“He has a young lady with him,” Tanya said, raising her auburn brows. “And she doesn’t look very happy to be here.”

Not surprising at all. Phoebe was guessing the hammer had come down at the Winterses’ last night. “That’s his daughter.” She rose and stretched the kinks out of her neck. “He said yesterday when he was here they’d be stopping by.”

“Why was the sheriff here? Did something happen?”

Phoebe gave herself a mental head slap. Tanya had been taking her daughter to the doctor yesterday when the shoplifting incident had occurred and when the sheriff had stopped by. She wasn’t aware of what had happened, and Phoebe wasn’t going to fill her in. Heidi’s slip-up was nobody else’s business.

She waved a hand in the air. “Oh…um…he stopped by for a cone and I told him I’d like to meet his daughter.”

Tanya nodded, apparently satisfied with Phoebe’s answer—fabulous—and they both walked out to the main part of the store. Phoebe resisted the ridiculous urge to fluff her hair. Please! Talk about a waste of energy.

Save for Carson and his daughter, the store was thankfully empty. In uniform, he stood, unsmiling, on the other side of the soda-fountain counter, his daughter beside him. He had his big hand on Heidi’s shoulder—to keep her from bolting?—and Heidi, dressed in a cute pair of black leggings, boots and a gray coat—was intently studying the floor, her mouth pressed into a decidedly rebellious scowl.

Phoebe felt bad for both of them; this clearly wasn’t a fun father/daughter trip to the ice cream parlor for treats.

“Hello, Sheriff,” Phoebe said, smiling cheerily to ease the tension, if that were possible. She looked at Heidi. “Hey, Heidi.”

Heidi replied with nothing more than a twitch of her mouth.

Carson nodded crisply, all business, his face taut. “Ms. Sellers. Heidi here would like to talk to you.”

“Sure.” Phoebe cast a surreptitious gaze around and saw Tanya over by the candy shelves, straightening some packages of gummy bears some kids had riffled through earlier.

“Um…why don’t we go back to my office,” Phoebe said, gesturing to the Winterses to follow her. For Heidi’s sake, Phoebe was determined to keep this just between the three of them.

She stepped into her office, pulled two plastic chairs from their spot on the wall and set them before her desk. “Have a seat.”

Carson and Heidi sat, and Phoebe moved around behind her desk and settled herself in her desk chair. Folding her arms before her, she looked directly at Heidi, who still hadn’t made eye contact. “Thank you for coming by.”

Heidi briefly met Phoebe’s gaze, then she looked away and shrugged.

Carson’s jaw visibly tightened, and his brow furrowed. He took a moment, then removed his hat and set it on his knee, revealing a head of closely shorn thick black wavy hair that would probably be curly if he let it grow. “We didn’t come here for your thanks.” He paused, probably for effect. “Did we, Heidi?”

“No,” Heidi mumbled, shifting on her chair.

Carson let out an impatient sigh, then turned his coffee-hued gaze on his daughter. “What did you want to say to Ms. Sellers?”

Heidi remained silent.

“Heidi?” Carson said in a stern voice. “You need to talk. And cut the rude routine.”

Heidi seemed to collapse in on herself as her narrow shoulders slumped. Tears formed in the girl’s blue eyes, and her face crumbled.

Phoebe’s heart went out to Heidi, and she looked at Carson, frowning, trying to tell him nonverbally that she didn’t like upsetting his daughter.

Reading her language perfectly, he gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. No go.

With effort, Phoebe hardened her heart just a bit; she would undoubtedly be helping Heidi more by not cutting her any more slack. Rough for a softie like her, but doable.

Carson focused his attention back on his daughter, who now had tears streaming down her cheeks. His gaze softened, and he reached out and rubbed her upper arm. “Heidi, I know this is hard for you, but you need to speak to Ms. Sellers.”

Heidi sobbed, her shoulders shaking, and then looked up, her eyes swimming in tears. “I’m…sorry for…what I did yesterday,” she said in a halting voice. “I know it was…wrong, and I won’t ever…do it again.”

Phoebe’s eyes watered and her throat tightened. She looked at the paperwork on her desk, trying to get control. She yanked a tissue out of the box on desk and handed it to Heidi.

Then Phoebe shifted her gaze to Carson. For just a moment, his daughter’s agony was reflected in his eyes, and he looked like a concerned dad with mushy guts, one who loved his daughter and hated upsetting her, but knew that a dad had to do what a dad had to do.

Swallowing, Phoebe said, “Thank you for your apology, Heidi, and I accept it. I know coming here wasn’t easy, and I appreciate you making the effort.”

Heidi finally looked right at her, nodding. “You’re welcome.”

“I’ve talked to Heidi,” Carson said. “And she’s aware that she will be working here after school for the next few days.” He turned to Heidi. “Right?”

She heaved out a sigh, defiance making a show. “Do I have to?”

“Yep, you do, honey,” he said firmly, but not harshly. “You do the crime, you do the time, remember?”

Heidi pursed her lips. “Dad, you’ve said that to me about a thousand times.”

“And I’ll say it a thousand more times if I need to,” he replied. Then he cracked a small, wry smile that softened the stress lines tightening his face. “Maybe even a million.” He gave Heidi a playful nudge on the shoulder. “You never know.”

To Phoebe’s relief, his comment seemed to break the ice, and the tension in the room eased a bit more.

And Carson Winters rose a notch in her eyes.