Rachel Lee - A Soldier's Homecoming

However, it went against the grain for her to treat a stranger with silence. Around here, folks generally made strangers feel welcome.

“I can take you to a motel if you want.”

“Sheriff’s office is fine.”

“Okay.” A scattering of houses near the road announced that Conard City now lay less than ten miles ahead. “My uncle used to be sheriff here,” she said by way of keeping a friendly conversation going.

“Yeah?”

At last a sign of curiosity. “He retired a couple of years ago,” she explained. “He and my aunt are in South America and are later going on a cruise to Antarctica. It blows my mind to even think of it.”

That elicited a chuckle. “It wouldn’t be my choice.”

“Mine, either, right now. Maybe when I retire I’ll see things differently.”

“You never know.”

She tossed him another glance and saw that he appeared a bit more relaxed.

“So,” he said after a moment, “you followed in your uncle’s footsteps?”

“Eventually. I grew up in Laramie. Then I moved to Denver.”

“How’d that work out?”

“Well, I got my degree, got married, got divorced, decided I didn’t like the big bad world all that much and came back to be a deputy.”

“What’s that like?”

“I love it.” She glanced at him again, wondering what had suddenly unlocked the key to his mouth. But he seemed to have gone away again, looking out the windows, watching intently. So on guard. Expecting trouble at any instant.

And there were no magic words to cure that. Nothing but time would do that, if even that could succeed.

“I worked as a cop in the city,” she said after a moment. “It’s better here.”

“Why?”

“Less crime. More helping people.”

“I can see that.”

She reckoned he could.

“So do you like your new sheriff?”

“Gage Dalton,” she supplied. “Yeah. He can be hard to get to know, but once you do, he’s great. He used to be DEA, then he came here and my dad hired him as a criminologist. We never had one before.”

“That is small-town.”

She smiled. “Yeah. It’s great.”

They reached the edge of town, and soon were driving along Main Street toward the courthouse square and the storefront sheriff’s office. On the way, she pointed out the City Diner.

“Eat there if you want rib-sticking food. Despite the sign out front, everyone calls it Maude’s diner. You won’t find high-class service, but if you’re not worried about cholesterol, sugar or salt, there’s no better place to get a meal or a piece of pie.”

“I’ll remember that.”

She pulled into her slot in front of the office and turned off the ignition. Before he climbed out, she turned in her seat to face him directly. “I’m Connie Halloran,” she said.

“Ethan. Thanks for the ride.”

Then he slipped out of the vehicle with his backpack and began to stride toward the diner. She watched him until he disappeared inside, then shook her head and climbed out, locking the car behind her.

Inside the office, Velma arched thin brows at her. “You’re still alive, I see.”

“I’m not totally stupid.”

“Just save the excuses until your uncle gets back.”

Connie shook her head and hung her keys from the rack near Velma’s dispatch station. “I’m all grown up, Velma.”

“That won’t matter a flea dropping on a compost heap if anything happens to you. I don’t want to be the one explaining to Nate what you did.”

Connie leaned over the counter, grinning at the older woman. “I’m armed and dangerous, Velma.”

All that earned was a snort. “Damn near everyone around here is armed. It don’t keep bad things from happening.”

“Nothing bad happened. Now I’m going to sign out and go home to grill burgers for my daughter and my mother.”

But Velma stopped her. “Who’d you give a ride to?”

“Some guy named Ethan. He says he has some friends around here.”

“And you believe that?”

Connie sighed. “Why wouldn’t I? He’s wearing a major’s oak leaf on his shirt collar, and he says he just got back from Afghanistan. Not your ordinary bad-guy disguise.”

Velma’s expression soured. “For somebody who patrolled the streets in Denver, you’re awfully trusting.”

“No, I just know how well I can take care of myself.”

Velma’s snort followed her out the door.

Gage Dalton, Conard County’s new sheriff—for three years now, which he guessed meant he would always be the new sheriff—sat at his desk reviewing reports, his scarred face smiling faintly as he remembered how Nate Tate used to complain about the paperwork. Nate had been sheriff for thirty-five years, a long time to complain about paperwork. As for Gage, he would count himself lucky if twenty years from now he was still the new sheriff and still doing paperwork.

Not that folks gave him a hard time or anything. It was, he supposed, just their way of distinguishing him from Nate. He signed another report and added it to the stack of completed work.

Not much happened in this county on a routine basis. Cattle disappeared or were killed under strange circumstances. That whole cattle-mutilation thing still hovered around, leaving questions whose answers never entirely satisfied the ranchers.

Break-ins, vandalism—more of that over the past few years as the county grew and bored youngsters got ideas from movies, television and gangsta rap. Although, to his way of thinking, the growing size of the younger population probably meant that, percent-age-wise, there was no more crime than ever.

There were new jobs, though. When he’d first moved here fifteen years ago, the county had been losing many of its young folks to brighter city lights. Then the lights here had grown a bit brighter when a semiconductor plant was set up outside town. Easier work than ranching. Good wages. Folks had moved in, and more kids stayed, especially now that they had a local college, too.

Small changes with outsize impact. Nothing threatened the old way of life here yet, but it sure was odd to see kids wearing saggy, beltless, shapeless pants, as if the whole world wanted to see their underwear, instead of boot-cut jeans and ropers. Among the younger set, the cowboy hat had been completely replaced by the ball cap. Sometimes Gage grinned, because it was all familiar to him from the days before he moved here. It had just taken longer to arrive than he had, that was all.

Velma buzzed him on the intercom. “Sheriff? There’s a man here looking for Micah.”

Gage didn’t hesitate. “Send him back.”

Maybe he remained overly cautious from his DEA days, but Gage was protective of his deputies, their addresses and their whereabouts. Velma’s description had spoken volumes. She hadn’t given the visitor a name, which meant he wasn’t local. Gage went instantly on guard.

A half minute later, a tall dark man appeared in Gage’s doorway. Gage experienced an instant of recognition so fleeting it was gone before he could nail it down.

“Come in,” he said to the stranger, rising to offer his hand.

The man took it and shook firmly, giving Gage a chance to study him. His first guess was Native American, but the thick beard threw him off. Coppery skin tone, but that could be from the sun. Chambray shirt and jeans.

“Gage Dalton,” he said. “Have we met before?”

The man shook his head. “Major Ethan Parish.”

At once Gage stilled. He studied the man even more closely, and now the instant of recognition made sense. “You look a bit like him. Related?”

Ethan nodded.

“Well, take a seat.”

The two men sat facing each other across the expanse of the old wood desk with its stacks of papers.