Brenda Harlen - The Sheriff's Nine-Month Surprise

She answered the call, anyway.

“Hey, Kate—it’s Liam,” her brother said, as if she wouldn’t recognize his voice or the number on the display.

“What’s up?” It was unusual for him to contact her in the middle of the day, so she knew his call had a specific purpose.

“Do you remember my friend, Chase, from school?”

“Of course,” she said.

“Well, I just got off the phone with his brother, Gage, who called me because Chase told him that my sister is an attorney.”

“Are you getting to a point anytime soon?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Gage’s son, Aiden, has been arrested.”

Now that was a surprise.

Aiden wasn’t just a good kid, he was unfailingly honest. The type of kid who wouldn’t swipe a pack of chewing gum from The Trading Post. In fact, Kate remembered a time when he’d paid a dollar for ten gummy worms but Samantha Allen, who was working behind the counter, miscounted. When Aiden realized he’d been given eleven candies, he tried to give one back.

“What did he allegedly do?”

“I don’t know,” Liam admitted. “I didn’t think to ask, but Gage is panicking because he’s still half an hour out of town and he wanted to know if there was anything you could do to help.”

“Okay,” Kate decided. “Tell him to bring Aiden in to see me tomorrow morning. I have a couple of later appointments but I should be able to squeeze them in around eleven.”

“This can’t wait until tomorrow. Aiden’s being held for a bail hearing—that’s why Gage is so frantic.”

“He’s a juvenile with no prior record,” Kate said, thinking aloud.

“Can you find out what’s going on?” Liam asked.

“I’m on my way to the Sheriff’s Office right now,” she promised.

She parked her vehicle then walked the few blocks to the Sheriff’s Office. Judy Talon, the administrative assistant, was seated behind the front desk.

“Hey, Katie—are you here about Aiden Hampton?”

She nodded. “But I don’t have any of the details,” she admitted. “Can you fill me in?”

Judy glanced at the sheriff’s closed door but still dropped her voice when she said, “He was arrested with Trent Marshall.”

Under normal circumstances, they both knew that Aiden Hampton didn’t keep company with kids like Trent Marshall—and he definitely didn’t get in trouble with the law. Unfortunately, nothing had been normal for Aiden since his grandmother had died a few weeks earlier.

“What did they do?”

“Found a car with the keys in the ignition and decided to take it for a spin.”

“Joyriding,” she realized.

“Some would say,” Judy agreed. “The new sheriff is saying grand larceny of a motor vehicle.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

The other woman shook her head. “I wish I was.”

“Grand larceny is a felony.”

“Which is why he’s being held over for a bail hearing,” Judy explained.

“Obviously, Jed didn’t tell his replacement how things work around here.” Kate glanced at her watch. “What time is the hearing?”

“Ten a.m. Monday morning.”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “I’m not letting Aiden spend the weekend in lockup.”

“I hope he doesn’t have to,” the other woman agreed, though her tone was skeptical.

Kate looked toward the office. When Jed had run the department, the door was almost always open. Now it was closed, and she hoped that status wasn’t a reflection of the sheriff’s mind. “Can you let the new sheriff know that I need a few minutes of his time?”

Judy picked up the phone to connect with the sheriff, but first whispered, “Good luck.”

She didn’t let the woman’s words unnerve her. After giving a perfunctory knock on the door, she turned the knob.

Be confident. Be convincing. Don’t back down.

She repeated the refrain inside her head as she stepped into the office.

Be confident. Be convincing. Don’t—

The rest of the words slipped from her mind as familiar hazel eyes lifted to meet her gaze.

And she found herself face-to-face with her baby’s daddy.

* * *

Reid had been looking forward to the day when he would see Katelyn Gilmore again. He didn’t anticipate that it would happen as soon as his third day behind the desk in the Sheriff’s Office.

He’d been writing a report when she walked in, and he automatically glanced up—and was immediately sucker punched by her presence.

If the sudden widening of her eyes and the sharp intake of her breath were any indication, Katelyn was just as surprised to see him. Maybe even more so, because while he’d known their paths would cross and had eagerly anticipated that eventuality, it appeared that she’d been unaware of the identity of Haven’s new sheriff.

“Reid?”

“Hello, Katelyn.” He thought he’d remembered how beautiful she was, but seeing her again proved his memories inadequate.

She was wearing another one of those lawyer suits, this one a deep purple color with a pale pink shell under the jacket, which made him wonder what color lace she might be wearing beneath that. Her hair was pinned up as it had been the day of their first meeting, but he knew now how it felt when he slid his fingers through it as he kissed her. And maybe that wasn’t a memory he should linger on while he was wearing his official sheriff’s uniform, because the mental image was causing his body to stir in a very unprofessional way.

She opened her delectably shaped and incredibly talented mouth, then closed it again without saying another word.

“You’re Aiden Hampton’s attorney?” he prompted.

She nodded. “And you’re the new sheriff.”

“I am,” he confirmed.

“But...I thought you lived in Texas. I even—” Now she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“What doesn’t matter?”

She ignored his question to ask her own. “Why are you here?”

“I applied for the job before I met you,” he said, wanting to dispel any concern she might have about his motivation. “In fact, I interviewed with the hiring committee the day before the conference in Boulder City.”

Her cheeks flushed as she cast a quick glance at his open office door.

He nodded to the phone on his desk, indicating the light that revealed his assistant was occupied with a call.

“When I told you that I was from Haven, why didn’t you mention that you’d applied for a job here?”

“Because you didn’t want to know,” he reminded her.

Her brows drew together as she recalled that earlier conversation and finally admitted, “I guess I did.”

“And when I got the call offering me the job, well, I figured our paths would cross soon enough.”

“They’re going to cross frequently if you insist on locking up juveniles who should be released on their own recognizances.”

He leaned back in his chair. Though he was disappointed that she’d so quickly refocused on her client, he could appreciate that she had a job to do. Any personal business could wait until after-hours. “Grand larceny of a motor vehicle is a felony.”

“Grand larceny of a motor vehicle is a ridiculously trumped-up charge.”

“Tell that to Rebecca Blake—it was her brand-new S-Class Mercedes, worth close to two hundred thousand dollars.”

That revelation gave her pause, but just for a second. “Was the vehicle damaged?”

“Thankfully, no,” he acknowledged.

She nodded, and he could almost see her switching mental gears from confrontation to persuasion. “He’s a good kid, Reid—a straight-A student grieving for his grandmother.”

He wouldn’t—couldn’t—let sympathy for the kid interfere with his responsibilities. “There are lots of kids who lose family members and don’t act out by stealing a car.”