Laura Altom - Babies and Badges

“Oh.”

“You just hang tight. I’ll be back to get you in my SUV around two.”

“Okay. Sure. That’d be great.”

Without so much as a wave, he was gone, leaving Cassie wondering if she’d said something to upset him. But then not five minutes later he was back—wearing an even fiercer frown than the one he’d left with.

“Need these?” she asked, jangling his keys. She held them out, but just when he reached for them, she snatched them back. “Not so fast, mister. You were in an awfully big hurry to get out of here.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So…You’re not still upset over that support group, are you?”

A muscle ticked in his jaw.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Actually, I was about to say no. But since we’re on the subject, let’s get one thing straight.” He’d taken his voice dangerously low. “Those women might say they were the ones who got hurt, but they’d be lying. I did darned good by every one of them. I’d thought we had something special, but then they had to—”

Bring up the word commitment? “What, Noah? What did they do?”

He raked his fingers through his hair, sighed, then grabbed his keys while she was staring into his eyes instead of at his hands. “I’ll be back around two.”

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Noah claimed a counter stool at Brenda’s Bigger Burger.

Brenda herself, order pad in her plump hand and wearing one of the dozens of psychedelic muumuus she’d picked up on last summer’s trip with her sister to Maui, ambled out from the kitchen. “What can I get for you, Sheriff?”

“Got any new lives stashed back there?”

“Aw, surely things can’t be that bad. After all, talk is you’re a new daddy. Babies always bring a good-some dose of joy.”

“Unless they’re snake babies.” Ernie, Brenda’s cook and husband, peeked through the kitchen’s passthru. “Homer Claussen found a whole nest of copperheads out in his south pasture.”

“You don’t say…” Noah nodded. Experience had long since taught him it was far better to go along with whatever Ernie said. Any contradictions, and the four-foot, ten-inch former pro wrestler tended toward belligerence.

“Yep. Hundreds of ’em wrapped all around his best calf. Nearly squooze him half to death. Homer called the vet, but she said there wasn’t a thing she could do.”

“You’re so making that up,” Brenda said.

“Am not! Call over to Homer’s and see. His wife’ll tell you every word is true.”

See? Noah closed his eyes, wishing Brenda would’ve just gone along with Ernie’s latest outrageous tale. Now, he’d have to listen to this bickering all the way through his lunch. And Lord, how he hated bickering. Brenda and Ernie were just one more shining example of why m-marriage doesn’t work. He had no trouble seeing it. So why did all the other men and women of the world still seem confused?

“Can I get you your usual Coke, double cheeseburger and Tater Tots?” Brenda asked during fight intermission—meaning Ernie must’ve taken a time-out to grab a fresh bag of something from the freezer.

“Why don’t you change that Coke to a chocolate malt?”

Brenda frowned. “Tiffany stopped by here awhile ago and said those women of yours already gave your babies’ momma an official group number. She’s Ms. Eighteen. Things that serious already, huh?”

Noah washed his face with his hands.

This whole town was a few donuts short of a dozen!

Wonder if the Fayetteville police force was doing any hiring?

In a back booth, a trio of teenaged girls burst into giggles.

He hadn’t thought the idea of moving to Fayetteville all that funny.

Just as he didn’t cotton to their skipping classes. He was just rising off of his stool to go over and say something when he realized they were out on their lunch break, and sat back down.

“Yo, Sheriff!”

Noah didn’t even have to glance toward the burger joint’s opening door to know his youngest deputy, Jimmy Groves, was heading his way.

“Briggs has been looking for ya.”

“Oh, yeah?” Noah said above the racket Brenda was making with the malt machine. “What’s he want?” Briggs was another deputy—the complete opposite of tall, lean and young Jimmy. Briggs didn’t have any hair, was a single parent to three great girls and one boy, and spent his every waking moment when he wasn’t on patrol or ferrying said kids watching tapes of Martha Stewart. Briggs had loved his wife to a dangerous degree. When she’d died of complications of diabetes, folks round town said Briggs would die right along with her. Still one more reason Noah wanted no part of marriage.

Far from being a blessing, loving a woman to that degree sounded more like a curse. Thank goodness Briggs and his munchkin crew seemed to be doing okay, two years later.

“He thought it might be nice to wash your girlfriend’s car. You know, that hot yellow Thunderbird?”

Noah rolled his eyes while Brenda set his malt on the gold-speckled counter in front of him.

He took a long, slow drink, savoring the icy goodness that eased fiery indigestion no doubt brought on by all this talk about him and Cass having already formed some kind of bond. Couldn’t everyone see they were nothing more than friends?

“First off,” he said, “Cassie’s hardly my girl—just the mother of my babies, which technically aren’t even mine, but—oh hell, you know what I mean. And second, stay away from her car.”

“But it’s awfully dusty.”

“Jimmy…”

“Come on, Sheriff, pleeeease. Briggs got to drive it all the way into town from out on the highway, and all I got to do was sit behind the wheel once she was already parked.” Jimmy was one of those kids who had posters of cars up on his bedroom walls instead of bikini-clad women. “If you’ll let me just drive it real slow to the car wash, I promise I’ll never ask for anything else.”

“No.”

Dragging his lip like a kid who’d got nothing for Christmas, Jimmy slinked out of Brenda’s and back to the sheriff’s office located five doors down across the street.

Why was it that the more Noah thought about Cassie and the hornet’s nest of women supposedly scorned, the more he wished she’d had those babies of hers in someone else’s town?

“THIS IS NICE,” Cassie said after Noah had given her the grand tour of his cozy four-bedroom ranch home. She’d decided not to mention the fact that after having told her back at the hospital that he wasn’t allowed to have civilian passengers in his county-issued Blazer, he’d turned around and picked her up in it!

“Thanks. I can’t really take any of the credit, though. Mom did all of the homey stuff. Dad and I just did our part to help keep everything clean.”

“So what happened?” Cassie asked with a smile twinkling in her eyes. While the house wasn’t trashed, in spite of pretty blue floral curtains, mossy green walls and an antique china cabinet brimming with dusty, rose-patterned china, the place definitely had the look and feel of a bachelor pad.

Dirty dishes filled the sink, and mail, newspapers and grocery store sales circulars cluttered the white tile kitchen counters. A dirty frying pan had been left on the stove. Bread crumbs dusted the counter beside it, along with a butter knife and one of those plastic wraps off of a slice of American cheese.

On the living room floor resided hiking boots, an array of video games scattered in front of the jumbo TV and plenty of dirty towels, T-shirts and socks. The overstuffed brown leather sofa was missing a cushion—never mind. There it was, beside the PlayStation II. An earth-toned plaid recliner held a basket of clothes. Judging by the fabric softener sheets crowning the pile, Cassie figured they were clean.