Allison Leigh - A Montana Homecoming

“Yes. And she’s still here.”

Stu made an unintelligible noise.

Evie rolled her eyes. “Ignore him. He’s just irritated because he signed a lease for her to rent the barn he converted a while back. And she’s holding him to it, even though they can’t agree on the color of rice.”

Laurel buried her nose in her glass of tea. Stu’s barn was probably old Calhoun’s barn, unless he’d built another one.

She didn’t dare glance at Shane.

Evie, fortunately was chattering on. “Freddie runs a tow service with Gordon, but if you ask me, she’s the brains behind keeping the business going since her brother hardly has the sense God gave a goose.” Evie flicked a look at her father. “Sorry, Dad. But it’s true.”

“Gordon’s a hard worker,” Beau said, looking slightly amused. “There’s a lot to be said for that. But I agree with Stu about calling Jack Finn, Laurel.”

Shane breathed an oath that only Laurel heard. “Laurel shouldn’t be in that house at all, and we all know it.”

Silence settled over the foursome, and Laurel wished she were anywhere but there.

“So, Dad, have you heard from Nancy?” Evie finally broke the silence, her voice deliberately cheerful.

“Nancy Thayer,” Beau supplied to Laurel. “She directed our junior choir. Kids in fifth grade through eight. She eloped last week. And no. I haven’t,” he told Evie.

“Far be it from me to stand in the way of true love,” Evie’s voice was a little tart at that, “but she couldn’t have timed it worse.” Her blue gaze shifted to Laurel. “The junior choir still spends every year raising enough money to travel to Spokane to participate in the choir festival there. Now they won’t be able to go.”

“Never put my truck through so many car washes.” Stu dumped more ketchup on his French fries.

“Or bought so many homemade brownies,” Beau added. “Think you financed two kids’ expenses on that alone.”

Stu just grinned.

Laurel didn’t quite see the problem. “If they have the money, why can’t they go?”

“Without a director, they won’t be able to sing.” Evie shook her head. “Rules.”

“You can’t hire someone else? Or maybe have a parent fill in temporarily?”

Evie’s eyebrows rose pointedly. “The only other parent aside from me who’s even willing to try that is Tony Shoemaker, Shane’s senior deputy. And he can’t carry a tune in a bucket.”

“Neither can you, Tater,” Shane drawled.

“A person doesn’t have to sing themselves in order to direct a youth choir. Surely you can find someone.” She flushed when she realized Beau was studying her.

“The festival is next weekend,” he said.

“What about you or your associate pastor?”

“Jon is on study leave for a month, and I can’t leave for three days without someone to fill the pulpit on Sunday. Believe me. If I could figure out a way of not disappointing Alan and the others, I would.”

Alan, Laurel knew, was Evie’s eldest son. “There’s not anyone?” Her stomach felt in a knot. She wasn’t so oblivious that she didn’t know where this was headed. The hopeful look in Evie’s eyes was enough to tell her that.

“Not so far.” Beau dropped his napkin on his empty plate. “Some things just can’t be helped. They’ll have a chance to go next year.”

Laurel swallowed. “Maybe I could, um, fill in as director. Just to get them through the festival.”

“No.” Shane’s voice was flat.

Laurel bristled, her nervousness shriveling into irritation. “Why not?”

“Joey Halloran is in that group. He’s hell on wheels. He got caught shoplifting last week at the thrift store.”

“All the more reason for him to keep involved with more appropriate pursuits. But I suppose being the sheriff, you think anyone who even slightly breaks the law ought to be punished, rather than resolve the issue at the root of the problem?”

He looked equally irritated. “I didn’t say that.”

She turned in her chair and looked at Beau. “It’s been a long time since I’ve sung—” a severe understatement “—but I can probably keep a group of kids on key.”

Shane shoved back his chair. He was surrounded by people bent on ignoring reality. Laurel didn’t need to be filling in for that twit who’d eloped, any more than she needed to be fixing broken steps. “I’ve gotta get back to the office.” He tossed some cash on the table and ignored the disapproval in Beau’s eyes as he turned to the door.

The wounded look in Laurel’s eyes, though, followed him all the way back to his office.

When he got there he stopped at Carla’s desk and picked up the stack of pink messages awaiting him.

“How was court?” she asked.

“Too long.” He knew she wanted a blow-by-blow account because she always did. And, as always, she’d have to get her gossip from somewhere else. He flipped through the paper messages as he headed back to his office, only to stop. “What’s this number?” One of these days, he needed to get the county to spring for a voice-mail system. Carla’s writing had never won any awards for legibility.

Carla craned her neck, peering at the message. “Um, a five.”

He nodded and started for his office again. Behind him the door jangled.

“I’d like to make a complaint.”

He stopped cold. Slowly turned.

Laurel stood in the doorway. Her hair was still pinned back the way it had been in the café, but her cheeks were flushed, her golden eyes snapping.

“Excuse me?”

“I have a complaint.” Her voice was as crisp as her eyes.

Carla was watching them avidly. She liked hearing gossip almost as much as she liked sharing it.

“We’ll talk in my office.”

“I don’t want to talk in your office.”

“Laurel—”

“Good heavens. You’re little Laurel Runyan. I should have recognized you the second you walked in.” Carla was around her desk in a flash. “Carla Chapman. I used to sit in a quilting circle with your grandmother. She was the oldest, I was the youngest. Neither one of us could abide any of the other women. She used to bring you with her, though. You’d sit in a corner in the quilting room with your own squares and a big ol’ darning needle and yarn. I’ve heard you’re a teacher. That’s a fine thing. Lucille would be proud. And my condolences on your daddy passing,” she added belatedly.

Laurel looked a little dazed. “I remember the quilting circle.”

Carla looked pleased and only slightly abashed when she caught the look Shane was giving her. She cocked her eyebrow and returned to her desk.

Shane grabbed Laurel’s arm, ignoring the start she gave, and led her back to his office. He let go of her as soon as they entered his cubicle and flipped through the messages again without bothering to look at them. Mostly he wanted to rid his hand of the feel of her supple arm.

“Okay, what’s the complaint?” He sat down behind his desk.

She, however, didn’t sit. She crossed her arms, looking at him with a schoolmarm look that probably did wonders for straightening up mischievous third-grade boys.

For a thirty-five-year-old man, it did not have the desired effect.

“Just because you loathed my father, and dumped me the second you’d finished with me, does not give you the right to harass me about what I choose to do or not do with his house, or to dictate what I do with my time while I’m here!”

“I didn’t dump you.” He kept his voice low. His conscience, however, was screaming at him with the ferocity of a freight train.

Her eyes went even chillier. “There may be some things I don’t remember, Sheriff, but I remember that quite well.”

He wished she’d sit. Or pace. Do anything but stand there the way she was, looking as cold and brittle as a narrow icicle. An icicle that could snap in two as easily as a whisper.