LITMIR.BIZ

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while.

      Quint closed the box of thumbtacks, forcing Carl to look at him.

      “If she needs a friend, that would be Morgan,” Carl told him, naming his youngest cousin. “They were pretty close once.”

      “That would be you,” Quint corrected. “You were closer to her.”

      Carl closed the empty folder that had housed the posters, dropping it on his desk. “Not close enough. Otherwise…”

      He let the word stretch out before he dropped it. There was no sense in saying that Melinda hadn’t shared her plans about leaving with him until almost the day of her departure. That he had hoped, prayed really, that she would see the light and decide to stay. With him. He’d always thought of Steve as being too superficial, too interested in himself to be any good for Melinda.

      God knew the man was good-looking enough to get fan mail from roses, but his heart was another matter. There’d only been room enough in Steven Greenwood’s heart for his own selfish interests.

      Carl had wrapped up his courage into a ball and told Melinda that. And she had turned her back on him, said he was like her father, wanting to keep her in a two-bit town forever.

      It was the last time he saw her.

      The next thing he knew, he’d overheard Morgan telling her mother, his aunt Zoe, that that Melinda was gone. Melinda’s father had been angry, saying he’d been expecting it, that she was just like her mother, running off with some man.

      Except that Melinda hadn’t left behind a husband and little girl the way her mother had, Carl thought.

      All she’d left behind was him. And she probably hadn’t a clue about that, anyway.

      Quint leaned back in his chair, his clear blue eyes squinting as if that could somehow help him delve into his cousin’s mind. “Never knew you to carry a grudge before, Carl.”

      “It’s not a grudge.” The retort came out a bit too quickly, he calculated. Carl tempered his voice before continuing. “It’s been seven years. What am I supposed to say to her?”

      “Like I said, ‘hello.”’ Disgusted, Carl waved a hand at Quint. The latter tried another angle. “All right, how about, ‘welcome back’? Or, ‘nice to see you’?”

      There was no point in going around and around about this. Carl had no intention of seeking Melinda out like some lovesick puppy from the past. If they had any business together, she could come to see him. Otherwise, it was best, as the old adage said, just to let sleeping dogs lie.

      “Yeah, maybe,” Carl murmured, looking through the middle drawer of his desk for a report he could have sworn he’d placed there. But it wasn’t there. Annoyed, he shut the drawer a little too hard and stood up again. “If I’m not too busy.”

      Rising, Quint crossed to Carl and laid a hand over the man’s shoulders. They’d broadened considerably since he’d first taken over as big brother for his only cousin, but the feeling was still the same. He was the older one and that meant comforting Carl as best he could whenever the need arose.

      When they’d been growing up, he’d felt Carl needed someone because his cousin’s parents were so aloof, so distant. Just the way Wyatt McCall’s had been. But, at the time, his future brother-in-law had been a close friend while Carl was blood. And as such, Quint felt his own duty was clear. He had to take Carl under his wing, make him feel part of something.

      It had worked like a charm. The Cutlers had swallowed Carl up lock, stock and barrel, caring about him as if he’d been born to them directly instead of via Quint’s uncle, his father’s brother.

      Quint felt Carl’s shoulders stiffen the second he put his arm around them. This, too, wasn’t like him. The man, Quint thought, had it bad—and he wasn’t even admitting it to himself, which just made it worse.

      “We all appreciate you helping out at the house now that we’ve all left the roost, so to speak, but Carl, you’ve got to take some time for yourself, do something for yourself once in a while.” His mother had told him that Carl turned up almost every evening for dinner and to do whatever needed doing around the ranch house.

      “I do. I am. I like being there for Uncle Jake and Aunt Zoe. With all of you married, they miss having someone around to fuss over. And I don’t mind the fussing. Besides, nobody’s ever been kinder to me than your parents have been.”

      That wasn’t the whole story, and they both knew it, but Quint turned it to his advantage.

      “Then you know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of kindness,” Quint said slowly. “Maybe you’d like a shot at making someone else feel that way.”

      Carl frowned. He knew exactly where this was going. “What makes you think Melinda needs kindness?”

      That was a no-brainer. “She’s back with three kids, no husband and is living with her father. What would you say she needs?”

      “A huge loan from the bank,” Carl quipped.

      Quint surprised him by saying, “She’s already put in for one of those.”

      He’d only meant it as a joke. The concern was immediate. “Why? Steve leave her with a lot of debts to pay?”

      Quint shook his head. Crossing to the coffee machine, he poured himself a mug of extra-black coffee. The aroma wafted between them. “She’s trying to start a day-care center. Put her education to use while taking care of her three kids.”

      A day-care center. Morgan had mentioned something once about Melinda writing that she was going to become a teacher. That was when she’d first left Serendipity, before communication had completely stopped.

      Why wasn’t she trying to get a job at the local school?

      Carl looked at his cousin. “You seem to know an awful lot about her business.”

      Quint spread his hands. “Hey, I’m the sheriff here. I’m supposed to know things about the people in my town.” His eyes narrowed just a bit. “And as my deputy, you’re supposed to know a few things, too.”

      He knew things all right, Carl thought. More than a few things. Like how Melinda’s hair smelled with the spring breeze playing through it, tantalizing him because she was always just beyond his reach. Or the way her smile seemed to light up the darkest evening, sending sparks out through the blackened sky.

      Oh, he knew things all right. He knew too much for his own damn good.

      “Isn’t that a redundancy?” Carl asked him, a poker expression firmly painted on his face as he turned toward Quint.

      Quint laughed softly. “Boy, send a guy off to earn a couple of college credits and suddenly he thinks he’s Aristotle. You’re squirming around, avoiding the issue, you know.”

      “There is no issue, Quint,” Carl insisted. “What I told you seven years ago is just that, seven years old. In the past. Dead.”

      The phone rang just then and Carl took it to be a reprieve.

      Since Tracy, the woman who doubled as their secretary and dispatcher, was out to lunch, Quint picked up the receiver himself. “Sheriff’s office.”

      This, Carl decided, would be a good time to go out to lunch himself. Maybe once he was back, Quint would have allowed the subject of Melinda’s return to die a natural death.

      Mildly curious about the call, Carl found himself at the door, listening as Quint said, “Uh-huh,” “Hmm,” and “I see.”

      He hung up just as Carl put his hand on the door-knob. “Hold up, Carl.” Carl turned to see Quint writing something on a piece of paper. “This one’s for you.”

      This was nothing out of the ordinary. Unless it was something major, they took turns checking things out. “Domestic dispute?”

      Quint finished writing and placed

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