Lassoing the Deputy - Marie Ferrarella

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       His days on the ranch and living in Forever represented the best years of his life, Cash recalled, not for the first time.

       Very slowly, he opened the letter. It wasn’t a long missive, as his grandfather had never been enamored with his own words. Consequently, the letter was incredibly short.

      I’m getting hitched again, boy. To Miss Joan! Can you believe it? I finally wore her down. Wedding’s on a Saturday in three weeks. I know you’re real busy, but it would really make me proud to have you there, standing up for me. I miss you, boy.

      Grandpa

      That was all.

       Folding the letter again, Cash tucked it back into the envelope. There was an ache in his soul, a yearning for what had once been.

       “I miss you, too, Grandpa,” he whispered. “More than you could possibly know.”

       In all the years that he had lived with the man, his grandfather had never come right out and asked him for a favor. But this invitation was clearly a request for a favor—his presence at the ceremony.

       Cash looked at the gun he’d purchased just this week. The gun he’d bought to put him out of his misery.

       The same gun, it now occurred to him, that would put his grandfather into misery.

       He couldn’t pay the old man back for everything he’d done, for all his kindness, love and patience by killing himself. It wouldn’t be right or fair.

       Cash picked up the weapon and crossed to his lavish bedroom with its vaulted ceiling and marble-tiled fireplace. He slipped the gun into the back of the bottom drawer of his bureau.

       Disappointing his grandfather was not an option.

       He was going to the wedding. There was time enough when he got back to do what he felt he had to do.

       It wasn’t until later that he realized the invitation was a lifeline he’d grabbed on to and held with both hands.

       His grandfather had saved him for a second time.

      Chapter One

      Sheriff Rick Santiago paused on his way back from the coffee machine, a filled mug in his hand. He looked thoughtfully at one-third of his team, his only female deputy, Alma Rodriguez. There was an odd expression on her face and she appeared to be at least a million miles away.

       She’d been like that since yesterday and it just wasn’t her usual, cheerful behavior. He was accustomed to the raven-haired woman smiling and humming to herself.

       He wasn’t used to seeing sadness in her brown eyes. “You doing okay, Alma?” he asked, his voice low and confidential.

       Surprised at being addressed, Alma dragged her mind back to the sheriff’s office and tried her best to focus on her boss’s voice. It wasn’t easy when her mind was going off in three different directions at once. “Sure. I’m fine. Why?”

       “I don’t know, you look a little…off,” he finally said for lack of a better word to describe what he’d been witnessing these past two days.

       “No, I’m fine,” she answered with perhaps a tad too much enthusiasm. “But thanks for asking,” she added, hoping that would send Rick back to his broom closet of an office and thus bring an end to further questions.

       Ordinarily, she would have loved nothing better than to lean back and talk with the sheriff, a man she not only admired, but liked. Forever being the semi-sleepy little Texas town that it was, there wasn’t all that much to do when the town’s two alcohol devotees weren’t staggering down the street because they’d imbibed just a wee bit too much, or Mrs. Allen’s cat didn’t once more need coaxing out of the tall front-yard tree.

       And as for Miss Elizabeth, she hadn’t wandered down Main Street in her nightgown in nearly a year.

       Crime, such as it was in Forever, was definitely down, allowing her to have too much time on her hands. And consequently, too much time to think about things she didn’t want to think about.

       Like Cash Tyler’s return, however brief.

       She wasn’t ready for it.

       Harry Monroe had dropped his bombshell on her yesterday, gleefully telling her his grandson, Cash, was coming for the wedding.

       Her stomach had been pinched in half ever since.

       “Reason I’m asking,” Rick went on, leaning his hip against the side of her desk for a moment, “is because, besides that look of preoccupation on your face, the coffee you made this morning is just this side of lethal.” He paused to take a sip of the hot, inky brew, as if to show her that he had managed to survive the drink. “Now, I don’t mind it that way, and most likely Joe won’t, either,” he said, referring to his deputy brother-in-law, Joe Lone Wolf. “We like our coffee almost solid. But Larry, well, Larry just might threaten to sue you.” Humor curved his mouth as he referred to his third deputy, Larry Conroy, who was not the most mild-mannered man under any circumstances. “After he gets up off the floor and stops sputtering and choking, of course.”

       It wasn’t that Larry was delicate exactly, but the man was downright picky about everything. While nothing ever pleased the man, this would definitely set him off on a marathon complaining session, he thought.

       “My thinking is that maybe you put in twice as much coffee this time around,” he pointed out kindly, as if her error was the most natural one in the world. “Knowing how meticulous you normally are, I’m thinking that maybe you’ve got something on your mind.”

       Rick leveled his dark eyes at her, giving her a look that had been known to make ten-year-old candy thieves confess to their crimes in an instant. It’d worked pretty well on the few suspects he had had to interrogate. Then he got down to what he really wanted to say to his deputy. “Something you’d like to get off your chest, but don’t really feel comfortable talking about at home?”

       Alma’s family was comprised of five brothers and her father. It had been that way for a while now and her home life wasn’t really geared toward anything feminine. Normally, that was fine with her, since, for the most part, she’d always been a tomboy. Competitive to a fault, she took great pleasure in beating her brothers at whatever challenge came their way. But there were times, she had to admit, when she longed for another woman to talk to, to confide in. Granted, those times were few and far between, but they did occur.

       Like these past couple of days.

       Rick had noticed that, for the past two days, his energetic deputy looked anything but. He’d noticed a change, a difference in her demeanor. Her body was here, but her mind was somewhere else. He figured that as her boss—and as someone who cared—he wanted to know exactly where that was.

       “What I’m saying,” Rick continued when she didn’t say anything, “is that you can talk to me. Anytime,” he stressed. “In or out of the office.”

       A small smile curved the corners of her mouth. “I know that and I appreciate it.” She did her best to look as if she was brightening up. “But there’s nothing wrong, really.”

       He knew resistance when he saw it, so for now he didn’t push the matter. “Except for the coffee,” he pointed out, raising his semi-filled mug.

       “Except for the coffee,” she echoed in agreement. “Sorry about that.” Pushing her chair away from her desk, Alma rose to her feet. “I’ll go water it down before Larry has a chance to drink it.”

       “Good idea.” Rick turned away and headed toward his office. To the best of his recollection, it was the first time that Alma had ever lied to him. But he wasn’t about to push her. She’d come around in her own time and he intended to be there for her when she did.

       It occurred to him, as he sat down at his desk and looked at the framed photograph of his wife and infant daughter, that Alma might feel better talking

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