LITMIR.BIZ

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was not yet three years old.

      Thankfully, that situation had turned out well. Due to none other than Kylie Jones.

      “Guess you’d best get on back to the church,” the deputy told Vincent sternly. “If and when she decides she wants you, she’ll be along.”

      “Not if he was the last man in Colorado,” Kylie snapped.

      The deputy smothered a chuckle with a cough behind a fist. Kylie quelled the urge to poke him for making her think that he might arrest her. Instead, a relieved sigh gusted out of her.

      It wasn’t easy for Vincent to back down, and she well knew of the enmity between his branch of the family and old George’s. As soon as she’d realized the identity of this big man, she’d half expected the situation to devolve to fisticuffs. To “cousin” Zach’s credit, he’d managed to stop Vincent with wit rather than brawn.

      Clearly thwarted, Vincent dithered for a bit before swinging around to stride angrily back toward the church, declaring, “This isn’t over!”

      He shot a vicious glare at her father as he passed. Her dad sighed and shoved a hand through his thinning hair before trudging forward.

      “Kylie, honey,” he said apologetically, “I’m so sorry. I knew that boy was no-account, but you had your heart set on him and—”

      “Oh, Daddy.” She stepped out from behind the deputy to go to her father. “It’s not like that. I—I mean, I was willing to marry him. That is, I thought … It seemed like God’s will at the time, with the business and all.”

      He caught her in his beefy arms and hugged her to him. “Kylie, I tried to tell you that my business with Samuel has nothing to do with you and Vincent.”

      “It’s just that Vincent guaranteed Samuel would buy out your share of the ranch if we married.”

      “Even if that were true,” her father argued, shaking his head, “it wouldn’t be enough to pay off the loan, not with real estate prices falling. God will take care of us, honey. Believe it!”

      “May not be my place to say so,” the deputy spoke up, “but if you’re in business with my great-uncle Samuel, you’ve got enough trouble without bringing Vincent into your family.”

      “I’m sure you’re right about that,” her father agreed, putting out a hand. “Gene Jones of Jones Feed & Supply.”

      As he stepped forward to take that hand, the deputy glanced across the green to the feed store on the other side of the tracks north of Railroad Street.

      “Used to be Wilmont’s Feed & Supply back in the day.”

      “We bought him out six, seven years ago.”

      “I was long gone by then. Zach Clayton, Deputy Sheriff.” He tipped his hat to the bride and smiled, displaying a single dimple.

      Oh, my. Vincent was about to be dethroned as the best-looking Clayton around town. “Kylie Jones.”

      “Kylie Jeanne Jones, if I’m not mistaken.”

      She nodded, reaching up with both hands to pluck the combs from her hair and sweep off the veil. Her hair had been rolled up on both sides and pinned at the back of her head with a heart-shaped rhinestone clip, leaving the rest to hang down her back in spiral curls.

      “Would you really have arrested me?”

      “You and Vincent both,” he answered honestly. “If pressed to it.” Grinning, he added, “I think you’d have gotten off. Him too, probably. But the report would’ve gone into the papers just the same.”

      “And you knew Vincent wouldn’t want that.”

      The lawman nodded and said, “You found A.J. Wesson.”

      “That’s right.”

      “I’d like to talk to you about that.”

      “Now?” Kylie asked, holding out her satin skirts.

      “You seem to have something more important to do,” he conceded. “But soon. Next week for sure.”

      Dropping her skirts, she sighed. “That’s fine.” She looked to her father, saying, “Right now, I guess one of us better get back to the church and tell everyone that the wedding is off.”

      Gene patted his daughter’s shoulder. “I’ll see to it, honey, while you talk to your mother and sister in private.”

      “Thank you, Dad.” Leaning in, she kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry about all this.”

      “It’s just as well, if you ask me. Better to find out he’s unfaithful now than after you’d married him.”

      Kylie nodded, suddenly weary despite the great sense of relief that swept over her. To think that she had very nearly married Vincent Clayton! She felt as if she’d just awakened from a long, confusing dream.

      Lifting her skirts, she began making her way back across the grass, but then she remembered that the new deputy wanted to talk to her about how she’d found A.J. that day. She paused and glanced his way. He was one big, handsome man, all right—but he was also a Clayton, and all the Claytons with whom she had dealt had turned out to be trouble. Nevertheless, this one wore a badge.

      “Our place is out on Waxwing Road,” she told him.

      “I’ll be around.”

      “Okay, then. Oh, and thank you.”

      He doffed his cap. “My pleasure, Miss Jones.”

      She turned to make her way back across the green. She didn’t relish what was to come, but the unspeakable relief that she felt told her that she was doing the right thing. Recalling that she’d recently asked God to settle her doubts for her, she had to smile. Like her mama always said, be careful what you ask for.

      Stepping up into the tiny mudroom of the frame house on Bluebird Lane where he had grown up, Zach set down his luggage and hung his cap on a peg. The house had been closed for several years before his sister Brooke had moved in a few weeks earlier. Her silver Toyota Corolla sat beside his Jeep out in the drive, so presumably he’d find her at home and not next door with her fiancé, Gabe. Zach walked into the kitchen, where he paused beside the long, low, narrow island that served as the breakfast table. Five round-backed chairs flanked it on three sides.

      At one time, there had been six.

      Zach tilted his head, listening. The whir of a hair-dryer came to him from the vicinity of the bathroom off the hallway to his left. Grinning, Zach sauntered in that direction, calling out, “Honey, I’m home!”

      The dryer shut off, clattering in the sink. He jumped back as the bathroom door burst open. He’d learned that trick the hard way as a kid when the sudden opening of the door had caught him square in the face and raised a bump the size of a goose egg on his forehead. He no longer had the goose egg, but it had engendered a family nickname that his sisters still used even now.

      “Lump! You came!” Wearing a bathrobe over shorts and a tank top, she threw her arms around his neck.

      “Hey, Gigglebot.” He returned the greeting by hugging her hard enough to lift her off her feet.

      A swatch of her long blond hair clung damply to one side of her face, and she wore not a speck of cosmetics, but the happiness shining in her blue eyes made her utterly beautiful. Zach smiled.

      Pulling back, she looked him over. “So you did it,” she said. “You took the job as deputy sheriff. Never thought I’d see it.”

      Zach shrugged. “Timing was right.”

      Miami had become untenable for Zach, then suddenly Linden Diggers had retired as deputy sheriff, leaving the satellite office in Clayton vacant. Given that, the absurd stipulation in his grandfather’s will, which required each heir to live a year in Clayton, and Vincent starting to stir up trouble

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