LITMIR.BIZ

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pull her out while she was still breathing. “I saw Austin Wright today,” she blurted.

      “Austin, huh?” Flynn picked up the shake that had just been delivered and took a healthy sip. “And this means something because…”

      “You know how we used to be friends.” When Flynn just kept staring, Dinah finished the thought. “Okay. Really good friends.”

      “We live in a small town. Everybody here has been friends with each other at one time.”

      Flynn had a point, but it also wasn’t exactly true. A lot of them had been friends. And a lot of them had hung around together. But not so much with Austin or his sister, Cheyenne. In fact, apart from a span of eight months when she’d decided to live on the wild side, she’d never had much to say to him.

      Well, she’d never trusted herself to have much to say to him.

      Her mother had never been a real big fan of her seeing Austin, and with good reason, too.

      “You know how everyone is around Austin,” Dinah added, not so obliquely referring to Austin’s troubles with bottles of bourbon.

      With a grin, Flynn fanned herself with her paper napkin. “I know he’s just about the finest thing I’ve ever seen. Except for Ace, of course. It’s hardly fair. No man should look so good.”

      Flynn was so right. Austin had looked good. Even all worn-out and tired-looking, he’d looked really good.

      But even noticing felt like a betrayal of what she believed in. What she stood for. She needed to think about her job and her reputation. Not the wicked urges she had whenever she was around him. “I went to his shop to ask him about some saddles and we started talking,” Dinah said. “Do you ever have much occasion to visit with him?”

      “You mean besides when I go shopping at his store?”

      To her embarrassment, Dinah had never imagined anyone actually shopping there. It had always seemed a poor substitute for someplace better.

      But maybe that had been a mean excuse. Maybe she’d really just been avoiding Austin. The idea made her uncomfortable. “You’ve shopped in Wright’s Western Wear?”

      “Uh, yeah,” Flynn said with a touch of sarcasm. “They sell clothes and Western wear. I like wearing clothes and Western wear. When I’m not about to have a baby.”

      Dinah was saved from replying to that by the arrival of her salad and Flynn’s juicy cheeseburger.

      As she carefully dipped a forkful of iceberg lettuce into a dab of ranch dressing, she covertly watched Flynn take a healthy bite out of that burger. As she chewed, swallowed and then chomped on a fry, Flynn’s expression turned to pure bliss. No doubt it was the exact opposite of her own.

      After swallowing, Flynn continued. “To answer your question, I’ve talked to Austin a few times at his store. But a whole lot more at rodeos.” She paused, then added, “I talked to him the other day at church, too. Actually, last Sunday, we had a real nice chat.”

      Church? Dinah didn’t know if she was more upset to discover her brother and Flynn and Austin were attending church together or that they all knew she hadn’t stepped foot in a church since Christmas. “What was he like there?”

      “Friendly.”

      “Was he acting all right?”

      “We were sitting in a couple of pews during a Sunday service, Dinah. What do you think?” She scowled slightly, then took another bite of that burger. And dipped two thick French fries into a puddle of mustard and ketchup.

      A little stung—probably because Flynn had a good reason for sounding so sarcastic—Dinah said, “You don’t need to get snippy with me. I’m just asking questions.”

      “I’m getting the feeling that you’re looking for trouble where there isn’t any. I just told you I talked to him at church and you act like I said we met at some…some porn store.”

      She was glad her fork was sitting on her plate. “Porn store?”

      “Oh, you know what I mean. You’re looking for trouble, and frankly, it’s disturbing. Just because a man’s family might not be completely upstanding, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have redeeming qualities.”

      “I know that,” she said quickly.

      “Do you? Maybe you’ve gotten too used to only looking for the worst in people, now that you’re the sheriff and all.”

      That hurt. And, with Austin, she feared it might be true. “Let’s talk about something else.”

      Flynn popped two more fries in her mouth. “All right.”

      “Tell me about everything at work. Have any puppies been brought into the clinic lately?” Even though Flynn and Ace specialized in equines, every so often someone would come in with a litter of puppies.

      Flynn’s eyes narrowed, but after yet another sip of her chocolate shake, she smiled. “As a matter of fact, a family brought in a litter of eight beagle pups last week.” She chuckled. “Oh, Dinah, you should’ve seen Ace! He’s so used to working with horses and cows, he hardly knew what to do when those brown, black and white fur balls got loose.”

      Dinah smiled at the idea of her confident, capable brother chasing wayward pups. “I bet they were cute.”

      “Cute as all get-out!” Patting her swollen stomach, she said, “If we weren’t fixin’ to have our own bundle of joy, I swear I’d have been badgering Ace to let us keep one.”

      Imagining a puppy of her own, something soft and sweet to cuddle, she asked, “Whose puppies were they?”

      “The Morans. Do you know them?”

      “I know of them, but we haven’t had much of an occasion to talk.”

      “Are you thinking about getting a puppy? Because if you are, you should stop by Angie and Duke’s place, too. I hear someone left Angie a basket of mongrel pups that are adorable. The price is right, too. They’re free.”

      Getting a puppy was a pretty bad idea. And if she got one, it should be something dignified and policeworthy, like a German shepherd or something. After all, Duke had Zorro, and he was a great dog. But beagles were sweethearts…and abandoned mixed-breeds? They needed someone to love them. She could do that. “Maybe.”

      “I’ll text you Kim Moran’s phone number if you want. You could give her a call. Or get Duke to take you to his house and look at the free puppies. I’m sure Angie would love to visit with you a bit.”

      Ouch. There was another not-too-subtle reminder that she wasn’t doing a very good job of keeping in touch with the family.

      Smiling sweetly, Flynn said, “You know what, Dinah? I think a sweet little puppy might just be the thing for you.”

      “Because?”

      “Because everyone needs someone to love.” Looking like the loved woman she was, Flynn’s eyes sparkled. “Even you, Dinah. Even a tough-as-nails sheriff like you.”

      Even her. Thinking about that, her heart sank. Somehow, along the way to being respectable and upstanding and respected…she’d lost a little bit of her softness.

      Suddenly, she ached to get it back.

      Chapter Four

      “Hey, Duke?”

      Her deputy spun toward her on the stool he’d just discovered in the back storage closet of their hole-in-the-wall office. “Yep?”

      “Tell me the truth. Do you think Austin Wright is responsible for the string of burglaries?”

      As was his nature, Duke pondered that one for a moment. “I don’t want him to be. But what we want and what actually is don’t do either of us a lot of good, does it?”

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