Benning hobbled out of his office balanced on crutches. Injury aside, the sixty-year old still cut a striking image, although his dark brown hair was now mostly salt-and-pepper, and his face had turned ruddy from too much sun and an unapologetic affection for beer.
“Hiya, Dad.” Taylor reached for him to give her son time to prepare himself. “You look good for a one-legged cop.”
“You’re the one. Damn, honey, if I’d remembered how cute you were, I’d have thought twice about offering you this job. The guys in this town are likely to look for trouble for the sheer pleasure of getting arrested!”
Taylor had heard variations of that line more often than she cared to remember over the years, but she knew her father didn’t have an ounce of male porky in him; he was simply making all of the right noises because he knew she’d never been overly impressed with her gangly body and unremarkable looks. Although she supposed she’d improved somewhat with time, she didn’t miss her son rolling his eyes, or how Orrin, her father’s longtime “volunteer” dispatcher and drinking buddy, was suddenly preoccupied by an itch in the graying peach fuzz growing out of his chin.
“I don’t know how you ever earned your driver’s license, let alone became the fine marksman you are,” she said, “when it’s obvious you’re as blind as a bat.” She added a nod at his cast. “And what are you doing on your feet? Didn’t you say the doctor wanted you in bed with that leg propped?”
“I couldn’t very well leave the town fending for itself. But now that you’re here, I’ll be glad to kick back and play invalid. Who’s that big lug you brought with you? Maybe I’ll deputize him while I’m at it and get me a real bargain.”
Kyle all but elbowed her out of the way. “Hey, Gramps.”
Her father held out his hand, and Taylor could almost hear her boy sigh with relief when awarded a formal, unchallenging handshake.
“You’re looking fine, son. How’s your blackjack these days?”
“My poker’s better.”
Emmett threw back his head and roared. “Orrin—you remember my family? Taylor Grace and Kyle Thomas Benning.”
They were summarily reintroduced to baby-faced Orrin Lint, whose thinning white hair and near colorless gray eyes looked at the world as if constantly trying to figure out the punch line to a joke.
Although he rose—which did little to improve his height—and thrust out his hand like a trained robot, he whispered to Emmett, “What’re they doing with your name? I thought she got hitched?”
“Divorced,” her father whispered back through a stiff smile.
“Both of them?”
Her father’s smile grew strained. “Say hello, Orrin. Then shut up.”
Still looking confused, Orrin shook Taylor’s hand. “Sure glad you’re here, Miz Taylor. But I am sorry our plans for your arrival party kinda fell through. Things changing the way they have, them new folk just don’t know—”
“Orrin, what did I just say about flapping that yap of yours? Come on, Taylor.” Her father took her arm. “Let’s get you sworn in.”
Although Taylor couldn’t be more relieved to skip a formal celebration, she wondered what Orrin had begun to say and wished he’d had a chance to finish. “Dad, what’s the rush? Can’t we visit a few minutes first?”
Her father glanced back at her son. “Kyle, can you drive your mama’s car yet?”
The boy nodded eagerly—a surprise to Taylor, since as far as she knew he’d never been behind the wheel of anything.
“Terrific.” Her father beamed. “Soon as we get you legal, Taylor, Kyle’ll drive your car to the house for me, and you can take mine.”
“Take it where? And why can’t I drive the patrol car?”
“You can if you want, I’m just used to the radio and stuff in mine. I thought you’d like it better, too. In any case there’s something I need for you to do.”
As he spoke his blue-gray eyes avoided her gaze, and when she combined that shiftiness with his odd behavior toward Orrin, it triggered Taylor’s suspiciousness. Something about this situation was suddenly not the cut-anddried affair he’d assured her it would be during their phone conversations.
“Exactly what is going on? Dad?”
“Where’s my Bible? Oh, heck, there’s no need to waste time searching around for the thing. Everyone knows that once a Benning gives his word he doesn’t break it. Besides, if anyone tries to say this ain’t legal, I’ll whack ’em alongside of the head with one of these tree stumps,” he said, banging one rubber-tipped crutch on the dull gray linoleum. “Now raise your right hand and repeat after me. I—and state your name...”
She remained more than a little confused, but Taylor took the oath and became the first female police officer in Redoubt, New Mexico. For the next six weeks she would be the only active cop, since her father had been forced to let Lew Sandoval go only days before injuring himself. As she looked down at the badge that he pinned matter-of-factly on her Save A Vegetable, Eat Popcorn T-shirt, she experienced another flood of doubts. Had her father done the right thing? She didn’t want anyone accusing him of nepotism. And why couldn’t he have waited for her to change into something more suitable?
“All right, out with it,” she said, accepting the gun he’d shoved across the desk at her. She began slipping the holster’s belt through the loops of her jeans. “What’s so important that we can’t all go to the house and get you and Kyle settled?”
“Blackstone’s out.”
Taylor gripped the Smith and Wesson .357 revolver as though it was the only link between her and oblivion. The last time she’d come anywhere close to losing control had been in her rookie year as a Detroit cop, when she’d held her first partner’s hand while an internist had sewn shut a knife wound over the veteran cop’s eyebrow. This felt worse.
She had to lick her lips before they would form words. “Hugh’s escaped from prison?”
“Hell, no! Paroled. About time, too. Damn Murdock Marsden for almost convincing the judge to throw the book at the guy. As it was be made sure several parole boards kept him locked up.”
“What changed things this time?”
“Apparently the old goat himself. He didn’t even show up at the hearing.”
That was good news for Hugh...and anything but for her. “Surely he won’t come back here. You said that Jane still has the feed store, and that running the place without him has been rough on her, but—”
“He’s already arrived, hon. Got in around dark yesterday. I hear Jane drove her old jalopy to Albuquerque herself to meet his bus.”
Suddenly it all made sense, and fury surged from a deep, dormant place inside her. “You sneaky, conniving—” She looked at her son now gaping at her. No doubt the combination of heat and anger was turning her face the color of a well-cooked sugar beet. “Kyle, go ask Orrin to show you around the station, please. Your grandfather and I have a few things to discuss.”
“I’d rather stay put. It’s not every day I get to hear you cuss.”
Wise guy. He was right, and she intended to keep things that way. “Do it, young man. Now.”
As expected, he pouted, but he left. Taylor shut the office door after him.
“Now, Gracie...honey...”
“Don’t you Gracie me. You’re lower than a snake, do you know that? Sneakier than a roach! All this pleading to me to come back because you broke your leg.”
“Well, you can see that’s true!”
“But you knew Hugh was getting out!”
“Who