A Sheriff in Tennessee (19 page)

“Because I'd lost weight, I started to feel special for the first time in my life—”

“Being special doesn't have one damn thing to do with your weight!”

“Really? Tell it to the world, Klein.” He scowled and opened his mouth to argue. “Let me finish. You did.” His mouth snapped shut. “I read up on eating disorders. Biographies and interviews of ballet dancers, actresses, just plain folks. Instead of being horrified, I was intrigued. Books, magazines—they were full of brand-new ideas. I made up my own variations—coffee for breakfast, milk for lunch, an apple for dinner, with water to take off the edge of hunger in between. But try doing that for a week. I'd be so hungry I'd lose control and eat too much.” Her head spun just remembering that time in her life. “But I knew how to fix that.

“Then I discovered exercise. If I jogged every day, I could actually eat almost normally and still lose weight. Talk about a head rush.”

Klein was staring at her as if she were another person entirely. Maybe now he'd understand the
truth about her. Maybe now he'd turn his back and walk away.

Instead, he narrowed his eyes. “What did your mother say?”

“As I recall—congratulations. I had turned up thin and beautiful when she wasn't paying attention. I'd become an asset, and she wasn't going to question how I'd gotten that way. Not when I could save them all. And since I'd dreamed of saving them, I didn't mind. When I was seventeen, there was a beauty contest in Richmond.”

“And you won.”

She nodded. “The prize was a modeling contract. More money than any of us had ever dreamed of. But I had to quit school. Our debts were high, but I paid them off. I saved the house and the farm, got my father some psychiatric help. But the surgeries and the setbacks kept coming. My mother had to take care of my father, and my brothers needed to stay in school.”

“Why?”

Her eyes widened. “They certainly aren't going to be able to become lingerie models. Call it silly, but men who don't finish high school don't do as well these days as they used to. I can help them, and I will.”

“You're trapped.”

She blinked. He'd put words to the secret feelings inside her. She was trapped by love and responsibility. There was no way out. But that same love and responsibility made her argue the truth.

“I'm not trapped. I'm blessed. I was given a gift
so I can take care of the ones I love. It was like a miracle. Just when we needed help the most.”

“That's your mother talking.”

She scowled. “I can't quit, and I certainly can't make a fuss about this job and get fired.”

“Fuss? Why would you need to make a fuss?” His eyes narrowed. “What haven't you told me?”

“You asked what set me off tonight.” She quickly filled him in on the afternoon's excitement, then spread her hands wide. “Take your pick.”

He shook his head. “Quit this job, Izzy. You can get another.”

“Eventually. But not right now. I need the money I was promised for doing this show. The circulation in my father's left leg has gone bad. Something has to be done immediately, or he'll lose it.”

“And there you are, trapped again. You'll do this show, however they want it, even if doing it their way ends any chance you might have of becoming more. Am I right?”

She saw her father's tired, pained face and her mother's desperate eyes. She heard her brothers' voices, deepening from childhood to manhood, thanking her for a chance.

“Yes,” she answered. “I'll do anything I have to do for the people I care about.”

“So will I.”

Before she could ask what that meant, he got up and walked out the door. She'd been expecting him to leave since the moment he walked in. So why was she surprised when he did?

 

K
LEIN'S HEAD SPUN
at all Isabelle had told him. He'd read about eating disorders, but reading didn't bring home how devastating they could be to the person afflicted, or to those who cared about them.

Anorexics could become so thin they permanently injured vital organs, even lost the ability to bear children, and this was if they didn't die before they admitted they were ill.

Bulimics had other problems—not as severe, but nothing to be blasé about. In fact, bulimics often went undiagnosed and untreated longer because they weren't obscenely thin, and they were able to function near to normal.

What with the pressures of Isabelle's job and her family, Klein could understand the resurgence of her illness. He wanted to help her, to make everything right, to take all her problems and solve them himself, but he couldn't. One other thing he'd read: the only way for an anorexic or bulimic to get better was to want to.

He couldn't solve her family troubles, either. He'd give her everything he had, but he was a cop. He didn't make much money. All that he'd saved he'd put into the farmhouse, trying to make it into a home. Even if he had every cent back, it wouldn't be a drop in the bucket compared with what she needed. But there was one thing he could do—one thing he was very good at.

Klein returned to the station and tore through his desk until he found his address book. Two minutes later Garrett Stark answered the phone in Savannah.

“What can I do for you, Detective Klein?”

“It's ‘sheriff' now. But never mind that. I'm calling for a personal favor.”

“Anything.”

Klein raised his eyebrows. “Anything?”

“Of course. I know we didn't hit it off at first. But then I thought you were a scheming lothario, after Livy.”

Klein nearly choked at the image of himself as a lothario. Was everyone delusional? “That's all right, I thought you were lowlife scum.”

“I was.” Stark laughed. “Now that we're done exchanging compliments, you were a good friend to my family when I didn't even know I had one. Anything you want that I can give you, consider it yours.”

Klein was used to being everyone else's friend, helping whenever help was needed. He had so rarely needed it, had even more rarely asked for it. He wasn't quite sure how to handle being guaranteed anything right off the bat.

“Uh, your agent.”

“Andrew? What did he do? Scare someone to death again?”

“No, it's not like that. I need an agent to handle a television script.”

“You've got a television script? Since when do you write?”

“Not me. A friend. Would your agent handle that or know someone who might?”

“Call him.” Garrett rattled off his agent's number. “If anyone can help you, that someone is Andrew Lawton.”

 

“F
AX MACHINE
?”

Klein also discovered that Lawton didn't spare breath or time for such niceties as verbs. He was required to puzzle out the meaning for himself.

“Uh, yes, I have one.”

“First five pages. Now.”

Klein did as Lawton demanded, sliding the first five pages from the script into the fax machine and transmitting them, now, to the number Lawton had snapped out.

When the machine stopped whirring, all he could hear over the phone was Lawton's breathing and the rustle of paper.

“Brilliant,” Lawton murmured after several moments. “Who did this? You?”

“No. Her name is Isabelle Ash.”

“The model?”

Klein rolled his eyes. Was he the only man on the planet who hadn't known her? “Yes.”

“Based on what I've seen here, I'll take her on as a client.”

“You do this sort of thing, too?”

“Sure. When Garrett started getting offers for film versions of his books, I started dealing with Hollywood. I enjoyed it, so I set up an office there. Split my time between the coasts. Made myself into a multimedia agent. More interesting that way. Tell Isabelle to call me, or if there's an offer pending, have whoever call me. Same number.”

And he was gone. Klein picked up the script and went to find Daniel Dimato.

It wasn't hard. There was only one hotel, and Dimato was in the best room. He opened the door
minus his beret. Klein had been right about the male pattern baldness.

“Sheriff.” Dimato's smile appeared genuine. “What can I do for you?”

“Read this.” Klein tossed the script at him. To Dimato's credit, he caught it with one hand.

The man glanced at the title page. “The script? I don't understand.”

“You will. Read the first scene.” Klein stepped into the room, shut the door and leaned against it. Then he crossed his arms across his chest. “I'll wait.”

Dimato frowned. “Now, just a minute—”

“What are you going to do?” Klein smirked. “Call a cop? Go ahead and read it. You'll thank me.”

Dimato shrugged and read. Klein relaxed. One thing he was very good at was intimidation.

 

B
ELLE HAD JUST GOTTEN OUT
of the shower and dressed in a fresh, loose pair of shorts and T-shirt, when someone knocked on the door. She saw Gabe through the window and wondered why he hadn't just walked in, but then again, maybe he'd come to return her key.

Tears sparked her eyes. What did she expect? That he'd want to saddle himself with a nutcase like her?

Rubbing the tears away, she gathered what was left of her pride and opened the door. Only to stumble back when Danny rushed into the room.

“Sweet cakes, you are brilliant. Wonderful. I never would have thought you had it in you.”

She frowned and glanced at Gabe, who was staring at Danny too.

Danny grabbed her and kissed her on both cheeks. “My angel. Why didn't you tell me you'd been working on the script? When you said it stunk, I thought that was rhetorical, baby. I didn't realize you had better things in mind.”

She shook her head to clear it. Gabe had not left her—for good, anyway; he'd gone and talked to Danny, securing her the chance she'd wanted so desperately.

“You read the script?”

“Sure did. And I took a look at the second one, too. I'll be going out on a limb here, but I know a hit when I read one. Can you do it, Isabelle? Can you be Janet Hayes the way you wrote her?”

She glanced at Klein again. He was no longer frowning at Danny but staring at her. In his eyes she saw the certainty she'd always wanted to see in her own. He gave her a right-on sign with his fist again, and she knew she had to try.

“I can be Janet that way a heck of a lot easier than I can be her the way she was written.”

“Excellent. We'll try it tomorrow.”

Danny started for the door. Klein held out a piece of paper as he passed. “What's this?”

“Her agent's phone number.”

“I already did the deal with her agent.”

“This is her script agent.”

Danny goggled. “She has one?”

Belle shut her gaping mouth. “I have one?”

Klein nodded, staring at Danny, patiently contin
uing to hold out the phone number. “She does now.”

Danny took the paper, glanced at the name and number. “Lawton? You're kidding. He's one of the biggest agents in New York.” He glanced at Belle. “How'd you get him?”

She shrugged as Klein answered. “Because she's good, Dimato. From the top of her brilliant brain to the tip of her beautiful toes, and she's only going to get better.”

Looking into his eyes, Belle started to believe it.

“H
OW DID YOU
make him agree?” Belle asked as soon as Dimato left the apartment.

“I didn't
make
him do anything. He read your work. He loved it. So did Lawton. You're an amazingly talented and bright young woman. Why can't you see past your own face?”

“Because no one else can?”

He sighed, crossed the room, then drew her into his arms. Since Belle had feared she'd never be held by him again, the pleasure was twofold.

“Forget about everyone else. How you see yourself is more important than how others see you. Look at T.B. He thinks he's a pit bull. And to be honest, I think he is, too. He scares the crap out of me.”

She laughed. “Nothing scares you, Gabe Klein.”

“Except for you,” he murmured against her hair.

“Me? Why would I scare you?”

“Because I'm afraid you're going to really hurt yourself one of these days if you continue to do what you've been doing.”

The bulimia.
She should have known he'd get back to that.

Belle extricated herself from his arms and went to the front window, where she opened the curtains.
From there she could see the shape of indigo mountains against a purple sky.

“I'll be all right,” she said. “In fact, I'm better already. I know how to handle myself.”

“You should see a doctor.”

“Doctor?” She spun around to discover him right behind her. “No. The media will catch wind of it, and that will ruin my chance here.”

“Why would a doctor tell anyone anything?”

“It wouldn't have to be the doctor. Just anyone who saw me anywhere near an office, clinic, hospital or treatment center. And you can bet they'd make up something far worse than the truth.”

“So tell the truth.” He put his hands on her shoulders and stared into her face. “Then it can't hurt you anymore.”

How little he understood the realities of her world. “If they think I'm sick, I'll lose this job, and I've already told you how much I need it.”

“But you
are
sick, Izzy. And the quicker you admit that, the better off you'll be.”

The gentleness in his voice did not take away the sting of his words. “You think I'm crazy, don't you.”

“I think you need help. There's nothing wrong with needing help once in a while.”

To Belle, needing help had always meant failure, lack of control over her world. She'd seen what lack of control could do—how it could ruin lives and separate families.

Panic fluttered in her belly. She had to make him see that she wasn't out of control. There was no
problem here, no problem with her, no need for help.

“I just had a little setback. I've been better for a long time now, and I will be again. Please.” She slid into his arms. “Don't tell anyone. I'll be okay. You'll see. I promise.”

When his arms closed around her, and his sigh raised and lowered his chest beneath her cheek, she relaxed against him.

“All right,” he agreed, but he didn't sound happy about it.

She leaned back so she could see his face. He didn't
look
too happy, either, and that tore at her heart. But she could cheer him up.

“You know what I'd like right now?” she asked.

“Pizza?” he said hopefully.

“How about a little mint julep?”

He snorted, choked, and then he did just what she'd hoped for. He laughed—deep, long and loud. Pulling her back into his arms, he hugged her tight.

“Izzy, you make me happier than I can ever remember being.”

Her throat went thick and her eyes went hot. “Kiss me,” she whispered before she blurted out her newest and deepest secret. She loved him, and she had no idea what she was going to do about that. “Kiss me, then take me to bed.”

His lips touched hers before the last word was out of her mouth. Gabe's kisses were like none she'd ever had. Gentle and firm, tentative yet complete, they made her feel…so happy. His hands skimmed her waist, moved up beneath her T-shirt,
warmed the weight of her breast as his tongue tangoed with hers.

Beyond her closed eyelids, bright lights of arousal flared. Klein lifted his mouth and glanced out the window. “Damn lightning.”

She tugged his face back to hers. “Forget the lightning,” she murmured, even as it flared again. Then she set him to work on the second half of her request.

 

D
ANNY TOOK ONE LOOK
at Belle in the sexiest sheriff's uniform in the world and said it had to go. The skimpy, clinging costume did not match the image of the new Janet Hayes.

From that moment onward, Belle's life continued to change.

While she was in makeup, explaining that no, she didn't want her nails painted bloodred…in fact, she wanted them filed to a nub, she had a phone call from Andrew Lawton. The amount of money he'd gotten for the scripts she'd already written was enough to cover her oldest younger brother's college tuition next year.

When she stepped in front of the cameras for the first time, her heart fluttered and her stomach rebelled, but she caught sight of Klein lounging on the other side of the street. One wink and a right-on from him and everything they'd shared through the night came back, as did his words of confidence in her and the still-secret, but no less beautiful, love she'd discovered for him.

Once the hoopla was over and she had some time to herself, she would tell him all that she felt, and
then she would pray he might someday feel the same way about her. Asking a man like Gabriel Klein to share her manic lifestyle would require a leap of faith that Belle didn't yet have the courage for.

But because of him, she could do this job. He'd believed in her and made her believe. So Belle stepped into the role of Janet Hayes and made it hers. When she finished the first scene, the crew actually clapped—and Danny did, too.

She'd just sat down when Klein plopped a granola bar and a carton of milk into her lap. “Bottoms up,” he told her. “You were wonderful.” Then he disappeared into the crowd again.

Belle drank the milk but saved the granola bar. Her stomach was whirling too much to put anything more than liquid into it.

The day passed quickly. She did the first scene again, then moved on to some others. The work was going well, but by afternoon her confidence wavered.

Klein came by several times pushing food—an apple, a sandwich, a pear. He was worse than a dealer, and she felt more trapped than a junkie.

Because for Belle, food was her weakness—not pot, not coke, not blues, whites or reds—and her strength lay in refusing it.

 

K
LEIN'S DAY
had been busier than usual, but nothing he couldn't handle. He'd warned Virgil not to arrest anyone for anything less than a felony for at least a few days. They didn't have adequate jail cells to house minor offenders.

Chai was in his element, chatting it up with the television types. But that kept him out of Klein's hair. An asset if ever there was one.

The townsfolk didn't seem to mind the additional people and excitement. In fact, they appeared to revel in it. The cash registers in Pleasant Ridge were jumping and everyone was smiling.

Klein had taught Isabelle all he knew about being a small-town sheriff, but he'd learned something, too. His job wasn't just to protect and defend the people but to save the place through any means available—and that appeared to be Isabelle's television show.

He stood in the center of the buzzing, broiling town and just looked at the place. At the moment, Klein's world seemed pretty darn bright. He should have known he was in for a sucker punch.

As he returned to the station, whispers followed, a few people pointed. He began to feel squirrelly and paranoid. Then someone laughed. That did it.

He whirled on the yuckster—a teenage kid amid other teenage kids lounging outside Lucinda's after school. “What's so funny?” Klein demanded.

Every face froze; all eyes widened. The kids pointed to a newspaper spread out over the picnic table. A glance at the front page revealed the paper was one of those sleazy tabloids they sold next to the gum and candy bars at Wright Grocery Store.

“You kids shouldn't be reading that tripe,” he advised. “It'll rot your mind.”

“So it isn't true?” The boy who had laughed stared at Klein with an amused expression.

“What?”

The kid picked up the paper and turned it so Klein could read the headline: Beauty and the Beast.

His blood went cold even before he saw the picture below the words. Isabelle and him, locked together in the open window of her apartment. His hand up her shirt, their mouths inches apart.

He grabbed the paper out of the boy's hand and fled toward the station.

“If it isn't true, how did they get that picture?” the kid yelled after him. “Computer compilation?”

The laughter of the crowd ended when Klein slammed the door behind him. He skimmed the caption beneath the picture:

Shit!
Klein scrambled for page five and discovered pictures of them kissing on her porch, cuddling on the couch, holding hands on the street, having dinner at Serafina's. Everywhere, doing just about everything. He was surprised there wasn't a picture of them in bed.

Knowing that someone had been following them, watching them, cataloging their every mood made him more than mad. If this was what Isabelle's life
was like, no wonder she didn't want anyone to know he was in it.

Isabelle.
Klein hastily folded the paper back together as he recalled her warning him about just this problem. Unease prickled the back of his neck. He looked at the front page once more.

A source close to Isabelle? Who? She said she had no friends but him, and he certainly hadn't told anyone.

Although he
had
been the one to bring up the cutesy concept of beauty and the beast. Now here it was on the front page for everyone to see.

Coincidence? He wasn't sure, but he was getting a very bad feeling, and the only way to find the truth was to find Isabelle.

Ignoring the continued smirks, snickers and winks, Klein hurried down Longstreet Avenue.

 

D
ANNY SLAMMED
into her dressing room while Belle was changing clothes.

“This must be important,” she murmured, and finished buttoning her blouse.

“What's with you and Klein?” he demanded.

She raised her eyebrows and glanced at him in the mirror as she braided her hair. “He's helping me.”

“I'll say.” He tossed a newspaper onto the vanity beneath the mirror. “This is a publicity coup of the highest order, sweet cakes. Was it his idea, or was it yours?”

A trickle of premonition traced her spine. Belle dropped her hands and picked up the paper. One
glance at the headline, then the picture, and she sat heavily in her chair.

Danny didn't notice. He was too excited at the prospect of all the free publicity. “Everyone is going to love you, Isabelle. Guys already adore you because of—” He flipped a hand at her face and chest.

Her heart sank at the proof that no matter what she did, she would always be seen as a beautiful object.

“Now every ugly man will believe in the fairy tale. That someone with a face like this—” he tapped Klein's nose with his finger “—can get a woman like you. Every woman is going to eat up this beauty-and-the-beast crap like there's no tomorrow. And the angle of the love story between teacher and student is brilliant.”

Belle started to laugh, and then she couldn't stop. She put her forehead on her knees. How could anyone believe the relationship between herself and Gabe was a publicity stunt? Even in the photo she saw the love in her eyes. Couldn't everyone?

“What's so funny?” Danny asked.

“Yes,” another voice said, “what's so funny?”

Belle raised her head, to find Gabe standing in the doorway. From the look on his face, he'd heard everything. From the paper in his hands, he'd seen everything, too, and he didn't feel like laughing about it.

She went light-headed with dread. He couldn't believe everything they'd shared was a lie. Could he?

 

I
SABELLE PALED
at the sight of him in the doorway—an admission of guilt if Klein had ever seen one. And he
had
seen one. How could the same thing happen to the same guy twice in one lifetime?

Probably because he'd been asking for it. What fantasy was he living in that a woman like Isabelle might want him? The same fantasy that he'd lived in when he'd believed Kay Lynne could love him.

Well, at least he hadn't made that mistake twice. This had been about sex, not love. Funny, but it hurt just as badly all the same.

“Go away, Danny,” Isabelle said, though she continued to stare at Klein.

“Hey, Sheriff!” Oblivious as ever, Dimato shook Gabe's hand. “No offense or anything. I appreciate your helping us out. But then, I imagine it wasn't any hardship for you.” He winked and punched Klein in the arm as he left.

The room was silent, Isabelle's face stricken. “Tell me you don't believe the bullshit Danny was spouting.”

“What he was saying makes a lot more sense than what I've been believing for the past two weeks.”

“You can't think that I'd let you touch me, that I'd cry in your arms and tell you all my secrets for publicity?”

He stepped farther into the room. “I've been racking my brain, trying to figure out what you saw in me. Almost believing that maybe, just maybe, you were the woman who could see past my face. It made sense. You wanted to be seen as more. You'd understand that I did, too. But all the time
you were playing me—for publicity, for sex, for information.”