Common Sense Doesn't Become Me (23 page)

"I wonder if he prefers blondes or
brunettes?"

"After I saw his picture, I hope he likes
Hale Berry look a likes."

"Ugh!" That was me they were talking about
while I was sitting right in front of their blind dimwitted eyes.
Besides, the woman did not look like Hale Berry, more like a Hal
Berry instead of a female. Her backside was three of me, and her
front side had enough clearance it could dust the countertops. The
other nurse was two months past dyeing her black roots platinum
blonde - either way she was in dire need of a really great hair
dresser. I think both nurses might serve themselves better by
taking a few minutes at the gym and calling up their hairdressers
before they went in search of some hot new sheriff. However, they
got me wondering on how good looking, he might actually be.

Both nurses turned and looked at me as if
they could read my mind. Just then, one of the deputies walked over
and handed me the sheriff's unwrapped gift. "You can go in and see
him now, but leave your purse with us to inspect."

I handed my purse over to the taller lankier
deputy, and then abruptly grabbed the rod and reel. I gave the two
nurses a glare and turned on my heels with purpose in my step. Two
steps into the sheriff's room and one very happy smile on the
sheriff's face it dawned on me. I DID NOT want those deputies to
see what was in my purse. I set the basket of goodies on his tray
table, just as I let out a huge loud gagging sound. "Ugh!"

Both deputies rushed into the room. The one
holding my purse had his gun drawn. I snagged my purse out of his
hand and spoke up like I was the drill sergeant. "You will not be
inspecting my purse!"

Old Sheriff Cleat nodded, and the two
deputies left the room shaking their heads.

There are times that, what is in a woman's
purse, should only be known to her. This was definitely one of
those times.

"Sheriff?"

"Kia. What's in the basket?"

I smiled. He knew that in the basket was
Katelyn's specialty cooking of decadent delicious desserts. I slung
my purse over my shoulder, set the rod and reel off on an empty
chair, and put my hands up as if I was being arrested. "I confess.
I sneaked one on the way over here. A needed a nerve calmer. You're
looking good. I understand you are fully recovered from the
concussion. The rod and reel are a gift from me. They were wrapped
but your guys thought it might be a weapon, so they unwrapped it.
Those two are quite the characters out there." I reached into my
purse and pulled out the Get Well card with the hope that the,
please forgive gift card to Sports Emporium would ease any
discomfort I cost him. "Here, this goes with it. Please spend all
of it. It will make me feel better."

He took the card out of my hand and smiled
while he set the card off onto his tray table next to the basket.
"You didn't have to get me a gift. It was an accident. Besides..."
He waved at me to come close and then whispered into my ear. "I
asked for early retirement last year, and they turned me down. This
just pushed it up a bit. Most of the motley crew we've got around
here wasn't ready to replace me, so I've got a guy coming in that I
think will be perfect."

I stepped back and smiled awkwardly,
wondering if the new guy would be as nice as old Sheriff Cleat was
every time something happened to me.

"Oh don't look so stress. He's a good one. I
think he'll be able to handle anything you toss his way." Then he
broke out in serious laughter at the connotation of throwing, as in
me throwing my cigarette down a pipe that landed on a coal dust
pile. Thank God, that mine was pretty well scraped or mined -
whatever they call it - of all the coal and just the coal dust
created such an explosion.

I fidgeted with my purse that had a string
hanging loose on the bottom of it. "So. What can you tell me about
this new sheriff?"

A hardy laughter filled the hospital room,
and the two deputies snuck their heads back in. I turned my head
and glared at them. These particular two never took it easy on me
when they had a call that pertained to me. Sheriff Cleat, he always
handled me with kid gloves.

"Oh Kia." He did a get out hand motion to the
deputies and motioned for me to close the door. "Come sit for a
second, and then I need to rest as they just gave me pain meds
right before you got here."

I pulled the chair up close to his bed and
sat leaning forward to listen to him.

"I know your heart is always in the right
place, but sometimes you just jump right in with both feet and
don't take that second that is needed to look around at your
surroundings."

I couldn't deny that. That was me, every time
I got into trouble. Every time I would ask myself why I did not
just try to take that extra second and think it through. I watched
him yawn and fight closing his eyes. I reached out and patted his
hand. "Why don't you rest. I'm sure I'll meet the new sheriff soon
enough." Mentally, I had hoped not, but I knew that it would just
be a matter of time.

A soft laughter escaped his lips as he was
fighting the pain meds and how tired they were making him. "I hope
not, but when you do, go easy on him Kia. He's a good man. A bit
hard headed but I'm sure you two will get along great.
Eventually."

That last word had me a bit worried. How
tough was this new sheriff? How bad could he be? Would he slam the
book at me or have the ability to overlook the chaos I cause, for
the fact that it usually came with me only trying to do good
somehow?

I pushed the chair back to where it was and
slung my purse over my shoulder. By the time I turned to look at
old Sheriff Cleat, he was out cold snoring lightly. I stood there
for a minute looking at the man who spent a lifetime either
rescuing me, scolding me, fixing the paperwork so I didn't get
arrested or just driving me around in the back of his police
cruiser explaining to me how I might have wanted to handle that
particular situation differently. My memories with him started at
three, and now I felt a bit sad that this was where our memories
would end. I could only hope that the new sheriff wasn't going to
be hard to break in.

With all this new information whirling
through my mind, I set off from the hospital with a fresh
determination. One, I was no longer going to go looking for
trouble. Two, I was going to make it damn hard for trouble to find
me. My new motto was look the other way, ignore it, and it will go
away and run fast in the other direction if trouble starts coming.
It wasn't the way I was raised, but it was the new way for me. I
was tired of being everybody's butt end of their jokes and tired of
trying to do the right thing only to find myself in more of a
pickle than I was before trouble found me.

The long and winding road from the back ridge
of the mountain range had my head clearing and my heart ready to
start anew. If this plan of mine didn't work, then I was bound and
determined to move somewhere, anywhere, to get a fresh start.
Preferably somewhere, where no one knew me, not a single soul, or
knew of me, or about me. I had already passed a stray dog on the
side of the road and kept on driving. Although it killed me not to
stop, I reminisced about the last time I stopped to help a stray
dog find its owner. I never did replace that couch.

I passed an old truck with its hood up and
some man leaning in over the engine. I mentally patted myself on my
back. I did not stop. The last time I stopped, some crazy man
abducted me and held me at a an old abandoned cafe back on route
119 until he keeled over from a heart attack while telling me about
the alien abduction that was going to happen. That fiasco lasted
for almost three months of conversation around town. Thank God for
Deputy Dan's cross-dressing habits getting caught and aired on
Utube. That was the only thing that could surpass my incident.

The ding of low gas pinged again in my car,
and although I had enough to make it home, I also knew that I
didn't need to worry about what might happen at the gas station.
'It's just gas' I mentally confirmed and pulled into the last gas
stall and took a deep breath. Five minutes later, diet pop, large
bag of peanut M&M candies and a full tank of gas, I decided
that no harm or trouble was going to find me today.

I climbed into my bright yellow Mini Cooper
and started back the way I came. The beautiful spring day had me
optimistic that my plan was going to work. All the reminiscent talk
from my three best friends and Sheriff Cleat was a cleansing ritual
that had to be done. Sometimes you just have to walk back through
history and retrace your steps in order to walk forward and start
anew. At least in my mind it sounded good.

Not but two miles away from the gas station,
something up ahead caught my attention. It was a vision of utter
perfect bodily proportions. It was a Greek God or close enough. IT,
was a man jogging towards me with his shirt off, perfect pectoral
muscles, golden tan skin, large broad shoulders in unison with his
thick muscular leg's jogging towards me. If I didn't know better I
would have thought it was an optical illusion because Dreilling
county did not produce these kinds of males in these here parts.
Most were old, retired and potbelly men with fishing poles in one
hand and a bucket of Mabel's best friend chicken in the other. So,
I did the next best logical thing I could think of as I drove past
the handsome stranger. I turned my head to check out his backside
while my foot showed my excitement of the sexy man by pressing hard
on the gas, and the front of my car went the same direction as my
head, which found out quickly that my bright yellow Mini Cooper was
not meant for four-wheel drive.

As fate would have it, I was just fine, not a
mark on my body. My airbag deployed, my OnStar that my father
insisted on buying me after wrecking my first three cars came on,
and my car was at a ninety-degree angle wedged between two large
boulders. My diet pop was still in my left hand; my quickly melting
chocolate peanut M&M's in the palm of my hand that was holding
my pop. My heart was pounding faster than a Nascar race car and the
first thought that came to mind was "Maple county would be a nice
place to live." That would be if they have never heard of me.

What I didn't realize was, that man who my
mind and eyes were checking out as I drove past, was now talking to
me from my open car window. I looked at him with a silly grin,
catching a glimpse of his steel blue eyes and short authoritative
dark hair cut, and then I closed my eyes. Because what I heard next
was none other than him talking into his cell phone while competing
with questions from OnStar. I didn't answer either but focused on
the sound of the man's voice. It had a deep authoritative voice
that talked like he knew what to say. Then I heard it. "This is the
new Sheriff Cal Taylor. I've got a roadside emergency at mile
marker 212. Send an ambulance, fire truck with Jaws of Life and a
tow truck. Make that two. My truck broke down at 211. License
plates for yellow Mini Cooper read LUCK4KIA. What? I see. No, she
seems fine but her car is wedged between two boulders, and the
doors won't open. Yup. I see."

He hung up his cell phone and put it back
into his tan cargo shorts, grabbed his tee shirt that was in his
hand and put it back on. I sneaked one last peek out of the corner
of my eye and held onto that glorious pectoral image for a moment,
before I put my hand out the window. I squinted my eyes at the
glare of the sun as I looked up at the man who was going to be my
new everyday rescue hero, at least until I can find a new job, new
car and move to Maple county, where hopefully nobody ever heard of
me or my streamline of chaos that I have created.

"Hi, I'm Kia Clark. We haven't met but..." He
boldly interrupted me with a laughter I will never forget.

"Kia. We've met alright. I've been warned and
just as I was told, it wouldn't be long before we met, but my first
day! That was not what I was hoping for."

Chapter Three

So what if he had a file on me the size of a
locker box. So what if he was warned. So what if he looked like a
Greek God and had this authoritative manner that made every single
ambulance, fire and tow person jump on his words. So what? Problem
was; he insisted on driving me home, reading me the riot act like I
was a five-year-old who just stole all the cookies from the cookie
jar right before dinner. I know this because I have done it more
times than I could count, and every time I did; I got the listen
here speech. The very same one Sheriff Cal thought I should get
again. As we pulled up to my place, he asked me one last time if I
wanted to go to the hospital to get my head check out. However,
before I could answer, he started to laugh at the inside joke he
must have told himself, one that I was sure went something like
mentally get checked out.

I got out and slammed the sheriff's car door.
The one that the deputies brought to him at the scene of the
accident to drive back to work in. I started stomping my feet up
the walkway to my unit in the fourplex I lived at. Then I heard his
authoritative voice holler out my name from behind me, and I turned
to see him standing behind the cruiser with one arm resting on the
open door and the other on the hood with a sexy grin that would
make any girl drop to her knees. "Hey Kia?"

Of course, I melted from the sound of his
voice, just like those M&M's melted in my hand while jaws for
life opened up the roof of my car, but when I turned to take a look
of my new handsome hero, his smile made my insides do the crazy
roller coaster thing. It took me a second to reply with some sanity
to my voice and to keep my knees from wobbling. "Yeah Cal?"

"You have twenty-four hours to stop by the
office to file your report. If this is going to be a regular thing
I have to deal with, then you are going to be at my office every
single time, writing up the report for me and doing my filing.
Twenty-four hours or I'll have Deputy Mike come arrest you."