Rising Storm (2 page)

Her grandparents' cook's son had seen her doing the walk of shame back into Wyatt Estate at five in the morning. He had told his wife, who told her sister who works at the beauty salon, who told Miss Lily when she came in to get her hair permed. By nine o'clock in the morning it was all over town that Katelyn Jacks had come home the next morning wearing last night's clothes.

Speculation had run rampant. It followed her everywhere. People whispered and the Rose sisters had opened up a betting pool at the Blossom Café. To make matters worse, Red had to step down as Sheriff after suffering a bad case of pneumonia. Health problem after health problem had finally forced the old lawman out to pasture.

A special election was held and Marshall ran unopposed. The town couldn't stop talking about it. Their prodigal son returned to them, if you count working in Lexington thirty minutes away as leaving Keeneston. Posters with his face were in all of the windows showing their support for his candidacy. All of her clients were talking about him. She was trying to forget the night had even happened, but the town had a different idea.

After the election she thought it would get better. Wrong. It got worse! Now Marshall was walking around in his uniform and stepping over the girls who were swooning at his feet. Clients tittered to her all day long about how handsome he was. How they'd like to see what's under that uniform. All she could think about was that she
did
know what was under that uniform.

Then it got even worse. As if it wasn't bad enough having everyone in town speculate on whom she had spent the night with and the fact that every warm-blooded woman in the county was talking about wanting to see Marshall naked, there was Marshall himself. He was everywhere. She even had to duck behind a car when he slowly cruised down Main Street last week.

Well, enough was enough. She wasn't going to hide anymore. She was going to do the only thing she could think of - tuck tail and run.

Marshall smiled at a joke Miss Lily made as he waited for his lunch in the Blossom Café. He'd been Sheriff now for two months. He had never been so happy or so bored. He loved working in his hometown. But since he had taken office the only fun thing he'd done was bug Katelyn Jacks.

He had tried staying in his office like Red used to, but women were always dropping by with casseroles, cookies, and cakes. His office had turned into a bakery and all of his deputies were fighting over who got to sit in the front office to get the first chance at the single ladies of Keeneston. That left Annie Blake, well, Davies now to be in charge of Belle control. His sister-in-law would roll her eyes, snort, or just outright laugh at the women who happened to lock themselves out of their cars and needed rescuing by the Sheriff, especially the Keeneston Belles.

The Belles were a group of women who had their "coming out" at eighteen. They were a small and select group of women resembling debutants. However, unlike the debutants, the Belles were an even smaller and even more exclusive group. To be a Belle, you had to be a debutant, graduate high school with honors, be single, and resolve to be married by the age of twenty-five to only the best and the brightest from Keeneston. They also had to be of a certain socioeconomic level, so to say. It didn't hurt either to be named prom queen. But, the real kicker was at least three generations of women in your family had to be Belles.

The Belles were husband hunters extraordinaire and had had the Davies men in their sights since they came back from overseas. The brothers had been so messed up after all they had seen and done in the course of war that the last thing they had wanted was a wife. They had become experts at outmaneuvering and, well, frankly, hiding from the Belles. Maybe that was why Cy was M.I.A. -- he was trying to hide from the Belles.

But now the Belles were getting desperate to nab one of the Davies brothers. The first one had fallen. Cade had gone and married a smart talking, kick ass, DEA Agent. The Belles had gasped and redoubled their efforts. Miles and Pierce were in Lexington a lot, so that left Marshall in their sights. Hopefully now that Pierce had just graduated with a Master in Agriculture he'd be around more to take the heat off of Marshall.

So, Marshall had had no choice. He stuck Annie out front, much to her dissatisfaction. Just the other month, Annie had announced that both she and Marshall's sister Paige were going to make him an Uncle. They were both due within a week of each other around Christmas. So, Marshall had played the pregnancy card. With a huff, she'd guard him from the Keeneston Belles and all the other single, and sometimes not so single, women of Keeneston. That worked well for a while, but then he had come out once when he heard yelling. Annie had her stun gun drawn and was reading the riot act to Nancy Kincaid, who was in the process of trying to climb over the counter, all while balancing a plate of her famous oatmeal cookies in one hand. The week before it had been Jasmine Franklin. She and Nancy were the two most persistent of the Belles.

He had decided then he didn't want to be at fault for Annie going to jail over shooting one of them, so he went mobile. He cruised around town, he walked the streets, and he spent a lot of time at the Cafe. While the Rose sisters, Lily Rae, Daisy Mae, and Violet Fae wanted him married, they at least weren't part of the Belles, or the Keeneston Ladies Club, which a Belle graduated to once she was married. The Ladies Club had their hand in everything. Their husbands ranged from the Judge, to the D.A., to the Mayor, and of course every one of those men listened to their wives. Further, they sat on all the important town committees.

The Rose sisters suggested single women, pointed out how happy his brother Cade and sister Paige were now they were married and expecting, but they always kept the Belles in line. The Rose sisters didn't need a club or a husband to run the town. And the Belles and the Ladies Club both knew that.

"I still think it was Henry," Miss Lily whispered to him.

Marshall shook his head and looked at three faces staring at him.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I bet it was Henry that Katelyn spent the night with back in February."

"That's silly Lily Rae,” said Miss Violet. “Henry would’ve been braggin' about it non-stop. No, I think it was Paul Russell. He was real interested in Kenna when she came to town, and I bet he’d be very interested in Katelyn. Especially since Kenna was snatched up so quickly by Will. He's surely smooth enough in that political way. So, who do you think? You took her home, didn't you?"

Miss Violet leveled a steely gaze at Marshall, just as she had been doing for the past four months. Although with her being so short and round and generally rosy cheeked, it was hard to be too intimidated.

"I dropped her off safe and sound. What she did after that is her own business." He didn't mention he dropped her off safe and sound at his own house. Or the fact that he had had his fair share of one night stands, especially the year after he came home, but none had affected him the way one night in Katelyn's arms had. Or the fact that he had figured out the one woman in town not trying to get his attention was the only one he couldn't stop thinking about.

"Speak of the devil. Just what do you think she's doing out there?" Miss Daisy leaned her thin, steely, body over the counter and openly stared at the shoulder of one Katelyn Jacks pressed against the side of the window.

The bell rang and Roger Burns, the great-uncle of Paul Russell, came hobbling into the Cafe. His cane thumped slowly as he made his way to an open table. He took off his bowler hat to expose the thin white hair combed neatly over his shiny pink head.

"I'll tell you what. I don't understand young people these days. That purdy lady vet is out there pressed against the wall. Doesn't she know you have to come inside to eat?"

Ah! His day just got brighter. Marshall had to admit, he was having a lot of fun tormenting Katelyn. There was nothing that made him laugh harder than to see her dive behind a car when she saw him coming.

"Well, I better get to work. I'm just going to head out the back door and start my patrol. Thanks for the lunch ladies."

He walked through the kitchen and quietly went out the back door to the gravel parking lot. He turned left and went down the alley to reach the street. He was going to sneak up on the only woman to ever sneak out of his bed.

He reached the street and turned toward Main Street. Marshall had known what he was doing the second he saw Henry getting ready to take her home. The jealousy had been instantaneous. Paige had always teased him and his brothers about not wanting a toy until another boy played with it, but this was more. It went straight to his gut and turned it to stone at the thought of Henry, um, playing with her.

The thing that had confused him was that he didn't know where the jealousy had come from. He didn't even like the spoiled brat. Katelyn had always come and visited her grandparents every summer when she was a kid. She was younger than him, probably by four or five years, but she had acted as if she was already thirty. She was always in these ridiculous dresses, even when she was playing. Well, as much playing as a hotel heiress with everything in life handed to her did.

When she got tired of playing dress up with her dolls, she decided to play dress up herself and became a model. She'd been sucked up to, spoiled, and hadn't worked a day in her life.

She may still look like she could belong on the runway, but even he knew that it was tough to make it in the modeling world when she was approaching her late twenties. So she came home now to play doctor. What was pissing him off to no end was that he couldn't stop the desire that hit him every time he saw her.

It still bugged him that when he had taken her home that night, he had fully intended to be the one gone in the morning. It was an asshole move to leave her alone in his house, but he was hoping it would cure his fascination with her. Instead just the opposite happened.

He had woken up happy. He had slept comfortably for the first time since he was deployed overseas. Most of the time, he still woke up once or twice a night from a memory, the sound of gunfire, the sound of death. But this time he woke up happy and refreshed. He reached for her only to find Bob, Marshall's dog, lying with his head on the pillow instead of Katelyn.

But now she was right around the corner from him. He was giddy at the chance of tormenting her further. He’d just pretend that was the only reason he was giddy and ignore the fact he couldn't wait to be near her again. Marshall put on his best cop face and turned the corner. Disappointment pushed his shoulders down to a slump. She was gone.

Chapter Two

Katelyn loved everything about Wyatt Farm. She stopped at the elaborate iron gate and pressed the opener. As the large scrolled gate opened, she looked down the long narrow paved driveway lined with Bradford pear trees. She headed down the shaded drive looking at the colts and fillies of her grandparents’ farm romping in pastures that surrounded the main house.

On top of a small hill sat Wyatt Estate. The old farmhouse had stood in the same place since 1785. Her relatives had moved to Keeneston after the Rose family and one or two other families, but were still considered to be one of the first families of Keeneston. However, unlike most of the other first families, they had chosen to farm the land. They settled on a large tract of land on the far side of the county. Granted, the county was small, like most other counties in Kentucky, but at the time they were considered on the frontier.

They had chosen wisely. Their property contained a creek and an underground water source. They had grown various vegetables that the grocery store in town sold, and tobacco they sold directly to old Irish and British contacts. They also raised sheep for wool, cows for milking, pigs, and racehorses. They were completely self-sufficient.

Katelyn's ancestors on her grandfather's side had started off as poor migrant farmers from Ireland when they migrated to Virginia in the 1770’s to avoid the stranglehold on trade that Britain was imposing. They had fallen in love with the idea of freedom and packed up everything they had and headed for the new world.

They arrived during a period of tense buildup between the colonies and Great Britain. Soon the American Revolution broke out. The men picked up arms and fought for their freedom while the women in the family packed all their belongings once again. While her great grandfather many times over fought in the Revolution for the Virginia Colony, his wife single-handedly made her way to the new town of Lexington in the frontier part of Virginia that would soon become Kentucky.

When the war was over, her husband found her there and they pushed even farther into the untamed wilds of the frontier. They settled in Keeneston, north of Fort Harrod, the first permanent settlement this far out on in the wilderness. Her family built a small log cabin in 1780 and then started construction on the main house. It took them five years to build it. They sold food to the growing town of Lexington to finance the building supplies and were able to move into their large three-story rectangular shaped brick house five years later.

Every generation since then added something to the house. Beautiful rose gardens, indoor plumbing, lighting, garage, sunroom and so on as technology advanced. But, the bones of the house were still original and she felt as if the house was alive with her history. As if it breathed and told the story of their lives.

Her grandfather had taken over the farm upon his graduation from Emory University in Atlanta. He had come back home with a young wife in hand. Her grandmother belonged to an old family that had their ancestral home forty minutes outside Atlanta. They had met at a party and it was love at first sight.

Katelyn parked her car in front of the large white brick house and opened the old thick front door. She padded quickly across the tongue and groove pine floors that were polished high and into the updated kitchen. A large screened in patio with a brick floor and overstuffed elegant white wicker furniture sat off the backside of the kitchen.