Sweet Talking Lawman (3 page)

When Rafe came down the
stairs wearing a clean black t-shirt and starched, creased jeans, he smiled,
his nostrils filled with the smell of meat searing in an iron skillet. 
Uci would surely have already cooked potatoes smothered in another pan with
small, yellow, crooked necked squash and onions.  His mouth filled with
warm saliva.  He walked into the kitchen as she lifted the medium rare
steak out of the pan and placed it in a plate.  She turned and set it on
the table in front of the chair he pulled out.

Without speaking she poured
him a glass of freshly brewed iced tea and set that in front of him as well.

Rafe picked up his knife and
started to cut into the meat, when Uci’s fist punched into his arm
firmly.  “Ow,” he said, exaggerating the sound as if it had really hurt
him.

“Don’t you dare take one bite
of that meat until it’s been blessed!” she scolded him.  Efficiently, she
poured another glass of tea and settled into the chair beside him. 
Wordlessly, he bowed his head and listened as she gave thanks and asked a
blessing for the food they were about to eat.

“Sorry, Uci,” he mumbled as
he lifted his knife to the steak again, following her softly spoken “amen.”

She grunted, took a sip of
her tea and then spoke, her voice still soft.  “Even in the old days, The
People thanked Creator for the food He provided and asked Him to bless
it.  Don’t you ever forget who you are and where you came from!  We
are a proud, but humble people, and we can’t ever forget that, you hear me?”

He nodded solemnly. 
“You’ve taught me better, Uci, but sometimes I get wrapped up in…things.”

“In your job and the wasicu
ways,” she smirked softly.  “You are only one forth wasicu, so you better
let the other three fourths, that understand what’s important, control your
behavior.”

He wisely remained silent and
tried for his most convincingly repentant look.

Lizzie Storm Horse might be
his grandmother, but she’d been a mother to him as well.  His own mother
had died in an accident when Jenny was only a couple of years old and his
memories of her were faded gray with time.  Lizzie knew Rafe probably
better than he knew himself.

Her dark eyes sparkled with
silent humor.  She knew her words had gone in one ear and out the
other.  Out of respect and love for her, he would at least try to take her
words to heart, but she also knew that even if he did sometimes forget to show
the proper respect and homage for the gifts bestowed by Creator, in his heart,
he held great reverence for all things wakan.

“So, have you heard anything
about how Rance Howell is getting along?”  She hoped her question sounded
casual.

He shrugged.  “When Levi
came in last night…this morning…whenever he came in, he said Rance was doing
better.  They think maybe he’ll be released from the rehab center in a few
days.  Will Marlie stay at the Rocking H and help out with him?”

“Marlie has three children
who need a mother, at least at night, and she has all she can do seeing after
Shirley and the big house.  I don’t think that’ll change just because
Rance goes home.  She told me that Mesa’s coming home to take care of him
and the ranch.”  She watched him closely while she spoke and was quick to
note the tightening of the muscles along his bronze jaw, and the way the
fingers holding his fork turned white as his grip tightened subconsciously.

He took his time chewing the
steak already in his mouth, giving his whole body a few seconds to regain
control of itself.  Finally he swallowed.  “Well, that’s
interesting.  I imagine Jenny will be glad to hear it.”

“Yeah,” Uci nodded. 
“After you came home and gave her Mesa’s address, the two of them have stayed
in touch.”

Having scarfed down the
steak, Rafe pushed his chair back and stood up.  “Thanks for…what meal was
that, breakfast, lunch or supper?”

She chortled softly. 
“Knowing you, probably all three.”

He bent and brushed her
forehead with a quick kiss.  “Whatever it was, thanks for cooking it for
me.  It was delicious.  I got paperwork to sign off on, so I’m
heading back to the office.”

Her eyes followed him as he
bounded up the stairs to slip into a clean uniform shirt and get his gun belt
and weapon.  She knew he dealt with some uncertainties about his job
because of his age, so he worked extra hard to make sure no one could even
think he wasn’t a good sheriff.

Her youngest son, Rafe’s
uncle, John Storm Horse, had been the sheriff of the county for years and when
Rafe left the Marshal’s Service and came home to stay, he’d gone right to work
for him as a deputy.  It didn’t take long for Rafe to work himself into
being the head deputy and when John died of cancer a little over five years
ago, the county officials had asked him to finish out the rest of John’s
term.  Then he’d been elected to the job by the citizens of the county in
a vote, just recently.  She missed both her sons, but knew how proud John
would have been of the way his nephew had stepped in and done the job he’d
loved so much.  It seemed the men in her family gravitated to law
enforcement.  Rafe’s own father, her oldest son, Jessup Storm Horse had
served as a law enforcement officer for the tribal council until he was killed
when he responded to a domestic disturbance call.  He’d been fatally
wounded when he attempted to arrest a man who was beating his wife.  A
fight arose and the abusive husband had stabbed Jessup in the chest, the knife
penetrating his heart.  He was dead when the second officer responding
made it to the scene.

Rafe trotted back down the
stairs, kissed her again on the head and grabbed his hat as he hurried out the
door.  She could hear him whistling for the bulldog that went almost
everywhere with him, then the door of his SUV slammed and he left.

Rafe’s mind was
whirling.  Mesa was coming home!  He couldn’t make himself believe
it.  All this time he’d never once asked Jenny anything about her. 
Oh, he’d wanted to.  So many times he’d wanted to, but what good would it
have done?  She’d sworn she’d never come back.  There weren’t many
good memories for her here.
 
He understood
that.  Even when he’d asked her to leave Branson and come back with him,
she’d refused.  She wouldn’t even consider it, justifying her decision by
claiming she could never be happy in Oak Ridge because of all the bad
memories.  He couldn’t help wondering what had happened in the six years
since he’d seen her to change her mind.  Oh well, she wasn’t coming back
for him, so it shouldn’t matter.  It shouldn’t, but dammit, it did.

He heard an alarming,
rumbling, pfffing sound from the dog lying peacefully on the back seat and then
swore loudly as he pushed the button to lower both windows in the front
seat.  “Damn, Dog!  What have you been eatin’?”

By the time the smell had
dissipated from the cab of the truck, he was slowing to pull into his reserved
spot in front of the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department.  Pushing his door
open, he made a soft kissing sound to the dog, which quickly jumped out behind
him.  A hand signal put the animal at his heels and together they entered
the office.

He spoke to each person he
passed until he reached his secretary’s desk where he paused.  “Beth,
since school is out, do you think you can get Heather to come down here and
take Spur out for a run?  He’s got the worst case of gas I’ve ever smelt,
and I don’t think any of us want him inside until he’s had time to get rid of
it.”

She grinned and fondled the
big dog’s head affectionately.  “Actually, she’s in the break room
finishing a summer reading assignment.  I’m sure she’d appreciate a break,
but it’ll mean more if you ask her.”  Beth had worked in the office since
her seventeen year old daughter, Heather had turned a year old.  That was
when she’d caught her husband fooling around with her best friend and divorced
him.  There wasn’t an officer in the place that hadn’t pulled a little
babysitting duty over the years as Heather practically grew up in the office,
almost as much as in the small home the mother and daughter shared.  Well,
Rafe hadn’t been around during that time, but since coming home, he’d come to
respect Beth and like the rest of the staff, he thought of Heather as part of
the family.  They’d all shared her birthday cake just last week.

When he opened the door of
the break room, the lovely teenage girl smiled up at him.

Seventeen?  Was she
really that old, he asked himself?  Was seventeen really that young?

“Hey, Freckles.”  He
walked over and picked up the book she’d been reading.  “What’cha up to?”

“I gotta make a report on
that.  It’s gotta be the most boring book ever written,” she replied
easily while she greeted Spur who was shoving his nose into her hand.

“Your mom said maybe I could
get you to take Mr. Noxious Gas Factory here for a run.”  Rafe knew she
was an avid jogger and she loved the big bulldog.

“Have you got the toots?” she
crooned to the spotted dog.  “Has he been feeding you table scraps again?”

Rafe chuckled.  “Uci’s
the guilty party and I don’t know what she fed him but since he ate it, it’s
become lethal.”

“I love running with him,
Sheriff.  He never pulls on me, he never gives out and all the boys at
school think it’s so cool that I get to take him for runs.  If I had the
money, I’d pay you to let me run with him.”

Rafe laughed as he slipped a
ten dollar bill into her book bag.  “My car’s not locked and his leash is
in the side pocket of the driver’s door.”

Watching the girl and the dog
walking to the front of the building he was again amazed to realize that she
was seventeen years old.  He walked on to his office and closed the door
behind him.  Mesa had been just seventeen the time he’d walked in on her,
stepping out of the shower in the upstairs bathroom at his home.  His
heart rate accelerated just from the memory.

^^^

She’d come over to spend the
weekend with Jenny and they’d been out working all day, helping move the cows
from one pasture into another and separating some yearlings headed for the stockyard. 
He was home on leave from the Marines and had worked with them, enjoying the
time to renew his cowboy roots.  The girls had gone on to the house while
he’d helped put the horses away and got the rest of the chores done.  He
was tired, dirty and was thinking about being shipped to the Middle East in a
few days.  He couldn’t imagine why he didn’t think about the girls having
gone on ahead of him to the house, but he’d grabbed up his things for the
shower, pushed open the door and walked in to catch Mesa standing there. 
Her body was gloriously wet, her arms raised, securing the towel around the
long deep brown hair that she’d twisted up on top of her head, her full young
breasts lifted so temptingly, her long tanned legs taking forever to reach the
floor, especially since his eyes had stopped mid trip to observe another
tempting sight he’d never even thought about seeing.  He’d frozen and both
shocked to see the other, she had, too.  Unable to move or to look away,
his eyes feasted until she reached for another towel and snatched if off the
rack and covered her nakedness as best she could.  Then his eyes lifted to
meet hers and he’d watched a deepening of color stain her cheeks.

“Damn,” he managed a soft
growl as he backed out.  “I’m sorry, Mesa!”  Closing the door, he
returned to his room stunned by his body’s reaction to the sight of her
innocent nudity.

Guiltily Rafe waited until he
heard the two girls heading down stairs before making a try for the bathroom
again.  He showered quickly, and left the house, excusing himself from the
evening meal with a white lie about going into town with one of the hired
hands.  When he came down the next morning the girls and Uci were gone to
church.  So he went into town to spend the day with Uncle John at the
Sheriff’s office.  Sunday night, Mesa had gone home and on Monday Rafe had
returned to base, so he hadn’t seen her again, until he walked into that small
club in Branson and saw her seated on a stool up on the stage, six years
later.  She was crooning a melody about a woman who’d lost someone she’d
loved, and Mesa could sing!

He’d ordered a beer and taken
it to an empty table next to the small stage and just soaked up the sight and
sound of the woman that his baby sister’s best friend had grown into. 
When her song was done, she never hesitated but left her stool and walked to
his table.  Music continued to play from somewhere but Rafe no longer
noticed it.

“Rafe,” her soft voice washed
over him like a refreshing breath of Southern air.  “I’m really surprised
to see you here.”

He nodded, standing to grasp
the hand she extended.  “I know the feelin’.  I’ve heard you on the
radio, so I knew you were singin’, but when I walked in that door and saw
you…you could’a knocked me over with a feather.”  Hastily he stood and pulled
out the chair next to him for her.

A tentative smile spread her
full lips as she lowered herself into the seat.  “Are you as shocked as
you were the last time you saw me?”

Instantly, Rafe’s mind filled
with the memory of her standing wet and naked in the bathroom back home. 
He didn’t look away from her and although her cheeks flushed again, as they had
at the time it happened, she didn’t look away either.  “Damn near,” he
admitted, the hoarseness in his voice revealing the effect that memory still had
on him.

Mesa looked toward the
barmaid and held up a hand before she looked back at him.  “You look
good.  Are you still in the military?”

His head shook
negatively.  “I’m workin’ with the Marshal’s Service now.  I’m on an
assignment here for a couple’a weeks.”

The barmaid appeared at
Mesa’s elbow with a glass of iced water.

Not sure what was in the
glass, Rafe looked at the girl.  “Put that on my tab.”

She smiled at him and walked
away.

Mesa took a cooling swallow
from the glass, then her green eyes joined her lips in a smile.  “I don’t
charge myself for water, Rafe.”

He shrugged.

“I not only sing here, it’s
my place.”  She looked around the room with pride.  “It’s not a lot,
but it means I don’t have to do road shows and it keeps me going.  My
partner and I lease the building.”

He chuckled, “I guess the
name, Howell’s Hideaway, should’a been a clue.”

“But you didn’t connect it
with me?”  Her eyes reflected wariness.

He shook his head.  “Not
really.  I guess it did make me think of home.  That probably had
somethin’ to do with me walkin’ through the door, but mostly, I was thinking
about a beer.”

Her eyes dropped away from
his face, to focus on the glass in front of her.  “What do you hear from
home?”

“Jenny just had a baby. 
Uci’s still keeping up the home place with the help of Uncle John.  Your
mother is…”

“Still the town tramp?” she
cut into his sentence, her voice filled with bitterness.

One side of his mouth
lifted.  “Actually, I was gonna say, is doin’ fine.  Uci says she’s
tryin’ to stop drinkin’.”

Mesa’s dark brows arched in
surprise and her voice dripped with sarcasm.  “Really?  I guess if
that sticks, she’ll be on the road to sainthood.”

Before he knew what he was
doing, he’d covered one of her hands with one of his own.  “She’s still a
bitch, Mesa.  I don’t think that had a lot to do with her drinkin’, and
the drinkin’ is off and on.  She still treats Rance like a hired hand, the
way she always has.”

She turned her hand over and
clasped her fingers around the warmth of his strong hand.  “So all these
years I’ve placed the blame in the wrong place.  Who would have imagined
that?  I hope being a bitch isn’t hereditary.”

He liked the feel of her hand
in his.  Warmth radiated up his arm, coursing down through-out his body.

“You look so good,” he didn’t
intend for his voice to carry that husky roughness of desire, but it was there.

“You do, too.  It’s been
a long time since I’ve seen anyone from home.  Even listening to you talk
is soothing to me, Rafe.  I never dreamed I could miss Oak Ridge.”

For a few minutes they just
sat, holding hands, glancing at each other once in a while.  Finally Rafe
lifted her hand and looked at her long fingers.

“No weddin’ band?” he asked.

She shook her head, the long
chestnut brown hair he remembered had been cut into a short, sophisticated,
face framing style.  “Never met anyone else that I cared more about than
myself.”  A warm smile tilted her full lips up, separating them to reveal
her white teeth.

Her smile started a fire that
warmed him inside and his laughter was soft as he pushed back his chair and
tugged gently on her hand.  “Dance with me.”

Mesa hesitated for a second,
but then smiled and stood up.  As she did, a large man wearing a dark
sports coat appeared at Rafe’s elbow.  “Mesa doesn’t dance with the
customers, cowboy.”

Rafe turned and looked into
the icy blue eyes of the man.  “Who the hell…,” he started, but Mesa
stepped between them.

“It’s alright, Jory. 
Rafe isn’t a customer.  He’s an old friend from Oak Ridge.”  She
smiled at Rafe.  “This is Jory Madison, my business manager, partner and
friend.”

The sparks of anger that had
flashed briefly in Rafe’s dark eyes, cooled and he offered his hand to the
older man.  “Nice to meet you, I guess.  I’m Rafe Storm Horse.”

The two shook hands and Jory
returned to the position he’d held earlier, nursing a soft drink at the end of
the bar.

“Your bodyguard?”  Rafe
asked, drawing Mesa into his embrace as they moved onto the small dance floor.

She smiled.  “He wears a
lot of different hats, but mostly, he’s my best friend.”

Rafe’s hand settled against
her waist as he led her smoothly along to the slow music.  He closed his
eyes and inhaled the scent of her.  It felt so good to have her in his
arms and their bodies moved comfortably in unison, as if they’d danced together
for years.  Rafe’s arm tightened slightly, drawing her closer.  “This
is nice,” he said softly, tilting his head down so his mouth was near her ear.

Mesa nodded.  “Yes it
is.  You know, I always had a crush on you while I was growing up.”

He grinned, his straight,
white teeth sparkling.  “Really?  I didn’t know.  If I had, I
might have asked you out.”

She pulled her head back and
looked up at him and smiled.  “I wasn’t but fourteen or fifteen when you
enlisted and left town and you had so many girlfriends you only saw me as
Jenny’s little friend.”

He looked down at her, his
eyes wandering over her familiar features but stopping on her lips. 
“Well, that ended the night I opened that bathroom door and saw you standing
there.  I never saw anything childish about you again.”