Dalton looked over the paperwork in front of him. He knew what it was, but he was having a hard time thinking why anyone would think that he’d just blindly sign off on them. He looked at the attorney from the state offices, and asked him again why they wanted him to become the sheriff.
“Well, for one thing, you were recommended by Howard. Secondly, and this is the most important, you’re damned good at your job. We know that you and Howard had an understanding. You’d do the job for him when he was away or needed some time off. It was a smooth transition between the two of you. We liked that.”
Dalton leaned back in the chair he’d been sitting in for the last couple of hours, and wondered where Gabe was. He’d been doing that a lot the last few hours, just wondering what she was doing and how she was liking working with Kenton. His brother had told him not to bother him every ten seconds just a little while ago. He supposed he was being a pain in the ass, but he missed her and didn’t want to make her think he was too clingy. It was the reason that he’d bothered his brother and not her. Now this idiot wanted him to take over a job that not two weeks ago he’d wanted to quit. He still did, he thought to himself, and wanted this meeting over with.
“I have a wife now. I don’t need the extra stress or hours. I’m sorry, but I’m not at all interested in taking over Howard’s duties or position.” Mr. Cooley congratulated him and said he’d not heard that, seemingly ignoring the rest of what he’d said. “We’ve not tied the actual knot yet, but it’s soon. As I said, I don’t want the extra stress.”
“I can understand that, Dalton, but how much less stressful will it be for you when the town starts having a high crime rate? It will, too. It’s been known to get a lot worse with no one in charge.” Bad move, he thought. The town would do just fine without him, and he told him that. “I don’t think so. I believe, as does my entire department, that it’s only been this peaceful here because there are good cops in charge. And failing that…well, I hate to say this to you on such an occasion, but we’ll have to find someone else to be in charge that’ll be willing to help us out when we need it. If it’s not you, then we’ll have to find someone that will do it.”
“That sounds like a threat. Are you sure you want to go that route? I mean, are you saying that if I don’t take this position, you’re going to fire me?” Mr. Cooley only smiled. And Dalton had a thought. He really was threatening him. When Dalton stood up and put out his hand, so did the man. “Well, I’m really glad that you came by today. It was very nice to meet you.”
“You as well, Dalton. You’re a good man. So, if you could just sign off on these contracts, I’ll be on my way. You can expect your first pay raise in about a month. I know that seems like a long time, but you know—”
“I’m not going to sign any paperwork, Mr. Cooley. Thanks, but no thanks. As I stated several times now, I don’t want to be in charge. Ever. I’m not even sure that I want to be a cop anymore. You giving me an ultimatum did the trick in my decision. So thank you for that.” Cooley told him that he’d not be able to do the job without a contract. “Exactly. But I do want to thank you for coming by. Like I said earlier, I don’t have a lot of time now to be sheriff. I thought I’d be able to work as just a cop, a good one, as you pointed out, but I can see that’s not going to work now. I just don’t care to be threatened.”
“Wait. Now wait a minute here. I didn’t threaten you.” Dalton didn’t say anything. “You have to take this job, Dalton. We need you to be in place, or we’ll have to look for someone else. Do you have any idea how long...? Look, I’ll rush your raise through today, and make sure you’re paid for the time you’ve been acting sheriff too.”
“No thanks.” Dalton made his way to the door, feeling better and better with each step he took. He felt lighter with the decision as well. “Now, I do have some retirement coming, and a few other company made investments, but I can have my attorney look those over for—”
“I don’t think you and I are on the same page here.” Dalton told him he thought they were. “No. You see, you think I was threatening you. And I can understand how that would make you feel, but I didn’t mean to come across like that. No, not at all. Perhaps we can sit back down and start over, man to man.”
“No.” He saw Vance coming up to the front steps, and before he could knock on it, Dalton opened the door. “Just a minute, Vance. I have to get this taken care of. This man here, he works for the State Department. He just told me that if I didn’t take the sheriff’s job that I’d be out of work. I took him up on the deal. I was just asking him to leave when you showed up.”
Vance, ever on his feet, said he was glad he’d finally done it, and asked if Dalton needed his help in putting the man out. Dalton, instead of answering him, turned to Mr. Cooley again. The man was still sputtering about money and needing a sheriff.
“I wanted to thank you again for coming by. It was nice to hear how appreciative you were of my work for this town for the last fifteen years. But as I have told you, again and again, I’m going to have a new wife soon, and I don’t care to be threatened. Not by you or any other man.” Cooley started to speak again, but Vance stretched his neck and the loud popping noise was enough to wake the dead. “My brother and I can show you out should you need any help.”
“Dalton, surely you’re not turning this position down. It’s what you were born to do.” Dalton told him it was too late to back track now. “I’m going to call you in a few days. When I do we’re going to just forget this conversation happened.”
“I already have.” Stepping out onto the porch was wonderful. They watched as the man made his way to his car, and he and Vance sat down on the new porch swing as the man drove off. Vance said nothing for several minutes as he sat with him, and it wasn’t until Cooley was out of sight for ten minutes that he spoke.
“I’m assuming from that little conversation that I heard that you’ve just quit your job.” Dalton nodded. “I’m also sensing, and this just could be me, that you’re not unhappy about this whole chain of events either.”
“No, not in the least. I feel pretty good. I think this has been a long time in coming.” The swing began to go back and forth, and Dalton watched the tree line get larger then small as they moved. It was relaxing, actually, and he felt his body start to mellow out with the motion. “I should have discussed this with Gabriela first, I think. But I had no idea he was coming here, or that I’d need this so badly, until he did.”
“Sometimes that’s all it takes, a little push.” Dalton nodded and asked him how he was doing. “Good. Much better than before. I think, as I told Gabe, that I wasn’t healing as quickly as I had before this simply because there were so many wounds. Good to know, I think. Also, I wanted to talk to you about the latest magic. I can...I think I can hear dragons.”
“Me too. And if you need them, there are two that will just suddenly appear out of nowhere to help. They don’t seem to respond to simply calling them to see if you can, but only if you need them. Gabriela figured that out.” They rocked some more. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. I have two questions for you. You don’t really have to answer either of them. I believe that I have them. The answers, I mean.”
“Go ahead. But I reserve the right to not answer you.” Dalton said that was fine. “Also, now that you don’t have the police hanging on your every word, I’d like it if you were to help me out with the cigarette bust. I just need a man to keep me from being shot to fuck when I head in there.”
“I can do that. No problem. First question.” He rocked a few times, thinking how best to ask. “About five days ago, I read this article about an elite team of men that went in a country that barely has a government, and got a hostage out and home. There was no mention of names, nor the country they might have been working for. It was a success, I’m to understand.”
“Yes, it was.” It wasn’t a question that he wanted to ask, but he felt he’d gotten all he was going to get from Vance. It was more of a…an agreement of sorts. “You have a second question, then ask. I have to be somewhere in two hours.”
Dalton looked at his brother. He had noticed when he was laid up in his house after being shot that he was looking exhausted. There were marks on his body as well, scars like one would have from a knife fight. Bullet holes, more than the ones that he’d gotten that day. And he was pretty sure that Vance would have more by now too.
“How deep are you, Vance?” He would understand what he was asking him. How deep undercover was his operation. There wasn’t any doubt to him that his brother worked for people who not only had no names, but also worked for an establishment that simply referred to themselves by initials.
“I’ll never see the light of day again.” Dalton was afraid then. Not for himself but for Vance as they sat there rocking like they had not a care in the world. “Grady knows. Everything, I think. Harper too, I guess. They have that mind thing going on, and I’m sure they looked. But don’t…if it comes to you, don’t go looking.”
“I’d like to help you.” They rocked, the swing not just moving now but seeming to be cradling them in some sort of temporary bliss. “Vance, I’d like to help you out of this. I don’t know what it might be, but I can help you.”
“Would you be willing to kill me, Dalton? I mean, not just put a bullet in my head, but to remove it from my shoulders and leave me there?” Dalton told him no. But he wasn’t sure that he heard him. “I’ve thought of nothing else over the last months. To end it all…it’s too much anymore. The crimes are harder to walk away from. And sometimes, that’s about all you can do.”
“I’m sorry, Vance. I truly am.”
Vance said nothing. The two of them sat there for over an hour, both of them lost in thought. And when his brother spoke again, Dalton felt chills run over his flesh.
“There are men coming for the jewels, more than we could have imagined, and they’re deadly. But they’re only pawns in all the killings and trouble. There is a man who is manipulating them in a direction he wants them to go to find the jewels for him. Then he’ll kill them off…anyone, as a matter of fact, that gets in his way. I do believe that he holds one of the pieces.” Dalton started to ask him if he knew who he was when he continued. “One in particular is close, but he’s not going to live long enough to collect on them.”
“Are you going to kill him before he gets close?” Vance said that he wouldn’t have the chance. “Then this person will? The one you were talking about?”
“Yes, unless he gets stupid or brave. I don’t know anything about him, this man I’ve started calling Operator. He’s old, like Kurt, but not much more. He’s magical—black magic, as a matter of fact—but other than that, nothing.” Dalton asked to be informed if he found out anything else. “I will. In the meantime, you should think about becoming a consultant. To the police. You can pick your own hours, take jobs that you want, and pretty much stick it to them when it comes to getting paid a good salary. That man that left here? Cooley? He has a thing going on with his boss right now that is going to hit the fan soon. I’d want to stay as clear of him as you can.”
After Vance left, Dalton realized that he wasn’t sure why he’d been there. Probably to tell him about the hunters. But then again, with Vance, it was hard to say. As he rocked, wondering about what he was going to do with his time now, he decided to go into town and have some lunch at the diner.
By the time he got to town, the music was blasting so loudly that he wouldn’t have heard a bomb go off even if it had been in his car. Dalton was feeling pretty good about life in general. Pulling into the parking lot, he had completely forgotten about Gerald being out for a couple of days. But as soon as he exited his car, he saw the man sitting in the diner with Milly. He was invited in as soon as they saw him.
If every day was like this, Dalton thought he could surely enjoy being a man of leisure. Yes, it was great working, but he deserved this, even if it was only for a few days. Going into the diner, he was greeted with a big hug and a piece of pie. Dalton was glad for both.
~~~
“But you don’t understand what I’m telling you. I don’t want to have to miss work. You know how much that is gonna hurt me?” Gabe told him there was assistance he could get to help with the bills. “Oh, that’s not the reason. My wife will be home. I can’t be there all day with her. We survived more years married like we have on account’a I go to work every day, and even going in for extra. No, I can’t be home ‘cause I don’t want to be with my wife. She’s meaner than a rattlesnake.”
It was hard not to laugh. This was only her third patient of the day, and she’d laughed more in that little time than she ever had at her other job. Sitting on the room’s chair, she tried to think what she could do to help the elderly man.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Canes. If you don’t stay off your foot, you’re going to lose it. I think Dr. McCade already told you this.” He nodded, telling her how sorry he was that he’d not listened. “Don’t be sorry. That’s not going to do you squat right now. If you don’t stay off your leg and keep it elevated at least five hours a day, then more at night, you’ll be spending a great deal of your time with your wife because I’ll have to amputate, and that would permanently put you at home.”
“You’re not nice. Jesus H. Bunker Hill, she’d surely kill me if I had to be there and under her feet, as she calls it, all the time. Scares the bejeebies out of me, it rightly does.” He looked down at his leg like it was entirely its fault. “I got me the sugar when I was a little tyke. Back then it was something that killed you off. I was lucky all these years, not having to do much more than just go on about my business. Then I get this here little bitty sore. It was nasty after a bit, then it started to grow. ’Fore I know it, I’m in here talking to Doc Mac, and he tells me that I went and moved down a number. And not like a lotto either, I was in trouble.”
“Yes. Type one diabetes, or the sugar as you called it, means that your pancreas isn’t working well. You should have been watching what you ate and keeping up with your testing every day. Exercising would have helped a great deal as well. Just a little walk around the neighborhood without stopping for a donut or pastry.” He said he knew that, but for as mean as his wife was, she sure could cook. “You’ll have to cut out the sweets, Mr. Canes.”
The look on his face was priceless. He stared at her like she’d just told him he had to cut off his leg, which might yet happen if he didn’t take care of himself. She started to let him know what he could eat for substitutes, but he was still talking about the sweets.
“You’re trying to kill me off, ain’t you?” She assured him that she only had his best interests at heart. “I don’t think you can rightly say that to a man and then tell him he can’t have any more pie and cake. Good Jehoshaphat, woman, you raised by the devil himself?”
By the time she’d convinced him that she’d been raised by regular people, Kenton had come in the room. He said that he’d heard that she had Anderson Canes, and wanted to see if he was following his instructions. Which he had not, apparently.
“She done went and told me that I can’t be having any of Beth’s pie. You know as well as I that people come from other states just to get themselves a slice. Why, last year, she took first prize in the baking contest.” Mr. Canes shook his head. “You tell me that she’s fibbing to me, Dr. Mac, and I’ll be just as happy as that boy with his thumb in the plum.”
“Mr. Canes, we’ve talked about this. I told you that without a proper diet and taking your meds you’d be back in here. Didn’t I tell you that?” Mr. Canes nodded and tried to convince them both that his Beth was the best cook in the world, and to deny him that was as good as killing him. “If you’d like, you can tell her to call in here and we’ll give her recipes for things that would be good for you.”
“Nah, she’d just throw them out. Never used one of them cookbooks either when we first started our family out.” He sat there looking so forlorn that she wanted to go find him a donut. “Well, guess I’ll have to do something. I can’t lose my leg, you know. Have to work, you know. If I have to stay at home, Beth might just double her cooking efforts just to get rid of me. And I won’t be able to tell her no. She sure can bake up a storm when she wants to, Doc. You know that.”
Kenton closed the door behind Mr. Canes when he left. He was going to give it his best shot, he told them. And he was surely going to take a little walk when he could get himself going. The man was eighty-four years old, Gabe knew, and to have gone this long without any trouble with his sugar, as he called it, was a miracle. Besides, if he had to leave work, a bagger at the local grocery store a couple of days a week, she might begin to shop elsewhere. She was sure that everyone would. The man was a charmer.
Kenton leaned heavily against the door and let out a long breath. Gabe thought he was in trouble. She asked him what was wrong. When he spoke, she was sure he had to be kidding.
“Don’t ever, under any circumstances, ever, eat a single thing that comes from the Canes’ household. I mean, not even if you’re starved and that will be the only thing between you and death.” She asked him about the award she’d won. “Everyone is afraid of her. Terrified, really. She enters the cooking contests every year. And when the judges see that she’s made something, rather than having to taste, they declare her the winner. And not a single person protests. Of course, they do award the ribbons to the rightful owners later, but not in front of her. I’m telling you, Gabe, she’s really a horrific cook. Don’t eat her cooking. Ever. And the peanut brittle that she sends here at Christmas? Well, brittle takes on a whole new meaning when you try to bite into it.” Gabe was still laughing when Kenton shivered, his face looking like Beth could be lurking around the corner with a bag of the dreaded stuff. And when he left her to go to his next patient, she sat at her desk and just shook her head. It was a real joy working here.
By lunch she’d seen two more patients and a cat. It took her a few moments to realize it was just a cat, but once she did, taking care of Billy Cannon’s kitten was easy. Rural doctoring wasn’t nearly as stressful as it had been at the big city hospital. She was glad to see Gavin in the waiting room when she passed by there on the way to getting her jacket. Gabe asked him what he was doing there.
“Nothing. I just came by to offer you a date for lunch. Mom is on a buying trip today, and Aunt Emma went along for support. I think they both just love getting out of the house now.” She said she’d love to have a meal with him. “Good, I brought it.”
Kenton joined them for lunch. As they sat there she noticed that Gavin kept watching the clock. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him about a date when he looked right at her and smiled.
“What’s up?” He flushed bright red. “Okay, now I know something is up. What is it, and why did you not tell me right away what it was?”
“I didn’t want you to be mad at Uncle Dalton.” She asked him how she’d be mad. “I can’t tell you. It’s not bad, I promise you, but he needed this.”
“He finally quit.” Gavin nodded at Kenton. “Hot damn. I can’t believe he finally did it. Dalton has been threatening to do just that for years.”
“Dalton quit his job as a cop?” Kenton told her about how he’d been watching the offices since his friend and boss had died. “I thought he enjoyed being an officer of the law.”
“He did for a long time. But after a while, like most jobs, he got sick of it. Mostly the way people treat each other. How he had to go in and take care of every little thing in the offices as well. Dalton told me once that he spent more time doing paperwork that was just a repeat of the same information on every page than he did actually walking the streets.” She nodded, wondering why he’d not spoken to her about it, then realized that it really wasn’t any of her business. They were lovers, not married. “You can’t be mad at him for this. Please?”
“Good heavens no. I think he should do whatever makes him happy. And I’d have no room to talk anyway. I quit my job as well.” She sat there eating chips and peanut butter sandwiches, thinking. “What do you think he’d like to do now? Not that he should hurry into things, but I wonder what it would be. I love being a doctor. More so now that I’m here. I love this town and the people.”
“Short order cook.” Gabe looked at Kenton. “I’m serious. He did it for a while going to the academy to earn some extra cash. Then when he got out, he worked with Gerald at the diner for a little while until a position on the force came open. He loved it, everyone could tell. And while he isn’t nearly the caliber that Lewis or my wife is, he can make the fluffiest pancakes you’ve ever eaten.”
“He’s been cooking for us....” She looked over at Gavin. “You brought us lunch. We didn’t go to the diner, when I know for a fact they were going to open today. Yet here we sit having lunch. He’s there now, isn’t he? Flipping burgers and pancakes.”
“I didn’t want you to be mad at him.” She stood up and Gavin did as well. “Are you going to go there now?”
“Yes, I have a hankering for a burger and fries. Anyone want to join me?” They were walking to the diner when something else occurred to her. Kenton was protecting his brother from her. She looked at him. “Did you know this? About Dalton going to work at the diner?”
“No, I didn’t. I’m glad he is, but I didn’t know.” He took a few steps, then turned to look at her. “You think I knew and didn’t tell you?”
“I thought you were protecting him. I don’t know why, but I thought you were keeping it from me so I’d not stop him.” Kenton shook his head. “I won’t hurt him. Never. I want him to be happy. Like I am.”
“He might not have done it had you been with him.” She asked him why. “Because quitting his job had to be the hardest thing he’s ever done, but was much needed. Had you been there, he might have quit, but I don’t think so. You would have been front in center in his mind. And though I’m pretty sure that you could both make it on your income alone, he wouldn’t have seen it that way. He would have needed, and I do mean needed, to support you. It was perfect timing, but maybe he wouldn’t have gone to the diner yet. It was time for that as well. Dalton isn’t one for taking chances. And I’m betting now that he has you in his life, he’ll take even less.”
“I don’t want him to do that. To change his life around just because he has me in it. If that’s what this thing between us is, permanent, I want us both to be happy.” Kenton told her that was the way things went. “So you’re telling me to suck it up and roll with it?”
“I’d never say something like that to a woman. Not one that I work with anyway. But yeah, that’s what I’m saying.” She told him she didn’t like him. “You know? I get that a lot.”
When he opened the door to the diner for her and Gavin, who was laughing at them, she looked at Kenton. “You love him. And I know that. Right now, I’m not sure what I feel, but I want nothing more for him than to be as happy as he can be.”
“I know that. And if it makes you feel any better, I think Dalton is happy. In fact, I know that he is. You’re the reason for it. He needed you in his life to balance him. As I do my Emma.” She nodded, and just before she turned to go inside, she hugged him, and was glad when he returned it. “I sort of kind of like you too, Gabe.”
“I like you too, but don’t let it go to your head, big guy. I can still hurt you.”
They were both laughing when they entered the very crowded diner. Gabe was glad to see the entire town seemed to be out supporting their dragon.