Thomas Applegate was a truly nice guy. The kind of guy a person didn’t come across very often. Even as he explained to Sheridan that he’d only been able to spare a hundred dollars for the down on his luck ex-con who hadn’t shown up for his job the next day, Thomas worried that the hundred dollars hadn’t been enough.

Sheridan took down all the details Thomas had, and he confirmed with the picture Marlene had printed off that yes, that was indeed the man that he’d hired for a job, Wade Shipton. He also provided Sheridan with the address where the man was supposedly staying.

As soon as Thomas reeled off the numbers, Sheridan knew the address was bogus. Honeywell was small enough that he knew every street and alley, as well as about ninety percent of the residents.

“Yeah, that’s a fake address,” Sheridan told the younger man.

The crestfallen look on Thomas’ face would have been funny but for the fact that Thomas seemed genuinely hurt.

“Really?”

“Yes.” He lifted his brows at Thomas. “You’ve lived here all your life right?”

Thomas shrugged and gave him a grin. “Yes, sir, but I only deliver outside of town.”

Well, he supposed that made sense. Not much call for feed or grain deliveries in town.

Sheridan left frustrated, which he didn’t normally allow himself to be. This one was too personal.

Sheridan headed toward Jeanette Holcomb’s house on the other side of town. Her granddaughter Chrissy lived with her in the apartment above the garage. Sheridan knew her as a polite young woman working her way through school. Chrissy had called their department many times in the past few years for issues at Spurs.

As soon as he pulled into the drive, Jeanette came out onto the porch. She was a spry thing for being seventy plus, her sterling white hair trimmed tight to her head and bright pink exercise shoes on her feet. Sheridan knew he’d probably interrupted her morning dog walk with Chester, her poofy poodle-something-doodle. Chester yapped inside as Jeanette crossed the porch and came down the steps.

“Hello, Sheriff. Thank you for being so prompt in your follow-up.”

“Good morning, Miss Jeanette. You knew I’d be here early, huh?”

She nodded. “Of course. We have a criminal at large. My Chrissy is awake but she’s tired. Go do your interview so she can to sleep.”

He tipped his hat to her. “Yes, ma’am. It was a pleasure seeing you, ma’am.”

She gave him a saucy look before retrieving her dog and heading down the street.

Sheridan knew that the walks were totally a ruse to stay on top of the news of Honeywell. Miss Jeanette would power down four blocks to the town square, circle it, and then head back to her own home in a roundabout way, talking to people all along the way. Rain or shine, she and Chester were out there taking the pulse of the town. Usually twice a day.

Sheridan secretly thought she considered herself an early warning system or something. If he ever implemented a neighborhood watch program he had a feeling the ladies from the Naughty Book Club would be the first in line.

Sheridan tromped up the garage’s exterior staircase, making a little extra noise so that Chrissy would know it was him. She answered his knock immediately, looking tired but alert, and held it open for him to enter. “Come on in, Sheriff.”

“Thanks for talking to me, Chrissy. I know you’re supposed to be sleeping so I won’t take much of your time. Tell me about the guy last night.”

She sighed, crossing her arms. “I’ve heard about Cheyenne’s ex, but I don’t remember seeing him. I think I was living with Dad in Amarillo then. This guy looks like the picture Mawmaw showed me. Big an’ burly, but he walks with a limp. He talked like he’d been gone a long time, said his family lives outside of town. I know some of those Shiptons. They’re not bad people.”

“No,” Sheridan agreed. “They’re not bad. Just a little misguided sometimes.”

Chrissy nodded, a frown on her young face. Dirty blond hair was mussed around her face, makeup smudged beneath her eyes, and Sheridan felt bad about keeping her up. “Any chance you saw what he was driving or anything?”

She shook her head. “No, sir. I sure didn’t.”

That would have been too much to hope for.

“Okay, thank you Chrissy.” He handed her a business card. “If by chance you see him again or he comes into Spurs, can you call me?”

“Absolutely.”

She curled the card into her hand and walked him to the door.

“Thanks, Chrissy.”

“You’re welcome, Sheriff.”

Once in his truck, Sheridan pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called Marlene at the office. “Any word on anything?”

“The warden of the prison called, offering his deepest regrets in not informing you that Wade was getting out. He says it was a clerical error and it awaiting your call back.”

“Clerical error, my ass. He’s got inept people working for him and it’s going to get someone killed.”

“Yes, sir. He did give me the name of the parole officer in charge of his case. A man by the name of Eric Groves, out of Amarillo. I’ll text you his contact information. As of nine a.m., he has until the end of business today to report in before he’s in violation of his parole.”

One more day. Just a few more hours. Should he continue to try to track Shipton down? Or hope he missed checking in so that Sheridan would have a real reason to lock him up? As of right now he hadn’t done anything Sheridan could prove.

“Okay, thanks Marlene. If you hear anything else, let me know. Who’s out east right now?”

“Um,” she paused and he could hear clacking on her keyboard. “Looks like Hampton is out there now.”

“Have him swing by the Shipton place in a routine patrol. No contact, just see what vehicles are in the drive.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thanks, Marlene.”

“No problem, sheriff.”

Pulling away from the curb, Sheridan debated on what to do. Wade Shipton was a bad apple, and it felt wrong to not do anything to get rid of him or track him down. Cheyenne’s attack that summer night had been one of the worst he’d ever seen.

After Nora had died, he’d gone through life in a bit of a fog. He was conscious and everything, took care of himself and his daughter, but his emotions were burned out, as if he’d been overloaded. It wasn’t until he’d responded to the call that a woman had been raped and beaten that the fogginess had begun to dissipate.

He’d been the first to arrive at the address given to him by dispatch. They didn’t know who the woman was or who had beaten her. An anonymous tip had been called in, and they’d never figured out the caller’s identity. The address was listed to Wade and Cheyenne Shipton.

Slamming his truck to a stop in front of the house, he’d grabbed his heavy-duty flashlight from the charger at the side of the center console. The yard of the house had been overgrown, but even in the dark night it had been easy to see the woman’s body. Her skin glowed in the light of the half moon, so pale except where she was covered with blood. She was stick thin, the hollows of her body deep.

Sheridan remembered sweeping the area with his light, then going down hard on his knees beside her, praying that there was still life in her body. He’d touched his fingers to her neck, feeling the butterfly flutter of a pulse there, then turned her chin skyward.

That was when he’d realized that it was Cheyenne, Brock’s sister, the woman he’d seen at the gas station less than a week previous with horrible marks on her face. It was the woman that had kept him up at night, eaten with guilt that he hadn’t gone and beaten the shit out of her husband.

Now he was going to be up even more nights, because this was his fault.

“You’re gonna be okay, Cheyenne, I promise. We’re going to take care of you.”

Bolting to his truck, he retrieved his rain jacket, the only thing at hand to cover her with. In the distance he could hear the squad on their way.

She didn’t rouse when he covered her, but when the ambulance drew close she opened her eyes at the noise. Groaning, her head rocked back and forth. She seemed to be trying to say something, but she lifted a hand like her mouth hurt. Sheridan could see that her jaw seemed crooked.

“Don’t try to talk. We’re going to take care of you.”

She lifted a hand and pointed at the house. “Kids,” she hissed.

Shit.

“I’ll go inside and check on them. And I’ll call your family to come get them. Okay?”

Her eyes fluttered shut in agreement and he brushed her hair from her temple, unable to help himself. Cheyenne was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen, but right this moment she struck him as a broken bird.

Sheridan remembered that night like it had happened two days ago, rather than seven years ago. It had been a devastating occurrence in Honeywell. Wade had broken her jaw and it had required surgery to repair. As they’d waited for the surgeon, he’d asked her questions. She’d had to write out her answers on a notepad. Wade had come home from the bar and tried to force himself on her, but she’d fought. Just not hard enough. Wade had beat her unconscious, breaking her jaw in the process, then raped her. She wasn’t sure how she’d ended up out in the yard, but it seemed like something Wade would do just to humiliate her.

Sheridan had deployed every deputy he’d had at the time, but he had been the one to find Wade’s truck at a motel twenty miles away from Honeywell. He’d called in backup, then gone inside to speak to the manager. The man was more than happy to tell Sheridan the room number, and in seconds it seemed like he was pounding on the door. When Wade didn’t answer, he had the manager open the door.

Wade had been sprawled on the bed passed out, the t-shirt he still wore spattered with Cheyenne’s blood. A haze of red had gone over Sheridan’s vision, and he’d gone ballistic. He didn’t remember dragging Wade out to the parking lot, or fending off the blows the man rained on him when he finally became aware, but he did remember fists flying as they tried to control the man. Patterson, the veteran sergeant at the time, pulled him off the man. Wade ended up going to the hospital that night as well, but his injuries hadn’t been as devastating as Cheyenne’s.

Sheridan’s heart was thudding. He wasn’t sure if he came across Wade that he wouldn’t beat the shit out of him again.

That was another reason for his guilt. Sheridan prided himself on being a good cop, but what Wade had done to Cheyenne pushed him over a line he’d never crossed before. For the first time in his career he hadn’t been able to control his emotions.

After years of thinking about it and dwelling on it, he knew why, but it didn’t make it any easier.

Pulling into the department’s lot, he secured his vehicle and headed inside. Perhaps if he applied himself to other work it would give his emotions a while to even out.

* * *

Cheyenne waited, breath held, it seemed, all day. It felt like the other shoe was just … about… to drop.

The kids were good and kept her interested. She liked working with smaller classes. It gave the teacher more time to work one-on-one with the students, which increased their learning potential astronomically. Already her seven kids, all third graders, were doing things that they hadn’t been able to before.

At lunch time she took a break from the kids and headed up to the main office. Joy smiled at her when she came in. “You received a package dear. I was just going to call you. Do you think we should call the sheriff?”

Cheyenne’s heart raced with anxiety as she looked at the plain brown box. Wade’s distinctive scrawl marked the top. It looked like the envelopes that had arrived for her at the Blue Star, that she’d always sent back unopened. “Where did it come from?”

Joy pointed at the front door. “A young man just dropped it off, as well as those.” She pointed at the little glass of carnations at the end of the counter.

Cheyenne stared for a moment, wondering if she’d been knocked into a twilight zone and just didn’t realize it. Wade had never brought her flowers. She tried to think who else it could be, but no one came to mind.

The thought of crossing the space to the counter and actually opening the box made her nauseous.

“Let’s call Sheridan,” she decided. “I don’t want any part of that.”

Joy nodded with understanding and reached for the phone. Cheyenne sent Joy’s granddaughter down to her class to tell them to read quietly until she returned. Then she paced, and looked out the glass front of the school.

Sheridan was there within just a few minutes, the gold Sheriff’s Department truck gleaming in the sun. As soon as she saw his big, confident body walking up the sidewalk, some knot of tension eased deep within her. She didn’t walk into his arms, but as soon as he walked in the doors she moved near him.

He gave her a smile and rested a hand on her shoulder, which was enough for her to walk into the office with him.

“When did the box get here?” he asked Joy.

“Eight twenty-one. It was a delivery boy that used to go to school here. I knew him.”

Sheridan pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and pulled them on, before reaching for the card on the flowers. “Did you read this yet?”

Cheyenne shook her head. She hadn’t even noticed the card.

Sheridan gave the flowers a good look before plucking the card from the post. Once again, Cheyenne’s heart was racing and she felt like she was going to be sick.

Sheridan turned the card so that she could read it.

I’m sorry. I miss you, wife. W

Wow. She snorted in disbelief. Only very rarely had Wade ever said he was sorry for anything, and that had mostly been in the beginning of their marriage when she’d actually meant something to him. Later on, he hadn’t spoken a word of apology for anything. She shook her head at the ridiculous thing.

Wife? Seriously? Her emotions began to boil.

Sheridan replaced the card and reached for the box. He cut the flaps open with a slice of his knife. Blue tissue paper poked from the hole, and he started pulling it out, letting it fall to the floor. Inside was another envelope, this one business size. On the front it said, ‘To my Girls’.

Fury seized Cheyenne as she read the words. “No way! He did not write that!”

Sheridan opened the envelope and pulled out a piece of plain stationery. His eyes flicked over it quickly before he turned the page for Cheyenne to read.

‘To Caroline, Savanna and Grace,’ she read.

“He can’t even spell their names right,” she snapped.

“I know I haven’t been the best dad, but I hope you’ll forgive me for that. I’ve had a long time to think about my actions towards you and your mother, and I feel bad. Real bad. I never meant for any of it to happen. I was a rodeo star and a bull horned me, ruining my career. As soon as I wasn’t on top no more, people forgot about me.

Your mother was always a wonderful woman and I hope she told you good stories about me. Someday we’ll get together and reconect. I’ll be in Honeywell with my family for a while. When you’d like to talk, call my parents number, your grandparents, listed below.

Love, You Dad’

Frustrated, shaking, Cheyenne could only stare in horror at what he’d written. “That son-of-a-cracker! How dare he? He signed away all parental rights when he signed the divorce papers. He said there was no way he was paying child support for those three brats. Those were his exact words.”

Her cheeks were wet and her eyes were blurry. She was so royally pissed that she was crying, which made her all the madder.

Sheridan folded the note and slipped it back into the envelope before reaching into the box. He withdrew three stuffed animals: an elephant, a seal and a wolf.

“Looks like that’s all that’s in there,” Sheridan said softly. He peeled the gloves from his hands.

Cheyenne felt ridiculous for calling him out to open a box of stuffed animals. Embarrassed and angry, she stomped into the meeting room off the main office. Sheridan followed her and shut the door behind them. Immediately, she began to pace.

“How dare he expect to come back like nothing happened? That’s typical Wade right there, the golden boy who had it all.” Her voice turned mocking. “Yeah, I went to jail, but that was no big deal. They’ll forget about all that when I come back.”

Sheridan leaned his butt against the conference table, arms crossed over his chest. With a spark of humor, she noticed that he stayed out of her pacing and flailing arm range.

“And the girls’ ‘grandparents’?” she asked scornfully. “They’ve never even acknowledged them. I’m the bad guy because I sent their boy to prison, so the girls are bad, too. I’ve sent them messages and even called a couple of times to try to talk to them, and they refused to answer me.”

“I think you’re better off,” he told her softly. “Wade wasn’t the only one with addiction problems.”

She stared at him, shocked. “Really?”

He nodded, removing his hat to drop onto the table beside him. “Yes. They keep it pretty quiet but Wade’s father has been picked up for possession several times, mostly in Amarillo. And his mother had children’s services called on her years ago, long before I was sheriff. Probably when Wade was a kid. Didn’t he have a brother?”

Cheyenne nodded. “I think so. Several years older. I never met him. He lived in a mental home or something.”

“I think he was removed from the home when he was a kid and adopted out.”

This just kept getting more and more effed up. So, it was a good thing she’d never connected with his family then.

She paused at the window, looking out. “What the hell am I going to say to my girls?” she whispered.

Sheridan sighed and she felt him move up beside her. “Why do you need to say anything?”

She looked at him blankly.

“You’re protecting your daughters from an unstable person. What’s wrong with that?”

Cheyenne looked back out the window, her thoughts reeling. Maybe he was right. Why did she have to say anything? They had no idea what the man’s plans were, but it sounded like he wanted to try to worm his way back into their world.

Which she had no intention of allowing.

Slowly, she nodded. “I think you’re right. Maybe if we ignore his advances he’ll get the point and just fade away.”

Sheridan gave her a slight smile. “You could be right, but I have a feeling you’re eventually going to have to confront him.”

Cheyenne could feel the blood leave her face. Her jaw suddenly throbbed with remembered pain. It had taken her jaw two months to heal enough to be able to eat normally. She could feel the blows raining down upon her, merciless. And she could feel the sharp Texas grass beneath her naked body as she looked up at the night sky, helpless.

“Hey, look at me.”

Sheridan loomed in her face, his kind hazel green eyes fierce. He made her look at him and recognize him before he reached out to cup her face in his hands. “I want you to remember that you’re safe. I didn’t protect you like I should have last time, but there’s no way on earth he’s getting to you this time. You control the situation Cheyenne. You do. Not him. He’s trying to put you off balance by sending you those things, but you’re better than he is. We are better than he is. Do you hear me?”

She nodded, her hands reaching up to grip his broad wrists. “I hear you. I do.”

Cheyenne wasn’t sure who moved first, but suddenly she was in his arms and he was holding her tight, and it wasn’t freaking her out like she’d expected. Sheridan’s body was solid and warm, and she had no doubt that he would protect her at all cost.

For the first time in a long time, she allowed some of the never-ending fear and tension to ease. The thing about being a single parent was that you had to be on all the time. You served double duty, so to speak, and there were no breaks, no time off. Sheridan understood that, and he was giving her as much support as she would take.

She felt him press a kiss to her head before he pulled back. “I’m going to check his parole papers, but I’m almost positive there will be something in his release about having no contact with you. I’ll check the details and we can make a determination if you want me to charge him on that violation. Or, if you feel like we need to approach this a different way, we can.”

She nodded, his words flowing through her. If she wanted she could have him picked up and charged again, but that wouldn’t really get them anywhere. When he got out he’d still want to contact the girls.

“I wonder if I shouldn’t talk to him,” she murmured, her throat thick with emotion. It was exactly what she didn’t want to do, but maybe it would show him how serious she was. Life had always been a game to Wade, and he still thought he was playing.

Sheridan tucked some of her hair behind her ear. “Whatever you think you want to do. I can speak to the judge on your behalf. We’ll check on the paperwork and go from there.”

Cheyenne nodded, her eyes burning with tears.

Sheridan cupped her face again and leaned down to smile at her gently. “We’ll get you through this, Cheyenne, and you’ll be coming from the position of power this time.”

She blinked, surprised, and realized he was right. At this moment, she held all the cards. A smile spread across her lips at the unfamiliar feeling. “Okay. Thank you, Sheridan.”

He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Don’t thank me. Not right now.”

Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he led her to the door. “I’m going to head back to the office and check out the restrictions on his release. Finish out your day and I’ll be here to pick y’all up at three.”

“Okay. We’ll be waiting for you.”

Settling his hat on his head, he left the school, and Cheyenne realized suddenly that it was just as nice to watch him walk away when he left.