A Sheriff in Tennessee (4 page)

When the wheel in her head that went round and round whenever she felt a lack of control—and oh, did she feel a lack of control around Gabriel Klein—kept spinning, she'd cursed, tossed off her clothes and rummaged through her bags for shorts, sports bra and T-shirt. From past experience, she
knew she had to run and run until the madness went away.

She'd headed straight out of town so she wouldn't have to make chitchat with the populace. Running was serious business when she was in a mood like this.

She'd always been sensitive; the most offhand personal comment would haunt her for days. After having been called “Big Belle” for years, she ought to have acquired a thicker skin. Instead, losing weight seemed to have made her skin thinner, too.

Why was it that people felt it was all right to ask a thin person how much she weighed? To ask if she'd gained weight, lost weight, eaten for a year? Questions that they'd think twice about asking a heavy person they announced in the middle of a crowd to her, never realizing that could send her to the scale, and from there to a binge-and-purge cycle that might last for days.

She'd learned to control that cycle by jogging whenever the mad wheel began to spin. She'd come to crave the runner's high whenever she felt inadequate. Run long enough and you received an incredible head rush, a sense of well-being and power better than drugs, alcohol or sex. Or at least better than most sex she'd had. Not that she'd had very much.

Belle had jogged in cities all over the world. The change in scenery made for an interesting workout. She had to say, jogging outside of Pleasant Ridge was as appealing as jogging along the Seine and
more peaceful than running through a foggy dawn in London.

Those mountains—they reminded her of home.

Belle shook her head and picked up the pace. No use mourning what she couldn't go back to. For the next little while, home was going to be Pleasant Ridge, Tennessee. Or rather, she'd live in Pleasant Ridge. Belle had learned long ago that home was where your loved ones slept, and hers were in Virginia.

When she was a good distance out, Belle glanced behind her and pulled a U-ie to the opposite side of the highway. She'd calmed down enough to really look at things now. As well as mountains and new grass, there were working farms and play farms—as her daddy always called those the rich folks bought on a lark, then fixed up and sold at a loss.

She wasn't sure what to make of the farm she approached now. The land hadn't been worked in a long while, and the outbuildings and the house weren't being fixed up, either—at least, on the outside. The whole place had a lonesome air, almost abandoned. But the curtains in the windows—there were so many the place had to have twenty rooms—the red, white and blue peonies marching along the sidewalk and the paper in the paper box nixed that theory.

The main building was huge—three stories, with a lived-in attic from the appearance of the highest window, which was also curtained. A wraparound porch sported rocking chairs at every corner—an
other indication the farmhouse had not been abandoned.

Belle swallowed against a sudden thickness in her throat. Her mama would love this house. Shoot, Belle was already half in love with it, and she had no need of such space when there was only her, and probably always would be.

She was so interested in the house that she didn't see the man on the other side of the road until he spoke.

“Like my place?”

Belle tripped over the toe of her running shoe and tumbled headfirst into the ditch. Lucky for her it was a grassy ditch. The only things skinned were her pride and her elbow.

She lay there for what seemed a long time, staring at the clouds and muttering every curse word her brothers had ever taught her, until Klein's head blotted out the sun. His eyes were the same shade of blue as the sky and as calm as the sea at midnight.

The observation annoyed her enough that she snapped, “What did you do—stroll over here? I might have killed myself.”

“I could hear you cursing. No one with breath left to curse is seriously hurt.”

Klein put one foot on the incline, leaned over and held out his hand. He was so tall he could reach her with that minute movement. For some reason, the thought calmed Belle more than her run had.

She placed her palm in his. He hauled her to her feet, straight on out of the ditch, then released her
so abruptly she stumbled again. He caught her, steadied her—fascinated her.

Even though he must have walked out from town—a distance of several miles—he still appeared crisp and clean in his uniform. His ebony hair sparked blue and silver in the sun and his bronzed skin shone. He should be sweating, as she was. He should smell, as she probably did.

Belle took a deep breath. He did smell—terrific—a combination of sun and wind and grass. Or maybe that was just the sun and wind and grass—although those things had never smelled quite so good before. She swayed.

“You twist something?” he barked. “Knee, ankle, arm?”

She shook her head. “Why?”

“Tripping, stumbling, falling—you don't seem the type.”

Belle narrowed her eyes. “What type do I seem?”

“The smooth type. I doubt you got where you are today by tripping down the runway or stumbling through your screen test.”

True enough. She lifted one shoulder, then lowered it again. Her T-shirt stuck to her chest.
Lovely.
“I didn't do a screen test.”

“No? Thought that was standard.”

“They came after
me
for this show. It was mine before anyone else was even cast. The director and I have a rapport. The producers knew what they wanted.”

“
Baywatch
comes to Mayberry,” he grumbled.

The sweat trickling down Belle's spine turned cold. “Is that what they told you?”

“Isn't that what it is?”

Good Lord, she hoped not. But it wouldn't be the first time people in the business had lied to get her to do what they wanted.

Belle patted her chest, trying to soak up some of the sweat and get rid of the annoying trickles. “I was told
Mayberry RFD
meets
Picket Fences.
We tap the good memories for the senior set and the kids who watch a lot of
Nick at Night
with the Mayberry angle, and we gain the mid-age group with the
Picket Fences
aspect. That show was brilliant—funny and dramatic. Didn't you watch it?”

Klein stared across the road at the big, white house and not at her. “I don't watch much television.”

“No VSC, no SI, no TV. What
do
you do for fun, Klein?”

“I don't do fun.”

“I'll just bet you don't.”

He snorted, and she could have sworn it was a laugh, but when she sharpened her gaze on his face, there was no humor to be seen. How did he
do
that?

Belle was very good at emotion—both real and pretend. What she couldn't get a handle on was how to remain stoic in the face of disaster. She needed to learn, and she wasn't too proud to beg.

“Listen, Klein, I'd like your help. I know we didn't start off on the right foot, but could we try again? Maybe be friends?”

Friends?
Had she actually said that? She couldn't recall meeting a less friendly man.

“Friends?” he murmured, and looked at her at last.

The idea of friendship must seem as outlandish to him as it did to her. But he also appeared intrigued, which only made her wary.

Belle knew what she wanted from him, but what did Klein want from her? With most men, she'd know. With Klein, she might never be sure.

“Y
OU SAID
you weren't hurt.”

“I'm not.”

Klein took a step closer and reached for her arm. “Then, what's this?”

He turned her elbow, big hands gentle and sure. Running down Belle's forearm was a bright-red trickle of blood.

“Hmm,” she said, and raised her gaze to his.

He was watching her face in that way he had that made her think he was trying to see inside her. Belle's youngest brother looked just that way at machinery—large and small—right before he took it apart to discover what made it tick.

“Hmm,” he repeated. “Funny, that's just what I thought.”

She smiled, and amazingly, he smiled back. Perhaps their being friends wasn't such a foolish, farfetched idea after all.

But as quickly as he'd smiled at her, he stopped. As quickly as he'd reached for her arm, he dropped it. As quickly as he'd moved toward her, he turned away.

“You'd better clean that out and put a bandage on it before you get blood all over your designer sneakers.”

Belle's own smile faded. “Thank you for the advice, but I could figure that out for myself. And I have other sneakers.”

“I'll just bet you do.”

Why did that sound like an insult?

“Come on,” he grumbled, and headed for the white farmhouse on the opposite side of the road.

Belle hesitated. “Come where?”

He stopped, turned and stared at her as if she were dim. “
My
place.” He jabbed a thumb at the farmhouse. “Remember?”

Suddenly she heard clearly what he'd said before she fell into the ditch. “Oh! So this is yours?”

His nod was slow and deliberate. Though she really should turn up her nose and jog on back to Pleasant Ridge, the idea of dripping blood behind her like Hansel and Gretel's trail of bread crumbs held very little appeal. Her elbow was starting to sting, and in truth, she really wanted to see the inside of that house.

Belle hurried across the road and joined him at the gate. There was actually a white picket fence around the yard. It could use painting, perhaps not white this time but sky blue or yellow, with ivy, stenciled or real, winding up every third picket.

Lost in her dream decorating, Belle didn't realize at first that Klein hesitated outside the fence. She glanced at him just as he unloaded his pistol and tucked the clip into one pocket.

She frowned. Did he have children? That would make him married, something she hadn't been told. The disappointment that flowed through her should not be so strong. Shouldn't be, but was.

Her confusion deepened when he drew a large bandanna out of another pocket and wrapped the gun in the cheery red material. Then he unlatched the gate and stepped into the yard.

Belle opened her mouth to ask what on earth he was doing, but before she could, the air was filled with the braying bark of a hound dog.

Expecting to see it tear around the side of the house toward them, ears flapping madly, huge feet pattering wildly, tongue lolling, jowls dripping, Belle was bewildered when no dog appeared.

“Quiet, Clint,” Klein ordered, and the braying stopped.

“Where is he?”

“On the porch.”

Belle peered at the house, and sure enough, a hound dog lay at the top of the porch steps, head on his paws as he calmly observed them with sad, sad eyes.

“He isn't going to greet you properly? Run down here, knock you over, drool on you a little?”

“Knock
me
over?” Klein slid a glance her way. “I don't think so.”

Belle let her gaze wander over Klein. “I see your point.”

Klein grunted and stalked toward the house, presenting her with his back—and a very nice back it was. The uniform hugged him in all the right places. He certainly was a big man. When had she become attracted to tall, strong, broad, undoubtedly hard bodies like his? She couldn't quite recall when she hadn't been.

The dog kept his eyes on the bandanna and not
on Klein. As soon as Klein's foot hit the bottom step, the animal leaped up and ran to hide behind the nearest rocking chair, where he peeked around the corner, trembling.

Klein sighed. “Relax, Clint. It's not loaded.”

Confused, charmed, amazed, Belle hung back and watched as Gabe Klein hid his bandanna-shrouded gun in an old milk bucket next to the front door, then went down on one knee and beckoned to the dog.

Clint crept out from behind the chair and meandered over to Klein. Belle's lips twitched. What was that saying about people resembling their dogs? These two were quite a pair—sad eyes, relaxed manner, steady and sure, trustworthy.

Klein rubbed behind the dog's ears, and the animal lifted his nose and laid his cheek along Klein's. Closing his eyes, Clint sighed. Belle's heart did a slow roll. She knew love when she saw it.

After a single quiet moment, Klein stood. “Take off, boy,” he ordered. With a dubious glance in Belle's direction, the dog wandered over to the cool shade beneath the eaves, circled once and collapsed in a heap of loose skin and russet fur.

Belle looked at Klein. Eyes wary, he shrugged.

“Let me guess,” Belle said. “He's gun-shy.”

“Big-time.”

Her father and brothers had a pack of dogs for hunting. She'd been around them all her life. “You know, some dogs have to be eased into hunting, not forced.”

“Really? I'll have to remember that the next time
I take a puppy out and blast my shotgun over his head until he cries and hides under the truck.”

Belle frowned. She couldn't imagine Klein doing any such thing. But, then how—?

Klein opened the front door, and Belle forgot about the dog for a moment. “You don't lock your door?”

Klein, halfway in and halfway out of the house, paused. “Not in Pleasant Ridge, Ms. Ash. That would be an offense against myself. Besides, Clint's here all day.”

“Oh, I bet he's a lot of help. They pull a gun—he hides behind the rocking chair.”

Klein winced, then glanced at Clint as if he expected the dog to understand. Unable to help herself, Belle looked that way, too, and was immediately contrite when she met the sad, sad eyes of the hound dog. He seemed to have understood her words and been crushed by them.

Foolishness. The dog didn't understand her.
All
hound dogs appeared sad
all
the time. Sad was what they did best.

“Lesson number one.” Klein held up a finger. “Any thief who knows his business knows it doesn't pay to carry a gun on a job like this. You get a lot more years if you're caught with a weapon. And any burglar worth his salt would pass on by a house with a braying hound dog and rob the one without. It's not worth the noise or the trouble. Besides—” he swept his arm out in a “be my guest” gesture “—I have nothing worth stealing.”

Belle raised her eyebrows as she entered the cool, dark interior of his home. He was right. There was
very little inside worth stealing. No stereo, no VCR, no television, not even a CD player graced the living room, and there was no computer in sight. Maybe he kept his electronics upstairs.

But she had to say, the lack of ultramodern conveniences did not detract from the beauty of the place. Though the outside looked untidy, the inside was fresh, clean and remodeled.

The walls of the living room were a muted white, the furniture navy-blue leather, the coffee tables chrome and glass. They definitely had not come with the house.

The entryway had been painted to resemble fading redbrick. She reached out and touched the walls. They were even rough like brick. That must have taken hours—she followed the design all the way up along the curving oak banister to the second level—make that
days
to accomplish.

Unaware that Belle stood in the hall with her mouth hanging open, Klein strode ahead of her toward the back of the house. The place was quiet; it felt deserted.

“You live alone?” she called.

“Nope.” Klein kept on walking. “I live with Clint.”

Relief washed over her. No wife, no girlfriend, no kids—just the gun-shy hound dog and the sad-eyed man. Belle told herself her relief merely stemmed from knowing that a wife or a girlfriend, even kids, would not be happy to let Gabe Klein spend two weeks in her company, but deep down she knew better. Belle hurried to keep up with him, glancing into rooms along the way.

The kitchen had a Formica table, which might have been left from older days, except that the entire room had been remodeled like a fifties diner. Across the hall was a library—all four walls covered with black chrome bookcases filled with books. In the center sat a giant bean bag chair and a funky reading lamp.

She'd never seen so many books together outside of a public library. Had Klein read them all? The possibility only made her feel more inadequate.

Belle glanced away from the books just as Klein disappeared through a door at the end of the hall. She hurried after him, nearly slamming into his back when she came through the door. Leaning over a sink, he peered into the medicine cabinet behind the mirror, then glanced over his shoulder.

“Take a seat.”

Belle looked around. They stood together in a half bath, and the only seat was one she didn't plan to take with Klein in the room.

“I'll stand.”

He shrugged, and the movement of his wide shoulders so close to her nose made Belle realize how small the room was. She stepped away, and her back bumped the door casing. The place just wasn't made for a man of his size and anyone else, let alone a woman who might be slim but had never been small.

“Suit yourself.” He returned his attention to the medicine cabinet and snatched out a white tube. “The only antiseptic I've got is going to sting.”

“I'll live.”

He muttered something she couldn't quite catch,
but she didn't ask him to repeat himself. She had an idea that anything he muttered she really didn't want to hear.

“Scoot up on this.” He patted the smooth expanse of ceramic around the sink.

Avocado green and gold, this room obviously had not been visited by the remodeling fairy—unless of course she had a penchant for seventies chic. Belle really couldn't see anyone purposely decorating a room with avocado velvet wallpaper. She shuddered.

Klein's sharp blue eyes pinned her. “Cold?”

“No.”

She didn't want to insult him, just in case he planned on leaving the room like this, so she didn't elaborate. Inching past his large body to get to the chipped gold vanity, she was unable to prevent her breasts from brushing his wide chest. Belle gritted her teeth to keep another shudder, of a completely different type, from racking her body. Damn, this room really was too small for the two of them. She hiked her butt onto the sink's edge and lifted her gaze, to find him scowling at her again.

“What?” she growled. She had
not
done that on purpose, even if she had enjoyed it.

He shook his head and reached for a washcloth on the towel rack to her right. The movement brought his chest close to her face. For an instant she imagined what it would be like to have him in the same position, minus the sheriff's shirt. It was a very nice image.

What had gotten into her? She was not the type of woman who indulged in sexual fantasies about
strangers. She certainly didn't indulge in sex of any kind—real or imagined—with men she had to work with. That made for very bad business and a tackier reputation than the gossips had already given her.

Bummer, because Belle had a feeling Klein might be worth all the trouble he would cause. She expelled a breath on an irritated sigh, and he leaped away from her as if she'd slapped him. The scowl still in place, he jabbed the cloth at her.

“Here. Wash it off first.”

She did as he ordered, fumbling a bit since the scrape was on her right elbow and she was right-handed. Her left hand had never been good for much more than balance.

Additional muttering erupted from Klein, and he snatched the cloth away. Grabbing her wrist, he twisted her arm so he could do what she'd been playing at.

Belle braced herself for the onslaught, but instead of scrubbing the cloth over her wound, he dabbed and pressed, patient, gentle and sure, until the blood had disappeared.

When he reached for the antiseptic, then squeezed a dollop onto the callused tip of one finger, she tensed.

“Why Clint?” she blurted, hoping that if she talked about the dog, she'd forget about that long, elegant finger smoothing over her quivering, injured skin.

He glanced up, and she could have sworn he blushed, but it was hard to tell in the dim light of the room. He grasped her wrist, squinted at her arm. “He doesn't seem like a Clint to you?”

Belle resisted his ministrations until he looked at her once more. “I'd really like to know.”

Their gazes warred, then he shrugged and tugged on her arm again. This time she let him twist her until she was positioned like half a pretzel.

“Somebody dumped him.” He dabbed the antiseptic on her raw elbow. Belle hissed and he stopped. “Sorry.”

She tried to blow on the sting as her mama always had, but couldn't reach the affected area. Klein leaned over and did it for her. The sting faded as goose bumps rose across her skin, and a buzz started low and deep in her belly. What
was
it about this man that made her feel like a woman and behave like a hormone-crazed teenager?

She pulled on her arm, then inched away from his mouth before she gave in to the temptation to press her own to his. “I'm okay.” She sounded hoarse, with a trace of the twang she'd worked so hard to lose, and not okay at all. Belle cleared her throat. “Go on.”

That was better, crisp and clear, down to business. No trace of an accent, no more of that lingerie-model huskiness.

Seemingly unaffected by the intimacy of their situation and the too-close quarters of the room, Klein went on with the first aid and his story. “Virgil brought him in. Poor thing was shaking and staring at Virgil's gun like it was going to bite him. I was new here, had this big place, and I always wanted a dog.”