Barney stared at his phone, not quite able to believe that the woman who’d just been screaming at him over the airwaves had been his sweet, tolerant wife. Then his mouth quirked in a suppressed grin. Maybe she was right about them solving this problem with Sarah together. His parents had faced many fierce storms during their marriage, nearly going bankrupt once, almost losing their Sarah to pneumonia once, and God knew what else. They’d always stood shoulder to shoulder to face problems, and they had always prevailed in the end, even if all they could do was pray together for God’s help.
He grabbed his satchel and started stuffing his clothes and toiletries back into it. As he started down the exterior stairway that led from the loft, Ben emerged from his house and stood on the side porch, arms folded, feet spread, a bewildered expression moving over his sun-darkened face.
“You leaving already? I thought the honeymoon period in the landlord-tenant relationship would last for at least a week.”
Barney stopped at the bottom of the steps to face his brother. “Taffy is screaming at me to come home. I’ve messed everything up, Ben, absolutely everything, but she still wants me there.”
Ben lifted one hand to stroke his jaw, his hazel gaze moving slowly over Barney’s face. “What the hell did you do?”
Barney glanced at his watch. “I don’t have time to tell you. She gave me thirty minutes to get there before she comes to find me and drag me home by my ear.”
Ben threw back his head and guffawed. When his mirth subsided, he shook his head. “Go, then. But I want to hear the details of this story when you’ve got a minute to fill me in.”
Barney made good time getting home without taking the curves of the windy road on two wheels. When he pulled up in front of his house, Taffeta stepped out onto the porch. He cut the engine to stare at her for a moment, realizing that she had been the final, missing touch needed to complete his restoration of the old farm dwelling. Taffy. With her dark hair spilling over her shoulders, her lovely figure outlined against the smoke-blue siding, and the toe of one shoe tapping the plank veranda with impatience, she epitomized what every man with brains dreamed of when he pictured home, the place that would wrap around him like an embrace after a long day and warm him from the marrow of his bones out, the place where he could turn loose of all his worries, the place where he would always find love.
He climbed out of the truck. His wife bounded down the steps to run toward him. He broke into a sprint and met her halfway.
“Don’t you ever leave me again!” she cried as he caught her in his arms. “Never, never, never.”
“I won’t.” He pressed his face against her hair. “It was a stupid idea. It just—well, never mind. I won’t do it again. We have to stand together and solve our problems.”
“Yes.” She breathed the word out on a sigh. “I can’t face the hard things without you, Barney. And as much as I love her, Sarah is a tangled-up mess. It’s going to take both of us to straighten her out.”
He led her into the house, ignoring his urge to take her to the bedroom. Something far more important than his physical needs required attention and had to be discussed.
They sat at the table and talked about Sarah’s fear of lawmen. Taffeta summed it up with “When a person is afraid of snakes, allowing him to avoid snakes will never cure his fear. By removing you from the picture, we were doing the same thing, Barney. We’re essentially telling Sarah that she has good reasons to be afraid of you.”
Barney mulled that over and nodded. “So, where do we go from here? Aside from going there together, what’s your plan?”
She stretched her arm across the table to place her hand over his. “I think your idea to visit her school for parent-day lunches is fabulous.”
“Actually it was Cameron’s idea, not mine, and it backfired, big-time.”
“But you saw the wisdom in it. I think you need to accept the invitation to lecture at Sarah’s school in the auditorium. It’ll make a strong statement to Sarah. She’ll see the principal, the teachers, and all the other students hanging on every word you say. She’ll see their admiration and respect. Even if she doesn’t immediately come around, she’s a smart child, and I think she’ll eventually come to realize that maybe her father had good reasons to be afraid of cops, but she has none.”
Barney sighed. “I’ve never talked to a group of kids. Adults, no problem, but what’ll I say to a slew of children?”
“Tell them about your job. Do you have any pictures of yourself while you were rescuing a cat?”
Barney tried to recall. “I made the front page of the newspaper a few times. They may have photos on file. Once, I had to go up in a boom lift to rescue a kitten at the top of a tree.”
Taffeta’s eyes shimmered with fascination. “What’s a boom lift?”
“It’s a box that can be raised up high. It’s a piece of aerial equipment that will lift a man—well, I don’t know—thirty to fifty feet up.”
Her mouth quivered into a smile. “Tell me about it.”
“Well, by the time we got a boom lift into Mrs. Dominique’s backyard, which meant removing part of her privacy fence, a local reporter was on the scene. I was the officer on call, so it was my job to get into the box and go up. It was icy that night, and the fire department had its hands full with wrecks and couldn’t be bothered with a cat. The sound of the equipment and the box itself terrified the kitten, and it kept climbing higher to get beyond my reach. To gain some height, I climbed up on the edge of the boom box and held on to the spindly treetop to keep my balance.”
Taffeta’s eyes went wide. “Dear God, at possibly fifty feet up? To save a kitten?”
Barney couldn’t help grinning. “This was a very special kitten to Mrs. Dominique. I’m pretty sure she would have had a coronary if I had left Hercules up there to freeze to death—or she would have tried to climb the damned tree herself. So I stood on the edge of the box, holding on to spindly branches for balance. Did I mention that it was icy out?”
“Oh God, you fell.”
He chuckled. “No, but I did slip off the boom box and wound up clinging for dear life to a wobbly treetop.”
Taffeta’s face paled.
“I’m agile. The operator moved the box closer to me, and I was able to swing a leg back into it. The kitten, terrified by all the swaying, decided I was a safer bet than the tree and leaped at me, digging all its claws into my shirt to hold on. I was a hero who wasn’t. I’m pretty sure the newspaper office has heaps of pictures of that, not that any of them are very flattering to me as a deputy.”
“You risked your life for a kitten. That’s pretty awesome.”
“That’s my job, Taffy. I climb trees and risk breaking my neck to save kittens. One time some kids lifted the lid off a gutter drain, and a dog fell into the hole.” He laughed at her horrified expression. “Lucky for me, the department pays for my dry-cleaning bills, because another deputy had to lower me into the manhole to get the dog and bring it back up. It had broken a leg, and before transporting it to the vet, we had to splint the bone. Not much excitement happens in Mystic Creek, so that made it into the newspaper, too.”
“Barney, that’s perfect. Kids will love to hear those stories and see pictures of things like that.”
He shook his head. “They think cops or deputies are like the ones on TV, facing dangerous criminals who are shooting bullets at them. In larger cities, it can be like that on a bad shift. Other times, a cop deals with slightly less exciting stuff. But in Mystic Creek? My job gets so boring sometimes that I’m glad to get a kitten, cat, or dog call. It even relieves the boredom to play referee when two geriatric neighbors get into a dispute over whose garbage can is whose.”
“Do you enjoy your job?” she asked. “I assumed that you do, but I never thought to ask.”
“I love my job. Well, sometimes I get frustrated, but mostly I enjoy dealing with people and crazy situations. You remember Crystal, the natural redhead who runs Silver Beach Salon?”
“Yes.”
“Well, just to show you how nutty my job is, one night she called in about a tarantula loose in her kitchen. Given that we don’t have indigenous tarantulas here, I was dubious. When I got upstairs to her flat, she wouldn’t get off the table to answer the door, so I had to shoulder my way in. There she stood on the kitchen table, clinging to her cell phone, wearing nothing but one of those slip things that you like to fantasy-dance in. She swore to me on her mother’s grave—though I doubt that her mother is dead yet, because she isn’t that old—that a huge tarantula had scurried across her kitchen floor and hidden under her stove.
“Now, that was a lot of work. I moved her stove. No tarantula. I moved her refrigerator. Before I finally found the spider, a little guy that resembled a daddy longlegs, I’d also moved every stick of furniture in her house.”
“She’s gorgeous,” Taffeta whispered. “I mean, I bet she makes every man within a mile of her drool. Did she reward you with sex?”
Barney jerked back to the moment, studied his wife’s sweet face, and realized she had the green monster called jealousy digging its claws into her heart. Shit. “Hell, no. Sex? With Crystal? She isn’t my type.”
“What is your type?”
Barney felt on solid ground again. “A man doesn’t really know what his type is until he finds her. I searched and searched until I found you.”
She tipped her head, gazing dubiously at him. “So you didn’t try Crystal on for size?”
“Nope.” Barney tried never to lie to this woman. She was the heart of his heart. “I tried a lot of women on for size, Taffy, but never Crystal. And just so you know, I never spent the night with any of those women. I engaged in intimacy, yes, always taking safety precautions, but as soon as it was over, I left. No morning wake-up coffee. Few second dates. I never found anyone who called to me the way that you did and still do. Please don’t be jealous of Crystal. She’s a nice lady, and she might be a great friend for you.”
Taffeta finally smiled. “Okay, I felt a stab of jealousy for a second. Crystal is so—” She waved a hand. “Well, she’s everything I’m not, beautiful, smart, friendly, self-confident, fashionable, and—”
“You’re all of those things, too,” Barney inserted. “But you have one other feature that really whammed me.”
“What is it?”
Barney tried to describe it in his mind and came up blank. “I don’t know. It’s a special feeling I get when I look at you or see you smile or hear your voice. It’s what made me fall in love with you.”
She studied his face and nodded. “I understand. That’s how I feel about you, too. So finish the spider story.”
“Well, I found the spider and showed it to her on a paper towel. She screamed and almost fell off the table, telling me to smash it. I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t a dangerous spider, not even one that would bite and leave an itchy spot. So I opened one of her windows and set it outside on the sill.”
“Was she happy with that resolution?”
“As long as the tarantula was out of her apartment, she cared about nothing else. Not even how much it might cost her to repair her door.”
Taffeta sighed and rested her chin on her folded hands to gaze at him. “The kids will love to hear about your job, and I think the reality of being a small-town cop is a better slant for your presentation. Like you said, on TV, cops have shoot-outs with bad guys. The videos seldom feature lawmen like you, who know people personally and help them when they’re scared, or angry, or in trouble. Children need to realize that most cops are their friends, people they can trust. Sarah needs to know that, and maybe, by listening to you talk about your job, she can learn that.”
Barney sighed. “It’s a long shot, sweetheart. That kid is terrified of me.”
“All we can do is try, pray, and be patient.” She toyed with the saltshaker. “Bottom line, we’re husband and wife. We’re committed to each other. It may take time for Sarah to accept that, but in the end, she has to, because you’re a permanent fixture in my life.”
“And if she never accepts it? She’s your daughter. I know how much you love her. I’ll never expect you to put me first, Taffy. It’s your God-given duty to put her first, always.”
“And I am.” Taffeta straightened on the chair. “There are some bad cops out there. We hear about them all the time on the news. But they are the exception, not the rule. They make the news because they either did something bad or are accused of doing something bad. Officers like you don’t make the news because good cops, the real heroes, are too mundane for the sensationalism required to keep news channel ratings high. What kind of life will Sarah have if she grows up and becomes a stripper or a drug user, or both? I need to get her on the right path, and I can only do that with your help. She needs a good mother and a good father—who just happens to be a law officer.”
Barney loved her too much to argue the point, especially since he wasn’t sure his leaving had been the right decision in the first place. “All right. We’re in this together, for better or worse. Now will you dance for me naked?”
Taffeta burst out laughing. She was already pulling that pink top that he loved off over her head as she rose from the chair. Barney wanted her so badly that he scooped her up in his arms before she could ask him to turn on the music. The stereo wasn’t part of his plan anyway. The tango he wanted to engage in would occur on his king-size bed.
• • •
Barney had no clue how to prepare photographs for a slide projector show. He kept saying he needed transparent photos. Taffeta, who had learned how to do slide shows in college, took it upon herself to drive around Mystic Creek, asking people whom Barney had helped if they had any photographs of the events. Amazingly Mrs. Dominique had taken heartwarming photos of Barney with the half-frozen kitten long after the news crew had left her property. Barney, wrapping the kitten in a heating pad. Barney, dripping thin, warm mush into the kitten’s mouth. Barney, holding the kitten close to his neck with his chin tucked in to form a cocoon of warmth with his body heat to save the kitten.
When Taffeta looked at all the photographs that she’d collected from people all over town, including the newspaper office, she came to understand things about Barney Sterling that she’d never imagined. He was a big, strapping man, yet he could gently lift a dog with a broken leg without being bitten. Even more important, if the dog had bitten him, she could tell by the determined expression on his face that he wouldn’t have cared. He was a true hero, helping the injured, or needy, or frightened, and he didn’t do it for the glory. She came to love him even more as she organized the pictures that showed so clearly what a dear person he truly was. She had not made a mistake by trusting in him.
On her laptop at work, she created the story of Barney’s life as a deputy in Mystic Creek with pictures that she had scanned into her computer. She contacted the school to be sure they had the electronic equipment needed to project the slide show onto a large screen, and she was told that not only did the school have the equipment but an experienced operator would be on hand to play the show for the children.
She expected Barney’s objections when she told him, “I think you need to prepare your opening speech and nothing more. I don’t want you to see the images in the slide show beforehand, Barney. I want you to watch the photographs come up with the kids and be spontaneous with them. You’re so warm and natural with everyone. If you go in prepared, you may sound like a recording.”
He had just poured each of them a glass of wine before dinner. Holding his glass halfway to his mouth, he gaped at her. “You want me to fly by the seat of my pants?”
Taffeta wanted to hug him. “That’s how you do your job, by the seat of your pants. I want you to just talk to the children, as if they are your friends. I’ll admit, I have a stake in this, but I don’t think I’m making a bad call. I’ve listened to too many well-rehearsed lectures, and they are often boring. It’ll be more fun for you and the kids if you’re searching for me in the crowd, asking where I found that picture. And then you can tell the kids about it. They’ll love it.” She paused to swallow. “Sarah will love it.”
• • •
The following Tuesday, Barney was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of Irish line dancers. Taffeta accompanied him during the long drive, chattering excitedly about his presentation, saying the kids would absolutely love it. Barney hadn’t seen any of the pictures that she’d scanned into her computer and organized into a slide show. He kept glancing with growing dread at her laptop case, which rested on the floorboard at her feet. Most of the time, he enjoyed being spontaneous, but he felt out of his element stepping onto a stage without any of his lines rehearsed. He could only hope that he didn’t blow the whole thing.
Taffeta chose to sit with her ex-father-in-law in the front row. The school janitor had set up what looked like hundreds of chairs in divided rows where the audience could sit to watch Barney on the stage. The podium, sporting a microphone, sat off to the right so that Barney could make eye contact with the kids as he talked and also see the huge projection screen.
Today he wore his uniform, and he was worried about that. The whole idea behind this performance was for him to win over Sarah, and she started to hyperventilate when she saw any man wearing a badge. Offstage, Barney watched through a crack in the back curtains as the auditorium began to fill with kids. The kindergartners came first and filled the front rows. He had eyes only for Sarah, who made a point of glaring at her grandfather and mother before choosing a chair as far away from them as she could possibly get. She clearly hadn’t yet forgiven Cameron or her mom for what she believed had been a betrayal.
The principal, an attractive, well-dressed blonde in her forties, stepped up to the podium first to introduce Barney. “Today we have a very special guest who is going to speak to you about what it’s like to be a law officer. His name is Deputy Barney Sterling. He is a peace officer in Mystic Creek, a small town on the other side of the Cascade Mountains. Over the last week, all of you have learned a lot about policemen. Today you are going to hear a real lawman speak to you about what his job is like.” She stepped away from the stand and turned toward the curtains. “I proudly welcome Deputy Barney Sterling.”
When the principal began to clap to invite Barney onto the stage, all the kids followed suit. Barney’s knees turned to water. He’d never experienced stage fright. Normally he felt at ease when he spoke to large crowds. But he’d never had so much at stake all those other times.
He stepped out and somehow remembered to shake hands with the principal before he moved behind the podium. Showtime. Only his well-practiced, introductory speech fled from his mind. He drew a complete blank. All he could think of to say was “Hi. My name is Barney.”
Great start, Sterling. He swallowed. His throat felt like sandpaper. Stickiness clung to his tongue. When he moved his lips, they stuck to his teeth. His hands trembled. Sweat beaded on his brow. He looked at Taffeta. She smiled and gave him a thumbs-up. That didn’t help him out at all. He slid his gaze to Sarah, who sat in the second row, her thin arms hugging her waist, her expression contorting her sweet little face into a grimace of hatred. He locked gazes with her, and instead of trying to remember his speech, he said all the things that he’d wished a hundred times that he could tell this little girl.
“A lot of kids are afraid of cops. To me, being a cop who wants to help kids when they’re in trouble, that’s really sad. I know your parents have told you never to talk to strangers, and if you’re smart, you never should. There are a lot of really nice people in our world, but there are also a few bad ones, and terrible things can happen to children who trust them.
“As a deputy, I see all the reports that come in about missing children, and there are so many across our country that it breaks my heart. Most of the time, those kids have been kidnapped, and a huge percentage of them are never found. When I see pictures of those missing kids, I wonder if they were afraid to approach a cop to ask for help right before they were kidnapped.
“Most cops are on the streets to help people. Yes, we arrest people sometimes for committing crimes. Yes, we stop cars and give the drivers tickets for speeding. A lot of kids hear their parents complaining about some cop who stopped them and fined them a lot of money just for the heck of it. But the truth is, when people drive too fast or run red lights, they are putting other people in danger. Your principal introduced me as a peace officer. I like to think that I’m more a safety officer.”
Sarah glared at him. Barney held her burning gaze.
“On television, you’ll see movies about cops in big cities. They shoot guns at criminals. They slam offenders against walls. They act all mean and tough. But most real cops never have to use their guns. Where I live, the town is pretty small. I know most of the people in Mystic Creek, and they are my friends. When they call for help, they usually need me to do little things for them. I’ve never had to fire my gun. I’ve never had to hit someone, not even if they tried to hit me first. Instead I use my training to block the blow, and then I get that person under control, using moves that will cause no physical injury.
“But mostly, my job is pretty boring. I drive the roads to make sure someone hasn’t driven off into a ditch. I look at the houses I pass to make sure the people inside are safe.” Barney smiled at Sarah. “And I eat a lot of really fabulous donuts.”
Barney cleared his throat and directed his gaze at Taffeta. “My wife has prepared a slide show for you. I haven’t seen any of the pictures, so I’ll be winging it as I tell you about each of them. Be prepared. Being a cop isn’t as exciting as you probably think.”
Taffeta rose from her seat and went backstage. An instant later, a picture of Barney in civilian clothes popped up on the huge screen. At first, he couldn’t remember what he’d been doing. He was bent over at the corner of a sidewalk, and hidden behind his legs was an old lady, half sitting up with her feet spread and the tops of her thigh-high support hose showing.
“Ah. That lady’s name is Esther. She lives alone in a tiny, old house. She’s very old and she fell down one afternoon as she started to cross the street in town. I was off duty, so I wasn’t in uniform, but as a deputy, I’m always on duty to help people.” Barney glanced out at the kids. “How many of you are always on duty to help people if they fall down?” Countless hands shot up. Barney grinned and nodded. “So you see? All of us are safety officers, even if we aren’t cops. The biggest difference between all of you and me is that I get paid to help people. So I spend all my shifts looking for trouble and stop to help if someone needs me.”
The next photo came up. Again, Barney wore jeans, riding boots, and a ball cap. He was crouched in front of Percy Holden, one of the town drunks, an older man who dressed like a homeless person and spent far too many nights passed out on a sidewalk in town.
“To protect his privacy, I can’t tell you this man’s name. He is one of the town drunks in Mystic Creek. I probably shouldn’t call him a drunk. It’s more appropriate to say that he has a drinking problem or is an alcoholic.” Barney looked out at the kids again. “How many of you know people who drink too much alcohol?”
Way too many hands went up to suit Barney. He hoped those kids weren’t dealing with alcohol abuse at home. But what really broke his heart was to see Sarah raise her hand.