Free I Caught the Sheriff by Cerise DeLand Page A

under Ted’s while Zack took the
man’s other arm. “What say we take you home?”
    “No! Party’s jush getting started, Lex. Lemme go.” He tugged
to get loose.
    Lex held him tighter. “You are making a scene here, Ted. Time
to go.”
    In a wrench that broke him free of Lex and Zack, Ted lurched
toward Lana Foster who had, in the meantime, climbed down from her horse.
    This time when Ted went to grab her, he got her around the
neck.
    She yelped, but braced her legs and in a lightning move,
shrugged and threw the man off her back. Zap. Ted was on the dusty
ground, scrambling up, dirty and mad as a wet hen.
    “You bitch!” He sprang for her, catching the end of her long
red ponytail.
    Lex caught him by the scruff and let him dangle like a rag
doll from his hand. “Home. Now.”
    “I’ll take him, Lex.” Zack grabbed the man’s arm. “Let’s go,
buddy.”
    “You sure you can handle him?” Lex wondered if one man was
enough to control their burly friend.
    Ted was rubbing his arms where he’d scraped them and seemed
to have sobered up after the fall. “Yeah. He can. Let’s go, Zack.”
    Lex turned for Lana who was brushing dust off her jeans and
her black Stetson. “You okay?”
    “’Course I am.” She met his gaze with those huge, incredible
sky-blue eyes that had stopped him in his tracks the first time he’d seen her
and every time since.
    “Just want to be sure. Ted is pretty big.”
    She paused to stare at him. “I am not a weakling but a
one-hundred-and-thirty-pound fully trained law enforcement officer.”
    “No need to get your back up with me, Sheriff.” Although
I know you remember how opposed I was to your appointment on the basis of your
young age alone. “I just wanted to be a concerned citizen.”
    She plunked her hat on her head and glared at him with more
than a hint of challenge in her eyes. “You’ve made your point.”
    Her prickly attitude pierced his good intentions. “Just
because we quarreled the other day, ma’am, does not mean that I’m rude, crude
or indifferent to a lady’s dilemma. Ted Plumber can be a clumsy old drunk. If
you don’t want any man’s protection that is just fine, but do not snap at me
when, in fact, you should be saying thank you.” He jammed his hat on his head
and swung around to walk away.
    She caught him with a hand to his arm. “I’m sorry, Mr.
Coltrane. Please. You’re right.” She took a few steps around him to face him
and this time, she looked up at him with those magnificent baby blues and
melted his guts. “Thank you for your kind help. I do appreciate it.”
    The voice was smooth, smoky bourbon and just as
intoxicating. The look on her face was serene and warm. She put her hand out.
“Can we start again? Forget now and the other day in my office?”
    He’d stormed in to her little lair, loaded for bear, ready
to yell about his new neighbor. She had been kind, professional, asking for
just the facts. She had listened to Lex with rapt attention. Then she had shown
him the door, saying she would look into the problem of the rhinestone cowboy
who dammed up the creek and deprived Lex’s cows of water.
    The failure of that meeting had been his. His and his bad
temper. He could be a reasonable man. Had always been, until six years ago when
his wife and son died out on Highway 90 in a rainstorm, hit by a
tractor-trailer. That’s when his reason rode out and abandoned him, returning
only recently with greater frequency.
    “Sure. Any disagreement has a fifty-fifty fault line. I’d
like a peace treaty.” He took her hand, surprised by its fragility and liking
its warmth. “Are you going to the celebration with anyone? Maybe I can make up
to you for my wild-ass behavior last week by buying you lunch?”
    She nodded, a tendril of her long, fiery hair escaping its
band to slide over her cheek and down inside the open vee of her
starched-to-a-fare-thee-well, white denim shirt. “You can. But I warn you,