Free The Shining Badge by Gilbert Morris

said.“Somebody will pick us up. Come along, now.” Picking up the child, he stepped out of the car and started down the road. It was a good six miles to town, but traffic was fairly common, and he was hopeful someone would pick them up quickly. But there was a natural glumness in Clay Varek as if he always expected the worse and was rarely disappointed. In the back of his mind he was already planning to make the entire walk, and grimly he set himself to the task.
    Jenny saw the pair as she drove along the highway. She recognized Varek and the child and pulled up behind them. She watched as he turned, and when he came to stand outside her window, she said, “Where are you going?”
    “I’ve got to go to the doctor. Jamie’s sick.”
    “Well, get in. I’ll take you there.” She saw him hesitate and knew that he was not a man who took favors easily, but he nodded and said curtly, “Thanks.” He went around and got in, and once the truck was moving, she asked, “When did she get sick?”
    “Just yesterday. Just a little fever, but it’s higher today, I think. I don’t have any way to take it.”
    “Which doctor do you want to go to?”
    “I don’t know any of them.”
    “We use Dr. Peturis. He’s a little bit rough, but he’s a kind man. I’ve heard he’s good with children.”
    “Take me there if you don’t mind.” He hesitated, then said, “Sorry to be such trouble.”
    “You’re not from around here, are you, Mr. Varek?”
    “No, you can tell from my voice, I guess.”
    “Yes, we’re from New York, so we all have northern accents. It makes it a bit hard.”
    As she drove along, Jenny offered a little of her history, and then finally she said, “I’d take Jamie to my stepmother. She’s very good with anyone who’s sick, but she just had some babies herself.”
    “Babies?”
    “Yes, triplets.”
    Clay suddenly smiled, and as Jenny watched him, she saw it made him look much younger. “One is all I can handle.” He hesitated, then said, “It’s hard on a man raising a child without a woman.”
    Jamie looked up, though her face was flushed. “You do fine, Daddy.”
    Varek hugged the child and laughed shortly. “Well, it would be better if you had a mama.”
    Jenny kept waiting for him to say more about his wife, but he seemed to steer away from anything so personal. He did say finally, “That was a good squash pie.”
    Jenny laughed. “It’s the only kind I know how to cook. I’m having to learn how to live in the country. I’ve always been a city girl.”
    “I’ll have to learn too. I’m from Chicago.”
    “You lived there all your life?”
    “Quite a bit of it. Including the last ten years.” He said no more, and the conversation was rather bland until Jenny pulled up in front of Dr. Peturis’s office. “There’s the doctor’s office. Why don’t you take Jamie in? I’ll do my errand, then run you home again.”
    Varek shook his head. “I hate to be a burden to anybody.”
    “Don’t be silly. That’s what neighbors are for.” She reached over and brushed the hair back from Jamie’s face. “You go on in with your daddy now, and I’ll be back. And you’ll be well soon.”
    Jenny waited until Varek and the child were inside; then she drove to Luke Dixon’s office. She entered and found that Dixon was engaged in conversation with a tall, rawboned farmer. She waited in the outside room until the farmer left, and Dixon said, “Come on in, Miss Winslow.”
    “You can call me Jenny.”
    “Fine, and I’m Luke.”
    “What about Noah?”
    Dixon shook his head. “They’re going to charge him with assaulting an officer and resisting arrest.”
    “What will that mean if he’s found guilty?”
    “It’ll mean going back to prison, maybe for as much as five years.”
    “But he didn’t do it!”
    Luke Dixon studied the young woman before him, noting the richness of her lips, which were now pressed together almost willfully. Her hair was thick and red with golden