A Family For The Sheriff. Elyssa Henry

quite a few unfamiliar faces in the audience. Maria guessed they were residents of the new subdivisions.

      She saw Joe Roberts on the dais shaking hands with Sue Drake, one of the commissioners.

      She’d probably been the one to hire him in the first place, Maria considered. How had she come to hear about him? Chicago seemed a long way away.

      Maria watched Sue Drake’s eyes following Joe’s lean form as he moved away. Her gaze slid slowly down his back until it reached that rounded part of his anatomy clearly outlined by his uniform.

      Maria glanced away, her eyes going down the dais, refusing to watch. But it only took a minute for her gaze to wander back again.

      He did look very professional in his tan state trooper uniform. It hugged his broad chest and wide shoulders and made his legs look incredibly long.

      He leaned over to pick up a paper he’d dropped, and Maria found herself ogling him as openly as Sue Drake had. She sucked in her breath and purposely looked away again.

      “Quite a hunk,” Maria’s longtime friend, Amy Carlson, stated, sitting beside her in the crowded church. “I can see why you gave him a ride.”

      The implication—that a ride in her truck wasn’t all that was involved—made Maria frown at her.

      “It was all perfectly innocent.”

      “Of course it was.” Amy sighed. “That’s the part we need to talk about. It’s been nearly three years, Maria. Are you going to be alone forever?”

      “Why is it that everyone is worried about me being alone? No, wait,” she corrected. “Everyone is worried about me not having a man.”

      “Because it’s unnatural,” Amy told her with a grin.

      “And because he’s a damn good-looking man.”

      “That doesn’t mean I have to sleep with him, does it?”

      “Heavens, no!” Amy replied. “I think you should leave him alone so that us divorced ladies have a chance.”

      Maria smiled and shook her head. Amy had always been her opposite. Not afraid to voice her opinions, always the life of the party. Her bright cloud of strawberry blond hair made her easy to spot in a crowd.

      They had stopped competing for men when Maria had grabbed Josh Lightner and left her friend with Tommy on a double date.

      After that, Amy had married a lawyer and gone to live in Boston. She was back less than two years later, brokenhearted when she’d caught her husband with another woman.

      Alone and penniless, she had managed, nonetheless, to open a small dressmaking shop that had done well almost immediately.

      There had been no children. Amy had said she was grateful, but Maria doubted it. Amy was Sam’s godmother and spoiled him terribly. When she saw the two of them together, Maria saw a sadness in her friend’s eyes. It made her hug Sam more tightly to her.

      “Looks like we’re about to start the witch hunt,” Amy murmured.

      “Will you girls be quiet?” their former high school math teacher demanded. “You both always talked too much!”

      They looked at each other then giggled, rolling their eyes. The teacher sighed and sat back in his chair, trying to ignore them.

      “So, what’s he like?” Amy whispered as the commissioners tried to bring the crowd to order.

      “Joe?” Maria shrugged. “Just a nice guy. Sam really liked him.”

      “If we could get down to business?” Sue Drake glanced impatiently at her watch.

      The crowd began to grow quiet. Maria spotted Tommy and his mother near the front of the church. She was glad she didn’t have to see their faces staring at her.

      The old constable, Mike Matthews, stood up and looked at the crowd. His face was lined, and his eyes had faded to a pale blue. “Now, some of you still seem to have a problem with the choice of sheriff these good folks brought us.”

      “That’s the problem right there.” Tommy was on his feet, glaring at Joe Roberts. “He was their choice. Not ours.”

      A few people supported him, but most of the crowd remained silent.

      Mike Matthews shook his head. “Tommy, I’ve talked with you and your family about this. The district was created between voting times. They had to appoint a sheriff. If not, we wouldn’t have received the money for the new nine-one-one system. And I know we all want that.”

      Applause broke out randomly. People nodded and agreed.

      “That’s not the problem,” Tommy replied. “The problem was choosing someone outside the community to take the job. You could have chosen one of us.”

      “We could have,” Sue Drake said, “if there had been someone qualified. Setting up an entire operation from scratch takes experience. There were certain requisites for the job according to federal standards. Sheriff Roberts meets those standards.”

      “Maybe we should let Sheriff Roberts say a few words,” remarked David Martin, the other commissioner, who nodded toward the man at the end of the line of chairs.

      Joe stood, and Maria felt a hot flush hit her cheeks when his eyes locked with hers across the room. Her heart pounded, and there was a strange rolling feeling in the pit of her stomach.

      She looked away first, wondering if she was about to come down with the flu. She felt strange and lightheaded, breathing shallowly.

      Maybe it was the crowd. The night was warm, and they were packed in like sardines. She realized suddenly that she had missed Joe Roberts’s opening remarks.

      “And after graduation from the academy, I worked as a policeman in Illinois for several years. I had the opportunity to join the U.S. Marshal’s office, and I was there for ten years until I got the call from Commissioner Drake about the job here.”

      Joe looked around the crowd as he spoke.

      “I believe I can set up something long-lasting here, something that will serve this area into the next millennium. One reason I accepted this job was the offer of a house and land. I plan to settle down here and become part of the community. I’d like to do my part in helping the town feel secure and watching it thrive.”

      Sue Drake thanked Joe warmly. “As you can see, we were fortunate to find a man as experienced as Mr. Roberts who would be willing to take the salary we could offer at this time.”

      “And something else to remember here.” Mike Matthews joined her, presenting a united front. “In two years there will be a regular election and if Sheriff Roberts doesn’t do the job you expected of him, there’s plenty of time to vote in someone who will.”

      “But you need to give him a chance.” David Martin spoke on Joe’s behalf. “That’s the only way we can know what he can do. His record speaks for itself, of course, and once the program is in place, federal money will be forthcoming no matter who is in office.”

      “We’re not satisfied with that,” Tommy growled, getting to his feet. “We need someone who knows the area and the people.”

      “We need someone who knows how to run the kind of organization we have to create here,” Mike Matthews corrected him.

      “I think we should give him a chance,” a tall man from the housing development spoke up, “I think he’ll do a good job for the first two years.”

      “We think you should just sit down and shut up!” Ronnie snarled, ready to take on outsiders with a group of his peers behind him.

      It looked as though the meeting would dissolve into a shouting match. Joe stood up again and claimed their attention.

      “My first act as sheriff is going to be appointing deputies from Gold Springs. These people will be local homeowners who