Lassoing the Deputy. Marie Ferrarella

to be the one who keeps the rest of us in line, remember?”

       “Flattery, nice way to defuse the situation,” Rick commented, amused, after Alma had retreated to the communal restroom to run cold water over the red mark on her hand.

       “Works with Mona,” Joe said with the barest hint of a smile.

       Rick laughed. “Maybe I’ll try that on Olivia, see if it works next time she’s got her back up about something.”

       Larry shook his head in disbelief. “Henpecked, both of you.”

       “Not henpecked,” Joe corrected. “Thoughtful.”

       “And smart,” Rick interjected. “You get more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.”

       “Yeah, if flies are what you’re after,” Larry cracked.

       Joe and Rick exchanged looks. “He’s missing the point,” Joe commented.

       “Completely,” Rick agreed. “Get back to us when you’re married, Larry. We’ll talk.”

       “Married?” Larry echoed. “You’re kidding, right? Same routine every night? No, thanks. I’m never getting married.”

       “Right. You just keep on living the dream, Larry,” Joe said, patting the other man on the shoulder.

       “You really don’t know what you’re missing,” Rick told the younger deputy as he walked away.

       He meant what he said. Because, for the first time in his life, he knew the difference between just being resigned to his lot and being really happy about it. And Olivia and their daughter made him happier than he had ever thought possible.

       Larry muttered something unintelligible under his breath and went back to his desk.

       “Jealous,” Joe concluded.

       “Obviously,” Rick agreed. And then he became serious for a moment as they passed the restroom. “Do me a favor. Keep an eye on Alma,” he requested in a lower voice, nodding toward the restroom door.

       “No problem,” Joe said.

       On the other side of the door, about to walk out, Alma overheard the sheriff and Joe. There was no point in saying that she didn’t need anyone’s eye on her. What she needed was for Cash not to come back to Forever and mar what would otherwise be a very festive occasion.

       But there was no way around it. Harry had been very excited when he’d told her. Cash was coming back for the wedding and she was just going to have to find a way to live with that until he left again.

       It wasn’t fair, Alma thought, putting back the coffee can in the cupboard and automatically tidying up the kitchenette. It wasn’t fair that she cared after all this time and Cash obviously didn’t.

       But she’d dealt with everything else that life had thrown at her; she could get through this, as well.

       Hadn’t she dealt with her mother’s illness and with having to pitch in with her brothers to earn extra money to help her father pay all the medical bills that had accrued? Bills that had to be paid despite the fact that in the end, her mother hadn’t been saved. She’d succumbed to the insidious disease that had eaten away at her, a shell of the bright-eyed, vibrant woman she’d once been.

       And hadn’t she dealt with the harsh reality that she wasn’t able to go away to college even as Cash, thanks to his grandfather’s insistence, left to pursue his dreams of becoming a lawyer?

       She could have just given up then, but she didn’t. At that time she’d still believed that Cash would come back to her once he got his degree. Determined that he would never have cause to be ashamed of her, she’d been hell-bent to make something of herself. So, continuing to work at Miss Joan’s diner in order to earn a living, she took courses online at night.

       It took a while, but she had finally gotten her degree in criminology. She’d always wanted to go into law enforcement and had been overjoyed when Rick had hired her on as a deputy.

       Her eventual goal was to become a sheriff if and when Rick decided to move on.

       If he didn’t, then most likely she would. But all that was for a nebulous “someday.” Right now, for the time being, this town where she’d been born was still her home.

       A home that was about to be invaded.

       She would have to psyche herself up, that was all, Alma silently counseled herself.

       After she finished tidying up, she folded the kitchen towel, left it on the minuscule counter and walked back to the main room and her desk.

       She was just going to have to—

       Her thoughts abruptly came to a screeching halt and then went up in smoke just as her heart went into double time.

       Cash was standing, bigger than life, right there in the middle of the sheriff’s office.

       And right in front of her.

      Chapter Two

      “Hey, Alma, look who I just found walking by our office,” Larry called out. It became apparent that the blond-haired deputy had snagged Cash and brought him in, thinking perhaps that he was doing a good deed. “The city-slicker lawyer is finally paying the country mice back home a visit.” Larry chuckled at his own display of wit. It was a given around the office that he was always his own best audience. “How’s it going, Cash?” he asked, pumping Cash’s hand. “Any of those fancy ladies in Los Angeles manage to lasso you yet?”

       “It’s going well,” Cash replied mechanically. “And no, they haven’t.” He wasn’t looking at Larry when he answered. He was looking at Alma.

       And she seemed to be looking into his soul.

       That was what he used to say to her, that she was his soul. It was a play on her name, which meant “soul” in Spanish. But, even so, back then, he’d meant it. He’d really felt as if she was his soul. His beginning, his ending.

       His everything.

       In that last summer, during the space between graduation and his going off to college on the West Coast, no one was more surprised than he was when he found himself falling for her. Really falling for her. They had grown up together. When he and his mother had come to live with his grandfather, he’d been seven years old, and after a while, it felt as if he had always lived here and always known the Rodriguez kids.

       Hardly a day went by that he and Alma didn’t see each other, play with each other. Fight with each other. He was friends with her brothers, especially Eli and Gabe, and she always found a way to tag along, no matter how hard he and her brothers initially tried to ditch her.

       It seemed that the more they tried, the harder she was to get rid of. Back then, he’d thought of her as a royal pain in the butt. He couldn’t remember exactly when all that had changed, but it had. Slowly, she became his friend, then his confidante, and then, ever so gradually, his best friend.

       And finally, his first love.

       Now that he thought about it, Alma had been part of his every day.

       Until he left for college.

       He’d left to make a future for himself and for her. That was what he’d told himself, what he’d believed. But somewhere along the line, he’d let himself get caught up with the newness and of life in a major city like Los Angeles. He was the country boy who hailed from a speck on the map and he wanted to be as polished, as sophisticated as the students he saw around him in his classes.

       Still, in the beginning, while he was still homesick, he looked forward to Alma’s letters. He devoured them like a starving man devoured every last morsel of a meal.

       But he soon discovered that his tall, blond good looks and Southern accent attracted more than just a handful of women. Male students befriended him, wanting him to