Return of the Lawman. Lisa Childs

house, which had been converted to a diner before Dylan was born.

      For ten years he’d carried a picture of home in his head. And despite the night mares, it was home. This small northern Michigan town had grown. Dylan had not expected that. He’d thought everything would remain the same, perhaps as a shrine to Jimmy.

      Before he stepped from his black Expedition into the lot of the local diner, he slipped the shiny badge onto the pocket of his tan uniform. Winter Falls deputy. He didn’t need to glance in the rearview mirror to witness the irony in his smile. His name and badge number were engraved below the title. Sheriff Buck had kept it for him.

      For the last decade he’d hidden on the streets of Detroit. Rare had been the opportunity when he’d been able to carry the Detroit PD, Narcotics Division, badge. He’d been so deep under cover he’d thought he’d never come out. A few times he nearly hadn’t.

      The last scrape had forced Dylan to face some hard facts. His commanding officer had given him an ultimatum—either get some psychiatric help for his death wish or take some time off. Dylan had turned in that badge and decided it was time to come home.

      Although he’d hoped to slip into the diner unseen, he’d forgotten the sharp eyes of the proprietress. “Dylan Matthews!” She launched herself into his arms.

      Interested faces turned toward him. Only a few, like the mayor and his old fishing buddy, were familiar. The town had grown, but Marge’s Diner was still the afternoon hub. “Marge, it’s nice to see you.” Awkwardly he reached down to pat her shoulder. Although she was petite, her grip was tight.

      “It’s been too long,” she gasped when she finally released him. “You’re home, then?”

      He thought of the new businesses, the new faces, the old night mares…. “Yeah.” He tapped the badge. “I’m home.”

      A tinkling bell signaled another arrival. The sheriff slapped a hand on his shoulder. “Marge, get the boy something to eat. He looks half starved. Too skinny. I told him to meet me here. I promised him he’d get a good meal from you, not a lecture.”

      “I wasn’t lecturing.” She sniffed and dabbed at tears with the edge of her apron.

      Sheriff Buck Adams wedged his girth into the vinyl booth that had been “his” as long as Dylan could remember. When Dylan had been a boy, he’d sat on a phone book to share a milk shake with his idol.

      Now Marge set a mug of coffee before him. “I’ll get you a special, Dylan. You need some fuel. You look worn out. I can’t believe the surprise. Both you and that little Lindsey Warner home from the big city. I thought we’d never see either of you again.”

      The sip of hot coffee he’d taken scorched his throat as he choked. “Lindsey?” Ten years had passed, but he could still picture her wild mane of midnight curls and her snapping ebony eyes. And her sassy mouth.

      “She wasn’t in Detroit, of course. She was in Chicago, working on some big news pa per when she got her heart broke. Should have stayed home and helped her daddy with the paper here, but I guess the Winter Falls Gazette wasn’t good enough. She’s back now, though, subdued I bet.”

      Subdued? Lindsey Warner? He hoped not.

      The sheriff waved Marge away. “Don’t get her started. She’ll be sending out wedding announcements if you show any interest. Of course, you never did, but Lindsey wasn’t so shy. That girl knew where your speed trap—”

      “I thought we didn’t call it that,” Dylan teased the older man.

      The sheriff waved his beefy hand again. “Whatever we called it, she knew where it was. How many tickets you give that girl?”

      “I don’t remember.” Five warnings. Five citations. She’d been reduced to a restricted license because of him.

      “Yeah, she was too young. What, sixteen?”

      Sweet sixteen. And how he wished he’d kissed her.

      “And you were what? Twenty-one?”

      “Twenty-two when I left,” Dylan reminded him. But in his soul, so much older than those years.

      “That was a heck of a mess, Dylan. I knew you didn’t have anything to do with that boy’s suicide. I should’ve searched him when he got back from sentencing. But after killing Jimmy, the guilt got Steve Mars to hang himself in jail, not you. There’s just a bunch of busy-bodies in this town with nothing better to talk about.” Sheriff Buck’s face reddened, and a vein jumped at his temple. “I should’ve—”

      “You stuck by me, Sheriff. You always have,” Dylan assured him, and closed his eyes. Behind his lids flashed a memory from when he was twelve, and the sheriff had rescued him from the car accident that had left him motherless. “You always were…”

      “I’m glad you’re home, boy. I need you around here. It’s not so quiet anymore. More to worry about now than some lovesick teenage girl speeding around town.”

      Dylan nodded, but disappointment rose in his throat. After all those years of sense less violence in Detroit, he’d wanted to return home where but for that one night, he’d had nothing more dangerous to worry about than a sassy teenager.

      “Lindsey Warner subdued?” he muttered.

      The sheriff chortled. “Don’t show any interest,” he hissed as Marge slapped some steaming plates of beefy noodle casserole on the table.

      “I haven’t had a casserole in years, Marge. Thanks.” Dylan reached for the fork. He hoped he could eat. Too many memories had his guts tied in knots.

      She patted his head the way she had when he was eight years old. He had to smile. Nobody had patted his head in ten years. It was good to be home.

      IT WAS HELL TO BE HOME, Lindsey thought as she leaned back in her father’s chair. Throughout the office a satisfying bang echoed as she swung the heels of her boots onto the surface of his old desk. She would have rather kicked something, though.

      “Hey, brat,” her father teased as he poked his graying head around the door. “Taking over already? Or hiding out?”

      She glared at him, her most lethal glare. He laughed. Then he lifted a bag and waved it in the air in mockery of a flag of surrender. The sweet memory of Marge’s Diner drifted across the room to her. The smell of cinnamon rolls and strong coffee cut across the stale air of old cigars and newsprint that always prevailed in her father’s office.

      She’d missed the stale odor. She’d missed the cinnamon rolls and coffee, too. “If that’s what I think it is, I’ll let you stay on for a while before I put you in a retirement home, old man.” But she’d missed her father most.

      She swung her boots from his desk and jumped up, but he waved her back down and took the chair across from her. “Get used to it, honey. It will be yours one day.”

      “I don’t deserve it, Dad,” she said softly as she took the grease-stained bag from his hands and spread the decadent bounty across his already cluttered desk.

      “It’s better than not wanting it.” He expelled a weary-sounding sigh. Lindsey’s gaze clung to his gently wrinkling face. She’d been gone too long. Although he’d come to Chicago for visits, the time had been too brief and passed quickly. He’d aged, and Lindsey hadn’t been able to witness every new line in his face, every new gray hair on his head.

      “I never said I didn’t want it,” she reminded him.

      “You just wanted more.”

      She winced over the hurt pride in his voice. “It’s not that it wasn’t enough. It’s not mine. I wanted something for me. And I wanted out of this town!” With barely con trolled anger she ripped off a sticky piece of roll.

      “You ever going to forgive them?” he asked in the understanding tone that had always been her undoing.

      She was too old