The Cowboy Way. Maisey Yates

light-caramel locks. “The boy must take after his mother,” she mused.

      “Boy?” J.P. echoed, sounding puzzled. Then a light seemed to go on inside his head. “Oh, yes, the boy,” he said, shifting around on his chair. “His name’s Matthew. He’s five years old, and he’s adopted.”

      Melissa blinked, a little taken aback by the extent of his knowledge until she recalled that J.P.’s youngest daughter, Elaine, had moved back to Stone Creek after a divorce two years before, and opened a private, year-round preschool called Creekside Academy.

      Of course. Creed must have enrolled the child in advance—and Elaine had passed the juicy details on to her father.

      J.P. finished up with a flourish. “And there’s no Mrs. Creed, either,” he said.

      According to Elaine—she and Melissa had gone through school together—from the day she’d jettisoned the loser husband and returned to the old hometown to make a fresh start, her dad had been after her to “get out more, meet people, kick up your heels a little... As if Stone Creek were overrun with single men,” Elaine had grumbled, the last time Melissa had run into her, a few days before, over at the drugstore.

      Melissa, who hadn’t had a date in over a year herself, had sympathized. Between her sisters, Ashley and Olivia, and her big brother, Brad, somebody was always after her to go on out there and find True Love. Easy for them to say. Brad had Meg. Olivia had Tanner. And Ashley had Jack. The unspoken question seemed to be, So what’s your problem, Melissa? When are you going to get with the program and corral yourself a husband?

      Melissa frowned.

      J.P. either missed the expression or ignored it. Rising to his feet, he lobbed his empty coffee cup into the circular file with the grace of a much younger man. Back in the day, during high school and college, Judge Carpenter had been a basketball star, but in the end, he’d chosen to pursue a career in the law. “Well,” he said cheerfully, “I hereby declare this meeting over.”

      “That was a meeting?” Melissa asked, arching one eyebrow. The subtext was: I wolfed down the one turkey-sausage biscuit I allow myself per week just so you could tell me Steven Creed is single?

      “Yes,” J.P. said. “Now, I think I’ll go fishing.”

      Melissa laughed and shook her head.

      J.P. had just left when Sheriff Tom Parker peeked in from the doorway. Tom was a hometown boy, a tall, lean man with dark hair and, usually, a serious look on his face.

      “Hey,” he said.

      “Hey.” Melissa smiled. She and Tom were old friends. Nothing more than that, though—he was attractive, in a rustic sort of way, if shy, and he’d been divorced from his high school sweetheart, Shirleen, for years. Everybody in Stone Creek knew he’d fallen head over heels for Tessa Quinn the day she opened the Sunflower Bakery and Café—everybody, that is, except Tessa.

      “Just wanted to remind you that Byron Cahill gets out of jail today,” Tom said, looking spiffy in his summer uniform of brown khaki.

      Melissa felt a mild shiver trip down her spine. Two years ago, when Cahill was still a teenager, he’d gotten high one Saturday afternoon, compounded the problem with copious amounts of alcohol, swiped his mother’s car keys and gone on a joyride. The joy was short-lived, as it turned out, and so was fifteen-year-old Chavonne Rowan, who was riding shotgun.

      When the “borrowed” car blew a tire on a sharp curve outside of town, it shot through a guardrail, plunged down a steep cliff into Stone Creek, teetered on its nose, according to witnesses, and went under. Two fishermen had rescued Byron; he came out of the wreck with a few cuts and bruises and a really bad attitude. Chavonne, it turned out, had died on impact.

      Byron was arrested as he left the hospital in Flagstaff, where he’d been taken by ambulance, as a precaution. Although uninjured, he’d been admitted for a week of detox.

      Melissa had successfully petitioned the Court to have young Cahill tried as an adult, over his mother’s frantic protests that he was a good boy, just a little high-spirited, that was all, and then Melissa had thrown the proverbial book at him.

      It was a slam dunk. Byron was convicted of second-degree manslaughter and dispatched to a correctional facility near Phoenix to serve his sentence—just over eighteen months, as it turned out.

      Velda Cahill, his mother, who cleaned motel rooms and served cocktails to make ends meet, rarely missed a chance to corner Melissa and tell her about all the things poor Byron was missing out on, all because she, Melissa, “a high-and-mighty O’Ballivan,” had wanted to show off. Let everybody know that the new county prosecutor was nobody to mess with.

      Melissa felt sorry for Velda. Never reminded her that Chavonne Rowan was missing out on plenty—the rest of her life—and so were her devastated parents.

      Tom Parker knotted one hand into a loose fist and tapped his knuckles against the framework of the door to get Melissa’s attention, bring her back to the present moment.

      “You be careful now,” he said. “If Cahill so much as looks cross-eyed at you, call me. Right away.”

      Melissa blinked a couple of times, dredged up a smile. “You don’t think he’d come back to Stone Creek, do you?” she asked. “It’s not as if the town would throw a parade to welcome him home, you know.”

      Tom tried to smile back, but the light didn’t spark in his eyes. “I think Cahill’s the type to move back in with his mother and mooch for as long as she’ll let him. And you know Velda—she won’t turn her baby boy out into the cold, cruel world.” He paused, rapped at the door-frame again, for emphasis. “Be careful,” he repeated.

      “I will,” Melissa said. She wasn’t afraid of Byron Cahill or anybody else.

      Tom hesitated. “And speaking of parades—”

      Melissa, who had turned her attention to a file by then, looked up. She was getting a headache.

      “That was a figure of speech, Tom,” she said patiently.

      “We’ve got Stone Creek Rodeo Days coming up next month,” Tom persisted. “And Aunt Ona had to resign from the Parade Committee because of gallbladder problems. She’s been heading it up for thirty years, you know. Since you and I were just babies.”

      Melissa saw it coming then. Yes, sir, the light at the end of the tunnel was actually a train. And it was bearing down on her, fast.

      “Listen, Tom,” she said earnestly, leaning forward and folding her hands on her desktop. “I’m a good citizen, an elected official. I vote in every election. I pay my taxes. On top of all that, I fulfill my civic duty by keeping the town—and the county—safe for democracy. Believe me when I tell you, I feel as much sympathy for Ona and her gallbladder as anyone else does.” She paused, sucked in a deep breath. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to join the Parade Committee.”

      Tom blushed a little. “Actually,” he said, after clearing his throat, “we were hoping you’d take over, sort of spearhead the thing.”

      Again, Melissa thought of her siblings.

      Olivia, a veterinarian and a regular Dr. Doolittle to boot, apparently able to converse with critters of all species, through some weird form of telepathy, oversaw the operation of the local state-of-the-art animal shelter, and directed the corresponding foundation.

      Ashley, too, was almost continually involved in one fundraising event or another—and their brother, Brad? He was a country-music superstar, even though he’d technically retired around the time he and Meg McKettrick got married. His specialty was writing whopping checks for pretty much any worthy cause—and doing the occasional benefit performance.

      “You have the wrong O’Ballivan,” she told Tom, feeling like a slacker. They were overachievers, her sibs, with a tendency to make her look bad. “Talk to Olivia—or Ashley. Better yet, have Brad buy you a parade.”

      Tom