Single-Dad Sheriff. Amy Frazier

it all into a five-star resort.

      LATER THAT NIGHT, Garrett returned home, glad that today on the job had been routine. It wasn’t always so. When he’d become sheriff five years ago, he’d inherited a mess. Colum County was changing rapidly. Developers were buying up mountain tracts and turning once nearly communal land into gated vacation communities and upscale commuter subdivisions, shutting long-term residents out and making their taxes stratospherically high. That was a minor intrusion compared to the influx of big-city problems. Drugs especially. Recreational drugs had replaced moonshine. The county remained a bucolic paradise on the surface, but underneath simmered some very real issues.

      Sheriff Easley, his predecessor, had run things as his daddy and granddaddy had done before him—by a slow and convoluted good-ol’-boy system that didn’t want to recognize change. The small department had been low-tech, ill-equipped and badly trained. Not to mention susceptible to the lure of small-town graft. A real embarrassment. Elected on a reform platform, Garrett had been vigilant in turning things around and confronting the county’s problems head-on. Which meant he appreciated a routine day. A relatively quiet day. Like today.

      He found Geneva in the kitchen, scrubbing a scorched pan. The smell of burnt popcorn filled the air. “How’s it going?” he asked his housekeeper.

      “It’s going, all right,” Geneva muttered as she lifted the pan and made as if to throw it out the window over the sink. “That boy uses my best pot to make popcorn. Puts in the oil then walks away to check on a video game. Smelling something not right, I come back here to find flames shooting out. My best,” she repeated dourly. “Nearly ruined.”

      “I’ll speak to him.”

      As Garrett turned toward Rory’s room, Geneva caught his arm. “Don’t.” Her voice immediately changed from irritated to concerned. “He’s been wrestling with something heavy. Been on that skinny little phone of his most of the evening with his mama. Won’t tell me what’s got him so riled.” She returned to her scrubbing. “So don’t mention this stupid old pot.”

      “I won’t.” He headed for a chat with his son.

      In the three years since he and his ex-wife, Noelle, had divorced, Rory had spent every vacation with Garrett. It was part of the custody settlement. Garrett always looked forward to the return to day-to-day parenting, and Rory seemed to enjoy his time in the mountains, but the initial transition was always hard. This time especially so. At twelve, almost thirteen, Rory, with one foot in childhood and the other in adulthood, had stopped communicating with his father. It made Garrett worry his son might be getting ready to tell him he was too big for life in a small town and wanted to live full-time in Charlotte.

      He knocked on Rory’s bedroom door.

      “Yeah.”

      Taking that monosyllable for permission to enter, Garrett pushed the door open. Rory was at his computer, intent on a game Garrett had seen his deputies playing. He didn’t think it was appropriate for a twelve-year-old, but he needed to pick his battles. Right now he wanted to find out what was bugging his son.

      “How did work go?” he asked. Up at Whistling Meadows Rory had seemed almost happy.

      “Okay.” His boy continued to play.

      Garrett sat on the edge of the bed, facing Rory. “I’d like to talk.”

      Reluctantly Rory shut off the game, but he didn’t face his father. Didn’t speak.

      “Geneva says you seemed upset.”

      Rory scowled as if fighting back tears, as if struggling to put the boy behind him.

      “Son, I can help—”

      “No you can’t!” Rory twisted away. “Mom’s made up her mind.”

      “About what?” Foreboding stabbed him. Despite their cool but cordial relationship so far, Noelle didn’t reveal much about Rory’s and her life in Charlotte, only her rise in the banking world. That was something she never tired of telling him, her proof, perhaps, that she’d been right and he’d been wrong about the limitations of Applegate. Now, what was going on? Was she thinking of remarrying? Or—the awful possibility hit him—was she tired of fitting Rory’s trips to Applegate into her increasingly hectic schedule? Was she planning to seek sole custody? With her continued climb up the corporate ladder, she had the contacts and the financial wherewithal.

      “What has your mother decided?” he repeated.

      Rory whirled on the computer stool to face Garrett. Tears glistened in his eyes. He looked five, not twelve. “Mom wants to send me to boarding school after eighth grade.”

      Damn. This was out of left field. “Why?” His kid was bright and conscientious. Perhaps, at times, too conscientious. Too buttoned down. If Noelle had a fault, it was that she tried to make Rory a little pinstriped banker. “You’re doing great right where you are.”

      “Mom says Harpswell Prep can help me get into an Ivy League college. But I wanna be a vet, and there are good vet schools that don’t look at whether you went to some snooty high school or not.”

      Garrett felt the anger rise. Not at the notion of a prep school, but at the idea that Noelle had failed to consult him on a big decision in his son’s life. And what a decision. She had to know it pushed his buttons. He hadn’t spent his youth in foster care just so his son, with two loving parents, could get farmed out to boarding school.

      “I’ll talk to your mom,” he said, rising.

      “You can’t talk to her now. She’s on a plane to London. Besides, we need a plan, and I’ve been working on one.”

      Surprised, Garrett turned to his son. “What plan?”

      “I want to live with you. Full-time. I don’t want to go back to Charlotte. Mom’s always traveling, anyway. We could switch the schedule. I could see her on vacations.”

      “Have you mentioned this to your mother?”

      Rory shook his head.

      Garrett could see the fireworks now. Noelle would think this was his idea. Would think he was using Rory to question her parenting skills, to circumvent the judge’s orders. While she’d use all her considerable money and influence to make Garrett pay, Rory would be the one to suffer in the end.

      Garrett couldn’t let that happen.

      CHAPTER TWO

      “YOU LOOK LIKE the wrath of God.” That’s what Geneva had told Garrett as she’d bustled through the kitchen door earlier that morning. Then, while getting eggs and bacon out of the refrigerator, she’d muttered, “I wouldn’t worry so much if I thought there was a chance you’d been out on the town. Goin’ a little wild. Havin’ a little fun…”

      She knew him better than that.

      Last night, after leaving a message on Noelle’s voice mail to contact him as soon as she arrived in London, he’d lain awake for hours, worrying the untold consequences of both her and Rory’s separate plans. Not having heard from her by morning, he’d called her assistant in Charlotte, who had her itinerary. Overseas, Noelle was already in a closed meeting. Garrett needed to understand the time difference was five hours. Was it an emergency? If not, try Noelle again around nine, North Carolina time. She should have a small break before heading into another meeting, the assistant had said, promising to leave a message as well—

      “Dad, look at that!” Rory said with disgust. Garrett had thrown the old banana-seat bike in the cruiser’s trunk and was giving his son a ride to Whistling Meadows. “Someone’s tossed garbage into the pasture. I’m gonna have to take care of that first thing. Before Percy and the boys eat something they shouldn’t.”

      It made Garrett proud that his son was already taking ownership of this new job.

      As they pulled up the farm road, Garrett could see six llamas haltered and tethered to the paddock fence. One carried a double-sided pack, and Samantha