“Well played!” Admiration danced in Cole’s blue eyes. “You helped convince Becca I’m off the market—I could kiss you.”
Kate inhaled sharply, but it didn’t seem to put any air in her lungs. “It’s, ah, probably best if you don’t.” She started to take a step backward.
“Oh, I don’t know.” His voice dropped lower. “Becca’s got spies everywhere.”
“Cole, I …” Her voice was husky, unfamiliar. Though he was no longer touching her, he stood so close her thoughts were short-circuiting. Could she allow herself to kiss him in the name of convincing Becca he was taken? A flimsy excuse, at best, but so tempting. She swallowed. “I have to go.”
“Can I call you later? We didn’t finish our conversation.”
She lifted up on her toes, pressing a quick kiss against his cheek. It was a peck, nothing more, but effervescent giddiness fizzed through her. She’d surprised herself—and she could tell from his sudden, absolute stillness that she’d shocked him.
“Just in case any of Becca’s spies are watching,” she murmured.
Falling for the Sheriff
Tanya Michaels
TANYA MICHAELS, a New York Times bestselling author and five-time RITA® Award nominee, has been writing love stories since middle school algebra class (which probably explains her maths grades). Her books, praised for their poignancy and humor, have received awards from readers and reviewers alike. Tanya is an active member of Romance Writers of America and a frequent public speaker. She lives outside Atlanta with her very supportive husband, two highly imaginative kids and a bichon frisé who thinks she’s the center of the universe.
This book is dedicated to all my fellow parents out there also raising one of those wondrous and terrifying creatures known as a “teenager.”
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Kate Sullivan had barely spoken on the ride from the middle school to the house. She’d worried that if she opened her mouth to say something, she would start yelling. Or crying. Neither seemed like a good idea while driving.
As they walked in through the garage door that led to the kitchen, her thirteen-year-old son, Luke, broke the tense silence. “I know you’re pis—”
“Language!” She spared him a maternal glare over her shoulder.
“I know you’re mad,” he amended. The patronizing emphasis he put on the word was the verbal equivalent of rolling his eyes. “But it really wasn’t my fault this time.”
Lord, how she wanted to believe him. But the fact that he had to qualify his declaration of innocence with “this time” underscored the severity of his recent behavior problems. As an elementary school music teacher, Kate worked with kids every day. How was it that she could control a roomful of forty students but not her own son? Over the past few months, she’d received phone calls about Luke fighting, lying and cutting classes. And now he’d been suspended!
If Damon were alive...
Her husband, a Houston police officer killed in the line of duty, had been dead for two years. Sometimes, standing here in the familiar red-tiled kitchen, she could still smell the coffee he started every day with, still hear the comforting rumble of his voice. But no amount of wishing him back would change her situation.
She didn’t need the imaginary assistance of a ghost. What she needed was a concrete plan. Maybe something radical, because God knew, nothing she’d tried so far had worked, not even the aid of professional therapists.
“It wasn’t my knife,” Luke continued. “It was Bobby’s.”
Fourteen-year-old Bobby Rowe and his hard-edged, disrespectful peers were part of the problem.
“Which I tried to tell the jackass principal.”
Kate slammed her hand down on the counter. “You will not talk about people like that! And you aren’t going back to that school.” It was a spur of the moment declaration, fraught with logistical complications—she could hardly homeschool and keep her job at the same time—but the minute she heard the words out loud, she knew deep down that a new environment was the right call. She had to get him away from kids like Bobby and away from teachers who were predisposed to believe the worst of Luke because of his recent history.
“Not going back?” His golden-brown eyes widened. He’d inherited what Damon used to call her “lioness coloring,” tawny blond hair and amber eyes. “I only got suspended for two days. I can’t miss the last three weeks of school.”
“Maybe not,” she conceded, “but I don’t have to send you back there next fall.”
“But it’s my last year before high school. All my friends are there!”
“You’ll make new ones. Non-knife-wielding friends.”
“You’re really going to send me somewhere different for eighth grade just because you don’t like Bobby?”
No, kid, this is because I don’t like you—at least, not the person he was on the path to becoming. She loved her son, but on the worst days, she wanted to shake this angry stranger’s shoulders and demand to know what he’d done with her generous-natured, artistic Luke.
“I won’t get in trouble for the rest of the school year,” he vowed desperately.
“Good. But that won’t change my mind.” She glanced around the kitchen with new eyes. Maybe they could both use a fresh start, more than just a school transfer. She’d stayed in this house after Damon was shot because Luke had suffered such a jarring loss; she hadn’t wanted to yank him away from his home and friends. Yet, within six months, he’d found an entirely different group of friends anyway. He no longer associated with the kids who’d known the Sullivans as a whole and intact family. “We’re moving.”
“What?