Salvation in the Sheriff's Kiss(30)

Being left alone in the world was reality.

“Meredith?”

The sound of Hunter’s voice slid into the room and past her memories. She turned. He stood in the doorway, and for a brief moment, it was like a memory come to life. It had been eight years ago, after the Autumn Festival where he’d asked her to dance several times, causing some tongues to wag. He came to their home the next day to ask her father’s permission to court her proper. He had wanted Pa’s blessing, given their families’ history.

Her father had been impressed and agreed to allow it, making Hunter promise to treat her with dignity and respect. He’d humbly agreed, standing in the doorway with his hat in his hand, a solemn expression on his handsome face.

Much as he stood there now.

But when she blinked away her tears she saw it wasn’t a memory. Sun from the open door turned his dark brown hair a warm mahogany. Its rays bathed one side of his face. Time had only made him more handsome, etching lines and refining edges. The deputy’s badge he’d worn had been replaced with a sheriff’s star. And the promise he’d made to her father lay broken and scattered in the space between them.

Meredith swiped at the tears on her face. “What are you doing here?”



“I, uh...” He searched for what to tell her, preferring to avoid the truth. To be honest, he wasn’t even sure what the truth was. He saw the wagon outside her old home on his way back from Vernon’s and knew it had to be her. He should have kept riding, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. She had a strange pull on him. She always had. And it had not lessened in the time she’d been gone. He’d tried to move on, but it was no use. He couldn’t shake her memory and now with her here in the flesh, he kept coming up with reasons to be near her. It was more than the warning from Yucton to watch over her or the promise he’d made to her father to keep her safe. It was even more than the need to atone for the hurt he’d caused.

It was her. Pure and simple.

“You’re staring.”

“You’re beautiful.” The words escaped before he could hold them back. A crimson stain spread across her cheeks and she looked away. Her gaze skirted around the corners of the room.

The cabin had been ransacked shortly after she’d left town. At first, Hunter thought it was drifters looking for anything of value they could find, but anything the Connollys had of value wasn’t measured in dollars and it didn’t appear as if anything was missing. Now he wasn’t so sure. Had it been drifters? Or had it been the Syndicate? And if so, what could Abbott possibly have had that they’d wanted? Either way, a second attempt had never been made. Hunter had set the room back to rights afterward and it had remained untouched since then.

He wondered if, after a while, Meredith would wire instructions to Bertram to sell the land and the cabin, but she never had. Instead, it became a shrine of sorts. He’d stop by after each visit with his father, step inside the cabin and sit in the straight-backed chair next to the door. There were happy memories here, ones that didn’t torment him quite as deeply as the ones that held sway in his room above the jailhouse.

What would she think if she knew? There were some days he’d stop by for only a few minutes, breathe it in and leave. Other days, he would sit for an hour or more, absorbing as many of the memories as he could. Happy memories of sitting by the fire with Meredith while her ma and pa talked quietly to themselves at the kitchen table. Neither of her parents had ever judged him harshly or blamed him for the hardships brought on them by his father. He’d always respected them for that. He wasn’t sure if he would have been as gracious had the circumstances been reversed. But their acceptance had given him something he’d never experienced before—a sense of home, of family and a place to belong. He’d longed to build the same with Meredith, dreamed of a different life than the one he’d grown up in.

He longed for it still.

Meredith patted the last of her tears away with the back of her sleeve. She was dressed more simply today, and yet she was still more beautiful than every other woman in town. Then again, the same had been true when she was dressed in hand-me-downs the church had doled out.

“Seems you’re always coming upon me when I’m at my worst.” Her words were quiet, devoid of recrimination, as if the tears had bled it dry.

He offered her a half smile and, after a brief hesitation, decided to join her on the floor. He sat next to her and rested an arm on one bent knee.

“I guess homecomings can be bittersweet even under the best of circumstances. You expect things to be just the way you left them. It must feel a little strange when they aren’t.”