Page 3 of Daddy's Little Convict
Sighing, she turned around.
Barney Fife was still on the front porch of his station. He’d turned to face her now too, not even bothering to hide it as he continued to study her. Waiting for her to screw up so he could put her in handcuffs and cart her off to jail again.
May as well nip this in the bud.
Holding her head high, the heat of her growing humiliation burned hotter than the sun as she deliberately crossed to his side of the street and headed straight for the police station.
“That was jaywalking,” he said mildly as she crossed his small parking lot, not stopping until she was standing at the bottom of the steps.
She didn’t dignify that with a remark. “I’m not sure where this address is. Can you help me, Sheriff…”Jackass. She managed to keep that last part locked behind her teeth and looked at the nametag he wore instead. “Barnes.”
Which was so damn close to Barney that it had to be kismet, and then it hit her. She dug her folded up release papers out of her back pocket and quickly found her parole officer’s name again. “Travis Barnes?”
The broad rim of his gray Stetson swayed as he shook his head. “Travis is my brother,” he said, a slight tightening at the corner of his mouth catching her attention. “But that pretty much tells me where you’re trying to go. You’re looking for the old motel.” He gestured to the street that ran through town. “You’re already on Main, so all you’ve got to do is follow it about four-five blocks, past the last stop sign—”
Starvation was big enough for more than one stop sign?
“—it’ll curve sharp to the left, and you’ll see it after about a mile. It’s the last building in town. Well… except, way up in the distance, you’ll also see a gas station, but it’s completely abandoned. It’s nothing but walls now that the roof’s blown off, and of course there’s the posts where the pumps used to be.”
Like she needed to know any of that.
“If you see any of that, you’ll know you’ve gone too far.”
Oh. Right.
“Thanks,” she said flatly, and walked away with Sheriff Barnes’s eyes burning hotter than the sun into her back every step of the way. They weren’t friends, and she was fine with letting her attitude show that she knew it.
Welcome to Starvation.
She couldn’t wait for her three years to be over so she could leave again.
Chapter 2
Tabby took one look at what qualified as a halfway house in this tiny little town of Starvation and judged it instantly. It wasn’t even a half-step up from prison.
The old motel had all of the architectural earmarks of having been built in the 1950s. Even from a distance, she was willing to bet it hadn’t been updated since. Not on the outside, anyway. A weathered sign planted at the edge of the parking lot read, Female Residential Reentry Facility. There were no bullet holes in this one.
She walked into the main office, a small room divided by a high desk that blocked her access to the dark-haired man sitting on the other side. Cowboy boots kicked up on one corner of the desk, legs crossed at the ankles, toes tapping slightly to the upbeat country music playing on the 1980s boombox half buried under books and paperwork on the long, narrow table tucked under the window behind him. Through near transparent white curtains, a straight single-story line of motel rooms stretched out into twenty-odd private rooms.
Leaning all the way back in his chair, the dark-haired man lowered the newspaper crossword puzzle he had been filling in. With pen, no less. He must be good at them.
If he assessed her, it was only for the span of mere seconds. Then, dropping the folded newspaper onto his desk, he lowered his feet to the floor and stood up. The family resemblance between him and the sheriff wasn’t hard to find. Significantly taller than she was, he towered over her as he held out his hand, waiting until she put her card into it. She couldn’t see his eyes, they were shaded by sunglasses so silver and shiny that they mirrored her and completely hid his gaze. The chord that struck inside her as she stood staring at her reflection while a corner of his handsome mouth curled slightly in response felt dangerous. He was a cowboy in black—black long-sleeved shirt, black jeans, his only splash of color being the white of his hat and the brown of his boots and the engraved belt around his waist, the shiny horse buckle being almost as reflective as his sunglasses.
She shifted on her feet, trying not to let him intensify her already out of control nerves while he read her card. It took far longer than the slight information she knew was written on it.
Was he still reading, or was he looking at her? She couldn’t tell.
“Tabitha Markle,” he finally drawled, in a tone as smooth as honey and every bit as sexy as his build suggested he could be, beneath the stretch of his form-fitting navy blue button-down shirt. His shoulders were broad, his chest was too. “I was starting to wonder when you might get here.”
He flashed her a smile. If he meant to put her at ease, he didn’t. Her stomach was as tight now as it had been when she’d forced herself to walk up to Sheriff Barnes. That man had been dangerous, too.
As if in afterthought, he offered his hand over the high desk. “Travis. I’m your probation officer. Let me show you to your room and I’ll explain the rules of the house as we go.”
Her stomach tightened that much more. “Okay.”
He strolled around the dividing desk, vanishing briefly behind a crisp white wall before the door on her side of it opened and he stepped out into her half of his office. Small as the space was, she backed up into an old-fashioned gumball machine, nearly knocking it over when he reached for the door leading out.
He held it open for her. “After you.”
