Page 13 of Naughty by Nature

Chapter 5

Sheridan glancedinto the rearview mirror. Cheyenne was behind him, following right on his bumper as he led her to the office. They would leave her car there in the secured lot and he would drive them to his house. Picking up his phone, he dialed Marlene.

“Grace confirmed it,” he told her when she picked up. “She spotted Wade at the library two days ago. Let everyone know to be on the lookout. Consider him armed and dangerous and not to be approached without back-up.”

“Gotcha, boss. I’ll pass it along. At least now we know.”

“Yes, I suppose. Until notified otherwise Cheyenne and the girls will be at my house.”

“Oh, that’s smart,” Marlene told him approvingly. “This would be too much for Garrett and Francine to deal with right now.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “Hopefully we can get this all straightened out before Garrett even knows anything is going on.”

His next call was to his daughter, to let her know their house was about to be invaded.

“Why do they have to come here?” Olivia demanded.

Sheridan winced, knowing this was going to be an issue. “Because the man attacked her and is now in the area again. The eight-year old spotted him. If they go home, there’s a very strong chance that something bad will happen, and we’re too spread out across the county to get there fast.”

Olivia huffed. “This seems excessive. Since when are you in the protection business?”

“Since a good friend of mine is in trouble.”

She snorted. “Sounds like someone is getting hard up. I know you’ve got a thing for her.”

“Olivia!” He snapped. “I don’t know where this mouthieness is coming from, but you’re going to stow it. You will be polite and welcoming to our guests, do you understand me?”

She sighed as if her life were ending and he could almost hear the eye roll. “Whatever.”

She hung up without a goodbye and he wished he could rewind the clock about three years. Olivia had been a wonderful little girl then, articulate and humble. When the hormones had started rolling, though, that had all changed.

When he and Nora had found out they were having a girl they’d been ecstatic. It had been understood though that Nora would deal with the female things and Sheridan would deal with the boy things. They’d planned on having more kids, hopefully boys among them, but after the first pregnancy things had gone down hill. Nora had suffered through three miscarriages before they’d shelved the idea of more kids for a while. They’d waited several years until Olivia was in school before they started talking about trying to have another baby. It hadn’t been that easy. For several years they tried to have another baby, even resorting to in-vitro after a while, but nothing had worked.

Nora had devoted her attention to raising Olivia to be the best little person she possibly could and they had moved on with their lives. They finally accepted that Olivia would be their only child. She’d been eight by then, and their little family of three had done well together.

After they moved to Honeywell for him to take a job at the department, they’d decided to take a little weekend retreat, just the two of them, before Nora started looking for a job. Nora’s parents took care of Olivia. That escape was when he had felt something a little different with his wife’s breast. They’d had an active sex life until that year and he was very familiar with her body, so the swelling and redness was immediately noticeable. It had seemed like such a cosmic joke that when they’d escaped for a little reconnection time, their lives had fallen even further apart.

Nora hadn’t panicked, though. As soon as they’d returned home she’d made an appointment with her doctor. But the diagnosis had been devastating— Inflammatory Breast Cancer, rare and extremely aggressive.

Sheridan had carried a lot of guilt for that because he had been the one to find the difference. He should have found it sooner, because within six months of the diagnosis she was gone from their lives. Maybe if he had focused on her sooner, better, they would have caught it in time for a different outcome.

His head told him it wouldn’t have changed anything, but his heart wouldn’t let it rest.

Olivia was positively lost at the time. She was an eight-year-old girl with no understanding of death. Olivia still had all of her grandparents but her mother’s death had disrupted the natural order of things. There had been no easing her into it. One day Nora had been there, the next she was gone.

Counseling had helped a little bit, but not as much as he had hoped. He showered her with love, but she’d never regained that little girl sparkle, that joy in life. It was hard for him to watch.

Now there were four more females that needed to be watched over, and he was the man to do the job.

* * *

Cheyenne felt souncomfortable following Sheridan’s big sheriff’s truck. If people were looking at him they were seeing her right behind him. When they pulled into the parking lot of the sheriff’s department she gave the girls their marching orders. “Grab your stuff and let’s get to the truck. No dawdling."

The girls seemed to sense her anxiety and did as she told them without fuss. Cheyenne gathered up her things and locked her Cherokee, then headed for Sheridan’s truck. He sat in the driver’s side, hands on the wheel, watching every move she made. When she climbed into the passenger seat he gave her a small, reassuring smile.

Cheyenne was too caught up in her anxieties, scanning every car they passed until she thought she would go crazy. Sheridan kept the girls occupied, asking them about school.

“Mama, wait! We can’t leave Daisy at the house alone. What if he comes there and takes her?”

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