Page 41 of Surly Sheriff
“And his father?” His heart thundered in his chest.
“Not now, Beau,” she repeated with an added urgency.
“Do not try my patience, Raegan. Who is the boy’s father?” he demanded, keeping a tenuous rein on his anger. Anyone of his deputies would wither under his glare, but the woman before him stood her ground.
She sucked in a breath. “You,” she whispered, exhaling.
That short, three-letter word sucker punched the anger right out of him, leaving him reeling.
He turned away and walked down the stairs, needing to put distance between him and the treacherous woman. At the bottom, he turned and looked up at her. She stood still and silent, utterly beautiful, an alluring siren, her arms wrapped around her middle.
“We will talk,” he ground out, “but not now. Not in any frame of mind to listen to your lies and petty excuses. But mark my words, woman, you pull a stunt like you did before and leave, I will hunt you down and the outcome will not be pretty. Are we clear?”
“I’ll be here in the morning. Promise.”
“Thing is, Raegan, your promises mean nothing to me. Nothing,” he spat, spun around, and stalked to his truck.
He heard the front door open and close behind him.
But he didn’t drive off.
He sat behind the steering wheel, staring unseeing at the house. If her words were true, he had a son, and the boy currently lived within those walls.
And there was the crux —if her words were true.
Or was she planning an elaborate ruse, drawing him into her snare, only to spit him out when she had her fill, leaving him worse off than before? A second round with the deceiving woman would surely be the end of him.
With a curse, he pulled out of the driveway and onto the street.
He drove around aimlessly, his thoughts in turmoil, the image of the boy front and center.
Was Jack his son?
If so, how could Raegan keep the kid from him? Was she so fucking cold-hearted as to rob him of the first four years of his son’s life? Or was she trying to foist another man’s kid on him?
A rattle from beneath the vehicle jerked him from his troubled thoughts. Startled, he braked, and looked around. Recognizing the rambling white house farther up the slope, he muttered a curse. He was on the Armstrong farm, the rattle from the cattle grate installed when Sunny added cows to her menagerie.
He glanced at the clock on the dash.Damn you, Raegan. He’d lost an hour to a fog of mental debate, putting others in danger by driving without thought to his surroundings.
He put the truck in reverse, but the idea of going home did not appeal.
Maybe he and Oliver could catch a game together? Or brainstorm his friend’s next novel? Anything to keep his mind from mulling over Rae and her boy. He continued up the graded drive, his headlights cutting a path through dusk’s gathering gloom, and he stopped outside the back porch.
Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, he debated his decision.
The back light came on, the door opened, and Sunny stepped out.
Resigned to his impromptu visit, Beau cut the engine and got out of the vehicle. “Evening.”
“Beau,” Sunny replied, meeting him at the steps.
He looked down at his feet and kicked at a small stone. It skittered across the gravel. “Didn’t mean to come here. Intrude on your time.”
“Well, you’re here now, so you may as well come on in.”
Unsurprised at her borderline unfriendly attitude — they hadn’t quite made peace with each other, and he had treated her with deplorable suspicion when she had first arrived in town two years ago — he climbed the steps and followed her inside.
“Have you eaten?” she asked, moving across the kitchen. “We’ve some leftovers.”
