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  Published by The Hartwood Publishing Group, LLC,

  Hartwood Publishing, Phoenix, Arizona

  www.hartwoodpublishing.com

  Gun Shy

  Copyright © 2016 by Diane Saxon

  Digital Release: August 2016

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Gun Shy by Diane Saxon

  The subject of his grandmother’s enthusiasm to marry him off, Sheriff Jack T Swan is fighting dirty to save his skin and has sworn off women until further notice. So the very last thing he needs in his life is a beautiful damsel in distress. Despite initial appearances, Jack soon discovers Kate is anything but distressed. In fact, she’s more than capable of skewering him with her kitten heel.

  Doctor Kate Marsden is handy with a scalpel, but she’s not quite sure how to deal with the local sheriff, who she inadvertently mistakes for a pervert while trying to report a crime.

  Time and again their paths cross and attraction rages between them, but while Jack is adamant he’s not in the market for a serious relationship, Kate is definitely not interested in a one-night stand.

  Dedication

  For those who said, “What about Jack and Kate’s story?” Especially Shona Mackintosh McHugh.

  As usual to my husband Andrew and our two gorgeous daughters, Laura and Meghan.

  And to Margaret for her continued support and belief in me.

  Chapter One

  Sweet Jesus Christ, the woman was stark naked, all but for those little black fluffy pasties that had to be glued to her nipples, and the teeny bit of matching excuse for a cover-up on her naked little…

  “Sheriff.” Warm and sultry, her soft voice floated sexual temptation on the humid air as his shocked gaze flew from her breasts to her face. One dark, drawn-on eyebrow quirked, and she crooked a finger to call him in for a closer look. Caution kept him still as he scanned her heavily made up blue eyes—he’d always had a weakness for blue—tracked the contours of her smooth rounded cheeks, past her cute little snub nose. He stared for a moment at her pouting, thickly crimsoned lips and sighed. He wasn’t even sure she was past the age of consent.

  “How old are you?”

  Her plump lips gave a petulant moue, confirming his suspicion. “Twenty-one.”

  He dipped his brow in a heavy frown, the one he normally reserved for teenage boys, and more recently recalcitrant women. “Twenty-one?”

  The silence stretched out before she shot her hip forward causing the pasties to jiggle from their precarious position. His heart shot into his throat, while he darted his gaze anywhere but at the young woman’s breasts. He didn’t want to be witness if one of those pasties pinged off.

  She raised a hand and smoothed down her hair while she let out a soft puff of disgust from her bright lips. “Next birthday.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, leaned back on the police vehicle, and gave her a moment longer to reconsider her answer.

  She pushed her bottom lip out like a two-year-old and dipped her chin. “I was eighteen, three weeks ago.”

  With a heavy sigh, Jack pushed away from the vehicle, reached inside the open door, and took out a police issue blanket.

  “Cover yourself up, sugar, or you’ll catch a nasty cold and then your mother will skin me alive.” Whoever her mother was. He didn’t recognize the girl. He knew all the teenagers in town, so she couldn’t be local. Although with the amount of makeup she had slathered over her face, he wouldn’t recognize her if she was his next-door neighbor.

  With a sullen shrug and a stamp of her foot, she crossed her arms under her bouncing bosom and shot fear into his soul. “I’m not a child. And, they said you needed a wife. I wouldn’t mind being a sheriff’s wife.” She licked away her pout along with half her lipstick. “I like the uniform.”

  Sheriff Jack Theodore Swann resisted the temptation to face-plant the hood of his vehicle and instead gritted his teeth, raised his eyes to the heavens, and prayed for patience. They’d done it again. Only this time they’d lowered their standards and thrown a child in his direction. Perhaps they hadn’t realized quite how young she was, or possibly they were running out of victims.

  It was a dangerous game they played, throwing innocents in his path. Lucky for them, he had more sense than to run after a teenager, and a hell of a lot more morals. Perhaps they thought he would lose his self-control and her daddy would provide a nice little shot-gun wedding. He needed to have a word with the sweet dears.

  Lucky for him, he’d come prepared. He always made sure he had backup.

  “What in hell’s name do you think you’re doing, Lucy? If your father catches you out at this hour, he’s going to skin your hide.”

  Jack’s backup stepped from behind the school building where she’d been checking for vagrants reported in the vicinity by an elderly lady, whose peculiar accent had carried a vaguely familiar sound.

  Lucy tucked the end of the blanket in between her ample breasts, unstuck the piece of gum with her tongue from where she’d had it lodged to the roof of her mouth, and chewed. The sultry voice of a moment ago miraculously morphed into a high-pitched whine as she stared at his female deputy officer. “Bill, I should have known you’d turn up to spoil things.”

  “Deputy Swann, to you, kid,” Bill shot back, taking hold of the young woman’s arm in a move Jack hadn’t dared make. “Where’s your vehicle?”

  “Over there. They told me to make sure it couldn’t be seen.”

  “Sure they did. Are your clothes in there?”

  “Of course, my mama wouldn’t let me go out without them.”

  Bill’s hard brown stare pierced Lucy. “I bet she didn’t know you weren’t wearing them. She sure as hell didn’t know you were out here naked propositioning the sheriff, but she will by the time you get your sweet little tush home. Get dressed, get in the car, and drive. I’ll be right behind you all the way, sweet cheeks.”

  Relief swarmed all over him as Jack climbed into the passenger side of the police vehicle and waited while Bill saw the girl back to her car. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and rested his head wearily on the headrest. This was getting to be too much. If he hadn’t had a female officer with him, it could well have turned dangerous. It was past a joke, and he needed to have a word with his grandmother and her two dear sisters. Their desire to find him a suitable wife had taken a definite slide into the surreal.

  »»•««

  She still ruled with a delicate hand and a gimlet stare, enough to have Jack straighten his uniform and push back his shoulders as he wandered through the rose garden to find her.

  It terrified him that his grandfather, at eighty-five with a shock of white hair and the stature of a wild bear, still deferred to the tiny woman with unquestionable adoration.

  He never wanted to be that way. So dependent on another human that his life would be destroyed if anything should happen to that partnership. He’d seen too many marital d
isputes and breakups in his career. Too many people devastated in the aftermath. No, it wasn’t for him.

  In his heart he knew he was more like his grandfather than any one of the others. It scared the living daylights out of him.

  There was nothing subservient about his grandfather. The old boy had a mind as agile as the Harvard graduate he’d been all those years before. A lawyer, a statesman. But when Jack’s grandmother crooked her little finger, that bear of a man was toast. Every time.

  Unable to find her in the rose garden, Jack meandered through to the stables. The second most likely place she’d be.

  Considered too old by most of her family, himself included, to still ride, she ignored their murmured protests with the dogmatic gentility she’d shown when she’d been told at the age of seventeen she was too young to marry and too high-classed to choose a college boy with little more to his name than a football degree.

  With sixty-six years of marriage under her belt, she’d proved them wrong, and she continued to prove everyone wrong about the riding.

  “Grandma.”

  With one last pat to the horse’s neck, she made her way across the corral, a serene smile on her face and a glitter in her eyes. He was in trouble.

  “Jack, how lovely to see you. I see so little of you lately.”

  “I was here last week, Grandma.”

  She tilted her head so he could buss her cheek with his lips. Parchment-thin skin served as a reminder that age defied everyone, but the silky warmth of it proved a good life and expensive products helped keep it young.

  “Exactly. A whole week since I last saw you. I take it you’re keeping busy.” She placed her slender hand in his as they made their way to the homestead.

  “Work’s been busy. The house keeps me occupied.”

  “You should get someone in. I can send builders around, just say the word.”

  He stepped back to allow her through the door into the kitchen in front of him. “I like to do it myself. Then I know where I’m going with it.”

  “I assume you’re here for breakfast.” Before he could answer, she’d already hauled her cast iron pan from the cupboard, placed it on the stove, and turned up the heat. She swung the fridge door wide to study the contents. It was no use declining. It wasn’t an offer, but a thinly disguised command from a woman used to having her own way. Besides, he was quite open to the offer of food.

  “It’s a lot of work for one man.” She set bacon in the pan, and the loud sizzle and strong aroma drew a low groan from him. Yeah, he could do with food. It had been a long night. Which served to remind him of why he was there. “What would happen if you met a young lady? You could hardly get married and take her to that place, the state it’s in.”

  And that was his cue to discuss what he’d come for.

  “Yeah, about that, Grandma.”

  She flipped over the bacon, cracked eggs into a bowl, and whipped them with efficiency, flicking a glance up at him as she poured them into a pan, adding grated cheese and making his stomach gurgle and his soul quail. But he needed to say it.

  “I have no intention of getting married.”

  Eyebrows high, she poured him thick, black coffee, just the way he liked and placed it in front of him. “Never?”

  “Never.”

  “I’ve never heard anything so stupid in all my life.”

  A flash of movement in the doorway grabbed Jack’s attention as his grandfather sauntered in, picked up the thread of conversation, and backtracked straight out of there. Jack could have done with the support. The coward.

  “Grandma.”

  She slid a plate in front of him, put another under the grill to keep warm, and brought her own to the table. “I assume that was your grandfather?” At his wry smile she just nodded. “His breakfast won’t be as fresh by the time he makes his way back. Probably once your truck has gone, just to be safe. But that’s his decision.”

  “Grandma.” He really needed to straighten things out. “I’m not the marrying kind.” Her delicate snort had to be ignored, or he would never get to the point. “I really enjoy women’s company, but I don’t want just one woman in my life.” He scooped eggs onto his fork and into his mouth and then had to choke them down at the look from his grandmother. The one that informed him he was just about to be slayed.

  Before she could say anything, he covered her hand with his own, and cleared his throat. “It’s not for me, Grandma, please understand. No one is going to appeal to me enough for me to marry. Not wealthy debutantes, not fit gym instructors, and certainly not eighteen-year-old strippers.”

  Pleased with the quick flash of surprise, he considered he’d earned another mouthful of eggs and bacon.

  “I never sent you an eighteen-year-old.” She didn’t deny the stripper part, though. “Eighteen is far too young for you.”

  “Well, that’s what she told me last night while she shimmied her pasties in front of me.”

  “She had pasties?”

  “Yup. That’s about all.”

  “Oh my.” Her hand fluttered to her skinny chest. “She wasn’t my doing.”

  “It was young Lucy Shannon. I never recognized her with so much makeup slathered across her face.”

  “Lucy Shannon? Why your Aunt Maisie said it was the elder sister, Pearl, that she’d spoken with. Pearl’s six years older. She would have been perfect.” She pursed her lips. “The old fool.”

  He assumed she meant her sister, but he kept quiet and shoveled in another mouthful, washing it down with a good slug of black coffee before he was ready to speak again.

  “The point is, Grandma, I don’t want you and the aunts trying to find a woman for me. If I want one, I’ll find one.”

  “Pish.” Her less than delicate snort brought a smile to his face. “You haven’t found anyone suitable yet.”

  “I wouldn’t consider an eighteen-year-old suitable.”

  Her bright eyes narrowed with annoyance. “I’ll have a word about that.” God help his Aunt Maisie.

  “While you’re on it, perhaps you could cancel all further arrangements you’ve made for my marriage.” He picked up his empty plate and moved it over to the sink. “Thank you for breakfast, Grandma.” He kissed the top of her head and then swooped up his coffee to finish it off. “And thank you for caring, but I’d appreciate it if you let me handle my private life. You have plenty more grandchildren who you can marry off and get the great grandchildren you’re so keen on.” He placed his cup on top of the plate and left his Grandmother at the table as he strolled toward the door, considering he’d got away quite lightly after all. “I’ll let Grandpa know it’s safe to come back in.”

  He grinned as he got in the cab of his truck. All in all, it hadn’t turned out too bad.

  At least he wouldn’t have any more women flung at him for the time being. At least until the sweethearts got bored again.

  Chapter Two

  Kate hauled her one-wheeled suitcase another few paces before she dumped it at her feet, no longer concerned whether or not the zipper burst open again. If she had to walk any farther, she might just abandon it altogether.

  She rested her knuckles on her hips while she scanned the town.

  It was a Hollywood cliché. A strange combination of buildings. Their battered sidewalks spilled out to wallow under the sheltered overhangs of balconies, some ornate, some practical. Blossom dripped in merry abandon down the timber posts to overflow onto the wooden boards beneath. A mixture of ancient and modern, they nudged shoulders in drunken haphazardness while the old ones relied on the younger ones to keep them upright.

  Kate swiped the back of her hand across her damp forehead.

  A police station. That was all she needed. If there was such a thing in the strange world she’d stepped into.

  She squinted into the dimming light. It may be lack of sleep, food, and thick black coffee, but if she wasn’t mistaken, there was a cowboy riding a horse down the middle of the street. She peered past him, and hysterical la
ughter spluttered from her lips as she spotted an enormous stone edifice with JAILHOUSE daubed across the front in huge elegant letters.

  Not a police station, like in England, but a jailhouse.

  She yanked her case back up, wincing at the fiery burn in her shoulder. When she reached the jailhouse, she was going to delve inside the case for a pair of flat shoes. Ones which didn’t have a heel that threatened to break off at any moment.

  With barely enough energy to put one foot in front of the other, Kate leaned on the door to the jailhouse and let her sagging weight do the work of pushing it open for her.

  A hive of activity, the high-ceilinged building hummed with a myriad of noises. Ignored by everyone, she found a corner to park her suitcase and jammed her foot against it to stop it falling over.

  As she cruised her gaze around the room to find someone free, she paused for a moment to study a young woman, who by all rights should have been on the front page of a fashion magazine. Tall. Very tall. And dressed in the mud-brown uniform of a deputy sheriff.

  The woman’s treacle brown gaze caught hers. “Can I help you, ma’am?” Her deep Southern drawl floated across the room.

  “I hope so.” The deputy’s right eyebrow shot up, Kate assumed in response to her own accent—clear, sharp, and precise. Her British voice drew the attention of several surrounding officers, and the dark-eyed Amazon gave a wide smile, showing her perfect, even teeth.

  Kate smoothed back the errant wisps of hair which stuck to her forehead and blessed the idea of American air-conditioning as it cooled her overheated cheeks. “I was mugged at the airport.” At the flash of surprise on the deputy’s face, Kate held up her hand. “It’s okay, I’ve reported it, but I have no money, and no credit cards. I went to the hospital…” This time, there was only a slow blink, but the deputy’s eyebrows stayed high. “I’m supposed to start work there next week. I’m a doctor.” And her mouth was running away with her. She cast her gaze around the room at the attention she’d attracted. Succinct, that’s what she needed to be. “The hospital’s closed. They had some sort of break-in. Crime tape all over the place.” She flicked her fingers to dismiss what she was saying. They’d probably been the ones to tape the place up and were perfectly aware.