a faded blue and red striped shirt, both of which looked as if they’d been laundered within an inch of their lives.
Luke smiled at him. “Hey, kiddo. What’s your name?”
“Todd,” he said.
“How old are you, Todd?”
“Almost seven.”
Luke nodded at the stuffed animal under the kid’s arm. “What do you have there?”
“My dog.”
“What’s his name?”
“Tramp.”
“From Lady and the Tramp?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So I guess you like dogs?”
The kid smiled. “Uh-huh. Our neighbor Mr. Brady has two dogs. Sometimes he lets me play with them.”
“What color are they?”
“White. With lots of curly hair. Someday I’m gonna get a real dog. But my grandma says not now.”
“Todd!”
Todd whipped his head around.
“Come back over here,” Myrna said.
Todd gave Luke a little wave good-bye and hurried back around the counter. Myrna gathered him against her and gave Luke a look that would melt granite. Then she leaned over and whispered something to the little boy, and he disappeared into the back room.
Luke wondered who he was. Was Myrna the grandma he talked about? Maybe. But that would mean he belonged to her daughter, Belinda. As Luke remembered, she wasn’t much older than Angela. No telling what the situation was there.
Luke opened the paper to read as he ate the burrito and hot dog. About halfway through dinner, he heard his text tone. He grabbed his phone to take a look.
Well, crap. Carter Hanson?
He punched the button to view the message. How’s the knee, Dawson? Bet it hurts like hell. Miss you!
Right. Hanson missed him like a dog missed fleas. But he never missed an opportunity to cause trouble.
Irritated, Luke stuffed his phone back into his pocket, wondering where Hanson had gotten his number. Wait a minute—did he really have to wonder? There was a certain buckle bunny out there with a grudge. He was lucky she hadn’t posted his phone number on the front page of her blog and encouraged everybody she knew to spam him.
He’d just finished the burrito and started in on the hot dog when he heard bells against glass. Turning around, he saw Sheriff Sizemore come through the door. Judging by the way he stopped to gaze around the room, it was pretty clear he was looking for somebody in particular. And Luke knew who that somebody was.
Ben Sizemore had been sheriff in Rainbow Valley as long as Luke could remember, which meant he had to be pushing sixty by now, but he was still as tall and lean as ever. Ben rarely spoke unless it was necessary, and even then he spared his words. He always deputized a couple of guys during the summer months when tourism was at its height, and a couple more when the festival was in full swing. Most of the time, though, it was just him patrolling the streets of Rainbow Valley and keeping its citizens safe from the bad guys.
When Luke was in high school, Ben had represented everything about Rainbow Valley he hated, particularly the assumption that just because of where he came from, everybody had to keep an eye on him. After a while, Luke got so tired of the wary looks he got for doing nothing but walking down the street that he finally gave them something to gossip about. By the time he was in high school, he found some kind of trouble to get into at least once a month, and to this day he couldn’t look at a police car without a small part of him wondering if a cop was inside looking back at him, waiting for him to screw up.
The sheriff approached Luke’s table and slid into the seat across from him. “Hey there, Luke. Mind if I sit down?”
“Looks like you already have,” Luke said.
Ben nodded toward the brace on his leg. “Knee problems?”
“Just had surgery.”
Ben slid his hat off, revealing a permanent crease in his graying hair. “So…what have you been doing with yourself since you left the Valley?”
“Riding bulls,” Luke said. “I’ll be heading to the World Championship Rodeo in a few months.”
Ben just stared at him, which irritated the hell out of Luke. Either the man was too ignorant to know what that meant, which Luke didn’t believe for a moment, or he was acting as if it meant nothing when he knew it did. Either way, it pissed Luke off.
Ben leaned back in his chair, eyeing Luke carefully. “I thought you left town after the funeral.”
“I came back.”
“How long you staying?”
“Three months.”
“So what will you be doing with yourself while you’re here?”