Seeking the Sheriff (Masterson County Book 1) Read online

  There was a strange man holding her. Phoebe hadn’t gotten a good look at him, but she thought it was that brute, Tom Rutherford, who’d been harassing Phoenix for weeks. He certainly felt big enough to be Rutherford.

  She felt his chest rumble as he spoke behind her. Felt his arms tighten around her yet again. He certainly was a large man. Strong.

  Phoenix jumped to his feet and charged the cowboy holding her. The cowboy twisted. His arms tightened around her, almost protectively.

  He jerked as her brother struck him on the side.

  They almost went down, but the man was strong. Big and muscled… And royally ticked off.

  He let go of her and Phoebe scurried away. The man grabbed her brother. Within seconds he had Phoenix wrestled to the ground—and handcuffed. It was then Phoebe saw the emblem on the side of the SUV.

  Oh, hell. She’d just accosted the Masterson County Sheriff.

  Phoebe pushed Perci’s helping hand away. “Get inside, with Pan and the boys. I’ll deal with this.”

  “Phoebe, let Dad deal with it,” her slightly younger sister said.

  “No.” She’d deal. She’d made the situation so much worse; it was her responsibility to clean it all up. Phoebe rose to her feet and turned to the man now glowering down at her. She got her first good look at the sheriff.

  Even in the light from the front porch, it was hard to miss the gorgeous cowboy in jeans and a white Stetson glowering at her. If he wasn’t about to eat her for lunch, she would almost be tempted to stop and just stare at him.

  “You.” He pointed right at her. Phoebe stood her ground and refused to look away.

  Chapter 3

  He should arrest them both. Let them spend the next three days thinking about what they had done. Tempting; very, very tempting.

  Thunder cracked overhead; lightning streaked across the sky. Decision made. He didn’t have time for the damned Tylers of Tyler Township. Not tonight.

  He looked at the woman standing so proud, defiant, and terrified in front of him. She was disheveled from wrestling with him, hair everywhere, and the top two buttons of the thin pajamas had popped open. He pointed at her and then the house. “Inside.”

  She touched her left ear lightly. “You don’t have to shout. My hearing aid is turned on…now.”

  “March your little… self inside.”

  She obeyed, tiny chin in the air. The damned woman didn’t have any shoes on. She didn’t seem to notice. Her father and sisters hurried inside in front of her.

  Her brother was still cursing him up one side and down the other. He cursed his sister, too. That just pissed Joel off even more. Joel yanked the kid to his feet and frogmarched him after his sister.

  Damn it.

  He should just arrest them both and be done with it. The old man spoke first. “Arrest my son if you need to. Let him sit for a while. But my daughter… She’s needed here. She takes care of the kids. Don’t think we can do it a day around here without her.”

  One of her sisters handed her a cotton robe, and she slipped into it quickly. She eyed him like he was a rabid rattlesnake out to gobble her up. He thought of that for a quick moment, gobbling her right up. At any other time, under any other circumstances…

  He stayed silent as she tied the robe around her body.

  He had to admit, he liked what he’d seen in the few seconds before she covered up. He was a man, after all. None of the four women were exactly slouches in the looks department. Then she turned back toward him and he got his first real look at his assailant.

  Her hair was rich auburn, her eyes a soft blue. It was coloring shared with all of her sisters and two of her brothers. Her skin was flawless, the body beneath the shapeless robe was small but curved. He’d had his hands on her, after all. She’d curved in all the right female places.

  She stared back at him. Finally, she licked her lips nervously and spoke. “I didn’t realize you were the police, Deputy…”

  “Sheriff. I’m Joel Masterson.”

  She winced. “I didn’t know who you were. I thought you were the men who have been harassing my brother. I am so sorry.”

  Such pride, it was in her face and in the way she did not look away. He still saw the fear. Especially when she looked at the three younger boys watching from the hallway.

  She made him feel like a total ass. Did she think he was going to slap some cuffs on her and drag her away, right in front of her brothers and sisters?

  Damn it, one sister looked about ready to cry, as it was.

  Her brother Phoenix cursed at her; she barely glanced at him, as if she were used to the treatment.

  Joel wasn’t. He and his three brothers had been raised never to talk to a woman like that, let alone a sister. He yanked the boy around and got in his face. “One more word out of you and it’s the back of my Denali, and a seventy-two-hour hold. Minimum.” He sat the boy back on his feet and turned toward the oldest sister.

  The woman—from her brother’s curses, he assumed her name was Phoebe—held herself so still. She just stared at him.

  Hell, Joel wanted to stare right back. He almost did. Until the boy called his sister something so foul, his father smacked him in the head.

  Phil Tyler looked at Joel, resolution in his manner. “He’s nineteen now and getting into more and more trouble. I got three more boys coming up right behind him. He ain’t pulling his weight around here. He’s just making more trouble for me—and for the girls. The four of them are working themselves to the bones around here. Just to help make ends meet. He’s not.”

  Joel really didn’t need the family history. What he needed was to get out of there. If the boy had been more cooperative, he’d have just left him for his father to deal with. Thanks to the sister, it had turned into an even bigger mess. “I’m sorry for your troubles, Mr. Tyler, but—”

  The older man took the cup one of his twins handed him. He stared at Joel, for a long moment. Like he was looking inside Joel and taking his measure somehow. It was disconcerting. Joel would admit that.

  Then Phil Tyler looked at his four beautiful daughters. He straightened his shoulders, and his resolve tightened around him almost visibly.

  Joel knew something significant was happening. He just didn’t know what.

  “I’m asking you to arrest him, Sheriff. Or at least get him out of here. For a while. Before he ends up hurting someone here. Every last one of my others are smaller than he is, you can see that for yourself. I just don’t trust him here anymore. He’s going to hurt one of them eventually.”

  The oldest sister protested, but her father held up a hand and told her to be quiet. She obeyed. The entire room was silent. “He would’ve plowed right over you, Phoebe Kate. We all know that. Had the sheriff not been here, he could have hurt you.”

  “Had the sheriff not been here, it wouldn’t have happened,” she said, sending a glare Joel’s way as if he were the cause of their family drama. Not exactly a reaction he hadn’t seen in his job before. Everyone looked to blame the police. It was easier than thinking their loved one was at fault.

  The brother kept cursing, though now under his breath.

  “No. No more coddling him; our family just can’t afford this any longer.” The father leveled a look at the son. It was a look that was filled with love, exasperation, and disgust. “No more. You’re welcome home when you can be a part of this family—help instead of screwing everything up. Again. Do you think we can afford bail money for this? Your sisters are struggling to find grocery money, Phoenix. Groceries. To feed eight other people besides you! You want to see Parker, Pete, or Pat go to bed hungry every night just to keep you out of jail?”

  Now the kid shut up. The oldest sister moved to stand between her father, brother…and Joel. She looked up, between the two men and the boy. Joel’s nose tickled, the scent of clean woman right there in front of him. She turned more fully toward her father, putting all of those dark red curls right beneath his chin. She only came up to mid-chest on him. If he le
aned forward a bit, he could…Joel forced himself to focus on doing his job and not acting like an idiot.

  “Daddy—”

  The older man wrapped a hand around his daughter’s arm and pulled her close for a hug. He then sat her back. Closer to Joel. “No, baby girl. It’s time he learned to be a man. Sheriff, take him off my property, please. He’s not welcome here anymore.”

  Joel didn’t see where he had a choice. The boy wasn’t welcome at home any longer. He had committed a crime. And he was too drunk to be able to take care of himself. Responsibility was going to have to fall to him. Hell, he even understood where Phil Tyler was coming from. Joel reached for the boy—just as six feet of enraged drunken teenager lunged toward his father.

  Knocking his five-foot one-hundred-pound sister carelessly out of his way.

  Joel knew he was too late, even as he was moving.

  He’d just managed to wrap one hand around her skinny little arm when she hit the floor. Her head cracked against the chair on her way down.

  Chapter 4

  Strong arms were holding her, carrying her. For a moment, Phoebe thought she was a little girl again, held safely in her father’s arms.

  He had always been her safety.

  And then the pain in her skull registered.

  Phoebe cried out and tried to grab her skull and put it back inside her head where it belonged.

  It didn’t happen.

  “Shhh, honey, we are at the hospital now. They will get you fixed right up. My brother’s a doctor here. He’ll make you feel better real soon. Just rest your head on my shoulder. I’ll carry you in.”

  She didn’t recognize the voice—and her father hadn’t been able to carry her in a really long time. Her eyes popped open, and she looked straight up—at the sheriff of Masterson County.

  That’s when she remembered.

  Phoenix. Poor Phoenix, who’d made so many foolish decisions in the two years since they’d lost their mother in a car accident. Her brother had been driving.

  And now their father had finally had enough. She’d known it was coming for a long while. Phoenix was just too far out of control. Between the troubles at school, the arguments with her father, with the twins and Pan, with the younger boys, with her it was just too much. The common denominator was always Phoenix.

  She couldn’t deal with this now, not with the way her head was about to explode.

  “I’m pretty sure my brains are leaking out of my skull right now—” She closed her eyes again and lowered her head gingerly to the man’s rock hard shoulder. She was just going to have to stay right where she was for a little while.

  Chapter 5

  Dr. Nathaniel Masterson was just finishing up with the last small crisis at the Masterson General Hospital when the pneumatic doors of the ER opened. His older brother walked in, arms full of woman. For a terse moment, Nate thought the small redhead was the woman he’d spent the last two hours mentally cursing. And then his attention shifted to the woman walking behind his brother.

  There she was. For lack of a better definition, his personal nemesis. His albatross. There wasn’t a single hospital employee that he struggled to get along with except Persephone Tyler, the last nurse hired by his predecessor. And one he’d love to fire.

  If he’d been able to find just cause to get rid of Nurse Tyler, he would already have. But since that predecessor was his own mother…until Tyler screwed up royally, he was stuck with her.

  She looked different tonight. For one thing, she didn’t have on the scrubs that were her normal garb. Well-worn jeans and a thin sweatshirt were it. Made her look smaller, younger, more vulnerable. The dark hair shot through with fiery red was loose around her narrow shoulders, softening her classically beautiful, feline face. The big blue eyes that usually snapped fire at him were quiet and terrified.

  That was what got to him the most. The terror. Perci Tyler rarely showed fear—at least not in his presence. She’d rather gnaw off her own arm before letting him see she was afraid of something.

  Joel looked at him. “Good. You’re still here. She...hit her head. She needs checked out. Fast.”

  “Get her in here. Who exactly is she?” He had a few guesses. Though this Tyler wasn’t one he could recall seeing before. How many more of them were there? That bastard Martin Tyler had dozens of cousins and just as many siblings, didn’t he? He’d never asked Perci how closely she was related to Martin, he just knew she was. Same hair, same eyes. Same toxic attitude.

  The Tylers of Tyler Township were hard to misidentify, that was for certain. He’d had personal run-ins with a good half a dozen of them. Not a pleasant lot, that was for certain.

  “She’s my older sister, Phoebe.” Perci’s pretty face turned toward him, her natural wariness where he was concerned right there for him to see.

  “How old? Medical history?” He hadn’t meant to be so brusque, but something about the Tyler family always brought it out in him. He’d told himself not to hold her family against Perci when he’d first met her. After less than a week, it was her that grated on his nerves so badly he bled whenever he was in her presence for too long.

  “She’s twenty-five, and other than the accident that damaged her hearing when she was five or six, she’s not had any major health issues. No allergies, no underlying conditions. She just...hit her head tonight.” There was no fire in Perci tonight. Just a look that shot straight through him, a look he’d seen on loved ones’ faces before. A look that begged him to make their loved one well again. To fix everything again.

  Little Perci Tyler was terrified.

  So that was what it took to make her quiet. Fear. Nate was man enough to admit he far preferred her fighting than fearing.

  “Let’s get her looked at, ok? Joel? You can probably go now. I’ll see the Tylers are well taken care of.” Joel probably had a dozen other things on his plate at the moment with the entire county on a state of alert for flooding; the floods were slated to hit sometime in the wee hours of the morning, making them doubly treacherous. It was one reason why he was still at the hospital so late. The hospital was a bit too close to the flood plain for his liking. He’d wanted to double check emergency procedures one more time. Nate looked at his older brother.

  He was holding the woman tightly, a look of fear in his own eyes. How was his brother involved with the Tylers? Nate took a closer look at the woman as he indicated for his brother to put her on the exam table. The woman was beautiful and favored her younger sister greatly. Twenty-five? That meant Perci was several years younger than Nate had originally thought.

  The woman opened eyes the same blue as her sister’s and looked up at him. The resemblance was strong, but this woman’s face was a bit rounder, sweeter than feline like Perci’s. “My head hurts...Really hurts...Can you put my brains back inside my skull soon, please?” She spoke with the slightly altered tones of one who’d been deaf for a while. Nate checked for hearing devices in both ears; she wore one in her left.

  “As soon as we can, Ms. Tyler. Let’s get you taken care of, ok? Care to tell me what happened?”

  “It’s the sheriff’s fault...he brought my brother home...” She waved a hand toward Joel, then brought it to the laceration on her temple. “Should have just kept him…much less work that way…”

  “And then what?” Was it a domestic abuse situation? Had someone struck the small woman on the table hard enough to knock her out? The brother, perhaps?

  He’d seen it before. He pulled the blanket she was wrapped in back and did a quick visual inspection. She wore a thin cotton robe over most of her body, but he didn’t see anything too concerning. Nothing to indicate abuse. And her sister had never shown any of the signs, either. “Someone hit you?”

  “No. Well, yes. My brother knocked me down. Trying to get to...” She lifted her hand to her head again. She had small hands, Nate noticed, small and pretty. Hands that trembled.

  Joel interrupted. “Her brother was drunk, Nate. She got caught in between us, and she came
out the loser. Struck her head on a dining room chair leg as she went down. We got her here as quickly as we could, but they live out past Levi’s new property.”

  Their youngest brother Levi had just purchased another property near the southern half of the county. It connected to the ranch that had been in their family for more than four generations now, the ranch where the four brothers still lived. Which meant a good thirty-five-minute drive to the hospital—at top speed. “It’s possible she has a concussion. More than likely, I’d say. She lose consciousness?”

  “Yes. She was out for a moment or two. But she’s also been confused since.” Joel’s worry was hard to miss; nor was the way he hovered over the woman. The woman who apparently blamed him for her injury.

  “Then we’ll see what’s going on.”

  “Don’t worry, Phoebe.” Perci leaned over her sister and grabbed the woman’s left hand. “He might be a real jerk, but Dr. Masterson knows what he’s doing. You’ll be fine. I know you will.”

  “Gee, Tyler, I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” He didn’t look at the other woman, just focused on checking the pupils of the smaller one in front of her. Perci Tyler was very petite at around five-three—this sister was practically elf-sized.

  “Yeah, well. Extenuating circumstances. Don’t take it too personally.”

  The injured sister finally smiled, revealing a smile that could damned well stop traffic. No wonder his brother looked a little shell-shocked.

  Nate commiserated. He’d felt the same since he’d met Persephone. Damn her to hell, that woman got to him.

  Chapter 6

  Phoebe just focused on breathing—and trying not to cry. The next two hours were a blur of x-rays and exams. Tests she could definitely not afford. She acquiesced simply because Perci insisted on it and because the sheriff was watching. That man terrified her. Something about the way he looked at her…