Read Online A Sheriff in Tennessee by Lori Handeland - Free Book Online Page B

sighed, then opened them again.
    â€œSix o’clock in front of the station.”
    â€œSix o’clock in the morning?”
    He smirked. “Problem?”
    â€œNo.” She’d always been an early riser. Her mama would have had it no other way. “I’ll just have to go for my run at night instead of in the morning.”
    â€œYou run at six a.m.?”
    â€œSomeone has to.”
    He didn’t crack a smile. “No, no one has to. You don’t need to beat yourself up jogging. Why don’t you let it slide while you’re here?”
    Just the thought of letting her exercise program slide was enough to make her edgy.
    â€œDo you let your weight lifting program slide?” she snapped.
    â€œWhat program?”
    â€œDon’t tell me you got muscles like those riding in a cop car.”
    â€œOkay, I won’t tell you.”
    Belle frowned. “Seriously. You have to lift weights.”
    â€œNo one ever told me that rule. Is it in the life handbook?”
    â€œHa-ha. Explain to me how you stay in that kind of shape if you don’t lift weights. You don’t look like a runner.”
    â€œI never run when I can walk. Never stand when I can sit. And I never, ever lift something as foolish as a barbell. What’s the point?”
    â€œMuscles? Cardiovascular health? Ability to run down a suspect if the need arises?”
    â€œI can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had to chase anyone.”
    â€œI suppose you just shout ‘Halt!’ and they do.”
    He shrugged. “Pretty much. The gun does help.” His probing eyes met hers. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that walking is as good for the heart as running? And it’s a lot easier on the knees.”
    Someone had told her that; she just didn’t believe it. How could strolling possibly be as worthwhile as pounding the pavement? But as she let her gaze wander over Klein, for the first time she wondered.
    â€œOkay, maybe you don’t lift weights, but you must lift something.”
    â€œYeah, doughnuts to my mouth.”
    He had to be kidding, yet his face was as deadpan as his voice.
    â€œYou’ll see tomorrow,” he continued. “Six a.m. in front of the station. I’ll bring the doughnuts.”
    With that parting comment, he whistled to Clint, nodded to Belle and disappeared inside.
    Belle strolled to the road, glanced back at the house, considered the doughnuts and began to jog toward Pleasant Ridge.
    She slept well that night, her window open, a pleasant mountain breeze blowing across her bed, across her. A long time had passed since she’d been able to sleep beneath an open window. She hadn’t realized she’d missed it.
    When her travel alarm went off at five-thirty, the sky was still dark, though the eastern horizon glowed a lighter shade of blue behind the indigohills. She sat on her bed, watching the sky and the mountains as the cool dawn air ruffled her hair. If not for the dreams of Gabe Klein still tangled in her brain, she would say she’d found the greatest peace she’d known since leaving home.
    Unfortunately, those images of Klein were disturbing. She’d slept well, but she’d slept with him. Her brothers would say she needed to get laid, preferably by Klein, and then all the fantasies would go away. They’d no doubt be right. Thus far in her life, Belle had never found real sex as enthralling as the illusion.
    She headed into her tiny bathroom and stepped beneath the tepid, trickling shower spray. The apartment felt more like home every day. Little things like lack of water pressure took her right back to the foothills of Virginia. Those memories made her feel like a kid again. Too bad her youth was not something she cared to recall. In those days she had been uncertain, off center, alone.
    Alone. That could explain her unreasonably strong attraction to a man she should not be attracted to. She was lonely.