Read Online Coming Home to Texas by Allie Pleiter - Free Book Online

made her hightail it out of Martins Gap, Nash had a feeling he was about to find out.

Chapter Six
    S heriff Mellows looked up at Ellie with a wide smile as she walked into the storefront that served as the Martins Gap Sheriff’s Office. “Ellie, darlin’, good to see you. You holding up okay?”
    Everyone asked her that. Was she? Ellie didn’t know. Nothing felt right, but parts of her still knew she’d made the right choice by breaking it off with Derek. “I think so” had become her standard reply to such questions. “I am glad to be home for a while, anyway.” She switched subjects as quickly as possible. “Gran tells me this is your last term as sheriff. Are you really going to make Martins Gap elect someone new to fill those great big shoes?”
    Mellows pointed to a small black gadget blinking the number 232 in red.
    â€œSays right there. New sheriff takes over in two hundred and thirty two days, whoever he is. Or she. I’m a forward-thinking guy.”
    â€œYou’ve got a countdown clock?” Ellie laughed.
    â€œMy granddaughter sent it to me from San Antonio. Nash says I’ve messed with it to make it run faster, but I’m amazed I got the fool thing to even turn on.”
    â€œIs Nash around? I just came from church and I have some stuff for the after-school program from Pastor Theo.”
    Don nodded toward the back door of the sheriff’s office. “He’s out back fiddling with that car like he does every lunch break. He may be putting poor old Clive out of a job tending to the department vehicles the way he keeps things running.” He raised an eyebrow toward her tote bag. “I don’t suppose you’ve got some of your Gran’s brownies in that there bag?”
    Gran kept the sheriff’s office, the volunteer fire department and half a dozen other town services in baked goods. “Afraid not,” she teased the older man. “But I have half a dozen blondie bars from Lolly’s.” Lolly’s was the diner down the street known for its scrumptious deserts. “Will that do?”
    Don laughed and patted the paunch straining his shirt buttons. “It will, darlin’. It’ll do just fine. Don’t you let Nash eat ’em all before I get some.”
    Ellie headed for the door that led out back. “I promise.” The screen door gave a tired squeak as she pushed it open, causing Nash to look up from where he was bent over a low, sleek, black-and-gold sports car with the hood raised. The spring sun warmed the paved parking lot, and Nash was in a white cotton T-shirt, his uniform shirt hanging out of the way on a peg beside the door. A wide stripe of something black was smeared across one lean forearm while a matching smear ran across one side of his jaw. He offered her a cheerful grin as he worked a wrench around some nut or bolt on an engine part. “Hi, there. Give me a sec to get this tight and I’ll be right with you.”
    She slid her bag onto the picnic table that sat in the shade cast by the office wall, noticing an open box from Shorty’s Pizza on the table with a few slices gone. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll get engine grease on your lunch?”
    He half grunted, half laughed as he struggled with the wrench. “I’m more afraid I’ll get cheese on my spark plugs, actually. Ah, there.” Whatever he was fighting with slipped into place, and he straightened up, reaching for a grimy towel spread across the front fender. “This is a nice surprise.”
    â€œI met with Theo this morning to go over the program schedule, and I thought I’d drop off a copy of the calendar he gave me.” She’d tacked Lolly’s and a visit to Nash on to the end of her errands as a present to herself for surviving the pitying stares of the bank teller—a woman who used to be in her high school chemistry class and who was now pregnant with her