What made this worse was that his older brother, Mitch, had straightened himself up, shaken off his roughneck family background, and gone in the opposite direction. He was now Stacey’s chief deputy, and the best man she had.

Why did brothers have to be such a pain in the ass? Damn, she did not want to have to call Mitch and tell him she’d busted his troublemaking younger sibling. Again.

“You wanted something to happen,” she reminded herself as she stepped out of the car, pushing her broad-brimmed tan hat onto her head.

Her boots crunching on the gravel parking lot and her fingertips resting on the short, blunt club at her hip, she walked with determination but not haste toward the entrance. Deliberate and thorough, she evaluated the situation with every stride. Through the windows running the entire width of the small building, she noted who was inside, and where. One customer sat at the counter, his back to the kids, completely oblivious to the situation. Or just a damn coward. No one else was in sight. The girl spotted her, the relief on her face saying a lot about how serious the situation was. Shoving the door open, Stacey watched the troublemakers swing around, unhappy with the interruption. Then they saw who had interrupted and paled.

“A little early to be out causing trouble, isn’t it, boys?”

“No trouble here, Sheriff, ma’am.” Flanagan. Arrogant little jerk actually shot off a crooked salute. “Just nice, wholesome teenagers. Right, guys?”

Mike’s signature reply whenever he was up to no good. His two buddies had the sense to remain silent.

“Cara, are you okay?”

The girl glanced back and forth among the boys. Stacey could have predicted the words that would come out of her mouth, given that high school was brutal and paybacks a bitch. “I’m fine. My dad just ran to the bank; he’ll be back in a minute.”

Huh. She wondered if the opportunistic boys had seen the man leave and decided to have some mean-spirited fun. She wouldn’t put it past Mike.

“See?” he said. “No problem. We just stopped by to eat on our way to practice.”

Noting their gym clothes, she figured they really were on the way to the field. School started in a few weeks, and the coach was already working his players to death in the heat. Maybe it would sweat some of the aggression out of them. One could only hope.

She pointed at the two followers. “Go. But from now on, stop for breakfast somewhere else. Or better yet, stay home and let your mamas make it for you.”

Mike took a step, too, but Stacey stopped him. “We’re not done.”

His jaw thrust out in pure testosterone-laden male belligerence. “I’ll be late.”

“You weren’t worried about that before I came in, now, were you?”

The two other boys scuttled out sideways, as if they didn’t want to turn their backs on her. Cara dashed toward the phone. The obviously deaf and blind customer remained hunched over the counter, ignoring the situation. Staying out of it.

What would the guy have done if things had really gotten rough? She hated to think that anybody here in Hope Valley would be so uncaring of a girl in need, but that bystander hadn’t moved so much as a muscle since she’d pulled up.

“Nice job, mister,” she snapped, unable to help herself.

He flinched, then turned his head to peer over his shoulder. When she recognized him, everything suddenly made sense. Because prissy, fussy insurance salesman Rob Monroe hadn’t had a set of balls in the twenty years she’d known him. He still lived with his parents, never having moved away from Mommy the socialite and Daddy the ass of a mayor. It was all the more embarrassing since she’d actually gone out with him once in high school. To her consternation, he’d been trying to get her to repeat the experience ever since she’d returned to Hope Valley to serve out her dad’s term as sheriff.

As if.

“Morning, Stacey,” he mumbled. “Is there a problem? I was reading the paper…”

“Well, don’t let me keep you from it.”

He hopped off his stool. “What’s wrong? Can I help you?”

“Not on your best day.”

Their stares met and he had the audacity to look hurt. That why-can’t-you-love-me crap might have worked when she was sixteen and felt sorry for him, since he was the target of a little teen maliciousness. But no more. When she didn’t relent by so much as the softening of her frown, he slapped his paper down on the counter and stalked out.

Stacey immediately turned her attention back on Mike. “Let’s go.”

She grabbed him by the upper corner of his ear and squeezed. The kid was about her height, and probably had thirty pounds on her, but he yelped and followed her outside. “Hey, I didn’t do nothin’!”

“The look on that girl’s face said you did. Now, I can’t haul you in for being a jackass, but if I hear you’ve been bothering her again, I will be visiting your house.”

Absolutely the only thing the teen feared was his own hard-edged father, who, if the rumor mill was to be believed, lived by the spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child motto. So the threat worked the way a plea or a suggestion that he follow in his brother’s footsteps would not have. He snapped an insincere apology. “Sorry.”

“Tell it to Cara at school next month. Otherwise, stay away from her.”

“Fine.” His fuming eyes fried her where she stood. “Can I go, Sheriff?”

She waved him away without another word, watching him take off running down the road toward the high school. His last defiant gesture, flipping her the bird over his shoulder as he ran, came as no surprise. “Tomorrow,” she reminded herself with a sigh once he was out of sight, “don’t complain about nothing ever happening.”

A half hour later, armed with doughnuts and stuffed from the two Boston creams she’d scarfed down while waiting for Cara’s father to return, Stacey finally arrived at work. With things having started out so badly, the day could only get better.

When she parked in her reserved spot outside the station, however, she realized she might be wrong about that. Because before she’d even stepped out of her car, a snide voice called, “Running late this morning, Sheriff?”

She forced a tight smile and nodded at the older woman about to walk into the bank next door. Alice Covey was a hateful old harpy who tap-danced on her very last nerve even when Stacey was in a good mood. Which definitely didn’t describe today. “Everything seems to move a little slower in this weather, Mrs. Covey.”

God, how much would it be to ask to arrive at work a few minutes late and not have it publicly commented on?

You wanted this. You chose this.

Yeah. She had. About two years ago, when her father had retired midterm, his arthritic knees so bad he couldn’t walk comfortably from his car into the station, she’d accepted the town’s invitation to come back here to fill his shoes. The timing had been right, considering what she’d been going through, and she didn’t regret it.

But, boy, her father had worn big shoes. They had been walked in not only by him, but by his own father, as well. A Rhodes had been sheriff in this county for forty years. The others, however, had been males, which some people around here, like the timekeeping town busybody in the bank and the blowhard mayor, never let her forget.

She doubted they would have said a word to her father, or to her older brother, who everyone had assumed would take over, at least until he’d joined the Marines and ruined their plans. “Maybe you’ll get the right sheriff next time,” she muttered, her jaw tightening. Because with Tim back home after twelve years in the service, some people thought she should be a nice sister and step aside for him during the next election, coming up in just a couple of months. Especially given his injuries.

Stacey had done well; even the most chauvinistic townies would concede that. But she was, after all, just a woman. And Tim, despite his lack of experience, versus Stacey’s law enforcement degree and six years with the VSP in Roanoke, was obviously the better Rhodes for the job.