A Little Dare

He inhaled deeply. “So will you at least think about what I’ve proposed?”

Shelly met his gaze. “Yes, Dare, I’ll need time,” she said quietly.

“Overnight. That’s all the time I can give you, Shelly.”

“But, I need more time.”

Dare stood. “I can’t give you any more time than that. I’ve lost ten years already and can’t afford to lose any more.

And just so you’ll know, I’ve made plans to meet with Jared for lunch tomorrow. I’ll ask him to act as my attorney so that I’ll know my rights as AJ’s father.”

Shelly shook her head sadly. “There’s no need for you to do that, Dare. I don’t intend to keep you and AJ apart. As I

said, you’re the reason I returned.”

Dare nodded. “Will you meet me for breakfast at Kate’s

Diner in the morning so we can decide what we’re going to do?”

Shelly felt she needed more time but knew there was no way Dare would give it to her. “All right. I’ll meet you in the morning.”

Three

D are reached across his desk and hit the buzzer.

“Yes, sheriff?”

“McKade, please bring in John Doe.”

Shelly frowned when she glanced over at Dare. “John Doe?”

Dare shrugged. “That’s the usual name for any unidentified person we get in here, and since he refused to give us his name, we had no choice.”

She nodded. “Oh.”

Before Dare could say anything else, McKade walked in with AJ. The boy frowned when he saw his mother. “I

wondered if you were ever going to come, Mom.”

Shelly smiled wryly. “Of course I was going to come. Had you given them your name they would have called me

sooner. You have a lot of explaining to do as to why you weren’t in school today. It’s a good thing Sheriff

Westmoreland stopped you before you could cause harm to anyone.”

AJ turned and glared at Dare. “Yeah, but I still don’t like

cops.”

Dare crossed his arms on his chest. “And I don’t like boys with bad attitudes. To be frank, it doesn’t matter whether or not you like cops, but you’d sure better learn to respect

them and what they stand for.” This might be his son, Dare thought, but he intended to teach him a lesson in respect, starting now.

AJ turned to his mother. “I’m ready to go.”

Shelly nodded. “All right.”

“Not yet,” Dare said, not liking the tone AJ had used with

Shelly, or how easily she had given in to him. “What you did today was a serious matter, and as part of your

punishment, I expect you to come back every day this week after school to do certain chores I’ll have lined up for you.”

“And if I don’t show up?”

“AJ!”

Dare held up his hand, cutting off anything Shelly was about to say. This was between him and his son. “And if you don’t show up, I’ll know where to find you and when I do it will only make things a lot worse for you. Trust me.”

Dare’s gaze shifted to Shelly. This was not the way he

wanted to start things off with his son, but he’d been left with

little choice. AJ had to respect him as the sheriff as well as accept him as his father. From the look on Shelly’s face he knew she understood that as well.

“Sheriff Westmoreland is right,” she said firmly, giving Dare her support. “And you will show up after school to do

whatever he has for you to do. Is that understood?”

“Yeah, yeah, I understand,” the boy all but snapped. “Can we go now?”

Dare nodded and handed her the completed form. “I’ll walk the two of you out to the car since I was about to leave

anyway.”

Once Shelly and AJ were in the car and had buckled up their seat belts, Dare glanced into the car and said to the boy, “I’ll see you tomorrow when you get out of school.”

Ignoring AJ’s glare, he then turned and the look he gave

Shelly said that he expected to see her tomorrow as well, at Kate’s Diner in the morning. “Good night and drive safely.”

He then walked away.

An hour later, Dare walked into a room where four men sat at a table engaged in a card game. The four looked up and his brother Stone spoke. “You’re late.”

“I had important business to take care of,” Dare said

grabbing a bottle of beer and leaning against the

refrigerator in Stone’s kitchen. “I’ll wait this round out and just watch.”

His brothers nodded as they continued with the game.

Moments later, Chase Westmoreland let out a curse.

Evidently he was losing as usual, Dare thought smiling. He then thought about how the four men at the table were more than just brothers to him; they were also his very best

friends, although Thorn, the one known for his moodiness, could test that friendship and brotherly love to the limit at

times. At thirty-five, Thorn was only eleven months younger than him, and built and raced motorcycles for a living. Last year he’d been the only African-American on the circuit.

His brother Stone, known for his wild imagination, had

recently celebrated his thirty-third birthday and wrote action- thriller novels under the pen name, Rock Mason. Then there were the fraternal thirty-two-year-old twins, Chase and

Storm. Chase was the oldest by seven minutes and owned a soul-food restaurant in downtown Atlanta, and Storm was the fireman in the family. According to their mother, she had gone into delivery unexpectedly while riding in the car with their Dad. When a bad storm had come up, he chased time and outran the storm to get her to the hospital. Thus she

had named her last two sons Chase and Storm.

“You’re quiet, Dare.”

Dare looked up from studying his beer bottle and brought his thoughts back to the present. He met Stone’s curious stare. “Is that a crime?”

Stone grinned. “No, but if it was a crime I’m sure you’d arrest yourself since you’re such a dedicated lawman.”

Chase chuckled. “Leave Dare alone. Nothing’s wrong with him other than he’s keeping Thorn company with this

celibacy thing,” he said jokingly.

“Shut up, Storm, before I hurt you,” Thorn Westmoreland said, without cracking a smile.

Everyone knew Thorn refrained from having sex while

preparing for a race, which accounted for his prickly mood most of the time. But since Thorn had been in the same

mood for over ten months now they couldn’t help but

wonder what his problem was. Dare had a clue but decided not to say. He sighed and crossed the room and sat down at the table. “Guess who’s back in town.”

Storm looked up from studying his hand and grinned. “Okay, I’ll play your silly guessing game. Who’s back in town, Dare?”

“Shelly.”

Everyone at the table got quiet as they looked up at him.

Then Stone spoke. “Our Shelly?”

Dare looked at his brother and frowned. “No, not our Shelly, my Shelly.”

Stone glared at him. “Your Shelly? You could have fooled us, the way you dumped her.”

Dare leaned back in his chair. He’d known it was coming. His brothers had actually stopped speaking to him for

weeks after he’d broken off with Shelly. “I did not dump her. I merely made the decision that I wasn’t ready for marriage and wanted a career with the Bureau instead.

“That sounds pretty much like you dumped her to me,”

Stone said angrily. “You knew she was the marrying kind. And you led her to believe, like you did the rest of us, that the two of you would eventually marry when she finished

college. In my book you played her for a fool, and I’ve

always felt bad about it because I’m the one who

introduced the two of you,” he added, glaring at his brother.

Dare stood. “I did not play her for a fool. Why is it so hard to believe that I really loved her all those years?” he asked,

clearly frustrated. He’d had this same conversation with

Shelly earlier.

“Because,” Thorn said slowly and in a menacing tone as he threw out a card, “I would think most men don’t walk away from the woman they claim to love for no damn reason,

especially not some lame excuse about not being ready to settle down. The way I see it, Dare, you wanted to have your cake and eat it too.” He took a swig of his beer. “Let’s

change the subject before I get mad all over again and

knock the hell out of you for hurting her the way you did.”

Chase narrowed his eyes at Dare. “Yeah, and I hope she’s happily married with a bunch of kids. It would serve you

right for letting the best thing that ever happen to you get

away.”

Dare raised his eyes to the ceiling, wondering if there was such a thing as family loyalty when it came to Shelly

Brockman. He decided to sit back down when a new card game began. “She isn’t happily married with a bunch of

kids, Chase, but she does have a son. He’s ten.”

Stone smiled happily. “Good for her. I bet it ate up your guts to know she got involved with someone else and had his

baby after she left here.”

Dare leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, I went through some pretty hard stomach pains until I found out the truth.”

Storm raised a brow. “The truth about what?”

Dare smirked at each one of his brothers before answering. “Shelly’s son is mine.”