Man Behind the Badge

With a sigh of relief, Robin Marlowe pulled up in front of a small box-shaped building at the outskirts of town and parked next to a dusty SUV with a dent in the side. The soda she'd gulped down when she stopped for gas at a truck stop back in Kansas was starting to make her squirm on the hot vinyl seat of her aging tan VW Rabbit. Her fingers were cramped around the wheel.

The faded sign beside the front door said Dr. Elliot Harmon, D.V.M. Specialty - Large Animals.

Dr. Harmon's large-animal practice was the very reason Robin had traded the familiar crowds and chaos of Chicago for the empty Colorado plains, eerily silent but for the sound of the wind. She'd come to Waterloo in order to gain experience treating horses and cattle. She was looking forward to meeting her new boss almost as much as finding a rest room - if he hadn't given up on her and hired someone else.

If he had, maybe he'd let her use the facilities anyway.

Robin blamed her delayed arrival on a broken water pump that had wrecked her budget as well as her schedule. According to the mechanic, whose rates were higher than her dentist's back home, pulling the fully loaded utility trailer through the late-August heat had overtaxed her car's small engine.

She probably should have called Doc Harmon to explain, but she'd figured it would be harder for him to fire her in person. Now she wasn't so sure.

Robin had managed to extract herself from the sticky car seat without losing any skin from the backs of her thighs and was smoothing the wrinkles from her navy-blue skirt when the door of the clinic burst open.

"Dr. Marlowe?" demanded the elderly man hurrying toward her, a black leather bag gripped in one bony hand. Tall and lean as a coatrack, he was slightly stooped, his shock of white hair combed back from a thin face with a high forehead and a beaky nose. He was wearing a plaid sport shirt with sleeves that fluttered in the faint breeze and tan slacks that hung on his spare frame like cheap slipcovers.

"Yes, that's me." Robin removed her sunglasses and shielded her eyes against bright sunlight, bracing herself for bad news. "You must be -"

"Doc Harmon." He gave her hand a quick, hard squeeze. "Glad to see you. I expected you yesterday, but no matter. I've got an emergency and my receptionist is out sick." He gestured at the building behind him. "Can you man the phone till I get back?"

"Uh, I guess." Her stomach fluttered with a mix of apprehension and relief. What if she messed up?

"Just take a message," he said, heading for the SUV. "Tell 'em I'm out to Winchesters' spread." Without waiting for a reply, he opened the door and climbed in with surprising agility for someone his age.

Robin's hand tightened on the shoulder strap of her purse as she watched him start the engine and lower the window. Perhaps he was too shorthanded to fire her just yet, but he still might.

"I'm sorry I'm late," she said, raising her voice. "My car -"

"You're here now." He barely spared her a glance as he backed up. "My cell phone number's on the counter."

Slightly dazed, Robin watched him drive away. She was hot, thirsty and nearly broke. She needed a bathroom, a place to stay and, thanks to the gold-plated water pump, an advance on her pay.

"Not much of a welcome, huh?"

The unexpected touch on her shoulder and the male voice at her ear startled a shriek out of her. She spun around to see a man wearing a shiny silver starred pinned to his khaki uniform shirt.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." He flashed a smile that revealed straight white teeth and twin dimples. Only a nose that looked as if it must have been broken saved him from being entirely too handsome. "I'm Charlie Winchester, your local sheriff," he added, touching two fingers to the brim of his hat.

"Uh, hi," Robin managed, still a little shaken. Her nerves had been stretched tight during the long drive from Chicago, and her shoulders ached from hunching over the steering wheel since she'd left the shabby motel early this morning.

But wasn't Winchester the name Doc Harmon had mentioned when he'd told her where he was headed? Did they own the town? She could hardly ask the sheriff, whose dark eyes studied her with leisurely thoroughness from behind amber lenses.

Robin knew what he'd see, a plain woman with black hair cut ruthlessly short and a face free of anything fancier than road dust. She wasn't a girly girl, and she didn't bother much with paints and perfumes. It irked her that she had to tip her head back in order to look at his face instead of his wide chest. She was small but wiry, and as her aunt Dot used to say, Robin was tall on the inside, where it counted.

Robin wasn't so sure of that anymore, and her aunt was no longer around to ask.

"I'll bet you're the new vet," the sheriff said as if he was prompting her to speak.

Robin's tongue came unstuck, and she peeled it off the roof of her mouth. "How'd you guess?"

He folded his tanned, muscular arms across his chest. His hands, she noticed, were ringless. "It wasn't a guess." He feigned a hurt expression. "I get paid to know things. That's why I'm the sheriff. Besides, you've got out-of-state plates, a rental trailer in tow and the doc expected you yesterday."

"Pretty clever of you," she replied dryly, taking a step back from all that hunky broad-shouldered masculinity before it gave her the vapors. Good manners kicked in, courtesy of her late aunt. "My name's Robin Marlowe."

His grin widened. "See, I was right. Reading clues is part of my job, that and chasing bad guys. There aren't a lot of those in Waterloo, so I have time to greet newcomers, too."

"Kind of like a welcoming committee packing heat," she drawled, her gaze flicking to the imposing holster on his hip.

His eyes widened, but his laugh came easy. "Yes, ma'am, I guess you could say that."

From inside the clinic, a phone started ringing and a dog began to bark.

"Oh, nuts," she muttered, turning. "I gotta go." She didn't mind the interruption, but instead of ogling Sheriff Tex she should have been looking for the bathroom while she'd had the chance.

"Nice to meet you," she called automatically over her shoulder as she hurried up the front steps.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Man Behind The Badge by Pamela Toth Copyright © 2003 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.