Town Darling Read Free Page B

bother
acknowledging her.
    “Deputy--”
    He briefly eyed her with
little emotion and continued to write the ticket.  “Casey--”
    “What do you think you’re
doing?” she calmly asked despite her obvious raging temper.
    Vaughn casually pointed at
the invalid meter with his pen and gave her an innocent look with those dark
eyes of his.  “Issuing you a parking ticket.”
    “To a horse?”
    He returned his attention
to his ticket pad and showed little reaction.  “Nope, to the owner of the
horse.”
    As she stared at his
handsome profile, she wondered what she ever found appealing about him.  Vaughn
ripped off the ticket, folded it, and casually stuck it between the horse’s
bridle and its ear.  Casey pulled the ticket out and allowed her hostility to
boil over.
    “You can’t ticket a horse
for a parking violation,” she suddenly growled.
    “I believe I just did.”
    Casey waved the ticket with
annoyance while glaring at him.  “ This is harassment.”
    “No, that is a
ticket.”  Vaughn indicated the meter with a cleverly raised brow.  “And that is an expired meter.”
    Casey indicated Vaughn
while sneering.  “And that is an arrogant asshole.”
    He didn’t appear the least
bit affected by her insult and almost welcomed the challenge.  “You may be the
town darling, but that won’t get anywhere with me.”
    Casey was stunned and
moderately offended by his comment as she stared at him.  “Town darling?  Since
when?”
    The sheriff’s blazer pulled
up to the curb near them.  A plump, older man in a policeman’s uniform, Sheriff
Wiley, got out of the car and approached them.  Wiley was a small-town sheriff
stereotype.  He’d obviously had too many doughnuts, indicated by the tautness
of his shirt buttons over his mid-section, and spent too much time sleeping in
his cruiser over the years.  The sheriff looked at both and appeared curious.
    “What’s going on here?”
Sheriff Wiley asked.
    “Your deputy gave me a
parking ticket for my horse .”
    Wiley looked at Vaughn and
appeared almost stunned.  “Seriously, Vaughn?”
    The deputy immediately
became defensive.  “The meter is expired, there’s horse excrement all over, and
she know she’s not supposed to ride her horse in town,” Vaughn reminded him.
    The sheriff shook his head
with shame.  “I know you’re fairly new here, Deputy, but she’s been riding her
horses into town since she was in kindergarten.”  Wiley took the ticket from
Casey, tore it, and placed it in Vaughn’s hand.  “I’m sure you have more
important things to do than write parking tickets to the pretty girls of
Darwood Falls.”
    Vaughn stared at him and
appeared stunned.  Wiley turned toward Casey and offered a pleasant smile while
placing his hand on her shoulder.  He’d always been overly friendly toward her
growing up, and his friendliness had only increased as she got older.  She was
never sure what to make of him.
    “Don’t let Deputy Holt
intimidate you, Casey,” Wiley announced.  “New deputies are always a little
John Wayne until they’re properly broken in.  But don’t you worry; I’m looking
out for you.”
    Casey stared at him with an
odd look.  He smiled warmly at her and returned to his blazer.  She stared
after him as he drove away, appearing dumbfounded.  She then turned to Vaughn,
who shut his ticket book with disgust and possible embarrassment.
    “What just happened?” she
asked more to herself.
    “What do you think?” Vaughn
scoffed while avoiding looking and her then walked away.
    Could it be true?  Was she
the town darling?

Chapter
Three
     
    T he sheriff’s blazer pulled
up to the police station less than two blocks from the diner.  Sheriff Wiley
got out of his blazer with his usual lunch-to-go from the diner while
attempting to juggle his take-out coffee and the newspaper.  Abby approached
him and nearly cut off his path to the police station.  He attempted to keep
from losing his lunch or coffee