Her Cowboy Sheriff Read online

  Will a lawman and a little girl...

  Give her a reason to stay?

  Annabelle Foster has big plans to leave Barren, Kansas, until an accident makes her guardian to a little girl. Annabelle has zero experience with children and turns to Finn Donovan for help. But while both Annabelle and Emmie start falling for the strong, guarded sheriff, Finn is haunted by his own tragedy. Can one little girl make them believe in their future...as a family?

  Finn slipped an arm around her shoulders to draw her closer.

  “I don’t mean to give you mixed messages, but I liked having you and Emmie here. I haven’t liked anything as much since I came to Barren. I don’t know what to make of that, either, but maybe I should stop trying and just try...this.”

  His mouth angled to touch hers in a warm kiss that took away the cold night, the falling snow, and turned it into the heat of a summer day.

  She kissed him back. She’d dreamed of being in his arms, never thinking it could happen. But where could this lead? He’d made his position clear. He hadn’t recovered from the tragedy in Chicago and his belief in the future. In Barren he might care for Emmie, even care a little for Annabelle, but...

  Her thoughts battled with the growing need inside for something more, something lasting and, if she were being honest, for Finn.

  Dear Reader,

  By the time you see this, I will have moved from Tennessee, where I’ve lived for quite a few years, to Arizona! As I’ve learned all over again, a new start can be exciting but also a bit scary.

  That’s certainly true for my heroine in Her Cowboy Sheriff, the fourth Kansas Cowboys book, even though Annabelle Foster is more than ready to move. When she’s finally free of her family’s diner, she plans to find a new career and travel far and wide.

  But when Annabelle abruptly becomes the temporary mom to her cousin’s vulnerable child, she soon learns little Emmie could steal anyone’s heart. And then there’s Finn Donovan. She’s had a crush on him ever since he came to town.

  Finn tries not to notice. After tragically losing everything in Chicago, he only wants to bury himself in his work as the new sheriff of Stewart County. But he can’t resist Emmie—or Annabelle.

  Getting these two wounded people together takes some doing, but nothing good is ever easy (just like a move from one place to another). I hope you’ll like their story and come back for more.

  The fifth book in this series isn’t far behind! If you missed the first three, check out The Reluctant Rancher, Last Chance Cowboy and Cowboy on Call. They’re still available, and they’d all love to have you visit their hometown.

  For more information, please hop over to my website, leighriker.com, where you can also sign up for my newsletter.

  And once again, happy reading!

  Leigh

  Her Cowboy Sheriff

  USA TODAY Bestselling Author

  Leigh Riker

  Leigh Riker, like so many dedicated readers, grew up with her nose in a book. This award-winning, USA TODAY bestselling author still can’t imagine a better way to spend her time than to curl up with a good romance novel—unless it’s to write one! She’s a member of the Authors Guild, Novelists, Inc., and Romance Writers of America. When not writing, she’s either out in the garden, indoors watching movies funny and sad, or traveling (for research purposes, of course). With added “help” from her mischievous cat, Daisy, she’s now working on a new novel. She loves to hear from readers. You can find Leigh on her website, leighriker.com, on Facebook at leighrikerauthor, and on Twitter, @lbrwriter.

  Books by Leigh Riker

  Harlequin Heartwarming

  Kansas Cowboys

  The Reluctant Rancher

  Last Chance Cowboy

  Cowboy on Call

  A Heartwarming Thanksgiving

  “Her Thanksgiving Soldier”

  Lost and Found Family

  Man of the Family

  If I Loved You

  Harlequin Intrigue

  Agent-in-Charge

  Double Take

  Visit the Author Profile page at www.Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Join Harlequin My Rewards today and earn a FREE ebook!

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  To my dear Chattanooga friends, Laurie, Kelle and Carol. The guest room is waiting!

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  EXCERPT FROM AN ALASKAN PROPOSAL BY BETH CARPENTER

  CHAPTER ONE

  FINN DONOVAN CRADLED the small child in his arms. The little girl couldn’t be more than three years old, and her cries went straight to his heart, to the memories that were both happiest and darkest.

  “Where’s Mama?” she kept wailing.

  Finn hated accident scenes.

  The pile of nearby wreckage had once been a car and a pickup truck, the now twisted metal gleaming in the dark each time the flashing lights from the ambulance and his cruiser strobed the area. The hash of red and blue made the whole scene appear purple, and the noxious smell of spilled gasoline hung in the air. Hands down, this was the absolute worst part of his job.

  Finn had hoped to leave all that behind in Chicago—the tragedy and loss—but his move to Barren, Kansas, apparently hadn’t changed that after all. He’d thought as the sheriff of sleepy Stewart County he’d rarely have to deal with such scenes. This was his first here, and part of him wished he could hand the child off to his nearest deputy.

  The little girl clung, arms tight around his neck, face buried in his shoulder as if she already trusted him to keep her safe. “Mamaaa!”

  Her tears soaked through his cotton shirt. Finn could feel his heartbeat drumming in his chest, his ears. Get away, he thought. Put her down. At the same instant, he pressed one hand against her skull, his fingers in the fine silk of her hair. The pint-size blonde sweetheart, who wore only a light cardigan over a T-shirt with a Disney character on it and a pair of tiny jeans, made his heart ache. Her miniature sneakers were the kind with lights that flashed like those of the ambulance. She shivered in his embrace, and Finn’s pulse caught. Cold. Except for a few scrapes she hadn’t been hurt in the accident, but the mid-October night had chilled. Was she going into shock? So small, so helpless...but she shouldn’t rely on him.

  She needed a warmer place and a quick removal from the frightening views all around them. On his way to his cruiser, Finn passed the paramedic who’d been breathing life back into the driver of the car. She turned to him, shaking her head.

  “It’s bad, Sheriff,” she whispered.

  Another EMT was now loading the stretcher onto the ambulance. Finn turned away enough to shield the child from the sight—shield himself, too. The open doors, the harsh light inside and the sight of the gurney, the woman’s body no more than a still lump under the blanket, unnerved him. To his relief the child he held hadn’t even tried to look, but at least
her earlier cries had subsided into whimpers.

  The paramedic’s gaze met his. “Anyone we know?”

  Was she asking about the woman? Or the little girl he still carried?

  When he’d pulled up to the scene, Finn had run the victim’s plates, her driver’s license.

  “Wyoming ID.” He didn’t supply the name. “Twenty-nine years old.”

  He shook his head, saddened by the obvious severity of her condition. As the ambulance doors closed, she didn’t move a muscle. In contrast, the little girl squirmed in his arms, making Finn fear he might drop her, and the crack in his heart opened wider. “We’ll find your mom,” he promised, not that the task would be hard.

  There were only two choices, and he prayed—though he wasn’t much prone to prayer these days—that it wasn’t the woman in the ambulance. Finn glanced toward the victim’s car. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

  She was shaking. “Em-mie.”

  “Can you tell me your last name, Emmie?”

  Silence. Maybe she didn’t know. When he spoke at day care centers or visited the local elementary school in Friendly Cop mode, he tried to impress on teachers and aides how important it was for children to know their contact information or to carry it with them. This was why. Had the girl been riding with the woman in the car or in the truck that now leaned in the ditch on the other side of the road? The other, elderly driver had already been taken to the hospital, but Finn hadn’t arrived at the scene in time to try to talk to him. Was he Emmie’s grandfather? Maybe her mother had stayed behind tonight.

  He took Emmie to his car, dug in the glove compartment for one of the toys he kept there—this one a stuffed lamb wearing a pink ribbon—then signaled Sharon Garcia, his deputy, to stay with her. But the child refused to let go of him, and he couldn’t talk in front of her, even when he guessed his deputy had more information to share.

  He’d take a peek in both vehicles—then he’d know.

  Still carrying Emmie, he crunched through broken glass to the side of the road. In the tilted pickup, he saw no clue that a child had been there. Which proved nothing. Maybe the older driver didn’t believe in child seats, but then Emmie would have been injured in the crash. Finn moved on, sidestepping part of a front quarter panel in the road. With one hand cradling Emmie’s head against his shoulder, he leaned over to peer inside the car.

  At the instant she said “Hart-well,” he glimpsed a child’s car seat in the rear.

  His stomach dropped into his shoes. Finn had his answer.

  And, in silence, he swore. He would have to notify the next of kin.

  * * *

  FINN DONOVAN.

  Seeing his reflection in the window, Annabelle Foster glanced away. She (reluctantly) ran the diner on Main Street that had been named for her—and that she had inherited from her parents. She’d turned to put her back to the for sale sign beside the front door when Finn had suddenly appeared behind her.

  The sign’s bright red letters on white plastic announced her intention to leave this place, and Barren. Tomorrow would be good for Annabelle, though she doubted that might happen. In this small town there wouldn’t be many prospective buyers, and her Realtor had yet to show the place, though it hadn’t been for sale long.

  Annabelle didn’t have time to appreciate the fact that at least she’d finally made, and implemented, what would be a life-changing decision. Free at last. That was what she’d be, and she could all but taste the first of her new opportunities in the air, except—why was Finn here?

  “Annabelle,” he said, and like the shy child she’d once been, she flushed. She always did around Finn, who had walked just now out of the dark, wearing his usual jeans and, tonight, instead of a traditional sheriff’s tan shirt, a Henley pullover that stretched across his broad shoulders. Which, in a way, was his uniform.

  “Going somewhere?” he asked with a pointed look at the sign. If she remembered right, Finn hadn’t stopped by since the sign had gone up. And where Finn was concerned, she would remember.

  “Anywhere,” she said a bit stronger than she intended. Everywhere. At last she would put the diner and this town behind her. Finn, too, and her hopeless crush on him, which wasn’t as happy a prospect for Annabelle as the rest would be.

  His gaze slid away. “Not just yet,” he said. Finn shifted his weight. “Sorry to ruin your plans, but I have something to tell you...”

  He hesitated for another instant while Annabelle’s pulse sped up and she thought, foolishly, Maybe he’s here to ask me out. Which would be a miracle. Her silly daydreams of a relationship with Finn would end when she finally left town. Besides, the only time she ever saw him was when he stopped at the diner to order a cup of coffee or a burger, often as takeout because he was on his way to a possible break-in at Earl’s Hardware store—where the old alarm system had most likely gone off again for no reason—or to a traffic stop for someone who’d run the only red light in Barren.

  Whenever he did stay long enough to eat a meal, he sat in the last booth on the right side of the room, his back to the wall. What was he expecting? A replay of the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre?

  In any case, Annabelle always had a fresh pot of coffee waiting, brewed strong and black just the way he liked it, and hurried to fill Finn’s cup, determined to quell the blush that would surely show in her face. If they talked, it was about some neutral topic, an upcoming local event or his preference that day for apple over cherry pie. But now she didn’t have the protection of the glass carafe in her hand like a wall between him and her stubborn awareness of him.

  Then she realized from Finn’s sober expression that he’d come by tonight in his official capacity as sheriff, not as an improbable—unlikely—boyfriend. She shouldn’t be surprised. He’d said tell not ask. What could be wrong? She hadn’t run the one red light in town and never drove above the speed limit.

  Finn widened his stance. “You know a woman named Sierra Hartwell?”

  Annabelle froze. She had no family in town now but... “Yes, she’s my cousin. Why? What’s happened?”

  “There’s been an accident,” he said, not looking at her. But then, he rarely did, or if he chanced a glance at Annabelle, he tended to look faintly off-balance with a kind of polite indifference in his hazel eyes. At least that wasn’t like her parents who’d so often expressed some criticism or issued a new command. Clean those tables now, Annabelle, or, Don’t even think of leaving early for some high school football game. No one there will miss you. As an adult her motto was If I’m nice, as perfect as can be, I won’t get hurt again. But even with her parents gone, she was still trying to suppress the pain their unkindness had caused.

  Her mouth went dry. She could barely ask the question. “Sierra’s hurt?”

  Annabelle tried to envision a minor fender bender, but he wouldn’t look as serious about that. Finn touched her shoulder, so briefly she wondered if she’d imagined it, but even his warm hand couldn’t penetrate the ice forming inside her. The growing horror. Was Sierra...dead?

  As if she’d spoken aloud, he shook his head and said, “I’m sorry—her condition looks pretty serious. It was a bad accident.”

  Annabelle tried to process the news, but all she could say was, “Where?”

  “About a mile outside of town she collided with Ned Sutherland’s pickup. We don’t know for sure which driver was responsible. Your cousin is on her way by ambulance to Farrier General.”

  Annabelle glanced inside the diner half-full of patrons even this late in the evening. Ned, who owned the NLS Ranch, was getting up in years. His granddaughter was her friend, and Annabelle knew she worried about him. “I didn’t think he was even driving since his stroke. That’s terrible. About Sierra, too. I admit, I haven’t seen her in years—”

  She broke off. Once, she and Sierra had been as close as sisters, but in their teens, they had drifted to occasional phone call
s. And even those had stopped. Except for one, much more recent, Annabelle remembered with a pang of sorrow. So why had Sierra been close to Barren?

  “Did you know about her little girl?” Finn asked.

  “Yes, Sierra sent me a text when she was born, a little over three years ago, I think, but that’s all I know. She hadn’t picked a name yet.”

  “It’s Emmie,” he informed her.

  Annabelle’s throat closed, and something tugged deep at her heart. Emmie. Sierra’s daughter was still hardly more than a baby. Now her mother was in the hospital and this child Annabelle had never met had become real. “Is she okay?”

  “Scared, as you’d expect, but unharmed physically,” he said. “Which is a miracle.”

  Annabelle looked away from Finn’s dark hair, which under the streetlights appeared brushed with gold. How inappropriate her thoughts of him had been only minutes ago. He had no real interest in her. A relative newcomer to the area, he’d already been labeled a loner.

  She shivered but not from the cold. During that last phone call with Sierra a few weeks ago, she hadn’t mentioned Emmie, and when she abruptly hung up, Annabelle’s questions about her had gone unanswered.

  With a slight frown Finn eyed the goose bumps on her arms and she rubbed her bare skin. “I only stepped out for a minute,” she said. To see the for sale sign—to pinch herself that, at last, her dream would become real. “My customers are waiting for me. But I’ll have to close the diner.”

  “I’m sorry, Annabelle,” he said again. “I didn’t mean to be blunt, but I’m not good at giving news of this kind. In fact, I wish it wasn’t a part of my job. You must be upset. Let me give you a ride to the hospital.”

  She couldn’t quell the thought that flashed through her mind. Upset didn’t begin to cover it, and she wasn’t a selfish person, but the timing of this couldn’t be worse. She was a blink away from freaking out, yet anything she might say would make Finn see her in a bad light. And with that, another bolt of guilt shot through her. For now, she couldn’t dwell on her plan to leave Barren before she knew if Sierra would be all right. As for the little girl...