Single Dad Sheriff (Harlequin American Romance) Read Online Free PDF

coffee turned acidic in his stomach. “I shouldn’t have made that promise to him.”
    â€œNo, you shouldn’t have,” Eleanor agreed with the simple honesty on which Chance had come to rely.
    â€œI did swear to protect and serve the people of Forest Glen, though,” he reminded her.
    â€œYes, you did,” Eleanor agreed. “Mrs. Wilson is one of those people, and she still hasn’t found that cat yet.”
    â€œI thought Steven went out yesterday to look for it,” he said, referring to the younger of the two deputies.
    Eleanor shook her head. “No. His allergies are so bad he can’t even get out of his vehicle at her place.”
    Chance set aside the mug of coffee and stood up. “I’ll head out there and look around for her.” Maybe he’d be able to find at least one thing that had been reported missing.
    â€œAre you allergic?” she asked.
    He shook his head. “No.” Robyn had had a cat. Of course the creature had hated Chance so much it hardly ever came near him. Robyn must have grown to hate him as much as her cat had, because if she’d had any feeling left for him, she wouldn’t be keeping him from his son.
    â€œBe careful,” Eleanor advised him as he headed out the door.
    He suppressed a grin at her mothering. He’d made it through two tours of duty in Afghanistan without a physical scratch. He doubted anything would happen to him while looking for a cat.
    Â 
    â€œJ ESS, CAN YOU STAY a little while longer?” Dr. Malewitz asked just as she’d pulled her purse from the bottom drawer of the metal desk in the tiny reception area of the single-physician medical practice. “Reception” consisted of her desk and half a dozen orange vinyl chairs, a coffee table and an overstuffed magazine rack. The gray-haired doctor leaned out the door of one of the three exam rooms. “I have a new patient coming in.”
    Jessie glanced at the appointment book that lay open on the leather blotter. Dr. Malewitz was an old-fashioned physician who preferred the ledger to the computersystem she’d set up for him. “But there are no more appointments written down.”
    â€œThat’s why I need you to stay and start a chart for him,” the doctor explained. “Can you have someone else meet Tommy’s bus today?”
    â€œOf course,” she said.
    â€œNo, you can leave, and I’ll start the chart,” Ruth Malewitz offered as she slipped out of one of the other exam rooms.
    Jessie smiled but shook her head. The doctor’s wife, a registered nurse, already picked up too much of her slack, handling the tasks Jessie couldn’t complete since she only worked the hours Tommy was at school. But Ruth insisted that motherhood came first.
    â€œI’ll stay,” Jessie said. “It’s no problem. I’ll ask Brenda Johnson to watch him until I get home.” She’d just put down the phone from calling her neighbor when the exterior door opened and the new patient walked into the reception area.
    Breaths wheezed and rattled in Sheriff Drayton’s muscular chest as he stumbled through the door, his eyes probably too swollen to see where he was going. She could barely detect a glint of that deep blue between his red eyelids. “Are you all right?” she asked, leaping up from her chair and coming around her desk.
    â€œI…I c-can’t breathe,” he gasped.
    Mrs. Wilson stepped inside the open door. “He must be like that deputy of his—allergic to my cats,” she said with a disapproving click of her tongue against her false teeth. “I called Doc Mal, so he’d have the shot ready for him.” The white-haired woman, her sweater coated with cat hair, pushed him forward so that he stumbled against Jessie.
    She wrapped her arm around his waist as he wound his around her shoulders. His labored breathing stirred her hair. “Dr. Malewitz!”