PROLOG
This is the first part, of two, of the second story in my WHIRLWIND series; resurrected from an old thumb drive. They are unrelated stories with a common theme; each one is based on a short, slightly unusual courtship, with a primary female character who believes that she cannot find love for some reason -- and a primary male character determined to prove her wrong. There is no sex in this part.
SOMEONE FOR EVERYBODY - Part 1
CHAPTER 1 -- There is a new sheriff in town
Forget the cheerful bar where everyone knows your name. There are still small towns here and there in America where everyone not only knows your name, but also what you had for breakfast, why you are in a bad mood today... and thinks they know how to run your love life better than you do.
Lillian Horner gulped her coffee as she rocketed into the Hollister town limits in a quite elderly pickup truck, which might actually be considered a classic if she was more mechanically inclined and didn't usually fix things with duct tape, where possible. The worn tires squealed slightly as she made a last second, jerky swerve around Collin Aster as he bicycled by the side of the road delivering papers. If she had looked in the rearview mirror, she would have seen him wave. He was running a little late this morning and she usually blew by him when he was passing Miss Kelly's driveway a little further down the block.
She skidded to a stop in the lot of the Hollister Metro Diner, open for breakfast and lunch, and jumped out, running up to the door and sliding her key in the lock at exactly 5:45 am. There were two other cars in the lot; Judy Finster, her cook, and Doug Smothers, her first customer every morning. Her waitress, Adele, would be along in five minutes, definitely yawning, possibly in her slippers.
Lillian was only normally rushed as she turned on the lights and flipped the sign to 'OPEN,' at least until she saw the large note on the board she had left for herself yesterday. She was catering a late afternoon reception at the city hall for the installation of the new sheriff. She became frantic, and spun around to confront Judy. "Judy, did you...?"
Judy walked past, her long, pale grey hair in a tight bun on the back of her head and already wrapped securely in a hair net. "Already done, Lillian. I finished last night just before going home. Everything is in the fridge, right side back." She didn't bother to say, "Relax," because she knew Lillian well enough to know she wouldn't.
Lillian, shifting back to merely rushed held open the door so that Doug could shuffle in with his walker. "Good morning, Doug," she said automatically, not listening to the grunted response. Doug was notoriously cranky before his first cup of coffee; after that he was the sweetest gentleman. He would have a quick breakfast which hadn't varied in years, and then he would take one of Judy's blueberry muffins, hot and moist, to his wife of 62 years who was in the county nursing home with Alzheimers. She didn't remember him, but was much better for the staff when he was around. He would be around at lunchtime on his way back home. She would have a small slice of cherry pie ready to cheer him up. Lillian knew her customers.
The morning flew by, as usual, with the ebbing of the late breakfast customers coinciding almost perfectly with the first inrush of early lunch customers. She waited tables when Adele took a break, and she cooked when Judy took a break, and she tended register, cleaned up young Firth's ritually dumped baby food, and generally didn't take a break herself until the last lunch customer said goodbye at about 2:45. After she turned the sign to 'CLOSED' and locked the door, she took a deep breath, closed out the register, and went into the kitchen. Adele was just closing the big stainless steel dishwasher, and Judy was scraping the cooking residue off the broad stainless steel stove next to the table-sized grill. When Lillian had bought the diner and inherited its staff she had had enough money to modernize everything, which raised Judy's morale no end and increased the quality of the food to the point that the diner more than broke even for the first time in a couple of decades. The success had been so great that nearly everyone in town ate here at least once a week and some were regulars you could set your watch by. If old Clyde didn't show up at 9:15, she had standing orders to call Doc Finster and tell him that Clyde had taken too many of his pills again.
Lillian opened her mouth to speak, but Judy beat her to it. "Everything's already in your truck. You just have to drive it there and set it up. I'll be up later to clean up." Judy looked at her like her mother used to before she went off to the movies with 'some boy,' and said, "Try not to take any corners on two wheels and try not to stomp on the accelerator or the brake, the cake is made of flour, sugar, and eggs - not rubber."
Her employer smiled tiredly. "I'll try to remember." Then she went to get changed in her tiny office. When she was done, she paused to look at her faint reflection in the window. Her long brown hair, normally pulled back, was tumbled over her shoulders. Her blue eyes regarded her clothes critically. She wanted to blend in, so she didn't wear her uniform or anything too professional. She had a navy blue skirt, not too short, and a very light weave, white sweater with a round neck. She looked critically at the reflection and tugged the sweater until all but the most discrete trace of cleavage was gone. She slipped out of her sneakers and slipped into white flats.
"Good luck," Adele called as she left the diner and climbed into her pickup.
As Lillian swung into the town center parking lot, her eyes took a check of the cars in the lot. She pretty much knew everyone's vehicle by heart, judge, mayor, pastor, bank president,.... There was an unfamiliar pickup truck, almost as old as hers but at least with paint intact and well-polished, and with an out of state license plate. It must belong to the new sheriff, Lillian guessed as she skidded the last two feet into a parking slot and jumped out. Hurrying in to the building, her arms full of packages, Lillian did a double-take as she passed the unfamiliar pickup truck. PH 2718. The image of a medal was next to the number. A Purple Heart license plate. There hadn't been one of those in town since her great uncle George, the World War II veteran, had passed away. Uncle George had thought it funny to scare little Lillian with his artificial leg. This puzzled Lillian momentarily, for surely the town wouldn't hire a sheriff with an artificial limb, as she resumed her hurried rush into the building.
Most of the meeting was a blur to Lillian. She kept refreshments stocked and pursued future business opportunities by hinting to her cousin, the assistant bank manager, that she could quite reliably cater a surprise tenth anniversary party for his wife.
She did pause, along with everyone else, when the mayor cleared his throat over the ancient announcing system. "Alright, as pleasant as this is, and as delicious as the refreshments are - thank you once again, Lillian -," Lillian smiled and nodded and tried to fade back into the background, since young Belinda Turner was getting a little too close to the cake. " - and it is a welcome party to our latest citizen, and our new sheriff. Without delaying any further, I take great pleasure in introducing Cameron Holden."
The applause ranged from polite participation, like Lillian who was still keeping a half eye on Belinda, to unbridled enthusiasm, like Judy Kemper who was a young widow looking hard for a second husband.
Lillian was surprised at the tall, lanky stranger who stood up. He was even taller than her uncle Jack, who had been the high school basketball star in his day, and was now the town judge preparing to swear him in. His shoulders were just as broad as those of Tony Carson, who had been the high school football star and had gone on to bigger things. He had close cropped, dark blonde hair, and blue eyes that didn't seem to miss anything. Every woman in the room over thirteen automatically noted that he wore the uniform extremely well. Sonya was standing beside her, and Lillian heard her mutter, somewhat breathlessly, "He can put me under house arrest any time."
An agreeable smile started to form on Lillian's face, when she caught herself, and she felt the achingly familiar little twist of anger and remorse writhe in her chest as she reminded herself of her shortcomings. She sighed. Sonya was thirty-two, two years older than she was, with blond hair and green eyes, who was single because she had had to take care of invalid parents for years, who had just passed away. Life had passed her by, all the men in town anywhere near her age were married to someone else, but Hollister was her home and she stubbornly refused to leave. A new man in town, especially one like that sheriff, must have made Sonya feel like a castaway when a fully-equipped life boat just happened to wash ashore on her deserted island.
Mayor Horner looked serious, as his cousin, Judge Jack Horner, donned his official robes and lent an air of solemn dignity to what had been a noisy community gathering.
"We welcome Cam Holden to our community, and we trust he will come to appreciate and cherish it as we all do. And trust is the right word. We are trusting him to keep us, and our families, and our property safe. It is with gratitude and pride I accept your offer of service to our community, Cam Holden. An Eagle Scout. A former army captain. A decorated combat veteran with one Silver Star, four Bronze Stars, and a Purple Heart from three tours of duty in Afghanistan. First in his police academy class. His list of awards and accomplishments are long and distinguished... so much so that when I tried to memorize them for this little speech, I forgot to put them back in this here Bible as a cheat sheet, so I'll just skip ahead." That elicited a personable chuckle from everyone. While the judge might be Lillian's uncle by blood, he was the favorite uncle of everyone in town by inclination, and had never come close to losing an election.
Lillian automatically glanced at the sheriff's left hand as he placed it on the Bible which Uncle Jack was holding. No wedding ring. Not that she was looking, she reminded herself with a heavy heart. It just meant only one new potential customer instead of two or more. Of course that might be a little parochial; in Hollister folks set quite a stake in their wedding rings, but she had heard that other places people didn't bother or had 'significant others' instead of spouses. She shook her head slightly. The pastors of the three churches in town were on the council who voted on the appointment; hiring a sheriff living in sin would be as likely as importing Devil worshipers for a Christmas Pageant.
