Cassandra Austin by Callyand the Sheriff

remembered,was the worst Haywood had driven her away from her farm.
    “It was a bad dream,” she told Royal, feeling a need to hear a human voice. “He took the farm same as he took Pa.” What she couldn’t say aloud, not to her trusting friend, was that in the dream Royal had stood beside the sheriff. She was just feeling abandoned, she decided.
    When she had fallen asleep again, she had watched Haywood walk toward her, tired and dirty as he had been after burying her father. Instead of inviting him to dinner, she had pulled a knife from her back pocket and slashed him with it. In the dream, it hadn’t cut just his arm as it had in his office, but clear across his chest.
    There was no need to let that dream make her feel bad, she told herself. However, her knees trembled and her head spun when she thought of the bright blood pouring down his white shirt. She had to banish the picture from her mind before she fainted. Her breakfast was ready, and she carried it to her rocking chair, turning her mind to the third dream.
    In some ways, it was the strangest. She tried to remember it exactly. She was in her little cart under the apple tree. Strong arms had lifted her. She remembered a starched white shirt that smelled of laundry soap. She felt like a little girl being carried, but she knew she wasn’t a child in the dream. Then he laid her…where? In the grave? She didn’t think so.
    She had jerked awake, to find her heart racing. Whatever it was, it still frightened her. Yet, unlike the first two dreams, it intrigued her. She wanted to rememberit, relive every detail even as they seemed to fade away.
    She finished her breakfast quickly, disgusted with herself for wasting time worrying about dreams that had already made her late since she had overslept because of them. She was taking the empty bowl into the house when Royal barked. A glance out the door told her she was about to have a visitor. She grabbed the shotgun and carried it outside.

Chapter Four
    S heriff Haywood cantered into her yard, and Royal went to meet him. For one brief moment, Cally considered the leaky barn roof and the dwindling woodpile. Then she remembered his efforts to get her to leave her farm. She weighed the shotgun in her hand as she considered. Its purpose was to discourage strangers, which Haywood wasn’t—exactly. She had a feeling he wasn’t frightened by it anyway. Still it let him know he wasn’t welcome. She kept it in her hands as she watched him dismount.
    “Surprised to see you back so soon,” she said.
    Haywood lifted a bag that had been tied to his saddle horn and started toward her. If he thought she was inhospitable after his help the day before, he didn’t mention it.
    “I didn’t invite you in,” she said, pleased with the chill in her voice.
    He stopped. “These are yours,” he said.
    “Leave ‘em where you stand.”
    He took his time, as if trying to decide if he should defy her. She wondered if he was gauging his ownspeed against her ability to swing the shotgun to her shoulder. No, that was foolish. He wasn’t here to hurt her, just annoy the hell out of her. She gripped the shotgun tighter, wishing she knew what to say to make him leave her alone.
    Haywood let the bag drop from his fingers. It hit the ground with a clatter. “Miss DuBois,” he called louder than he needed to. She was supposed to feel guilty for making him stay so far from the house. “I’d like to talk to you.”
    “So talk. I can hear you.”
    She watched the sheriff clench his jaw. She had made him mad. She was elated. She bit her lip to keep him from seeing her grin.
    Royal sniffed the discarded bag and turned in a circle to sit at the sheriff’s feet. Cally wondered what would happen if she commanded her dog to kill. Sometime she was going to try it.
    Haywood removed his hat, an odd gesture, it seemed to Cally. “I found a job for you in town,” he said.
    “I don’t need a job.”
    “Miss DuBois, you can’t stay out here by