American Heroes Series - 03 - Purgatory by Kathryn Le Veque Read Free Book Online

me Sheriff. You can call me
whatever you want.”
    “I’ll call you My Best Friend for
bringing this,” Alec said as he slurped up the barbeque sauce. “Where’d you get
it?”
    Nash threw a thumb in the general
southerly directly. “There’s a barbeque place out on the highway. They even
have barbeque alligator.”
    Alec stopped mid-chew. “This
isn’t alligator, is it?”
    Elliot started laughing as Nash
shook his head. “No, it’s beef,” he assured him. “But the alligator isn’t half
bad.”
    Alec sat down on the floor next
to the table, realizing there were beans and coleslaw and cornbread. As he
inspected the dishes, Elliot turned to Nash.
    “I’m sorry, but my plates are
still packed,” she said. “Do you mind eating out of the containers?”
    Nash shook his head, looking
around for a chair that wasn’t piled with boxes. Alec, in the midst of his
eating frenzy, saw what the man was doing and immediately went to remove some
clutter from an armchair.
    “Here,” he told him, a rib in his
left hand as he pulled the chair towards Nash with his right. “Have a seat.”
    Nash grinned at him, noticing the
kid hadn’t missed a beat with his eating. He took the chair gratefully and
pulled it up to the coffee table where Elliot was sorting out the food.  He
smiled and took the Styrofoam container she offered him.
    “Thanks,” he said, settling down
with napkins. “I haven’t eaten since breakfast. “
    Elliot bit into a delicious piece
of chicken. “Are your days always so busy?”
    Nash took a big bite of a rib,
nodding. “Mostly,” he said. “It’s a big parish and I spend about fifty percent
of my time in the field.”
    “How many deputies do you have?”
     “I have one hundred and seventy
two sworn officers to cover two hundred and ninety two square miles of land and
eleven square miles of river,” he told her. “It’s a big job, especially since
we have river jurisdiction also.”
    “Don’t most of the towns have
their own police departments?”
    He nodded, wiping the sauce off
his lips. “Some do,” he said. “But we cover the small towns that don’t, plus
unincorporated areas, and handle all emergency management for the parish. We
also work directly with Homeland Security for the State of Louisiana.”
    Elliot listened with interest,
taking another bite of chicken. “So how did you come into this line of work?”
    Nash reached for one of the sodas
he had brought. “My dad and granddad were police officers for the City of New
Orleans,” he said. “Granddad was the chief back in the 1940’s and my dad was a
captain until he retired about ten years ago. It was always something I knew I
would do.  I ran for parish Sheriff twelve years ago and won by a landslide. I
was one of the youngest sheriffs in the history of Ascension Parish.”
    “Wow,” Elliot exclaimed softly.
“That’s quite an accomplishment.”
    He shrugged modestly. “I enjoy my
job,” his gaze lingered on her as he chewed. “Speaking of accomplishments, I
hear you’re a writer.”
    Elliot grinned, wiping off her
mouth. “That’s the rumor.”
    “What do you write?”
    She stuck her fork into the
coleslaw. “Bodice-ripping romance novels, mostly.  Sex, men with swords,
damsels in distress, that kind of thing.”
    She said it so dramatically that
he laughed softly. “How did you get into that line of work?”
    She took another bite of
coleslaw. “I was always a writer,” she told him. “I worked on the school
newspaper and in college my major was English Literature.  After Penelope was
born and I was home with the baby, I just started writing full time to mainly
stave off the boredom and ended up selling a series of books to a major
publishing house. It was really all by luck. Now I write about three novels a
year and sell hundreds of thousands of copies.  Sometimes I still can’t believe
how fortunate I am to be doing what I love.”
    Nash was smiling warmly at her,
listening to her story.