Excerpt of Crazy for Ellie by Penny McCusker

If there was one thing Erskine, Montana, didn't need, it was another nutcase.

Deputy Sheriff Clarence Beeber took the turn into town so fast the big white Blazer that served as his squad car fishtailed, coming dangerously close to taking out the wooden Indian on the corner by the hardware store.

Less gossiping and more common sense they could use, but another crackpot?

He brought the SUV under control and shot through town at the reckless speed of thirty-five miles an hour, swerving around old Mr. Landry, who was crossing the street and took one hand off his walker long enough to shake a fist at him.

The problem was, Clary thought as he jammed the Blazer into an empty parking space along the boardwalk and slammed the door behind him, Erskine had a reputation. Most of the people here were a few personalities beyond normal, and every screwball in the state of Montana — not to mention Idaho, Wyoming, both the Dakotas and parts of Canada — figured there was a big old welcome mat at the edge of town for anyone who walked through life a bit to the crazy side of center.

He clattered up the steps and strode along the board-walk, berating himself with every ringing step. Aside from minor fender benders and the occasional citizen who left the Ersk Inn a bit worse for liquor, his town was clean. Clary intended it to stay that way.

"About time you got here," Dory Shasta said as he stomped by her.

"I was out at Ted Delancey's ranch, at the monthly meeting of the volunteer fire brigade..." He trailed off, realizing half the women in town were lined up along the boardwalk in front of the Five-And-Dime. Yeah, he thought with a mental eyeroll, why stay safely in your homes and businesses when there was a lunatic wandering around? "I got some calls about an itinerant loitering in this part of town, yelling at people and generally causing trouble."

Maisie Cunningham jerked a thumb at the Five-AndDime's big front window. "He's in there."

Clary glanced in and saw someone hunched on a stool at the lunch counter to one side of the store. "Whatever's going on with this guy, having an audience won't help," he said, knowing it would fall on deaf ears and having to try, anyway. "You ladies go on home, now, and let me handle this, man to man."

"I don't think that's a man in there," Maisie observed.

"I'm not sure what it is."

Clary took another look through the window, a closer look, cupping his hands around his face to cut the glare from the noon sun overhead. "You're right," he said, taking in the black T-shirt and black jeans, slung so low that most of the seat of a pair of black-and-white checked boxers was making an unwelcome appearance. His hair was black, too, and just brushed his shoulder blades, and even from where he stood, Clary could see the silver ring in his eyebrow. There'd be more piercings, he wagered, earrings, a nose stud, maybe his tongue. Clary had faced down armed assailants, and worse, drunk marines, but the thought of letting somebody pop a hole through his tongue — let alone the body parts some men pierced — made him shudder. He couldn't get a good look at the face, but only a teenager would willingly put himself through that; adults knew that living brought enough pain without self-infliction. "Not a man, at least not yet," he said. "Looks like a teenager to me."

"Who said he wasn't?" Maisie asked, looking at him as if he'd lost his marbles.

Yeah, he was the illogical one in town. "Mrs. Bessemer called and said he tried to steal her bags, and when she wouldn't give them up he swore at her and ran away screaming."

"Mrs. Bessemer is eighty-five. If he wanted her bags, he'd have them."

So why didn't he? Clary wondered. He crossed one arm over his chest, propped the other elbow on it and rubbed his chin, thinking about the three calls he'd had after Mrs. Bessemer's. Even the most creditable caller in the bunch had talked about the strange, crazy man in town. One call he might've dismissed as gossip-induced panic, but he couldn't ignore four eyewitness reports.

"He's only a kid, and a scrawny one at that," Maisie said.

"Whatever his age, I can't have him running through town terrorizing folks."

"He could have some sort of problem that won't be helped by throwing him in jail," Mabel Erskine-Lippert, principal of Erskine Elementary and great granddaughter of the town's founding father, pointed out in her no-nonsense way.

"Arresting first and asking questions later don't seem right," Maisie agreed. "Maybe you should get some help."

The entire crowd of women surged forward, wide-eyed and eager, brains no doubt filling with outlandish suggestions. "Why don't you ask for Doc Tyler's help?"

Okay, not all their suggestions were outlandish. He couldn't pinpoint who that idea had come from, but it made sense to him. Clary didn't see any harm in getting a doctor's opinion. "Jenny," he said to the young woman who normally worked the Five-And-Dime lunch counter on school days, but appeared to have bolted at the sight of the lunatic in black. "Would you go down to the clinic and ask the new doctor to come down here?"

There was a collective gasp, and Clary knew immediately that he'd made a mistake. Erskinites took care of their own. The new doctor might be Doc Tyler's niece, but she'd only been in town a few days, and that made her an outsider. The doorway was blocked by several angry women, the rest of them gathering around him, a Prozac away from overthrowing law and order. Great. He'd gone from one peace-disturbing lunatic to a near riot, and there wasn't a heck of a lot he could do about it when all of the rioters were women who'd known him since birth.

"I know she's new in town," he said in a voice that climbed a couple of octaves in self-defense and a couple of decibels in volume to combat the angry rumblings, "but I understand she was a psychiatrist in Los Angeles. Seems to me she should know how to deal with this situation."

"Doc Tyler's the only doctor this town ever needed," Mrs. Tilford, the baker's wife, observed sourly.

That comment, of course, sparked off a heated debate, both factions trying to get Clary to weigh in on their side. Clary chose to stay out of the argument. Until they decided to settle their differences by taking a vote on how he should handle the situation.

"Don't recall ever doing my job by committee before," Clary said. "When did you all stop trusting me to make the best decisions for Erskine?"

There was a moment of silence, stunned, blessed silence he hadn't even begun to fully appreciate before it ended.

"Boy's wound up tighter than the playground swings at recess," Mabel said. "You need to get out more often, Clary, find yourself a willing gal and get those crankies worked out of you, if you get my drift."

He got her drift all right, not to mention a mean case of embarrassment that started at his toes and began climbing like prickly heat when the rest of his unwelcome audience joined in with helpful suggestions. He wanted to run, but he still had a teenager to deal with. And there was little or no chance of getting his audience to disperse. So all he could do was stand by the front door of the Five-And- Dime, gruesomely fascinated to hear women who'd changed his diapers, mothers of his school friends, teachers, librarians, even the school principal, talking about his sex life like a town full of Dr. Ruths. Take two blondes and call me in the morning.

"If you ask me he spends too much time alone in that vehicle of his, driving around looking for trouble," Dory said. "Erskine isn't going to have a crime wave if you take a day off, Clary."

"It sounds like you already have all the psychological help you need."

Now that was a new voice, Clary thought, momentarily forgetting about the crowd at his back and the strange kid inside the Five-And-Dime. Just the sound of that voice, slow and smoky and edged with sarcastic humor, made him feel as if he'd taken a fist to the gut. The sight of the woman it came from sent his blood pressure plummeting below his waist. He was a big man, a man who didn't mind it when a woman could look him in the eye. In fact, he preferred a woman he could put his arms around and feel as if he was holding something. This one barely came up to his shoulder and she had bones like a bird's. Eyes, too, for that matter — black and bright and lively. Clouds of ebony hair framed a heart-shaped face, delicate features and skin white as milk, even in the golden sunlight. He wasn't the type to let his imagination run rampant, but it took off so fast he didn't think there was any way to chase it down. And why would he when it was taking him places he hadn't been in a long, long, long —

"Elena Reed," she said. "You summoned me."

The dig didn't register, but the fact that she wore a white lab coat and carried a black medical bag seeped into the part of his brain that was still functioning and yelled doctor.

"You didn't call me down here to help dissect your love life," she prompted. "As interesting as it sounded."

The heat moving through him shot up into his face, reaching roughly the temperature of the sun. "I'm sorry for dragging you away from whatever you were doing, but it was necessary."

She smiled, a tight little smile with a ghost of arrogance around the edges of it, but it was enough to make him feel as if he'd taken a second punch to the gut.

"So what am I here for?"

She was angry. The snap of it was in her eyes and her voice, and although she delivered those words with cool, almost clinical detachment, they jolted him right out of staring mode. As she'd intended.

He hiked up his heavy police belt and folded his face into a frown. "I received four reports of a vagrant behaving strangely. When I got into town, I found him —" he gestured toward the Five-And-Dime " — so if you're done insulting me..."

She gave him a look that promised she wasn't anywhere near done insulting him, but she focused on the problem at hand by stepping up to the window. She took one peek inside, muttered a very undoctorlike curse, and bolted for the door.

Clary followed her, pausing briefly to glare a warning at the women trying to crowd in behind them. They lined up at the window instead, but it would only be a waste of time trying to get rid of them entirely when he knew they wouldn't go.

Once he got to the lunch counter, Dr. Ellie Reed, healer of bodies and minds, Hippocratic Oath-swearer, had the kid in black by the sleeve and was nose-to-nose with him. "Why aren't you in school?" she demanded.

So much for calling in a professional. "Maybe you should find out who he is and what's wrong with him before you scream in his face."

She rounded on Clary. "He's my brother and there's nothing wrong with him. At least not yet."

"Uh...maybe I should handle the interrogation." Clary pried her fingers loose and got between them. "So why aren't you in school..."

"Luke," Ellie supplied.

"Shush," Clary said, and knew she was sputtering over being shushed. He had to work to keep the smile off his face. "I'd like an answer, Luke."

The kid scowled at his sister for a minute, then hunched back over the counter, worrying his thumbnail across a nick in the ancient linoleum and hiding behind a curtain of hair.

"And I expect you to look at me when you give it," Clary added. "A man faces his problems."

That did it. His head popped up, his eyes hot and resentful. "I don't have a problem. I didn't do anything wrong."

"Sure you did, but let's put the legalities away for a second and talk about why you're here."

Something flashed across his face, something surprised, grateful, and young and scared enough to have Clary softening toward him. He might be angry — troubled and misguided, certainly — but he was only a kid despite his efforts to put on a tough front.

Clary chose the stool opposite where Ellie Reed stood, purposely, so she'd be at Luke's back. He'd welcomed her help when he thought he was dealing with a lunatic; a normal teenager he could handle just fine on his own. And if it wouldn't help him to loom over the kid, he didn't want her doing it either. Petite or not, she had the moxy to loom. "It's a nice day," he said conversationally. "That why you ditched school?"