by Diana Palmer
The Jacobsville Police Department shared a building with the fire department. The men were almost interchangeable. Many started out as firemen and trained as policemen later, and vice versa. It was a good group of kindhearted men. Most were family men. Some were loners. A lot were ex-military.
Even among the loners, Grier stood out. At first he made the men uncomfortable. Later, he made surface friendships, especially after the other officers learned that they could always depend on him in a pinch. It didn’t take very long for his past to catch up with him, in whispers that stopped whenever he entered a room. He raised eyebrows wherever he went, especially when some of his wilder escapades were embroidered even more. So very soon, he resumed his old role as a permanent outsider.
He didn’t really mind so much. He had the glamour of danger to attract women when he was interested—which wasn’t often these days—and that same aura kept most men from trying him in fights. There was always the exception.
In fact, one was just walking in the door, mad as hell and determined to get to the bottom of a mystery he didn’t like.
Grier knew he couldn’t save the situation with words. Dunn was too much like him. The two men had backgrounds that should have made them fast friends. Instead, they were always in competition.
Judd closed the door behind him and pulled down the shade that the former assistant police chief had used to shield himself from prying eyes while he did his exercises on his lunch hour. Grier used the shade rarely. Judd was obviously putting it in place to keep the curious men from getting involved in a personal conflict.
With a sigh of resignation, Grier stood up and started unbuttoning his uniform shirt and loosening his tie.
“Can’t you fight dressed?” Judd asked sarcastically.
Grier lifted a corner of his mouth and kept working buttons. “I haven’t got a clean replacement for this. I don’t want to get blood on it.”
“Mine, or yours?” the other man asked.
“Either. You’re wearing a white shirt,” Grier pointed out.
Judd didn’t reply this time. He took off his gunbelt, weapon and all, and laid it on the desk, dropped easily into a balanced stance and waited.
“We don’t have to do this,” Grier tried one more time.
“No, we don’t,” Judd agreed in a deceptively pleasant tone. “Tell me what she’s hiding and I’ll go back to my office.”
“Can’t do that,” Grier replied. “I gave my word.”
Judd shrugged his broad shoulders. “Then, it’s my way or the highway,” he said, and as he spoke, he stepped forward and threw a lightning punch at the other man.
Grier’s reputation wasn’t based on exaggeration. He ducked, whirled, and caught Judd with a spinning heel kick worthy of Chuck Norris.
Judd went down, but he was like a cat on his feet. He popped up again, wiped blood from the corner of his mouth, and smiled. That smile was all too well-known in Ranger circles. Grier had one just like it.
Grier almost ducked in time, but a roundhouse kick caught him in the stomach, followed by a back roundhouse that sent him over a chair.
The loud noises, even during lunch, drew attention. Grier’s door opened just as the assistant chief made a dive at Judd and carried him over the desk and onto the floor.
Somebody yelled “Fight!” and there were suddenly blue uniforms everywhere, getting a ringside seat. Grier was certain he heard somebody taking odds, but his ears were ringing from Judd’s latest punch. Damn, the man hit hard!
He matched Judd’s next swing with a jump kick that threw him into the wall. While he was trying to recover, Grier spun and caught him in the side of the head with a graceful high kick that was pure poetry to watch.
Judd landed with equal grace and bounded back onto his feet. The two men, well matched in size and skill, eyed each other as they moved toward each other. Hand blows were dodged or blocked, kicks were avoided or blocked. Thuds of contact were sharp and harsh. Both men were getting bruised, and both were bleeding.
Grier got in another unexpected kick by feinting with a punch. Judd took the blow, but spun and backhanded Grier into his own desk.
The crowd was getting louder, and apparently, larger.
Grier glanced toward their audience with narrowed dark eyes almost as black as Judd’s. “You’re going to get me fired,” he growled at Judd.
“Fat chance, Chet’s your second cousin.” Judd shot a lightning heel kick that unbalanced Grier so that he fell beside the desk. “Get up!” he muttered when the other man hesitated.
Grier did, but with a blurring sweep of his powerful leg that almost unbalanced Judd. But Judd recovered quickly, swung the other man up by one arm and gave him a hip toss that landed him squarely across the one comfortable chair in the office in a winded sprawl.
It was going to be a draw, no matter how it came out, Grier surmised. He and Judd were too evenly matched for one to put the other down. Worse, Grier himself had taught Dunn quite a few of those lightning moves. He stayed put in the chair, rubbing his jaw.
“Don’t stop now,” Judd said in a soft, angry tone, his black eyes glittering. “Get up and let’s finish it.”
“Not me,” Grier told him amusedly. He chuckled, shaking his head. “I know when to quit.”
“Get up!”
Grier’s eyebrows rose. “Better reconsider that. If I get up, I’ll arrest you for assault on a police officer. You’ll be handcuffed, fingerprinted, booked and locked up, and I’ll call the newspaper myself to give them the scoop. Think how that will look to your captain, much less the brass in Austin!” he added with twinkling dark eyes.
Judd was furious. He didn’t want to give up this easily. He hadn’t learned anything. “She says she wants to sell me her half of the ranch and move to San Antonio. I’m not leaving here until you tell me what’s wrong with her,” Judd persisted stubbornly. “One way or another,” he added darkly.
Grier knew that if he didn’t tell him, Judd would go back to the ranch and start on Crissy. That could be dangerous. She was already obviously very upset. Knowing her as he did, he could imagine that she was making all sorts of wild plans to escape Jacobsville by now. She could easily lose herself in San Antonio. That wouldn’t do, not in her condition.
“All right,” Grier said finally, with a heavy sigh. “I’ll talk. But not in front of witnesses,” he added, glaring at their audience. “Out, or you’ll all be pulling double shifts at the grammar school crossing!”
They left vapor trails exiting the door and the windows. Grier got to his feet slowly, feeling bruises rising all over him. Judd Dunn’s face looked like a relief map of west Texas. Along with the cuts, it was turning interesting shades of purple. Grier could imagine that he didn’t look much better. His jaw hurt.
“Now, why couldn’t you just have told me in the first place?” Judd asked brusquely.
“I thought you might feel sorry for me and go away.”
Judd laughed coolly. “Dream on.”
Grier shrugged as he shouldered into his uniform shirt, buttoned and tucked it in, and put his tie back on. “I imagine that Christabel wants to go to San Antonio because it’s big and she can get a bus or a train out of there to anywhere without much risk of discovery until it’s too late.”
Judd scowled as he put his gunbelt back on. “She said she wanted to go back to college.”
Grier perched his tall frame on the corner of his desk and gave Judd a patient look. “She thinks you want Tippy,” he replied. “She’s going away so that she won’t get in the way of your happiness.”
“I never said I wanted to marry Tippy,” he said defensively.
“It’s none of my business, of course. But I’d be happy to see you marry her and get out of Crissy’s life. I’ll marry Crissy and spoil her rotten.”
Judd’s pride was chokin
g him. He couldn’t bear to think of Christabel with this man, not in even the most innocent way. “She’s my wife,” he ground out. “Until that changes, she’s mine.”
“I understood her to say that you’d started divorce proceedings.”
“Not yet,” Judd gritted.
“It’s just a matter of time, surely? You’re the one who’s pushed it from the beginning.”
That was true, and it hurt. Judd had made so many stupid mistakes. It was incredible that a man of his experience couldn’t manage to sort out his own feelings for a little slip of a girl whom he’d known most of her life.
“We’re getting off the subject,” Judd said evasively. “Why does she want to run away?”
Grier sighed. “You can’t guess, of course.”
“It can’t be because of you,” he said mockingly. “Or she’d be fighting to keep her half of the ranch.”
“No,” Grier agreed quietly. “She’s a wonderful young woman. I’d give a lot to be the man in her life, but that hasn’t happened. I’m not even in the running.”
For one, long, horrified moment, Judd wondered if there was some other man. But then he realized it was impossible. Then if it wasn’t Grier, and she was running...
“You can’t count, can you?” Grier drawled. “You’ve been back from Japan for about two months. She came home starry-eyed and hopeful, and then she lapsed into depression that hasn’t lifted since, because you’ve avoided her like the plague. Now, suddenly, she’s avoiding you.”
“I noticed,” Judd said. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know!”
“I am, if you’d listen,” Grier returned, folding his arms across his chest. “Think. Why does she want to run away? Why is it important that she gets someplace where you can’t see her?”
It should have been clear much sooner than this. It hit him between the eyes like a baseball bat. She was trying to hide because her body was changing. Because she was...
“She’s...pregnant?” Judd almost choked on the words.
Grier just nodded. “That’s what Maude says. She’s had morning sickness for two weeks and none of her clothes fit anymore.”
The other man’s face went white. She hadn’t been taking birth control pills. She felt guilty because of it. She’d avoided him. She’d seen him with Tippy in the barn. But Christabel didn’t know that it had only been a stage kiss and now she was determined not to get in the way of his happiness, not to ruin his chances with a child he didn’t even know about. Maybe she thought he wouldn’t want it, either.
He dropped onto the sofa and sat there, quiet, brooding, shell-shocked.
“Babies are nice,” Grier said. “I’m just at the age where I think about them a lot. I can live anywhere. If you want Crissy to go, I’ll tag along. Maybe she’ll give in one day and marry me. I’ll adopt the child and love him as if he were my own.”
Doors were closing. Somewhere along the way, Judd had lost Christabel and the baby in a bleak, sad future.
He looked up at Grier with nightmares in his eyes. He’d worshipped freedom. The thought of spending his life with a woman, having a family, had been utterly terrifying to him. He was uncertain. He’d lived alone, worked alone, been alone, most of his adult life. He hadn’t wanted ties, responsibilities. He’d hated the thought of living in a cage. But then she got shot, taking a bullet meant for him, and his whole attitude had changed. He’d done everything in his power to show her how much he cared, but she’d gone cold on him and started clinging to Grier. It had hurt. Couldn’t Christabel see that? How could she believe he preferred Tippy to her?
What sort of life would he have if he let Christabel leave town, and Grier went with her?
“If I were you—and thank God I’m not—I’d go home and think about this real hard,” Grier told him with faint amusement. “You haven’t got a lot of time.”
Judd didn’t snap back. He looked at Grier as if he really didn’t see him at all. He got to his feet, vaguely aware of bruised places that were uncomfortable and cuts on his face that felt wet.
“A few small adhesive bandages wouldn’t come amiss,” Grier prompted.
“Look in a mirror, Grier,” Judd told him.
“I can’t stand to. If I look half as bad as you do, I’m wearing a paper sack to work tomorrow.”
“That’s cute,” Judd growled as he strode toward the office door. “You’ll be lucky if you have a job tomorrow, when Chet Blake sees this office.”
“Oh, I’ll tell him you did it all,” Grier assured the younger man with a grin.
“Try it.”
“The first thing you need to do something about is your sense of humor,” Grier pointed out. “To say nothing of your poor skills in diplomacy.”
“Your idea of diplomacy is a cocked pistol,” Judd pointed out.
“Only with hardheads like you.”
Judd had his hand on the doorknob when he paused and glanced back at the other man. “Don’t tell her I know about the pregnancy.”
“Don’t worry. People still don’t know what I really did in Iraq.”
Judd frowned. “I didn’t know you were ever in Iraq!”
Grier grinned. “See?”
Judd opened the door.
“One more thing,” Grier called.
“What?”
“Next time you do that reverse roundhouse kick, keep your axis stable. You’ll lose your balance every time if you tilt your upper body when you swing.”
Judd looked at the ceiling and shook his head as he walked out. He noticed that the men on the desk were suddenly very industrious as he went toward the front door.
17
Christabel was doing the laundry when a vehicle drove up outside. She was still too shaken by her near-accident to be very aware of her surroundings. Besides, the loud hum of the old washing machine drowned out anything more than a room away.
But Maude was in the kitchen, finishing her bread, when Judd walked in. She stopped with her hands full of dough and just stared at him. His handsome face was covered with cuts and bruises, and blood was pooled at the corner of his mouth. His once-spotless white shirt was dotted with blood.
“Grier looks worse,” he told her with a shrug. “Where’s Christabel?”
“Doing laundry,” she managed to say. He was shocking to look at. She hadn’t seen him in a fight since the day Crissy’s father had beaten her. That was a long time ago.
He turned and went to find Christabel. She had her back to him. He paused in the doorway of the laundry room to study her, his eyes shuttered, his mind working like crazy.
She sensed eyes on her. Abruptly her head jerked around. She stood up slowly, facing him, and her jaw dropped.
“What in the world happened to you?” she exclaimed.
“Grier doesn’t volunteer information without a little coaxing,” he said grimly. He moved closer, his face unreadable. He looked at her with an expression that she couldn’t understand.
“What kind of information were you after?” she asked blankly. She knew it couldn’t be about the baby. Cash didn’t know she was pregnant.
“Never mind,” he muttered. “It took a lot of bruises not to find out anything,” he assured her. His black eyes narrowed. “I don’t like him hanging around here, and I told him so. Now I’m telling you, too. You’re married.”
She glared at him over a towel that she’d dragged out of the aging dryer. Absently, she wondered if they’d ever be able to replace the machine. Not that it didn’t work, but it was fifteen years old. She folded the towel. “You kissed Tippy Moore!”
“Yes, I kissed her,” he bit off. “The assistant director’s doing his damned best to seduce her and she’s afraid of him! It was a stage kiss.”
“Oh, pull the other one,” she shot back. “Tippy M
oore, international model, afraid of a pissant little assistant director! I’d like to see the man she’s afraid of!”
He moved closer, taking the towel away from her. He tossed it onto the dryer. “She has a history I can’t tell you about,” he said bluntly. “It’s enough to tell you that she’s genuinely afraid of men. That’s why she’s been hanging on me. I’ve never touched her, and that’s the draw. She feels safe with cops—with any law enforcement people in uniform.”
Christabel was gaping at him. She’d been envious of Tippy, hated her for that exquisite beauty that made Judd and other men so covetous. Now she felt both sad and sorry for the other woman. Pieces of a puzzle fell into place. It must have been something terrible, she guessed, to have made the lovely woman like that.
“I can’t come here without tripping over damned Grier,” he persisted, black eyes blazing down at her. “If you want the truth, I was getting even!”
Her lips fell apart. Whatever she’d expected him to tell her, that wasn’t it. He was jealous...of her? She could feel her heart beating like a wild thing in her chest.
He calmed a little when he saw her expression. She looked fascinated. Apparently, she wasn’t eager to rub it in, either. He relaxed even more.
“I...only went around with Cash because it hurt me to see you with Tippy all the time,” she confessed without raising her eyes.
His heart jumped up into his throat. So many misunderstandings, all for want of a little honesty. It wasn’t Cash after all. He started smiling and couldn’t stop.
She lifted her face to his and was trapped by the look on it. He laughed, deep in his throat.
“Tippy’s got a case on Cash, but you can’t tell him,” he murmured. His fingers went to brush back her long, soft blond hair.
“Why?”
He shrugged. “He thinks she’s the happy hooker. She said a man like that knew more about most women than they knew themselves.”
Her eyes searched his. “You really haven’t slept with her?” she asked doggedly.
He sighed. “I’m married, Christabel,” he mused, linking his hands behind her waist.