Long, Tall Texans: Stanton ; Long, Tall Texans: Garon

by Diana Palmer

“Has she?”

  “I’m sure she’d enjoy having you back.”

  “I guess so.”

  “If rosebushes have feelings, yours are probably grieving already,” he added solemnly. “I imagine they’re brokenhearted. They’ll cry and some passerby will hear them and check himself into the hospital for a CAT scan.”

  This time the laugh did escape, even though she stifled it immediately.

  He smiled. “I’ll even loan you a truck and a man to drive it, so you can get fertilizer and pesticides to use on your roses.”

  “Barbara has a truck,” she said, avoiding the offer.

  Which Marquez would be happy to drive for Grace, on his day off, Garon realized with a twinge of something unfamiliar.

  “Well?” he persisted.

  She finished rubbing the spot. It was still there. It probably wouldn’t come out, anyway. Red mud was usually permanent. She glanced at him. “If you’ll promise to give me a schedule of your daily routine so I won’t risk appearing in the same place you do, I’ll come home.”

  “Cut it out,” he muttered. “I’m convinced that it was coincidence. I overreacted.”

  “Gee, was that an apology?” she asked with mock surprise.

  “I don’t make apologies unless the director phones me personally and orders me to.”

  “I figured that out for myself.”

  “When?”

  She frowned. “When, what?”

  “When are you coming back?”

  She nibbled her lower lip. “Tomorrow, I guess.”

  “Good. I’ll stop by your house and tell the roses on my way home.”

  “Nice of you,” she said.

  “I have lots of good qualities,” he assured her.

  “You keep them well-hidden, of course,” she returned with a mocking smile.

  “No use wasting them on a woman who’d enjoy putting out a contract on me,” he told her.

  “Unfortunately I can’t afford a hit man, on my salary,” she said.

  “Why don’t you go to college and get a degree? You could earn more.”

  “Why don’t you go home and stop trying to run my life?” she asked him. “I don’t need career counseling.”

  “You drive a car that is an accident about to happen, and you dress out of thrift shops,” he muttered.

  She flushed. “How do you know where I get my clothes?”

  His teeth clenched. He shouldn’t have said that.

  “Spill it!” she demanded, hands on her hips.

  “You wear that damned blue wool dress everywhere. Otherwise, you wear the same pair of jeans with assorted sweatshirts. It doesn’t take rocket science to figure it out.”

  “I can’t see why it should bother you how I dress,” she said sweetly. “You can rest assured that you won’t ever have to be seen in public with me again.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  “I’m sure your friend Jaqui can afford to shop at Saks or Neiman Marcus. No cut-rate wardrobe for her!”

  He bit back a hot reply. He’d done enough damage to her ego already. “She doesn’t hide her assets,” he admitted. “She likes having men around her.”

  She gave him a cold smile. “Lucky girl, not to have my history.”

  His high cheekbones went ruddy with color. He turned. “I’ll see you.”

  “Not if I see you first,” she replied tersely. “And that’s a promise.”

  She went back into the house to put away her fish and to pack, after his car had roared off down the driveway. She was probably nuts to let him talk her into it, but he was right about her cousin being in the line of fire. If the killer did come after her, she didn’t want any innocent people getting hurt. And she did have knowledge that might help put the perpetrator behind bars.

  * * *

  THE HOUSE WAS EMPTY and cold. She’d left the pilot light on the furnace, though, so she had heat. She needed it, too. The weather had turned cold unexpectedly. She went through the house, making sure everything was where it should be. Then she went out into the backyard, to check the rosebushes Garon had been so concerned about.

  There were young buds among the leaves on the rosebushes. There were new leaves on the trees, too, in so many shades of green that she couldn’t count them. The sun was shining down through them and there was a crisp, invigorating breeze. Impulsively she lifted her arms and danced around in a circle, laughing at the pleasure it gave her to be back on her own property again. Her own property. She’d never owned anything except the clothes on her back. Now, at least, she had a place to live. All she had to do was manage an income that would take care of the utilities and an occasional new dress. But there was time. There was plenty of time.

  Garon had walked over to see her and make sure that the house was secure. He heard laughter from the back yard and turned the corner. And there was Grace, her long blond hair down around her shoulders, almost to her waist in back. She was spinning around like a happy child, dancing in the wind with her eyes closed and her face lifted to the sun.

  Something hit him right in the chest as he stared at her. She was lovely. She was sweet and kind and loving. She’d been his for two heady days, when pleasure took on an aura of magic, like nothing he’d known before. But he’d wounded Grace. He’d thrown her away like a used cup, devalued her, demeaned her. She would never open her arms to him again and hold him in the darkness. She would never trust him again.

  It was one of the most painful revelations he could remember. And until this very minute, when he looked at her unawares and knew how blessed he’d been to have her in his life, he hadn’t known what he felt for her. It was bad timing. Damned bad timing.

  Instead of making his presence known, he turned and went back the way he’d come. He knew that if she’d seen him, all the joy would drain out of her like water through a sieve. He couldn’t bear to see that. She’d been through so much in her young life. He was sorry he’d made things hard for her. Perhaps, if he worked at it, he could earn her forgiveness. It was better than nothing.

  * * *

  GRACE WENT BACK to work the very next day, first at the florists’ and then at the café. People seemed generally delighted to have her home. They also mentioned what a rough time Garon had been treated to after her departure. He’d had to do his shopping in San Antonio, because local doors were shut to him after his treatment of Grace. She couldn’t say he hadn’t deserved it, but she felt sorry for him. He wasn’t a man who made friends easily, or seemed to fit in anywhere. Maybe he really had felt guilty enough to coax her back home. Or, she mused, maybe he just wanted to be able to buy his cattle feed in Jacobsville instead of having to drive a half hour to get it somewhere else.

  She’d felt full of energy when she got home, but as the days passed, she began to feel an acceleration of the uncomfortable nausea and weakness that had been a hallmark of her life since she left Jacobsville. Surely it was just a virus, she told herself. She was never ill. Even if she was, where would she get the money for a doctor? She only carried a small insurance policy, which covered major medical but not routine office visits or prescription drugs. No, she’d just have to wear it out. These things usually went away in a short time. She’d get better.

  But she didn’t. Late one afternoon, when she was putting mulch around her roses, the world started spinning. She felt nausea rise up in her throat just as a strange weakness overcame her. With a shocked little cry, she fell to the ground. Her last sight was of the sky going from blue to black….

  CHAPTER 13

  GARON WAS HOME by early afternoon. He’d been working a bank robbery with most of the agents at his office. Everyone turned out in a case like this, where the crew they’d been hunting appeared at one of the banks Garon’s squad had staked out. The four men were dressed in camouflage carrying assault weapons. They held up a bank and bullets flew at civilians as well as law enforcement personnel in their desperation to get away. Two people were wounded. The robbers ran out of the bank and took off in an old car, bu
t then they roared off and lost their pursuers in traffic. Minutes later, they wheeled into the parking lot of a nearby restaurant to trade the car for a parked SUV.

  An off-duty cop had seen some men jump out of a car carrying weapons and money bags, cursing loudly as they fumbled with a key that apparently didn’t fit the ignition. They hot-wired the SUV and took off. Dispatch sent out a text message to Garon’s squad, giving the name and location of the off-duty policeman who reported armed men stealing a vehicle at a local restaurant. Because the parking lot contained several children with their parents, the off-duty officer felt it would have been too dangerous to open fire and invite return fire in such a crowded venue.

  But his quick report sent lawmen rushing to the restaurant parking lot, where they discovered a parked SUV almost identical to the one the officer had seen the armed men hijack. Amazingly its tag was registered to a convicted bank robber who’d been paroled just weeks earlier. In their haste to get away, the robbers had mistaken another SUV for the one they’d apparently parked earlier next to the restaurant. But their escape vehicle was left behind, with the tag in the robber’s own name. When he arrived home, FBI agents were waiting at his house. They arrested him, and he confessed and named his partners to shave some time off his sentence.

  The Bureau took priority in federal crimes like bank robbing. But even in some other felony cases, local police were glad to hand criminals over to the Bureau because the federal charges were more severe and a suspect, if convicted, would serve a longer sentence.

  Garon felt good about the quick resolution to the situation, and the fact that nobody had been seriously wounded despite the flying bullets at the scene of the robbery. Thanks to some good police work and an off-duty cop’s sharp eyes, the felons were apprehended within two hours of the robbery, and all the stolen money from the latest robbery was recovered. It felt good to have the case solved. The robbers had been experienced and dangerous. Now they were off the street for years.

  Garon had gone by the crime lab to drop off some evidence in the case. It was technically a little before regular quitting time, but since there was nothing pressing, the SAC told him to go home. It was Saturday, after all. He could always find something to keep him busy at the ranch.

  He was driving by Grace’s house when he happened to look toward her front porch and saw what looked like a bundle of clothes strewn across the ground near the steps. It was so odd that he turned into her driveway to check it out.

  When he got closer, he realized that what he’d seen wasn’t clothes. It was Grace, lying on the ground, unconscious.

  He was out of the car and running in a matter of seconds. He dropped down beside her and felt for a pulse. Her heart was beating with an odd rhythm, but she was already stirring. Her eyes opened. She swallowed, hard, her face almost white, her stomach churning.

  “What happened?” he asked at once, concerned.

  “I don’t know,” she said huskily, swallowing again to keep the nausea from rising. “I was walking toward the house, and the next thing I knew, everything went black. I never faint,” she added indignantly. “It isn’t even hot. It couldn’t be heat stroke…”

  “The Coltrains have a clinic on Saturday evening, don’t they?” he asked.

  “Yes, but I don’t need a doctor,” she began weakly.

  “It’s just a virus or something.”

  He didn’t believe it. And before she could argue, he picked her up and carried her to his car. Odd, he thought, she felt heavier than she had the last time he’d carried her.

  “I don’t want to go to the doctor,” she protested.

  He balanced her on his hip while he opened the door, then he slid her in onto the passenger seat. “Sit still,” he said firmly, while he reached for her shoulder belt. As he drew it across her body, his hand slid gently across her stomach…and stopped dead.

  He looked down at her, frowning, as his big, lean hand settled curiously, gently, over the hardness of her swollen belly.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, still dazed from the giddiness. “It isn’t appendicitis. I don’t have an appendix. When I was stabbed, the knife severed my appendix and one of my ovaries…”

  The look on his face was inexplicable. She saw his eyes glitter and his face go almost as pale as her own was.

  “You’re scaring me,” she protested. “What’s the matter?”

  His hand pressed tenderly against her stomach for an instant before he finished fastening the shoulder harness and closed her door. His face was hard and unreadable. He didn’t say a word. He couldn’t. He was shaken to his very soul.

  “I need my purse,” she protested. “It’s sitting on the hall table. The key’s in the door. You need to lock it if you’re determined to make me see the doctor.”

  He was too dazed to argue. He went inside, picked up her purse, locked the door, dropped the key in and passed it to her before he climbed behind the wheel.

  He drove like a man sleepwalking. He knew his heart must be turning flips. Could she really be that naïve that she didn’t realize what had happened to her? He glanced at her curiously as he pulled out into the road.

  “Are you eating anything at all lately?” he asked in an odd tone.

  She shifted restlessly and looked out the window. “Whatever I’ve got keeps my stomach upset,” she said heavily. “Mostly I get milkshakes and drink them.”

  She really didn’t know! He felt his breath catch as the possibilities rushed in like mosquitoes circling his head. He’d been like half a man during the past few years. He’d avoided women, and entanglements, and hardly dated at all. Now fate had delivered him up whole to this unexpected complication, and he felt as if he’d just won the lottery. But he didn’t know how to handle it.

  He glanced at Grace’s averted profile. She wasn’t pretty, but she had a warmth and empathy that made him hungry. It had been so long since he’d had a reason to live. Now he had something to make life worthwhile. He had hope again.

  “You’re acting very strangely,” she observed as they neared the Coltrains’ office building, which they shared with their colleague, Dr. Drew Morris.

  “Am I?”

  “And we’ll never get in,” she added, noting the cars parked outside the building. “I’ll bet half of Jacobs County is sitting in the waiting room. Why don’t you take me home, and I’ll see Dr. Coltrain next week?”

  “Not on your life.” He parked the car and pulled out his cell phone.

  She tried to protest what he was saying to the receptionist, but he held up a hand and cut her off.

  “The side door?” he added. “Right. I see it. We’ll be right there.”

  He drove to the side of the building and parked, got out and lifted Grace, carrying her toward the building.

  “But I’m not dangerously ill,” she protested, flushing.

  “I never said you were.”

  “You told her I was unconscious!”

  “A tiny white lie,” he said as he reached the building. “Better close your eyes unless you want to be here until midnight.”

  She really wanted to argue, but the side door was opening. She didn’t want to spend the night in the waiting room. She closed her eyes.

  “Bring her right in here,” the nurse instructed.

  Grace felt herself being placed gently on an examination table.

  “Doctor will be right here,” the nurse said, exiting the room.

  Before Garon could get a word out, Dr. Coltrain walked in, a stethoscope draped around the collar of his white lab jacket. He looked uneasy as he took it off, stuck the earpieces in his ears, and bent to listen to Grace’s chest.

  “I just fainted, that’s all,” Grace whispered.

  He frowned, because her heartbeat worried him. He listened, had her cough, listened again and took off the stethoscope. “What were you doing, just before you fainted?”

  “I was just walking…”

  Without a word, Garon caught the redheaded doctor’s hand and place
d it flat on Grace’s belly, with a meaningful look.

  Taken aback, Coltrain’s hand smoothed over the hardness of her slightly swollen belly. He caught his breath.

  “Labwork?” Garon suggested solemnly.

  Coltrain stared at him with growing comprehension. Grace was the only one who didn’t understand what was going on.

  Coltrain went into the hall and called his nurse. He spoke to her under his breath.

  “Yes, Doctor, right away,” she said and walked back down the hall.

  He took a phone call while she came back and drew blood from Grace’s arm.

  “It isn’t an ulcer,” Grace protested when the nurse had gone out of the room, closing the door behind her. “I don’t have stomach problems. Don’t you tell Coltrain that I do, either,” she instructed hotly, “because I know what an upper G.I. series is like, and he’s not doing one on me!”

  Garon didn’t answer. He went to the window in the small room, shoved his hands in his pockets, and looked outside. His world, and Grace’s, was about to change forever. He didn’t know what to say, or do. Grace was going to be upset.

  Coltrain was back in ten minutes, somber and taut-jawed. He closed the door, pulled out his rolling stool and sat down.

  “We have some decisions to make,” he told Grace.

  Garon moved to join them, his eyes on Grace, who looked completely perplexed.

  “Have I got cancer?” she asked, aghast.

  Coltrain took one of her hands in his and held it tight. “You’re pregnant, Grace.”

  She just stared at him. “I can’t have a child,” she said in a choked tone. “You said I couldn’t!”

  He drew in a sharp breath, aware of Garon’s stillness beside him. “I said it wasn’t likely, with only one ovary. I didn’t say it was impossible.”

  Grace’s hands went to her belly, feeling its firmness, feeling the thickness of her waist. She was pregnant. There was a tiny life inside her. She felt herself glow, as if she were touched, radiantly touched, by ecstasy.

  “You can’t have it,” Coltrain said shortly. “You’re barely a month pregnant, in time for a termination. I can send you up to San Antonio…”