Sheriff's Runaway Witness (Scandals 0f Sierra Malone Book 1)

by Kathleen Creighton

  For a long moment, neither of them seemed inclined to do anything about that, even though J.J. knew he ought to. That he had to. Because one thing he could not do was go on standing there with his arms around her and her body warm and damp and soft against him. Things would happen, then, he knew, that would make it next to impossible for him to ever put her on the other side of that law and order divide. So he mustered all his willpower and eased up his hold on her.

  For a moment she stayed where she was, not moving away from him, just looking up at him, cheeks pink and lips parted, as if there was something urgent she had to say. Instead, suddenly she sucked in breath in a sharp gasp and pushed away, one hand on her blouse, right over her breasts. She glanced down at herself, then back at him, and backed away, looking like she wished she could be anyplace else but where she was.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered, feeling like the world’s biggest jerk. “I didn’t mean—hey, it won’t happen again. Okay? I don’t want you to think—”

  “Funny,” she said, her voice soft and breathless, “I was just thinking how sweet you were to keep me from making a complete fool of myself.”

  She turned and walked quickly away from him, head down and ponytail slapping against her collar, leaving him as confused as he’d ever felt in his life.

  One thing for sure. Before this gets any more complicated, I’m gonna have to find a way to ask her those questions.

  Like, were you with your husband the night he was killed? Did you see who shot him?

  And most importantly, what else did you see?

  The baby was fussing.

  Again?

  Rachel groaned and peered at the clock radio on the nightstand. Big glowing digits proclaimed the time: Four o’clock. In the morning.

  She rolled onto her side, and every part of her body felt as though it were made of lead. Even her hair felt heavy. Using all her willpower, she managed to sit up and swing her legs over the side of the bed, then stand upright. She shuffled the few short steps to the bassinet and stood for a moment looking down at her son. In the soft glow of the nightlight, she could see him squirming and waving his fists, his face scrunched up with eyes shut tight and mouth wide open, the very picture of infant displeasure.

  “Hey, sweet boy,” she crooned, and even though her throat ached, her voice was musical and soothing as a lullaby. “How can you be hungry again already? I just fed you an hour ago.”

  Inside, she was screaming, I can’t do this! I can’t do it alone. Dammit, I wasn’t supposed to have to do this alone.

  “What am I going to do with you, huh? I don’t have any more milk, and I’m so sore—” Her voice broke. Whispering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…shh…” she scooped up her now-wailing son and cuddled him, joggling him and patting him, to no effect whatsoever.

  She began to pace in utter despair, and then from somewhere in her sleep-fogged brain a memory surfaced: a nurse, at the hospital, giving her some bottles of formula…telling her she might need to supplement feedings until her milk came in, if the baby didn’t seem to be getting enough.

  Yes!

  Okay, she thought, almost crying with relief, this would definitely seem to qualify as one of those times. The bottles—where were they? The kitchen, probably—Josie had helped her unpack, she’d most likely put them in the refrigerator.

  She tucked the frantic baby into the crook of one arm, opened her bedroom door, peered out, then hurried down the empty corridor to the kitchen. The Mexican paving tiles were cold on her bare feet, but she didn’t think about that, or the fact that she was only wearing underpants and the sweatshirt J.J. had given her to wear to bed her first night out of the hospital, the night she’d spent in his trailer.

  In the kitchen, whimpering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…shh…” she opened the huge custom-built refrigerator and took out the six-pack of formula bottles. She set it on the tiled top of the large island in the middle of the kitchen that served as both work space and casual eating area. Now what? How was she supposed to get one bottle out using only one hand, while juggling a crying baby? She was trying her best to do that, trying not to succumb to sobs of exhaustion and frustration, when she felt a rush of warmth against her back, and hands heavy on her shoulders.

  Chapter 10

  “Here, here—let me have him.”

  J.J.’s voice sounded husky and cracked and rough as sandpaper, and oh-so-beautiful to her ears.

  She uttered a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob as she half turned toward him, and his hands slipped down her arms, so deft and sure she surrendered her baby to them without a moment’s hesitation.

  “Shh…” he murmured, crooning to the baby as he rocked him, with a rasping sound like a tiger’s purr. And miraculously, her son stopped crying and opened his eyes and turned his face toward the sound.

  Then, for a moment, she simply stood still, utterly captivated by the vision of her tiny newborn baby nestled against Sheriff Jethro J. Fox’s broad chest. His bare chest, adorned only by a modest furring of golden brown hair that arrowed down the middle of his torso to disappear beneath the drawstring waistband of the sweatpants he wore, riding dangerously low on narrow hips.

  “I’d hurry up with that,” he drawled, glancing up at her and nodding toward the package of formula bottles now forgotten on the island top. “I’ve got his attention, but I don’t know for how long.”

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” she muttered as she fumbled with the package, at the same time trying to brush the tears from her cheeks without him noticing. “You didn’t,” he said dryly, and his eyes were once more on the baby in his arms.

  Which gave her a chance to look at him again, and she did—a longer look that took in the sheet-wrinkle across one cheekbone and the dark beard-shadow on the lower half of his face. Her heart did a curious flip-flop, and she had to look away.

  She sniffed. “I’m sorry, I guess I don’t have enough…um, to feed him. I’ve nursed him three times…” Tears threatened again, and she gazed blindly through them at the bottle in her hand.

  “You gonna heat that up, or what?”

  She cleared her throat…swiped at her cheek. “Um…it says you’re not supposed to microwave it.”

  “How ’bout if you just run some hot water in a pan and set the bottle in it. That’s what—couple ounces? Shouldn’t take but a minute.”

  Rachel found a pan behind the second cupboard door she tried. She ran water in the sink until it was hot, filled the pan with it and set the formula bottle in the water, then turned and leaned her backside against the edge of the sink.

  To her continued amazement, Sean was still staring intently at J.J.’s face, evidently entranced by the sight. So, she discovered, was she. Too much so.

  She turned quickly back to the sink, picked up the bottle and swirled it. Silence thickened in the room while she tested the heat of the formula on her arm, swirled some more, tested again. Satisfied at last with the temperature—or unnerved by the silence—she carried the bottle over to where J.J. now sat, comfortably half reclining in a chair at the island, Sean tucked neatly in the curve of his arm.

  “Okay—” breathless, she held out her arms “—I think it’s okay now.”

  Instead of turning over her baby, J.J. made a hand gesture. Give it to me. So, she passed him the formula bottle. A moment later, with a tiny pang that felt oddly like jealousy, she watched her son gulp greedily at the nipple, making the same squeaky sounds he always made when he nursed. His dark eyes were still fastened on J.J.’s face.

  “Where’d you get so good at this?” she whispered.

  J.J. didn’t answer right away. He’d noticed her legs were bare all the way up to the edge of his old “Life’s a Beach” sweatshirt. Bare, smooth, pale golden skin that looked silky soft to the touch…muscles firm and well-defined…reminded him of a dancer’s legs. It took some effort, but he managed to haul his attention away from the vision.

  “My sister’s got three,” he s
aid with a one-shouldered shrug, keeping his eyes on the baby where they belonged. “Last one came while her husband was in Afghanistan. I helped her out a time or two.” He paused, then glanced up to meet her eyes and said with an unexpected harshness in his voice, “Nobody should have to do this by themselves.”

  “I didn’t plan to.” She looked away, and he could see her swallow—hard. “Nicky—” She stopped.

  “Should have been here for you,” he finished for her. “Yeah, I know. Should be your husband sitting here right now, instead of me.”

  She laughed, and he hadn’t expected that, either. He stared at her. “What’s funny about that?”

  “It’s not—except…I can’t picture Nicholas doing…what you’re doing.” She paused, evidently thinking about it, and he could see she didn’t feel like laughing anymore. She hitched a shoulder. “He probably would have hired a nanny.”

  J.J. snorted. “Hey, whatever works. I guess if you’ve got the money to hire help…”

  She shook her head, and couldn’t seem to look at him. “He wouldn’t have wanted me to nurse, either.”

  “You didn’t get a say in it?”

  Looking at the floor, she said in a low voice, “It’s just that—” she caught a breath “—he would have wanted me all to himself.”

  Nice guy, he thought, but said aloud, “Well, I guess he must have really loved you.”

  She lifted her head and shot him a defiant look. But before she looked away again he saw a tear-track glimmer on her cheek.

  “What, you don’t think he did?” She shook her head slightly, but didn’t reply. He waited.

  After a moment, she drew a breath that seemed to steady her, and said in a low voice, “I thought he did—obviously. Or else, why would I have married him? But lately, I’ve been…wondering about that.”

  “That being whether he loved you or why you married him?” It occurred to him that he was interrogating her, but either she hadn’t realized it yet, or didn’t mind.

  “Both, actually. I thought he loved me…but now I think—I know he loved the way I looked—the way we looked together. He told me often enough—he thought I was beautiful.”

  Suspense sizzled inside him and raced beneath his skin. Was this the moment? They were on the subject. He could easily steer the conversation to that last night she’d spent with her husband. So easily…

  She drew another of those bolstering breaths. “Now, what I think is, he loved the idea of me, but I don’t think he ever really knew—never even saw the real me.”

  The moment had passed…like a river flowing past his feet.

  He smiled and said, “And…who is the real you?”

  He saw her lips quiver with the hint of an answering smile. “Well…let’s just say…I’m no angel, okay?” She looked down, her face somber again. “I think the main thing is, I don’t look like who I really am. I think I look…you know, little, and, um…kind of sweet—” she coughed and colored a little “—but actually, I have a temper, and I’m a lot tougher, a lot stronger than I look.”

  “I can testify to that,” J.J. said, flashing back to those incredible moments with her in the backseat of his patrol vehicle. “I’ve seen what you can do, remember?” He glanced down at the baby now sleeping in his arms, then back at Rachel, and knew that she, too, remembered. Remembered the intimacies that hadn’t bothered her at the time, but maybe were beginning to, judging from the way the pink in her cheeks was deepening.

  The moment stretched while he tried his best to block those memories from his mind. Then he frowned, forced himself to concentrate on the present and said, “How do you know your husband wouldn’t have loved ‘the real you’? Did you ever let him see that side?”

  She snorted softly. “I guess not.”

  “Why?”

  She paused, restless now, and he could see the question made her uncomfortable. In a muffled voice, not looking at him, she said, “I was afraid, I suppose. Afraid he wouldn’t want to marry me. Isn’t that stupid? That I really did want to marry him, so badly.”

  “Which brings up the second question—why?”

  Again, she didn’t answer right away, and he saw another tear run down her cheek. She brushed at it, sniffed and muttered, “Sorry. I don’t usually do this.”

  “That’s okay,” he said gruffly. “Hormones. My sister was a mess for weeks.” He was rewarded with a small laugh.

  She frowned at the moisture on her fingertips. “Yeah, well. This is very hard on my self-esteem, you know?” She took a breath, faced it head-on. “What I’ve been asking myself is, what kind of person does it make me, that I was so desperate to marry a man who was basically spoiled, selfish, immature and was probably going to make me miserable at some point in the future?”

  J.J. just looked at her while he worked on getting his own emotions under control. Because inside him there was a guy doing the fist-pump and hissing, Yes! Which was hard to understand, since even if she was having doubts about whether she’d loved her husband and maybe wasn’t as deeply mired in grief as he’d thought, it didn’t change anything as far as those questions he needed to ask her went. Except as a potential eyewitness, she was still as far off-limits to him as ever, at least for the time being.

  But…for the future? He couldn’t keep the thought out of his head. Once he was back on the detective squad where he belonged and out of that desert purgatory…what then? How long did it take for a woman to get over the loss of her husband, even if he had been a selfish son of a bitch?

  “Well,” he said, “did you know any of that then?”

  She sniffed and whispered, “No, I suppose not.”

  He cleared his throat and said carefully, “Let me ask you this. Nicholas Delacorte was a good-looking guy…right?”

  “Oh, yes.” She gave a husky laugh and brushed again at her cheek.

  “Charming?”

  She nodded. “Yes—very.”

  “And rich?”

  “Yes, but that didn’t—”

  “He treated you well?”

  “Like a queen.” She’d gone still, and was staring at him intently now.

  He shrugged, and forced the words out. They came, sounding like a truckload of gravel. “What’s not to love? You were young, vulnerable, maybe a little rebellious, like you said—and he had a touch of danger about him, too, right?” She nodded slowly. He tipped his head toward her. “So, there you go. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

  He set the empty formula bottle on the island top and stood up. She took a step toward him. He strolled toward her with her sleeping baby a warm, sweet weight in his arms. Close enough to hand her son off to her, he paused, and for what seemed a long time, just stood and looked down at her. And for some reason, she looked back at him, and her lips parted. He felt her warmth, smelled her scent—baby powder and milk and woman—and dangerous thoughts and wants filled his head. Not for you, he reminded himself. At least, not now.

  He made a throat-clearing sound and she seemed to echo it, and they performed an awkward little dance while he did his best to hand over the kid without waking him up.

  “Might want to burp him before you put him down,” he said gruffly, when his arms were empty again. He turned and hauled himself away from her, and it was like trying to break free of a magnetic field. The place on his body where the baby had nestled felt cold now.

  At the kitchen doorway he paused to look back. Giving full credit to his vigilant Better Angel, who must have been perched on his shoulder just then, he cleared his throat and said, “Oh—you might think about giving your husband a break, too. Maybe the man loved you as much as he knew how to. Given the kind of upbringing he had.”

  Whether that was true or not, he didn’t know. Maybe it would give her some comfort. Hell, he could do that for her, at least.

  He went through the door and down the hallway to his room. To bed, but probably not to sleep.

  “I saw her, yesterday. Down by the creek. Talked to her.”

  It was
early morning. Sam was leaning against a stack of alfalfa hay, watching Sage milk.

  The kid looked sideways at him without stopping the rhythmic thrum-thrum of milk into the foam-filled bucket. “Yeah? Funny she didn’t mention meeting you.”

  “She didn’t know it was me, and I didn’t enlighten her.”

  “Why not?”

  He laughed silently. “Well, I’ve been told I’m a coward.”

  “A coward?” Sage threw him another look, eyebrows raised. “Who told you that?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Sam moved restlessly. It was warm in the barn, but he didn’t take off the fleece-lined jacket he wore. The older he got, he noticed, the harder it was to keep the old bones warm. “Truth is, I liked talking with her. Found out how she feels about me, too. Her not knowing who I was, she didn’t mince words.” He cackled a laugh. “Sure did remind me of her grandmother. Not her looks, of course. But she does have a way about her.”

  He watched Sage kick back the milking stool and stand up, envying the kid his thirty-year-old’s agility. Waited while the kid carried the bucketful of milk to the milk room, poured it through the strainer, then into stainless steel cans. Watched him put the cans in the walk-in, then come back to release the cow from the stanchion, give her a slap on her bony rump to send her ambling back out to pasture. Pick up a push broom that was leaning against the wall, then finally come back to him.

  “When you planning on telling her who you are?” Sam shrugged and didn’t reply. Sage made a couple of passes with the broom, then paused to look at him. “Still planning to wait till they all get here? Tell everybody at the same time?”

  Sam plucked an alfalfa stem from a bale of hay and chewed on it. “I don’t know, I’m thinking of playing dead awhile longer. They think I’m already dead, maybe I’ll find out how they really feel about me. Find out why they’re really here.”

  Sage snorted. “You know why they’re here.”