The Lonesome Lawmen Trilogy

by Pauline Baird Jones

  She turned and ran up the stairs. Luke watched her until she was out of sight, then looked at the lawyer.

  “Yes. Well…” he said.

  “I know what you mean,” Luke said.

  * * * *

  Amelia walked out the front door ahead of Luke, lighter and freer with each step she took away from the Knight house. She was walking into day, she thought with an inward giggle. If she hadn’t already had a surname picked out, she’d have chosen Day. Amelia Day, total opposite of Prudence Knight.

  She gave a little jump to the next step and stopped. “I have a car.” She looked around. “At least, I had a car?”

  Luke stepped past her and stowed her one suitcase and the small box of personal items in the back seat of his car. He turned and walked back to her, the rise of the step putting her higher than him, just right to look into his eyes. If she had the courage to lift her arms, she could loop them around his neck. She should have the courage inside her somewhere. She’d learned to fly, to climb and to kick butt in self-defense class during her forays as Amelia. Not to mention the expertise with weapons she’d acquired working for John Knight. She’d taken it a bit further than Knight knew, maybe another interest she’d inherited from her real father?

  “You still have a car. It’s at the hospital. I have your keys in my pocket, but as an officer of the law, I couldn’t let you drive it back here without a proper driver’s license. I’ll have someone drive it home for you later.” He sounded and looked serious, except for the twinkle deep in his dark eyes.

  “I see.” Amelia smiled at him, watching the pulse at his neck speed up. Power—and with it courage—rose in her at the sight. Just a small pull on the throttle and she could lift off. She could. “Both my proper—and my improper—licenses got blown up by Grady. I guess I’m totally at your mercy.”

  “Totally?” He arched one brow.

  “Totally.” Amelia arched hers back. Courage welled up inside her.

  His smile took her breath away. It was tender, amused, and very sexy. It curled her toes in her very proper, Prudence shoes. It was hard to stand with curled toes, harder to think. She took a deep breath—and her courage in her hands—and lifted off, lifting her arms until her hands rested on his shoulders. Warmth shot up through her palms and did a quick run through her body. It was a nice warm, but mixed with the cold air, she did wonder if she might start a small weather system over their heads. Even better, he didn’t reject her.

  He cleared his throat, but his voice was still husky when he said, “My mom…wanted me to invite you over for lunch. Today.”

  Amelia inched her hands around his neck. If she was going to fly, she might as well soar. She stepped a bit closer. A mere inch of cool air separated their bodies.

  “Mom. Lunch. Sounds…serious?”

  His hands found their way to her waist. Chills spread out from where he touched her. She wanted to kiss him so bad her lips hurt. Flying wasn’t enough. She needed orbit. His gaze caught hers and held it, upping the chill factor and the altitude.

  “I am. Very.” He hesitated, then said, “A lot has happened to you in the last few days. I know you’ve got a lot of things to sort through—”

  Luke stopped. Damn, he was out of practice and had never been great with words even when he was in practice. Rosemary had made it too easy for him. She should have kicked his ass, not done the proposing for him. He’d read a few of Dani’s books where her heroes always knew exactly what to say, but damned if he could pull up any of it now.

  Her arms inched a little further around his neck, bringing their bodies barely together. It had been a while, but his body had no trouble remembering what to do. His arms didn’t either. They slid the rest of the way around her waist, taking contact from light to firm. If only his brain could get up to speed.

  Their lips were a millimeter apart when she said, “I’ll admit it does feel a bit odd. Like I have two people and two memories inside me. But there’s not that much to sort through…for me. I know what I want.”

  Her eyes asked him what he wanted. He sighed, relaxing just enough so that their foreheads touched. She shouldn’t make it so easy for him. He didn’t deserve it. Even with her help, the words didn’t come easily. He wanted her so much it hurt and it scared the hell out of him. She made him vulnerable again. His body felt tight with longing and fear.

  She moved until her lips were against his ear. “I can’t promise you I won’t ever die, Luke, but I can promise you I’ll love you until I die.”

  His insides surrendered and the words he wanted to say quit sticking in his throat. They spilled out of him in a soft rush, not smooth or polished enough for one of Dani’s books, but from his heart. From his soul. Somewhere in the mix, he asked her to marry him.

  He froze. He was rushing her. “I’m sorry. It’s too fast—”

  Her mouth stopped his words, hot and sweet, a little inexperienced, but she was learning fast. And teaching him a few things. Their mouths touched, clung, parted, then came together again.

  “I love you,” he said, against her lips. “I love you.”

  Houston, Amelia thought, we have no problem…

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Luke took Amelia around to the back door because only strangers used the front. He hoped just his mom would be there. He wasn’t that lucky. The entire family was gathered around the table, eating chocolate chips cookies as his mom pulled them out of the oven.

  Dani fed pieces of cookie to Mark. She gave Luke a distracted grin. “Introducing a new food group to him.” She handed him another piece, cooing, “It’s the perfect food, isn’t it? Oh, yes, it is.”

  “Pizza is the perfect food,” Phoebe said, “though these cookies are a close tie.”

  “Can’t feed a baby pizza, can we?” Dani cooed.

  “Really?” Jake arched his brows. “What was that stuff Mark was gnawing on when I stopped in last week?”

  Dani looked a bit sheepish. “It was just the crust.”

  “Hey, at least she hasn’t started him on Diet Dr. Pepper,” Matt said.

  Dani gave him a mock, shocked look. “He wouldn’t sleep. Can’t have that when everything I do is to get you to sleep, huh, baby.”

  Mark grabbed her face and gurgled, his grubby hands leaving chocolate hand prints on each side of her face.

  Jake tipped his head to one side, giving her a critical look. “I think you look on the outside, what you are on the inside, Dani.”

  Dani stuck her tongue out at him. Mark did, too.

  Luke hesitated, his body still blocking Amelia from his family’s sight. They could still get away—

  Phoebe, in her usual sexy recline, paused in her cookie consumption long enough to ask, “Who’s your friend, Luke?”

  That brought all activity to a standstill and all eyes, except Mark’s, their way.

  His mom straightened, her gaze finding Luke across the kitchen, her brows arched. “Luke?”

  Amelia stepped around him and smiled at everyone. “Hi. I’m Amelia.”

  His mom, her lips twitching, wiped her hands on the apron tied around her waist and then stepped forward, her hand out in a welcome. “I’m pleased to meet you. My son has told me so little about you.”

  Amelia leaned closer, and said in a loud whisper, “You know, that doesn’t surprise me. He’s very sweet, but a touch taciturn.”

  Taciturn? What did that mean?

  Dani appeared at this side and whispered, “Means you don’t talk enough about what really matters.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Matt said. He lifted his son from her arms and wrapped his arm around her waist.

  “Well, it should,” Dani said. She smiled at Amelia. “I’m Dani.”

  “I’ve read your books,” Amelia said. “They’re great.”

  Dani smiled at Luke. “I like her.”

  He introduced Jake and Phoebe. Phoebe gave her a languid smile of greeting.

  “She’s cute, but she doesn’t look like she can kick my ass, let alone what’
s his name?”

  “Ray,” Jake said.

  “Ray. How big was he?” Phoebe finished

  “Big,” said Matt.

  “Very big,” said Jake at the same time.

  They both measured a spot well above their heads.

  Phoebe looked thoughtful. “Maybe she can kick my ass.”

  “Do you mind—” Luke started.

  “I don’t mind,” Amelia said, a smile of delight transforming her face. His family stared at her, then, one by one, returned her smile, all of them looking slightly bemused.

  “You’re a fool if you let her get away, Luke,” Dani said.

  “If she can take Ray—” Phoebe agreed, her eyes dancing with laughter.

  “You’ll never have to worry about drunks and bores when you’re out on the town,” Matt said, with a shit-eating grin.

  Luke looked at Amelia. Her eyes asked if he was going to tell them? Luke grinned.

  “I don’t know. Might be dangerous to marry a woman who can take you,” Luke said. But his smile and the look in his eyes gave him away.

  “I think it’s already a done deal,” Debra said, coming forward to hug Amelia.

  “Signed, sealed and committed,” Amelia said. “When you’re my age, you can’t afford to beat around the bush. You know what they say about girls in their thirties, marriage and terrorists.”

  “It’s not true,” Dani said, giving her a hug, too.

  “No,” Amelia said with a sigh, “but it feels like it’s true.” Amelia gave him an impish look and he smiled back.

  For a minute he missed Rosemary. She’d have liked Amelia. He gave himself a little shake. If she’d been here, there’d have been no Amelia. Still, he had a feeling she approved. His brothers both gave him a discreet thumbs up. It was going to be all right. Amelia came to him, nestling into his side. No, it was going to be great. Maybe even one of Dani’s freaking happy endings.

  * * * *

  LONESOME MAMA

  Bonus short story, continuing The Lonesome Lawmen series.

  ONE

  It was a lovely day for a barbeque, Debra Kirby decided as she sat on the swaying wood swing in her back yard. It was warm and dry, with a slight breeze to keep things from edging over into hot. Sharp and unexpected regret bit deep into her heart. How John would have loved being with his boys in the huddle around the grill. He’d have looked her direction with a proud-papa grin then stirred the pot a bit so he could see his boys strut their stuff.

  No question the easiest pot to stir was middle son, Matt. The pugnacious set of his jaw made an odd counterpoint to his gentle rocking of Mark, perched on Matt’s shoulders, pounding his father’s head with his baby hands. John would have loved being a grandpa and watching Matt getting some of what he’d dished out as a child. Debra got a kick out of seeing her tough-minded son wrapped around a tiny, chubby, and rather grubby, little finger.

  Three years of marriage agreed with Matt. He was a man at peace—except with his baby brother, Jake, who held both fork and tongs and so had all power over the state of the sizzling meat. Debra shook her head as her middle and youngest bristled at each other over the doneness, or lack thereof, of their lunch. Some habits were hard to break, even with the softening influence Dani brought to Matt’s side of the equation.

  Luke, like Switzerland, stood between the younger siblings, still trying to negotiate peace. As dark-visaged as Matt, but a bit taller and grayer, he’d always looked cheerful on the surface, but now the joy went all the way through. Gone were the dark days following Rosemary’s death and the deep sorrow hidden by surface cheer. A year of marriage to Amelia had been good for her first-born.

  That left only Jake’s situation to ponder. Lighter and leaner than his older brothers, he was the only one of her sons that looked like her, though in a masculine way. She’d smiled and hid her worry when Jake married a convicted thief two years ago. Her restraint had been amply rewarded. Jake and his Phoebe were a perfect match, even if she would be on probation for another million hours or so—a fate shared by the fourth man at the grill.

  With them, but not of them, Dewey Hyatt was tolerated by the Kirby boys because Phoebe considered him a brother and they liked his wife, Bryn. Bryn was in the kitchen with the Kirby wives, probably still wondering how she’d happened to fall in love with the mischievous, high-tech thief. Domesticity sat uneasily on the FBI Special Agent, but she had a compelling reason to hang with the Kirby wives—the same one that had driven Debra Kirby outside to the swing and her musings.

  With four very pregnant women in one room, there was one topic of conversation. Not that Debra hadn’t tried to change the subject, but like lemmings, they returned to what, Debra conceded, was a subject dear to all their pumping-for-two hearts.

  Four babies and all due in the same, upcoming month. They couldn’t have planned it that way if they’d tried. Debra had been grand-childless for many long years. She’d delighted at each month of Dani’s pregnancy, even when Dani lost her delight and wanted relief. She’d been outside when Matt brought her the news of Mark’s birth. She’d cried when she held Mark for the first time—and wished for John with a fresh, sharp ache. Now she felt overwhelmed and acutely aware that she was very much alone in the companionship stakes.

  She’d hoped that sticking a toe back into the dating world with John’s best friend, Henry Maxwell, would ease the odd ache that had developed around her heart after two decades of peaceful acceptance, but all it had done was make her miss John even more. Henry was a nice man, but he was almost too much like John, without managing to be enough like John to suit. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but the heart rarely did. Henry had proposed the other night, but she couldn’t see herself marrying a pale shadow of John just because she was lonely. It wouldn’t satisfy her or him.

  There was a stir at her back door and her three daughters-in-law and Bryn waddled out bearing condiments and accompaniments to the meat Jake was pulling off the grill. The women were followed by Amelia’s father, Donovan Kincaid, with his bimbo du jour hanging on his arm. Debra bit back a grin as she watched her boys puff up like offended blow fish at the sight of the young thing tripping across the lawn in highly spiked heels and very few clothes.

  “Daddy’s here,” Amelia said brightly and with an air of still enjoying the sound of the words in her ears. Blonde, beautiful, infinitely serene, and amazingly pregnant, she had a hint of mischief in her violet eyes and around the edges of her lush mouth. Clearly she’d anticipated the effect the bimbo would have on the brothers Kirby and was prepared to enjoy the moment to its fullest.

  Debra narrowed her gaze against the high, bright sun as she studied her newest guest. This one might be the youngest yet. As if to echo that thought, Matt made some comment about asking to see her ID, that the wind chimes only partially obscured. Even Luke had trouble staying Switzerland. It was a little harder to remain neutral where his father-in-law was concerned. Debra set her grin free. There was no question that Donovan brought a rakish quality to the proceedings that was highly entertaining.

  If the boys wouldn’t rise to the bait so beautifully, Donovan would probably quit riling them—though maybe not. Donovan used his bimbo parade as a shield of sorts, but Debra didn’t have a clue what he was afraid they would see in him or about him.

  The former mercenary turned security specialist appeared both delighted and terrified by his new role as father and soon-to-be grandfather. She understood those feelings, despite the huge disparities in their life experiences. She knew how roles and appearances could obscure what went on inside. She knew that age was a physical, not mental, thing. Sometimes her brain would forget and send a signal to her legs to jump up, and then be surprised when she couldn’t. It was odd to feel so out of synch with herself, to look in the mirror and see a faded, unfamiliar version of herself. The gray hair and marked-by-life face didn’t reflect her innate belief that her life was still full of possibilities.

  Donovan somehow managed to shift his bimbo off into
the circle of young people and started in her direction. Debra was glad to put her odd thoughts aside. She liked Donovan and enjoyed spending time with someone closer to her age who wasn’t taking HRT.

  The sun was behind him, so she couldn’t see his expression, but he walked confidently and with a hint of provocation in his easy stride. A bit of a smile tugged at the edges of his mouth. It reminded her of John, just after he’d stirred the pot.

  It wasn’t the first time Donovan reminded her of John, but unlike Henry, he was no one’s pale shadow. Despite the wear and tear of battle, he was a good-looking man and Debra wasn’t so old that she didn’t enjoy the view. She’d always liked tall men, though he was whipcord lean, a stark contrast to John’s stocky build. He walked with the innate confidence of someone who knew he could seriously kick ass. His brown hair might have more gray in it than when she’d first met him—most of it probably acquired during the short period Amelia had gone missing last year—but it was distinguished gray and touched with a hint of silver.

  He was learning that fatherhood took a toll, no matter how late in life one came to the role. Amelia was so elated with her new “daddy” that Luke kept his opinions about daddy-dearest to himself—at least he thought he did. Amelia didn’t miss much. Luckily for both men, she had a good sense of humor and a personality that spread gentle oil on troubled waters.

  Debra didn’t play favorites with her daughters-in-law, but Amelia was a much more relaxing companion than, say, the very turbulent, deliberately sexy Phoebe. Even pregnant, Phoebe had a lushness about her that drew her husband’s eyes like a magnet. She’d lost the chip on her shoulder early in the marriage, but she wasn’t above pulling the chains her brothers-in-law were wont to let dangle so temptingly in her face, particularly now when she was hopped up on hormones.

  “May I?” Donovan asked Debra, indicating the empty space next to her.

  Debra looked up, shading her eyes from the sun. Despite the “daddy” tag, he retained his air of rakish mystery and his crisp, military bearing. His face was roughly sculpted by nature and beat up some by life, but still managed to be charming. His twinkling gaze invited her to join him in his tweaking of her boys.