Books By Diana Palmer

by Palmer, Diana

  Jack Clark was taken up to Victoria in handcuffs to attend his brother's indigent funeral a few days after the autopsy. On the way back to Jacobsville, Jack had been so docile and polite that the kindly deputy sheriff transporting him broke protocol and left him handcuffed instead of chained. At a rest stop, because Clark said he had to use the bathroom, the kind deputy was re­warded by being knocked over the head twice with the butt of his own .38 caliber service revolver and left for dead in a driv­ing rain in the grass next to the Victoria-Jacobsville highway. Later that day, the deputy's squad car was found deserted a few miles outside Victoria.

  Unable to get down to Jacobsville that day because of his busy schedule, Judd phoned Cash Grier and told him what happened. He also had to ask the man to keep an eye on Christabel, fear­ing that Jack Clark had scores to settle with all of them, espe­cially Judd and Christabel. That rankled, because he'd heard about the infamous New Year's kiss even in Victoria. One of the sheriff's deputies he shared space with was married and lived in Jacobsville and commuted back and forth to work. He'd found it amusing that cold, hard Cash Grier had been caught by such a young woman, and judging from that kiss, it was serious, too, he said carelessly.

  The man didn't know that Christabel was married to Judd. Neither did any of the other men in the office, who apparently felt comfortable speculating on Christabel and Grier right in front of Judd. He couldn't bear the thought of Christabel and Cash Grier together, even while he was trying to tell himself that he wanted no part of family life.

  The film crew came back for its last two weeks of shooting, including retakes, and Christabel was so subdued that she hardly noticed Tippy. She'd passed all her fall courses and signed up for the next semester.

  Judd showed up early on the first Saturday morning of shoot­ing, a cold but sunny day. Cash was already there, talking to one of his men on security duty and waiting for Christabel to get ready so that he could take her out for the day.

  She hadn't expected to see Judd and she reacted uncomfort­ably. So did Judd. They spoke with the icy politeness of war­ring strangers. Christabel didn't even smile at him. Tippy saw the new tension and discomfort between the two of them and came up with an unpleasant theory about why. Gary was more amorous and predatory than he'd ever been, and she was scared to death to find herself alone with him even in company. She couldn't afford to let Judd desert her now!

  So while Judd was briefly talking to the assistant director, Gary, passing the time between equipment setups, Tippy paused beside an unusually quiet Christabel, who could barely keep her eyes off Judd. He was pointedly ignoring her.

  "That's what happens when you wear your heart on your sleeve, Miss Gaines," Tippy told her lightly. "You shouldn't throw yourself at men if you want to get anywhere. Sex is such a poor way to hold a man like Judd anyway. He's just too dis­gusted for words, can't you tell? He told me that you were embarrassing him with your behavior. All he wants is to forget it ever happened. He says you threw yourself at him and he couldn't help himself."

  Christabel looked at the older woman with horror in her eyes. For an instant, Tippy felt guilty for the lie. But it had worked well, for a shot in the dark.

  "Disgusted," she repeated dully, sick at her stomach. Well, that was certainly plain speaking. Judd couldn't bear the sight of her anymore. Her inexperience and headlong passion had disgusted him. He'd told Tippy all about it, that she'd thrown herself at him! He only wanted to forget what had happened. Well, was it really a surprise? Hadn't he pretty much said the same thing to her? But he hadn't been quite this brutal, even when he mentioned the divorce.

  She turned away and went to get her purse. She didn't think to put on a sweater, and it was cold today. When she came back out, Judd was on the porch.

  She didn't meet his eyes. She was unbearably hurt. She snagged her purse on her shoulder with jerky movements.

  “Are you all right?" he asked hesitantly.

  Her lips made a thin line. "I understand the sight of me dis­gusts you, that I embarrass you just by being here. For the time being, I can't help it, but I promise to keep as far away from you as possible when you come here. You might tell Miss Moore that she doesn't need to keep sniping at me on your account. You'll get your divorce the minute you ask for it!" Her eyes came up, wounded and furious. "How could you tell her we slept to­gether, that I threw myself at you? How could you, Judd!"

  He scowled, and started to speak, but she went out into the yard near one of the outbuildings to wait while Cash finished speaking with his man.

  Judd felt his temper rising. How could Tippy have told such

  a lie to Christabel, after he'd already torn the heart out of her?

  He strode toward the model with blood in his eye, cornering her

  a few yards away from where Christabel was standing near the

  outbuilding.

  "Why did you tell her she disgusted me?" he asked Tippy an­grily. "Why lie to her?"

  Tippy was too shocked to answer him. It hadn't occurred to her that the woman would repeat what she'd said, and so quickly. She started to speak and then a movement behind Judd caught her eye.

  Christabel moved a little farther away from the painful sight of Judd standing close to Tippy Moore. She was just in time to see a thin, balding man with a leveled handgun pointed directly at Judd's back.

  There was no time. Judd could react in a split second, but in the split second it would take her to call to him, he'd be dead. There was really no other decision to make, so Christabel made it.

  She stepped right out into the path of the gun just as Clark fired.

  Strangely, there was no real pain. She felt the impact of some­thing hard and then it became almost impossible to breathe. She stared at the man who'd just shot her as the loud pop sounded, and with a jerky little moan, she fell to the ground face first, un­conscious and bleeding.

  Tippy saw it happen with utter horror. "Judd!" she squealed, her cry blanked out by the loud pop of the pistol as it fired.

  With years of instinct behind him, in a single smooth motion, Judd pulled his .45 Colt automatic, turned, and fired, hitting Clark squarely in the hand. The man dropped the pistol and fell to his knees.

  Judd went toward him without hesitation, noticing absently that Christabel had fainted. Cash Grier came running up, his gun out.

  "I'll cuff him," Judd said. "Check Christabel. I guess she fainted." He wrestled Clark to the ground and pinned his arms behind him to clip on the handcuffs, deaf to the man's cry of pain and furious threats. "Barnes, call for an ambulance!" he yelled at the security man, who waved and began speaking into the two-way radio transmitter on the inside shoulder of his uniform.

  "Judd!"

  Cash's voice was oddly cracked.

  The unfamiliar sound made Judd uneasy. He left Clark cuffed on his knees, retrieved the .38 caliber revolver Clark had been carrying and stuck it in his duty belt. He joined Cash near Christabel's prone body. Tippy had been frozen in place, but she moved closer, too, along with the rest of the stunned cast.

  Cash's hand came out from under Christabel's chest covered with bright red blood.

  Judd stopped breathing. He stopped thinking. She hadn't fainted. She lay still and unmoving. She was dead. Clark had killed her. He turned with a sharp curse and went for the hand­cuffed man with an economy of motion that was frightening.

  "Judd, no! Stop him!" Cash yelled to the crew.

  Three men, two of them engineers, one the assistant director, caught Judd just as he reached the shooter and wrested him away from Clark. Judd cursed roundly, his voice breaking as re­ality began to trickle into his numbed senses.

  "Let me go, damn you!" he panted, struggling furiously with his captors.

  "Judd, she's still alive!" Cash called. "She's alive, do you hear me? Get over here! I can't do this alone!"

  Judd wrenched away from the men holding him as they re­luctantly released their hold. He joined Cash abruptly as the other man turned her body over, gently, with h
ands that were vis­ibly shaking. Judd was white in the face, breathing jerkily.

  Blood was pulsing from the front of her blouse, saturating it and the ground under her. It was so cold that the warm blood made steam rise from the dead grass and dirt. She was uncon­scious and sucking noisily at air.

  "Collapsed lung," Cash said professionally, through gritted teeth. "She's been hit somewhere in the rib cage." He looked at Judd with wild eyes. "We need blankets, something to prop her legs up with, pressure on the wound..."

  Judd just sat there, horror in every line of his face as he looked at her, so white and still. For the first time in his adult life, he simply could not act. There was so much blood, he thought blankly. So much! Cash wasn't in much better shape, feeling helpless, too, at the sight of her like that.

  Tippy rushed in, remembering graphically what she'd said to the other woman just minutes earlier, the lie she'd told. She hated herself. She felt sick at the sight of the blood, but she was no stranger to emergencies.

  She jerked off the expensive sweater she was wearing and put it over the wound, pressing down hard to try and stop the bleed­ing. Grier glanced at her in surprise.

  "She's going into shock," Tippy said calmly. "We need some blankets."

  "Blankets!" Cash yelled.

  Men started running. Maude heard the commotion and came running out of the house, only to run back in when she was told what had happened and what was needed. She ran back out car­rying the bedcovers from the guest room, a big comforter and a quilt. She handed them to Cash, who covered Christabel while Tippy kept pressure on the wound. Maude rolled up another blanket and used it to elevate Christabel's legs. Tears were run­ning down her cheeks. She sobbed as she wrung her hands and watched.

  "How about that ambulance?!" Grier yelled at his man.

  Even as he raged, the sound of sirens pierced the hum of hushed conversation around them. Judd had one of Christabel's small hands in his. He was holding it so hard that her knuckles were white. His eyes were dead. He didn't even seem to be aware of the people around him.

  She was beginning to shiver all over, and a harsh, piteous groan split her dry lips.

  The sound mobilized a frozen Judd. He brushed back her hair from her white face. "Be still, honey," he said huskily. "It's all right. I'm here. You're going to be fine. Where the hell is that damned ambulance!" he yelled hoarsely, his deep voice colored with fear.

  "Right here, sir," the security man said, moving back specta­tors and motioning the ambulance into the throng of people. It was followed by a Jacobsville police car, with one of Grier's of­ficers, the watch commander, driving and another officer in the passenger seat.

  Judd still had a death grip on Christabel's hand. He managed to stay sane long enough to send a glance at Clark, who was on his knees in the dirt groaning from his own wound. "Get that son of a bitch to jail," he said through his teeth, "before I kill him!"

  His eyes were testimony enough to the intent of the statement. He'd forgotten law, duty, honor, everything, in the grip of the worst fear he'd ever felt. If she died, he would be lawless. Noth­ing would matter to him in the world, ever again, except revenge. He felt cold and sick and horrified. He'd been close to his fa­ther when he had died. He remembered holding his father's hand just as the older man sighed out his last breath. That had been frightening, but not like this. Nothing had ever been like this! The cold terror had him firmly in its icy grip. He couldn't drag his eyes away from Christabel's pain-contorted face. It was killing him to see her like this! And still the blood ran out of her like water out of a spigot, despite Tippy's feverish efforts to stem the flow.

  The ambulance attendants moved in, efficient and quick. Judd wouldn't let go of her hand. They had to work around him, even to transport her, because he climbed right into the back of the ambulance with her, still holding her hand. He didn't even no­tice the other people standing outside the big vehicle as its red lights flashed on and off.

  "Don't let her die," Cash told one of the EMT's grimly. "I'm going to see if I can get those guns away from him before you leave," he added quietly.

  He climbed into the ambulance, spoke softly to Judd, who barely heard him, and relieved him of the two firearms, his own Colt automatic and the wheel gun Clark had been carrying. He came back out and the ambulance doors closed. His last glimpse of Christabel was with Judd's dark head bent over her in an agony of grief.

  "Will she live?" Tippy asked Grier.

  He looked down at her, belatedly realizing that she was talk­ing to him. "I don't know," he said flatly. He was as frightened as Judd, he only hid it better.

  She drew in a shaky breath. "I've never seen anybody shot."

  He wasn't listening. The watch commander approached him. "Get him in leg irons and transport him to the hospital," Grier told him curtly.

  "I need a doctor," Clark raged. "I'm shot. My hand's bleed­ing!"

  Grier stared at him. "If you make a move I don't like, you'll need a mortician," he said with pure malice, and abruptly spun the Colt with a professional skill that made Clark back up a step. "Get him out of here," he added coldly. "We'll charge him with another count of aggravated assault and go from there."

  "Yes, sir." The police officer wasn't inclined to argue.

  "I missed this time, but I won't miss again!" Clark raged. "He killed my brother. I mean to kill him, too, and I will! I swear I will!"

  Grier ignored him and handed the police officer the two weapons he'd coaxed from Judd. "The Colt is Judd Dunn's. The Smith & Wesson is the one Clark shot Christabel Gaines with. Lock them up in my office."

  "We'll take care of them, sir," the second officer assured him. "I hope Miss Gaines will be all right."

  "So do I," Grier said huskily, his voice as rigid as his features. It was killing him that he couldn't go in the ambulance with her. But that was Judd's right, as much as he hated admitting it.

  Tippy Moore watched the ambulance drive away. She glanced at Maude, who was weeping copiously on the sidelines. She could only imagine how it affected the old woman, who was the closest thing to a mother Christabel had left. She went to the woman and put a comforting arm around her. "Come on," she said softly. "I'll walk you back to the house."

  "I have to go to the hospital," Maude wailed. "But I can't drive, I'm shaking so!"

  "I'll get someone to drive us," she said. "I'm going, too," she added doggedly, glancing at the assistant director, who looked ready to argue. "I'm not working any more today, in case you were going to ask. I'm going to the hospital to sit with Judd."

  The assistant director threw up his hands, but at a cold glare from Grier, he just walked away without another word.

  "You can ride in with me," he told the women, without look­ing at them. "Give me a minute to phone my office and Judd's." He whipped out his cell phone and began punching in numbers.

  "You need a sweater," Tippy told Maude, herding her toward the house. "I'll need to borrow one as well. I put mine over Miss Gaines."

  Maude had noticed that, even through the agony of the day. She managed a wet smile, surprised and pleased to find an ally where she'd thought she had an enemy. All her ill will toward the beautiful model vanished in a haze. "I'll find you some­thing."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Judd was sitting in the emergency room waiting area when Cash Grier came in with Maude and Tippy. His hat was off. His dark hair was rumpled. He looked as if he'd been riding with death. There was blood on his white shirt, on his dark slacks. Christabel's blood.

  He looked up as they joined him. "They've taken her into sur­gery," he said. "Copper Coltrain's operating."

  "He's the best we have," Maude commented quietly.

  "She moaned all the way in the ambulance," Judd continued, almost as if he were talking to himself. "She couldn't breathe. I wasn't sure she'd even make it here." His eyes closed on a wave of pain.

  "Chest wounds are frightening," Cash told him quietly. "But hers was low on her ribcage, and not in the gut."
r />   Judd's black eyes sought reassurance in the older man's. He re­laxed, but not much. "I expect the operation's going to take time."

  "They'll have to hunt the bullet," Maude groaned.

  "They may not try to take the bullet out, if it's less traumatic to leave it in," Cash told her. "They'll stop the bleeding and re-inflate the lung. Then it's a matter of antibiotics and rest."

  "She'd just signed up for spring semester and bought her text­books," Maude said heavily.

  "She won't be going back for several weeks," Cash returned flatly. "I'm afraid she'll sit out this part of the school year."

  "Quarterly taxes are due week after next," Maude said mis­erably. "What a horrible thing to think about at a time like this."

  "Does she do the tax work?" Cash asked her for something to say.

  She nodded. "Does all the book work, except paying monthly bills." She glanced at Judd. "I never got to give you that tie tack she bought you for Christmas," she added, and tears ran down her face.

  Judd got up, cut to the heart, and paced, with his hands deep in his pockets.

  "He didn't get her a present." Maude explained his sudden withdrawal to the others. "I shouldn't have mentioned it, I guess. Hurt her feelings something awful, especially after he bought Miss Moore that engagement ring."

  Cash glared down at the redheaded model, who was already drawing interested stares from men in the waiting room. She seemed oddly uneasy at the attention. She glanced at the ring on her finger and grimaced.

  "It's not an engagement ring," she said uncomfortably.

  "He told Crissy it was," Maude replied without looking at the younger woman.

  Tippy's eyebrows arched. That was news. Why would he lie about such a thing? And then she remembered the whopper she'd told Crissy, trying to get rid of her rival. But she hadn't wanted this. When she looked at Judd, his anguish was almost tangible, and it hurt to think that she'd made Crissy miserable. If the woman died, she'd have to live with it. It wouldn't be easy. She was a coward. She was utterly worthless...