"Glad to meet you," Rory said, shaking hands. "I've read a lot about the Texas Rangers since Tippy told me about you," he added excitedly. "There's even several Web sites about the Rangers, past and present, on the Internet!"
"They're educational, all right," Judd chuckled. "Nice to meet you, too."
"This is, uh, Cash Grier," Tippy said, nodding toward the older man. "He's assistant police chief in Jacobsville, Texas, where the movie was filmed."
Rory looked at the man in the ponytail for a long moment. He seemed subdued. "Tippy told me a lot about you. I, uh, mentioned you to our commanding officer. He knows you. He said you were in Iraq together." He caught his breath. "He said he never knew anybody as brave as you were. He said, uh, he said they caught you and tortured you..."
"Rory!" Tippy exclaimed, horrified.
Cash's face had hardened. His eyes were glittering like black diamonds.
"I'm sorry," Rory said. He moved closer, uneasy again. "You're sort of a hero of mine. I'm messing everything up because I can't talk the way I want to. I think you're great, sir. A soldier's soldier."
Cash took a sharp breath and averted his eyes. He didn't like remembering his tour of duty in the middle east, or what he'd done and what had been done to him there. The boy was walking on broken bones and didn't even realize it.
"Rory, why don't you go on to the restaurant with Joel and his wife, and I'll be right along," Tippy said quickly, trying to smooth things over.
"Yes, ma'am," Rory said, wounded and ashamed.
But as he turned away, a big, strong hand came down on his shoulder and stayed the movement.
"Honesty is an underrated virtue," he told the boy. "You say exactly what you think. I don't pull my punches, either. I don't like remembering Desert Storm," he added quietly. "I survived. The other seven men who went in with me didn't. They were good men, too."
Rory's breath caught. "I'm glad you aren't angry, sir"
"Cash," the tall man corrected, and he managed a smile for the boy. "I'm glad we got to talk."
"Me, too!" Rory grinned, all boy again, and flushed a little as he glanced at Judd and his sister and took off toward Joel Hunter.
"He's all mouth sometimes," Tippy murmured, worried at the look she'd seen on Cash's face. "I hope he didn't offend you."
He shrugged. "Everybody offends me, as a rule, but I like a boy with grit. He'll do," he added quietly.
She forced a smile. "Thanks."
His chin came up and the look in his eyes was different suddenly. "So you talked about me to him, did you?"
She went scarlet. It was such an odd reaction for an international model and a newly emerging film star that Judd's eyebrows met his hairline. Cash's eyes began to twinkle. He actually laughed.
Tippy made an impatient sound in her throat and glanced after her brother. "There's a cast party at a restaurant close by, but you could stay and come home with us, if you like," she added, talking deliberately to Judd.
"Well," he began, at the same time as Grier's cell phone vibrated madly in his pocket.
He frowned and pulled it out, opening it. He seemed to have trouble hearing whoever was on the other end. He turned away, with a hand over the ear that wasn't on the phone. "All right, calm down," he said gently. "Now tell me what happened!"
He nodded, glanced at Judd, grimaced, and murmured something into the phone. "It's Maude," he said. "She's been trying to reach you on your cell phone but your battery must be dead. So she phoned me instead. Crissy had a fall. They've taken her to the hospital..."
He was talking to thin air. Judd was at the curb, hailing a taxi. He glanced at Tippy. "Sorry, we have to go," he said apologetically. "Rain check, on the visit?" he added to her surprise.
Her face became radiant. "Y-yes! Anytime," she blurted out.
He smiled, genuinely. "Then I'll see you. Tell Rory goodbye."
She nodded. He ran to Judd, who was motioning wildly and jumped into the cab with him seconds before it took off. Judd was too preoccupied to even wave goodbye to Tippy. His heart was clenched inside his chest. He was terrified. Christabel was hurt.
"What about the baby?" he asked.
"Maude said they didn't know anything yet," Cash told him, and he was worried, too. "We'll go straight to the hospital. Listen, babies are surrounded by embryonic fluid," he added gently. "It takes a lot to hurt them."
"What do you know about babies?" Judd asked angrily.
Cash averted his face. "I almost had one of my own, once," he said through his teeth. "Don't bother asking any more," he added when Judd opened his mouth to speak. "I don't talk about it. Not to anyone."
Judd didn't know what to say, so he said nothing. But he did wonder about the odd statement.
It took forever to get back. But when they drove up together at the hospital, Judd in his SUV and Cash in his pickup truck, they left the vehicles sitting and ran together into the emergency room.
"Christabel Gaines...Dunn," Judd faltered at the desk, his face
set, his eyes wild. "She was brought in after a fall. She's pregnant. I'm her husband."
"Oh...Mr. Dunn." The clerk stared at him dumbly and he held his breath, terrified. Then she smiled. "She's already in a room. Just a second..." She pressed in numbers and spoke to someone. "Room 211," she added. "It's down that way...congratulations!"
The last word didn't even register through the fear. They were both running, in blatant defiance of hospital rules, until they reached the room, pushed open the door in unison, and stopped dead at the sight that met their eyes.
Christabel was lying there with a tiny bundle in her arms, breast-feeding. She looked at Judd with her heart in her eyes. "Darling!" she exclaimed.
He could barely see her through the mist in his eyes. He went forward, shell-shocked, oblivious to Maude and one of the Hart brothers and a woman he didn't recognize and a nurse puttering around the room. He touched the tiny face pressed so close to Christabel's soft skin and then he looked down into her wide, soft dark eyes. He touched her face with a hand that was just a little unsteady.
"All we knew was that you'd had a fall," he whispered. "I was so afraid..."
"I'm fine. The baby's fine..."
He was kissing her, hard, hungrily, a broken groan going into her mouth just before he managed to lift his head. "I love you," he whispered roughly. "If anything had happened to you...!"
"But it didn't," she whispered, overwhelmed at the look in his eyes, at what he'd said. "You never said you loved me before," she murmured.
"I always meant to," he replied, calming. He smiled with wonder as he searched her eyes. "You okay?"
She grinned. "It wasn't much of a fall. I was putting up curtains in the baby's room. Twisted my back. I thought I'd killed myself, and it turned out to be labor!" She indicated the tiny thing in her arms. "Would you like to meet your son?"
His breath caught. "A boy."
She nodded.
"And a girl," came a deep drawl from across the room at the window, where Cash was bending over the bassinet and playing with a tiny finger, an ear-to-ear smile on his face.
"W-what?" Judd stammered.
Christabel pursed her lips and looked mischievous. "You were so worried about me all the time that I was afraid to tell you it was twins," she confessed, smiling up at him. "I was saving it for a surprise." She grinned. "Surprise!"
"Twins. A boy and a girl. Two of them." He seemed bereft of words. His eyes clouded and he had to dash away moisture before anyone saw it.
Cash had the little girl up in his big arms and he was making really un-Cash Grier sounds as he spoke to her.
"Hey, give me back my daughter," Judd told him with a mock scowl.
Cash looked crushed. "Can't I have this one?" he asked. "I don't have any of my own, and you've got two. How is that fair?"
Judd burst out laughing, and so did Christabel, at the expression on Cash's face. He moved forward, handing the child gently to Judd, his eyes soft and
tender on her face.
"She looks like her mama," he told Judd, and for an instant, there was a flash of sadness over his hard features as he looked at Christabel, which he quickly erased.
"Yes, she does," Judd said huskily, bending to kiss the tiny forehead. "Two of them! She looked like a VW in front, and I never connected it...!"
Christabel was laughing with pure delight as she watched the big, strong men fuss over the little tiny girl. No need to wonder if she was going to be spoiled rotten. And they said men only wanted sons. Ha!
"Names?" came a deep voice from the back of the room. It was big, handsome Leo Hart, with his wife Janie beside him, both grinning. "Have you picked any out yet?"
"Jessamina for a girl" Christabel said proudly. "We'll call her Jessie. And..."
"And Jared for our son," Judd interrupted gently. "For my great-great-grandfather, Jared Dunn, who was a gunman and a Texas Ranger, and then a famous trial lawyer in San Antonio back at the turn of the twentieth century," he added.
"Well, congratulations, again. We'd better be off," Leo said. "We have to get down the hall and see Rey and Meredith. They have a brand-new daughter, Celina, born about the same time your brood was."
"Tell her we said congratulations," Christabel called to them.
They nodded, grinned and walked out together.
Cash was still watching the tiny girl in Judd's arms hungrily. Judd made a face and handed her back to him. "You can hold her, I guess," Judd said with a sigh. "Just remember who she belongs to."
Cash grinned at him. "She can live with you, but I'm going to be her godfather," he said, making faces at the tiny little thing in his arms. "Daddy Cash is going to teach her how to fight hand-to-hand and use flash bangs in SWAT assaults!"
Maude let out a wail of pure horror.
Christabel burst out laughing. "He's joking, Maude!"
"No, he isn't," Judd murmured dryly.
Cash ignored both of them, wrapped up in the glow of new godfatherhood.
When they were finally alone, Judd sat beside the bed and held Christabel's hand tight in his. "Two babies," he said, still shell shocked. "I can't believe it. You didn't breathe a word. Maude didn't breathe a word!"
"I swore her and the obstetrician to secrecy," she said with a weary smile. "You had so much on your mind, darling, with the Clark trial and the changes in our lives. Besides, I was in perfect health and there was no danger. I'd have told you if there was, really."
The Clark case had made national headlines, especially after Clark was convicted and sent to prison for life, without hope of parole, for murder. Judd and Christabel and Cash had all testified against him.
He squeezed her fingers in his. "Okay."
"How was the film premiere?"
He chuckled. "The premiere wasn't quite as interesting as what happened afterward," he mused. "Tippy and Cash raised eyebrows."
Her last secret fear of losing him to the model floated away like a loosened balloon. "They did?" she asked happily.
"It seems she told her little brother quite a lot more about him than she did about me, and the boy said so." He grinned. "Cash was almost strutting when Maude phoned and interrupted us."
"Wow."
The amusement faded. "Apparently the boy's commandant at military school was with Cash in Iraq. He told the boy that Cash was captured and tortured, and every other member of his unit was killed."
She winced. "I don't imagine that's the only secret he's carrying about his past."
He nodded. He turned her hand in his and looked at it. "Crissy," he said, using her nickname for the first time in their lives, "he was really crazy over you."
Her fingers curled into his. "It wouldn't have mattered, because I've been in love with you almost all my life."
His cheeks went ruddy. He studied her face hungrily. "I've been in love with you since we married. But you were so young, honey, and you knew nothing of men or the world outside the ranch. I was afraid..."
She squeezed his hand. "You were afraid it would be like your father and mother. But, sweetheart, your mother liked adventure and parties and excitement," she reminded him. "I love cattle and ranching. Nothing the world could offer me would match what I already have with you. And now our babies. The Japanese deal has put us into a six-figure income bracket, the ranch is prospering, we're branching out into raising purebred Salers bulls, Nick is taking over as ranch manager and improving our equipment and facilities...and you've been offered promotion to Lieutenant again! How's that for a year?"
He grinned. "It's great, I guess. But I don't want to have to work out of San Antonio," he added quietly. He gave her a long look. "What do you think?"
She smiled at him. "I think you should do what you want to."
He frowned thoughtfully. "Even if it means staying a sergeant?"
"Even if it means staying a sergeant," she replied softly.
He pursed his lips. "There's another alternative."
She stilled. "Yes?"
"Chet Blake was offered a job over in El Paso. He has family there and he really wants to take it." He lifted his eyes. "Cash would bump up to police chief of Jacobsville, which would leave his job open."
Her breath caught. "You're thinking of taking it!"
He nodded. "It's a little less demanding than Ranger work, although I love what I do. But I'd like to be home all the time, with you and the babies. I know most of the guys on the force." He shrugged. "Cash is going to be our babies' godfather, and I'm not jealous of him anymore. Well, not very jealous," he amended. "What do you think?" he added.
Her eyes softened. "I'd give anything to have you close by all the time," she whispered. "But I would never have asked you...!"
He got up, bent and kissed her hungrily, loving the fierce clasp of her arms around his neck. She kissed him back, just as hungrily, tears running down her cheeks. It was like a dream come true. Jacobsville was a great place to be a policeman. It wasn't like being a Ranger and having to go all over the state, all over the country, all over the world on cases. He'd still have the challenge of law enforcement work, but he'd be a little safer. That mattered now, that they had children, and his job would be largely administrative.
The loud clearing of a throat interrupted the fierce kiss. They lifted their heads at the same time and looked toward the door.
A nurse was standing there with two little bundles. "Sorry, Mr. Dunn, but you're blocking the babies' supper, and they're hun-
gry"
He chuckled, standing up. "God forbid!" he said dryly, standing aside. "Bring them along."
"Pity you can't help do it," Christabel teased as she sat up against the pillows and unfastened the hospital gown.
"I'm too flat-chested to be of any help," he pointed out with a grin.
The nurse laughed as she handed Jessamina to Crissy and Jared to Judd. He cradled his son while Christabel fed their daughter. The nurse left them alone with their family, smiling wistfully as she went out and closed the door.
"Twins, on the first try. I wonder," Judd said thoughtfully after a minute, frowning as he studied his young wife.
"Wonder what, sweetheart?" she asked, smiling.
"If it was the red negligee," he replied wickedly.
She laughed huskily. She wasn't wearing it on Christmas Eve, but she'd gotten pregnant in Japan, and she had been wearing it then. "Maybe it was green tea," she countered playfully.
He looked down at his son with quiet, tender eyes. "Whatever it was, thank God," he breathed, touching the little boy's cheek with a long finger.
She seconded that silently, watching the expression that washed over his hard features with almost painful delight. She'd never thought of Judd as a father. Suddenly, it was impossible to see him as anything else. He took to it like a duck to water.
She was thinking back over her life, from the horrible beating that had brought their marriage about, through the long years of hopeless longing, the danger of the Clark brothers, the wonde
r of Judd's ardor at Christmas, the anguish of the months that followed, the gunshot that almost ended her life, the Japanese trip, the jealousy and, finally, the melting together of their lives. The pain had been almost unbearable at times. But as she looked from her children to her husband and back again, it occurred to her that happiness came at a price. For those who were courageous enough to pay it, the rewards were great.
"You look thoughtful," he murmured, smiling at her expression.
She met his eyes with quiet wonder and sighed happily. "Yes. I was remembering something I read once, about people who live quietly in the shallows and never really savor life because they're afraid to risk the depths. Or something like that. I was thinking that we pay for what we get in life, one way or another. And that the greatest pleasure comes only after the greatest pain."
He nodded slowly. "I understand."
Her dark eyes smiled into his. "I was thinking," she added, "that everything I've ever been through in my life, was worth it."
His black eyes burned as they looked deep into hers. "Yes. We're rich in a way that has nothing to do with money, aren't we, baby?"
She grinned. The baby at her breast smoothed its tiny hand over the soft skin and she looked down and touched its tiny head lovingly. "Richer than pirates."
He burst out laughing. His son made a sound and he brought the tiny little boy up to his hard lips, kissing him tenderly.
Christabel laid her cheek against her daughter's head and closed her eyes. The joy she felt was too great for any words to express. Any words at all.
END
Books By Diana Palmer Page 359
