by Jane Graves
“Tell me it’s over. Tell me we can go home soon.”
“It’s over,” he said, smiling softly. “Murdock is in custody.”
“Murdock?”
“Rick. I have a lot to tell you about that.”
“Stanley?”
“He’s going to be fine, too.”
“He took a bullet.”
“You both did.”
“Yeah. I’m kinda tired of getting shot.”
“That’s not going to happen again, sweetheart. Not on my watch, anyway.”
She smiled. “I have a lot to tell you, too, about what happened tonight.”
“There’ll be plenty of time for that tomorrow. But for now …”
His voice trailed off. He just stood there, staring down at her, as if he wanted to say something, but couldn’t find the words.
“The whole time I was at that ranch,” he said finally, “when I was sure I was going to die …” He looked away, bowing his head, his voice suddenly choked. “I kept thinking about you. And I thought, if I ever got the chance to see you again, just one more chance …”
He paused again, and she was surprised to see tears fill his eyes. He blinked quickly, then let out a breath of frustration.
“I’m not very good at this.”
She smiled. “I don’t think either of us is very good at it. We’re kind of short on experience.”
He nodded. “I just wanted to tell you …”
“What?”
“I love you, Val. And nothing will ever make me stop.”
He stared at her with such warmth, such tenderness, that she felt her heart suddenly laid bare—totally open, totally vulnerable, totally belonging to him. And for once in her life, it wasn’t something to be afraid of. It was something to cherish.
“I love you, too, Alex.”
He leaned over and gave her a gentle but lingering kiss, making her feel so warm and safe and secure that she nearly drifted right off to sleep again.
The nurses insisted she stay in recovery for another hour. Alex refused to leave her side, watching over her as she drifted in and out of sleep. Finally, at about four A.M., they wheeled her into a regular room. Since the other bed in the double room was unoccupied, the nurses took pity on Alex and told him he could sleep there. He made certain Val was comfortable, then pulled off his boots and lay down, his size-fourteen feet hanging off the end of the bed. Within seconds of his head hitting the pillow, he was asleep.
Val closed her eyes, too, secure in the fact that when she opened them again, he would be there.
At a little after seven o’clock the next morning, Stanley phoned his aunt Thelma to tell her what had happened the night before, only to discover that she’d found out herself not five minutes before. One of the cops from Ruston had apparently told his girlfriend about the incident at the Reichert ranch, and her brother worked for Odell, so of course the news got to Raydine, which meant that within thirty minutes the whole town knew, including his aunt. He assured her that he was just fine, but she told him that she’d be the judge of that when she got there in a couple of hours to bring him home.
An hour and a half later, as Stanley was watching an Adam-12 rerun, he glanced over to see Alex at the door of his hospital room. In spite of everything, just the sight of the man intimidated him. He flipped off the TV and sat up a little, trying not to look stupid in his dumb hospital gown, trying not to wince at the pain in his leg. And then he saw who was with Alex, and he felt even more self-conscious.
Glenda.
Suddenly he couldn’t breathe, and it had nothing to do with his injury. She looked as beautiful as she always did, soft and delicate as a dandelion. She was holding a yellow pad and a pen.
“Stanley?” Alex said. “How you doing?”
“Uh … okay. How’s Val?”
“She’s doing just fine.”
Stanley turned to Glenda. “I guess you heard.”
“The whole town knows. Mr. Grimstead says it’s the biggest story they’ve ever had down at the paper, so the minute he heard, he sent me here to talk to you.” She smiled. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“Uh—no. No, of course not.”
“I saw Alex on the way in and interviewed him already. He filled me in on everything.”
Stanley turned his gaze to Alex, swallowing hard. “Everything?”
“Yes,” Alex said. “I told her exactly what happened.”
Stanley closed his eyes. He thought about how he’d lain at that murderer’s feet, sniveling, begging, practically wetting his pants, praying that he could get the guy to believe what he was telling him before he killed all of them.
“I told her how you took the situation into your own hands,” Alex said. “I told her how you took a bullet. And I told her that while you were laying there bleeding, you still had the guts to hold it together long enough so that you could bluff Murdock into thinking that you had an entire army on the way.”
Stanley blinked with surprise. He swallowed hard, shifting his gaze back and forth between Alex and Glenda. That was what he’d told her?
“I didn’t exactly, you know, overpower the guy,” Stanley said.
“I know. You played it exactly right.”
“Huh?”
“Murdock had the upper hand. If you’d acted like a tough guy, he would have seen you as a threat, and he wouldn’t have let his guard down. You set up the scenario, Val provided the distraction, and I took him out. We were a hell of a team.”
A team?
“It was a brilliant plan, Stanley. And you pulled it off.”
He stuck out his hand, and Stanley shook it. “I don’t forget a favor. If there’s anything you ever need, you just let me know.”
Stanley nodded.
“And something else.”
“Yeah?”
Alex came closer, lowering his voice. “When I got angry back there, thanks for pulling me back. You had a better handle on the situation than I did right about then. You know what I mean?”
Stanley nodded, knowing that from now on, that was going to be something just between the two of them. “Yeah. I know.”
“I’ll drop by again later,” Alex told Stanley. “If there’s anything you need, though, I’ll be with Val.”
“She’s a nice lady. You take care of her, okay?”
Alex smiled. “No problem. Hang in there, Stanley.”
As Alex turned and walked out the door, Stanley couldn’t believe it. The man had been so sincere that he almost believed every word he’d spoken. Almost.
Glenda pulled a chair up close to his bed and sat down, still holding that pad and pen.
“Alex told me everything,” she said, a note of excitement in her voice. “He told me who they really are, about his murder accusation, all of it. And he went on and on about how you saved their lives.” She smiled. “So I guess this means you’re a hero.”
Hero?
Just the word sent shivers running down his spine. He’d dreamed of this moment since the day he’d first seen Glenda walking down Cedar Street. He’d dreamed of her looking at him in awe and admiration because he’d stopped a holdup or rescued a hostage or something equally life-threatening. He’d dreamed of being called a hero. And that was what she’d done. She’d called him a hero.
Hell, he hadn’t been a hero at all. An officer of the law should be able to look danger right in the eye and never blink. Not him. He’d been terrified.
“You outwitted a murderer,” Glenda went on, her eyes alive with interest. “What were you thinking? Right at that moment?”
She looked at him intently, her pen poised over her pad, waiting to capture the very next words he spoke. He started to tell her how it was no big deal, really. All in a day’s work for a lawman like him, that he and danger went hand in hand. But she was staring at him as if she saw right through him, and for the first time every bit of the bravado he’d tried so hard all these years to make a part of himself slipped away. As he stared back at Glenda, he felt mor
e exposed than if he were walking down a country road minus his pants. And suddenly all he could do was tell the truth.
“I was scared,” he murmured. “Every minute. From the time I got to that house to the time Alex finally took the guy out, I was scared. I’ve never been so scared in all my life.”
He looked away, unable to believe that he’d spoken the words, knowing he’d just lived up to everything everybody had been saying about him all these years. And now he’d gone and confessed it to the one person he fervently hoped would never know.
“So. I guess I’m not the hero you think I am.”
Silence fell over the room. He waited for her to get up and walk out, to put as much distance between herself and a coward as possible. Instead, she set her pen and pad down on the chair and came to his bedside. She sat down beside him. She put her hand against his arm. It was warm and soft, just as he’d always imagined it would be.
“It doesn’t take much to be a hero if you’re not afraid,” she told him. “Seems to me that the brave man is the one who’s scared and does what needs to be done, anyway.”
For a moment, her words paralyzed him, because he’d never in his life thought about courage that way. Could it be that guys like Alex were afraid, too, only they took action anyway?
Glenda continued to stare at him with an odd but pleasant look on her face, like maybe she knew something he didn’t, though he couldn’t imagine what.
Then she leaned in closer. He smelled her perfume, the sweetest, most inviting scent he’d ever experienced, and like every other time he’d ever laid eyes on her, she was so beautiful that just the sight of her made him dizzy. Then she drew closer and did the unthinkable.
She touched her lips to his.
In that moment the whole world seemed to tunnel down to this one moment, this one place in time where Glenda McMurray was kissing him. And he knew that if he left this earth in his next heartbeat, he’d die a happy man.
Later that day, Alex was sitting by Val’s bed, listening with disbelief as she related the story about the hundred-dollar bill, and how she’d figured out that Murdock was guilty. Then it was Val’s turn to be surprised when Alex told her that he’d been Murdock’s target all along, not Shannon.
Alex heard a knock on the hospital room door. The door opened, and Dave poked his head inside. Alex couldn’t believe it. He had no idea his brother was coming to San Antonio.
“Can I come in?” Dave asked.
“Sure.”
Dave winced a little. “Can I bring Brenda with me?”
Oh, boy. Alex had hoped to be able to shield Val as long as possible from some of the more fringe members of his family, but she was feeling quite a bit better now, and he supposed it was as good a time as any for an initial exposure.
“Come on in,” he said. “Both of you.”
Alex stood up and hugged his brother, feeling as if he’d left Tolosa a lifetime ago. Brenda actually gave him a heartfelt hug, too, and Alex had to admit that there was indeed a first time for everything.
“How did you two get here?” he asked.
“We drove to Dallas and caught a Southwest flight out of Love Field this morning,” Dave said.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“Because we were afraid you’d tell us it wasn’t necessary,” Brenda said, “to which I would have said, ‘Bullshit,’ and then you would have said, ‘No, it’s not bullshit,’ and it would have turned into a nasty argument, and … well, you can see how this was a much better way to handle the situation.”
Dave turned to Val. “You’ll have to forgive Brenda. She tends to state things a little differently than the rest of the human race.”
Val smiled, looking not the least bit distressed.
“Millner’s on the case for both of you,” Dave said. “He says he’s cleared up far worse problems during a coffee break.”
Alex grinned. “You know, I’ve always liked that guy.”
Dave rolled his eyes, then turned to Val. “So how are you feeling?”
“Much better now.”
“Is my brother taking care of you?”
“Every minute.”
Brenda stepped over to Val’s bedside, wearing her usual uniform of black jeans, black T-shirt, black boots, and black sunglasses, with that look on her face that said she could bite the bumper off a Buick and spit out scrap metal. She swept her sunglasses off and gave Val a once-over.
“So,” she said to Alex. “This is Valerie Parker. The one who saved your ass.”
“Yeah, Brenda,” Alex said. “The one who saved my ass.”
Brenda nodded toward Alex. “Six four, two-twenty, and it takes a shot of estrogen to save the day. It’s like I’ve always told him: never underestimate the power of a pissed-off woman.”
Val turned to Alex with a big smile. “Oooh. I like her.”
Alex shook his head sadly. He was in for it. He couldn’t have fallen in love with a nice, normal woman who would help him counter some of the insanity that ran in his family. No. He had to find one who fueled the fire. For the rest of his life, he was going to be tormented by his family, and his wife would think it was funny.
Wife? Where had that come from?
He banished the thought, but still the word kept popping into his head. He waited for it to give him hives, or fry his brain, or maybe just float away on the same crazy cloud it had floated in on.
It didn’t. And he knew why.
Because Val was the one.
She was the one who made him think. Made him feel. Made him not want to let another moment pass when he wasn’t touching her. Holding her. Kissing her. The one he wanted to fight with, make up with, make love with, grow old with. He thought he’d even known it five years ago, too. They’d just had to go to hell and back before he finally realized it.
Dave turned to Alex. “I suppose you’ve been yelling at her.”
Alex smiled. “All the time.”
“Good,” Dave said. “That’s good.”
Val looked perplexed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” Alex said, sitting down on the bed and taking her hand, “that my brother is a know-it-all.”
“Who knows more than Alex wants to admit,” Dave added.
Alex brushed a strand of hair from Val’s cheek and tucked it behind her ear. Then he leaned in and gave her a kiss. It went on a little longer than he’d anticipated, but he just couldn’t seem to stop himself.
“Hey!” Brenda said, making a face of total disgust. “You two want to get a room?”
“They have a room,” Dave said.
She looked around. “Oh. Yeah.”
“And we’re leaving it.” He took Brenda by the arm. “We’ll get the whole story later. We just wanted to see for ourselves that you two were all right. We’ll take Val’s van back later and you two can fly home as soon as she’s feeling better.”
“Thanks,” Alex said. “That’d be great.”
“And when you get back, you can come have lunch with the family.”
Alex closed his eyes with a weary sigh.
“Sounds wonderful,” Val said. “I can’t wait to meet everyone.”
“They can’t wait to meet you, either. We’ll see you two later.”
Dave and Brenda left the room, pulling the door closed behind them.
“My family,” Alex said, sighing with resignation. “Oh, well. If you survived Brenda, everything’s downhill from there.” He smiled. “You’re going to fit right in.”
Val’s brow crinkled. “Is that a compliment?”
“Of course it is. Oh—and I have a question for you.”
“Yes?”
“Will you marry me?”
For a full ten seconds, Val stared at him, her expression completely dumbfounded. Her mouth hung open as if there were something she wanted to say, but she just couldn’t find the words.
“Wh-what did you say?”
He leaned closer and spoke very slowly. “I said,
‘Will you marry me?’ ”
She continued to stare at him as if his words simply wouldn’t compute. Then she turned away suddenly, waving her hand.
“No, Alex. No. You’re getting all caught up in the moment here. You didn’t mean to say that, and I’m perfectly willing to forget that you did.”
“Val?”
She turned back slowly. “Yes?”
“Have you ever known me to say something I didn’t mean?”
She blinked. “Uh … no.”
“Then why in the world would you believe that I don’t mean this?”
“I-I don’t know. It’s just so … so …”
“Look, I know it sounds like it’s coming out of nowhere, but is it really? I’m thirty-four years old. I’ve never even come close to feeling about a woman the way I feel about you. It was there five years ago, and it’s here now. Do you really want to wait around another five years to see where we stand then?”
She smiled. “That’s not a bad argument.”
“Coming from the master, I’ll take that as a compliment. Can I also take it as a yes?”
“Yes. You can take it as a yes.”
He exhaled. “Well, thank God. I really needed to win this one.”
“Don’t think they’re all going to be that easy.”
He smiled. “I may be in love, but I’m not delusional.”
Her expression grew solemn. She put her hand against his face, stroking his cheek with her thumb. “I can barely remember a time when I didn’t love you.”
Alex knew exactly how she felt. But why hadn’t he seen it until now? Why hadn’t he understood that unsteady, breathless feeling he had when he was around her, that unaccustomed feeling of being totally out of control, that feeling that somebody else had stolen away a piece of him that he might never get back? Why hadn’t he recognized those things for what they were?
Love.
He leaned down and gave Val a gentle kiss to seal his proposal, still astonished at everything that had happened since she came back into his life. How could he have known that the wild, willful woman he thought he should avoid at all costs was the one he would end up loving forever?
To Barbara Dunlop and Pam Baustian,
