“Hello, Roy.”
Beneath the brim of his black Stetson, his blue eyes flicked impassively over her face. “Hello, Justine.”
She didn’t realize just how much seeing him had affected her until she stepped back to allow him entry into the house. Her legs were trembling on weak knees, and for a moment she clung to the doorknob for support.
“Please come in. The babies are right here.”
He stepped past her. Justine shut the door and turned to him.
“Were you the only one here when you found the babies?” he asked.
No “How are you, it’s good to see you, how have things been?” Justine thought. He was going to be strictly business. That was good, she supposed. She didn’t want anything personal to pass between them. Still, his indifference hurt. She’d once given him so very much of herself. But she supposed Roy Pardee was like so many men in this world. They took a woman’s heart, then forgot all about it.
“It appears that way. My sisters must be out on another part of the ranch. And my—aunt has gone into Ruidoso.”
He was looking at the two babies now. Justine drew in a shaky breath and raked her fingers through her long, tangled hair.
“What time was it when you came home and found them?”
Justine glanced at the watch strapped to her left wrist. “I don’t know exactly. I got off work a little later than usual, then drove straight home. I’d say it’s been at least an hour and a half.”
“And how were they when you found them?”
Her brows lifted as he turned back to her. “How were they?” she repeated inanely. “They were fine. In fact, I’d say they’re both in perfect health.”
Roy’s eyes slowly drifted over her white nurse’s shift. “I wasn’t asking about their medical condition. I want to know where they were. In the house, here on the floor?”
There was a thread of impudence in his voice, a sound that said he was just waiting, hoping, for her to make some sort of foolish remark. A second time. Justine suddenly wanted to slap him.
She tried to count to ten, but her mind wavered. By the time she reached five, her attention had returned to his face, the chiseled mouth and the hooded gray-blue eyes, the sandy hair curling around his ears and the back of his neck. She’d once showered that face with kisses, she remembered, threaded her fingers though his hair and held his head fast to her breast.
He’d made her heart beat fast and wild then. She’d never loved anyone the way she loved him, and now, after all this time, she was afraid she never would again. This man had ruined her chances of happiness, and he didn’t even know it. Moreover, he didn’t care.
Her nostrils flaring, she lifted her chin. “The babies were on the porch by the door. In a laundry basket.”
“Where is the basket?”
“In the kitchen.”
“I’d like to see it.”
And she’d like to stuff it over his head, Justine thought. But the pistol strapped to his hips and the badge pinned to his breast reminded her of his authority in this county, even in this house. She didn’t want to test it at this moment.
“Follow me,” she told him.
Justine took him to the kitchen, where the basket was still sitting atop the table. Ignoring her, he looked inside.
“Was there any sort of note, anything inside other than this blanket?”
“The only things I found were four diapers, two bottles and two pacifiers.”
He looked at Justine, his lips thinning with obvious disapproval. “And you’ve handled them all?”
“Of course. I had to change the babies, and I didn’t want the formula to spoil. The two of them will eventually need to eat.”
He lifted his hat from his head and raked his fingers through his hair. Justine couldn’t help but notice that it was still thick and shiny.
“I don’t suppose you thought about getting fingerprints?”
She dismissed his question with a wave of her hand. “I’m not stupid, Roy. I think you and I both know that whoever left these babies doesn’t have a criminal record or have their fingerprints on file. It doesn’t appear to me to be a crime committed by a repeated felon with a jail record. There’s no motive or gain.”
She was probably right, but that didn’t make him like the fact that she’d tampered with evidence. Besides that, he was finding it damn hard to concentrate on anything but her.
He’d thought seeing her again would be easy. He’d thought he could look at her and not remember the passion that had once burned so briefly between them. But images of the past were blurring his vision, reminding him of the fool he’d been.
“How old do you think the babies are?” he asked after a moment.
“Five months, give or take.”
He walked over to the screen door leading out to the courtyard. “Do you have any idea who they might belong to, or where they might have come from?”
“No. No idea.”
He continued to look out at the courtyard, with its brick patio, its redwood lawn furniture and its huge pots of bright flowers. Rooms and a ground-level porch were built in a square around the small yard. Directly in front of him, on the south wall, a wrought-iron gate led outside, to the barns and stables.
From where Roy stood, he could see nothing out of the ordinary. He glanced at Justine. Her face was pale, and her fingers were nervously tracing a pattern on the edge of the laundry basket.
“Have you ever seen the twins before?”
“No.”
His jaw tight, Roy looked away from her. “I need to take a look around the place. Do I have your permission, or should I drive back to Carrizozo and get a search warrant?”
Justine’s lips parted as her eyes bored into the side of his darkly tanned face. “A search warrant? Do you think I had something to do with the twins appearing on the doorstep?”
He turned to face her. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Roy frowned at her incredulous expression. “This is your home, Justine, your property. Not mine. If you don’t want me on it, you have the legal right to see a search warrant. As a lawman—”
“You don’t have to remind me you’re the law of Lincoln County, Roy,” she said dryly. “I’m well aware that you are.”
So she thought he was cocky, just here to flaunt his authority in her face. Well, there were a lot of things Roy was thinking about her, too. But he wasn’t going to voice them. The past was dead, and he wasn’t going to give Justine Murdock the satisfaction of knowing how hard it had been for him to finally bury it.
Striding over to her, he looked down at her upturned face. “I’m glad you realize that, Justine.”
Her nostrils flared as her eyes scanned his face, then settled on the firm line of his lips.
She realized a lot of things about him, Justine thought. That these past six years had not only lined his face and muscled his body, they had extinguished the light that once burned in his eyes. The smile that had always been so ready on his lips had totally disappeared. What had happened to the Roy Pardee she used to know?
“Go ahead. Do your search,” Justine told him, her eyes drifting to a point over his shoulder. “You won’t get any resistance from me.”
Roy’s lips twisted. Too bad she hadn’t resisted his advances all those years ago. If she had, then maybe he wouldn’t be feeling this awful, empty anger inside him now.
“Thank you. I’ll try to be quick.”
He left the room, and Justine immediately sagged against the table. Dear God, let this be over soon, she prayed. Let him be gone from here before her son and aunt returned.
Justine didn’t know how long she stood there before the fussing of the babies called her back to the living room. Kneeling down on the pallet, she checked both their diapers. They were dry, so she patted their backs and tried talking to them. Neither the girl nor the boy seemed interested in what she had to say. Both simply chewed their fists and cried harder. Justine knew there was n
othing left to do but heat their bottles and feed them.
By the time Roy returned from his search through the house and over part of the grounds, Justine was sitting on the floor with the babies, doing her best to balance bottles in each hungry mouth.
“Thank God you’re back!” Before Roy could say anything, she picked up. the boy and thrust him into his arms. “You can feed him while I take the girl.”
Stunned, Roy looked helplessly at the baby in his arms. “I don’t know anything about feeding a baby!”
Frowning at him, she cradled the redheaded girl in her arms. “Just put the nipple in his mouth and keep the bottle tilted up. He’ll do the rest.”
Roy awkwardly carried the boy and the bottle over to the couch and took a seat on the edge of the cushion. As soon as he offered the baby the nipple, the little tyke latched on to it like a hungry pup.
“I didn’t come here to act as a temporary daddy,” he muttered.
Temporary daddy. Justine’s lips twisted with a grimace as she repeated the two words to herself. The man didn’t look as if he’d be comfortable in that role, much less being a father in a permanent capacity.
“I know you didn’t come here for this. But I can’t handle two of them at the same time. And when a baby gets hungry, he doesn’t care where he is or who he’s with, he wants his dinner. Surely you know that.”
Roy shot her a glare as the baby reached for the shiny badge pinned to the pocket of his khaki shirt
“How would I know that? I’ve never had a child!”
He growled the question at Justine, and, if it was possible, her face went even whiter. I’ve never had a child. What was he saying? What about Marla, and the baby she and Roy had been expecting all those years ago? The questions roared through her head like a tornado.
Through offhand remarks of her father’s, Justine had learned that Roy and Marla’s marriage had ended and the woman had moved far away. At the time of the divorce, it had been rumored that Marla was pregnant, but Tom had never heard anything about a child being born and he hadn’t wanted to appear nosy and ask Roy outright. Especially since the two of them had been divorced.
Down through the years, Justine had simply assumed the baby had been born and lived with its mother in another state. Now Roy was telling her he’d never had a child! What did it all mean?
Struggling to collect her thoughts, she said, “I—Well, I just figured you were probably a daddy by now.”
Roy glanced down at the auburn-haired boy in his arms. The tiny fingers were doing their best to tug the sheriff’s badge away from his shirt. Carefully he plucked the baby’s hand away, only to have the stubby little fingers wrap tightly around his forefinger.
“Do I look like one?” he asked gruffly.
No, she thought, her teeth grinding together, Roy Pardee was the very image of a man who liked to make babies, not father them.
Ignoring his question, she asked, “Did you find anything outside?”
The baby was still clinging to his finger. It made him feel hemmed in, but needed. And that was a strange feeling for Roy. No one had ever really needed him. As a lawman, maybe. But not like this helpless little fellow in his arms.
“No. I need to talk to your sisters. When do you think they’ll be in?”
Justine shrugged as she absently rocked the child in her arms. “By dark. Maybe later. Rose is probably out in one of the pastures checking on the cattle, and Chloe should have been down at the stables with the horses. You didn’t see her?
“No. The barns and the stables were all empty.”
Glancing down, Justine studied the little girl’s round face, dimpled cheeks and soft red hair. “Do you think it was the parents that left these children here? I mean, how could someone do such a thing? If I hadn’t come home when I had—” Shuddering at the thought, she shook her head. “With just a little motion, they could have turned that basket over. No telling what would have happened to them.”
Roy could see that the idea of the babies being harmed alarmed her greatly. It bothered him, too. Still, he didn’t think the person or persons who’d left the twins had meant to put their lives in jeopardy. “It’s too early to say if it might have been one or both of the parents, or someone unrelated. The only thing that’s clear to me is that whoever left them here meant for you or one of your family members to have them.”
Justine’s head swung back and forth. “But that’s insane! Why would someone want me or my sisters to have their babies?”
Roy shrugged. “You’re a nurse. Maybe someone knew that and believed you’d take good care of them.”
Milk was dribbling from the corner of the baby’s mouth. Drawing a handkerchief from his pocket, Roy dabbed it away. With the bottle still in his mouth, the little boy grinned broadly and let out a happy goo.
Scowling, Roy jammed the damp handkerchief back in his pocket. Poor little guy, he thought grimly. He wasn’t even aware that he’d been abandoned. He was too small to know about the pain of rejection. But Roy knew all about it, and even though the person or persons who’d left these babies behind might not have intended physical harm to them, they still needed to be strung up by the heels. Roy vowed then and there to track them down, no matter how long it took!
Across the room, Justine watched the dark, angry expression spread over Roy’s face as he looked down at the baby in his arms. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. There was such hardness in his eyes and on his lips. Was the man totally heartless? Didn’t he feel anything for the helpless child in his arms?
If it hadn’t been for the girl still feeding in her arms, Justine would have ripped the baby away from him and ordered him out of the house. As it was, however, she was hardly in a position to vent her feelings to him.
But she would someday, Justine silently promised herself. Someday she’d let him know what a selfish, heartless man he really was.
From out of nowhere, hot moisture blurred her vision. She shut her eyes and swallowed at the unexpected rush of emotion. This wasn’t like her to get teary and mad and vindictive. Normally she was a loving woman. But Roy Pardee, or the thought of him, had never left her feeling normal.
The sound of a vehicle caught both her and Roy’s attention. Rising up in the rocking chair, Justine glanced out the window. Her heart immediately dropped to her stomach.
“It’s my aunt,” she told Roy.
He nodded.
Moments later, a screen door banged and the patter of racing feet on Spanish tile grew closer. Then, suddenly, the running footsteps stopped and Charlie, her five-year-old son, stood just inside the living groom, his wide blue eyes going from his mother and the baby in her arms to the strange man on the couch.
“It’s all right, darling. You can come on in,” Justine told him gently.
With a cautious eye on Roy, the boy scurried to Justine’s side.
“Mommy, where did you get the baby? Who is that man? He’s got a baby, too!”
Justine cast a glance at Roy. He was staring at her and Charlie, his eyes squinted to slits, his jaw rigid. She couldn’t tell exactly what he was thinking, but it was quite clear that the appearance of her son wasn’t pleasing to him. And suddenly she knew she’d been right all those years ago. She could stop beating up on herself, stop feeling guilty. Roy Pardee hadn’t been father material then, and he wasn’t now.
“Yes, honey. Mommy found the babies, and the sheriff has come to help find out where they belong.”
Smiling with instant fascination, Charlie carefully touched the red fuzz of hair on the girl twin’s head. “She has red hair like you, Mommy!”
Justine smiled at her son’s observation. “She sure does. Now, will you go get Aunt Kitty? The sheriff would like to speak with her.”
Charlie glanced curiously over at the man and the baby on the couch, then started toward the door. “Aunt Kitty had to go to the bathroom! I’ll get her!”
Charlie raced out of the room. Once the boy was out of sight, Roy released a long breath he h
adn’t realized he’d been holding.
“You have a son?”
The sound of his low, gravelly voice caused Justine to jerk ever so slightly. She looked up from the baby and over to him. There was an odd look of betrayal on his face. As though he knew…But no, she swiftly assured herself. He couldn’t know anything. No one, not even her sisters, knew that Roy Pardee was Charlie’s father.
Chapter Two
Justine’s chin unconsciously tilted upward. “Yes. Charles is my son.”
Of course, it had been obvious when the boy called her Mommy. But hearing Justine admit it out loud was like the blow of an ax to Roy.
His face like chipped granite, he said, “Someone told me you’d been engaged to be married, then later I heard the marriage had been called off. But I didn’t know you’d had a child back then. Did you…ever get married?”
Roy hated himself for asking. He wanted to appear indifferent. He wanted to be totally disinterested, but he couldn’t be. Justine Murdock had done something to him all those years ago. She’d shown him heaven and then shown him hell. She’d given him. his first true love lesson. One that he’d never forget. There wasn’t such a thing as real love.
“No. I’ve never been married,” Justine admitted, then wondered what he could possibly be thinking. Let it be that she was a promiscuous woman. Anything would be better than the truth.
“You had the boy while you were in college.”
It was a statement, not a question, but Justine found herself nodding at him anyway. She was determined to appear cool, no matter how much her insides were shaking with fear. “Being pregnant and going to school wasn’t a picnic. I had to cut down on my classes and scrimp and save the money my parents sent me. But I managed to get through.”
“So where is his father?”
She met his gaze, and her green eyes were unusually dull. “After I became pregnant with Charlie, he realized he didn’t want to be a family man. He didn’t even want to get married. So we—ended things, and since then he’s been totally out of my life.”
Roy wanted to tell her she’d been a fool to bear such a man’s child, but at that moment a petite woman with short salt-and-pepper hair walked into the room. Justine’s son was tagging close to her side.
The Sheriff's Son Page 2
